The Passenger Experience of Air Travel


Book Description

Taking a critical approach to the air passenger experience, this book considers the representations, embodied practices and materialities of air travel. Concerned with the politics and social justice issues of travel and mobility, it examines the passenger and their experience of the airport, fellow passengers, flying during the COVID-19 pandemic, and response to the issue of air travel sustainability. It explores the diverse experiences of those with a disability or fear of flying. The volume brings the journey to the fore as a complex and meaningful experience, filling a gap in the social science research of tourist behaviour where, traditionally, the focus has been the destination experience. The book will be of interest to scholars from a range of social science disciplines and fields of study including tourism studies, mobility studies, cultural studies, and disability studies.




Philosophy for Passengers


Book Description

A philosophical guide to passengerhood, with reflections on time, space, existence, boredom, our sense of self, and our sense of the senses. While there are entire bookstore sections—and even entire bookstores—devoted to travel, there have been few books on the universal experience of being a passenger. With this book, philosopher Michael Marder fills the gap, offering a philosophical guide to passengerhood. He takes readers from ticketing and preboarding (preface and introduction) through a series of stops and detours (reflections on topics including time, space, existence, boredom, our sense of self, and our sense of the senses) to destination and disembarking (conclusion). Marder finds that the experience of passengers in the twenty-first century is experience itself, stretching well beyond railroad tracks and airplane flight patterns. On his journey through passengerhood, he considers, among many other things, passenger togetherness, which goes hand in hand with passenger loneliness; flyover country and the idea of placeness; and Descartes in an airplane seat. He tells us that the word metaphor means transport in Greek and discusses the gray area between literalness and metaphoricity; explains the connection between reading and riding; and ponders the difference between destination and destiny. Finally, a Beckettian disembarking: you might not be able to disembark, yet you must disembark. After the voyage in the world ends, the journey of understanding begins.




Flying Across America


Book Description

All 44 episodes from the first two series of comedian David Mitchell's online video show. Consisting of a series of short monologues to camera, Mitchell lets fly at whatever random topic has caught his ire. Series 1 episodes comprise: 'Mouse', 'Flowers', 'The Welsh', 'The Elderly', 'Beer', 'Unusually Smart', 'TV Rudeness', 'Spelling', 'Consensus', 'Rape and Pillage', 'Inappropriate', 'Questions', 'Passionate', 'Male Grooming', 'Compliments', 'Man Flu', 'Going To The Doctor', 'Necrophilia', 'Hauliers', 'Gaelic', 'Special Quiz', 'Quiz Winner', 'Birthday Cards', 'Food' and 'Waste in Politics'. Series 2 episodes are: 'King Cnut', 'Dear America', 'Haircuts', 'Personal Debts', 'Authenticity', 'References', 'Lying Liars', 'Camelopard', 'Climate Change', 'Pub Queues', 'Innuendo', 'Trains, Part 1', 'Trains, Part 2', 'Signing Boobs', '3D', 'Communal Eating', 'Signs', 'Kid's Stuff', 'Red Shirt' and 'In Summary'.




Skyfaring


Book Description

A poetic and nuanced exploration of the human experience of flight that reminds us of the full imaginative weight of our most ordinary journeys—and reawakens our capacity to be amazed. The twenty-first century has relegated airplane flight—a once remarkable feat of human ingenuity—to the realm of the mundane. Mark Vanhoenacker, a 747 pilot who left academia and a career in the business world to pursue his childhood dream of flight, asks us to reimagine what we—both as pilots and as passengers—are actually doing when we enter the world between departure and discovery. In a seamless fusion of history, politics, geography, meteorology, ecology, family, and physics, Vanhoenacker vaults across geographical and cultural boundaries; above mountains, oceans, and deserts; through snow, wind, and rain, renewing a simultaneously humbling and almost superhuman activity that affords us unparalleled perspectives on the planet we inhabit and the communities we form.




The Passenger Has Gone Digital and Mobile


Book Description

Technology is changing expectations in the airline industry. Passengers want to be in control, and they expect airlines to become solution providers and aggregators of value, to provide them with personalized services. Airline employees expect to be given the tools to do their jobs and to meet passenger expectations. Airline executives expect to make returns that are reasonable and relatively stable through business cycles. All of these expectations can be met by airlines through the effective and efficient leveraging of information and technology, to shift from being operations- and product-centric to becoming customer-centric and dramatically improving the overall passenger travel experience throughout the travel cycle. In this new book by world-renowned airline expert Nawal K. Taneja, the 7th in a series with Ashgate, the author explores and explains the game-changing opportunities presented to the industry by new-generation information and technology. He shows how information and technology can now drive, not just enable, an airline's strategy to become truly customer-centric at a personalized level, while at the same time enabling the operator to reduce costs, enhance revenues, reduce risks and become much more flexible and agile by better managing complexity.




