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CNNI Richard Quest I left London about ten days ago ? and headed via Los Angeles to Tokyo and onto Singapore. I have been trying out some of your suggestions to keep my shirts neat and tidy. Hmmmmm. Well, you can judge for yourselves on the shows ? but just in case you think I didn?t get to grips, I attach a photo. I tried the various suggestions although, frankly, some of your instructions ranked alongside origami for complexity. Fold this sleeve over that shoulder and then tuck the etc. By the time I had finished I?d put more creases into the shirt than if I had just bundled it into a ball and shoved it in a shoe. So my conclusion? Rolling the shirts works to a point but if there is anything pressing down on them from the lid of the suitcase, well they come out like a string vest. Not for me. Now I am trying the ?wrap them in tissue of dry cleaning plastic.? Results later in the week from Tokyo. A quick mention to the men and women I met last week in East Timor (pictured). They are either with the United Nations as part of the integrated Mission there or the International Stabilisation Force (ISF) for which read Australia and New Zealand. The full scope of our report can be seen in Quest for Peace in November. But I just wanted, through the blog to thank you for your help. Whatever people may think of why you are there, you are along way from home, for many months at a time and that in itself should be remembered. And to anyone who is thinking of visiting East Timor for a holiday, you probably have a few years before the rest of the tourist world realizes its beaches are wonderful, its water is clear and cool and its people friendly. According to one knowledgeable person ? The President himself ? the Timorese coffee might even have some ?special? viagric qualities. And yes, it is by and large safe. Very safe. Except from some especially nasty mossies who were determined to inflict bites in tricky places. Richard Quest, CNN, sitting uncomfortably on board the plane. Foolproof way of folding shirts? by Richard Quest 19 Sep 2007 at 11:57am Help! Can anyone suggest a foolproof way of folding men?s shirts so that they don?t come out of the suitcase looking crumpled. You?d have thought I might have got the hang of it by now, after all the trips I have done ? but I still can never really get the shirts looking good. I fold them. I make sure they are either in the lid of the case or on the top. I make sure they are covered. And it matters not a jot. They always come out looking the worse for wear. To be sure, I manage to get it right some of the time, and provided I keep my jacket on, I usually get away with it. But they never look at good as when they went in. There must be a way. There must be a way. (The United Airlines rep at London Heathrow suggested covering them with tissue paper ? which I haven?t got with me...) OK, so as I go on the next few trips (see below) I am going to try out your suggestions and will report back. I promise ? I will try them out. Suggest away: The Foolproof Way of Folding Shirts? Q Sit back and think of the air miles by Richard Quest 19 Sep 2007 at 11:16am This is being written on board a flight from Geneva to New York. It has been a miserable summer of travel. Absolutely horrible. But then I don?t need to tell you that ? we have suffered along together. (Apologies for those of you in the southern hemisphere for whom it has been winter.) Planes have been at record occupancy. I don?t think I have boarded an aircraft that wasn?t heaving at the doors ? sometimes they couldn?t fit more passengers on except by strapping ?em to the wings. Tempers have been frayed. Upgrades have been few and far between. Hotels have been crowded and concierge lounges miserable. I think one of the low points was when some children were playing computer games on the only lounge computer even though there were several business guests anxious to login. It was a classic ?we?ve paid for our room too? look on their faces as their kids hogged the machine. I am afraid I don?t see the autumn being much better. With airlines reducing capacity by cutting flights or using small planes the ?empty middle seat? is a thing of the past. I am just about to start a marathon round of travel which will take me to Singapore and then around Asia for the best part of four weeks. People ask if I love doing this much travel and usually the answer is yes. Of course. Meeting new people, trying new foods, seeing how cities have changed. But I am not sure I relish the actual getting from A to B. Ah well. Let me paraphrase the Lady with the Lamp, Florence Nightingale ? ?Sit back and think of the air miles?. Service gone to pot? by Richard Quest 5 Sep 2007 at 2:35pm I am tired of hotels promising to go the extra mile only to have them refuse to go round the corner! Hilton Hotels is the latest to fall foul of the ?We will do anything for you? and then simply don't bother. At 5.40 a.m I checked out of the Hilton Florence Metropole this morning. I was told there was no coffee available. But a quick walk to the breakfast room showed a continental breakfast was being served to airline staff who were crewing early departures. So I nipped in