Click on the photo to enlarge it, then tell me — is this not the best airplane paint job ever? It’s brought to you by Kulula, South Africa’s low-cost airline. (Thanks to Chris Rawlinson!)

Some headlines that caught my eye this morning:

IATA: Airline industry will take at least 3 years to recover

Canada eases carry-on restrictions

Air France may give obese passengers a break

And last, but certainly not least: London’s newest tourist attraction - ABBAWORLD

Royal Caribbean is taking a lot of heat over its decision to continue to bring passengers to its private beach at Labadee, about 100 miles up the coast from earthquake-shattered Port-au-Prince. Never mind that it donated a million bucks to the relief efforts, and is bringing in aide and supplies along with passengers — to most, it may look like, as David Letterman, said, something only “idiot cruise ships” would do. But it’s not so simple to deride the decision if you look beyond the first gut reaction.

I think that Royal Caribbean is doing the best it can under horrible circumstances; it’s just that we’re all really uncomfortable about it. Personally, there’s no way I could sip a rum drink knowing about the devastation just down the coast — just as I couldn’t go enjoy being in New York for a long time after 9/11 or New Orleans while the worst of the post-Katrina nightmare was still going on. Being in close proximity to so much suffering precludes good times for most of us, even as the local NY and NOLA CVBs begged us to bring our tourist and meetings dollars to the area so business as somewhat usual can resume and people can have some sense of normalcy again (and a cash-flow source, of course). Haiti, of course, is not a major meetings or tourism destination in the same way New Orleans or New York are, but there are some parallels to be drawn.

Then there was this quote in a Miami Herald story a poster on the Miforum listserv pointed out:

Arthur Applbaum, a Harvard University professor of ethics and public policy, said that while it shows “moral sensitivity to be disturbed by the thought that one is vacationing on the beach when others are suffering nearby … it also shows insufficient moral reflection to think that proximity makes a moral difference.

“The people of Haiti are suffering whether you take your beach vacation in the Dominican Republic or in Hawaii,” he said, “and it is a failure of the moral imagination not to be equally troubled in Waikiki.”

I have a failure of moral imagination then, because to me, there is a difference — even if I can’t articulate what exactly it is. I still think RCCL is doing the best thing it can in a terrible situation: bringing continuity to the people who depend on its passengers for their livelihood, along with aide and funds. I just would not be able to stomach being one of the passengers, not now. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.

For a first-person account of what being a passenger on a recent stop in Labadee was like, check out this post: Cruise with a Purpose. Granted, coming from an executive with cruising company Seasite.com may give it a bit of a positive spin, but I have a feeling she speaks for how most of the passengers probably felt about the experience.

The best session I went to at PCMA yesterday was by far the Masters Series session featuring Gerard Arpey of American Airlines and Gary Kelly of Southwest. Moderated by Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, it started off a little slow with some kind of “duh” questions about their feelings on the past 18 months of skyrocketing fuel costs, a spiraling economy, etc. I mean, it’s been bad for all of us, including the airlines. Not surprisingly, both think we’re doing the best we can to combat terrorism, and appear to be in favor of full-body scanners and the use of technology to find terrorists at the terminal (they didn’t go into other aspects of anti-terrorism efforts or security issues that reach beyond the airport per se).

But it picked up and got really interesting once they started talking about how to handle future rises (more fees?), the airlines’ carbon footprint and what they can/can’t do to reduce it, the airline industry’s need for a new air traffic control system and their outrage the the economic stimulous package included “not one dollar” to update this antiquated system developed in the 1950s and still dependent on that era’s technology.

Kelly said there were three things that would make airlines greener:
1. Updating air traffic control. “It would be nice to be able to fly from point A to point B as the crow flies, not as it was routed in the 1950s,” he said. The technology to do it is already available; it just needs to put assembled, he added, saying it could be done in a matter of months, not years.
2. Developing commercially viable alternative fuels.
3. Developing and deploying more fuel-efficient airline technologies.

Both airlines execs said they were already working on #3, such as employing “winglets” (I think that’s what they said — I don’t know a lot about planes) that help reduce drag, and replacing old carpets and seat coverings with lighter weight versions.

And the proposed cap-and-trade idea? Don’t get them started. A key quote from Kelly: “The thing that is galling to me about cap-and-trade is that it’s the government that’s keeping us from being more fuel-efficient [by not providing funds to update the antiquated ATC system], then taxing us for it.”

