Bus Fare?

[Updated with reference to Bolt Bus.]

LimoLiner, which goes to great lengths to avoid using the word "bus" in its promos, announced a new one-way fare of $69 between New York and Boston, for travel after Nov. 22.

How much? The e-mail announcement annoyed me by sending me to the company Web site to "learn more" -- like, how much does it really cost, and what is this "limited availability" they mention.

Online, the fare I got was not $69 one way, but $80, for travel on Nov. 24 -- and I'm not sure that was the real price, either, because the Web site then demanded that I fill in personal information and choose a user name and password, yada, yada yada, before I could learn more. Hey, that's way more work than I am inclined to do just to find out the bus fare.

The Delta or US Air shuttles get you there faster (just over an hour versus just over 4 hours), but of course you have to contend with airports. Still, it took a few seconds to find round-trip shuttle fares in the $240 range on both Delta and US Airways -- without getting jerked around by demands that I fill in personal information.

[UPDATE: How could I overlook Amtrak (that's a whole other story) but especially Bolt Bus, some people have asked me? Bolt is making real inroads in intercity transport, offering legroom, WiFi and electrical power outlets. Its departures/destinations include New York, Boston, Philly and Cherry Hill, Baltimore, and Washington. With no online hassle at all, I found a $39.50 round-trip fare between New York and Boston. Here's the Bolt Web site.]

I'd be more favorably disposed to LimoLiner if they'd make it as easy to get the price and restrictions as the airlines do. But still, that 4+ hour drive is a real factor for business travel, any way you cut it. What is a fairly do-able day trip on the airline shuttles is more likely an overnighter by bus, though the service is obviously geared to that.

LimoLiner says that the $69 one-way fare applies to "many off-peak seats" on its frequent daily departures. The company adds, "It also means passengers may obtain the lowest fare right up to departure time, unlike other fares that require advance purchase. LimoLiner will continue to offer its standard $89 fare for all peak travel time trips and $79 for many other trips. The new fares will replace all of the current fare structure."

Can I get an English translation here?

LimoLiner offers free wireless Internet en route, plus food and beverage service, live satellite TV and radio, first-run movies. The LimoLiner luxury bus, I mean "vehicle" holds 28 passengers.

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Via 'Wired,' a Very Cool Video Simulation of Sullenberger's Glide Into the Hudson

Wired.com has a very cool 3-D simulation of the amazing flight that landed in the Hudson River last January after losing both engines shortly after takeoff from La Guardia.

It's by Kas Osberbuhr, an engineer at K3 Resources who spent over 200 hours on the simulation, which is synched with the actual cockpit-ATC recordings and the cockpit voice recording. Amazing stuff.

It's worth watching as two new books appear on the subject. One, Chesley B. Sullenberger, the pilot (and former military glider pilot) who safely brought the plane down in the river and saved all 155 lives on board, is "Highest Duty," part dramatic report on the event, part memoir, and part cri de coeur about the sad current state of commercial aviation.

The other is "Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide and the 'Miracle' on the Hudson," by William Langewiesche. Though the book -- which was rushed into print -- got good reviews, Langewiesche took the opportunity to basically piss on Sullenberger's accomplishment by arguing Airbus's renowned "fly by wire" technology was the real hero, in that it "cradled them all the way to the water." Some passengers on Flight 1549 are, of course, unhappy. Yes, the Airbus plane had great technology. It also had a pilot with steely nerves, extensive training in gliders and exceptional command of a situation.

So, by the way, this is not the first time around for Langewiesche on hero-debunking. His book "American Ground," which focused on the firefighters and other workers at the hellish World Trade Center site in the aftermath of 9/11, accused firefighters of "shadowy, widespread" looting of the ruins of retail shops on the site. Relatives of dead firemen, and New York Fire Department officials, including some at the scene, said that Langewiesche never bothered to check with them about the charges, or to do basic fact-checking.

Here's a piece by David Carr in the New York Times in 2003 that reports on that controversy over Langewiesche's reporting standards. In it, Langewiesche is accused by a reporter who painstakingly investigated his description of firefighters looting a jeans store of "a reckless disregard for elementary procedures of verification."