and got a cup of coffee. ?Oh you discovered the coffee," the night porter smugly commented. As if I had been Harry Potter delving into the Department of Mysteries. I inquired why he could not have either pointed me in the direction or asked the concierge to get me a cup? A shrug of the shoulder and a ?not allowed? followed. So let?s boil this down to basics: Firstly, Hilton, once coffee is made in the hotel, why don?t you provide some in the lobby for early departing guests? Secondly, why don?t you tell your staff to use their initiative? There wasn?t a tour group of 100 checking out, only me! This all comes down to common sense. Here we have an employee who is authorized to remove 360 Euros from my credit card but not authorized to get me a cup of coffee? Remember Hilton, I have Marriott, Intercontinental, Hyatt and Wyndham cards in my wallet... I am not angry. I am just disappointed that, once again, a hotel has tried to convince me it will move heaven and earth to ensure I am comfortable when, in reality, it won?t even pass me the coffee pot! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Having now spoken to the hotel, as promised an explanation regarding your experience at the Hilton Florence Metropole. Breakfast at this hotel is served between 7 a.m and 10 a.m (11 a.m weekends); however should guests require an earlier breakfast, then we would normally request notice the evening before to allow us to prepare something for them. Whilst we do provide an early breakfast service to airline crew, this is done through a special arrangement in which we provide a continental style breakfast for an agreed number of people. On that basis it is difficult to accommodate further ad hoc requests at that time in the morning as we simply haven't catered for additional people prior to the guest breakfast service commencing at 7 a.m. Staff on duty were correct in saying that the normal breakfast service was not available (preparations for normal breakfast were just beginning), but it is clear that they could have and should have been more flexible by offering to organize refreshments and pastries for you. We will be briefing staff to be more flexible in their approach to ensure that ad hoc requests such as yours will be accommodated going forward. Trust this helps clarify things. Nicola McShane, Hilton Hotel When is a bed not a bed? by Richard Quest 21 Aug 2007 at 4:10pm There was a bit of good news for travellers recently when United Airlines, one of the world?s largest carriers, announced it would go fully flat-bed in business class. You could hear the cheer resounding from frequent flyers like me. This decision put paid, once and for all, to the rubbish that all beds on planes are equal. A question: when is a bed not a bed? When it is angled lie-flat. My back hurts, my legs ache and my clothes are all rumpled - and all because the airline, which claimed to have a bed, actually offered up a torture machine which I prefer to call a slide. You know the ones: when you put the ?bed? into the full recline you end up on a steep angle. Over the next few hours you slowly, but inexorably, slide down until you are on the floor with your underpants under your armpits. The trend of moving from seats to beds began in 1995 when British Airways became the first carrier to install fully-flat beds in business class. Its major British competitor, Virgin Atlantic, followed, and so began 'the battle of the beds.' The problem became immediately clear: going fully flat meant taking up a lot of room on the plane (valuable real-estate in the language of the airlines). As a result, individual airlines have patented their own ways of doing this. BA has alternate rear-facing seats while Virgin adopted a fish-bone style, with seats off centre to the plane. And then there were the airlines that decided not to bother spending the money and instead concocted a cheaper alternative: the dreaded angled lie-flat seat. Sure, the seat goes flat but it is not horizontal. You end up sleeping on a slope. Airlines that should have known better (including Lufthansa and Swiss) went for this cheaper option. The airlines justify the angle by saying the plane flies at a slight incline so you are really flat after all. How many ways can I say that this is rubbish? Rot? Nonsense? Insulting to the intelligence? Let?s be honest. These angled ?beds? are uncomfortable and almost never offer a good night?s sleep unless you are so tired you would sleep on the floor. If you doubt me, read the reviews on travellers? websites. Almost no one likes angled lie-flat. Thankfully, the days of the angled lie-flat are inevitably coming to an end. Last month?s decision by United Airlines to become the only US carrier to go ?fully flat? almost certainly sounded the death knell for the horrible angled contraption in the years ahead. If you are not sure what sort of bed you are about to suffer, let me give you some tips. First, ignore all the advertising the airlines put out on this. Do your own research and find out exactly what sort of bed is being offered. I always look at flatseats.com (run by the excellent Skytrax people, with detailed analysis of plane seats and reviews). It will tell you clearly what sort of seat it is