Hyatt’s Midscale Push, Delta Demand & Plane Drama

On this week’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk unpack Hyatt’s push into non-luxury brands and smaller markets as the company works to expand beyond its traditional luxury footprint.

They also explore how United Airlines and Marriott Hotels are turning planes and hotel rooms into advertising platforms, why Delta Air Lines says travel demand remains strong despite rising jet fuel costs, and what FAA-ordered flight reductions at Chicago O’Hare could mean for airline schedules and travelers.

Finally, in the Unhinged Story of the Week, two viral airplane moments take over the internet: one passenger repeatedly shoving the seat in front of them after it reclines, and another traveler attempting to run the equivalent of a 5K inside an airplane bathroom — proving that sometimes the real turbulence comes from fellow passengers.

Watch This Episode

All right, so on today’s episode, we are talking about Hyatt playing catch up in the non-luxury space, airlines and hotels turning their screens into ad platforms, and Delta saying travel demand is still strong, even with higher fuel costs.

We’ll also get into how FAA is forcing flight reductions at Chicago O’Hare, and a viral, you’re on a stay tuned for this, a viral airplane moment that has the internet debating passenger etiquette again. Let’s get into it.

Good morning, Sarah.

Good morning, Steve. How are you today?

Where are you in the world today? You’ve been traveling all over the globe. I think you were just in Brazil, like going through some falls last I saw.

Now, where are you?

I was. Now, I’m in Orange County in Southern California. I’m here for some work, so.

Very nice.

Well, how was the trip? Tell us. A lot of people have not been to Iguazu Falls, and you had the chance to do it.

Really cool.

Yes, it was great. By the way, Brazil, amazing country. This was actually my first time to Brazil, and then we actually did a little day trip to Paraguay, so I got to knock off two new countries on my list.

But Brazil is amazing. The people, the food, the culture. I mean, it really was just such a wonderful experience.

We were in Sao Paulo, and then we spent a good chunk of our time in Iguazu. For those that don’t know, that’s their famous waterfall system there, that basically, it’s kind of the intersection of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

Also, what was really neat is to learn about their, we actually got to go through a dam and find out how they do all water power, like hydro power, and they’ve got a lot of conservation efforts.

So there was a lot of green conversations that we were having while we were there. So amazing trip. If anybody is listening, get the chance to go there, I highly recommend going to check it out, whether the Brazil side or the Argentinian side.

So awesome time.

It looked just like the jungle cruise I took at Disney. I look exactly the same, you’re going underneath those walls. So, no, but it looked awesome.

That trip looked amazing. It made me want to go visit. So you definitely influenced me.

I’m sure many, many others. Yes. But that was great.

And we had Alice on the show, was it last week? Right before you guys went. That was cool to see me and see what you guys were all up to this week.

It looked like a great adventure.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So now I feel like I’m a little bit inspired with my little Jaguar inspired. This might be a leopard or a cheetah.

I don’t know what it is. But one of the animals from the jungle, one of them jungle animals. So I figured I’d come have a little bit of that inspiration while I’m back here in the main land.

Yeah, viewers and listeners, I see you guys checking in.

Lou, good to see you from Charleston. Andres is saying hello on YouTube. If you are watching, let us know where you’re watching from.

We always love to hear where you are in the world because we have so many people from so many different countries and continents. It’s always great to see.

And we like to ask questions if you’re in those countries, what you’re seeing when we touch some of these topics. So it’s always fun to know who’s watching and listening. We had Andres in the USA.

The USA is a big country, Andres, you got to let us know where you’re watching from.

Yeah. So how was your week before we dive into this?

Well, my week has been busy, a lot of prep. I’ve got kids, I got spring break coming up next week. So hitting the high seas on the Royal Caribbean, wonder of the seas.

So if anyone’s been on wonder of the seas, let me know your tips. But I think it’s the third largest cruise ship in the world right now. And I like those big ships.

I know you tend to lean more towards some of the boutique ones sometimes, but I like the big ones.

I like the big ones too. You know, there’s something for everybody’s. And you’ll have to let me know how that is.

I’ve actually never been on the Royal Caribbean ship.

So really? Yeah, I’m shocked actually.

How long is your cruise?

It’s just a week.

Five days? OK, seven days? OK.

No, no, five days, Monday to Friday.

They got to go back to school. So we got to come and prep, get those kids ready. But great time.

