Tail Livery

Pakistan Airlines tail livery at Allama Iqbal International (Jan 7th, ’10)

There’s rarely anything new to see during a turnaround flight. Usually I forget to look out of the windows – there’s distractions aplenty in the cabin. When we’re outstation there’s even less to see. From the parking bay it all looks much the same (unless you’re in direct sight of the main terminal sign). You could be in any airport or any country really.

Sometimes though, there’s a bit more visual interest, depending on the gate the flight has been assigned to I guess. Yesterday for a Lahore flight we were amongst a half-dozen Pakistan Airlines (PIA) planes, with really pretty tail livery I hadn’t seen before. I remember the basic green-and-white logo, but not this new livery (introduced in 2006).

There are four PIA designs each representing a province of the country – I saw two of these in Lahore, one for the northwest, the other for Punjab region.

The New Rules

The NWA bomb attempt was dominating all the news channels as a breaking news story when I checked in in Chicago, and was still the major headline when I left a day later. Now that I’m home I’m trying to catch up on developments. It seems people are blogging and tweeting like crazy to ridicule the new TSA rules in place, and.. I get it. The restrictions flirt on the side of ridiculous. However, the masses ought to stop with the fun-poking and maybe try and come up with something more effective. Utilize the power of many instead of falling on a (very easy) sarcastic crutch.

A new cabin bulletin email for us included a temporary Emergency Amendment from the TSA effective Sunday, and expiring this Thursday. Another bulletin included the related PAs to be made on US-bound flights, which makes it ok by me to relay a screenshot. It’s all already accessible to the public anyway.. summarized by the typing thousands (I do realize that includes me).

The second I read the points through, all I can imagine is pax as zombies, like people in a theatre with no movie to watch. Elderly ladies shivering because we had to rip away their blankets in case they were hiding an IED under economy fleece. People banned from peeing when maybe they really have to go. Where will the hundreds of pillows and blankets be stowed when the overhead lockers are already full? Are we supposed to disable the map and communication features on the IFE system before at a specific time touchdown (and is it even possible to be that selective).  And here is no poking involved here in the above points – these are straight-faced concerns for me.

The TSA website is down, or at least it isn’t loading for me right now. Everyone wants to see the rules.