American Airlines plays demolition derby with passengers’ wheelchairs, CLEAR is “upgrading” to facial recognition and a Southwest flight attendant rescues mother from screaming baby. All that and more in this week’s Saturday Selection, our weekly round-up of interesting tidbits from around the interwebs (links to each article are embedded in the titles).
Southwest flight attendant becomes screaming baby savior
I have a tremendous amount of admiration (and empathy) for folks who travel with infants and small children. Whether it’s discovering a new place with a toddler or taking a new baby to meet relatives, traveling with kids can be magical…and exhausting. I especially feel for folks that have a baby with the dreaded “won’t stop crying syndrome.” While nobody enjoys the sound of babies crying in a closed space (and some completely melt down), the person who I think usually feels it the most is the parent that’s trying everything they can to calm it, but to no avail. It’s a helpless position to be in. Right before Thanksgiving, there was a woman flying alone with two small children between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City on Southwest Airlines. She was prepared for a short flight, but there were two ground delays that kept everyone stuck in the plane, on the tarmac…and she had a crying baby. After a couple hours, she was at her wits end, when one of the flight attendants offered to help and took the baby for a walk up and down the aisle in an attempt to soothe him…and it worked. She was able to rock the baby to sleep. Her response to the mother was, “any chance a mama can rest her arms, we take it.” I’m regularly struck by examples of everyday compassion in our often depersonalized world. And I love this one.
American Airlines employees use wheelchair for demolition derby
On one hand, there’s a terrific story about how an airline employee beautifully sees a passenger as a human and goes above and beyond to be kind to her. On the other hand, there’s American Airlines. I’ve known many folks over the years who had to use heavy-duty wheelchairs. They’re very expensive and usually belong to people who need to spend a fair amount of time in them every day in order to be mobile. Given that, it was shocking last week to see a video of AA baggage handlers treating wheelchairs like teenagers would a shopping cart in a deserted parking lot, pushing them down the baggage chute in an attempt to get them to hurdle over the barrier. They evidently did this, laughing, to two different wheelchairs before a passersby recorded them repeating it on a third. The CNN article states that, “according to the Paralyzed Veterans of America nonprofit, more than 31 wheelchairs were damaged, delayed or lost each day by airline workers between 2019 and 2022.” I’ve never been a big fan of AA’s customer service, at any level, but this kind of disregard is astounding.
CLEAR “upgrading” to facial recognition
CLEAR is a pre-clearance service that uses iris scans and fingerprints to pair you with your ID, making it one of several methods for getting a fast pass through the purgatory that is airport security. Several credit cards now provide credits for CLEAR membership, allowing folks to join at little to no cost. There are CLEAR skeptics, however. Not everyone is convinced that giving a private company biometric data is a good, or sane, idea. For those folks, CLEAR is about to get a little scarier. Back in June, the company ran afoul of the TSA, following a series of well-publicized security breaches. These ended up being harmless, but were serious enough that the government was threatening to impose ID checks on CLEAR customers…which would defeat the entire purpose of the service to begin with. In response, CLEAR is now moving to something it calls “Next Gen Identity Plus.” Although it sounds like a bunch of random, techy buzz words, it’s actually a system that will use facial recognition instead of iris scans or fingerprints, allowing customers to “not even have to break stride” when going through security. This will make the process faster and, so they tell the TSA, more reliable. I imagine it will do nothing to assuage the doubts of people concerned that the company is just another arm of government/corporate surveillance. Those folks will likely still steer CLEAR.
IRS delays new $600 reporting requirement for payment services…again
Many points and miles people have a special affinity for keeping the sordid details of their odd transactions out of their financial reporting. That’s partially because some activity can look similar to the shenanigans of more unseemly characters and also because there’s a fine, squishy line between “rebates” (that aren’t taxable), and income (that is). So, folks got nervous in 2021, when new reporting requirements on third party payment processors were enacted into law. Instead of having to report payments to the IRS for goods and services (via a 1099-K) that totaled $20,000 AND 200 transactions annually, the new limit would be $600, regardless of the total amount of transactions. This could affect everyone from massive processors like PayPal to small shopping portals like TopCashBack or Swagbucks, provided you received more than $600 from them in a calendar year. It seemed unlikely that all of these small and large companies would be able to accurately distinguish between “rebates” and “goods and services” and likely that there would be a some additional reporting headaches (or worse) with all of these new, small 1099-Ks. You sold your old phone on eBay for $625? Now you have a new item to add into your tax reporting at the end of the year. This new threshold was supposed to take effect for the 2022 tax year, but the IRS announced a last minute stay of execution that delayed implementation until this year. Now, in what might be an annual holiday tradition, the IRS has once again delayed applying the new rules, instead moving into a series of “transitional years” with a $5,000 threshold next year, then moving to $600 in 2025. Doctor of Credit has the details.
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Lately we have gotten the Random???? check ID 100 % of the time with Clear!!!! TSA is not happy with them I guess what a pain
The way that chair flipped and appears folded (hard to see) suggests that is a very lightweight chair designed for someone with a spinal cord injury. These chairs are very expensive and a fight to get through insurance!
Global Entry uses facial recognition. With Real ID soon being mandatory, facial recognition will eventually be part of TSA. And, Clear will not be a thing.
Currently, I find there’s a wait for a Clear escort that is about the same as the wait at TSA Pre-Check. So, where’s the benefit?Where Clear does have an advantage is for those who don’t have TSA Pre-Check.
But, if infrequent travelers are the ones who don’t have TSA Pre-Check, exactly how often would they benefit from Clear? Why pay for a membership for once or twice a year?
The point of Clear is to cut the line, that’s it. At least PreCheck speeds up the actual security check (e.g. shoes on, laptop in) but Clear is the purest security theater – no one seriously thinks the actual id check is insecure and onerous, right? It’s just a way to pay a private company to cut the line at public infrastructure.
There’s an easy way that Clear dies – if TSA simply moves the id checker to the entrance of the queue instead of at the end – after all the queuing is for the security check, not the id check.
The jerks working for American who were damaging people’s wheelchairs for kicks need to be fired. OTOH you’ve apparently had some issues with AA in the past. My bad experiences have mostly been with Delta, to the point where trying to talk my wife into flying Delta is a guaranteed fight. I know other people who avoid United like the plague. I’m just saying that every U.S. airline has offered good and bad experiences and I don’t see any of them as being really virtuous compared to the others.
I am hopeful that a Southwest flight attendant supervisor was able to get the name of the FA that helped the mom you described in your article. What a kind gesture for a tired mom. We have all been there. Thanks for the post.
Also, very disappointed for the lack of regard for the wheelchairs at AA. Instead of firing them I think they should be required to assist and get to know at least one person using one of those wheelchairs that was damaged and pay for the repairs or better a new one. Then, maybe they will develop some compassion for those who need that type of mobile assistance. Thank you for all of your posts. I so enjoy the articles and podcasts. Your site is my go-to for travel deals!
Re wheelchair story:
AA – what more is the to investigate and review? These rampers should have been fired on the spot and sued by AA for the damage they caused. If anyth8gn, AA should investigate if any other items were damaged during their past shifts and sue them for those costs, too.