Explosion of 'Luv?'

Ah, folks at Southwest Airlines, this is your Customer speaking.

It seems we have a little problem with the "cloud-heart" illustration you've cleverly chosen to accompany promotions on your "Luv" Valentine's-themed romantic vacation packages -- under the banner "Luv Is in the Air."

Yes, I know "LUV" is your stock symbol. I get it, the cloud looks like a heart. It also, incidentally, looks like a catastrophic midair explosion.

But did anybody actually carefully evaluate that image before approving it?

Did anyone think Space Shuttle, especially with a shuttle currently en route?

Just asking, luv.

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Short Opening for Tall Building

Planning on visiting the world's tallest building on that trip to Dubai?

No observation deck for you!

For reasons not yet made quite clear by the building's developers, the 2,625-foot-tall Burj Khalifa was suddenly closed indefinitely to the public, one short month after it opened. Here's the story via the Huffington Post today.

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Cancellations and Delays: How to Avoid FAA Web Site Nonsense and Accurately Check Airport Status Data

Every time there's a major weather disruption, like that monster snowstorm still whaling today on the Washington-Philadelphia region, I'm astonished by news reports that blithely describe "scores" of flights being canceled. Why don't reporters simply go to the basic real-time sources and do the Sesame-Street-level arithmetic?

(Also, who but the tone-deaf media use the word "scores" to describe a numerical quantity? The word in that usage (a "score" equaling 20) has not actually been uttered in singular or plural form by any non-media American since Abraham Lincoln.)

For the rest of us who might want the actual information, here's how to find it easily, on Flightstats.com, which has a subscription component but which supplies basic airport operational detail for free. Registration is also free, and recommended.

--On the Flightstats.com home page, click on "Airports."

--Drop down to click on "Performance Scorecard."

--Enter an airport name or code, and click "Search."

--Viola, you will be presented with the full real-time picture in three-hour time increments -- delays for departures and arrivals, plus cancellations for the airport, as well as specific delay, departure and cancellation information for the top 10 airlines operating from that airport.

(Here's the current picture at Philadelphia International, for example.) PHL measured 26.7 inches as of 2 p.m. EST today, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. But the New York area appeared to have ducked the storm.

Meanwhile, please, please ignore constantly repeated media information to consult the FAA delay site at FAA.gov. It's seldom timely or accurate, and often not even operational.

You think I'm kidding? With thousands of flights canceled or delayed today in the mid-Atlantic region, the worthless FAA site currently shows its map of the U.S. with all airports marked with green dots, meaning no delays or problems (except San Francisco, experiencing minor delays). Your tax dollars at work.

By the way, as of 3 p.m. EST today, CNN was still ludicrously linking to the FAA's risible "Flight Delays" site, which continued showing all green dots, like some day in May. Your cable news-media editors at work!


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Shutdown at Washington, Philly Airports

Huge travel mess underway and it's going to take days for the system to sort itself out. Airports in the Washington area and in Philadelphia are shut down, and the storm is still in full force.

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More Mush from the Terrorist Watchdog Patrol

We're never going to end this security fiasco if we can't even get our terminology straight. A news account going around today says a flight was diverted because some genius found out belatedly that a passenger on board was on the terrorist "no fly" list. That is not correct.

I repeat: The terrorist "no fly" list consists of fewer than 2,000 names, nearly all of them foreign nationals, who are known to be terrorists or close working associates of known terrorists. So far, to the best of my knowledge, no person on the "no fly" list has been known to have shown up at an airport and tried to fly. (Can't be sure, because the bureaucrats classify everything as secret).

The other portion of the terrorist watch list consists of a s0-called "selectee" list, which the TSA has told me has roughly 20,000 actual known persons on it. These people are, for one reason or another (and some of the reasons are questionable) deemed worthy of a "second look" at the airport. That is, they get extra inspection and questioning before they are allowed to board their flight. That list -- maintained by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center -- is an unholy mess because it includes aliases, name variants, associates of name variants, and a veritable cornucopia of police, intelligence and anecdotal information, some of it half-assed file remnants dumped from J. Edgar Hoover's big drawers.

As a consequence, the "selectee" list, which the TSA and airlines are working to clean up, has more than 500,000 entries (not 500,000 different specific persons). The "selectee" list is the one that ensnared then-7-year-old Jack Anderson of Minneapolis and thousands of other innocent Americans, including David Nelson, the son of Ozzie & Harriet. If you share a name, a name variant or some other vaguely defined characteristic with the actual person on the list, you're subject to questioning and delay every time you arrive at the airport, till you prove that you're say, 7-year-old Jack Anderson and not the "Jack Anderson" who evidently is on the list -- and in this case, it's obvious that the Jack Anderson in question is the late muckraking columnist who was loathed by both J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon. That Jack Anderson -- a solid Mormon family man -- has been dead for years, and the fact that his name was ever on a list that found its way to the terrorist watch list data bank is a national disgrace.

Here is the news account in question, via the "terrorism" news site National Terror Alert. Note how the term "no fly list" is used interchangeably with "watch list:" Also note that nearly all of the "sourcing" is anonymous, although the invincibly inept TSA (still without a permanent director for over a year) does seem to be on the record.
***

"UPDATE: A Continental Airlines Inc (CAL.N) flight bound from New Jersey to Colombia was diverted to Florida on Friday because of security concerns about a passenger, but the person was cleared by the FBI and the flight resumed, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said.

Government officials say a flight was diverted to Jacksonville, Fla., because a passenger on board was an apparent match to a name on the terrorist watch list. Law enforcement officials are looking into whether the passenger is actually a suspected terrorist listed on the government’s no-fly list.

An airline is not supposed to issue a boarding pass to a person on the no-fly list. It was not immediately clear which airline was involved.

According to an internal government report, the flight originated in Newark and was bound for Bogota, Colombia. It was diverted to Jacksonville International Airport.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the incident.

Via Source."

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Southwest Signs Deal With Row44 for Wi-Fi In Entire Fleet

It's long been in the negotiating phase, but Southwest Airlines has finally signed a deal with Row44, the satellite-based in-flight Internet provider, to outfit its entire fleet of 540 Boeing 737s with Row44's broadband system.

Other major airlines, among them Delta, American, Virgin America, United, US Airways, and AirTran already have deals with a land-based Internet provider, Aircell's Gogo service, and to date more than 725 mainline planes have Gogo installed. Continental is also about to install Gogo on 21 of its 757s, as part of a test as it also installs DirecTV on many planes.

As I keep pointing out, the big question is how many people will actually pay for domestic in-flight WiFi service, the per-flight price of which can range up to $12.95 (though it's oiften half that for hand-held wireless devices, and many promotional offers have been luring users). To date, from what I am told by top industry sources, the "take rate," that is, the percentage of people who opt to buy, is a disappointing 5-7 percent per flight, though some flights such as Virgin America's non-stops between San Francisco and New York, come in higher because of the number of techies on that route. Also, Virgin American has a very high-quality in-flight entertainment system with interactive capabilities that integrates the WiFi services.

Here's the announcement off the Southwest blog on its Web site today:

***

"Hello everyone! You probably saw the title of this blog post and thought, “haven't I heard that before?” True, the road to onboard wi-fi has been a long one, but this week we took a major step that gets us closer to rolling out the system fleetwide. We ended the equipment "testing" phase and signed an equipment purchase contract with our wi-fi provider, Row 44. That means we now begin the process of getting equipment ordered and aircraft scheduling in place to begin our full fleet installation.

"We’ll begin installing the equipment in the second quarter of 2010. We expect to install equipment on around 15 aircraft per month initially, with the goal of increasing that number to 25 aircraft a month as we ramp up the process. With this schedule, we estimate that our full fleet of more than 540 planes will be outfitted with wi-fi service by early 2012.

"So, on to the next pressing issue… what will it cost to connect?. We don’t have an answer to that quite yet. We’re still testing a variety of price points on the four aircraft that currently have wi-fi. We’ll have a decision on price in the second quarter of 2010—rest assured that, just like our fares, it will be a great value. You can count on it!