Here's an even stronger condemnation of Langewiesche's credibility on the WTC Living History blog.

Earlier this year, furthermore, Langewiesche wrote a long and highly praised article in Vanity Fair magazine about the Oct. 29, 2006, mid-air collision over the Amazon, in which 154 in a Brazilian 737 died while seven in the American business jet that collided with the 737 at 37,000 feet lived, after a harrowing 25-minute ordeal.

In some detail, Langewiesche dramatically recreated the scene on the business jet after the crash, as its occupants contemplated imminent death, before its pilots unexpectedly found a military landing strip to put down in the jungle. He even put words in my mouth on the plane and ascribed motives to me, the only one of the survivors who has been free to talk about the crash.

Did he contact me for comment on these remarkable insights? Nope. Never even made an attempt, as I pointed out in a letter published subsequently in Vanity Fair. Hell, I have talked openly about that event since Day One. Nor did he try to talk to the other survivors.

Narrative license to create a "tangible narrative," he has airily called this don't-check-the-facts-out technique. For about 100 years, journalists have called that something else: "piping" your story -- and it while it's often an expression of amazement, it's never an expression of admiration.

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British Airways and Iberia to Merge

British Airways said that it and Iberia have agreed on a proposed merger that would create a "new, leading European airline group" incorporated in Madrid, but with operational and financial headquarters in London. British Airways will have majority control (at 55 percent) of the new group.

Depending on how you count the dough and the stock, the deal is valued at up to $7 billion.

The new airline group would have 419 aircraft and fly to 205 destinations.

British Airways said that the new corporate group "will combine the two companies’ leading positions in the UK and Spain and enhance their strong presence in the international long-haul markets, while retaining the individual brands and current operations of each airline."

Both airlines retain membership in the oneworld Alliance.

The holding group's name is TopCo. British Airways' Willie Walsh will be the group CEO. Iberia's Antonio Vázquez will be group chairman and Martin Broughton will be deputy group chairman.

Here's an analysis in the Guardian that addresses the proposed quasi-merger between American Airlines and British Airways.

Here's the London Times main story on today's merger announcement.


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'Thish Ish Your Captain (**burp**) Shpeaking'

A United Airlines pilot was hauled off a flight and arrested on suspicion of being drunk minutes before takeoff at London Heathrow Airport on a flight to San Francisco Monday.

Here's the story.

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London Times on Libel Tourism: 'Britain Is a Pariah State ... Exploited By the Unsavory'

The Times of London has been running a hard-hitting series on the threat to free speech caused by libel tourism, in which a foreign plaintiff goes to a foreign court to sue a U.S. citizen on libel allegations that would never stand up in a U.S. court.

I've been sued in Brazil, for example, on the ridiculous charge that I insulted the "dignity" of that country by my reporting and commentary, mostly on a blog written in the U.S. for an American readership, after the 2006 mid-air collision over the Amazon that I was one of seven survivors of. (154 others died).

The Brazil suit is an obvious attempt to intimidate and seek to punish me, and to warn others. I think it's also meant to inflame domestic emotions again in Brazil during the ongoing criminal trial, on trumped-up charges, of the two American pilots of the business jet, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino.

But Brazil aside, the major crush of the libel tourism outrages, so far, has been in Britain. And some people in the U.S., including major media, are pushing back.

This blast against Britain's odious libel courts is in tomorrow's Times of London.

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Drop in Thanksgiving Air Travel Seen

Four percent fewer passengers will board U.S. airlines over this year's Thanksgiving holiday compared with last year, the Air Transport Association says.

But don't expect planes to be less full. As noted here yesterday, airline capacity -- the number of seats available -- dropped by 5.1 percent in the three months ended in September.

Still, it's very unusual to be walking up to a big travel holiday and reporting a downward travel trend like this one.

"It is increasingly apparent that the economic head-winds facing the airlines and their customers are anything but behind us. The recent announcement that U.S. unemployment surpassed 10 percent highlights one of the key factors impacting consumer buying decisions," James C. May, the ATA president and CEO, said in a statement.

