Maggots on a Plane, Mortars Through Security, Skiplagging & More [Weekly Roundup]

What would you do if maggots were raining from the ceiling in an airplane? What about if all the toilets stopped flushing? It was kind of a gross week for aviation, however there were some brighter sides to it. Delta has continued to announce some route expansion and has joined Hawaiian in operating the longest domestic flight in the United States.

I also have a new bucket list item to add, there's a hotel at the Amsterdam airport that features a 737 cockpit inside the hotel room. We're not talking some mockup or just the shell, it's a full 737 cockpit and partial cabin that you can sit in and use. The cockpit is real with all the original gauges and the cabin has a few rows of first class seats you can sit in. This is now firmly on my bucketlist.

There seems to be a war going on right now in Orlando. The IATA airport code for the airport is MCO, however all the locals refer to it as OIA (Orlando International Airport). Some have argued that Orlando should change their IATA code to OIA, however I'm on the side of keeping it as MCO. I think it sounds cooler anyway!

Ew, Gross, and Double Gross. Maggots raining from the ceiling! Not by any fault of Delta, but a passenger seemed to have brought some rotting fish to the airport and snuck it onboard. Somehow after takeoff, maggots that were feeding off the fish got out and started to rain down on passengers. The flight ended up turning around to Amsterdam and getting a deep cleaning. Again… gross.

This is actually quite the cool promo, however may be very targeted to New York residences. If you book jetBlue Mint, they'll give you a free Blade helicopter transfer to the airport. This could be quite the nice deal as those flights normally range from $100 to $500 depending on the season. I'd book this just to have that experience of flying down the Hudson River in a helicopter, must be some great views!

It seems like it's not just me who has a problem with CLEAR. Any time that I've used clear I could see shorter lines with PreCheck easily. It wasn't even a week ago that I was traveling with a friend through the Las Vegas airport and I ended up going through security and getting all of my things together before he even was walked to the front of the PreCheck line. It's quite sad how slow and unreliable the service has become. I'm still glad I stopped paying for it.

A Qantas A330 took quite the interesting route the other day and some were asking why. My best guess is that the aircraft was not ETOPS certified, this allows them to fly more than 60 minutes away from an adequate airport. And because regulations say that you need to stay within 60 minutes of an adequate airport, the only way to do that was to fly this funky route to stay within coverage. It's all about safety if you were to lose an engine.

On this episode of what stupid things passengers will try to bring through security, we have someone trying to fly with mortar rounds. Because we all know that bringing explosives through security can never go wrong. Right?

I can only imagine that Delta is very angry with the potiental Hawaiian-Alaska merger. Two new routes announced look to be directly aimed at Hawaiian's and Alaska's longest domestic routes. Seattle-Miami and Boston-Honolulu will be starting up later this year and Delta will be competing with Hawaiian for the longest domestic route.

It's official, as much as airlines hate it, Skiplagging is now a dictionary word. If you don't know what it means, it is essentially booking a flight with a connection in a lesser known city. Airlines will usually sell these tickets for less than if you were to start at a larger airport. It is strictly against an airline's Contract of Carriage to do this, however there are websites that will find you these flights. Be warned, an airline can ban you over this!

I've never experienced a full lavatory failure, however I have been on a flight that had all but one of the lavatories go out about an hour before landing. I am not generally someone to use it, except on longer flights. While a flight may be able to continue, for the passenger comfort it's very much recommended to get on the ground quickly. If you don't, then you might have to declare a code Brown.

If it's one thing to remember from this last week, safety is number one. Even when not an emergency, passenger comfort is taken into account. I wouldn't want to fly on an airplane without working lavatories or maggots raining down from the ceiling. Would you?