The podcast is back, and Geoff is flying solo for the first time in 6 years. Thanks Vinod for everything you brought to the podcast. Geoff takes a look back at his 2024 round-the-world trip and other Canadian aviation experiences. Geoff checked the Island Hopper off his bucket list, travelling from Honolulu to Guam via the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. He forced a long layover in Honolulu to allow a visit to the city before heading out on the Island Hopper. The Island Hopper planes are old wi...
Feb 01, 2025•56 min
In this experience we review some recent travel along with a overview of our summer travel plans. Severe turbulence has been in the news recently in various locations around the world. Turbulence is always there and always has been there and always will be there. Remember the words that Vinod would tell passengers concerned about turbulence "The people flying the plane have families they need to get home to tonight." If you are concerned about the wings during turbulence, there are numerous wing...
Jun 27, 2024•46 min•Ep. 81
In this experience we are happy to bring you a special interview with senior leadership advisor Marco Villa. Over three decades Marco has flown more than 2800 flights and 6125000 miles. Geoff and Marco flew together in 2022 on internal flights in Mozambique complete with a crazy trip to Nampula (listen to experience 64 for more details). We ask Marco about his alliances and statuses. With all of these flights, Marco has almost achieved lifetime gold status on British Airways. He holds status in ...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 80
We’re happy to be back after a few months of hiatus. In this experience we examine pets and other furry fliers, and Vinod shares a couple of trip reports. We have talked about animals as cargo in previous experiences. Airlines should know that there is an animal in the plane. Vinod remembers a dog that escaped out of the plane in Edmonton and went missing for weeks. Geoff remembers a poor dog that made a mess of itself in the kennel. Vinod remembers a massive dog that took up a row of seats with...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 79
In this experience we look into the reasons why airports may get much busier than normal. We start out the podcast with a trip review of Vinod who recently flew to London-Heathrow. It was his virgin flight on an Airbus 350. There was no free seat selection with the ticket that he purchased. When Vinod flew out of Vancouver the British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Plaza Premium lounges were all under renovation. This led to an interesting temporary lounge in Vancouver’s International departures. T...
Dec 19, 2023•41 min•Ep. 78
In this experience we look into the world of customer service and examples when the experience goes sideways. We review the situation of the passengers who were flying from Paris to Singapore with a farting and drooling dog in premium economy. Singapore airlines finally got the issue resolved and credited them for their experience. In days gone by, your travel agent would have been your point of contact. Now you’re mostly on your own. Over the last four years, airlines lost many individuals who ...
Nov 04, 2023•49 min•Ep. 77
In this experience we take a trip into the show’s archives and review tickets and booking. We start out with a review from Vinod about his flight in the summer with Porter from Toronto to Vancouver. As people are looking for good fare prices, this is a good lead-in to a discussion about ticketing. We talked about ticketing in our very early experiences and are revisiting it in this experience. The moment that you purchase the right to travel on an aircraft, you get a Passenger Name Record. Every...
Oct 10, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 76
In this experience Vinod and Geoff are both in Toronto, recording in person and celebrate the milestone of 75 episodes. We proceed to do an analysis of travels in July 2023. Geoff had a trans-Atlantic adventure, with flights to Germany, Austria, and Turkey. Geoff's trip was from Toronto to Frankfurt with a premium economy ticket that had been booked early in the year but wanted to try for an upgrade. ExpertFlyer helped to figure out the load factor and Geoff tried the Air Canada bid upgrade syst...
Aug 29, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 75
In this experience we take a look at our summer 2023 travel plans, and also look at trips we took in June. It’s a very different summer than that of 2022. We’re getting closer to how things were pre-pandemic with higher amounts of staffing, however now we have to really search again for cheap fares. Vinod and Geoff had travels in June in Canada. Geoff flew to Yukon and did a large road trip from there also through Alaska. Geoff flew with Air North which had a terrific Connector Fare deal to Whit...
Jul 20, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 74
In this experience we take a deeper look at the world of airport hotels. Sometimes hotels can be the best thing but can also be the most horrible desolate places on the planet. We’ve discussed many different types of hotels in previous experiences, from the incredible to the incredibly terrible. Big airports have the big global hotel brands. But there is another tier of just a place to sleep. There are some very neat hotels that are attached to airports – Geoff remembers his visit to the TWA hot...