The airline trade group said, "As typical with the Thanksgiving holiday travel period, flights are likely to be quite full, driven this year by the decrease in available seats and deep discounting, rather than by robust demand. Carriers have cut back their schedules in response to economic pressures, with 2009 capacity reductions the deepest since 1942."

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Fares Rising as Capacity Cuts Keeps Planes Full

Checked any fares recently? I just went to book a trip to Tucson and the best fare I could find was about $150 more than it would have been a month ago.

Airlines are entering the winter season with a little more confidence that they will have regained some pricing power and may be able to hold onto it. Most airline operating results for October showed load factors -- the number of available seats filled with paying customers -- in the 83-84 percent rage. Load factors like that mean that virtually every in-demand flight is taking off with every seat full.

Even the third-quarter financials, reflecting a dismal summer of passenger demand, were better than had been anticipated, though revenue remains way down. Among the nine largest airlines, third-quarter operating revenue was down $28.3 billion, an 18 percent decline over the third quarter of 2008. Still, the total was $223 million higher than AirlineFinancials.com had estimated, said Robert Herbst, an airline pilot who publishes the financial analytical site.

Total capacity, he reports, was down 5.1 percent over the 3rd quarter of 2008 -- reflecting an accelleration of the capacity slashing that began in 2000, gained speed in recent years -- and now leaves us with a domestic airline system that has 20.1 percent fewer seats than it did nine years ago, according to OAG.

Herbst expects that year-on-year revenue growth could begin as early as the 2010 first quarter. Looking at current domestic coach fares and shrunken schedules, and knowing that business travel is starting to pick up again, I'd say that is a pretty good guess.

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A Crusade (Oops, That Word) Against Libel Tourism -- And Why Americans Who Value Free Speech Should Saddle Up

"Libel tourism" is the label used to describe libel lawsuits filed in a foreign country, by a foreign plaintiff, against Americans for writings or speech in the United States that are fully protected under the U.S. Constitution.

The mainstream media in the U.S. have been reluctant to examine the phenomenon much -- not, I suspect, out of any genuinely held convictions (God forbid) but rather because it's complicated, messy and off-narrative. Shield laws protecting card-carrying journalists' important rights to protect sources, that's the official narrative.

Shield laws are important. Libel tourism, on the other hand, is the most egregious threat ever to free speech in this country. Maybe because it affects all of us, not just establishment journalists, it's off the domestic media radar-screen.

It certainly affects bloggers.

In libel tourism cases (disclosure: I am currently being sued for libel in Brazil is one such case), someone in another country who doesn't like something written or said in the United States conveniently finds a friendly foreign court to handle their grievance. Said foreign court -- Britain is the best example of pliant courts for libel-tourism -- harrumphs and snorts and finds in favor of the plaintiff against an American exercising his or her right to free speech in the United States.

Viola! A foreign court and a foreign plaintiff have neatly done what no nefarious force within the United States has ever done -- brazenly reached into the U.S. in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. American defendants are duly served at their homes in the U.S. by American law firms working on behalf of the foreign plaintiff, judgment is ultimately rendered, and legal proceedings are then launched to enforce a foreign court judgment in the United States. The American defendant is then left to fend for himself or herself.

So far, foreign monetary judgments in libel-tourism cases have not been enforced, but there is no absolute guarantee that they won't be, as foreign governments dicker with U.S. state and federal legal systems and look for ways, like trade agreement laws, to sneak under the tent.

But now, at the very least, a foreign judgment against an American citizen in a libel tourism case creates financial burdens. It also limits the ability of that citizen to travel internationally to the place where the judgment has been rendered -- in most cases Britain, so far. For example, Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American who lost a libel-tourism case in the UK, and whose academic work often involves international travel, is unable to travel to Britain because of the judgment against her.

And in time, given shifting international treaties, protocol alliances, and the drive to apply so-called universal law, having such a judgment hanging over you could severely limit an American's ability to travel internationally in general.

