So you've got 1237 miles in your Northwest frequent flyer account, forty five minutes at lunch and some mischief rolling around in the back of your head. What to do?

Make some baggage tags -- Northwest Airlines just fired up a tool to redeem 1,000 miles for customized bag tags. Customized with any pictures and text that you want.

While this does afford you the opportunity to make cute bag tags with you and your girlfriend/dog/house plant/parents, I think that we should be taking better advantage of this feature. Yes, Northwest did prohibit most of the fun stuff, including:

• Competitive marks/names (e.g. American Airlines®, United, Continental Airlines®, etc.
• Political statements
• Branded products
• Copyrighted or trademarked material not owned by Northwest Airlines
• Celebrities/musicians/public figures/athletes/cartoons, etc.
• Socially unacceptable groups (e.g. gangs, supremacy, etc.)
• Provocative or sexual content
• Violence
• Profanity or obscenities
• Any references to the Olympic Games or events (really?)
  
• Any photo image that might interfere with airline or government security control (e.g. TSA, CREW, Diplomat, etc.)
• Any printing or process that interferes with the production of the luggage tags
• Other images as designated solely by Northwest Airlines

But there is yet plenty of room left to be creative. Some suggestions:

• Photos of your friends' mothers
• Dirty pictures that are pixelated/zoomed in enough so that NW can't tell what the image is.
• A photo of your bag (in case they get separated!)
• Personal Ads, in case you want to woo any baggage handlers
• A photo of blogger Matthew Firestone, who I hear is a sexy, sexy devil (I can provide these photos if you would like).
  

Other thoughts? Send them our way.

Short on miles? Try out the Worldperks University where anyone with a mouse and a clue can get five hundred miles for free.

Give it a try at nwatagyourbag.com.

It only took five minutes for three commuter jets to collide at Baton Rouge Metro Airport in Louisiana yesterday.

WAFB TV in the Louisiana capital says the incident happened at the airport's new regional maintenance hanger for Atlantic Southwest Airlines.

The three planes were valued at $100 million, and reportedly one was totaled.

It happened when a mechanic hit the starter switch on one of the planes that was meant to get compressor blades to slowly start spinning. Instead, the plane went into full takeoff mode, pivoting wildly throughout the hangar at 90 degree angles before crashing into the other planes.

Witnesses tell the television channel that it was a lucky turnout that only the three planes were damaged. There were 14 ASA maintenance workers in the hangar, and in such a closed space the accident could have resulted in a serious explosion.

Confronted with an exodus of veteran air traffic controllers who are hitting retirement age, the Federal Aviation Administration is busy recruiting -- at, among other places, high schools.

The FAA is busy wooing recent high school grads to come right on board, so to speak, and begin training to be controllers. They'll go through three months of training before becoming "controllers in training." Not long after that, they'll be staff.

The New York Post broke the story today.

The FAA has just completed a recruitment drive that placed ads on Craig's List, Myspace and at high schools nationwide. The feds were offering more than $100,000 in signing bonuses to newbies to draw them to the New York area's five understaffed radar centers, says the Post.

There's a one-time $27,000 bonus at the start of training, with another $75,000 paid out over four years.

So far, the Post says, one recent hire is a 20-year-old man who is currently monitoring radars at a station in Westbury, LI. He happens to have majored in air traffic control, but the FAA says students who have completed the 12th grade are eligible.

This news comes after two recent near-misses above the skies of New York that are being attributed to understaffed radar stations.

On July 5, two passenger jets inbound to JFK came within 100 feet of colliding in mid air, which the FAA considers to be an extremely close call. On June 25, a Learjet was given the green light to land at Teterboro Airport on a runway on which maintenance employees were busy working.

By 2011, nearly 60 percent of all air traffic controllers nationwide will have less than five years experience on the job, the Post says.

I don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, the FAA has to get new people in there to bring staffing numbers up to a safe level. Then again, how safe do we feel knowing the FAA is searching out applicants for this life-or-death job on Myspace?

Interesting idea, but it honestly doesn't make much sense to me.

Emirates has made a decision to get rid of all paper from the seat pockets on its new Airbus A380. Why? The Economist reports that they're trying to save weight and, hence, fuel.

Don't get me wrong. I think throwing out those silly in-flight magazines is a grand idea. However, can you seriously save significant weight by removing, say, 1000 magazines? Let's say it's the same weight as one passenger (after dinner.)

Does that really make a big difference?

The Economist writes that removing 2kg of paper from each of the 500 seats shaves a tonne off the plane's flying weight. What do they mean by "2 kilos" of magazines, exactly? That's 4 pounds. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I have never been on a flight where you find 4 lbs of reading material in the seat pocket in front of you.

What does Emirates provide for the reading pleasure of their customers? Bridal magazines?

These days, airline passengers expect the worst when they embark on a flight. Yes, they will still get a free bag of salted peanuts, but often have to pay $5 for a beverage to wash them down.

Not all airlines are toning down the in-flight offerings, however. Air New Zealand is doing just the opposite by introducing a new breed of air service personnel, the airborne concierge.