I’m excited for that. So I’ve been prepping for it and getting in shape. I don’t know if you guys can tell.

Well, I don’t know.

Oh, we got that stress jawline.

Good morning, hospitality fans. I don’t embarrass myself out there on the pool deck. So it’s been fun.

I did a kettlebell workout last night. I came a walk this morning, so it’s fun.

Oh, that’s kind of fun.

Yeah, very fun. So a lot going on. We also have a lot going on in the world of hospitality.

Should we jump into those?

Yeah, why don’t we go ahead and get started in some topics today? Oh, Athens, Greece.

Thank you for joining us.

We have some great ones.

We have Portugal. Here we go.

Yeah, I see Porto Portugal watching.

Oh, Porto. Oh, hi, Nancy. That’s my Aunt Nancy.

By the way, for anybody that’s in Porto, Portugal, I’m going to do a plug for you, Nancy, Auntie Nancy. She actually plays in the orchestra in Porto.

So, if you happen to be visiting Porto, you should absolutely make a chance to take the time to go check out the orchestra there. And she is first year, second violin.

So, oh, wow, we need some like maybe sign off music with her violin. That would be cool.

Yeah, we do. We do. What is fun to see?

Anyway, I love seeing everybody watching, especially if you’re on YouTube.

Give us a shout out. Give us a thumbs up. Let us know you’re here and we’ll get into the show if you’ve got questions while we’re going, let us know.

Let us know.

Okay, great. So first up here, we are talking about our friends over at Hyatt. Hyatt is playing a catch-up game, so to speak, with non-luxury brands.

So for those that might be familiar, they’re basically expanding non-luxury mid-scale brands to grow in smaller markets.

This move is really meant to close the gap between competitors like Marriott and Hilton that already dominate that mid-scale space.

What was really interesting is that wherever Hyatt tends to be, they tend to have like 14, sorry, wherever Hyatt tends to be, they tend to have four hotels in that market versus Marriott or Hilton, where they typically have 14.

So they have a very different approach to just to their visibility and where they are. But again, they’ve historically been very focused on luxury and upscale brands. So this is an interesting sort of shift for them.

Oh, it’s true.

I see it just in here in Miami. I’m thinking about it. They’re trying to make a big push on these brands, the Hyatt Studios, which is their extended stay brand.

Hyatt Select, which is like a conversion-friendly brand targeting independent or competitor-flagged hotel. So like come on over, keep your standards, join our Hyatt Select, and then unscripted by Hyatt.

It’s like a soft lifestyle brand that lets operators keep their brand as well.

So they’re trying to break in, but I see it now, like they have the Hyatt Ondaz, they have the Grand Hyatt that’s being built, they have the Hyatt Downtown Convention Center, right?

So they have all those here, but you don’t really see those mid-scale. And so they’re really trying to make a big push. And when you have these kinds of brands, you can convince other operators, keep your identity, but come join Hyatt Engine.

And so I’m curious to see if they’re able to do that and how fast they do that, because it’s really competitive with all of the hotels now, and so many brands that we talk about on our show.

To see how and what Hyatt will be doing, but it’s going to be interesting, right? Because they do focus a lot in that luxury space, and we’ve been talking about it.

Luxury is always doing well, so you chase that dollar at the top, and you’re really chasing that high EDR.

In the middle class, they kind of have these brands that are starting not to get filled, so I’m curious about this play, but I’m sure they see something. What are you thinking on that?

Yeah, no, I completely agree. Well, and also the article kind of went through to explain that, yes, as we all have been talking about for months, I feel like almost a year now, luxury is going strong.

So we know luxury is going strong, but there’s also just been a consumer shift in general with economic uncertainty, with more people being able to work from wherever.

We are seeing more people that are opting for longer stays, more of these mid-scale brands that work for families that are maybe they’re doing road trips. And so there’s absolutely a space for that, and especially, by the way, in the US market.

So I know that this was very much geared around what they’re seeing sort of in the US market. So yeah, it makes sense.

And what I like to see too is that they’re using their Hyatt studios, how efficient they’re trying to be to really kind of speed up and save costs on things. And so for listeners, it’s kind of interesting.

You know, at their Hyatt studios, they don’t just start with renderings. They start talking to people on the ground first. Like, general contractors said the ceiling height, eight feet, six inches, required custom cut lumber.