The most prominent example of libel tourism is the case of Dr. Ehrenfeld, an author and academic expert on terrorism financing. She lost a libel suit filed against her in the UK by a wealthy Saudi tycoon, Khalid bin Mahfouz, who objected to a few brief mentions of himself as a financial backer of Al Qaeda in Ehrenfeld's 2003 book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed -- And How to Stop It."

In a suit that would have never been considered by a U.S. court, Mahfouz (who died in August) readily prevailed in the British High Court, ground zero for those seeking easy-as-pie libel verdicts.

Outrage over the Ehrfenfeld case prompted New York State to adopt a law in 2008 protecting residents of New York (which Ehrenfeld is) from enforcement of foreign libel judgments in cases where the alleged offense is "inconsistent" with the principles of American free speech.

Several other states, including Florida and California, have since adopted similar laws, and a federal law called the Free Speech Protection Act of 2009 is now pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee, after being introduced by Sen. Arlen Specter with Sens. Schumer, Lieberman and Wyden as co-sponsors. That bill, along with a similar one pending in the House, where it was introduced by Rep. Pete King, would make it impossible to enforce in the U.S. a foreign libel judgment that is inconsistent with the U.S. First Amendment.

I wish I could say that the bills are merrily rolling along to legislative reconciliation and thence to the President's desk, but that's not the case. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has not yet shown sufficient interest in the matter to provide evidence that the bill will move forward any time soon.

And the State Department, notoriously timid about treading on the legal toes of friendly countries whose good offices might be necessary on unrelated delicate matters, has so far kept its distance or, worse, signaled its distaste for the lack of diplomatic comity that might ensue if the U.S. government were to tell, say, the British High Court to take a jolly good hike along with its spurious libel judgments.

Another prominent libel tourism case involves an American investigative reporter and academic named Paul Williams, who is being sued by McMaster University in Canada under Canadian libel laws for reporting he did on a terrorist cell. Like Dr. Ehrenfeld's, the Williams' case could not have been brought in a U.S. court.

Dr. Williams, who lives in Pennsylvania and published the alleged offenses in the United States, told me last were that he and his wife have personally spent about $100,000 so far in his defense against the Canadian action. In all, the Williams defense (the trial is forthcoming) has so far cost nearly $500,000, he said.

And then, of course, there is me.

In an action that still has lawyers shaking their heads in amazement, I am being sued in Brazil by a person who claims that my reporting and commentary following the horrific 2006 mid-air collision over the Amazon (in which 154 died) caused her to "feel discriminated against" as a citizen of Brazil. That's apparently because I forcefully challenged Brazilian authorities in their disgraceful rush to immediately criminalize the accident (against all protocols of international aviation), to cover up and fail to address the principal cause of the accident (operational and systemic errors in Brazilian air-traffic control over the Amazon), and to scapegoat the two American pilots who brought the surviving and badly damaged American business jet down in an emergency landing in the Amazon with me and four other passengers on board.

Besides the startling change in venue to a different continent, the major twist in the Brazil libel-tourism suit is that I had never heard of, let along said or wrote anything about, the plaintiff until she filed the suit. The complaint is based on the amazing legal notion that a citizen of Brazil can claim injury if she or he feels offended by anything written or spoken -- by anywhere in the world -- about that country. Even if, as in this case, the plaintiff was never mentioned or in any way referred to.

By the way, the examples of my alleged offense to the dignity of Brazil ("most idiot of idiots" is one alleged comment) cited in the complaint did not come from me. We've been able to trace the genesis of the allegedly actionable quotes back to comments made by others either in the Brazilian news media or on Brazilian blogs or onlilne comments that linked to the blog on Brazil that I started right after the accident and discontinued almost two years ago. Or in some cases, the allegations appear to have been created out of thin air.

But, as I said at a meeting last week with Judiciary Committee legal staffers and other prominent First Amendment experts, this is not about me. Nor is not about Rachel Ehrenfeld or Paul Williams.

It's about all of us.

If a foreign court can reach across U.S. borders to punish, intimidate or otherwise seek to silence Americans for speech that is fully protected under the First Amendment, we have effectively lost freedom of speech.

