Oxygen for babies
There was a story today about a Ryanair flight which lost cabin pressure as a result of which oxygen masks were released.
Fairly standard stuff that doesn’t worry me overly.
However, it made me wonder what to do about babies under two. You see, you can’t book individual seats for them, they have to sit on your lap.
So what do you do if you need oxygen and you only get one mask for your baby and yourself?
I asked in the comments section in the article I linked to above, and somebody relied:
It depends from aircraft to aircraft but all aircraft have 4 masks on certain rows, and therefore on a full flight passengers with babies should be checked into a row which has 4 masks. If in doubt check with check-in staff who should be adequately trained to know the aircraft configuration and also with cabin crew. It is a part of basic safety training that you know which rows have 4 masks, but again I can’t give a general comment on this as every single aircraft type I have operated on has differed in this respect.
However, a different person followed up:
However we flew on a Ryan air 737 over the weekend with our small baby and asked to sit in a row with 4 oxygen masks. The cabin crew didn’t seem to know what we were talking about!
So what do you do if the crew can’t help you and you can’t find a seat with an empty seat next to it?
Suitcase on wheels
Kiddie suitcase on wheels
While we were waiting for our suitcases in Stansted two days ago, two kids walked past me sitting on pink suitcases.
This looks like a great idea! Suddenly carrying their own luggage becomes a game for kids…
Only problem I can see is to keep them away from slopes in all disguises, or your kids might suddenly travel a bit faster than is advisable at that age.
Stranded
I’ve very often gone via Stansted on my way to Denmark, and I’ve always made the connexion, although Ryanair don’t guarantee it.
Today seemed OK – we were supposed to land around 6pm, and the check-in didn’t close till 19:05, so it didn’t seem likely it would be delayed more than 30 minutes.
But it was!
We arrived here at 19:15, so now we’re trying to find another way to Denmark.
Unfortunately, all flights are full, so the next affordable plane to Denmark is on Monday!
We might have to go via Bremen!!!
Update (4am): Yes, Bremen turned out to be the best bet. Ryanair were willing to book us onto that for a “missed flight fee” of £250 for all of us. The flight is at 6:40am, and we’ll arrive there around 9. Hopefully it won’t be too expensive to get the train to Denmark.
Because the flight is so early, we didn’t think it made sense to get a hotel room, so we’ve all been sleeping on the benches or the stone floor of Stansted Airport. I guess it’s all an experience for the kids! 
Biofuels are not the answer
There’s an interesting comment in The Guardian, arguing that the world needs to produce more food and not waste it on biofuels.
There is an interesting bit of information in it:
The grain required to fill a [95 litre] tank with ethanol would feed one person for an entire year.
It so clearly demonstrates why biofuels aren’t the answer, as it means driving a car means many people can’t eat – it’s not as if your car could run the whole time on the left-overs from dinner.
Secure bus travel
Yesterday, I wanted to go to Edinburgh by bus, and I managed to get a return ticket online at a reasonable price.
I arrived at the bus station two hours before the bus was due to leave to make sure I’d be on it.
I then had to stand in a long queue to check in.
They checked my passport, but then they said my bag was too big and I had to check it in, which cost me an extra five quid.
I saw my bag move away on the conveyor belt, and I then went through security.
I had forgotten I had a pen knife in my pocket, so they of course confiscated it, but apart from that, I got through without any problems.
I was very thirsty, but of course I couldn’t bring any drinks through, so I had to buy a drink at a far too high price in the transit area. I just wished I could wait outside, but of course that wasn’t possible.
Finally my bus was ready for departure, and I went to the stance and went on board.
When we arrived in Edinburgh, I went to pick up my bag from the carrousel, but it wasn’t there. At the information counter, they said it had ended up on the wrong bus and was now on its way to Inverness, but they’d get it back to me asap – which turned out to be two days later.
All in all a normal bus trip. But sometimes I wonder why bus travel can’t be as easy as flying?
Biler i København
En af de første ting, Phyllis lagde mærke til i København, var, hvor få biler, der var. Det føltes slet ikke som en storby, sagde hun.
Senere lagde vi begge mærke til, hvor beskidt luften føltes.
Hvordan kan begge dele være sande på én gang? Skyldes det mon den gamle bilpark, der igen skyldes de høje danske bilafgifter?
Luggage
There’s a good, long, informative article about luggage handling in airports in the Independent today.
I must admit I don’t understand why the current system is not being redesigned from scratch.
It’s so clearly a relic from the days when flying was an upper-class activity that of course wouldn’t involve carrying your own luggage around airports.
But these days, it’s a major security risk, it makes it easy for luggage to get lost or rifled through, it’s a hassle, it’s expensive, and people don’t normally have more than 20kg anyway, so it’s not like they can’t move it around themselves.
I think airports and planes should be redesigned to be closer to coaches and trains. What about the following, for instance?
Each departure gate should be separate without access to the other ones. Check-in should happen at the entrance to the individual departure gate. People would take their luggage into the departure gate and then carry it out to the plane. If planes are not redesigned, people would then hand it over to the luggage handlers who would put it into the hold.
Much more secure, much less hassle.
Open Skies
The Open Skies agreement that the EU negotiated with the US to replace the old agreements that individual EU states had with the US came into force today.
The effects at the moment is basically that lots of US airlines will start flying into London Heathrow (which they weren’t allowed to before), while Air France will fly across the Atlantic from Heathrow and British Airlines will do the same from Paris and Brussels.
However, many more changes are possible. For instance, Ryanair are planning to open an Atlantic operation, presumably flying from small European airports to small American ones.
I do wonder whether this long-term will be the demise of the big hub airports, given that we’re likely to get many more point-to-point connexions.
Terminal 5
It’s been quite amusing reading about the disastrous opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, in a Schadenfreude kind of way.
Fundamentally, I don’t understand why they started out with so many flights on the first day if they hadn’t performed extensive testing. I mean, you either test and test and test till you’re certain everything will work out perfectly, or you start out with very few flights and then gradually add more. Just jumping into the deep end without finding out first whether you can swim is just unprofessional. Check out this blog posting, too.
Apart from the shambolic opening, I also don’t understand why they didn’t separate domestic and international travel into two terminals. The recent stories about fingerprinting all passengers are all due to the fact that they’re mixing up the two groups after check-in and need to be able to separate them later. That’s just bad design. Heathrow has several terminals – why not use one for domestic flights and the others for international ones, rather than dividing them by airlines?
Finally!
Ryanair must be reading this blog. It’s less than a month ago that I blogged that they should be opening a route from Billund in Denmark to Scotland instead of one to Birmingham.
And now they’re finally doing what I’ve been waiting for ever since I moved to Scotland, opening a direct route. The one they’re starting is Edinburgh-Billund, which makes good sense, I guess. Aarhus Airport is a bit far away from most attractions, and so is Prestwick.
Just a shame they’re not opening it in time for the summer holidays.