So they suggested dropping it to the standard eight feet and shaving time and money from every single build, saving owners money on that.

And then corporate travelers they were interviewing from companies like Amazon and SpaceX liked an open closet concept, but said guests needed more drawer space. So they added more drawers to some of their concepts.

And then talking to the housekeepers and traveling nurses, they flagged hard to reach in dim areas of the bathrooms, prompting the team to swap out of the shower fixtures and changing where the vanity lights were.

So they’re listening to their customers, really trying to figure out what will be best in these kind of mid-scale brands and how they can get them up as quick as possible. So I like that they’re listening to the guests versus sitting in a boardroom.

I think this is cool. And that design looks awesome and not really being functional for what everybody needs in that space. Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s great. And again, interesting shift that’s happening. And I mean, it kind of makes sense.

I’m a fan of Hyatt and to see them kind of just to be more prevalent and have more options in different markets is, I think it’s a great play.

I love it. And we get some new comments here. Lucy in Classical YouTube.

Yeah. From the opening. Yes.

We got Vanessa saying, hello, you are very beautiful. I think that’s to me, Sarah. So I think that’s one.

Obviously.

Obviously.

And then Paul, Good Morning from Colorado. Good to see you here, man.

You’ve got that morning glow. You’re like a little bit later in the day than I am. Like you probably had a work out.

You’ve been like, I’m a very different human being when I have a workout before doing it on a Wednesday morning, Paul.

Oh boy. If we got to get Paul on here live, you got to see Paul’s looking. Yes.

He’s got a big beard now. It’s looking very manly.

Oh my gosh.

We’ll make that happen. Why don’t we move on here to our next topic? United and Marriott are targeting travelers with ads.

United Airlines and Marriott are expanding advertising networks, targeting travelers directly. Now ads can appear on basically seatback screens, which by the way is always great. You’ve got a captive audience, apps, hotel TVs during trips.

Travel companies are really seeing guests as sort of like high value audiences for, I mean, look, they’re already traveling. So you’re capturing the traveler while they’re traveling. It kind of makes sense.

No, it’s cool to see, right?

They were saying just, I guess in an airline, I’m flipping through movies quick.

I’m sure I’m wondering how the ads show up while you’re sitting there, but the Cayman Islands ran an advertisement program and it drove 9,000 bookings, and it was directly related to the screens on United.

So it’s a clear win if you have a captured audience during that time, if you can get that many people to see your island and book something through there with a special offer, it’s great. And then we talked about Marriott with the Bonvoy app.

They want that to be the app where people start traveling. And so if you’re involved anywhere around that space of that hotel and you throw up an ad, you’re going to get, what would they say it was, 250 or 300 million people on the app now?

You’ve got the entire US population looking at the app, you’re definitely going to get some conversions. And that’s also a great way to get in front of people. So very unique and interesting ways to think about it.

So if you’re going to pull up your app, I’m curious to see what you see.

Okay, so right now, yeah, I’m pulling up my app right now and I happen to be at a Marriott property. And I mean, basically right now, on this, they’re kind of post, they’re talking about points and things that you can get.

So it’s very much sort of still promoting the actual, let’s see if there’s anything. Yeah, the app. Oh, Experience Asia and Alaska by Super Yacht.

So that’s cool. Yeah, so there’s, and then, oh, and I do like this little section here that’s Destinations to Explore. So they’ve got San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami.

Oh, okay, they know what’s up. Chicago, the Maldives, one can go from Chicago to the Maldives, Munich, Punta Cana. So yeah, I mean.

Very cool.

See, people, this is what we call journalism right here. We can do the hard-hitting story. We find out, we actually use the stuff that we talk about here.

We do, we do use the stuff.

But again, I mean, it’s strategic because, I don’t know, I mean, I just feel people are just continuing to travel more than ever.

I’m definitely biased because the individuals that I have immediate access to are the ultra high net worth individuals and they are not slowing down at all. I mean, I’ve got some clients that it’s every other week. It’s been a different destination.

So, you know, and then you’ve got others that are kind of saving up for one big trip. But you know, it really isn’t slowing down despite all the chaos that’s happening in the world.

No, I can just tell you that in our Hospitality Management Group at Tangy, we’re raising prices every single day and people keep booking. So, yeah, I don’t know. It’s interesting to see how it works.

But I’m curious, you listeners and viewers, if you’re live right now, if you have the Marriott Bonvoy app and you log in, what do you see? Do you see any ads? Let us know.

