Man who spent month on planes set Guinness record
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA — The man who spent a month living on airplanes set a Guinness World Record for the most scheduled flight journeys within 30 days.
Mark Malkoff set the record with the series of flights he took June 1-30, according to Carlos Martinez of Guinness World Records.
The previous record was 128 flights, a record that had stood since 1993, Martinez said.
Malkoff's campaign was organized with AirTran.
Malkoff, 33, a comedian and filmmaker, posted updates throughout the month on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and on his blog, http://www.MarkOnAirTran.com. He also posted wacky videos, like one in which he flushed the airplane toilet to watch it suck up an entire roll of toilet paper that he had unrolled down the aisle of the plane.
In another video, he was hosed down on the tarmac by the Flint, Mich., fire department. He had no access to showers and had been using baby wipes in the airplane bathroom to clean himself.
Malkoff's itinerary ranged from five to a dozen flights a day, with destinations including Raleigh, N.C., Jacksonville, Fla., Denver, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. He ended up landing in over three dozen cities, covering more than 100,000 miles. His first and final flights were both from LaGuardia in New York to Atlanta.
Malkoff, a former audience co-ordinator for "The Colbert Report," had said at the outset that he was using the month to try to overcome his fear of taking planes. He said in an email that after talking to the pilots and spending all those hours in the air, "I've pretty much gotten over my fear of flying."
Malkoff's past projects have included "Mark Lives in IKEA," documenting his weeklong stay in an IKEA store, and "171 Starbucks," in which he visited 171 Starbucks stores in Manhattan in less than 24 hours.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA — The man who spent a month living on airplanes set a Guinness World Record for the most scheduled flight journeys within 30 days.
Mark Malkoff set the record with the series of flights he took June 1-30, according to Carlos Martinez of Guinness World Records.
The previous record was 128 flights, a record that had stood since 1993, Martinez said.
Malkoff's campaign was organized with AirTran.
Malkoff, 33, a comedian and filmmaker, posted updates throughout the month on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and on his blog, http://www.MarkOnAirTran.com. He also posted wacky videos, like one in which he flushed the airplane toilet to watch it suck up an entire roll of toilet paper that he had unrolled down the aisle of the plane.
In another video, he was hosed down on the tarmac by the Flint, Mich., fire department. He had no access to showers and had been using baby wipes in the airplane bathroom to clean himself.
Malkoff's itinerary ranged from five to a dozen flights a day, with destinations including Raleigh, N.C., Jacksonville, Fla., Denver, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. He ended up landing in over three dozen cities, covering more than 100,000 miles. His first and final flights were both from LaGuardia in New York to Atlanta.
Malkoff, a former audience co-ordinator for "The Colbert Report," had said at the outset that he was using the month to try to overcome his fear of taking planes. He said in an email that after talking to the pilots and spending all those hours in the air, "I've pretty much gotten over my fear of flying."
Malkoff's past projects have included "Mark Lives in IKEA," documenting his weeklong stay in an IKEA store, and "171 Starbucks," in which he visited 171 Starbucks stores in Manhattan in less than 24 hours.
