The eruption began at around 10 p.m. local time, following an earthquake at around 9 p.m.
The meteorological office reported that the eruption is visible on webcams and appears to be located close to Hagafell, about 3 kilometers north of the town of Grindavík.
Of note, the Svartsengi geothermal power plant is very close to the eruption and is being run remotely right now.
If you are traveling to Europe in the near future keep an eye on your reservations in case this situation turns out to be like the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull.
You may have noticed things looking a little different around here. Over the past 3-4 weeks I noticed some serious performance issues with my website and could not pinpoint the root cause. I disabled all of my plugins and caching tools to try and get to the bottom of the problem. There seemed to be some rogue process that was making huge calls to the database and was eventually locking it up, causing the site to timeout. Unfortunately none of the fixes I tried worked and instead I opted to do a backup of text and images and essentially delete the website to start from scratch.
So far I think I have gotten things back to an acceptable state but you will probably see some weird things as I play with the theme and try to clean up old content that is not relevant or valuable. Feel free to let me know if you run into something that is causing problems or doesn’t looking right. You can reach me on Twitter or Threads or Mastodon.
In a letter to the US Department of Transportation on Thursday, September 21 Delta informed the agency that they will not be restarting their Tokyo service from Portland. The service, which previously operated to Tokyo-Narita was set to restart on October 23, 2023 but to Tokyo-Haneda. This restart was after attempts by Delta to get more flexibility in their Haneda operations from the DOT; They were asking to operate from different US gateways but were told by the DOT that such changes would not be granted.
Pursuant to Condition No. 3 of DOT Order 2023-2-15 (“Dormancy Order”), Delta hereby notifies the Department that it will not launch Portland (PDX) to Tokyo Haneda (HND) flights by the October 29, 2023 deadline specified in the Dormancy Order and, consequently, returns the daily PDX-HND slot pair allocated to Delta by Order 2019-8-6 to the Department.1 Delta plans to resume all other U.S.-Haneda flying by October 29, 2023, consistent with its prior awards.
Historically, Delta inherited a bunch of routes from Tokyo-Narita as part of their merger with Northwest Airlines in 2009. You can see the extent of their Asia/Oceania presence from Tokyo post-merger in this map. They basically had all of their US routes serving Tokyo itself and onward connections to other places in Asia.
gcmap.com of historic Delta routes out of Tokyo-Narita
As Tokyo-Haneda slot restrictions loosened up all of the major airlines looked to fly into the much more central airport, with the caveat that slots would be limited and intra-Asia or Oceania flying wouldn’t be feasible from Tokyo-Haneda. In 2019 Delta received approval to fly to Tokyo-Haneda from Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Detroit, and Honolulu. This was the beginning of the end of the Portland service in my opinion. There is a decent amount of traffic between Portland and Tokyo but those flights relied on connections at Narita to really justify the 767-300 that Delta was operating. This was even predicted by Delta’s then-chief legal officer Ben Hirst in 2016 who stated:
It’s the loss of the connecting traffic that will kill the [Narita] flights,
Without those connecting flights the justification for some US flights to Tokyo just didn’t make financial sense anymore. Delta announced Portland-Seoul in September of 2021 in the middle of the pandemic. I even wrote about this when the Delta/Korean Air joint venture was announced in 2017. But the 2021 announcement seemed to signal Delta’s plans, they would serve the Asian destinations via connections in Seoul with their partner Korean Air and keep Portland-Tokyo-Haneda for the traffic going directly to Tokyo… Or so we thought.
This most recent letter to the DOT as well as the rumor that Delta will not start Portland-Seoul seems to hint that Delta might not have the planes for the routes they want to fly or that they don’t view the Portland market as strong enough or a mix of both. I tend to think that they don’t value the Portland market enough. Ever since British Airways started their Portland-London flight, Delta has not brought their flight on the same route back into service.
The news of Portland-Tokyo going away is disappointing and while Delta and the Port of Portland can claim that the demand just isn’t there, I think the reality is a bit more complicated. It’s clear that Delta was using the Portland slot as a form of leverage in hopes of getting their flight moved to a different airport.
