Human skulls found in luggage of U.S. tourist
Just when you think you’re heard it all, something new comes around. This time it’s six human skulls dicsovered in carry-on luggage last Thursday. The tourists have been charged with “desecrating the dead.” Heck, what’s this world coming to when tourists can’t buy party favors from souvenir stands for Halloween back home? Heck the Capuchin monks knew hot really “desecrate the dead.” The photo above is a detail from thousands of skulls displayed in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini just off Piazza Barberini in Rome.
“The skulls were found in a scanner check during a stop-over in Athens on their way back to the United States,” said a police official who requested anonymity. “The coroner confirmed they were human skulls.”
The two young tourists said they had bought the skulls in a souvenir shop on the island of Mykonos and believed they were fake, the official said, adding they had been released pending trial.
UAL, Continental shareholders approve airline deal
The inevitable has happened, stockholders of United Airlines and Continental Airlines have approved the merger. There is little for them to be unhappy about. Their new economy of scale will take some time to achieve, but eventually allow them to wield enormous power over the airline world.
With the voting over, the real work begins, including combining two separate groups of highly unionized workers, merging reservations systems and putting new paint jobs on the planes.
It likely will be some time before passengers notice much difference when they fly Continental or United. The companies expect it will be at least a year before federal authorities approve their request to fly as one airline, which will be called United and painted in Continental’s colors.
Measured by traffic – the number of miles flown by paying customers – the new United would leapfrog Delta, Air France-KLM and American Airlines to become the world’s biggest airline.
Steve Jobs was stopped in Japan from hijacking his own plane
I know, this sounds like a headline ripped from the pages of The Onion. I’ve always wanted to be able to write one like this. This one as wild as it seems, is true. It seems that Steve Jobs going through airport security in Kansai, Japan was stopped for carrying ninja style ‘throwing stars’ (shuriken) on his way to his private jet. There is still some controversy as to whether this incident happened.
Jobs said it wouldn’t make sense for a person to try to hijack his own plane, according to the report. He then told officials he would never visit Japan again, the magazine reported.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, disputed the magazine’s account.
“Steve did visit Japan this summer for a vacation in Kyoto, but the incidents described at the airport are pure fiction,” said Steve Dowling, a spokesman for the company. “Steve had a great time and hopes to visit Japan again soon.”
Takeshi Uno, a spokesman at Kansai airport, said a passenger using a private jet was stopped at the end of July for carrying “shuriken,” the Japanese word for Ninja throwing stars and other handheld blades. The passenger, whom Uno declined to identify because of the airport’s privacy policy, threw away the blades, he said. The airport doesn’t have separate boarding arrangements for private-jet users, Uno said.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
