More TSA Mission Creep

Thought you had pretty much seen the last of the absurd TSA hassles once you got through the checkpoint and into the so-called secure area of the airport, where you could expect to be left in peace?

No airplane ride for you!

The leaderless TSA, still drifting along with appointees and Civil Service hires from the Bush era, has a new idea to keep itself busy and keep those expensive contracts flowing.

The agency said it is now dispatching its agents with carts and the latest in federal-contract technology to randomly grab passengers to submit to an inspection of their hands in secure sections of the airport, such as the boarding gate areas.

The new procedure involves a TSA officer -- presumably one not involved in wanding pet parrots or pranking college girls with a joke that illegal drugs had been found in their carry-ons, or delivering subpoenas to a couple of easily frightened bloggers to show where they got a memo that everybody in the media already had -- approaching you to swab your hands or your bags. "The swab is [then] placed inside the ETD [explosives trace detection] unit which analyzes the content for the presence of potential explosive residue," the TSA says.

Not to worry! "To ensure the health of travelers, screening swabs are disposed of after each use," says the agency.

The TSA, which has been without a permanent director for more than 13 months, remains under the nominal direction of a Bush appointee, Gale Rossides (shown above), who has been in top positions with the agency since it started, and thus bears a lot of responsibility for ... uh, you know... everything.

###

Global Premium Air Travel Rose in December, First Growth Since May '08

In a sign that business travel is in a recovery, although a shaky one, global premium traffic rose 1.7 percent in December over December 2008, the International Air Transport Association said today. It was the first year-on-year growth since May 2008.

Airline stocks rose today in response to the news. Most major airlines have bet heavily on international premium traffic in business-class and first-class cabins.

Premium traffic, once driven by robust business from banks and other sectors of the financial markets, has plunged since the economic collapse. Its lowest point was May 2008, when global premium traffic was off 25 percent over May 2007.

International travel in coach cabins recovered somewhat last September, and by December was 7 percent above year-ago levels, IATA said.

The biggest area for premium-travel growth was in the Pacific routes, where a gain of 14.5 percent was seen in December. By contrast, the once-all-important North Atlantic routes -- where major airlines had boosted capacity sharply in the boom years -- still languished in negative-land. Premium traffic on those routes remained down -- by 1.1 percent in December.

Those are the routes where less than two years ago airlines were able to charge $10,000 and more for walk-up business-class fares between, say, New York and London. For airlines, those were the days.

Premium fares -- and revenues for airlines -- are off sharply since then. Despite any renewal in passenger growth, it's revenue that counts for an airline, and the boom days of those sky-high fares will not likely return. IATA said that "there may have been a structural decline in yields from premium seats."

A steady growth in economy-class passengers since September is partly attributable to increased business-travel demand, IATA said. Indications are that international business travelers who once flew up front "are increasingly traveling on economy seats," the trade group said.

###



###

Mess Moves West: Dallas Cancellations

My son has been driving from Philadelphia to Arizona all week, and just about every state he's gone through, including Texas, has been choked with snow.

Still, driving beats flying. At the Dallas-Fort Worth airport yesterday, half of the 1,901 arrivals and departures were canceled, and today 523 of 1,891 were.

That only adds to the backlog of bookings.

This has been the worst week in air travel since 9/11.

###

Showedja!

Well, nobody got stranded -- at least on the airlines' watch, that is. But maybe a million air travelers scrambled to re-book canceled flights -- and some are still scrambling.

I suspect something besides the snow was coming down in the last week as airlines cancelled an extraordinary number of flights -- about 13,000 in all between Feb. 5 and yesterday.

Not since 9/11 have so many flights been scrubbed in such a short period of time.

Congress is chronically paralyzed, of course, and the snow didn't do much to change that. But I would suggest it is time for some kind of an inquiry into just why so many flights disappeared from the boards. Runways can be plowed in a day or less.

As I have been saying, my guess is that the airlines -- not overtly-collectively, but collectively-intuitively -- decided to keep some flights grounded that otherwise might have taken off -- eventually. In December, the Transportation Department said it would fine airlines $27,500 per passenger for flights idled on tarmacs for three hours and more. (There are certain exceptions, however, for severe weather and other circumstances.)

Congress, assuming it manages to ever get anything done, is also expected to pass legislation that would address the "stranded passengers" phenomenon.

