Island passengers recharged at airport

Unlike Kelly Clarkson, I do hook up.

I need my hook ups.

Last week I wrote about how many departure gates ­simply don’t have enough outlets for people to plug in their ­mobile ­devices and ­laptops.

But the good news for travellers using the ­international departure gates at L.F. Wade ­International Airport is that there are now 20 chairs with outlets.

The chairs, near the vending machines, were ­installed two weeks ago.

Passengers on British Airways, WestJet and Air Canada can now use their devices in the departure lounge and board their ­aircraft fully-charged.

That’s more of a big deal if you’re on the seven-hour flight to England, but passengers on the ­Canadian flights will ­appreciate it too.

In case you didn’t notice (and I fall into this ­category) there are more than 50 chairs in the U.S. departure lounge that have outlets to plug into.

Most are near the play area, but there are other chairs in two more areas.

If you can’t find them, the airport has signs ­directing people to their ­location.

British Airways

The airline moved to its winter schedule this past week, with flights to and from the U.K. five times a week.

The only days the service does not operate are ­Mondays and Saturdays.

Picking the perfect seat

If you’ve ever wondered how much legroom you’ll get or how much pitch your seat on the plane is, there is an easy way to tell through seatguru.com

The site is owned by Trip Advisor and can tell you which seats on every plane are the best.

For example, on the American Airlines flight 258 to JFK there are eight seats designated as ‘good’ — seats 10A, 10 F and all of row 18.

There’s extra legroom for you big and tall types.

On the flip side, seats 16A and 16F are designated as ‘bad’.

Most of the seats are standard, but there’s about 30 which have some kind of drawback so be ­forewarned.

Taking a look at BA’s flights you basically want to grab a seat in rows 21 and 26 (with the exception of 26A and 26K).

The only bad seats are the three in row 41 in front of the loo.

The website also lets you see seat pitch and width.

The basic World Traveller Class on BA has a pitch of 31 inches and a width of 18.5 inches, while the AA flight has a pitch of 31 to 32 inches and a width of 17.2 inches.

WestJet seat sale

While I was watching American football on ­Sunday, there were a couple of ads promoting WestJet’s $49 each-way fare from Toronto.

With taxes you could fly round trip for just under $200 – the trick is finding the $49 seats.

The cheapest I was able to find was $89 each way —still fairly cheap.

With taxes you could fly for around $275, but the key is finding the seats on sale.

Ramada

The hotel chain is ­promising 15 per cent off your room if you book at least 14 days in advance.

You can save an additional five per cent if your stay is for a minimum three days.

Check it out at: www.ramada.com or on Facebook at: http://on.fb.me/cbuFBc

Alternatively see Twitter: http://twitter.com/ramadaworldwide

Many hotels are now ­offering special discounts through their Facebook and Twitter pages as a cheaper way to reach their customer base. 

Got a travel tip? E-mail Don Burgess at: [email protected]