Bart’s blog

The USS New York - a battleship that has 7 tons of steel from WTC recycled into its hull - sailed into New York on the Hudson river yesterday (Nov 2). It was quite a spectacle. It was about 8am on a gloomy morning. The all grey USS New York almost blended in the background and the photos look like they are black and white!

I think all concerned should pause and reflect on the events on NW flight188 a little bit. I think suspending the pilots' FAA license was premature. Yes - the incident was quite shocking though not completely unprecendented. No harm was done though alarm bells had gone off and there were red faces all around. Apparently Northwest allowed pilots to use laptops (like passengers can), though Delta does not. There was a stiff tailwind which got the airplane to the Minneapolis area a little earlier than usual. An unusual sequence of events led to pilots missing some of the earlier messages (stewardess came in and was talking to the first officer while the pilot went for a restroom break). Both pilots apparently had spotless records. It doesn't excuse their preoccupation with laptops and they do need to face disciplinary action. But, given the combination of events, I don't think ending their flying career is right - at least not yet. Can other forms of penalties not do? Just the negative publicity in the media is severe, if not sufficient, punishment. Do the FAA and Delta need to be seen taking extraordinarily stern action given how far things had gone - jets being scrambled, White House being informed etc.? The incident of a Delta flight landing on a taxiway in Atlanta seems more serious to me - but that somehow didn't get the same level of attention.

Last Sunday (Oct 25) was a very nice fall day - close to perfect from a photographer's point of view. As we approached sunset, multicolored hues took over the sky. Pink gave way to amber, orange, yellow and red. Ferries and boats docked at the Liberty Marina glistened and the canal shimmered. All in all, a pretty picture.

A picture is worth a 1000 words? Well, most Fall pictures should be. This was taken at Lake George. We drove on the Taconic State Parkway, which was itself quite pretty. We got to the Lake George area probably 2-3 days before peak color. unseasonably warm weather probably delayed fall a little bit. But itwas very nice anyway.

More specifically, thank you to the Delta agent who was manning gate D5 at Minneapolis airport on Sep 11, '09 at around 4.30 pm or so. Didn't get his name, unfortunately. As I said in my previous post, this is an account of Continental leaving me in the lurch while Delta came to my rescue. It was a somewhat bad weather day in New Jersey and Continental had cancelled the 6.25 pm flight to Newark - on which I was booked. The Continental call center and the airport agents basically said I'd need to come back next morning - and that they were only trying to accommodate passengers with connections onto Delta and other flights to the NYC area airports. I was in no mood to wait overnight, so I called Orbitz for business (our official travel facilitator) and got myself a one way ticket  to La Guardia (LGA) on a Delta flight for over $600. I then noticed that the 4pm Delta flight to Newark had still not left and decided to try my luck on that one (becase Newark works better for me than LGA).

So I sauntered to gate D5 where the Delta agent heard me out and I casually also mentioned that I was from the cancelled Continental flight. He saw that there were a few seats on the Newark flight. Instead of just transferring me from the Delta LGA flight onto it, he called Continental on his own, verified my details and got them to transfer me onto the Delta flight. This meant that my new Delta ticket was redundant. He further reminded me that Delta/Northwest had a policy allowing cancellation of a ticket within 24 hours with no penalty. Sure enough, I was able to cancel the ticket with no trouble and travel to Newark on Delta on the Continental ticket. In essence, the Delta agent did for me what the Continental guys didn't. And he saved me (or, in this case, my company) $600 and the trouble of traveling home from LGA. Now that was customer service that made a difference.

To be fair, Continental has been reasonably reliable and they do a pretty good job of updating flight status, their online experience is good and, yes, they do serve meaningful (free) food on their flights. But I don't particularly like the tiny Embraer 145s that they operate on EWR-MSP (Delta flies bigger Embraer 190 or Airbus) and, on this occasion, Delta beat Continental on the ground as well.

It is not hard to come to the conclusion that flying domestic in the US is a pretty plain vanilla affair and there isn't much to choose from among the airlines. Yet, when you fly frequently, you begin to discern differences as the laws of probablity kick in and events such as cancellations, aircraft changes, bad weather etc. occur. I have been flying between New York (Mostly from Newark) to Minneapolis on work for the last 12 weeks or so. I mostly fly Continental but have taken a few flights on Northwest/Delta.