Airlines are furiously opposed to what they see as federal meddling in their passenger operations and scheduling. Of course, big snowstorms always cause a certain number of flight cancellations. But not this many, not 13,000. My guess is that a good number of those flights were wiped out because 1. airlines did not want to chance any long tarmac delays and 2. airlines were also motivated to make a point.

Showedja!

###

Big Flight Cancellations Continue

The air-travel system in the mid-Atlantic region is still snowbound, though by any reasonable reckoning the runways should be cleared and at least a good number of operations should be returning to normal.

One possible explanation is that airlines continue to preemptively cancel flights to avoid any chance that any of their planes might be stranded on tarmacs for three hours or more in a system that is severely backed-up after several big snowstorms. Remember, potential tarmac delays could trigger the severe fines ($27,500 per passenger) that the Transportation Department put in effect late last year to address tarmac standings of over three hours.

***

UPDATE: I stopped counting at around 3,500 canceled flights yesterday, but USA Today had a heads-up follow this morning. In all, 5,700 flights were canceled yesterday, the newspaper says, and it's nice to see actual reporting on the numbers and their implications.

***

Meanwhile, regarding today, here are some of the numbers of departure and arrival cancellations at major mid-Atlantic airports as of 10 a.m. today, via FlightStats.com.

Philadelphia: 659; La Guardia, 583; Reagan, 494; Baltimore/Washington, 397; Dulles, 323; JFK, 189. And Boston also remains snarled, with 296 cancellations already on the board.

Each canceled flight means that many more passengers remain in the pipeline to be re-booked (not counting those who have simply given up on current flight plans). Re-booked into a system that even in the best of times has no slack. What's that about trying to put 10 pounds of sugar into a five-pound sack?

Incidentally, I've had a few surly e-mails (anonymous, of course, surly people being essentially craven) from various worthies, some of whom appear to be civil-service workers (and blissfully unaware of how easy it is to trace an IP address back to its originating computer) -- defending the atrocious FAA flight-delays and airport status site, which purportedly shows real-time conditions at the nation's major airports.

As I have pointed out frequently, the site is a joke. During major snowstorms, it routinely shows green dots -- meaning everything's moving fine -- over airports that anyone with the sense of a peanut knows are hopelessly messed up with delays and cancellations.

The gist of the nasty e-mails is that the FAA site supposedly is designed to show only conditions of "delays" at airports, and doesn't reflect cancellations -- which would be reason enough to laugh at it as a worthless report on real-time airport conditions.

But even that is not true.

For the past two days, the FAA map -- which credulous media routinely refer readers to -- has shown all-green conditions at airports that have been snarled with delays as well as cancellations. Nothing to see here, folks! Move along! Everything is operating without a hitch! To repeat: The map on the site has not been showing delays.

That happens routinely during big snowstorms, when people need reliable information. And as I have pointed out in the past, that is an insult to the nation's air travelers -- and taxpayers.

Fix it or drop it, FAA.

Finally, it is dawning on the media that that the site has no value when you actually need it.

###

Airlines Cancelling Many Flights Tomorrow, Too

ABOVE: Here's what you get when you depend on the FAA for your real-time airport information. As delays and cancellations pile up at major airports, the Weather Channel, evidently using information from the worthless FAA airport status and delays site, seems to think it's a sunny day in May in the nation's airwaves! This useless map is from the Weather Channel site as of 6.20 p.m. EDT today.


Keep your eye on the boards if you're planning to travel by air soon. Staggering backups are being built into the air-travel system on the East Coast.

After canceling thousands of flights today because of the mid-Atlantic snowstorm, airlines are starting to cancel flights by the hundreds already for tomorrow, according to the real-time data on Flightstats.com

As of 6 p.m. EST today, 281 departures and arrivals had been canceled at La Guardia; 193 at Newark; 133 at JFK; 260 at Philadelphia; 132 at Dulles; 123 at Reagan and 83 at Baltimore/Washington.

This movement toward canceling flights will only continue through the night, in a system that has no slack even when the weather is good.

Meanwhile, the ridiculously useless FAA flight delays and airport status site, which is supposedly in real-time, continues to show nothing but clear sailing (or flying) all over the country, even as every major airport east of the Mississippi is choked with delays and cancellations.

