Musings become reality!

Last week a post on Tripso.com suggested that airport security may begin banning pictures of guns aboard aircraft. This rumination seems to have come true.

A man was just banned from a flight for wearing a cartoon depiction of a gun on his T-shirt.

We reported last week on a woman who had to pack a charm shaped like a pistol in her checked luggage to fulfill the “no guns aboard” policy.

Amazingly, we discovered that a 2″ gun that actually can fire a bullet does exist, so we have to forgive airport security on that count!

Now if we discover a cartoon illustration of a gun that can fire, we have to forgive security personnel again. I don’t think that will happen.

Senator confirms blogger’s FAA CYA claim

Tripso.com had it right when they said the FAA order that resulted in the grounding of AA’s MD-80 fleet back in April was a CYA operation.

The tripso.com piece noted:

Both the FAA and the airlines know that the airline fleets are safe in the United States, perhaps the safest in the world. But both are now being hoisted on the petards of technical rules that they played loose with or ignored.

Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said that the FAA was “chicken” for grounding the 299 American Airlines MD-80s. He went on to say, “FAA inspectors were more concerned about covering themselves than they were about American or its passengers.”

Bravo! But, the only ones that paid the price were the passengers who had to scramble through the mass cancellations, that could have been avoided with courage from either the FAA or AA executives.

Hello world!

Cheap Charlie here to help travelers get the most for their travel dollar and let them know how to save money while traveling. Like today’s post noting how to save the new $25 charge for the second piece of luggage. Occasionally, I’ll chime in with where to spend luxury dollars to get the biggest bang for the big bucks. You can find more of my posts at tripso.com.