This doesn't just potentially affect book writers and journalists. It also affects academics, researchers, bloggers, policy makers, travel reviewers, medical authorities, scientists debunking charlatans, and casual users of social networks. It potentially affects anyone who might be flushed out within U.S. borders by a foreign court for the alleged offense of failing to genuflect to the sensitivities of some aggrieved foreign entity.

Somebody in Iran (or North Korea or Somalia or Switzerland for that matter) doesn't like what you wrote or said in the U.S.? Sue! So far, the U.S. government has rolled over and pretended not to notice the threat.

If you sense a crusade being launched here (Oh. My. God. I used that word, considered actionable in some parts of the world), you are correct.

Incidentally, here's the latest update on British libel tourism from the Times of London.

Oddly, the Times of London article neglects to mention the Ehrenfeld cass, the most prominent of the UK libel tourism examples. Oh, wait, hmmm. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which owns the Times of London among other worldwide media properties, is in negotiations with the Saudis to buy a chunk of a big Saudi media empire that currently carries News Corp.'s Fox News.

We're gonna need a scorecard.

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'Take Your Bag, Sir?' ... 'No, Thanks. Somebody Already Took It'

Dang, I took a week off and when I wasn't looking, a couple of grifters stole a thousand bags, maybe more, off luggage carousels at the amusingly named Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

This wasn't your usual airport heist, in which baggage handlers or TSA screeners five-finger items from checked bags and then send the bereft bags merrily along. This was plain old walk-up-to-the-carousel-and-abscond-with-the-whole-bag thievery.

I've always wondered about bags on carousels, where anybody can walk off with them. It kind of gave me hope about the human condition that theft from airport carousels evidently was not a problem.

Till now.

The potential remedies -- tag-inspection cops creating long lines to get out of the baggage-claim areas -- are depressing to contemplate.

Anyway, Tripadvisor.com today sent out an informal survey of passengers' attitudes toward the security of their bags at the baggage claim areas. More than half of the 1,830 responses said they were always or often concerned; 31 percent said "rarely," and 11 percent said "never."

Meanwhile, as to the other baggage theft problem, the one behind the scenes, the last time I traveled, I wrote "Oxy" on a label and pasted it onto a prescription bottle and slipped it into an outside pocket on a checked bag. Did it as a test. Sure enough, the bag arrived missing the bottle. I hope the thief enjoyed those drug-store Tylenols.

My next test involves a knockoff "gold" Rolex watch that I bought for $5 at one of those vendors in Times Square. (Actually, a quite convincing piece of work for $5, till you look closely).

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Brazil Crash Survivors Found

Amazonian Indians found nine survivors of a Brazilian Air Force transport that crashed in the jungle yesterday. One person was reported missing and one dead from the flight.

Here's the BBC account.

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The FAA's Blistering Letter to Flight 188 Pilots

The FAA revocation of the pilot's certificate for both captain and first officer on the infamous Northwest/Delta Flight 188 (NW188) last week contains some blistering language.

Here are some excerpts from the letters that each pilot received from the FAA on the flight, which overshot the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles on Oct. 21, while the pilots failed to make any radio contact with air traffic control for about 90 minutes

--"You operated NW188 in a reckless manner that endangered the lives and property of others."

--[As a result of the incident] "you lack the qualifications necessary to hold an Airline Transport Pilot certificate."

--"Your lack of awareness that NW188 had overflown the airport to which it had been dispatched and cleared until that aircraft had reached Eau Claire, Wisconsin, (approximately 150 miles beyond MSP [Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport] is completely unacceptable."

--"You engaged in conduct that put your passengers and your crew in serious jeopardy ... while you were on a frolic of your own."

Here is the full FAA letter, identical to both pilots except for their names and titles.

Thanks to correspondent Jeremy for sending it.

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Major Airlines Crank Up Another Fare Hike

Major airlines have installed the third significant fare increase in as many weeks, according to Rick Seaney, the CEO of Farecompare.com

Yesterday morning, Seaney reports, AirTran "increased airfares by $6 and $10 roundtrip (based on distance) across the bulk of their route system. Shortly thereafter ... American and Delta/Northwest matched on overlapping routes, while Continental took a further step matching on the bulk of their route system."

