Everyone’s heard of brutish baggage handlers who pilfer checked bags. How about stealthy stewardesses picking pockets and more?

The French police have arrested an Air France flight attendant accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars in cash, traveler’s checks and jewelry from dozing business-class passengers on dozens of international flights, judicial officials said Tuesday. Authorities arrested the flight attendant on the tarmac at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris early Friday, according to a report in the newspaper Le Figaro. An investigation began in January after five passengers aboard an Air France flight to Paris from Tokyo reported the disappearance of a total of $5,000 in cash. - New York Times (thanks to the lovely Maria for the tip)

I’ll just bet couchsurfing is easier with one bag…

Social networking first significantly influenced the world of travel in 1999 with the start of Couchsurfing, a service in which members offer a spare couch — or bed, or floor space — to fellow Couchsurfers, at no charge. It spawned a social phenomenon, and today counts almost two million people in 238 countries as members. - read more at nytimes.com

And if you want more than a couch, the above story is mostly about renting (cheaply) private accommodations that are quite nice, assuming you can avoid the odd psycopath.

See below for Scott of eVest fame talking at length about the controversial knee-length carry-on coat.

Update on July 8, 2010 by Brad

The Airbus A380 super jumbo is here. And fliers may find it more cramped than expected:

Qantas, which flies A380s from Sydney and Melbourne to Los Angeles, London and Singapore, has four classes of service: first, business, economy and “premium economy,” which gives travelers almost as much space as they get in domestic, first-class seats on U.S. airlines. But the airline has decided to ax first class from future A380 deliveries and add more premium economy and coach seating, a reflection of customer reluctance to spend lavishly for first-class.

In coach, passengers find the same cramped quarters of most other jets on the super-jumbo. Seating is 10 across on the lower deck; eight abreast on the narrower upper deck. Air France, with 538 total seats, opted for a slightly wider coach seat than other A380 operators, but loses some space in the aisles, which are a skinny 17-inches wide in the lower-deck coach cabin. “Seat pitch”—the amount of space allocated to each row of seats, including leg room—is only 31 to 32 inches in the A380 coach cabins, consistent with some of the tightest coach seating at airlines, and less than you get on Southwest Airlines…

…Because so much cargo space is taken up on the A380 by passenger baggage—there are two decks worth of passengers, but only one deck for cargo—the A380’s cargo capacity isn’t as large as the 777-300ER, Mr. Tyler notes. - Scott McCartney, WSJ

No US carriers have plans to fly the bulging behemoth.