Jul 05, 2023•46 min•Ep. 72
In this experience we discuss the fact that this summer many people will be flying but the prices for direct connections are often fairly expensive. Often multiple connections are a way people find to save costs. These multi-stops remind Vinod when planes had to stop due to the lack of range. But unlike times in the past today you can see all the travel details related to your trip. As people change their ticket purchasing habits, it can mean a change in the way that they layover. Iceland was on...
May 25, 2023•38 min•Ep. 72
In this experience we look at the realities of flying with seniors. Vinod and Geoff realize that soon enough they will be in this demographic. As populations age, airlines will have older populations on flights and the challenges that go with it. Since some of today’s seniors lived through the golden age of flying with certain levels of service, there is generational gap. Often elderly parents are put on flights around the world - which Vinod saw in his role as a station manager. The system is n...
Apr 07, 2023•51 min•Ep. 71
In this experience we look back at our travel experiences over the December 2022 holiday season. We got where we were meant to go, and fortunately did not incur any of the long delays that many other travellers encountered. December 2022 saw serious weather systems in North America. That was combined with large volumes; technology, crewing, and baggage issues. People thought that the labour issues from the summer of 2022 had resolved themselves, but they were still ongoing. First, Vinod planned ...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 70
In this experience we discuss that infamous club a mile high. We look back to the golden age of travel with beautiful flight attendants and pilots and exotic locations. Now add that to four- and five-star hotels, and crews from around the world it can lead to romance and attraction. Don’t screw the crew...well at least not yours. The captain and crew manager would keep an eye on their crew during layovers, otherwise there was the risk of people making bad decisions. Cancun was a location where c...
Feb 07, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 69
In this experience we are happy to share an interview with a fan of the show, Stephanie, about her experience with a flight from Vancouver to Montreal to Lisbon. This took place during the summer 2022 travel chaos. Stephanie was travelling to Lisbon, mixing business and pleasure. When her and her mother arrived in Lisbon, their bags had not made the connection in Montreal and did not reach Lisbon. They took the time to create the tracking file and met up with others whose bags were missing. She ...
Dec 24, 2022•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 68
Vinod and Geoff have taken some long flights in 2022 and have taken various items onboard. Our take-on items have evolved over the years. As we recorded this experience the 2022 holiday season is approaching, and we wanted to share our inflight recommendations for yourself - or perhaps as a gift idea for someone. Full disclosure - these are our own recommendations, and we are not receiving any sponsorship from any of the products mentioned. We start with headphones, earphones, headsets, and earb...
Nov 24, 2022•59 min•Ep. 67
As we continue on from Experience 065, the wayfinding and signage often leads us to the curbside. Vinod and Geoff think back to their childhoods and how much the curbside has changed. Even with all the changes, people can still get all twisted around at the curb in their own backyard. Geoff shares an experience from Regina, Saskatchewan of a wrong-way driver. There are various options that one can encounter when you get to the curb after your flight. The curbside experience can be impacted by so...
Oct 28, 2022•54 min•Ep. 66
As seen in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2022, many travellers have returned to travelling. However, quite often passengers check in their brains and don't bring their brain into the airport. This is why wayfinding and signage is so important. Sometimes there is common signage across a country - the black and yellow UK signage, for example. Sometimes signage is difficult to read – Vinod shares an experience from a number of years ago in Salt Lake City. Often signs are unilingual, and often s...
Oct 03, 2022•56 min•Ep. 65
Vinod and Geoff have returned from their summer adventures, and their meetup in London Heathrow for Experience 063. After all of the concern we had for meeting up at Heathrow, it ended up being very anticlimactic. Vinod shares some interesting insights into how providing certain destination information could affect a London cab driver’s ability to take airport fares later in the day. Geoff and Vinod rave about the terrific new Elizabeth Line in London. Geoff’s flight from Toronto was quite late ...
Aug 29, 2022•49 min•Ep. 64
Vinod and Geoff met up and recorded this special experience live from London Heathrow Terminal 2. Heathrow on a Friday afternoon was much calmer than Vinod and Geoff had expected. Vinod has never been through immigration at Heathrow faster, and Geoff was quickly through the e-gates. Vinod’s bags were delivered quickly. Geoff’s took a bit longer but still fairly quickly. Geoff and Vinod were meeting up with our guest interviewee from Experience 038 - Paul Papadimitriou. It is great to be back tra...