Last night, "United and US Airways matched across the bulk of their respective route systems. This increase marks what appears to be well on its way to the 6th successful hike of 2009, all since June."

He added, "Holiday travelers did get a bit of a break however today, as mixed in with the airfare increases several legacy carriers filed targeted off-peak “Holiday Airfares” (Turkey Fares), on the off-peak days around Thanksgiving and for Christmas and New Years Day. The widely matched deep discount 3-day off-peak winter sale started this past Tuesday by Southwest Airlines expires tonight, removing a big chunk of winter deals from the marketplace (for the moment).

"The volatility of airfare filings today simply underscores the continual tinkering that domestic airlines are doing as they hone in on price points reflect an uptick in demand but doesn’t scare off skittish travelers, and sounds another wakeup call for procrastinating holiday air travelers."

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Search Continues for Aircraft Missing in Amazon

As of this morning, there has been no trace reported of a Brazilian single-engine transport with 11 aboard that went missing yesterday in the western Amazon.

The passengers were medical staff working in a campaign to provide vaccinations to in Indian settlements in the rain forest. Here's a Bloomberg update this morning.

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Brazilian Aircraft With 11 On Board Missing in Amazon

[Photo: A C-98 Caravan similar to missing plane.]

The Brazilian Air Force said today that one of its transports, a Cessna C-98 Caravan aircraft, is missing in the Amazon.

The aircraft, with 11 on board, took off this morning from Cruzeiro do Sul in Acre state in the western Amazon, bound northeast for Tabatigna in Amazonas state.

A search is under way.

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Denver Flights Delayed in Snowstorm

Delays are mounting today at Denver International Airport as a slow-moving snowstorm stalled over the eastern front range of the Rockies.

According to Flightstats.com, as of 10:30 a.m. Mountain time today, 244 of the day's scheduled 1,685 departures and arrivals had already been canceled.

Anyone bound for Denver or making a connection through Denver needs to check well ahead today, and probably for the next few days as the schedules sort themselves out.

Conditions are improving, though. Here's a 10.30 a.m. update from Frontier Airlines, which was reporting delays of 3-4 hours at Denver but now says that's lessening. However, Frontier says with engaging honesty, "departure times are rather fluid" today.

Here's United's far less-informative announcement. Come on, United -- how hard is it to get some useful current information up about your Denver ops? Frontier did it.

The storm did not, by the way, dump a lot of snow (yet) on the central Rockies. I'm always amazed at how many people in the media fail to understand the difference between the high plains, the foothills and the Rockies, and the meaning of the continental divide.

And by the way, what if the Rockies had made it to the World Series?

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Fares Declined Sharply in 2nd Quarter. This Is News?

A standard quarterly government report showing steep air-fare declines in the second quarter is getting a lot of attention today, but really: What's the point? The second quarter ended in June, and that news is ... well, it's useless, frankly, to anyone interested in current fare trends.

As anyone interested in current fares knows, they've been going up steadily since the summer. Major airlines recently succeeded in installing their fifth successive nearly across-the-board fare hike since June (they're a little less eager to hike fares on routes where there are discount competitors.)

I use Farecompare.com and the regular updates from its CEO Rick Seaney to stay on top of current fare trends. In the airline business, April, May and June were a long time ago.

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Where We Won't Be Going for 2020 Olympics

Sometimes, media piety would choke a goat -- like this beauty from the Birmingham, Ala. newspaper wringing its dainty hands and denouncing a funny wisecrack as "vile, pointless and inappropriate."

Why?

Well, the mayor, a major crook, was convicted on a whole bunch of crimes, and at the usual media scrum following the verdict, a local TV reporter asked him, "What does this mean for Birmingham's chances for the 2020 Olympics?"

Oh. My. God. INAPPROPRIATE!

The usual kept media types are collectively in a near faint.


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Flight 188: Morning Update

Morning update. Northwest/Delta pilots' licenses yanked by F.A.A. And the Christian Science Monitor is asking the right questions.