"We’re excited about this new inflight amenity and we promise it will be well worth the wait! We’ll have more updates along the way, but, in the meantime, keep booking those Southwest flights! Your chances of traveling on a wi-fi plane will increase soon!..."

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Delta Improving Premium Cabins, Adding First Class to Some RJs

Delta Air Lines plans to spend about $300 million a year through mid-2013 to improve service and inflight amenities for its BusinessElite, first class and elite-level flyers. Among the changes will be adding first-class cabins on some regional jets. This is from the Delta announcement today:

* Installing full flat-bed seats in BusinessElite on 90 trans-oceanic aircraft, including 14 Boeing 767-400ERs, 52 Boeing 767-300ERs, 16 Boeing 747-400s and eight Boeing 777-200ERs. Upon completion, each of these fleets will have full flat bed seats on all aircraft.
* Adding in-seat audio and video on demand throughout Economy Class on 16 Boeing 747-400 and 52 Boeing 767-300ER aircraft. With these additions, Delta will offer personal, in-seat entertainment for both BusinessElite and coach customers on all wide-body aircraft.
* Adding first class cabins to 66 CRJ-700 aircraft operated by Delta Connection carriers ASA, Comair and SkyWest, bringing to 219 the number of regional aircraft with First Class seating.
* Completing the modification of 269 pre-merger Northwest aircraft to feature Delta's signature blue leather seats, updated lighting and enhanced cabin amenities such as increased overhead bin space on pre-merger Northwest 757-200s.
* Installing winglets on more than 170 Boeing 767-300ER, 757-200 and 737-800 aircraft to extend aircraft range and improve fuel efficiency by as much as five percent.
* Renovating and expanding Delta's Los Angeles Sky Club lounge, and introducing new Sky Club locations in Seattle, Philadelphia and Indianapolis.

"Delta's planned fleet and product investments mark the most significant investment we have made in our customers in more than a decade," said Delta CEO Richard Anderson. "Our premium travelers tell us that the comfort of a flat bed seat with direct aisle access, a first class experience on regional jets and in-flight entertainment are important factors in their choice of carrier."

"This investment will be made while staying well within the level of our historical capital expenditures," said Ed Bastian, Delta's president. "Rather than invest in new aircraft, Delta will be spending its capital to improve the quality and consistency of the on-board product and efficiency of the aircraft we already own."

Delta currently has more than 100 domestic aircraft equipped with in-seat audio and video on demand. Delta also continues to rapidly expand in-flight Wi-Fi service, which is available on more than 340 aircraft and more than 1,200 flights each day. Delta, the largest operator of Wi-Fi enabled aircraft in the world, plans to have more than 530 aircraft equipped with Wi-Fi by mid-2010.

Delta's upcoming fleet and product investments build on recently announced improvements including the re-launch of the Red Coat program at Delta's international hub at JFK and subsequently at all domestic hubs; the addition of BusinessElite service on Delta's transcontinental routes between New York-JFK and Los Angeles and San Francisco; the introduction of the full flat bed seats on all flights between the United States and London-Heathrow; and the announcement of plans to create a domestic hub at Delta's No. 1 business airport - New York-LaGuardia, subject to government approvals.

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TSA Follies (Continued): Screener Pranks Citizen With Bag of 'Drugs'

There is apparently no end to the nonsense perpetrated by the TSA and no limit to the amazing tolerance Congress and the President show toward the fact that the agency has been operating without a permanent director for over a year now.

This screener's "prank" was just odious. The link is from Newser.com.

And by the way, a TSA screener has no business acting like a law enforcement officer, and the Fourth Amendment applies even at a checkpoint.

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TSA Follies (Continued): Strip-Search Machine Fails to Spot Bomb Parts

A German television program had a close look at the TSA's vaunted whole-body image scanners and found that while they can show intimate body details, they also can fail to spot concealed components that could be used to make bombs.

Here's the link to the report via Huffington Post.

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American Airlines $344 Million 4Q Loss; U.S. Airline Passenger Revenue Plummeted in 2009

American Airlines today reported a $344 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2009, and the numbers behind that look bad for an industry that continues to struggle.

Meanwhile, the Air Transport Association said today that passenger revenue for U.S. airlines plunged 18 percent in 2009, a record. Overall, passenger traffic fell 3 percent from 2008.

Of American Airlines' $344 million third-quarter loss, writing-down the dropping value of smaller regional jets (which gobble fuel) accounted for $42 million. Parking other aircraft in the desert accounted for $23 million.

Overall mainline seating capacity was off 4.9 percent, reflecting the continuing shrinking of air-travel service among U.S. carriers.

The load factor for the quarter was a record 81.1 percent, meaning more people were crammed into fewer planes.

Yield, or the amount of dough the company took in from passengers, was off 7.6 percent, despite the mounting windfall-revenue that domestic carriers are seeing from those baggage and cancellation fees.

American blamed the yield decline on "more aggressive pricing industrywide" (that's a flack's way of describing fare discounting and promotions to lure passengers) and "reduced traffic in the premium cabins."

That refers to what is one of the key developments in the industry's fortunes, the plunge in the number of business travelers who are buying business-class and first-class seats. Along with that, though not reflected in the basic passenger-traffic numbers, is the sharp reduction throughout the global industry in premium fares. Those $9,500 round-trip fares between New York and London are pretty much history now.

The International Air Transport Association reported on Monday that worldwide premium traffic continued to decline in November, the last month for which data are available.

The number of passengers traveling on first or business-class fares fell 6.7 percent over the already depressed numbers of November 2008, the trade group said. That's just passenger numbers. Reflecting fare reductions and sales, revenue in the premium market (which typically accounts for about a third of passenger revenues industrywide) was off 30 percent in the first half of 2009, IATA said.

As I have said before, this trend cannot continue indefinitely. Something's gotta give.

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Another Fine Mess for the TSA; Security Breach Causes JFK Terminal Evacuation

Somebody walked through an unguarded door in the secure area of Terminal 8 at Kennedy International Airport this afternoon, causing the terminal to be evacuated and thousands of passengers to be re-screened. Another fine mess for airport security, which doesn't seem to be able to guard doors -- which is, come to think of it, historically the first job of security.

While no one is watching the doors, the TSA, still being run by Bush appointees, is busily awarding huge contracts to politically connected companies, including one represented by Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, for virtual "strip search" checkpoint technology whose efficacy has been called into question.

And by the way, the TSA has now been without a permanent director for one year and one day.

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The TSA and Its 'Myths'

You have previously met here young Jack Anderson, aged 7 when that photo was taken in 2008 with his mother, Christine, near their home in Minneapolis.

Now behold the TSA in its full glory, insisting on the "Myth Busters" section of its chatty blog that it is a myth that there are eight year olds on the "no fly list."

The Times uses that in a story today in which it finds an eight-year-old, little Mickey Hicks, who has been subject to the third-degree when he shows up at an airport.

Huh?

Anyway, it's certainly true that there are no eight-year-olds on the "no fly list," as the TSA maintains. The media keep using that term interchangeably with the "watch list," but it's incorrect to do so. The "no fly" portion of the watch list has about 2,000 names on it, and those people are all known terrorists. In other words, if someone identified as being on the "no fly" list shows up at an airport (and apparently no one has yet), they don't just get a third-degree, they don't fly and the cops are called.

The other portion of the list -- the so-called "selectee" part -- contains about 500,000 various identities, names, name variants, half-baked name leads, and historical grudge-list candidates (the late Jack Anderson, of course, was a pesky newspaper columnist who was loathed by Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover). People who share a name the same as or similar to any one of those "identities" have been getting the third-degree at airports, including at least these two young boys.

And yes, the TSA is technically correct, though thoroughly disingenuous. Young Jack Anderson, now aged nine, was evidently removed from the selectee list last year after his mother kept pressing for remedial action (and after all the publicity). I say apparently because the list is top-secret and the authorities never disclose who is on it or not).

Next -- One more time: How the watch list really works.

