Roger Collis

One of the hardest management decisions I ever made was not to self-destruct on vintage Champagne and a premature lunch when I flew Concorde from London to New York for a job interview. I compromised with a glass or three of Moët et Chandon and a cup of coffee. I finally lunched with my inquisitors at around 5:30 P. M. my time and flew back economy (this was before business class) at 7 P. M., which was midnight for me. I landed in London at 8 A. M. (3 A. M. in New York) in quite good shape. I unwittingly beat jet lag by staying on my home time. (I got the job by the way.) Click here

I have flown Concorde three times to New York, although I never made the round-trip. With the one-way fare costing around dollars 5,000 (for which you can make 10 round-trips in economy), the people picking up the tab rightly felt that the “time is of the essence” rationale for getting me over on the Concorde didn’t apply to getting me back on my own time. I got to arrive in New York an hour before I left London (the 10:30 a.m. flight arrived at 9:25 a.m.), but I never had the experience of beating jet lag by taking the 1:45 p.m. Concorde from JFK and arriving at Heathrow at 10:25 p.m. for a normal bedtime. Click here

Surprise, surprise! 70% of business travelers prefer to travel by train, according to a survey conducted by the British Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) for their latest business travel manifesto; while 66% says they would rather take the train than fly to a destination for a meeting or conference, if the journey time and cost were lower.

Not realizing, perhaps, that high-speed trains are often the fastest way to travel between city centers beating short-haul flights for journeys of up to about 350 miles (560 kilometers) in Europe. At speeds of up to 350 kph (220 mph) the train certainly takes the strain; and compared to airports (what I have called the slowest common denominator of air travel) high-speed trains are stress-free citadels of peace. Click here

Don’t pack your bags yet. But serious people in the aerospace and travel industry are taking the idea of space tourism seriously. Pundits predict that the first space tourists could be in orbit by 2005. Tourists would travel by “space plane” to “space hotels” 200 to 300 miles (320 to 480 kilometers) above Earth. NASA’s Space Shuttle is capable of flying 60 to 70 passengers on each flight. In fact this was envisaged by Rockwell engineers in the design of the Shuttle 25 years ago. Click here

It’s hard to separate fact and fiction these days.

A letter from Joan Draper in Ramat Gan, Israel tells of her dog Turtle creating mayhem in transit at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle Airport, when he escaped from his unlocked cage, might have been a scene from Keystone Cops.   To lock or not to lock the cage of a traveling pet is a crucial concern for civil aviation. Click here

How often do travelers find the clichés of the glossy ads, and the PR hype, redeemed by that elusive amalgam of true friendliness, service, recognition, and efficiency that I call ‘hospitality,’ whether in hotels, airlines or cruise ships? Click here