Paul has just got back from Fukuoka, and the route he took makes no sense on paper - a true scenic route: 8 flights, 6 layovers, including sleeping at airports. Add two Shinkansen trains, a laminate wood floor train, a smoky first class, a ferry, and more, and it's been a real fun adventure. Along the way: upgrades, a thought about that over-engineered EU Entry/Exit System, a lounge that went offline, a stroll through some new parts of HKG, the views from the new DOH concourses, the Qatar Pacific planes (plus the actual Cathay ones), and what Paul considers to be the best business class cabin in the world. We also discuss clocks and cockpits (Europe has changed its clocks, North America hasn't yet, how the hell do you reconcile this in flight planning). A rather lengthy flight diversion due to the dreadful weather over Europe. The plethora of new vibe-coded flight apps (don't trust them all, as Paul learnt through his journey!). Starlink as the new differentiator (and how WiFi login is evolving). We even debate hot towels, their (mis)use and how to be a good passenger. Would you leave the aircraft still in pyjamas?A big adventure, many stories. And Japan is always a good idea. We mentioned:FleetTripsyTimeshifterHappy Flying!_____A show created and hosted by Paul Papadimitriou: Instagram - LinkedInThe show is on Instagram - Facebook - Bluesky - more links on the websiteVideo and audio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and wherever you podcast.

🤖 ChatGPT Plugins launched almost 3 years ago and are now discontinued. The author questions ChatGPT Apps’ value for travel booking through Booking.com, Expedia and Trip, arguing AI should work across distribution channels. GPTs are praised for internal use and context management. Skills, currently associated mainly with Claude Code, use reusable text documents to guide agents through tasks, tools and booking preferences—such as checking Kayak, Google Flights and airline websites.

🛒 Vlad’s Widgets, a hypothetical retailer with $100 million in revenue, $20 million in online sales and 30% margins, illustrates agentic shopping’s potential impact. Losing 10% of online sales, shifting 25% of remaining online sales to agents and cutting those sales’ margins by 10 percentage points would leave approximately $98 million in revenue and a 29.5% margin. Profit falls from $30 million to roughly $29 million—a setback, but not an existential threat.

🔍 OpenAI sampled 1 million ChatGPT messages monthly from July 2024 to September 2026. Information-seeking rose from 17% to 20% globally and 16% to 23% in the UK, while writing fell from 34% to 21%. Personal use accounts for 65% of messages, work 21%, and study 14%. Users aged 18–24 dropped from 39% to 31% of messages. Ahrefs estimates ChatGPT’s search volume at 12% of Google’s, sending 190 times less website traffic.