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Quote of the Day

From Mike Boyd, the well-known airline forecaster, at aviationplanning.com:

"Those F-16s Weren't Scrambled To Help Serve Coffee

"There have been two incidents of fighters scrambled as a result of security incidents on board airliners. Media assumed they were there to 'guide' and 'assist.' Wake up, guys. They were there to put a Sidewinder up the airliner's tailpipe if necessary."

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Airport Power Out, Flights in Cleveland Affected Through 6 p.m. Today

Continental Airlines suspended operations at its Cleveland hub at Hopkins International Airport through 6 p.m. today because of an airport power outage.

United, American, Southwest, Delta and US Airways also canceled most flights through at least 6 p.m.

What's going on? Late in the morning, long after the airport mess had been manifest and travelers were being confounded with scrubbed flights, the Web site of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer stirred itself into action with a report on what was going on, though "scores" of flights canceled is a low-ball guess. Why don't reporters simply look these things up?

According to the real-time data on Flightstats.com in early afternoon, 95 of the 138 departures scheduled between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. were canceled. For the same time period, 66 of the 118 scheduled arrivals were canceled.

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This Is How Bad Security Really Is Where It Counts

At the checkpoints, dozens of TSA officers stand around. But I'd always wondered about those exit corridors, used by passengers leaving the airport.

Typically, they're guarded by a lone TSA officer at a podium and a sign that says "Do not enter." A wide-open corridor!

As we know, some idiot shut down terminal C at the hilariously named Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday when he decided to stroll into the secure area. How bad was the security? With video, here's this AP story, via USA Today.

The surveillance video, by the way, was made not by the airport (as the AP story states) but by Continental Airlines, according to today's New York Times.


An excerpt from the AP report:

"He took advantage of a guard's absence to sneak past a security checkpoint and walk arm-in-arm with a woman into a secure area, causing a terminal shutdown.

The couple's actions emerged in a surveillance video released Thursday by the office of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who had pushed the Transportation Security Administration to release the footage.

In the video, the man stations himself near an exit lane ... A minute or so later, after the guard leaves his podium for several seconds, the woman approaches the exit from inside the terminal and motions to the man, who ducks under the rope to join her. The two then walk into the passenger-only area ... During the time the guard was away from his post, dozens of passengers are seen walking out through the exit lane, further obscuring the man and woman. Someone waiting for an arriving passenger notified the guard."

You'd have to be a very wily terrorist to foil that level of security, right? Forget about hiding explosives in your shorts. Hell, you can bring an entire roadside bomb assembly in when they just let you stroll through an exit.

And by the way, the TSA has been operating without a permanent director for 11 months and three weeks, and counting.

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Here Come the TSA Virtual Strip-Searches, Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk

[Update, Jan. 7 -- There's a priceless anecdote in a security roundup story in today's New York Times, a woman flying from Dusseldorf to Newark with her musical instrument, a "type of bagpipe." The woman was made to remove the bagpipe and play it "to prove its purpose."]

The absurdity never ends.

Last year, I wrote a lot about the so-called whole body imaging machines the TSA was prepared to roll out to all airport checkpoints starting last fall. The machines see through clothing to detect any material on the body or in, say, a pocket. This means, incidentally, that you won't be able to carry your wallet through the checkpoint. Onto the belt it goes.

(And ignore any reporting that says the machines can't "store" images. Of course they can. The TSA just says they won't store images.)

Successful terrorists adapt to circumstances. Whole body imagers, even if they do work as advertised, do not detect anything hidden within folds of fat, or in a body cavity. We can only wince to guess what the next step might be.

Faced with resistance, the TSA backed off the plan to replace metal detectors with whole body imagers at all checkpoints by early this year (the machines are now in use selectively at some airports). But thanks to the Christmas Day Underpants Bomber, now the plan is back on track.

More on that later, and more on the bad information bouncing around about the "terrorist watch list," which consists of two lists, one a "no fly" list that has fewer than 2,000 names on it (most of them known-to-be-dangerous terrorist suspects, mostly foreign nationals) -- and the other a "selectee" list that does not have 500,000 names on it, but rather 500,000 various identities and references to identities. Being a selectee means you get an extra inspection at the airport and have to prove you're not the person who is on the list. Among those identities and potential identities on the selectee list, as we know, are various David Nelsons and Jack Andersons, one of whom was 8 years old the last time he got flagged at a checkpoint as a suspected terrorist.

Anyway, here's a very interesting article on whole body imaging technology security from Mother Jones that has been making the online rounds.

Meanwhile, the TSA has been operating without a permanent director now for 11 months and three weeks.

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Continental Results Indicate a Robust December for Airlines

Continental is always the first to report its monthly operating results, and the December numbers indicate a solid strengthening in business.

The load factor -- the percentage of available seats filled with paying passengers -- was 83.1 percent compared with December 2008, a record. That comprises a domestic load factor of 85.1 percent and international load factor of 81.9 percent, also records for the month. Especially on domestic flights, those numbers indicaate (as if any of us fliers need verification) that nearly all flights are totally full.

Revenue passenger miles, a standard metric measuring one paying customer being flown one mile, were up 3.5 percent domestically and 9.6 percent internationally.

Capacity, or available seat miles, also rose -- up 2.2 percent domestically and 2.5 percent internationally.

But fate still glowers at the airline industry. Just as it appears to be digging out of the long, dreary slump, here comes the nitwit Underpants Bomber on Christmas Day to create security chaos in the airports,

And oil prices crept over $81 a barrel today.

Takes a special kind of steely nerve to run an airline.

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Security Collapse at Newark: Who's in Charge Here?

All the full-body pat-downs and whole-body imagers in the world cannot make up for an unguarded (or ineptly guarded) corridor that allows an unknown person to stroll into the secure area of an airport without so much as a "Hi, there."

This was seen yesterday evening at the hilariously named Newark Liberty International Airport, when someone evidently sauntered into the exit corridor at Terminal C, slipping right under the nose of the T.S.A. officer who is supposed to guard the passageway.

Lookit this statement from TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis: "A male individual was observed walking the wrong way down an exit lane in Terminal C at Newark Liberty Airport. TSA was notified and we immediately halted screening at the security checkpoints in Terminal C ..."

TSA was notified?

Again, we see evidence of an agency that has serious management ... um, issues, as the tech people love to say. As we know, the TSA has been operating without a permanent director since Kip Hawley left the job a year ago.

Last night, hysteria again moved into the breach. The terminal was shut down, passengers were hustled out, flights stopped departing.

Between 6 p.m. and midnight yesterday, 111 of the scheduled 162 departures left at least 45 minutes late, most of them way more than 45 minutes late, according to Flightstats.com.

By the way, some news accounts are saying this guy went through a "door." It's no door, it's a wide corridor with a podium where the TSA guard sits, or snoozes. And also by the way, the TSA has dozens and dozens of officers standing around at each checkpopint -- but only one person, typically, at the easy way in the out door.

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TSA: Travelers From 14 Suspect Nations to Get Extra Screening on U.S. Bound Flights

Passengers traveling from or through countries that either are officially recognized "sponsors of terrorism" or otherwise suspected of harboring terrorist causes will have to go through enhanced screening, including full-body pat-downs, before boarding any flight to the United States, the Transportation Security Administration said today. The measures include all citizens of those nations on flights to the U.S.

The new guidelines, the first to effectively profile citizens of and travelers from certain countries, are effective tomorrow.

The TSA described the new measures as "long-term, sustainable security measures
developed in consultation with law enforcement officials and our domestic and international partners" and said they were implemented amid "extraordinary cooperation from our global aviation partners."

The directive also "increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on U.S. bound international flights," the agency said.

A couple of years ago, there would have been some howls of protest within the U.S. against any idea of "profiling" an entire nation, even one known to be friendly to terrorist organizations.

My guess is, not this time. In my opinion, this is a smart move by the TSA. It obviously took some fast, smart footwork in coordination with other nations.

I haven't yet seen the complete list, but the following countries are on it: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Cuba, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Lebanon, Algeria.

Expect indignant yowls from those countries.

I say, tough. Suck it up.