Yes or no. I would love to see our other on the ground viewers as our reporters today.

Yes. So which, by the way, you brought up an interesting point. Certainly, you’ve been raising rates and people are still booking, which goes into our next topic here.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Did you like that? That was smooth. So Delta CEO says travel demand remains strong, and why is that despite rising jet fuel costs?

So I mean, for those, I know we talked about it last week. I’ve covered it on the Skift Daily Briefing.

I mean, basically, what we’re kind of seeing is jet fuel costs are increasing, and that can increase prices by about 10%, 11%, which can put things into a very different budget.

But despite that, people are still, they’re still flying, they’re still paying. And I think it was the first quarter, or this quarter now, I think they’ve made the most that they’ve ever done. There was something really interesting about that.

I have to quickly pull it up in the article, but it’s wild. Premium and international travel remain especially resilient. As somebody who’s gone to Mexico, so basically Central America, Europe, and then South America.

You’re the one driving the business.

It’s me.

It’s all me. You’re welcome, Delta. But yeah, they’re busy.

They’re full and people are still going despite whatever the news is around the world, because I know that there’s a lot of news.

I just think that we got Lou. My Marriott just pulled up a Taiwan ad. There you go, Lou.

You’re a journalist now. Congratulations. Good job letting us know.

On the Delta news, like I’m curious to see, like I went to go fill up my truck last night and gas really did jump overnight.

Yeah. Oh, how much is it for you? Cause you guys always have significantly lower than California.

Look, a week ago, it was like three something to fill up.

And then last night it was 479 for the same gallon.

So at the same gas, what I would have, well, now I have an electric car.

That’s a giant jump percentage wise. And so that’s going to catch up, I think, very soon when you start looking to book your flight. So you’re going to start to see significant bumps in those rates.

I didn’t get to take a look this morning, but I’m flying multiple times over the next month and a half. And so I’m lucky I’ve locked those in. But I’m sure the future trips I have to take are going to be way more.

I’m thinking of all of that, but people are still booking and I’m curious now too. I think after the pandemic, people realize like, you need to travel, go experience things. I think we talked about this too.

People are going that analog kind of world. They want to go travel, whether it’s a short flight somewhere, go see a new city, go experience something new. We have influencers like Sarah Dandashy influencing us to go to Brazil.

I think it’s a lot of those things that kind of mix together where people are like, you know what, I’m going to go fly, I’m going to go live life and make things happen.

I know I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, like, all right, let’s just start booking things, go on these trips, make these memories happen, because you never know when you can’t.

I’m laughing at Will Slickers in the background here because I was about to make some smart comment about being like, this is why I drive electric. But he said, don’t worry, they’ll catch up. They probably will.

And Lou saying he put on his journal size, you can go on LinkedIn now and put New Job Journalist.

You got it.

Yeah, it’s been being in Southern California for so long. I mean, we’ve had between $6.50 and $8. A lot.

Yeah, it’s a lot. For a long time, which is obviously not ideal. But yeah, it adds up.

It does.

It does. I felt that yesterday for the first time, I’m really feeling like, wow, it almost double what I usually put in there.

So wait, I have to ask. I have, if you remember, do you, and this might show our age, it will. Do you remember how much you were paying for gas for a gallon when you first started driving?

I do. And I was living in Atlanta, Georgia.

So a dollar something, right? That’s probably a dollar something.

Oh, in Atlanta? Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, I remember it being like 85 cents a gallon. I remember.

Yeah, everything was cheap back in our day.

Oh, my gosh.

That makes me sound so much older than you.

You are.

No, I’m not. I’m a week younger. Anyway.

We lived before the Internet existed.

We did.

Oh, my gosh.

I’m from the 1900s.

True.

Hilarious. All right.

Let’s keep it moving. Let’s move on to our next topic here. So this is wild.

FAA is forcing flight reductions at Chicago O’Hare. So the FAA has ordered flight reductions for Chicago O’Hare to address congestion and delays. Airlines have to temporarily reduce schedules during peak travel periods.

Basically, why is this happening? It’s happening because of air traffic control shortages. This is a real deal.

They were happening in Burbank Airport in Southern California. I don’t know if you’ve heard of other ones, but yeah.

