Rapping Flight Attendant Explains Generally Acceptable Accounting Principles to Southwest Shareholders

No. The title is not a mistake. Southwest's upper management people decided that they should bring David Holmes, the famous rapping flight attendant, to the shareholders' meeting in the role of "rhythmic ambassador" to explain actually what "Generally Acceptable Accounting Practices" are. As the CEO explained, "Now GAAP is fun!



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United and Marriott Team Up for Travel Deal

Thanks to the wonderful world of Twitter (you can follow me here or PTG here) and @MarriottIntl (easily one of the best corporate twitter accounts ever), I was able to find out about the following deal, in which United Airlines and Marriott are teaming up to help people save money on traveling. 

Exciting, no? Anyway, the gist of the whole thing is that if you book a select United Flight by April 5, you get 20% select Marriott hotel reservations. Now, obviously, there are catches to the whole deal, but if the travel works out for you, then, well, it can be a great combo. 

Said catches appear to be: "Travel is valid on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday" (meh), "14 day advance purchase is required," "3 night, Friday night or Saturday night minimum stay is required" and travel must be completed by June 17, 2009.

The nice thing is that most of the fares are ridiculously low (you can view them here and purchase as well), with especially cheap flights out of Chicago. I need a late May flight from Charlotte to Dallas, so this doesn't really serve me well (~$300.00 is what I'm staring at) but for someone who just had a business trip to a major city spring up, this is pretty freaking ideal.

Also, this isn't necessarily something brand new, as Marriott and United are already partners, but if you're in either of the mileage/reward clubs, this would work out quite nicely.

Scope the deals here.

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Feel Free to Laugh at Ryanair's Expense

Ryanair is, by at least any symmetric of rough mathematics, the leader in the clubhouse for "Most Unbelievably Ridiculous Behavior by a Corporation," 2009, medium-business section. That's because they first had their employees pose for a swimsuit calendar, then they attacked bloggers, then they debated charging for customers to use the bathroom and now plan on eliminating check-in counters (although that last one might actually be good.) So, from Gizmodo, we present this cartoon:

Good News on US Airways: Pillows; Bad News: They're $7

Pillows and blankets on air travel are absolutely crucial, especially on longer flights. Airplanes know this, which is why they make them so gosh-darn hard to actually get a hold of (you have to be first on the plane, etc.)

But now, you can have all the pillows your head desires with the "Power-Nap Sack". It just costs seven bucks a piece.

Jackson said the sleep kit was an affordable way for passengers to increase their comfort while flying.

The kits include a 34-by-60-inch fleece blanket, a neck pillow, eye shades,foam ear plugs and a $10-off coupon for items in the SkyMall catalog. They come in a fleece drawstring bag embroidered with the airline's logo.

Oh, well, if there's an embroidered fleece drawstring bag, just forget I ever considered saying anything snarky about having to cough up $7 for this beautiful pile of airplane semi-rest.

Again, airplanes obviously make more money than me (no, seriously, even in bad quarters) so I'm not one to tell them how to run their business. But when it already costs $15 to check bags and then another $7 gets tacked on just to sleep in the already brutally uncomfortable airplane, well, I kind of tend to think there's a smarter, more consumer friendly way to handle all of this.