In these days of $4 a gallon gasoline and sky high jet fuel costs airlines are always looking for ways to save on fuel. According to USA Today, some of the methods are familiar ones to many drivers.

Drivers have long known that slowing down on the highway means getting more miles to the gallon. Now airlines are trying it, too — adding a few minutes to flights to save millions on fuel.
Southwest Airlines started flying slower about two months ago, and projects it will save $42 million in fuel this year by extending each flight by one to three minutes.

On one Northwest Airlines flight from Paris to Minneapolis earlier this week alone, flying slower saved 162 gallons of fuel, saving the airline $535. It added eight minutes to the flight, extending it to eight hours, 58 minutes.

That meant flying at an average speed of 532 mph, down from the usual 542 mph.

MSN had a great article from the stranger side of travel called 10 wacky complaints about air travel. You might be surprised what people complain about. My favorite complaint was this one:

Early bird. Complaints about late arrivals are so common that I recite the canned response by rote: “I am sorry for your inconvenience. Please check with the gate agent or customer service representative for connection information But only twice have I had a passenger complain that the flight was arriving too early. What to say? Perhaps, I am sure we will do better to delay you next time”?

There is a new player in the hotel review space which is TVTrip.com. TVTrip hosts video reviews of hotels. At this time they have “115 destinations, 5530 hotels, 494008 reviews, 4937 videos”. That is a very small percentage of the world’s hotels but the value of actually being able to see the hotel (if they have a review for it) seems of greater value to me than a textual review.