Tag: flight

Flight Attendants’ Jobs Have Never Been More Dangerous – Violence On Planes Is At An All-Time High
Journalism, WORK

Flight Attendants’ Jobs Have Never Been More Dangerous – Violence On Planes Is At An All-Time High

The fight broke out over bags. After the plane touched down in Miami, one passenger was not getting his luggage down from the overhead bin fast enough, at least not in the eyes of the man behind him. That man, who is White, started shouting racial slurs at the other passenger, a Black man. In the front of the plane, flight attendant Cher Taylor heard the commotion just before the angry man punched the one pulling down his bags until he fell on his back into a row of seats. Taylor started running. “I’ll beat you good, I’ll kill you,” the man was shouting, punctuating the end of each sentence with a racial slur. Taylor, a Black woman, tried to step between them, unsure of how to intervene. When the White man finally stepped back, leaving the other man on the ground, he and his family wa...
School Suspensions Lead To Lower Grades And ‘Black Flight’ Don’t Just Unfairly Penalize Black Students
EDUCATION

School Suspensions Lead To Lower Grades And ‘Black Flight’ Don’t Just Unfairly Penalize Black Students

School suspensions are intended to deter violence and punish students who demonstrate problematic behavior. Yet, when I interviewed 30 Black high school students in southeast Michigan who had been suspended from school and 30 of their parents, I learned that many students were suspended because school officials misinterpreted their behaviors. Additionally, the suspensions led to students’ grades dropping significantly and to some parents withdrawing their children from their school districts. I published my findings in the Children and Youth Services Review and Urban Education journals as part of my ongoing research on how Black students and parents view school punishment and its impact on their daily lives. You might assume that these punitive disciplinary practices have stopped since ...
What is the ‘zero gravity’ that people experience in the vomit comet or space flight?
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY

What is the ‘zero gravity’ that people experience in the vomit comet or space flight?

In the zero-gravity airplanes or vomit comet, why does stuff behave like there is no gravity when it is just falling? – Austin B., 11, Scranton, Pennsylvania People in a special airplane flight get to float like there is no gravity – just like astronauts. Steven Collicott I have flown many times in zero-gravity airplane flights. Each time I still enjoy the feeling of floating free, the ability to fly across the cabin from just one gentle push on the wall, just like astronauts in the International Space Station, and the novelty of rotating your body in whatever direction you choose. The feeling is like the brief sensation on some roller coasters or off of a diving board, but for close to half a minute and without the air rushing past you – it’s fun! People feeling weightlessness without b...
What We Could Do With a $5 Carbon Charge on Your Flight
BUSINESS

What We Could Do With a $5 Carbon Charge on Your Flight

Like it or not, the world will be flying more in the decades ahead—and flights are for many in the developed world the largest part of an individual’s (and often a business’s) carbon footprint. The aviation sector can do a lot to cut carbon emissions and is keen to do so, not least on grounds of cost reduction, using more efficient aircraft, and looking at alternative fuels. All this is helpful, but unfortunately not enough. If aviation is going to contribute to meeting global carbon reduction goals, there is also going to be a need for offsets. An offset is basically a way for a polluting sector (like aviation) to pay for action in another sector, so that a benefit equivalent to the damage being caused is created. It is a fraught and controversial area, but one that will be necessary...