The Diplomat, Porn, and The RAB Experience...

Back in February I had this unusual spike in visitors. I was sans an internet link at the time because of some house moving that we were doing so I was only aware of it some time after the fact.

It is only today that I worked out why it happened in the first place.

Thanks to The Diplomat, an internet magazine that deals with Asia-Pacific issues from what I can tell, mentioned me and my blog posts on the "one and only" Tifatul Sembiring (aka "TitS"). You can read the actual article here.

My guess is that Mong Palatino who happens to be a member of the House of Representatives in the Philippines and the Regional Editor of Global Voices for the Southeast Asia and Oceania regions reads my blog and he is responsible for the spike in visitors to my humble abode. Global Voices is a citizen journalism initiative, and one that I am in favour of. Thanks Mr. Palatino, I appreciate it. Maybe one day I will get to the Philippines to thank you in person (or maybe you might let me do some freelance writing for Global Voices ;)

No matter how it happened, it is always nice to see your name in print somewhere, particularly in a positive light. To be truthful, this is the reason I decided to reopen my blog to anybody who wants to read it and the reason I decided to blog today.

Cebu Pacific Airlines Dancing Flight Attendants...

My daily travels on the internet quite often reveal some real interesting stuff. This is one of those real fun things, at least to my simple mind. Cebu Pacific Airlines has decided to 'freshen' up its in-flight safety routine by getting their flight attendants to dance and do their safety thing to the music of Lady Gaga.

This is a bonus so to speak because it happens once the flight reaches cruising altitude. The airline does the standard Civil Aviation mandated safety procedures before the flight gets off the ground. Cebu Pacific airlines seems to think that this will work as a marketing strategy to get more people on their planes. I am not sure that it will now that the video can be watched on YouTube, but one never knows on these things, right?

I guess they now freshen this up by getting the flight attendants to do this in swimsuits and bikinis. Although, I did not notice a whole lot of male flight attendants on the job.



Enjoy!

Qantas -- Safe or Not?

The story goes that the national press is always harder on the national flag carrier than it is on other airlines. Yet, in the case of Qantas (photo) then perhaps this increased glare of the spotlight is warranted considering the consistent failures logged over the last month or so. For an airline that has prided itself on its safety record while allowing its service standards to slip. I must admit that I have not flown Qantas in years, and the reason for this was that their service was less than expected.

However, on with the safety issues. Qantas is taking a bit of a hammering of late as the list of failures grows ever-longer. The most recent of these "events" includes a Perth bound 737-300 making an unscheduled toilet stop in Adelaide on its way from Sydney. It seems that the ground staff had forgotten to empty out the bowels of the plane and consequently mid-flight things went all to crap. I guess this is both in the literal and figurative senses of the word.

After the delay the flight continued on its merry way.

The second "event" was the delay to the QF2 flight out of London. which was delayed some 15 hours because of a broken rudder. I guess though this was not a mid air which is probably a relief for the passengers that were taking this flight.

These two "events" follow a string of other incidents including a mid-air explosion that forced a plane to divert to Manila in the Philippines, a hydraulic leak that forced a plane to divert to Brisbane, and the loss of a panel from a plane in flight that was not discovered until the plane landed at its destination.

The best is yet to come as a drunken Qantas flight attendant fell against a fire alarm in a hotel in New Zealand that caused a full-scale evacuation of the hotel in the wee hours of the morning. The flight attendant has since resigned. Another flight attendant from the same flight refused to take a breath test before boarding the plane and was stood down from the flight. This served to delay the flight for several hours as a new crew was flown in to cover for their drunk and embarrassed colleagues.

I guess people will have to draw their own conclusions on this expanding list of events.