EDIBLE COFFEE CUPS

Every year, millions of plastic cups are used across airlines and then dumped into the growing pile of plastic that lies in the world.

New Zealand airline Air NZ knew that they had to do something about it, as they serve 8 million cups of coffee on their planes annually. 

So, they have just introduced edible coffee cups in their lounges and all their flights as a test. Made in partnership with the NZ company Twiice, these plant-based edible cups are vanilla flavoured and can withstand the heat from the coffee without melting. 

Some time back, they had already started serving #coffee in biodegradable cups, but this is definitely a step further. Having edible cups on board will also reduce the weight that they carry and further help in reducing the greenhouse gas that planes release. It is a great step forward towards a #sustainable planet.

NON-STOP MUSIC FOR NON-STOP AIRLINE

Singapore Airlines has just launched a non-stop flight from Singapore to Seattle. To celebrate this milestone and build on the idea of 'Non-Stop', the airline asked Seattle DJ and musician Chong the Nomad to build a special track for them.

What is special? The entire track is made from various sounds from inside and outside of one of its Airbus A350 planes! The entire track captures 45 different sounds to create one 'Non-stop' piece!

Check out the video of how the sounds were collected. 

Very unique and creative. Lot of fun!

The Misadventures in this Adventurous Trip!

Every time, man thinks that he has become the most powerful being on this planet, nature has its way of telling the person who is the boss! Who said reaching the mountains was easy? Every mountain comes with its own story of adventure, surprise, excitement and many other emotions. 

Last month, that is the month of Aug’16, I got a chance to visit two mountainous areas in two different countries – The Highlands of Scotland and the Cliffs of Moher of Ireland. Technically, both are not mountains that I had to trek or climb, but yet the view and the experience was just like that of a mountain. 

Taking a flight to India and then a car to the highlands should seem like very normal and easy but like I said at the beginning, mountains will test you, your patience, your perseverance, your passion before they reveal themselves to you. So what really happened and how did my story unfold?

Let me begin from the time I left India. I was flying on an Emirates flight, which had a stop over in Dubai and just two days before my flight was when Emirates had a crash landing in Dubai, which was in the news all over the world. Do you see the similarities? I am flying the same airline from the same country (India) to the same country (Dubai), where one of the planes of the airline had crash landed! But I wasn’t changing my plans because of this incident so I decided to go ahead.

Changing of flights at Dubai airport was hassle free and I was amazed that the airport seemed absolutely calm, two days after such a big event. Little did I know that there was a storm that was brewing at the back end of the airport, which we would only get to know about much later. From Dubai, I landed at Glasgow airport and kept waiting for my luggage at the conveyor belt. From ten minutes to half an hour to an hour and there was no sign of my luggage. And then I saw a few other passengers from my flight filling up a form at a temporary table that had been set up at the airport. On going there, I got to know that about 200 bags had not been loaded at the Dubai airport due to the ongoing chaos and so people were filling their baggage details so that the airline could get in touch with them once their bags would arrive. Obviously, I was one of the victims! So here I was, in Glasgow for just three days with no clothes, no toiletries and no other items that I had carried. I was sure that I would get my baggage in a day but that was not to be! Multiple calls and follow ups later also, the authorities weren’t able to locate my baggage. The day I was supposed to leave for the Highlands is the day I decided to go to the airport to the Emirates counter to inquire about my bags once again but they had no trace of it. What that meant was that I couldn’t hire a car to drive into the highlands and at the last minute, I had to take a bus to reach my hotel in the Highlands with still no trace of my baggage.

The bus ride was smooth except the rains that were coming. I kept thinking to myself that how would I go to my hotel from the bus stop in this rain. Since I had not managed to get a hotel in the main town of Glencoe, I had booked a hotel in another town called Crianlarich, which was about an hour’s drive from Glencoe, which I thought could be covered easily since I would have a car. As soon as the bus reached Crianlarich Bus stop, I got off and right in front of the bus stop was my hotel. Now that seemed like a good sign till I realized that all of Crianlarich town was this hotel plus a few houses! That isn’t the best of places for a solo traveler, but then what choice did I have. 

