Daily Roundup--January 18, 2012

We don’t talk much about cruising on this website but in lieu of the terrible accident in Italy last week, would that stop anyone here from taking one? The cruise industry thinks it it may hurt them in the short term.

 “TSA Pre,” the screening program aimed to get some passengers through the process faster, has begun at LAX.

Next month, American Airlines will start offering free wine and beer on most of their international flights.

Southwest Airlines is updating its cabin interiors including  new, lightweight seats which will weigh less, recline less and offer more underseat storage for carry-on bags.

Comments

[Paula Bag Lass]

>>>"We don’t talk much about cruising on this website but in lieu of the terrible accident in Italy last week, would that stop anyone here from taking one?"<<<

Planes crash, hasn't stopped me flying. It isn't sinking ships that would put me off but cruises that spawn a shipload of virus infected passengers, there was a spate of them a few years ago, it put me right off.

[Alan]

This disaster will make cruising safer than ever before because the industry will really revamp and tightten up safety training, procedures, etc. So, I will definitely keep taking cruises.

[Alan B]

Good Morning America reports that the new seat pitch on remodeled Southwest Airlines planes will be THIRTY-ONE inches, not a drop from 33 to 32 inches. A quick check at Seatguru.com shows that most of their planes have 23 rows. So, to get another row of seats, one must SUBTRACT 1.34 inches, which means that if the prior pitch averaged 32.5, the new pitch can be as GMA indicates, barely 31.

Of course, it is possible that with subtle improvements in seat design, the comfort might not be too different. However, there would be no way to avoid shaving off some seat padding thickness, which tends to become an issue for, hmm, gluteal comfort, though so doing likely would increase the vertical clearance beneath the seat up to an inch or so. See current thread which queries those dimensions, floor to bottom of seat measurement typitcally 8.25 inches. Of course, with the PITCH dropping at least an inch, a 19-inch long bag becomes borderline for fitting beneath the seat, and much of the time, this could make the difference in bag fit. This becomes more of an issue because as seats are added, the relative amount of bin space per passenger drops, though on Southwest, which still checks bags for free, this might not be critical.

[Larry]

I've been on a lot of cruises (I'm only 35 miles from Galveston) and we've always had a lifeboat drill as soon as we sail. That might have saved some lives. I'll probably go on more cruises because things can happen on any method of transport.

[K-eM]

Travel can be dangerous. If you want to travel you have to accept the risk that something will happen to you eventually. And what that something will be can range from the slight uncomfortable to life threatening. In historical terms, travel is really extremely safe compared to what it used to be even a generation or so ago.