Flying the friendly skies, Brian Finke began photographing flight attendants as he crisscrossed the country on Delta, JetBlue, Hawaiian, Hooters Air, Southwest, and Song airlines, before going abroad on Air France, Qantas, and British Airways. In London, he visited a flight attendant school, complete with emergency rafts and billowing smoke. Continuing east, Finke traveled Air Asia, Thai, Tiger, ANA, Japan, and Cathay Pacific. For the grand finale of his two-year trip, Finke traveled the illustrious Icelandair.

The result of this fascination is Flight Attendants, a vibrant document of those adventurous souls who choose to work at 40,000 feet. Shot before, during, and after trips, at school and at home, Finke's photographs capture the allure of this high-flying profession alongside the more quiet moments of the attendants' daily lives.

If you're on the East coast of the United States, you're fresh into your work day. On the other side of the world, in Taipei, it's already creeping into the next morning. This fact is no more evident to me now that I am sitting in my "Heavenly" bed staring at the orange glow from my bedside clock as it counts down the minutes to 3AM. Jetlag is a funny thing; the great biological reminder that I have little control over my body's sleep functions. I flop back onto my pillow and run through the events of the previous 24 hours in my head.

At the end of the day, for all their investments in technology and process, an airline is only as good as its frontline employees. Relaxing with a ginger ale and John Grisham novel in Seat 2A on a United 737 today, I got a good dose of positive customer experience. About one hour into the flight, Don, the cheery flight attendant, thrust a business card across to me. It was from the captain. "Thank you for flying United!" he had scribbled on the back, addressing me by name. "Please let me know how we can improve your experience!" On the front, the captain had underlined his e-mail address.

Just when I think that United couldn't do anything stupider (reference new $25 fee for checking a second bag), the brain trust actually comes up with a pretty good idea. United is building a special lobby at Chicago O'Hare for first-class and Global Serivces (top 1% spenders). Inspired by the exclusiveness of a five-star hotel, this private check-in area will have a separate entrance and exit directly to the front of the O'Hare security line. Specially-trained "concierges" will check-in United's best customers, process their bags and escort them to security. I dare say this is nearly identical to Austrian Airlines' Star Alliance Gold check-in lobby in Vienna or Swiss' First-Class check-in area in Zurich. The Chicago Tribune did a good job of summarizing the efforts and quotes United's CEO Glenn Tilton as saying, "We're investing in products that put us ahead of our U.S. competitors, and put us in a position to compete with virtually anyone in the world." The lobby will certainly put them a step closer, but without fundamental philosophical changes in on-board service, United will likely never be able to compete at the level of Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Cathay Pacific or Jet Airways.

New "EasyUpdate" screens appear to be spreading across the United system and are very welcome. I noticed them the other day transiting through Washington Dulles. They rotate through several "information-rich" slides, including the Standby List, the Upgrade List (along with number of upgrade seats available), the Cleared List/Awaiting Seat Assignments, and other useful information including the weather and onboard meal service. My Thursday evening flight was bordering on hilarity: 38 people on the upgrade waiting list for only two seats. Luckily, I was one of the winners!

Another helpful feature displays the plane's capacity and the number of passengers checked in to the flight. I'm glad to see United taking steps like this to improve the customer experience, even though they are now charging budget travelers for checked luggage. Take from one mouth to feed another, I guess.

So Delta along with their agency The Ebloing Group have created a series of animated shorts, we assume for marketing reasons, and for the stated purpose of spreading the good word on how to "behave" as an airline passenger. Having been stuck in a middle seat, had the pax next to me throw open the window shade on a dark cabin, and been assaulted by "kidtastrophes" in-flight, I can certainly identify with all of these videos. Does this make me want to fly Delta? No. In fact, I'm not sure what they're hoping to accomplish here: to remind us of all the aspects that make flying miserable? To win their ad agency an award? I guess they get more brand impressions, and they get free media coverage and blog write-ups. What do you think?

The ads are long on the problems travelers face, but short on solutions. So, with all the screaming kids kicking my seats, running in the aisle ways, what do I do? If this is on a Delta flight, I'll certainly check-in elsewhere. But at least I'll have a good laugh at their ads along the way. View more ads after the jump.

Everyone fits into a box or a category these days, so why should we traveling folks be excluded from all the fun? A recent article in Scott McCartney's The Middle Seat in the WSJ has the answer. Apparently, some bloke spent 40 years (yes, forty!) researching travel preferences and travel decisions. From this lifetime commitment, Dr. Stanley Plog has made it possible for us to categorize ourselves into six different "travel personalities."

You too can take advantage of this earth-shattering scientific discovery by visiting www.besttripchoices.com. You'll quickly learn whether or not you like to relax on the beach, climb mountains or hang out in a pub. But now since I like to do all three, does that make me schizophrenic?

Who goes North in December, much less to Stockholm, which sits at the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska, for just three days? Apparently, I do, when work is footing the bill. The trip calls for an all-day meeting on a Monday, so it makes inherent sense to spend the weekend dawdling in and about the northern capital.