According to Scott Carr, ANZ's GM in Europe, the airline thinks the new service will add to their customers' travel experience.

"The concierge service is about adding a personal touch to the whole flight experience, from booking, to check-in, to arrival and beyond."

The concierge on duty is charged with aiding passengers with everything from check-in to finding the appropriate gate to booking hotels and finding connecting flights.

Will this become a new trend in the often impersonal world of airline travel? Surely other airlines will be watching closely to see if the service is well-received of if it seems redundant. Concierge workers take to the sky on the London to L.A. route this week. Their Auckland-based peers will work flights between L.A, and Auckland. Eventually, the service will be offered for the airline's London to Hong Kong route as well.

Photo: Flickr user Chris&Steve

These have been a bumpy few days for Northwest Airlines.

First, on Sunday, a Northwest flight from Tampa to Detroit had to make an emergency landing in Dayton, Ohio after a computer for one of the engines malfunctioned, the Associated Press reports.

Then yesterday, a Northwest flight from Minneapolis to Chicago had to make an emergency landing in Madison, Wisconsin, when a gauge failure caused the pilot to think there had been a drop in cabin pressure.

The 115 passengers on board the flight had to be bused to Chicago, a Northwest spokesman told the AP.

In both cases, Northwest Airline officials said no one was injured.

To the disgust of millions of quiet-airplane activists, the scales are starting to tip in the direction of mobile phones being allowed on aircraft. Today, word leaked from the UK indicates that Ryanair, the continent's largest budget carrier will start to allow inflight mobile phone calls on a limited basis.

If these trials pan out and and model is profitable, you can expect that the service will be expanded to all aircraft in the Ryanair fleet -- and further into the European Union.

All of this micro buildup from several international carriers testing out inflight mobile service is just prolonging the inevitable, unfortunately -- at some point I get the feeling that we're all going to have to sack up and deal with loud talkers on our flights.

Interestingly, however, Ryanair is taking a different approach to fees associated with the service than other carriers -- they don't plan to enforce any wild roaming fee from which they take a giant cut. Instead, CEO Michael O'Leary says that passengers will only be subject to normal roaming fees. Perhaps the profit that he plans to make from increased fare revenues will make up for the mobile phone equiment.

The airlines giveth, and the airlines taketh away. This has never been more true than in recent years. From pretzels and pillows to in-flight movies, we have all been robbed of the few things that made flying bearable.

But none of this applies to the airline executives that helped create the current situation. Most retiring executives leave the airline with hefty retirement packages, often including free flights and free medial care for life.

Departing Continental CFO Jeffrey Misner is clearly more creative than any of his colleagues. As part of his retirement package, he has secured a lifetime free executive parking spot at Jacksonville airport "in a lot that is the same or similar to the lot available to airport-management personnel".

He's also taking a cool $3 Million in unrestricted Continental stock with him, which is ironic since that is the same amount of money CO lost in their second quarter.

It's all spelled out in his retirement agreement posted online by the SEC. None of the other juicy details were described, but one can expect a pretty healthy chunk of our ticket money to head his way for years to come.

Misner joined Continental in 1995 and became their CFO in 2004. During his tenure, shares of the airline rose to the upper $40's in 2006, only to plummet back into the single digits in 2008.

So, next time you spend $26 a day for parking at the airport and another $20 for a snack on the flight, think of poor retired Jeffey Misner.

Source: Footnoted.org

I can't remember the precise destination we were working, but what I do remember was the shocked look on my coworkers face when he came running up to the first class galley and exclaimed, "There's a naked woman in coach!"

"What!" two of us cried in unison.

Needless to say, the breakfast service was now on hold. How could we serve bagels when there was a nekkid lady aboard the flight? Into the oven the bread went, and off and running we went, ignoring any passengers who may have tried to wave us down as we headed straight to the the back of the airplane, a blur of four dressed in blue.

"There she is. The last row," said one of my coworkers as we neared the last row.

"Oh my god," I remember thinking, or saying, I can't remember, it was just too crazy to remember. What I do remember is she was young, cute, and naked. College aged, I'd say.

Now this was pre 9/11, so the flight was empty, and the thought of terrorists were the furthest from our minds. The only thing on our minds, besides this naked lady, was why in the world the lady would get naked on the airplane in the first place? Unfortunately, we would never find out.

Visitors to an air show at Dayton Int'l Airport got more excitement than they paid for when a Northwest Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing on the runway during the festivities.

The flight originated in Tampa and was bound for Detroit. The crew decided to land when one of the computers connected to an engine failed. The pilot landed at the nearest airport, which happened to be Dayton, as a precaution.

No one was injured.

The air show was stopped for about half-an-hour while the plane landed. Spectators were made aware of the situation over the air show's public address system. They applauded when the plane landed (and no doubt had something extra to talk about on the way home).

The plane's passengers were not able to hang around for the end of the show, however. They were whisked away to Detroit by bus.

Actually, the successful emergency landing might have been a welcome event for Northwest's public relations department. They finally have something to talk about besides bankruptcy and their recent merger with Delta.

Photo: Flickr user Sakurako Kitsa