The next morning, I took the city bus and got off at the entry point of one of the National Parks. I realized that I was one of the first ones to arrive at the pier and there was no one in site. I soaked in the beauty, took a few pictures and by the time I was done was when a few tourists started arriving. I decided to stay back and spend more time with people around. Soon I realized that most of them had come in huge groups and were a part of the tourist buses that had come in from Glasgow. I decided to try my luck and requested many bus drivers to add me to the tour so that I could also see the other sites along with some company. Unfortunately, either the buses were full or they did not have a policy to add one more passenger in the middle of their tour. With no other choice, I once again took the local bus and decided to go all the way to Glasgow and get off there. I enjoyed the sights of many mountains as the bus drove to Glasgow, got off and took a lovely walk in the town of Glasgow, enjoyed a hot chocolate in one of the cafes and spent a couple of hours before the same bus was to pick me from here and drop me back to my hotel. 

Now if you are thinking that what happened to my luggage all this while, then here are the details:

a. My calls to Emirates call centre continued throughout the day.

b. I had done a bit of shopping in Glasgow to manage clothes once my baggage didn’t arrive for more than 2 days. 

c. Emirates finally located my luggage and sent it to my hotel in Crianlarich a day before I was leaving Scotland!

But then again, these were not the only mountains that I was visiting. So the next set of mountains brought its own set of challenges. I flew from Edinburgh to Dublin and landed with the intention of hiring a car and driving to the countryside and spending a few days there. For some reason, there weren’t any small cars available and I did not want to pay a bomb for a bigger car for a single person. I decided to use the RyanAir website to book a car as I had flown through them and they were offering me an option. Once the booking had been done, payment had been made is when I got a mail that said ‘Your booking is being processed. We will let you know once it gets confirmed. It may take anywhere from 15 minutes to 24 hours.’ Ouch! That was not what I was expecting. I kept waiting at the airport for a confirmatory mail for two hours but when I couldn’t see a ray of hope, I decided to approach the RyanAir counter to seek help. They were kind enough to give me the Customer Service number, which I called. They regretted that the booking hadn’t happened as no car was available, but they could book me on another car after half an hour, but I had would have to pay more than what I was paying earlier. With no other choice in hand, I decided to go ahead with whatever I could get. 

I got a nippy little hatchback of Volkswagen and I went off to continue my trip. After driving about 100 km, I decided to take a break and pulled myself into one of the food courts that come on the highway. On coming back in the car, I realized that my car was not getting into reverse gear. Now that was not good! I tried changing the gear multiple times but to no avail. Finally, I saw a young man passing by and I asked him if he could help me with this problem. He got into the car and was able to put the car in reverse within seconds. He then told me that there was a particular way in which this car would go in reverse gear. I heaved a sigh of relief. 

Going ahead, another 50 km down the road is when I reached the toll plaza. Due to some miscommunication, I thought that all tolls on my hired car has been paid and so I decided to drive through the unmanned toll plaza but the boom barrier did not open. Now I couldn’t figure how to operate the toll machine. Thankfully, there was an old gentleman in his car right behind me who told me about the Assistance button that I had to press and speak to toll help. After about ten minutes, a toll assistant came to my rescue, explained to me how it works and then I was able to move forward. 

It took me 5 hours to reach my hotel near Cliffs of Moher and I was so relieved that I finally made it. 

On reading this, you must be thinking that this trip must have been so much of a hassle and pain for me. Let me tell you that once you see the beauty that nature has kept in store for us, all these hassles and pain just go away as you realize that the world is so beautiful and one has to take some efforts to witness this beauty. As the old adage goes ‘No pain, no gain’ and these pictures below will prove that!

IPL – Its Web is wider than you think

Now that the Indian Premier League 4 has been done and dusted with, putting out a blog on IPL is as risky as facing Lasith Malinga without a helmet as you don’t know how the ball will respond. Well, this blog was supposed to be out during the IPL itself but due to laziness, inertia, and the IPL itself, was not able to put it together though the thought kept swimming in the mind all through. As you all know, you can’t hold back thoughts beyond a certain time and they have a tendency of wanting to come out once they get germinated, so here-on I present to you my thoughts on the IPL.