Aug 15, 2022•5 min•Ep. 63
Vinod and Geoff are jumping into the travel chaos this summer – and are getting ready for the backlogs and delays that could ensue. Outside of the airport and airline backlogs, there are backlogs with passport offices around the world. Vinod had to get a new first passport for his child in Vancouver, Canada. He discusses his hellish journey through the backlogs, the processing that didn’t happen, the phone wait times, the overnight queues to get passports processed, the backup plans to drive to ...
Aug 12, 2022•52 min•Ep. 62
In this experience we are happy to bring you an interview with a wonderful guest Dee Leon. Dee met Vinod while working at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. When he told Vinod that he had sold Airbus in China, Vinod knew an interview was a Seat 1A priority. Dee worked for Airbus in the 1990s as the aviation market in China was just waiting to evolve with exponential growth in the local market. It was not an easy start for Dee as Boeing had a very strong presence in the Chinese market. This had st...
Jul 11, 2022•54 min•Ep. 61
As the Northern Hemisphere arrives at summer 2022, many travellers are getting things figured out. Travel is back – but it’s a madhouse. People have had long delays and wait times to rebook their plans. From 2020 to 2022 it has been a toss up of who or what is providing support to customers. Take all of these issues and multiply them "world-fold". There are many customer service issues that will arise. We ask, "What do you do to plan for customer care"? Why is there a long hold? In many cases th...
Jun 19, 2022•45 min•Ep. 60
In this experience Vinod shares his experience of flying to and from Beijing in the first quarter of 2022. Due to Chinese regulations he was required to be in a closed loop separate from the general public. That included flights. In pre-pandemic times there are many flights between Vancouver, Canada, and various cities in China. Currently there are none. So...how do you get a Canadian (and others working with Vinod) into China? Due to complexity of the situation, Vinod only got his booking confi...
Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 59
In this experience we look into what happens during inflight checks. We hear those announcements "the crew are doing their checks." What does this mean? And what about "arm doors and cross check"? Before passengers are even allowed to board the flight a crew has to do preflight checks - the previous crew has left the plane and has not checked items when they left. The minimum equipment list has to be met. One thing the staff is checking is safety equipment - like batteries, fire extinguishers an...
Mar 12, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 58
In this experience we look at airline and airport staff security. What do they go through to keep you safe? When you walk around an airport, you see all sorts of different coloured passes. What do they mean? Generally, getting an airport security pass is not a small thing. There are high levels of security checks that are done before as pass is issued. There are different levels of security pass that are also issued, and biometric data is recorded when issuing these passes. A passenger could exp...
Feb 13, 2022•49 min•Ep. 57
In this experience we look at in-flight entertainment (IFE). What is its history, how has it evolved, and we share our experiences. People board a flight with the intent of being entertained while in flight. Vinod remembers back to his youth and seeing the projector as he boarded the plane – he knew there probably was a movie on a long flight. Geoff remembers watching in-flight edited movies as a kid. As they grew older, they would both look in the in-flight magazine to see what was playing. Air...
Jan 28, 2022•54 min•Ep. 56
In this experience we look at the world of Duty Free. What exactly is duty free, and what is it not? As we picture a classic duty free shop, there's a reason why so many of them look so similar – there are a small number of operators handling most of the duty free business. Vinod remembers his childhood and the mystique of the cart rolling down the aisle of a widebody plane. In many airports, duty free is an experience that comes immediately after clearing security. Some airports save the duty f...
Dec 11, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 55
In this experience we look at the history of smoking on flights. Geoff and Vinod remember smoking on flights, the ashtrays in the seats, and the turning off of the no smoking sign. A question that Vinod was (and still is) asked is, "Are the smoke detectors in the lavatory real?" Absolutely. The purpose is all about putting out the live flame. But if smoking is not allowed on flights, why are there still ashtrays in lavatories? While Vinod never caught anyone in the act of smoking on the flight, ...
Nov 19, 2021•49 min•Ep. 54
In this experience we look at the world of official protocols and flights. With elections and world leader gatherings, there are official protocols for flights. Different governments have their own aircraft. The most famous of the aircraft is Air Force One. Other governments have official aircraft as well – often not looking too different than planes in their air force. Other countries use existing airline's aircraft. Some countries spend a lot on aircraft, and then can't keep up the payments. A...
Nov 02, 2021•43 min•Ep. 53