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Happy New Year: Revelers Raise Glasses; Airlines Raise Fares

Rick Seaney's New Years bells went off a little early when the fare-tracking system at FareCompare.com noted "unusual activity" Wednesday night in the airline fare systems.

Yup, one after the other into the final day of the year the major airlines quietly raised prices.

Here's the alert he issued today:

***

"At 8 pm Eastern time Wednesday evening the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare tracking system detected unusual system wide airfare hike activity initiated by United Airlines. Over 15,000 United city pairs were increased by $6 and $10 roundtrip ($3 and $5 each way). The increase covered the bulk of United’s domestic route system -- mainly at the $6 roundtrip level.

Yesterday (New Years Eve) the remaining legacy airlines began to match including American, Delta/Northwest, US Airways, Continental and Alaska.

Airfare hikes typically occur on Thursday evenings, but New Years is special case as no domestic airfares are distributed today.

The hike did not have any effect on a variety of airfare sales in the domestic system for travel through early March. Legacy airlines also tiptoed around overlapping low-cost airline routes (Southwest, JetBlue, AirTran) as the group has yet to participate in the hike.

This increase represents the 4th successful hike of 2009 compared to fifteen in 2008 and seventeen in 2007 – all since mid 2009.

The legacy airlines also have in place over 30 departure days where “peak travel” surcharges are applicable for travel in the first half of the year ranging from $10 to $30 each way.

Airline executives have been ranging from cautious to cautiously optimistic about overall air travel demand for the first 2 quarters of 2010 – while continuing to fret over the slow return of the lucrative business travel sector. Many executives have also signaled that domestic airfare is going up in 2010 barring any major change in current demand trends.

It is very rare to see all legacy airlines match a hike in such a short time span and have the hike fizzle – that said if any major changes occur on this increase we will send out an update."

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Christmas Tree Ornament Diverts Orlando-Bound Flight

Some hysteric spotted a "suspicious" package on a Detroit-Orlando flight on Delta/Northwest, and the flight made an emergency landing in Nashville. No Disney World for you!

Can we please all settle down, please? The Christmas Day Underpants Bomber is safely in jail.

I mean, is this the nation that won the Battle of Midway or not?

###

TSA Drops Subpoenas Against 2 Bloggers

The TSA has now dropped subpoenas against two bloggers who were among many who published the infamous security directive the agency issued right after the Christmas Day terrorist bombing attempt on a Delta/Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The agency had sent its agents to the homes of two travel bloggers, Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, to serve them with subpoenas demanding they tell the TSA where they got copies of the directive the agency sent out widely to airlines and others on Christmas Day after the dimwitted Underpants Bomber failed in his attempt to blow up the flight as it was about to land in Detroit.

Sending agents to these two guys' homes was yet another recent remarkable act by the agency, which had been deeply embarrassed by the hostile public reaction to the rules outlined in the directive. You know, the ones that said that on international flights into the U.S., everybody had to stay seated for the last hour of the flight, with no personal possessions of any kind in hand or on lap.

The Underpants Bomber had scarcely stopped smoldering before the ridicule over that directive was reverberating all over the Internet. The directive was promptly revised.

The agency, as I noted last week, before the media finally woke up to this amazing fact, is still being run by Bush appointees, some of whom, like Gale Rossides, the acting director, have been with TSA since the very beginning. President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano dilly-dallied and took till August to come up with a nominee to head the agency, Erroll Southers. Southers is a former FBI agent and Santa Monica cop, a well-known scholar in terrorist risk-management, and the head of terrorism intelligence and Homeland Security liaison at Los Angeles International Airport. The Southers nomination finally went to Congress in September.

At which point one of those Republican super-patriots, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, put a "hold" on the Southern nomination that has kept it in limbo ever since. DeMint, who comes to his current expertise in international counter-terrorism from his distinguished life experience as a corporate market researcher, believes that Southers might be insufficiently hostile to the idea that the TSA work-force might become unionized. And labor unions, in a state like South Carolina, are evidently seen as a grave danger (despite the fact that most law-enforcement agencies, including the best in the world, the New York Police Department, are heavily unionized).

Anyway, here we are. Our air-travel security remains in the hands of an agency still run by Bush appointees, almost a year after the new administration took office. An agency whose management seems to be flailing, at a very dangerous time. An agency that has now insulted the First Amendment by sending its agents to the homes of journalists to intimidate them in front of their families.

And don't forget: That knee-jerk security directive of Dec. 25 was not exactly the Pentagon Papers. It was readily available online and via e-mail to anyone who looked for it, and to many who did not. Within hours after it was evidently rashly issued to airlines, it was rocketing around online faster than a Nigerian (hmmmmm) lottery scam.

In backing off the ill-advised subpoenas today, the TSA issued a strange "never mind" statement that, my guess is, does not end this matter. After all, someone at the agency thought it was a good idea to send its cops to these guys' houses and even seize one of their laptops. The question now is, who made that call?

Here's the TSA statement:

"TSA takes any breach in security very seriously. In light of the posting of sensitive security information on the web, TSA sought to identify where the information came from. The investigation is nearing a successful conclusion and the subpoenas are no longer in effect."

My follow-up question, which I have conveyed to the TSA, is this: "Who specifically at the TSA decided to send the agents to these two bloggers' homes, and in one case seize a laptop, and was that decision approved by Acting Director Rossides?"


UPDATE, Jan. 7, 2010 -- Hmmm. Still no response from the TSA on the question of whose idea it was to send two agents to the homes of those two bloggers. I'd say the TSA would just as soon we all forget about that particular dumb stunt.

###

Let the New Security Bumbling Begin ... Meanwhile, Why Has the TSA Been Without a Director Since January?

More than 30 years ago, while working on a book, I spent almost a year on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. There was very little crime in Malta, owing partially to the good character of its inhabitants, but also to its geography. The island is about 23 miles at its longest and about eight miles at its widest. A criminal, especially one who commits a crime in public, is quickly seized.

While I was there, a spectacular armed bank robbery occurred that kept people talking for months. Not that the robbers got away with much, it was just that they did the deed in public, sticking up the little bank and then running out to the getaway car, which was parked right out front.

As I recall, they got about four miles away before a flock of sheep slowed their escape, and the police arrived and grabbed them. And as I recall the two robbers were sent to jail for a bit, and then committed for a spell to the lunatic asylum, and that's exactly what they called it on Malta.

As I said, this was quite a sensation, and there were demands in the papers (both of them) that Action Be Taken to address the evident crime spree. And Action was taken. The government quickly decreed that henceforth, it would be illegal to park a car in front of a bank.

Much hilarity ensued, the Maltese being famously cynical. It would be correct to say that bank robberies ceased, though no one could remember there being a previous one to the incident in question. There was evidently just the one.

This all comes back to me today as I read the accounts of that scary incident on the Delta/Northwest flight yesterday from Amsterdam to Detroit, where on final approach a moron would-be terrorist from Nigeria named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab "set off a device, while resulted in a fire and what appears to have been an explosion," according to the federal arrest warrant.

The perpetrator "was subdued and restrained by passengers and flight crew," the warrant says.

There is no need here to summarize this incident further, as it is all over the media, of course. This barking idiot Umar Farouk Akdulmatallab, whether trying to make a name for himself or whether acting with encouragement from other aspirational terrorists, tried and failed to create serious damage on an airplane.

But let's now look at the immediate response, because it seems that hysteria once again has been reaction No. 1.

Assuming major press reports are correct, security has been "heightened" all over. O.K., that's sensible enough. One can assume aspirational copy-cats.

But reports also say (though they seem to be thinly sourced) that the T.S.A. plans to impose very strict limits on "passenger behavior," including requiring all passengers to remain seated for the final hour of any flight, and prohibiting passengers from having "personal belongings or other items on their laps" during that final hour.

Let's see, some half-wits rob a bank and drive away in their car, and the government responds by making it illegal to park in front of a bank. Oh, wait, no: That was Malta, a long time ago.

Why am I reminded of it today?

While the security knee-jerkers carry on, making things up as they go along as usual, let's note what seems to me to be a salient point here.

