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."

###

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.

###

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.

###

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.

###

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.

###

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?

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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 ..."

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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."

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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:

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"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."

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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."

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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.

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