I just know you were on a lot of airports. I don’t know what you saw, but I know leaving Miami last night, my business partners for BIA, they couldn’t get out. They had to figure out, they had multiple cancellations.

There was a mix of FAA and weather and flights not making it. It was a drama of all day trying to figure out just how to get from Miami back to Texas.

So I started seeing things at Austin, Texas where they were from, where they were getting to the airport four hours early because the line was all the way out the door. So I can only imagine, you have to make sure.

How are you going to get that many people through? You got to reduce these flights if you can’t get people through. It’s just going to be chaos.

It’s so weird because I’ve flown through multiple airports.

I have Delta and with Delta, they have something that’s called Touchless ID. It’s still part of pre-check, but I can just go through. I don’t have to pull out an ID.

They literally take a picture of me and then they welcome me through. I feel, I don’t know what United has. American has a version of it.

And so what the word on the street has been is that for the airlines that have that, you can get through very quickly. But when I did come back from Brazil, Sao Paulo to Atlanta, had to go back through security and there was none of that.

And that line, I think we waited 25 minutes to get back in. And again, that was the night that there were a bunch of delays. So we had some breathing room, but yeah, right now it’s wild and long it’s taking.

Let’s go senators and congressmen.

Let’s make something happen here. You’re affecting the real world. Let’s get these budgets passed.

And we don’t talk politics here, but just get it together. And then we got David Turk asking. I got this story.

I’m taking Royal Caribbean Cruise. Guess who’s coming with? My brother.

Are cruise ports affected by this as well? They are not, but just get there early because Port of Miami is crazy right now because we have all the mega ships here during spring break.

So you’re going to have thousands of thousands of people getting to the port that day. So even though your check-in time is at let’s say 2:30 PM, try to get there at least an hour earlier because it’s going to take a long time to get there.

It’s interesting. There’s a lot going on at the different ports and just not even ports but just like ports of entry is what I should say. Points of entry.

And yeah, you just have to build in that extra time. It’s kind of crazy.

And I see Lucy, you never travel the same day. Always the day in advance. Which yeah, if you can afford the cost, great.

And sometimes you have to fly in as an emergency to get there. So let’s see.

Yeah, you know, it’s what it’s funny. So I, I very much had to be where I am in Orange County yesterday. That was I had to do it.

And I was flying back from very deep in Brazil. I was like deep in that was deep in South America.

And I had to go from Iguazu to São Paulo, São Paulo to Atlanta, Atlanta, then to Las Vegas, where I had to turn around and then come to Orange County, fly the next day. And that made me nervous. I’m because there wasn’t much wiggle room.

And then of course, the day before, it’s like, oh, there’s a crazy storm system. And, you know, I mean, they can’t we had flights that were two and a half hours delayed. Ultimately, for me, I wasn’t that much.

I probably was I got I landed maybe 30 minutes later than the original time. But basically, my flight was so delayed.

And the flight before it was so delayed, and I put myself on the earlier flight because I still could make it because the earlier flight ended up leaving when my original flight was leaving.

So but again, together with the red strings were like, but I will say this.

I got that notification while I was on the flight from Sao Paulo to Atlanta, opened up my app, rebooked myself on the flight boom, boom, boom before I even got off of it.

So if I cannot stress, I cannot stress enough to people when, first of all, two things. A, choose an airline and stick with it. B, loyal because that will come and help you in times like these.

I know I say this a lot, but it has changed the way that I fly entirely.

Secondly, if they make sure that your stuff is on an app, because most of the apps, at least within the United States, are pretty user-friendly, and if you can rebook yourself while you’re on the flight, before you hit the ground, you’re beating a

good number of the people that are on that flight, that are going to then touch down and be like, oh, I need to rebook, and that’s when they call or go to a desk or whatever. So I feel so strongly about it because I’ve saved myself so many times, and

So you have so many reps doing this.

I haven’t thought about that. I probably would have got to like land it. All right, I got to figure it out.

Let me sit down, open my app, figure this out.

We booked. It was crazy. So speaking of planes, trains, no, not planes.

Let’s get to our Unhinged Travel Story of the Week. This is wild, and we have to get your thoughts on this. But why don’t we go ahead and show the video?

Let’s cue the video.

Let’s see if we can show the video.

Let’s see. Check this out.

I haven’t seen this yet. What are we watching?

Oh, you’ll see.

11-hour flight, but 5K run on the plane?

What is the character doing?

This guy did 5K of movement.