Who is in charge of security?

Congressman Pete King, the ranking Republican on the House homeland security committee, has all over the news today, demanding Action.

Yet has no one asked Mr. King or his colleagues rushing to the microphones the following question: Why have congressional Republicans been blocking President Obama's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration -- which has been without a permanent director for nearly a year? (A Bush appointee has been running the agency on a temporary basis since Kip Hawley, the last director, left office when the new administration took over in January).

Hawley had his critics, but by most accounts (including mine) he was a serious professional who understood risk management as opposed to mere security theater (though he was forced, by Congress and the media, to keep the security-theater show firmly on the boards).

One of the initiatives Hawley was intently engaged in was working with foreign air-travel security authorities to try to impose international standards not only in things like airport screening (which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab evidently sailed through with incendiary material on his person in Amsterdam), but also in vital efforts such as intelligence gathering and sharing. Hawley had the respect and the attention of international security agencies. Serious progress was being made.

But Hawley left in January, and the T.S.A. has been without a director since.

According to some reports today, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a known security threat, in that his name and identity evidently appeared in some intelligence data-banks, meaning he should have been on the "selectee" section of the famous "terrorist watch lists." That means, he should have got a thorough secondary going-over and questioning before he boarded that flight to the United States.

Yet, a terrorist -- aspirational or not -- slipped through cracks in the system and managed to create that incident on an airplane in U.S. airspace.

Hawley was working to seal those cracks, and the man President Omaba named to replace Hawley, Erroll Southers, has been cooling his heels, waiting for Republicans in Congress to get out of the way so the nomination can be approved.

Evidently, there is some concern among some Republicans that Mr. Southers might be insufficiently hostile toward unions. And so the T.S.A. goes without a leader.

Mr. Southers is the assistant chief of police at Los Angeles International Airport, in charge of intelligence and Homeland Security. He is a well-respected scholarly authority in risk-analysis as a component of intelligence and security. He is a former FBI agent, and a former cop. That evidently isn't good enough for right-wing Repuiblican Sen. Jim DeMint, of South Carolina, who has been blocking the Southers appointment. DeMint is a former market researcher.

So before we let the T.S.A. run around reacting wildly to the Delta/Northwest incident, let's ask why that agency has been without a director since last January?

You know, the same agency that managed to accidentally post online its entire security procedures manual recently? That keeps changing signals about deploying new body-imaging technology?

"If there ever was a question about clearing the way for the appointment of a permanent administrator for this beleaguered agency, it has certainly been answered by this most recent misstep," according to a statement earlier this month in support of the Southers nomination by the American Federation of Government Employees.

That's a union.

The statement criticized Sen. DeMint for placing a Senate "hold" on the Southers nomination. DeMint, of course, is the South Carolina far-right-wing activist and super-patriot. A single senator, even one in the minority, can block a presidential appointment these days, pretty much indefinitely.

This is what DeMint has to say grandly today on his Senate Web site:

"Sen. Jim DeMint believes terrorism is the greatest threat posed to America and that the United States must remain committed to the long war on global terror. We can not afford to stand by while networks of terror assemble, plan and act against free and open societies. America must pursue terrorists and any one who supports their murderous plans."

Back in October, on the same Senate Web site, DeMint explained his blocking of President Obama's nominee to run the T.S.A. this way:

"Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), ranking member of the Aviation Operations, Safety and Security Subcommittee, sent a letter to Erroll Southers, President Obama's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), asking for a clear answer about whether he will unionize the TSA’s security screeners if confirmed.

'The safety and security of the American people are far too important to be controlled by union bosses,' said Senator DeMint. 'It’s time for Mr. Southers to give an unequivocal answer: Will he give union bosses control over the safety of Americans at our airports, yes or no?'

'Unionizing TSA would be a homeland security disaster. TSA needs to be nimble in responding to ever-changing threats. Having to wait and check with the union bosses before reacting to urgent aviation security threats reduces our ability to keep Americans safe. TSA must quickly move personnel to protect the traveling public, and allowing union bosses to control these decisions is a dangerous and unacceptable security risk.'"

Yep, the T.S.A. has been drifting along without a director for a year because a right-wing Republican from South Carolina has surveyed the situation and identified the real terrorist threat to America:

Unions.

###

Who Else Gets Up At 4 a.m.?

Up at 4 a.m. -- 3.55 a.m. actually, duck out into the chilly black night for a quick bracing view of the starry Arizona desert sky, then back iknside for a fast browse of the online news.

Ugh, a crazy person has lept over a pew and jumped the Pope at Christmas Mass -- right in St. Peter's. (He evidently was not hurt).

What the hell kind of security do they have in Rome? I mean for Pete's sake (so to speak), Derek Jeter gets better protection at Yankee Stadium.

And the video. Did you see how those people were dressed, in St. Peter's, with the Pope, on Christmas Eve? Down jackets and cheap scarves and jeans? They looked like the mid-morning crowd at Wal-Mart. Come on, folks: At least put on a tie or a skirt for Christmas Mass at St. Peter's with the Pope in attendance. Dress well. He does.

Anyway, back to reality here. Who gets up at 4 a.m. unless it's for a tragedy, an illness, a boot-camp whistle, a psychotic episode or ...oh yeah, an airplane trip, which come to think of it shares something in common with all of those things. The airlines have conditioned us to getting up at 4 a.m. Hit the deck!

The online air-travel maps are all blinking green. (After all, it isn't dawn yet in half of the country). The media weather hysterics seem to have settled in for a long winter's nap. Hey, it's snowing in Minneapolis. Hey, it's winter! It's Minneapolis!

The air travel system is still tangled from the thousands of cancellations last weekend on the East Coast. Airplanes are not all where they should be. Crews are out of place, and work schedules are messed-up, with the end of the month approaching. Who knows what adventure lies ahead for me today between Arizona and Newark?

Once more into the breach! My cross-country flight is on time, and so is the connection through the uproariously named George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where I brace myself for that all-consuming announcement from the shrill lady on the loudspeaker constantly threatening to "`rist" anyone for making inappropriate jokes or comments about security.

The bag is packed, the coffee mug washed.

A quick duck outside for a lungful of cold desert air and a look at that black starry sky, where a meteor streaks into the horizon over the mountains.

And so away, and Merry Christmas to all.

###

A Christmas Travel Mess Looms As a New Blizzard Is Forecast -- This One for the Plains, Parts of Midwest

Airlines are all putting out announcements that you can change your Christmas travel plans without penalty if you're flying through "affected airports." Here's a look at the ones identified so far by Continental. All other airlines have are posting online bulletins.

Watch this one closely because a great big mess can grow in the Plains and Midwest and radiate throughout the air-travel system. And that system has not yet fully recovered from last week's East Coast blizzard disruptions. Another big weather disruption will affect the system through New Year's, as stranded passengers rush to get re-accommodated.

By the way, Chicago O'Hare has already had about 250 flight cancellations (arrivals and departures) as of 6 p.m. Central time.

Keeping in mind that media hysterics have a financial interest in hyping storms, here's a weather report. It's looking ugly. Dear media: Let us please keep those jolly "white Christmas" references to a minimum?

###

Winter Storm Watch Dropped in Chicago

It's not really a "never mind" kind of situation. Weather forecasters have dropped the winter snowstorm warnings for some of the Midwest, including Chicago.

On the other hand, there will be freezing rain and wind-gusts up to 35 mph. Icing and wind always affect takeoffs and landings.

And delays are being marked as "excessive" at O'Hare already today. As of 10.30 Central time, about 100 arrivals and departures had been canceled at O'Hare -- nearly all of them by American Eagle or American Airlines, according to Flightstats.com


And in Minneapolis, they're still expecting that winter storm, including heavy snow.

So as always, check ahead before going to the airport. There is no slack in the system. None.

###

Winter Storm Bound for Midwest Will Cause More Flight Cancellations

Right now, I'm looking at (and listening to) a windstorm blowing through the sunny desert of southern Arizona, a phenomenon that I have come to recognize as weather on a great big hurry to get somewhere else.

