I was reminded today that good things come in threes. I heard from two respected and qualified industry friends who had been searching for the “right” position, that they had indeed landed one. Both are very qualified in their areas of expertise, and it pleases me that they were able to find two terrific jobs.

Maureen O’Crowley, formerly of the Korea National Tourism Organization, left her position in the Los Angeles office about six months ago. She has a wealth of tourism information with a concentration on Korea, as she spent many years living in Seoul. Maureen will be returning to Seoul in an exciting position with Seoul Tourism Marketing.

Marcy Schackne was a marketing executive at Travelpro for many years and left her position there about the same time. Marcy has just been appointed as the marketing director of Heys Luggage, an upscale luggage brand targeted toward movers and shakers who travel frequently.

So, I don’t know who will be the third, but it is great to see these travel professionals landing the kind of positions that they were searching for!

-Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO

One of my clients has an office in a hotel in downtown Chicago. I went there Monday for a meeting. I was barely in front of the hotel, when a member of the staff approached me and started griping about tips. He had just helped a guest with her luggage and hailed a cab and the guest apparently gave him too small of a tip. This isn’t the first time he has mentioned tips to me.

I am not here to start the debate about tipping. However, I will state that he “carried” her luggage from the ground to the luggage cart and wheeled it about 10 feet. Then he signaled the (already waiting in line) cab. His minimal effort took about 3 minutes.

Anyway, my issue is that he actually openly complained about tipping. Yes, he recognizes me, but he doesn’t know me really. It’s not like he was sitting in the bar with his friends. If that is the case, complain all you want. Heck, I have some complaints I can toss in there, too. If he complains about tips to me, who else is he telling?

Guests don’t want to hear it. Businesspeople don’t want to hear it. The hotel’s management certainly would not tolerate hearing it.

It presents a bad image for the hotel to have this guy out there whining about tips. Much the same way a receptionist is the first face a person sees when going into an office and therefore should present a good image, so should the doormen.

As a distributor, I deal mostly with the doormen and Concierges. Almost all do a really good job, even the previously-mentioned griper. My distribution team does a great job, but I have never heard of them getting any tips and I better never hear them griping about that. I have drivers who make deliveries to that same hotel. I wonder if he complains that they don’t tip him for his help in pointing to the cart for them to use.

Fortunately, my day ended on a better note, as business took me to a few other hotels and their doormen/Concierge combos were all pleasant and positive. I even heard one trying to refuse a tip. Imagine that!

-John Wroblewski, distribution specialist

American Airlines finally bit the bullet this week and announced that everybody has to pay for baggage, $15 for the first piece of checked luggage. Or at least that’s what you’d think if you read the media headlines.

Actually it’s not everybody. You don’t have to pay if you’re flying international, or if you’re on a business-class or first-class ticket domestically, or even if you’re paying full-fare coach. Or if you’re a premium loyalty program member, or flying with someone who meets any of the above. Or if you’re flying on an awards ticket.

So basically, it’s just that if you are buying a discount economy ticket they’ve unbundled the baggage fees: $15 for the first bag, $25 for the second bag.

I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again, it’s just a matter of spin. Air Canada unbundled baggage fees without such an uproar. American could have raised all its discount economy tickets by $15 and then offered a $15 discount if you don’t bring anything but carry-on.

The airlines just love being able to promote those cheap fares, but nowadays everybody knows that with security charges and taxes and fuel surcharges the prices you see in ads have little relation to reality. Every time I check into an ad–”new summer sale! $398 r/t to Europe” it’s actually about $700 by time you count the extras.

Gas is a lot more expensive. We get it.

–Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer

The way passengers are loaded on an aircraft has always been a mystery to me despite having worked for airlines. For example, United Airlines boards passengers based on the window-seats-first principle. While this is effective and sounds logical it sometimes defies the very chaos it was designed to avoid. During business trips I prefer to be in an aisle seat. I also suffer from mild claustrophobia so if the aircraft is small or prone to be a packed route, I will sometimes opt for an aisle even on a long pleasure trip. Most business travelers prefer the aisle seats for a variety of reasons and this is where the trouble starts.

Passengers are instructed that one bag only may go above in the storage bins and if there is a second bag, it must go under the seat. This is repeated every two to three seconds over the public address system and yet most leisure travelers refuse to pay any attention to it and then claim they didn’t know when you frustratingly try to find space. The people seated in the window seats stuff the overhead bins to capacity so that by the time the aisle seats get on the aircraft there is no room whatsoever. This not only creates more chaos, but takes up valuable time as people jockey for space. The flight attendants do their best to remind people, but are unable to actually stop them from stuffing everything they own in the bins.

Other airlines board passengers based on the back to front system. This seems to be a little more effective with regards to getting people boarded quickly and making sure they do not take all of the space around them. This often works better than the window seat method, but I have been on flights that still end up having the forward bins full when some passengers decide they would rather put all their bags in the front so that they can just grab them on the way out rather than carry them down the length of the plane.

What this all amounts to is a lack of consideration. Have we truly become a society that just does not care about our fellow travelers? There is not much we can do to bring back the “joy” of flying anymore, but at least a little thoughtfulness would go far. Acts of random kindness are always appreciated.

-Morissa Pawl, vice president western region

What is the name for the tag at the end of a zipper? Aha, it’s the “slider” (I was about to write, “Who knows?” when I googled “zipper parts” and found the name for every last bit.) Oh–in reading further, no, the bit you can hold onto is the “pull tab,” the piece to which it attaches is the slider, which pulls together the teeth to form the “chain” which is what you called the zipped-up zipper when the teeth have been meshed together by the slider. Whew.

Anyway–airline baggage equipment seems to eat pull-tabs. Has anyone else noticed that? I have several different sizes of luggage–the kind that looks like a wheelie carry-on, but in various sizes–and not one of them has all its pull-tabs any more.

My latest travel must have impressed my fellow waiters-for-baggage no end, as my suitcase was attractively wrapped with the airline version of duct tape holding the outside pocket together. Fortunately it was just the zipper to the small pocket that had broken, and there had only been a scarf inside, which was actually still there. That’s the second outside pocket that has broken (the whole chain, not the pull tab). My guess is that whoever looks inside doesn’t pull the zipper back all the way to the locked position, it catches on something and that’s all she wrote.

But the pull-tab issue is more prevalent. The zipper is still there, intact; the slider is still there; but the pull tab is gone. I’ve taken to carrying a spare paperclip in my wallet because trying to grab the little loop on the slider to open your suitcase hurts the fingers. Does anybody have a better suggestion? (Yeah, I know, at home I do use a pliers.)

The missing pull tabs don’t seem to relate to the quality of the luggage, either. Yes, I’ve noticed that the ones where the pocket zippers actually break seem to be the less expensive pieces, but the pull tabs have disappeared even from one very expensive piece that I adore (it’s like a carry-on size of those pullman trunks people used to take on cruises, it zips exactly halfway through the middle and when it opens, one side is for hanging garments and then folding them into place).

I wonder if somewhere at my local airport there’s a guy wearing a necklace of pulltabs–sort of like those fishermen of yore who wore necklaces of sharks’ teeth. Anybody have a better idea of how to keep, or replace, lost pull tabs?

–Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer