Travel Tracks ~ *What A Week* by Dave Heron

Let's start with American Airlines filing for bankruptcy protection and see where we go from there shall we?
Parent company AMR, deciding that the time was right to follow the good old US of A trend of seeking refuge from that nasty old practice of paying bills, filed last week for protection from creditors.
Forget for a moment shall we that American Airlines was sitting with a tad over four billion dollars in cash reserves on the day they filed.
"That doesn't count," industry experts touted -"that's for a rainy day."
Okay - we'll ignore the fact it's pouring out there.
The reason for filing said a spokesman at American was, and we'll simplify the doublespeak of the press release, "American was disadvantaged by the fact that our competitors had previously all filed for protection from creditors and we hadn't therefore paying our bills was not in the best interests of our shareholders."
So there we have it.
In order to allow the day traders to continue to reap enormous profits with minimal risk, American Airlines decides to shaft their creditors, their employees and eventually their passengers.
This from an airline whose slogan was "Something Special In The Air".
It was special all right.
Try a purchase order dated July 20, 2011 for 460 brand new aircraft worth - are ya sitting down here kids - 40 Billion Dollars.
Forty Billion.
And four months later they are claiming financial refugee status because they can't pay the bills?
Try that one folks in January with the old credit card company and let me know how it pans out will ya?
On the Canadian front comes a tale of two clowns formerly gainfully employed by Blackberry maker Research in Motion.
As if Research In Motion didn't have enough problems to deal with.
As the story goes, this pair of boneheads boarded an Air Canada Toronto to Beijing flight, and after substantial amounts of ethyl alcohol were tossed down the old gullet, a disagreement of sorts broke out.
Things escalated a bit and the two got into a fistfight and as it began to take on the appearance of an NHL semi-final, the two were wrestled to the ground by passengers and crew alike and handcuffed to the seats.
The flight was then diverted to Vancouver where upon landing, the RCMP escorted these two rocket scientists to the nearest magistrate where a guilty plea was entered and a $72,000 fine levied.
There's of course a rumor circulating that shortly after boarding the flight, these two birds began discussing their Christmas bonuses after consuming copious amounts of Canadian Club.
"I got 40,000 shares of RIM stock", declared the one fellow.
Not to be outdone, the other casually mentioned he'd received only 25,000 shares of RIM stock, but, and wait for it here .................. an added bonus of 50,000 shares of American Airlines stock.
Testosterone, alcohol and stupidity are never a good mix especially at 40,000 ft.
Nonetheless, while filling out their EI applications, they'll eventually come to the realization that the booze consumed on board was probably worth more than their combined stock bonuses.
Which of course they could have done before things hit the fan on board had they logged on to their I-Phone to check it out - after all - there's probably an APP for that.
I can hardly wait for next week.
Maybe something as farfetched as a cabinet minister hijacking a Canadian Forces helicopter will hit the airwaves.

Adios until next time
Dave Heron

Dave Heron is the owner and operator of: Pace Setter Travel & Tours (1995) Inc; P.O. Box 612, 70 McRae Street, Okotoks.
Tel: 403.938.5454
Toll Free: 1.800.206.7223.
Fax: 403.938.5568
Email: pacesetter@nucleus.com