So git, I say.

But sorry, Midwest, here it comes, over the mountains and up the prairies, where it appears likely to develop into a nasty winter storm tomorrow just in time for one of the biggest Christmas air-travel days.

It may be just freezing rain and ice tomorrow, but there will be wind. And wind is a great disrupter of takeoff and landings.

Alas, one of the potential results is that a larger-than-normal number of flights could be preemptively canceled by airlines worried about the draconian new DOT rules on tarmac delays. The Air Transport Association has said that one of the unintended consequences of that action, which was taken to address problems the airlines and the FAA failed to address adequately, will be more flight cancellations.

So we'll see. If O'Hare or other Midwest airports are in your travel plans tomorrow or Thursday, remember that this week began with more than 3,000 flight cancellations during the East Coast blizzard. The air-travel system, which has no slack built in even in normal times, still hasn't fully digested that lump of displaced passengers and dislocated aircraft and crews. It is not yet fully functional from that disruption.

So plan for delays but most importantly, be prepared for a flight cancellation.

###

Global Airline Capacity Up in December as Demand Starts to Recover

There are 4 percent more airline seats available globally this December than there were in December, 2008, which is an indication that a slow recovery in air travel demand might be underway. There is no similar indication that airline revenues may be improving.

Here's the detailed report from OAG, the world’s leading aviation data supplier, which issues a monthly report on trends in the supply of airline flights and seats. There are 294.8 million seats available this month, a rise of 4% over December 2008 levels. Global frequencies are up 1% compared to December 2008, with a total of 2.4 million flights scheduled for December 2009, despite an average North American frequency decline of 2%. Worldwide, frequencies and capacity in the low cost sector are both up by 10% compared to a year ago, accounting for 444,539 flights (18%) and 65.6 million seats (22%).


John Weber, senior vice president OAG Aviation, said, “Global capacity continues to rise, boosted by worldwide increases in both frequency and capacity in the low cost sector, which would tend to show us that travelers are choosing to fly airlines that offer more economical choices. This increase in December 2009 capacity recovers the global pull-down of minus 10 million scheduled seats in 2008 ..."

###

Eurostar Service Returns With Big Backlogs; Icy Weather Hitting London, Heavy Snow to the North

Travel in western Europe has been a challenge for weeks, with unusual cold and snow.

The good news: Eurostar, the fast train under the English Channel, returned to service after a breakdown stranded thousands in the 31-mile-long "Chunnel." But passenger backlogs are expected all week.

Bad news: More ice for the south of England, snow to the north.

###

Justice David Eady and the Threat to Free Speech in the U.S.

PHOTO: Lord Eady, One Real Threat to U.S. Free Speech From Abroad

The utterly disgraceful trend continues toward foreign courts in some countries allowing and approving libel suits against Americans who have been writing or speaking in the U.S., and whose speech would be otherwise fully protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Recently, there has been media attention toward the British High Court, famous for allowing any joker with a grievance and a lawyer to come to the UK and file a libel suit (and usually win) against some American citizen for exercising what would be free speech in the United States. The British High Court, and that splendidly kitted fellow above, one Justice David Eady, shown above in his panto Father Christmas/Pope Julius outfit, have been the main perpetrators lately, as this international disgrace to free democratic speech evolves.

I've personally been caught up in this, and as those who have followed it know, I will not accept these affronts to the United States Constitution and its First Amendment.

So let me say this about the splendidly outfitted British Mister Justice Eady, on a blog written in the U.S. and directed toward American readers: I believe him to be a stooge for wicked people and a direct threat to free speech in the United States.

Recently there has been talk in Britain -- underscore "talk" -- about reforming laws that allow judges like Eady to make the UK a center for libel tourism. The talk -- underscore "talk -- has followed recent articles, in the Times of London and in the New York Times, highly critical of libel tourism in Britain and its international reach to thwart free speech in the U.S.

Eady tut-tuts at all that. He sees no possibility for reforming the British laws, and he may well be right.

Meanwhile, very much on the subject, this, today from Kevin Mitchell, the intrepid director of the Business Travel Coalition:

***

"Business Travel Coalition (BTC) writes to urge the scheduling of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January and swift action in passing the Free Speech Protection Act of 2009 (S.449). As a Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece today points out, now is the time to act to protect free speech.

Americans are increasingly being sued for libel in foreign countries whose laws are inconsistent with the freedom of speech granted by the U.S. Constitution. In addition to journalists and bloggers, flight crews, university researchers, analysts, Members of Congress, business travelers and organizations that issue travel warnings, including corporate travel departments, are at growing risk.

The Free Speech Protection Act of 2009 (S.449), which enjoys broad bipartisan support, was introduced in the U.S. Senate in February 2009 in response to cases like the one involving Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, an academic who writes on terrorism and lectures all over the world. Her 2003 book, Funding Evil, triggered a lawsuit in the UK by a wealthy Saudi businessman who claimed he was libeled in the book. The differences in American and British libel laws are substantial. For example, UK defendants have to prove allegations are true; in contrast, in the U.S. plaintiffs must prove allegations are false. The Saudi won a judgment of $250,000 against Ehrenfeld; sales of her book were banned in the UK; and she can no longer travel there.

The Ehrenfeld suit has been just the most prominent of cases known under the general rubric "libel tourism" in which foreign nationals, claiming to be offended by something written in the U.S. by journalists, researchers or scientists, travel to pliant courts in third countries and obtain libel judgments against American defendants, even though the allegedly offensive speech would be fully protected under the U.S. Constitution. These suits can have a chilling and negative effect on research and publishing, and on U.S. national and global security. The objective of S.449 is to ensure that libel judgments issued by foreign courts cannot be enforced in the U.S. unless our legal standards for libel are met.

A Threatening New Twist

U.S. business-travel contributor for The New York Times Joe Sharkey covered a plane crash in Brazil. On September 29, 2006 there was a midair collision at 37,000 feet between a Brazilian Boeing 737 and a business jet, on which Sharkey was a passenger. All 154 on the 737 died; the seven crew and passengers on the business jet made an emergency landing in the jungle. Sharkey wrote about it once he returned home in the Times and conducted interviews in which he was critical of Brazil’s air traffic control system. He defended the American business-jet pilots who Brazil quickly charged with criminal negligence.

This September Sharkey was served with a complaint seeking $279,850 in damages. The plaintiff in the lawsuit is Brazilian Rosane Gutjhar who asserts that Sharkey offended her country’s dignity in his writings and interviews. Sharkey did not know her, or mention her name at any time. The plaintiff doesn't have to claim she was personally libeled, only that her country was insulted. The suit is based on a Brazilian law that any citizen can claim damages for any alleged insult to the honor of Brazil in any case involving a crime -- the pilots, Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino remain on criminal trial in Brazil, in absentia.

Gutjhar’s suit is based on Sharkey’s forceful reporting in the U.S. about Brazil's alleged cover-up of the causes of the crash. The accuracy of Sharkey’s commentary has never been challenged. Sharkey claims that nothing he said or was alleged to have said would constitute libel in the U.S., or even come close. S.449 would address libel judgments in foreign countries where the alleged offense would not meet U.S. standards for libel. With Sharkey’s case, it's clear the scope of what constitutes libel has been broadened to include insulting the dignity of a foreign country.

The near-perfect reach of the Internet has placed Americans, their free speech and financial resources in harm’s way. At risk are travel managers issuing country-specific travel warnings, business travelers posting unfavorable trip reviews on social media sites, flight crews commenting on industry bulletin boards, university researchers publishing negative reports or Members of Congress authoring unflattering Opinion pieces about a particular country or leader. The Free Speech Protection Act of 2009 needs to be passed into law as soon as possible."

###

U.S. Tells Airlines: 3 Hours of Tarmac Delay and Yer Out

The Transportation Department unilaterally imposed rules that would require airlines with airplanes stuck on a tarmac for more than three hours to give passengers the option of getting off the plane.