I don’t believe it.

Strava says 60 minutes in the bathroom.

60 minutes?

60 minutes on his Strava app.

All right. So I don’t know how I feel about this.

He’s doing 5K on our episode right now.

Get this guy off. I don’t like this guy. I’m not supporting him.

Can you imagine?

He decided to do that. That’s wild. Now, he had an 11-hour flight.

But I mean, I don’t know about you guys. Anytime I’ve been on a flight that’s a longer, there’s always a line of people needing to go to the bathroom.

I don’t know what this guy would do.

Hey, Adam Lieberman, you shush it. He’s making fun of me. Adam, former fellow concierge of my based in Vegas, Buddy, who’s making fun of me because even though I had like seven hours at home, I still made a workout happen yesterday morning.

But no, I would not do this. No way.

How would you be in there? Maybe it was when everyone’s sleeping maybe, but there’s a lot of people that gotta make a pee pee and they gotta knock on the door and say, what’s going on there, man? You okay?

A lot of people gotta make a pee pee.

It’s, that’s wild to me. I mean, I just think of, like I’ve just been on multiple long haul flights that are nine hours, 10 hours, almost 11 hours. There’s no way that I could have been up for that long and doing that without completely disrupting.

What are the flight attendants doing? This is crazy.

I think that’s what my brain goes to is if I was like for that airline, it’s like who was on that flight? Who was the staff? Who didn’t go check what was going on?

What was going on? We need to retrain, these things are out of control. That’s what my operator brain goes to.

Well, Will has brought up in the background.

How did he not make a lot of noise?

Listen, I’m sure a lot of stuff goes on in those bathrooms, but for an hour doing a 5K, that’s pretty wild. You know, good for him, his commitment. He got his cloud.

I’m curious what the comment said on there. I’m sure it was very mixed.

It’s crazy, which by the way, I think this is a good good reminder as far as just air airplane etiquette. There was another article that we were possibly going to share where this woman totally freaks out because somebody else reclined her seat.

Let’s do this. Let’s talk about this one now too. We’re doing the airline show today.

All right. So let’s just, I want to be curious, Sarah. So you’re on an airplane.

You’re in coach. Do you recline your chair or do you not recline your chair? What do you do?

Of course I recline my chair.

Yeah. The person in front of me, yeah, of course. Look, at the end of the day, that’s how they’re designed and most likely the person in front of me recline.

Normally, it ends up being a domino effect, right? Because the person in front of you reclines, if you’re still sitting straight up, that would deeply reduces it. So then you just recline and then you’re like, okay, not so bad.

Yeah.

I’d say the chair reclines, you can recline. But I also know it’s getting tighter and tighter back there. I always feel a little bit bad when I do it.

See Lou, Lou’s not a recliner. He’s a non-recliner. I’m curious about everyone else watching on YouTube, LinkedIn, on all of our streaming platforms.

Are you a recliner or a non-recliner?

100 percent, you can recline anywhere. The key is how you recline. So don’t go boom.

You know what I mean? Because that’s the thing. It’s like if they have a hot coffee or water or something like that, that can be obviously very challenging.

Or you could cause something to spill. That’s not great. So I always try to be mindful.

I actually try to do it before there’s any service so that mostly they won’t have any open containers right behind me, so they’re less likely to spill on themselves. And then I go slowly.

Yeah.

It depends. I see Kat saying, depends on how long the flight is. I hear you too, but even then, like it’s-

Overnight flights, guys.

Come on.

Overnight. I’m saying, if you were flying over here to Miami, three hour, five hour, whatever your flight time is now, you’re reclining, right?

Yeah.

All right. Yeah.

I’m definitely reclining, for sure.

All right. We got recliners here.

Half and half. Sometimes I don’t need it, if it’s like during the day and depending on the seat, but in general, yeah, a little bit. I don’t know that I recline all the way.

I think the only time I recline all the way is when it’s overnight. I kind of like to choose seats that are like the back, the end of a section.

I mean, I don’t like the last seat of the plane, but like the end of a section, so then ideally not reclining into anybody.

But Rebecca’s comment, not personally, but she doesn’t understand why they get upset. Yeah, people freak out. Like that video we don’t have pulled up.

Maybe we’ll show it next week. They were like slamming the person’s chair up and down.

Oh, for sure.

Not to recline.

Okay, so what about windows? Should you have the windows open or closed?

