Is air turbulence a growing problem/Costly volcano ash/Pearson baggage woes

Maybe it's just me. But I keep thinking I've had more turbulence on recent flights than I recall ever before.

On my way to London in April, we were rocking and rolling quite badly and our plane was on a pretty severe angle for a few minutes. I asked a flight attendant and she said it was "intense" and the worst she'd had in 25 years of flying. And that's saying something.

Last week, there was moderate turbulence on a flight from Paris to Toronto, seemingly in the same area around Labrador/eastern Quebec or possibly just over the Atlantic. The landing was quite rough, too, perhaps because of the heat in Toronto.

That's pretty unscientific, but it does seem I've had more turbulence in the air than I remember having. And then I see there was a flight from LAX to London the other day that had severe turbulence, resulting in 10 people suffering injuries, including broken bones. The flight had to be diverted to Montreal after running into bad air over the Atlantic.

It's pretty frightening when it happens, but I don't think it'll keep me from flying. At least not for now...

VOLCANO BILL

Wow. A story came over travelmole.com today to say that an expert economic analysis being delivered in Beijing this week will show the volcano ash from Iceland cost the world economy a whopping $5 billion. The unspoken bit is that that is the estimated damage SO FAR.

As we all know, or should know, volcanoes are fickle things. Another explosion could come today or tomorrow. Or perhaps in 20 years. And when it does, there will be more costs. Ultimately, we, the consumer, will pick up the tab. There's no other way.

ARE WE THERE YET?

USA Today notes that a United Express passenger fell asleep in flight and was then left unnoticed on the plane for more than three hours after it landed in Philadelphia. CBS 3 of Philadelphia reports Ginger McGuire was on United Express Flight 8080 from Washington Dulles, which landed at Philadelphia at 12:27 a.m. ET yesterday morning. CBS 3 writes "the crew and passengers deplaned shortly thereafter. It wasn't until 3:50 a.m. that a cleaning crew found McGuire still sleeping on the plane."

I haven't seen an official explanation, except that someone was maybe, ahem, asleep on the job.

PEARSON BAGGAGE WOES

I was bored at Pearson the other day, waiting for bags to arrive after an Air France flight. It was a good 20-25 minutes on a VERY QUIET day before the bags started rolling in.

Some folks give me a hard time for not letting go of the issue, but I find it disgraceful service. One of my famly members said I was silly to mention the delay on one of my "tweets" on Twitter (username jbyers11), but I noticed later that a very influential person on the political scene here in Toronto saw my tweet and fired off a "give 'em hell, Jim" note in response.

The person in question said they often complain about poor baggage service and that Pearson officials blame Air Canada. But I was on Air France, not Air Canada. So that excuse, to me, doesn't wash. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying to wait for your luggage for so long when so many airports have bags ready within a few minutes of a flight landing.