December 27, 2017

Quote of the Day: Boarding Pass Scanners Are Just “Beedoop Machines”

Yesterday’s big social media event was a series of tweets from supermodel Chrissy Teigen, who was on board an ANA flight to Tokyo when it suddenly turned around and headed back to Los Angeles. The reason, it turned out, was a manifest problem: the plane had two passengers who shouldn’t have been on board. One was supposed to be on a United flight and the other on a different ANA flight.

Quite so, except that this applies to both passengers. If the boarding passes were scanned, they should have immediately flagged the passengers. So what happened?

Also, what seats did they sit in? Did their assigned seats on the other flights just happen to be open on this flight? Did they get into an argument with anyone about whose seat was whose? Shouldn’t that have tipped someone off?

I don’t really care that much about the celebrity tweets, but I am curious about how this happened. Between the scanner, the boarding pass check at the airplane door, and the likelihood of a seat conflict, it sure seems like this shouldn’t be able to happen even once, let alone twice. The explanation, when we eventually get it, should be fascinating.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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