In November 2024, one of my relatives travelled from the United States to Asia and encountered a long delay. The first leg of the flight was delayed by an hour and a half after two changes. This left a layover of a 45 minutes, which is difficult to consider smooth in SFO, the layover airport. Although the traveler initially worried while at SFO, because time was ticking and no deboarding had happened yet, we soon discovered that the second leg— the final leg— of the flight was delayed. First, it was for a mechanical issue. Then, a new crew had…
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TSA PreCheck is wonderful to have at a US airport— unless you cannot actually use it. Whether you can or cannot use it depends on what airline you are flying on. To check whether your outgoing flight is going to let you take advantage of TSA Precheck, see if your airline is on this TSA list: TSA PreCheck® Participating Airlines | Transportation Security Administration. If your airline is not on the list, you will be unable to use the TSA PreCheck line. Why would TSA PreCheck be related to the airline? Because on your ticket, they mark who is eligible…
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For this trip in 2023, I was with family, including my daughter! The daughter part made it more difficult to take pictures freely. The Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE), like many other places in Taiwan, gave us preference because we had a /wah-wah tsuh/, or a baby stroller. In this case, we got to go through a screening line with no one else at all. The person manning the gate seemed excited to have anyone going through his not-really-a-line at all. (My father later explained that all the preference I had received was probably because the birth rate in Taiwan…
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The IASS Superior Lounge NOA in Narita Airport had one bad review complaining about there only being noodles and bread. Since it was close to my gate for leaving Japan, I went in anyway. The food is all Japanese. When I went in October, 2023, in the late morning, the food options were a variety of small pre-meal dishes, soba to cook in the spot, onigiri with soy sauce, mochi with red beans, and an pan bread or cream pan bread. The offerings may look small, but they were frequently checked and replaced. For example, the soba’s cooking water/pot was…
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In 2023, I took a higher latitude route to get to Asia. I usually take direct or a transfer in California, which is around 40 degrees latitude. My route this year took me over Canada and Alaska for roughly 65 degrees latitude. After booking, I read about how one is exposed to more radiation when flying at higher latitudes. In fact, some flight attendants were convinced that they had developed cancer from these routes. I was not entirely thrilled to learn the potential radiation detail but I was not bothered enough to cancel my current ticket and buy a different…