by Reuters AlertNet
www.AlertNet.org

Pakistan’s worst floods in 80 years have killed more than 1,600 people and affected up to 20 million – more than a tenth of the population.

The United Nations estimates at least 8 million people need urgent assistance. The authorities and aid agencies are struggling to help survivors, many of whom have lost everything and say they received no warnings that raging waters were heading their way.

About a third of Pakistan has been affected by the floods, which have marooned hundreds of villages and destroyed power stations, roads and bridges, complicating relief efforts.

More than 4 million are homeless.

Read the rest of the story »

There are stories to tell about Haiti and its people, and I intend to tell them here. But there are also stories to tell of the “travel-expats” who give of their time, energy, and airline miles in order to go to places like Haiti, Pakistan, and DR Congo, just to help strangers who are in desperate need of locally-applied, hands-on help, from those unusual people who have the guts not just to care, but to go.

And so I am going to coin a phrase — “disruptive travel” — and retool my content to include not just airlines and air travel, but also the people, places, events, and information related to disaster relief work around the world. The travel-related emphasis will shift from that which is casual, or business-related, to that which is more difficult and urgent. However, I will continue to include and improve those features (such as the Airlines Social Media Guide) that are of interest to the wider audience. My ultimate goal is to build the best informational resource for getting you to disrupt your normal travel life, step out of your box, and undertake a different kind of travel experience, perhaps one that you haven’t yet tried.

So, over the next month or two, ex-United.com will become DisruptiveTravel.com. Please stick with me, I don’t want to lose even one of you. If you have thoughts or ideas about our evolving site, please leave a comment, or use this form to send me your suggestions.

Although most of the media attention has drifted away from Haiti over the past month, as new quakes have occurred in both Chile and Turkey, the situation in Haiti remains dire even by third world standards:

•  The death toll will top 300,000; 1.3 million people remain homeless and half of these are without shelter of any kind; sanitation and safe water supplies are critical needs everywhere.
•  Haitian children are some of the quake’s most tragic victims: Hundreds of thousands of kids have been killed, injured, orphaned, separated from their families, or left without roofs over their heads or schools to attend.
•  The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season commences in June, and is sure to wreak further havoc upon an already wretched situation.

Airline people are the salt of the earth for being among the first to say “Let’s get on the plane; let’s go; let’s help.” Please, if you have a moment, look at the photos and read the first-person account of a medical first responder.

Which airline is it? Here are some clues:

•  Citing terrorism concerns, a too-controlling flight attendant told Battelle that use of iChat with a laptop camera was a breach of aircraft security.
•  As “proof,” the FA trotted out an un-updated, pre-wifi policy manual declaring prohibitions against two-way air/ground communications by passengers.
•  This airline is SO serious about controlling wi-fi chat aboard its aircraft that it configures routers to block packets from Skype, Google Voice, and other popular services, but apparently didn’t think about Macs and iChat.

Figure it out yet? I thought you would. In the meantime, I’ll let John Battelle tell his own story. Please have a look; it’s a good read.

What to make of this, as a customer service phenomenon? Is it a typical case of 1) onboard bad-attitude, 2) poor service implementation or training, 3) rush to market with an incomplete product, or 4) some combination of all three? Is it really possible that United Airlines sees video chat as a potentially more sinister terrorist tool than say, email or text-messaging from a laptop while in flight?

Honestly, I think that this event is just a foreshadowing of more customer annoyance to come; i.e., yet another “unbundling” of a service that flyers expect to be free. My guess is that United is planning a “two-tier” wi-fi offering in its onboard services. Low-cost wi-fi for basic web browsing and email; premium wi-fi for video chat, and probably other interactive apps as well. (Gaming, anyone?)

I’m sure United didn’t want to be last out of the gates with wi-fi, but turned off telephony while its revenue wizards figure out how to over-control it, meter it, and then charge exorbitantly for its use. That iChat & Macs weren’t blocked was probably just an unintended oversight during roll-out of the service.

Hey, we can’t have those pesky Mac users creating a perception that certain things will be free, can we?

Dave relates an almost unending stream of emails, phone calls, and contacts with United, including a later meeting with no less than three inept VPs of the company, who assured Dave that changes in customer service policy were coming, but then were either unable or unwilling to describe just what those changes were or are. (Typical United: They’ve laid off thousands of customer-facing employees and mechanics, but they’ve got a surplus of well-paid executives available to face off with a lone Canadian guitar player.)

For more entertaining and witty insights into Dave’s ill-fated journey with United, the making of UBG Song 3, and Dave’s humble rise to social media/social responsibility stardom, please take time to read his wonderfully-written blog post accompanying Song 3′s debut.

For now though, just enjoy the message-music, which takes the form of bluegrass this time around. For this final UBG song, Dave enlisted a couple of powerhouse “roots” music performers: Jerry Douglas of Nashville is probably the most accomplished player of the dobro guitar to be found anywhere; Ray Legere is one of Canada’s premier acoustic and bluegrass artists on fiddle, guitar, and mandolin.

(And don’t leave early: The music peaks at the end with a dance-off that includes the sublime Ms. Irlweg, tap-dancing as only a well-trained United customer service rep can!)

Enjoy!