The 3-letter code for the airport in Sioux City, Iowa, is SUX.  Har.  Airport authorities have been fighting for years to get it changed to something that does not suck, but they have recently decided to embrace the name, using flysux.com as their website and printing t-shirts and hats with the name on it.

But really, the best part of this story is that the FAA offered them 5 other choices that the airport turned down.  The best of those 5?  GAY.  Now THAT sux.

A Qantas flight attendant has been suspended after he gave his phone number to a 15 year old boy traveling alone on the airline.  He also asked the teenager if he wanted to chat online.  His mother found out about the exchange and complained to Qantas.

Qantas has had a few sex-related issues with flight attendants recently, including the onboard friskiness involving a flight attendant and Ralph Fiennes and an alleged "sex romp" involving three flight attendants on another flight.  I’m not sure if this will make you more or less likely to fly the airline.

I’m not sure what’s more disturbing, this story or the fact the two separate people sent it to me (thanks, Sanj & IAHPHX):

Maintenance workers with Nepal Airlines sacrificed a goat to the Hindu sky god  (Akash Bhairab) after they struggled with some technical issues with one of their 757s.  Impressively, the plane is now running fine.

This is the second time in the past year or so that a maintenance team has sacrificed an animal for help repairing a plane:  you may remember the story of the Turkish airline workers who sacrificed a camel for similar reasons.

Passengers flying on the Vatican’s new charter flights are being told to leave their holy water at home (basically).  Officials France’s Tarbes-Lourdes Airport told a passenger who was carrying 8 Madonna-shaped bottles filled with holy water that she couldn’t take them on the plane because they were a security threat.  They said this with a straight face.

Fret not, religious pilgrims, because airline officials had the foresight to place small bottles of holy water on the seat of every passenger.  God 1, French Airport Security 0.

A Continental Express flight attendant had a 1 1/2 year old child and his mother removed from a flight from Houston to Oklahoma City because the baby repeatedly said, "bye bye plane" during the flight attendant’s safety speech.  The flight attendant was annoyed that the baby was talking during her spiel, and told the mother, "OK, it’s not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up."  Then suggested to the mother that she give the baby Benadryl to put him to sleep.  After she refused, the flight attendant called security, who escorted her off the plane.

Oh, I should mention that the passenger had just enjoyed an 11 hour delay getting to Houston from Atlanta.

The fun summer of travel continues…

American Idol star (?) Clay Aiken was involved in a dispute with another passenger on a Continental flight to Tulsa over the weekend. Details are sketchy, but he may have put his foot on the armrest of the passenger in front of him, which led to said passenger (a woman) giving him a bit of a shove.  The end.

The NY Times has an interesting story about yet another flight stranding passengers on a plane for 5 hours.  A passenger on the Comair flight from JFK to Detroit was fed up after spending 5 hours on the aircraft, which had no air conditioning.  After being told by the pilot that the long delay meant that they now had to switch crews, the passenger, who owns a company that makes small cameras, marched up to the cockpit and starting interviewing the pilot about what was going on.  After the pilot mentioned that he could call the police to have the passenger removed, he realized that this was his chance to get off the plane.

So, the police came and removed everyone (which is what they wanted in the first place), interviewed the passenger, and released him (as he had done nothing wrong).

If you’ve flown this summer, you’ve noticed that the delay situation is completely out of control (my wife arrived home at 3am after a 6 hour delay in Minneapolis last week, and another friend told me about a 4:30am arrival of his Atlanta – JFK flight this week).  Nothing’s going to change, but pity for all of us who actually have to fly this summer.  Get used to it — it’s not getting better.

A story is making the rounds about a former secret service officer getting into a bit of a tiff with TSA staff at Washington National Airport.  The former officer was flying with her small child and was said to have gotten into a disagreement with security staff over whether she could bring her son’s sippy cup through security.  As the story goes, she was detained after she refused to spill out the water in the cup. 

But the TSA has released a video of the situation showing that the woman dumped the water on the ground in front of TSA staff, which is why she was hauled off.  Moral of the story?  Not a lot of news today, so this is what I’m passing along.

Two drug-sniffing dogs that worked in Thailand’s Chang Mai airport were fired for sexual harassment and urinating on passengers’ luggage.  I know, that sentence doesn’t make any sense.  But apparently it happened.  Passengers were complaining about the dogs’ behavior.  An airport spokesman said of Mok, one of the dogs, "Mok liked to pee on luggage while searching for drugs inside. He also liked to hold on to women’s legs."

The dogs are now working on a farm herding chickens and pigs. 

(thanks to UpgradeTravelBetter):

A Hong Kong based tycoon has purchased his very own Boeing 787 because he was embarrassed after seeing a fellow first class passenger in his underwear.  This embarrassment led to him purchasing six private jets for himself, including the 787.  I’m not sure what to make of this.