When I started, Continental was using Boeing 737s on the early morning (from EWR) and late evening (from MSP) flights but they then abruptly switched to the Embraer 145 - a much smaller aircraft. With 2-1 seating and a very tiny overhead bin, this aircraft invariably requires me to check in my cabin bag at the gate - and reclaim at the gate on arrival. This adds about 10 minutes before you can be on your way, which matters when you fly every week. It is also a single class configuration, so there's no question of upgrades. Being "Elite" doesn't confer any significant advantange on this type of aircraft.

A bigger issue is that Continental seems to cancel flights at the drop of a hat when there are weather induced delays at Newark. They often cancel the originating flight, which means the return flight from Minneapolis is cancelled too. It is infuriating to see Northwest/Delta flights take off (albeit with delays) to the 3 New York area airports while Continental seemingly refuses to even try. This has happened twice in the recent past (will write another post on this and how Delta rescued me when Continental abdicated). NWA uses an Embraer 190 on the sector - which is more comfortable, can accommodate larger cabin bags and has a two class configuration.

The good thing about Continental is they actually supply some meaningful food complimentary. Cereal on the morning flight and a snack box with cheese, crackers, chocolates etc. on the evening one. 

So there it is - it isn't all plain vanilla. The "coffee, tea or me" days are long gone, but there is scope for differentiation still.

The traditional twin beams which make up the "Tribute in Light" went up on the night of 9/11. It was a rainy day and I bore the brunt of it on a much delayed flight from Minneapolis. I landed past 12 am (so technically 9/12) and could see the tops of the beams on way from Newark airport on the Pulaski Skyway. This is a very dignified, yet poignant, way to remember 9/11. As far as I can recall, the tribute in light used to run for about a week until Sep 11 but this time it was only a day. The beams go up to the south of the original site and disperse among the clouds creating a bit of a halo. For those of us that saw the whole chain of events unfold on that fateful Tue morning, watching this tribute strikes a chord. 

Our 2nd trip to Highline within a week went even better than the first- mainly because we got there later in the evening. This meant that we caught the sunset over the New Jersey side and the lighting in the park. The sunset was quite magical - Jersey city was silhouetted and the sky was a multicolored hue with blues, oranges, reds and purples all over. The green tips of the grass blades in the park had a fluorescent glow because of the floor level lighting.

 

The best views of the New Jersey side seem to be in the first few park blocks (14-16th streets). There are a couple of other spots near 20th where you get good views as well.The first pic in the strip below was taken near 20th Street. The one on the right in the strip as well as the larger one were taken near 15th Street. Lighting in the park is subtle and at floor level except in the covered part where they have gone in for bright blue fluroescent lighting (see centre pic below). A late evening visit is recommended!

The Highline Park in Manhattan is a result of clever use of unused real estate by essentially creating a park on stilts along disused railroad lines. Apparently, freight trains used to run here till about 1980 for the meatpacking trade. Now, an 8 or so city block length of this has been converted into a park - with more to come later. Unlike other rails to trails, they have not covered up the tracks completely - so once can see the ballast, wooden sleepers and the bands of metal and get the perspective. Also, the elevation gives interesting views of the intersecting streets and of the river and the New Jersey skyline as well.

You will not find manicured lawns but relatively wild grass, though flower beds exist at regular intervals. It is, for the most part, narrow and there is plenty of seating that seems to try to blend in with the whole railroad theme. My kid loved it. Unlike a regular park, there were unexpected views of streets and buildings. pebbles and wild grass and the tracks themselves. Restrooms have been provided and there is an elevator on 16th St. There is also a clever deck that seems to hang on top of 10th Av with amphitheater like seating. All in all, very much worth a visit. Was pretty crowded, though, on Sat afternoon.

Sun (Aug 23) was Ganesh Chaturthi - one of the most important events on the Hindu religious calendar. Attendance at most hindu temples in the US can be expected to swell on such a day. Imagine our surprise, then, at finding just about a dozen cars in the parking lot of the hindu temple at Stroudsburg. We got there a little after 10 - at which time the puja had just commenced. The three priests in attendance conducted the proceedings very well and very patiently for over 2-1/2 hours - including the homa. A rather long chimney has been constructed to enable the homa to be conducted indoors without setting off alarms. The main Ganesha idol was bedecked with flowers and other decorative artifacts. After the puja, people adjourned to the neighboring house which has an annex serving as a dining area. The menu was not elaborate but the food was excellent - outstanding sambar, spicy rasam and excellent laddu. All in all, a very pleasant experience and we were happy we went there on this day.