David Lettermen did a Top 10 Reasons why the pilots overshot MSP. Among them:

... We get paid by the hour ... Tired of that show-off Sullenberger getting all the attention ... You try steering one of those airplanes after eight or nine cocktails ... For a change, we decided to send luggage to the right city and lose the passengers.
... Thought we saw balloon boy.

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Flight 188: Say What?

There being a distinct difference between the attributions "investigators say" and "investigators say they were told," it's probably useful to have the text of the latest update by the National Transportation Safety Board on the bizarre incident involving a Northwest/Delta flight that overshot the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles last Wednesday night while the pilots claim they were "distracted."

Here's the NTSB report. The NTSB is next interviewing the three flight attendants.

The Wall Street Journal today (sorry if the link doesn't work because of the pay wall) has some interesting information. According to the Journal report, which cites "people familiar with the details," the "missteps began" when "a female flight attendant brought meals into the cockpit and the captain ducked out for a bathroom break."

No approximate time is given for this meal service, but it certainly would have been well in advance of the time the pilots would have been expected to be preparing for arrival at Minneapolis.

The flight attendant and first officer then chatted in the cockpit "just as controllers were instructing the crew to switch to another radio frequency," according to the Journal report, which added:

"The co-pilot, engaged in conversation with her, missed the instruction, and the captain didn't return until later, according to consultant Greg Feith, a former [NTSB] investigator."

Now just a darn minute here, as Deputy Barney Fife would say. Not only has the story changed, but now it appears as if the pilots were tuned to the wrong radio frequency, which accounts for them being out of contact with air-traffic control -- on approach to a major international airport?

Bring on the flight attendants! We're in for a bumpy ride as this story unfolds.

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The Pilots' Top 10 List: Why We Missed Minneapolis

[Updated with statement from Delta Air Lines at bottom]

The two Northwest/Delta pilots who overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles last week claim they were busy working out crew schedule procedures on their laptops and 1. Didn't notice that they they had failed to descend to the destination airport for over an hour and 2. Failed to hear increasingly anxious calls from air-traffic control centers.

Since the old cockpit voice recorder in the Northwest A320 only records the most recent 30 minutes of a cockpit conversation, we may never know. As I said the other day, a good cop asking questions and matching up stories would have cracked this case by the end of the baseball game on Wednesday night.

Other pilots are having a good guffaw over it all, and I don't think the laptop explanation is flying.

Here's a link to the always informative and amusing JetWhine blog edited by Rob Mark, a pilot and aviation consultant. Rob has posted his Top 10 reasons the pilots overflew Minneapolis by 150 miles, while noting that "the only reason we can even poke a little fun at these two buffoons is no one was hurt."

In comments, Rob's readers added a few of their own "reasons," including: Pilots were planning a reality-show audition ... Pilots wanted to boost passengers' frequent flier miles ... Pilots took the term "nonstop flight" too seriously.

Me: The foliage in Wisconsin is lovely this time of year ... MSP means Must-Skip Place ...

***

Delta evidently isn't buying the laptop excuse either. Here is a statement Delta issued late this afternoon:

"ATLANTA, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Delta Air Lines today issued a statement regarding the company's cooperation with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the investigation of Northwest Flight 188. Delta and its Northwest operating subsidiary continue to openly and fully cooperate with the NTSB and FAA to complete the investigation. The pilots in command of Northwest Flight 188 remain suspended until the conclusion of the investigations into this incident.

"Using laptops or engaging in activity unrelated to the pilots' command of the aircraft during flight is strictly against the airline's flight-deck policies and violations of that policy will result in termination.

"Delta CEO Richard Anderson said: 'Nothing is more important to Delta than safety. We are going to continue to cooperate fully with the NTSB and the FAA in their investigations.'

"The NTSB earlier today issued a public release highlighting the initial findings of its investigation into the incident, including evidence that the pilots involved said they were distracted at cruise altitude between San Diego and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The NTSB's press release stated that the pilots said in interviews that "there was a concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the airplane or calls from ATC even though both stated they heard conversation on the radio ... neither pilot noticed messages that were sent by company dispatchers ... both said they lost track of time ... (and) each pilot accessed and used his personal laptop computer while they discussed the airline crew flight scheduling procedure."

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