Land and Hold Short

The city of Brantford, Ontario, about 50 nautical miles west-southwest of Toronto, is running a review to determine the consequences of closing Brantford Airport (CYFD), and Brant Aero would like you to sign an online petition of support for the airport.

Brantford’s official motto is “The telephone city”, because, according to the city, Alexander Graham Bell lived there in 1874 when he first came up with the idea for the telephone. Bell is also famous, however, for founding the Aerial Experimentation Association, which produced the Silver Dart, the aircraft that made the first controlled, powered flight in Canada (and the British Empire). Bell devoted a huge part of his life to aviation, and it would be a sad irony if the city who uses him as its main claim to fame were to close its only airport.

This time, my cheers and jeers are for the airports and airlines (yes, there are cheers), since I decided to leave the Warrior at home and fly to Newark, New Jersey this week.

Jeer: Us the voters

We have no one but ourselves to blame for the ridiculous security procedures in place at the airports now. The poor screeners are doing only what the politicians order them to do, and we’re the politicians’ bosses, so the buck stops with us. I guess it’s good to know that civilization is safe from my shoes, belt, toothpaste, and shaving cream for at least one more day.

Jeer: airline advertising

It’s scummy for an airline to advertise, say, a $99 one-way fare when they know that the real fare is going to be something like $250 with security fees, airport fees, sales taxes, and so on. People want to know what they have to pay, not what the airlines will receive. In the UK (or all of Europe?), it’s already illegal to advertise fares that way. Also, a jeer for the governments (and that means us the voters, again) who treat airlines like cash cows by taxing tickets into the ground.

Cheer: the crew of CO 2686, Monday 12 February

Nothing heroic here, but on descent and approach, they dealt with moderate turbulence all the way below the cloud deck — I shudder to think what the turbulence would have been for my Warrior. I appreciate having someone else worry about weather, routing, clearances, turbulence, etc., just for once.

Cheer: anonymous Continental Airlines ticket agent

Sure, my last-minute ticket here cost far too much, but it still came with a $100 change fee. With heavy snow and freezing rain coming Wednesday morning (OK, I admit that I checked the TAFs — I’m not very good as a passenger), I called to move my return flight to this evening, and Continental waived the change fee without my even asking. Cheers for an airline smart enough to understand that I’m doing them a favour by giving them one less irate, stranded customer to deal with tomorrow.