My hope is that Alaska Airlines and the Port of Portland approach Japan Airlines to work out a deal for a flight, even if it only operates 3-4x/week. The Alaska membership in the Oneworld alliance with Japan Airlines should hold some weight and the port could show that there is still demand. This would serve connecting traffic within Asia as well as give travelers from Asia another connecting option along he west coast (not to mention the tourist traffic between Portland/Tokyo).
Federal authorities have been investigating nearly 5,000 pilots suspected of falsifying their medical records to conceal that they were receiving benefits for mental health disorders and other serious conditions that could make them unfit to fly, documents and interviews show.
The pilots under scrutiny are military veterans who told the Federal Aviation Administration that they are healthy enough to fly, yet failed to report — as required by law — that they were also collecting veterans benefits for disabilities that could bar them from the cockpit.
It is hard to figure out what the stats actually show. Not all of the 5,000 pilots are commercial pilots, they are simply pilots who hold a pilot’s license. It could be as simple as pilots exploiting holes in the Veterans Affairs system to receive benefits when they are not actually eligible. In any case, government bureaucracies are pretty good at matching up paperwork eventually and it seems like that’s exactly what has happened.
In preparing to write this I came across this photo from 2017 of the amenities of a United Global First seat. The whole intention was to write a trip report, give my take on the experience, and create a little traffic on this blog. As you guessed, I never wrote that trip report. I got as far as uploading the photos and then had real work and real life get in the way. But on top of all of that, I don’t know that I am the best person to write trip reports.
I love aviation, flying, and all of the fun amenities that come with the airline experience but I am also someone who loves getting where I am going and being rested and ready to go when I get there. This typically means I may or may not eat the meal on a longhaul flight and usually spend a good chunk of the time sleeping. For example, on a recent British Airways flight in business class from Portland to London and onward to Lisbon I ate part of the dinner and slept right up until our final descent into London. I was only going to be in Europe for 5-6 days and was there for work, so being on the local time and not completely jet-lagged was priority number one.
Even on daytime flights my goal is to adjust to the destination time zone as painlessly as possible and this almost always involves some amount of sleep on the plane. On a recent Denver to Munich flight in business class I slept almost six out of the ten hours. I didn’t even eat the main meal, lunch, right after departure from Munich. Instead I put my seat down and went to bed in the hopes of jumpstarting my return to west coast time.
For me, most trip reports could be broken down into food and sleep and a few questions around those. Did I eat? Was it edible and filling? Did I sleep? Was it restful and comfortable? If the answers to most of those questions is “yes” then the whole trip report could be summarized with “It was fine”.
Most trip reports seem to focus on squeezing the maximum amount of “value” or perks out of a trip where my view of value is whether or not I was able to hit the ground running for work or was I able to return home rested and ready to spend time with family after a long or stressful work trip. I don’t think either view is necessarily wrong but I do believe my experience is very different and also not very compelling to read.
Let’s go back to that trip from 2017. Here is the main course served on that flight. It was fine. Nothing earthshattering or amazing. It was run of the mill airplane food.
Yeah, it was better than economy but definitely wasn’t at restaurant quality. And to be honest, most airplane food is never going to be restaurant quality. Sure you might get a really nice champagne, wine or even caviar but overall most airplane food is just that.
I don’t know, maybe you all want to read about what work travel is really like. Feel free to let me know. In the meantime, there are a numberofbloggers writing really in-depth trip reports. On top of that, there are vloggers creating somegreat tripreports on YouTube.
Let me know what you think, do I write the boring work travel reports?
Contrails are formed when water vapour and fine soot particulates from burning jet fuel freeze into ice crystals. In low air humidity, the crystals just dissipate. In higher humidity, they persist, and end up creating visible vapour trails over large areas of sky.
Adding to this, even if it’s humid, you may only see thin clouds because the upper level winds blow the contrails apart.
Oddly enough, the conspiracy theory likely gets a bit of weight behind because of experiments in the 1950s and 1960s known as the Dorset Biological Warfare Experiments. Similar experiments took place in the United States and in 1977 the US Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research led to the US Army revealing the details of the experiments.