The Passenger


Book Description

In March 2019, the Viking Sky cruise ship was struck by a bomb cyclone in the North Atlantic. Rocked by 50-foot swells and 40-knot gales, the ship lost power and began to drift straight toward the notoriously dangerous Hustadvika coast in Norway. This is the suspenseful, harrowing, funny, touching story by one passenger who contemplated death aboard that ship. Chaney Kwak is a travel writer used to all sorts of mishaps on the road, but this is a first even for him: trapped on the battered cruise ship, he stuffs his passport into his underwear just in case his body has to be identified. As the massive cruise ship sways in surging waves, Kwak holds on and watches news of the impending disaster unfold on Twitter, where the cruise ship's nearly 1,400 passengers are showered with "thoughts and prayers." Kwak uses his twenty-seven hours aboard the teetering ship to examine his family history, maritime tragedies, and the failing relationship back on shore with a man he's loved for nearly two decades: the Viking Sky, he realizes, may not be the only sinking ship he needs to escape. The Passenger takes readers for an unforgettable journey from the Norwegian coast to the South China Sea, from post-WWII Korea to pandemic-struck San Francisco. Kwak weaves his personal experience into events spanning decades and continents to explore the serendipity and the relationships that move us--perfect for readers who love to discover the world through the eyes of a perceptive and humorous observer.




Airport Terminal Buildings


Book Description




Dragged Off


Book Description

A Vietnamese Refugee, a Viral Video, and the United Airlines Scandal That Started It All “His refusal to give up his seat on a United Airlines flight, and the ensuing assault he suffered, is emblematic of how far we, the people, still have to travel to create a world with liberty and justice for all.” —Marlena Fiol, PhD, globally recognized scholar and speaker and author of Nothing Bad Between Us Dr. David Dao was dragged off United Express Flight 3411 on April 9, 2017 after refusing to give up his seat. In the tradition of contemporary immigrant stories comes a personal narrative of the many small but significant acts of racial discrimination faced on the way to the American Dream. The unseen effects of discrimination. The United Airlines scandal of 2017 garnered over a million views on YouTube. A result of an overbooking overlook, security officials forcibly removed Dr. Dao after refusing to give up his seat. He awoke in the hospital to a concussion, a broken nose, several broken teeth, and worldwide attention. Things aren’t always fair for an immigrant, but according to Dr. Dao, you can prevail if you firmly advocate for yourself. A response to a lifetime of oppressive acts. Why was Dr. Dao so adamant on his right to a seat? His entire life had led to that moment. A Vietnamese refugee, he fled his home country during the fall of Saigon. He was stranded in the Indian Ocean, immigrated to the United States, enrolled in medical school for a second time, built a practice, and started a family-all the while battling the effects of discrimination and what he had to embrace as a result. This is his story. If you are moved by immigrant stories, or books like America for Americans, Minor Feelings, How to Be an Antiracist, or The Making of Asian America, then you’ll want to read Dr. David Dao's story, Dragged Off.




Attention All Passengers


Book Description

A Fast Food Nation for the airline industry, Attention All Passengers is a shocking and important exposé revealing the real state of the “friendly skies” in which we fly. Award-winning Consumer Reports travel journalist William McGee, a former editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, spent nearly seven years in airline flight operations management, and what he learned was less than uplifting. From TSA power grabs and an endemic lack of oversight to legislative battles and lobbying boondoggles to antiquated flight patterns and outsourced maintenance workers, the airlines and the Government are in cahoots, conspiring to turn a profit any way they can, no matter who has to pay the price. A provocative and hard-hitting call to action, Attention All Passengers will explode all our previous misconceptions about the airline industry.




Highest Duty


Book Description

The inspirational autobiography of the hero pilot who landed a crippled flight in New York’s Hudson River—now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks. On January 15, 2009, the world witnessed a remarkable emergency landing when Captain “Sully” Sullenberger skillfully glided US Airways Flight 1549 onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew. His cool actions not only averted tragedy but made him a hero and an inspiration worldwide. His story is now a major motion picture from director/producer Clint Eastwood and stars Tom Hanks, Laura Linney and Aaron Eckhart. Sully’s story is one of dedication, hope, and preparedness, revealing the important lessons he learned through his life, in his military service, and in his work as an airline pilot. It reminds us all that, even in these days of conflict, tragedy and uncertainty, there are values still worth fighting for—that life’s challenges can be met if we’re ready for them. “His fascinating and deservedly praised memoir reflects on his childhood love for planes and an outstanding 42-year career as a pilot—as well as how he and his family coped with the onslaught of sudden celebrity.” —Publishers Weekly