This blog is actually not about how great this IPL tournament was or how well some of the teams played or any of those other compliments and brickbats that have already been seen and read in print and online through various tweets and status updates. This blog is actually about stepping back a bit and noticing how the IPL is a big revenue generator (for BCCI, franchises and players – yes, we already know that) for people/industries that we tend to overlook as part of getting affected through the IPL.

Let me illustrate the people/industries impacted by the IPL through a web:

Let us talk about each one of them one by one so as to understand how they get impacted by IPL:

1. Airlines: The revenue of airlines who are the travel partners for the entire IPL tournament grows manifold as on a daily basis, some sectors (sectors between which travellers are travelling) have a confirmed 25 – 30 seats booked (business + economy) per team, which includes the players, the team management, the support staff. etc. Moreover, all these bookings are done well in advance so what that means is that the airlines is getting confirmed bookings across key sectors for a decent number of seats for a period of 48 days at one shot itself, which is a huge cash amount accumulating through a single booking (could possibly be the largest block booking).

2. Hotels: The hospitality partner for the tournament also sees a surge in their revenues similar to the airlines. Every day/alternate day, one team or the other is reaching the city and staying there in the hotel with each person allotted a single room (executive or superior and not deluxe). Once again, all of these bookings are done well in advance and at one shot, so this block deal boosts the revenue of the hotels involved, in a significant manner.

3. Printers: Local printers of a city who are involved in printing all the posters, banners, the 4s and 6s placards are able to do business equal to 3 – 4 months by being involved in the IPL hype, publicity and promotion.

4. Security Agencies: As we all know, IPL involves celebrities, parties, events, etc.. and all of this calls for additional security over and above the state security. All the big security agencies of the city in which the IPL matches are being held get involved in providing security to these people and events and thereby becoming one of the key beneficiaries of the tournament and its largesse.

5. Event Management Companies: Becoming the chosen partner to host and hold the IPL parties and events is an ambition that each and every event management company of the city has but only a select few are able to really get lucky and strike the deal. The scale of these parties are seen and known to all and any company involved in organising such events is making a killing and adding a few zeroes to its balance sheet.

6. Restaurants and Pubs: The joy of watching a cricket match gets multiplied when you are watching it with a group of friends on a large screen and there is food and drinks to keep the merriment going. The duration of the IPL tournament sees pubs and restaurants running special offers, putting up giant screens, making specific IPL dishes, special discounts for a group of 10 people and above and various other innovative ideas with the sole purpose of earning much, much more than what is being spent to pull the crowds in. This is a win-win for all as guests feel pampered and the restaurants get their cash registers ringing.

7. Liquor Companies/Cola Companies: Till a few years backs, liquor and cola companies used to look forward to the summer season as the sale of beer/colas would go up tremendously. Now, the summer party begins a month or two earlier as soon as the IPL Chairman declares “I declare the IPL tournament open” as what this also implies is a huge fillip to the sales of these companies through alcohol/colas bought at the restaurants/pubs as well as that bought for home consumption.

8. Local transport: Match days are days of extra income for drivers of local transport – autos and cabs. Not only do they tend to get a large number of people heading to the stadium using their means, they are also able to charge extra later in the night once the match is over, knowing very well that the exuberant mood and the desire to get home soon will make people loosen their pockets a bit and won’t mind paying a few tenners extra.

9. Food Vendors: With the kind of security checks and drills in place these days, everyone is apprehensive that if they do not reach the stadium on time, they will not be able to enter before the match starts and they will miss out on lot of action. As a result of this, people land up at the stadiums 4 – 5 hours before the match time, get into queues and slowly make their way to their seats. What this means is that they would get hungry and thirsty much before the match starts and even during the course of the match. This is the right opportunity for the local vendors to be present outside the stadium and inside (licensed vendors) with items like water bottles, cola cans, chips, biscuits, chocolates, etc. which people want and for which they do not mind paying a rupee or two extra. Regular food vendors always keep a track of match days and stock themselves accordingly as these are the opportunities to earn more than what they earn on a regular day.