The action addresses a situation that began festering in late 2006, when thousands of passengers sat stranded, amid deteriorating cabin ventilation and sanitary conditions, and without food, for eight hours or more on hundreds of planes idled on tarmacs by bad weather in and around Texas. Following that came literally years of similar strandings.

Kate Hanni, a San Francisco-area real estate agent, was with her husband and sons on one of those stranded planes in late 2006. Following that event, and entirely on her own, she organized a grassroots movement to push Congress to pass a so-called Passengers Bill of Rights. A key provision of that push was the three-hour rule. Airlines and their amen-chorus in the media first ridiculed the movement, and then as it gained momentum sought to block it at every turn.

The bill -- still pending in Congress as part of the long-delayed legislation to re-authorize FAA funding -- also would require airlines to ensure adequate health and safety provisions on stranded flights, among them working toilets.

Others have sought to ridicule and then co-opt Hanni's movement and push her out of the picture as reforms loomed. I have known Kate Hanni since she first quit her job and rented a cheap hotel room in Washington in the cold winter of 2007 to begin her long push for passengers' rights. Today's reforms by the Transportation Department would not have happened without Hanni's efforts. The Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, by the way, still is part of the pending FAA reauthorization bill, which Congress is expected to take up again early next year.

So Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who is known to have been incensed by airlines' failure to firmly address the problem on their own, has lowered the boom even before Congress might act. Here's the Transportation Department statement today:

***

"WASHINGTON -- U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced a new rule that significantly strengthens protections afforded to consumers by, among other things, establishing a hard time-limit after which U.S. airlines must allow passengers to deplane from domestic flights.

“Airline passengers have rights, and these new rules will require airlines to live up to their obligation to treat their customers fairly,” Secretary LaHood said.

The new rule prohibits U.S. airlines operating domestic flights from permitting an aircraft to remain on the tarmac for more than three hours without deplaning passengers, with exceptions allowed only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations. U.S. carriers operating international flights departing from or arriving in the United States must specify, in advance, their own time limits for deplaning passengers, with the same exceptions applicable.

Carriers are required to provide adequate food and potable drinking water for passengers within two hours of the aircraft being delayed on the tarmac and to maintain operable lavatories and, if necessary, provide medical attention.

This rule was adopted in response to a series of incidents in which passengers were stranded on the ground aboard aircraft for lengthy periods and also in response to the high incidence of flight delays and other consumer problems. In one of the most recent tarmac delay incidents, the Department fined Continental Airlines, ExpressJet Airlines and Mesaba Airlines a total of $175,000 for their roles in a nearly six-hour ground delay at Rochester, MN.

The rule also:

--Prohibits airlines from scheduling chronically delayed flights, subjecting those who do to DOT enforcement action for unfair and deceptive practices;

--Requires airlines to designate an airline employee to monitor the effects of flight delays and cancellations, respond in a timely and substantive fashion to consumer complaints and provide information to consumers on where to file complaints;

--Requires airlines to display on their website flight delay information for each domestic flight they operate;

--Requires airlines to adopt customer service plans and audit their own compliance with their plans; and

--Prohibits airlines from retroactively applying material changes to their contracts of carriage that could have a negative impact on consumers who already have purchased tickets.

Today’s final rule was adopted following a review of public comments on a proposal issued in November 2008. The Department also plans to begin another rulemaking designed to further strengthen protections for air travelers. Among the areas under consideration are: a requirement that airlines submit to the Department for review and approval their contingency plans for lengthy tarmac delays; reporting of additional tarmac delay data; disclosure of baggage fees; and strengthening requirements that airline ads disclose the full fare consumers must pay for tickets.

The rule goes into effect 120 days after date of publication in the Federal Register. The rule may be obtained on the Internet at www.regulations.gov, docket DOT-OST-2007-0022."

***


The airlines' main trade group, the Air Transport Association, issued a statement saying that it believes the new rule "will lead to unintended consequences – more canceled flights and greater passenger inconvenience. In particular, the requirement of having planes return to the gates within a three-hour window or face significant fines is inconsistent with our goal of completing as many flights as possible."

###

In Europe, 'Eurostar' Chunnel Train Service Breaks Down

They're going to have a bad travel week in western Europe as well. Service on the highly praised Eurostar train under the English Channel has been suspended after a series of breakdowns that left several thousand passengers stranded in darkness under the channel for up to 16 hours.

The Eurostar gets you between London and Paris or Brussels in about two hours using the 31-mile so-called Chunnel under the English Channel -- or is supposed to. No indication at all tonight on when the train might get back on track.

Here's a report in the Guardian newspaper.

###

Major Flight Cancellations Continue; Rough Air-Travel Week Ahead

[UPDATED 4 p.m. Eastern Time]

Airlines continued to cancel large numbers of flights today at airports in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Boston.

Yesterday, as the blizzard moved up the East Coast, more than 3,000 departures and arrivals were scrubbed at the three New York airports, at Philadelphia and at Dulles, Washington Reagan and Baltimore-Washington. As of 4 p.m. Eastern time today, more than 2,500 additional departures and arrivals had been canceled at those airports, now including Boston.

That's a whole lot of flights (a minority of them were routed between affected airports and are thus counted twice, as both departures and arrivals) -- each one presumably booked full with passengers, that did not occur in a two-day period. At the start of the Christmas travel season, most of those passengers who didn't fly today and yesterday are now trying to re-book seats into a system that is already fully booked, because airplanes have been flying almost full for well over a year as airlines have shrunk capacity.

How do the airlines work out of this fix? My guess is, they don't. There are x-number of airplanes and x-number of seats (mostly already sold before the storm). At the airports this week, it's not going to be a very pretty sight.

The media weather hysterics have now settled down about the amount of the "white stuff," as so many of them quaintly refer to it, and taken to their beds in exhaustion of all of their cliches.

Meanwhile, as the Northeast "digs out," which is another cliche they love, it's time to pay attention to the airports. The Newark newspaper was reporting gamely last night that "more than 100" flights had been canceled at the hilariously named Newark Liberty International Airport. Well, I guess that would be correct, since 412 flights were canceled there yesterday. You could look it up, and if you're a reporter, you should have.

According to data from Flightstats.com, here are today's cancellation numbers at the New York, Philly and Washington airports, and at Boston as of 4 p.m.

Newark -- 286 flights canceled.

JFK -- 475

LaGuardia -- 366

Philadelphia -- 486

Dulles -- 170

Reagan -- 212

Baltimore-Washington -- 135

Boston -- 312

###

Massive Flight Cancellations in Northeast, and Making Some Tough Calls at Airline Headquarters

PHOTO: What are you smiling about, pal?


Flights were scrubbed from the boards in huge numbers at airports in the Mid-Atlantic states as a severe snowstorm moved up the East Coast.

By all current indications, air travel in the Northeast could be impacted for days, and the ripple effect will be felt on connections throughout the country. Airlines will be scrambling to get idled or displaced airplanes and crews rescheduled and repositioned -- and to re-accommodate passengers in a system that, even under normal conditions, has no slack built in.

So forget what I said the other day about there being no Christmas travel crunch. With tangles from today's snarls stretching into the early part of the week, there now will be a Christmas travel crunch. Tens of thousands of passengers are already looking to make new travel arrangements.

As of 7 p.m. Eastern time today, here were some of the numbers of cancellations, according to Flightstats.com:


--Reagan National: 463 arrivals and departures canceled of a total 531 scheduled for the day. Reagan is essentially shut to commercial traffic till tomorrow morning.

--Dulles: 493 canceled of 834 total scheduled.

--Baltimore-Washington: 450 out of 574.

--Philadelphia: 595 of 1,042.

--Newark: 412 out of 1,132.

--LaGuardia: 263 of 640.

--JFK: 407 of 1,170.

The storm was expected to hit the New York area tonight, but as of 7 p.m. Eastern time, less than an inch of snow had fallen, with temperatures around 25 degrees. So it's apparent that airlines were preemptively canceling flights at the New York airports well before any serious snow accumulation in the area.

[UPDATE: At 10 p.m. Eastern time, the National Weather Service was still predicting a significant amount of snow in blizzard conditions for the New York area overnight.]