and whether other passengers have found it comfortable. If you do end up trapped in an angled lie-flat, fully recline the seat, THEN use the controls to ?jog? or nudge the seat up again bit by bit till you get to the right position and the seat becomes more flat. That will give you support and protect your back and legs. Eventually you will get to a position you can live with for the flight. Just. Swiss International has a whole set of instructions in the seat pocket dedicated to telling you how to jog their seat (perhaps the fact they have to put the instructions should have told them not to bother buying the seat in the first place?). In the end, I would always go for a flat bed over angled lie-flat. It?s a simple choice. A good night?s sleep or a night spent sliding to the floor. Let?s get rid of the angled torture trap for business travellers once and for all. Escape from Cleveland by Richard Quest 20 Aug 2007 at 4:49pm After being stranded in Cleveland overnight because of storms in Chicago (see blog below), getting back to London has proved a real task. This is how things have gone so far: OK, so I got to Cleveland airport to catch the 0619 flight, but found it delayed to 0725. No matter. I still have time to get to Washington for the Heathrow connection. Should have an hour or so to spare UPDATE: That hour evaporated. We still haven't boarded yet. UPDATE: Another hour gone! I am still in Cleveland. UPDATE: Pilot didn't put enough fuel on flight for long taxi at Cleveland. Returned to terminal for more. No way I will get to Dulles International for my Heathrow flight. Having to go on red-eye tonight. I now have the delights and joys of eight hours in Dulles. Of all the airports, in all of the U.S. it is amongst the most miserable with poorest facilities while they rebuild it. Today's challenge: Find something interesting to do in Dulles. UPDATE: Landed at Dulles, flight to London left an hour ago. Now to see what misery they can inflict... Stranded in Cleveland by Richard Quest 20 Aug 2007 at 1:11pm Tonight I am in Cleveland. I didn?t expect to be here another night. I had rather hoped to be crossing the Atlantic, but the storms over Chicago had other ideas. My flight from CLE to ORD to connect onto London was badly delayed, so badly that I would not have made my connection and all other flights were full. So I have decided to cut my losses and stay here again tonight. It is the oldest adage in the traveller?s book. When things start going wrong, do one of two things: get out of Dodge as soon as you can, preferably when you first notice things are heading the wrong way, or resign yourself to rebooking and just ?go with the flow.? I didn?t realise the bad weather was going to screw things up quite as badly as it did, so I was left with only the second option. Not to worry ? they may call Cleveland the ?Mistake on the Lake,? but I rather like it and there are some excellent downtown restaurants to enjoy a decent steak. This is a rather fitting end to this latest trip, which is why I haven?t been blogging much. Let me give you the routing so far: London to Los Angeles then onto New York and down to Atlanta (to visit the Mothership of CNN ? you must see the CNN Cente if you are down that way?) In Atlanta I decided it was 'Quest Time', so I abandoned the plane. Instead, I drove from Atlanta to Knoxville to Nashville to Memphis. I reminded myself why air travel is only one part of the business traveller?s life. It is so liberating being on the road. Even if the temperatures are burning hot in the South at the moment. (I stood at Graceland for the 30th anniversary of Elvis?s death in 106-degree temperatures.) But it matters not - what can beat pulling over to a truck stop on the highway where they serve real peach cobbler, with ice cream of course! And smokers unite ? yes, you can still smoke! (OK I guess the boss will take this bit out ? not terribly politically correct these days! But I am giving up. I am.) Oh yes, a quick tip ? if you are down Nashville way, you MUST take time to visit the Loveless Café. Their fried chicken and biscuits are famous. And there should be a law against the sweet potatoes in Caramel. It is at least 15 years since I last ate there, and even though the place has been gussied up (there?s no longer a Loveless motel, just chintzy stores) the food was every bit as good as I had remembered. Don?t go for Sunday lunch though ? they tell me it?s a two-hour wait at times. The moral of this tale? When work takes me to places I want to enjoy I will abandon the plane, take the car and take some time. I swat away questions about where and I am and what I am doing with an airy ?Oh, on Blackberry?? Little do most realise I mean Blackberry pie. And now, a night in Cleveland. Steak? Rather. Who benefits from BA's big fines? by Richard Quest 6 Aug 2007 at 5:42pm I have a problem with the huge fine levied against British Airways for its passenger and cargo price-fixing. Half a billion dollars is a serious amount of money. Of course those involved in cartels should be punished, and as a frequent flyer I have suffered from BA's actions, but is fining the company such a huge sum a suitable punishment? It seems a remarkably unimaginative form of