Let me know if you try this on a flight because I don’t think I could last long.
A canceled or delayed flight is the worst: Before I leave for the airport, I look up my trip on FlightAware. If your plane is stuck in another city, you’ll see it there before your airline updates its app.
Scammers take to the skies
When you rant about that awful layover on social media, you’re painting a target on your back. Scammers are lurking, ready to cash in on your bad flight experience.
Give yourself extra time before your next flight: After attacks on Hezbollah, aviation authorities in Lebanon banned travelers from boarding planes or checking luggage with pagers and walkie-talkies. Expect the TSA to increase their screening for explosives (paywall link).
20x more
Calories burned walking up a flight of stairs than on flat ground. Even going downstairs is more effective — five times the burn of a regular walk. Related: Today, I learned there’s such a thing as the Stairclimbing World Championships. I think they’re up to something.
Laptop fire on AA flight
Whoever said to throw the laptop out, instead of squeezing everyone else out, is a genius.
The nerve: After boarding the plane for a flight to Miami, there was a mechanical issue, so passengers left the plane to stretch their legs. When one guy returned, someone told him a blonde woman stopped at his seat, unplugged his charger and put it in her bag. He confronted her, camera in hand. Here’s the vid.
✈️ Hundreds of flights a day are under attack: GPS spoofing is an electronic warfare tactic that sends fake signals to disrupt aircraft navigation. Pilots get false warnings (like “pull up”), clocks reset and flight paths go off course. The scariest part is we won’t see an equipment upgrade or fix until next year, at the earliest (paywall link). Scary.
Am I the a-hole? A Redditor wants to know after not taking away their 3-year-old’s iPad on a flight. A nearby family with a kid the same age asked if the Redditor would put away their child’s iPad since they weren’t allowing iPads on vacation. The Redditor said no, and the other kid cried for the rest of the flight. Cue the dirty looks. I’m with the OP (original poster): Parent your own kid. Reply and let me know what you think!
✈️ This is your hacker speaking: There’s an app small airlines use to upload flight crew to precleared TSA lists. Cybersecurity researchers found they could edit photos and names in the app, meaning fake pilots could bypass security checks. Yikes. The TSA says 300 people have evaded airport security since March 2023.
1,000 pieces of content
Available on each Delta flight. That includes 300 movies. A six-person team swaps 20% to 25% of the lineup every 30 days so frequent fliers don’t get bored. Honestly, I don’t think airplane jokes are funny; they’re just really Boeing.
36 flights canceled
Because of some missing scissors. An airport in Japan completely shut down for two hours after a pair of scissors went missing. Authorities had to make sure they weren’t headed for a flight. In the end, the scissors were found … in the shop where they were left originally.
✈️ Cheap flight cheat code: Go to Google Flights, select your departure location for a round-trip flight, then choose Anywhere as your destination. Leave the dates blank, and watch a map populate with the cheapest round-trip tickets available. From Phoenix, I could vacay in Cancún for $229, Seattle for $38 and Bora Bora for $1,341. I know what you’re thinking: “Kim, I’ve always wanted to go Bora Bora, but I’m poor’a-poor’a!”
NYC to London in 1.5 hours: NASA’s officially working on commercial aircraft with speeds between Mach 2 and Mach 4, or from 1,535 to 3,045 miles per hour — twice the F/A-18’s Mach 1.8. That’s so fast your in-flight peanuts will catch up with you at the baggage claim.
Lowest flight price, guaranteed: When you buy a qualifying ticket, Google Flights monitors the ticket price. If it drops before takeoff, you’ll get the difference. At flights.google.com, select a flight with a rainbow shield icon next to it. Click Book on Google and check the box next to Price Guarantee to accept the terms of service.
561-mile flight
For the world’s first hydrogen-powered flying taxi. Its only emissions? Water vapor. It can fly from Nashville to New Orleans on a single tank of hydrogen gas with zero carbon footprint. Here it is in action. Super cool.
⌛ Quick travel booking tip: Based on average round-trip flight ticket prices, you can save up to 15% when you book on a Sunday. The cheapest day of the week to travel is Wednesday.
3 days in flight
For the ULTRA Air Force drone. Short for Unmanned Long-endurance Tactical Reconnaissance Aircraft, the ULTRA has an 80-foot wingspan, can carry hundreds of pounds and fly twice as long as similar military drones. The Air Force will spend $35 million in 2025 to build four more. The age of drone surveillance is just beginning.
When social media can't lie
When Donald Trump was shot, a photo captured the bullet mid-flight. It’s now a rare instance of a picture shared on social media — before anyone could fake it.