On the now evidently small chance that that storm, after clobbering Washington and Philadelphia, peels off into the Atlantic tonight without clobbering Newark, Kennedy or LaGuardia, airlines are going to have some explaining to do about why they canceled so many flights into and out of the New York airports today.

On the other hand, the airlines can defend preemptive cancellations by saying, accurately, that we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. The last thing the airlines want right now is publicity, in the nation's media capital, about passengers sitting stranded on tarmacs for hours on end, with pictures of little Susie desperately asleep on her Teddy Bear in a darkened idled cabin. If New York gets hit hard by a blizzard, and you're an airline, your smart play is maybe to keep as many of your planes out of New York as possible, on the bet that the weather reports are accurate. Then you sort it out as best as you can on Sunday and Monday.)

I do wish the airlines the best of luck in sorting this incipient mess out. At airlines' headquarters right now, some of the best logistical transportation managers in the world are working all night -- and all day tomorrow -- to get the trains, so to speak, running. I see them now. To me, it sounds like the unexplainabe thrill of running a big newspaper city-desk on a really big breaking story -- and then having to argue a day later with some male or female grammar schoolmarm on a news desk who insists that there is no such word as unexplainable, that it's inexplicable --- which is not really the same thing, is it, and I find the idea uneatable. not inedible.

One of these days I need to spend some time reporting on what these men and women at airline headquarters really do, with increasingly limited options, in a weather crisis like this. You and I get to quarterback their results in a couple of days, but they are making the tough calls at this moment.

Meanwhile, delays remain high at Atlanta and the ripple effect is hitting Chicago and other big hubs. Orlando, Miami and Fort Lauderdale are also reporting major delays because of heavy rain.

Most airlines have now put emergency change policies into effect, meaning you can change a flight in affected areas without paying the usual penalty fee. My advice: If you can stay out of the air for the next several days, do it.

By the way, the FAA's worthless (but supposedly real-time) flight-delays status page at this moment is showing no delays -- let alone cancellations -- at any of the nation's airports, even as chaos mounts. What planet is the FAA monitoring? Your tax dollars at work!

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USA Loves Dumb Storm Headlines!

With a nasty, dangerous snowstorm lashing the East Coast, only USA Today could come up with a headline this utterly clueless:

Top News

winter:
Storm slows holiday shoppers

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No Christmas Travel Crunch, Per Se -- But Oops, Here Comes a 'Snow' Crunch

I don't need to inform anyone on the East Coast today that air travel is a mess because of a big storm that's expected to dump a ton of snow on the Northeast. It's only raining in Atlanta, and delays and cancellations are piling up. Orlando also is reporting mounting delays. The big Northeast airports, from Philly through New York and up to Boston, are experiencing mounting weather delays.

Our air-travel system has absolutely no slack in it. That means a plane sidelined by bad weather represents a planeload of passengers who will struggle to find seats on another flight, because all the planes are full and have been for a year -- and because the airlines have slashed capacity.

So a ripple effect occurs, and it will now be felt right into the start of the Christmas travel peak.

So please: Do plan ahead. Make sure that flight is on, and that you still have a seat. Arrive at the airports two hours early. If you have to park a car, check ahead to make sure there's a space.

I spend most of my time these days in southern Arizona, where it's always sunny and where I am learning to forget the misery of a snowstorm.

In the 2007 movie "You Kill Me," the opening scene shows Ben Kingsley as an alcoholic busted-valise of a Buffalo hit-man. Snow-shovel in hand, he stands at his front stoop contemplating the miserable chore of shoveling a path through thigh-high show. He gets a bottle of vodka and tosses it into the snow about five feet ahead, and then gamely shovels to that point, takes a swig, and tosses the bottle another five feet down the path, incentivizing himself, as it were.

Nothing better illustrates my own attitude toward heavy snow.

Safe travels. And hire a kid to shovel that snow.

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There Was No Thanksgiving Travel 'Crush,' and There Won't Be One For Christmas

Attention credulous air-travel reporters who churn out the same formula stories on holiday travel, year after year after year.

As I pointed out before and after Thanksgiving, there was no travel crush in the air, despite all that media knee-jerking. During the Thanksgiving travel period, planes were full. Just as they were in the spring, summer and into the fall. That's because airlines are busy reducing seats flown -- off about 6 percent in November over the previous November. During the Thanksgiving period, travel delays were below average.

Want the actual numbers for November?

The Air Transport Association says today that 1 percent fewer passengers boarded domestic airlines in November compared with November of 2008, even though fares (which the ATA measures as the average price to fly one mile) dropped 6.4 percent.

Fewer passengers despite lower fares. There's your Thanksgiving travel "crunch?"

The worst news for domestic airlines is the steady drop in overall passenger revenue -- despite the sharp rise in revenues from things like checked bags and cancellation fees. The ATA estimates that average revenue was off 7 percent in November -- the 13th consecutive month in which revenue has dropped compared with the year-earlier month. The biggest declines in revenue on domestic carriers were on their trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific routes (and the collapse in demand for, or sharp fare reductions for, international premium-class seats business-class has a lot to do with that).

Still, there is nothing more stubborn than a canard. I'm already seeing travel stories warning about the Christmas crunch. Planes will be full! Plan ahead! Emergency, emergency!

Yeah, yeah. You could look it up. Planes have been full for well over a year, month in and month out. And fewer and fewer people are getting on them.

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UK Court Blocks British Airways Strike

About a million passengers who already had bought tickets, and many others who had planned to fly British Airways over the Christmas and New Year holidays, evidently have a reprieve.

A British court, agreeing with British Airways that the strike vote by the union representing more than 13,000 BA flight attendants had "irregularities," issued an injunction barring the strike, which was set to begin next Tuesday and continue through Jan. 2. The union, obviously, is not happy with having the court step in.

Meanwhile, Gatwick, Luton and other airports in Britain are a mess today (and Heathrow operations are slowed). It snowed a little overnight.


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Senator Schumer and the Flight Attendant

The usual media scolds and right-wing operatives are going all postal on Sen. Chuck Schumer, who seems to have riled a flight attendant on US Airways by not snapping off his cell-phone immediately upon orders, questioning her about it, and then muttering a not-nice word as she walked off. The word being "bitch."

Schumer has apologized for saying this word, which he did not say to the flight attendant.

By all accounts, Schumer uttered the word quietly to a Senate colleague in the next seat, and not to the aggrieved flight attendant. Bad on him for being rude, but it's notable that a Republican operative seated nearby ratted him out. The flight attendant never heard the word.

There are unanswered questions. It does not seem to be in dispute that the order to snap-shut the phone was given to Schumer before the cabin door closed. The flight attendant apparently insisted to the senator that no matter what the actual procedures were, flight crew orders were law and were to be followed without question. Period. This, evidently, is what Schumer was (unwisely, as it turns out) questioning.

We're all justifiably annoyed by cell-phone idiots on tarmac-parked planes who disregard the rules and continue on with their braying even after the cabin door has been closed, which we all understand to be the cut-off time. But it seems as if that is not what Schumer did.

I myself have noticed lately -- and so have many readers -- that some flight attendants have become cranky and bossy, and some seem to be making up rules as they go along. Yeah, they have tough jobs, which are getting tougher. But rudeness toward passengers has become a new air-travel problem.

I have always expressed deep sympathy for flight attendants, but really, some of them are out of control these days. Among the offenders, passive-aggressive males seem to be the worst, but more and more the occasional -- bad word uttered here, sotto voce! -- comes down the aisle, behaving rudely toward the paying customers for one supposed infraction or another. It has really become noticeable.

If Schumer broke the actual rules, he's deserves to be hammered in the media for being a jerk, If he did not, and was merely being pushed around by some cranked-up flight attendant on a power jag, I would say his quiet observation, directed not at the flight attendant but shared quietly with a colleague, impolite as it might have been, was accurate.

Airlines need to have a come-to-Jesus talk with some raging flight attendants and tell them this: If you can't stand your job and if you hate the passengers, when that cabin door is open, why not just go ahead and deplane?

Buh-bye.

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