sanction. Think about it. Why should the competition regulators -- the Office of Fair Trading (£121 million and the Department of Justice ($300 million) -- benefit from this windfall in their budgets? What will they do with the money? No doubt, they will investigate more cartels but that isn't going to improve my traveling lot much. After all, who suffers from this fine? Well, BA management are certainly embarrassed but unless they were actually involved in the price-fixing and have been sacked, those that remain can say "not me guv'". The shareholders will suffer because there will be lower profits and ultimately smaller dividends but the BA share price may actually end up rising because the uncertainty is over! Nope! The ones who suffer are probably the passengers who will be traveling on an airline that now has half a billion dollars less to spend. BA is being deprived of valuable capital which could and should be used to upgrade the airline. The airline has already made some pretty swinging cuts. It's cost-cutting has bitten into the passenger experience hard: miserable sandwiches where there used to be a meal; poor industrial relations with its staff and suppliers because of lower budgets; moral so low, it's become legendary in the industry. Instead, the regulators should have insisted BA spend half a billion dollars to improve the airline's products and services, both in the air and on the ground. Just think -- that money could have brought back food on some flights or refurbished aircraft. It could have reduced the under funded pension scheme and allowed some benefits to be restored to the suffering staff. But -- some will say -- spending the money that way will give BA a competitive advantage, which is hardly the idea of the punishment. So what? If you want to add a bit of pepper, force the airline to give away 1,000,000 tickets to charities around the world so they are flying planes which make less revenue. Force them to give World Offers at a further 15 per cent discount. These would all reduce shareholder value but benefit the passengers. Do anything but levy a thumping fine which improves nobody's lot. Price fixing is a nasty, insidious crime with many victims. The sanction should be designed to punish the company's owners, benefit the company's customers and send a clear signal that the regulators will be as cunning as the crime. When families go to play by Richard Quest 24 Jul 2007 at 1:30pm I have been busy traveling lately to New York, Los Angeles, and Johannesburg and now on my way to Washington. It doesn't matter which airport I visit or airline I fly on, there is a horrible common thread. Families on vacation. Stressed parents, arms filled with rubbish. Children cluttering up the business lounges. And wherever I look, babies in business class! Yup, it is the European holiday season and with more wealth and bumper air miles, families are going on vacation. Often in business class. Now in my day - we were lucky if we got a week in Wales as a summer treat. Today if a continent isn?t being covered and an ocean crossed, well, it just isn't a proper vacation! So I want to address the knotty theme of how we can all keep good humour and still get on with our business travels. It is tough. The urge to shout "get out of the way" can be overwhelming especially in overcrowded airports where security lines are getting longer because holidaymakers have brought literally everything - including the bucket and spade - with them. If you are travelling in business class, do your very best to avoid the last row of the cabin. Why? Because behind you is the bulkhead of economy and that is where they put the families with babies using skycots attached to the wall. Beg, grovel and prostrate yourself to avoid that last row seat. You will be thankful later. The business class lounge in the summer becomes a war zone. With so many alliance gold members able to bring in their children, what should be an oasis of calm has often become unpleasant. I know you want to shout and scream "Oi, shut up!" but the cool answer is: don't. You may just have to find a quieter part of the lounge or leave it altogether. This is summer travel, and it is nasty. Once on board, if children are creating a nuisance it is tempting to solve the problem yourself. That would be a horrible mistake. Unless you have the diplomatic skills of the UN you will only make things worse. Fierce looks only annoy the parents and comments such as "do you mind!" add fuel to the fire. You are effectively saying to parents that they don't know how to do their job and they won't thank you for it. I have seen wholesale feuds break out on planes over such comments. Leave it to the staff. Gently ask them to sort it out for you. They won't like it. But it is their job to be the peacekeeping force. There is one area where you can help yourself. If the child behind is kicking your chair repeatedly, then you can sympathetically turn to the parent and ask them to try and stop them. It's the one thing with which everyone can identify, since their chair is probably being kicked at that same moment. Obviously ask for an emergency exit row if it is available. That way you will avoid children since they aren't allowed to sit in