There are very few major cities in the world that have longer winter nights than Stockholm. In fact, the sun is already tucking in behind the horizon as I feel our SAS flight glide into position over Stockholm's Arlanda airport. I check my watch: half past two in the afternoon. We spill out of our 737 into the strange, empty sanitarium of Terminal 5, with its dark polished wood floors, grey Ikea seats arranged in neat lines, and floor-to-ceiling windows separating us from the plunging temperatures outside. No one talks as we click-and-clack our way to baggage claim.

I recently attended an executive training class about competitive strategy led by the dean of one of America's leading business schools. We spent a good portion of the class talking about the airline industry and how mainline carriers have struggled to compete against their low-cost counterparts. What mainline carriers have not done, he said, is create a product worth paying for.

Mulling this over on a recent flight on Sweden's SAS (Scandinavian Airlines), it was clear that this airline had so destroyed its in-flight product that there was no way they could command a premium in the market. The seats were cramped; when the flight attendants came by with drinks they demanded payment even for a water (I literally scoffed when I heard this!); and their attitude could not have been much better. My company had shelled out hundreds and hundreds of dollars for my ticket. And what were we paying for exactly? The frequent flyer miles? The paint job? I dare say a flight on Ryanair would have been just as miserable.

It would be wrong to say that my second day in India started off as a smashing success.

I had arranged with my colleagues to meet them at the office at 10AM. This would give me ample time to catch up on some rest after the harrowing ride through the Delhi streets the night before. Unfortunately, someone had other plans. At 7AM, the phone next to my bed shakes me from my sleep: "Hello? Mr. John?" Yes, I think that's me. "This is Kishin from the concierge desk calling to confirm your car for this morning." The kind gentleman, clearly unawares that I am tired and cranky, proceeds for the next five, maybe thirty-five, minutes to tell me about the car, the driver, the pick-up time, the drop-off time, the happy time, whatever. I mumble something about that being fine and slam the phone back into the receiver.

An hour later, my mobile phone alarm beeps because, in my eagerness to sleep, I had forgotten to reset it. I turn that off and curl back into bed. By 9AM, it's wake-up call time and my bedside phone rings again with an eager young woman at the other end who wishes me a "Good morning, Mr. John!" Finally, an intended disturbance.

One article I read before leaving for India (and, truthfully, the only article about the country that I read before leaving for India) said that "encountering India is like being whirled around inside an unimaginably thrilling kaleidoscope." I didn't understand what this meant. Nausea? Epileptic fits? Did I need to pack more anti-diarrheal? I hoped, deep down, that the journalist was merely trying to be poetic.

My business trip to New Delhi would last for three days, hardly time to appreciate a country where over 1 billion people balanced distant cultural heritage with the arrival of the diesel engine and the Blackberry handheld. But despite being generally aware of India's rising status as a world power, I really didn't understand what was happening over there. My partial Indian heritage was content with the occasional visit to a London curryhouse; India was a convenient part of my identity that added flavour to those "so, where are you from?" conversations. I don't speak Hindi, Kashmiri or even my mom's tribal language. So, approaching 30, it felt appropriate to go India with eyes open wide to what I might learn about the country, and even myself.

Most airlines in the United States would have you believe that they are in the "transportation business" -- as if somehow humans were just cargo moving from point A to point B. The Europeans are not absent from this philosophy: Ryanair and EasyJet have popularized the notion of passenger as a box. But, many of the mainline carriers in Europe are proud of their heritage, their culture and their service. Austrian Airlines is such an airline!

On a recent business trip from London to New Delhi, I had the opportunity to sample Austrian Airlines' business class. It was as far away from human cargo as I could have imagined.

An interesting turn of events at Spirit Airlines that has gotten a lot of coverage across the blogosphere. The CEO of Spirit Airlines, Ben Baldanza, "accidentally" hit the "reply to all" button on an e-mail from a customer asking for a refund to a ticket. The customers had apparently missed a concert as a result of a three-hour delay on their Spirit Airlines flight. The couple incurred costs over $350, and had written to Baldanza and a few other Spirit employees, asking for a refund. Baldanza, in his haste, asked one of his staff to get back to the couple but replied to everyone in the message:

"Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny." Oops!

The full story on AlexRudloff.com.

This morning United Airlines announced their long-awaited international business class seats that have been in development for quite awhile. The new seats are going to be completely lie-flat seats (not those pseudo-lie flat seats that hang at an angle like on Lufthansa) and be enhanced with new technology including a 15.4 inch screen for movies, iPod docks to create custom playlists, XM radio feeds (pre-recorded), and built-in video games. This by far blows away the competition from all of the domestic U.S. carriers. American Airlines, for example, recently announced their "next generation" business class seats, which are "flat" but at an angle -- also known as the "wedgie" seat. If anything, AA's seat design is a few generations behind. (More pictures and a video by clicking on the link below.)

I had a bit of a gnawing feeling in my stomach for something fresh, so I jumped on the Tube to Borough Market (London Bridge station) to shop. Borough Market is London's oldest outdoor market. Over 250 years ago, when the Romans built the first London Bridge over the Thames, the market on the south bank began to thrive. Today, Borough Market brings together almost 100 organic farmers, artisanal bakers, gourmet honey and jam producers, and free-range butchers from all over the world every Friday and Saturday.