When Uber first entered the ridesharing market I was working in New York City and my coworkers used a rather expensive car service that we would call a day before our trip and arrange an airport dropoff. The rates to and from the airport were flat so regardless of traffic we paid a single fare and could tip if we so desired. The cars were nice and the drivers were friendly. Uber showed up at a time when different coworkers were having to go to different parts of the city and it was not longer possible to always ride together. We could arrange a car shortly before needing to leave and would usually end up in a black town car, just as if we were utilizing the black car service directly.
Over the years Lyft came on the scene and I preferred them mostly because they were a little more affordable when compared with Uber and I could schedule a pick-up in advance. There were some cases where Uber was the only option, particularly in parts of Europe, and I would use them when needed. Around 2018-2019 airports started having to change their pick-up policies because they were inundated with ridesharing cars clogging up the normal lines. A lot of airports moved pick-up areas to parking garages and in 2019, LAX launched LAX-it, where travelers needing a rideshare or a cab would take a shuttle to an offsite location to get their ride. All of this was done to try and reduce traffic around terminals but it had the knock-on effect of making rideshare pick up from airports less convenient.
During my last five or six trips to and from the airport here in Portland I have noticed that Lyft has been less reliable, more delayed, and more expensive. I’ve had a couple of instances where I scheduled a pick up from my house at a certain time only to have the driver changed multiple times by the Lyft algorithm and eventually show up 15 minutes late. When getting picked up from PDX I can request a ride while getting off the plane, walk to the pick-up area, and still wait 10-15 minutes for my ride to show up. Sure it’s a still a bit cheaper than Uber and probably $10 cheaper than a cab, but those 10-15 minute delays add up and after a long flight, I just want to get home. Sometimes even the cheapest Lyft is ridiculously priced. A recent trip from the San Diego airport to my hotel was $54 for a 4-mile ride in light traffic.
I don’t know if the PDX pick up issues are due to a lack of drivers or if it’s because of the newish configuration of the return to airport lane. For the latter drivers now have to make a long loop to get back to the airport and it involves waiting at a light. For the former, all I have is anecdotal evidence but it does feel like there are fewer drivers at the airport. Top this off with travel being back near 2019 levels and ridesharing just isn’t what it used to be.
So, where I can, I am giving up ridesharing. When going to PDX or returning home from PDX I am going to arrange for a car service. Supporting a local business that pays their employees like employees and picks me up on-time is more important than saving a couple of bucks. Remotely I will try to take cabs as much as I can but I know that there will be times when a Lyft or Uber makes more sense. What about you, have your experiences with ridesharing services been as bad as mine? Are you wanting to switch to something else? Why or why not?
No, it isn’t just you, the way movies are scored and mixed has changed and this video from Vox breaks down how and why. Due to an ear infection I wrote about a while back, hearing in my left ear has not been 100% so I definitely noticed hushed movies where the dialog is hard to hear and follow.
My Rimowa suitcase, basically an older version of the Essential Cabin model, experienced a bit of an issue during my return from London and the seam around part of the zipper gave out. I have taken it to a repair shop but they seemed pessimistic about being able to fully repair the break. The Rimowa had a good 11-year run. As such, I have started the search for a replacement.
I tend to prefer the clamshell style suitcases where when opened, there are two sides where items can be stored and not just a lid opening into a single storage area. My preference comes from having the ability to separate my clothes out so if I have a long connection somewhere (like Singapore on a recent San Francisco-Singapore-Bangalore trip) I can have items readily available rather than digging through the entire suitcase. I do like Rimowa and with their recent change to include a lifetime guarantee for all suitcases purchased after July 25, 2022, they are an even more compelling option. However, I am open to suggestions; So here’s a quick list of things I am looking for:
Four-wheel spinner. It’s nice to have a suitcase I can walk beside or manipulate in tight spaces.
Nice wheels. High quality wheels that are smooth and don’t need to be replaced often.
Clamshell design, for reasons stated earlier.
Quality. I know there are cheap suitcases out there, but I’d rather have one for a long time.
I lean toward hard-sided suitcases, but I’m open to soft-sided as well.
So, what recommendations do you have? Anything I should definitely avoid?