Reclining immediately.

Okay.

Right away, even before the stewardess will allow us. Windows, listen, if you pay for a window seat and you’re flying above the clouds, you should be able to look out the window.

I get it, if it’s nighttime or you’re trying to like, if you’re doing like an international flight and it’s like, okay, they fed everybody, everybody’s trying to do like go to sleep. Okay. I get that.

I totally understand that. But yeah, on Monday, I had a thing with this flight attendant. It was literally, it was the daytime.

It was basically 10 AM. They were serving us lunch and my window was still open. I mean, everybody was awake because we were all eating and she’s like, can you close your window?

She was like, oh, she did a whole thing. I looked at her like, is it your first time on a plane?

She was partying the night before.

I was like, yeah, you can use the overhead light. I was like, yeah, I just wanted some natural light. Then she got so mad at me.

When it came to her serving my food, she literally handed it, she was like didn’t even look at me. I was just like, are you kidding me? By the way, the other flight attendants were perfectly nice.

Rebecca is saying, I once had a lady yell at me on Lufthansa flight back from Italy because I reclined, I was in college and very confused.

That’s crazy. That’s a long flight, Rebecca. I don’t know where you live, but I just took that flight.

That was a long one. Paul, we’re going to say this one for next one. Kids on a plane bring the discussion to the 300 level course of 101 flying here.

Yes, I’ve got a lot of tips on that and it’s always a little rough, but don’t let them run around wild. Rule number one, I’ve had that on a flight where the kids are just running around like wild children.

This is true.

I’m under control.

I’m under control.

We can keep going, we can make this an hour show. I’m going to go to another live stream of just talking about things on planes, trains.

Airline etiquette. Oh, and then I have another one that we’re going to have to bring up, so I’m going to put a pin in it with hotels and charging fees to deliver things to hotel rooms. That’s another one.

So we’ll talk about that later.

Yeah. Well, we covered a lot today. Yeah.

Should we just wrap? Should we do our real-time recap? What should we do?

Why don’t we do a quickie real-time recap?

Quick real-time recap?

Where did I go this weekend? How do you start? Well, I think what I got going on this week.

You would have a lot of cool stories to pull from.

Yeah, my real-time recap, just going to do a shout out to Let’s Go Iguazu, which is a tour company in Iguazu on the Brazilian side. They were great. They were the company that took us all around.

We got to do bike tours, hiking, kayaking, jumping through waterfalls, all the things that we made amendments, where we needed to make amendments. They were fantastic. To me, it was this wonderful reminder.

As we left, we gave them a hug, and Bruna was our guide. I was like, oh my gosh, we have a friend now in another country. I think that’s such a wonderful reminder of when we get to go travel.

Despite all the crazy news that we’re seeing in the world, when you actually get out there and you meet people, you’re just reminded of how great other humans can really be, and how you can make friends in all these places around the world.

Shout out to them. They’re amazing. If anybody wants to go to Iguazu Falls, hit me up.

I will give you some pointers on what to do. Deal. They were awesome.

All right.

Mine will be a little bit different because I’ve been visiting hotel coffee shops.

Yes.

Rating them. I’m going to try to do as many as I can. The reason I’m teaching myself again what I like in hotel coffee shops is we build one.

But I’m doing the rating on their coffee, their food, and the retail items. Because the hotel, what they have, and you can bring back.

If anyone has any recommendations for South Florida hotel coffee shops, they want me to check out, let me know here in the comments, and I’ll go check it out. You can follow on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and we’ll be posting them all there.

Love it. I’ll think of some things and I’ll share it with you. Anyway, well, this was a great show.

It was fun.

It flew by.

Yeah. I’m going to have to talk about more controversial topics like this.

I think so.

Hotel etiquette, all the etiquette.

I like the etiquette. So I think we should make that a segment.

Yeah, maybe.

Like a scenario, what do you do? Because we see we’re split 50-50 with the comments here from the viewers and listeners. So I really like to see everyone has a different mindset.

Well, if you like this show, we talked about a lot of great things. Make sure to pause this, share it with a friend because I’m sure they’re going to enjoy it as much. If you haven’t signed up for Skift, make sure to subscribe.

It’s free. Doesn’t cost you anything. Just hit subscribe.

It helps us, it helps the channel and we get to do more fun things with you. Until next week, Sarah.

Stay hospital.

We did it.