I am sure when the IPL was envisaged by Lalit Modi, he would not have thought of how it will change the fortunes of a number of other people and other sectors over and above the fortunes of the players. 

The sectors and people listed by me in the web above may not be all comprehensive as I believe that there might be a number of other sectors and people who also make a killing during and through the IPL and either I have missed them while putting this blog or I am oblivious to their existence also in this web of the IPL.

Would be great to know if you, my reader knows of any other sector/people who gain a lot due to the IPL.

POSSIBLE CARTELS IN THE WORLD

In today’s times, there is so much of inter-linkages between sectors/companies/countries that an activity or an event at one place can lead to the benefit of the other. I was just wondering that if some of these people decided to come together, they could easily form a cartel and ride on these joint benefits that would accrue.

Following are some of the possible cartels that my crazy mind could think of:

1. On-ground and on-air aviation cartel: Cartel between shops at the airport and aircraft carriers – Try and delay each and every flight by atleast half an hour to an hour. This would obviously give lot of time in the hands of passengers and would result in additional sales at the airport as some hungry ones would go to the restaurants, the tired ones would get a massage done, the bored ones would probably pick up a book or so and the ones with still some dough left would finish last minute shopping at the airport. While the airport stores stand to gain, not sure whether flights would gain anything or not by paying the high ground parking charges unless the retail chains at the airport agree to share the parking charges

2. Web and the Eye Cartel: Cartel between Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and other social networking sites and opticians- Make the content more and more interesting and get people to spend more time on each of the sites. Spending more time would mean spending more time looking at the screen and that would lead to eye strain and other eye problems for which people would have to go to opticians, so it is a win-win for everyone. The web sites would get more advertisers due to their stickiness and it would mean great business for the opticians.

3. Indian wedding and international honeymoon cartel: There are a few dates/months in the Indian calendar every year, when most weddings take place and nowadays a lot of Indians get their wedding fixed by a wedding planner. This is followed by a honeymoon to international destinations like Mauritius, Bali, Malaysia, etc. for a number of new couples. One way of forming this cartel is to for international hotels/airlines to tie-up with the Indian wedding planner, whose job is right from arranging for flowers, deciding a theme, getting wedding cards printed to suggesting interesting countries to couples for their honeymoon.

All a wedding planner has to do to convince a couple is to show some great pictures of the country, the hotel and the special honeymoon suite that he/she can arrange for at a great rate. Throw in a limo pick-up and the new husband would want to give that experience to his new wife. The hotels and airlines recommended by the wedding planner beat competition as the trust in this wedding planner is immensely high. This allows the hotels/airlines to tap into the right profile of customers and the money that they save on advertising can be used to make the wedding planner ‘plan’ the right honeymoon for the couples.

4. Indian and Chinese toy/mobile phone cartel: Chinese goods have made a number of small Indian dealers rich on one hand, but on the other hand, it has also hit a large number of Indian companies making Indian products and selling it in India. One of the possible cartels could be that these Indian companies pay the Chinese companies their margins on these products, buy these products and destroy them. Then they sell their products in the Indian markets at healthy margins (which covers for what they are paying to the Chinese). This will be a win-win for the Chinese manufacturers as well as the Indian manufacturers. The people who would lose out due to such a cartel would be the small dealers who make money by selling these Chinese goods and the consumers who buy Chinese goods regularly at half the prices of what they have to pay for the Indian goods. 

But then who said that cartels are supposed to be beneficial to all. In fact, the word CARTEL is supposed to mean that only. While it benefits a few groups of people/companies/sectors, there will always be another set who will bear the brunt of such a cartel.

I am sure that this way there can be a number of cartels that can be formed. One just needs to sit and look around and see the possibilities. What cartels come to your mind? Do let me know.