Sunday musings: Travel is new diploma, gourmet in coach, TWA 800

This Sunday we muse about travel as education as we read an essay about the importance of travel for the family of one of America?s top travel writers. We look at new gourmet choices in coach on long-haul flights. And, Bill McGee, a safety and customer service expert takes a stand on the reopening of the TWA 800 investigation.

The passport is the new diploma

Kieth Bellow, Editor of National Geographic Traveler, has released a new book, 100 Places That Can Change Your Child?s Life. based in travel with kids. He has determined that travel creates some of the best education for children and he has followed that lead with his daughter. The book is excellent fodder for thought about how the world around us is ripe for education.

My daughter Mackenzie just turned 7. At her birthday party at the Playseum, she stood in front of a child?s version of a world map ? no country names, just illustrations of objects like whales and palm trees and pandas. I watched, astonished, as she pointed out dozens of places ? Paris, Antarctica, China, Australia. Then it dawned on me: She really knows her geography.

100 Places That Can Change Your Child?s Life ? Book CoverI believe the world is the best classroom we have and that a passport is every bit as important as a diploma. This idea ? and my kids ? inspired me to write 100 Places That Can Change Your Child?s Life, which explores our planet with those values top of mind.

I?ve been blessed with the opportunity to travel and learn firsthand about different cultures all my life ? starting when I left what was then the Belgian Congo, my birthplace, at age four ? and it?s something I wish for every child, including mine.

Economy class goes gourmet

This European customer service turn may be followed by US airlines. Some are already allowing long-haul passengers select meals. Who knows? This may be a fee worth paying, if the food is good.

Airlines across Europe and the U.S. are now offering economy passengers the chance to upgrade their meals, ordering ahead of their flight, and choosing from menus more readily found in cabins at the front of the plane.

?The craze started last year, and since then, every airline has jumped on the bandwagon to have a pre-order program,? notes Nikos Loukas, an airline catering consultant, and founder of inflightfeed.com.

Because the meals are customized, passengers are required to order anywhere from 24 to 48 hours in advance, though that may also change in the future. Austrian Airlines allows passengers leaving from Vienna to order meals one hour prior to departure from a special kiosk at the airport.

What airline whistleblowers have to say about the new theory on Flight 800

Bill McGee has written about airlines and safety as much as anyone in the country. Here is his take on the re-opening of the TWA Flight 800 investigation. Back during the investigation, I knew some of the pilots involved and know that this was a theory that was investigated.

I?ve had members of Congress ignore my interview requests and seen my Freedom of Information Act petitions go unanswered, so I?ve learned that sometimes former insiders are our only hope for getting information. Last week came news of yet another group of whistleblowers, a cadre of six government and non-government experts who served the National Transportation Safety Board when that independent federal agency investigated the explosion of a Boeing 747 off the coast of Long Island in July 1996. They are the protagonists of a new documentary, TWA Flight 800, that will air July 17 on EPIX-TV. After four years of investigation, the NTSB claimed the cause of Flight 800?s explosion was a mechanical defect, but the new documentary, written and directed by journalist Kristina Borjesson, claims the FBI, NTSB and other government agencies may have covered up that the plane was brought down by a missile strike. Participants in the film have called on the NTSB to reopen the case based on altered physical evidence, suppressed data, and unexamined testimony from hundreds of eyewitnesses.

Tagged as: airline meals, children and travel, Education, meals on planes, TWA 800

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