those seats! And don't be afraid before you board a plane to ask if there are any free seats elsewhere on the plane. The airlines seating computer often seems designed to put as many people in as many uncomfortable places as possible. So, when you get to the gate, ask if there are any no-shows and may you please move seats to a less crowded part of the aircraft. If you are a parent traveling with a family, spare a thought for the business traveler. Sure, you have paid for your ticket. And yes, maybe your child isn't the monster other people seem to think he is, but those business travelers are getting off the plane and having to go to work. You are heading for the beach. You will be putting your towel on a deckchair while I am sweltering in my suit! Everyone needs to remember that we will be on both sides of this problem during the summer. The holidaymaker and the traveler. I have just re-read this article. I know why I am being so reasonable... I upgraded myself to first class. I can only hear the children back in economy. I can?t see the anguished look on the faces of tired execs. Families? They should travel in the hold! Have a pleasant summer! A Swiss miss by Richard Quest 17 Jul 2007 at 2:38pm Swiss get the award for honesty. Their new angled lie flat seat may be an instrument of torture, but at least they recognize that it is not as good as a flat bed. After all, what else can justify the instructions on page 166 of their in-flight magazine about how to adjust the seat to actually sleep. For instance it advises tall people (me) to extend the seat to ?minimise pressure on your thighs?? You can say that again. I could barely move after a half hour snooze on this machine. For those who sleep on their back it suggests extending the seat and using the ?foot rest position to fine tune the setting.? Sleep on your side and you should jog the seat back with the take-off setting to flatten the seat. If you sleep on your stomach, then extend all the way. What a palaver! I don?t remember BA, Virgin or any other carrier that has a proper flat bed having to give passengers such advice about how to get a good night?s sleep. With flat beds the instructions are simple. Push the button. Pull the duvet. Go to sleep on your back, front, side or all three. Every airline which has invested in these miserable seats is going to regret it once the Open Skies agreement comes along and other carriers offering a flat product come onto the market. Swiss is only able to offer such a shoddy product because it doesn?t have a system-wide competitor at its hubs (it competes against various different carriers on individual routes). And its main competitor Lufthansa also owns it (incidentally the Lufthansa first class seat is wonderful for red eye sleep!) Nope, Swiss goes to the top of my list for the most uncomfortable, miserable new business class seat that is guaranteed to give a pretty pathetic night?s sleep. Well done Swiss. Airport horror in the Sunshine State by Richard Quest 28 Jun 2007 at 1:03pm I think I may just have discovered the worst airport experience in the US. It is not JFK or LAX (it is fashionable to rubbish them, yet I love them both). No, this traveling horror goes by the three letters FLL: Fort Lauderdale - Hollywood International Airport in Florida. I passed through FLL en route to the Bahamas last week for a filming trip. Let?s ignore the fact that all the flights were late (that is not the airport?s fault). Let?s concentrate instead on a woefully inadequate immigration system that has people standing in lines for hours in hot rooms with not even a seat. The immigration room has an overflow for the overflow. When asking one of the assistants if this waiting and queuing was normal he cheerfully replied, ?Oh, yes.? The immigration staff themselves have a look when you stand in front of them that basically says ?Ok, you?re up to no good? convince me why I should let you in the United States. ? This used to be the look experienced at JFK, LAX, SFO all the big gateways. These days the officers in those cities are pleasant, friendly and invariably say ?Welcome? at the end of the process. I got the decided impression my officer was disappointed he could find no fault. His colleague made up for it by delaying my producer who then missed two flights and had to stay overnight. Anyway, back to FLL. The signage is awful. Think I am wrong FLL? Pretend you don?t know the place, Mr. FLL Director, come out of customs and immigration and show me where there are decent signs telling you how to make your connection and which airline is where. Getting from terminal to terminal either involves a bus, which is rarely seen, or a tram that shuttles around the multi-storey car park. The tram is a joke because your luggage has to go into the caboose all of which takes time and effort. The security staff were surly, the shopping miserable. Oh, I don?t doubt you have your favourite ?love to hate? but believe me it will be a very long time before I willingly subject myself to the FLL experience. (For the record we have sent this blog to the Director of Aviation at FLL and have undertaken to publish the reply). Newsfeed display by CaRP |
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