Arpey was in complete agreement: “As an industry, we are mortified that one of the most crucial infrastructures was ignored in the bailout bill, despite all the headlines about delays that are mostly driven by the 50-year-old air traffic control system.” He got applause when, explaining the need to replace the current radar-based system with one based on GPS, “You can put a GPS device on your children and know exactly where they are at all times, but we can’t do the same so we know where our planes are.”

Going back to the cap-and-trade idea, Kelly added that it was even more galling because the money raised through cap-and-trade on the airlines wouldn’t go to updating ATC or anything to do with the airlines, but go to reducing the federal deficit in general. He said the tax and fees burden already amounts to close to 40 percent of the ticket price. And focusing on the airlines’ carbon footprints is a bit out of whack with reality anyway, since planes are only responsible for 2 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted annually, while cars make up an infinitely larger percentage. And even cows that emit methane gas, one of the execs said, perhaps in a hat tip to being in Texas. “Maybe we need a steak tax.”

Anyway, it was a really lively, interesting exchange. Definite educational highlight of the day.

Have to run. I’ll try to at least catch up on yesterday’s doings sometime this morning. I’m bummed that I can’t seem to get wifi anywhere in the convention center, even at the Starbucks hot spot. The lines at the cyber cafe are so long that I feel I shouldn’t do more than make sure the house hasn’t burned down on a quick e-mail check. I’ll try again to get connected today, but if that doesn’t work, I’m going to give up and stop lugging the netbook around.

Andy Borowitz often cracks me up, but this one was just too good not to share: Full Body Scans to Double as Annual Checkups
Solution to Airport Security, Health Care Woes. I particularly liked this part: “The President added that instituting the body scan/checkup could ward off some terrorists right from the start, ‘because a lot of them will balk at the $25 co-pay.’”

Interesting idea, using a drug approved for narcolepsy and sleep apnea for jet lag. I’ve been doing much better with jet lag recently, and I’m not sure why. But I do know it has a lot more to do with coffee than Nuvigil.

Terrorist’s attempted bombing means more traveler hassles. You know, the idea of full-body scanners used to creep me out, but now not so much. Anyway, here’s hoping that any new travel hassles aren’t enough to keep people from getting on a plane to go to your meetings.

Am I a bad person because my first thought after hearing about the latest terrorist attempt to take down an airplane was, “oh great, now we’ll be banned from bringing any powders on board.” Not that I can think of any powders I would want to carry on the plane, but you know it’ll be coming. Along with who knows what other security theater measures TSA comes up with after conducting the thorough review President Obama is asking for now.

The answer is, of course, yes, I am a bad person. Those thoughts should have been of gratitude that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was caught in time, that no harm came to anyone on that flight, that the friends and loved ones greeting that plane could do so with joy instead of horror. And I am thankful for that, of course. But I think this article hits the nail on the head: “Despite the billions spent since 2001 on intelligence and counterterrorism programs, sophisticated airport scanners and elaborate watch lists, it was something simpler that averted disaster on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit: alert and courageous passengers and crew members.”

For those courageous passengers and crew members who stopped a terrorist in his tracks on Flight 253 last week, and for the unbearably courageous passengers and crew members on United Flight 93 who saved countless lives with their actions even as their own were lost, I am filled with gratitude. I’d like to think I could be so courageous under similar circumstances, but I don’t know. I hope no one ever again has to find out. Somehow, I doubt that banning baby powder will get us any closer to that goal.

For a lighter take on terrorism (and yes, there is one), check out The Borowitz Report’s Department of Homeland Security Issues Terrorist ID Cards

We know by now to thoroughly wash out hotel in-room coffee pots and to hit the TV remote with sanitizer before picking it up, but it doesn’t end there for true germophobics. Check out this article for more things to gross out over in your hotel room, from water glasses to doorknobs.

Here’s a best and worst airports list from The Daily Beast that sounds fairly well-reasoned, though of course your experience may vary widely. I’m just glad that our flight yesterday from Boston Logan to Myrtle Beach, S.C., was fast and easy, with no waits in security lines and an on-time departure and arrival. Of course, we had to get up at 2 a.m. to get an early flight to make sure that would happen, but it worked, and we were here in time for breakfast on Wednesday morning.