###

Ritz-Carlton Luxury Hotel & Resort Las Vegas Shutting, the Victim of Four Names

The Ritz-Carlton hotel company, a division of Marriott, said today that its luxury resort, in Henderson, Nevada, would shut for good on May 2.

The Las Vegas Ritz, as the property was often called, was the victim of the terrible economy, and perhaps also of a location that is 17 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. But it was also the victim of four terms associated with it: Las Vegas. Resort. Luxury. And, uniquely, Ritz.

Not long after the financial collapse, when many corporations were responding to public outcry and pulling meetings and other events out of high-profile luxury hotels, I was speaking with J.W. Marriott Jr., a true gentleman who runs the Marriott hotel company build by his parents.

Marriott's top luxury brand is Ritz-Carlton. Along with Four Seasons and other top-level brands, Ritz-Carlton was really taking it in the chin, after years of great prosperity and growth. The economy obviously was the main driver, but at the brand-name luxury level, hotels were being socked because companies were afraid to be seen booking at five-star hotels and resorts -- thanks, in part, to the scandal involving the giant AIG insurance company, which brazenly went ahead with a fancy corporate retreat at a Southern California resort a mere week after Congress had approved an $85 billion taxpayer bailout of the corporation.

At the time, Bill Marriott was fretting about how to avoid big layoffs among the highly trained Ritz Carlton workforce -- the backbone of its top-shelf service reputation. All luxury hotel companies, he said, were facing the same dilemma.

"But you have one extra problem, Bill," I said.

"What's that?" he asked.

"If I stay at a Ritz-Carlton, I have to put the word "ritz" on my expense account and get it approved."

"I know," he said ruefully. "As in ritzy, puttin' on the ritz ..."

The "optics" had turned against Ritz, arguably the best-run luxury hotel chain in the world, partly because its name is synonymous with luxury.

In the case of the Las Vegas property, the optics again were unfavorable. All over the country, resort hotels have been removing the word "resort" from their titles, but Las Vegas (a town I like quite a bit) is not also good for the optics. Sounds like too much fun, it seems. Las Vegas's hospitality business in general has been staggered in the last year and a half.

Sorry to see a good hotel get a bad deal like this, but such are the times.

###

Flight Cancellations By the Numbers: Here We Go Again

Once again, the news media are shrugging off the staggering accumulation of flight cancellations in the big snowstorm whaling on the mid-Atlantic region today. Lost in the lazy reporting is the real story: the severe back-up in air travel as passengers try to re-book flights that were canceled.

Thank God, I haven't seen any reports yet today referring to "scores" of flights being canceled. As I said during the previous blizzard last week, no non-media speaker of American English has used that term (in singular or plural form) to refer to a number since Abraham Lincoln.

No, today the reporting is of "hundreds" of cancellations.

That, as usual, is not only inaccurate, but useless for readers and viewers who need reliable information in a travel emergency.

Try "thousands" of cancellations today. And mounting.

UPDATE: Stop the engines! CNN is reporting accurate flight information! Good for CNN, which I criticized last week for referring its readers and viewers to that ridiculously useless FAA flight-delays site (see below for more on the FAA site).

Anyway, as I said last week, you can easily look these things up on Web sites such as FlightStats.com, which reports real-time airport operations.

Here are the actual numbers of flat-out flight cancellations as of noon EST today at major airports, mostly hubs, in the mid-Atlantic region. Keep in mind, I'm only counting the biggest airports here, and not the several dozen mid-sized or smaller airports that also are essentially wiping their flight-boards clean today.

Newark -- 869 departure and arrival cancellations.

JFK -- 652.

Philadelphia -- 766.

Reagan -- 869.

Dulles -- 485.

Baltimore/Washington -- 393.

Why is this big news? Well, as anyone with a pulse who covers air travel ought to be required to realize, the U.S. air-travel system has no slack, and has been operating at near-capacity (that is, most planes full on most flights) for well over a year. For two years, crews and airplanes have been scheduled to meet only routine daily needs, without any real backup.

Thousands of flights were canceled during last week's storm, meaning that people booked on those flights later re-flooded an already at-capacity system when they tried to re-book. Thousands more during the current storm are adding a lot more depend on a system that is already impossibly overtaxed and snarled.

Airline schedulers, who for the most part do the Herculean job of keeping the system running relatively smoothly during routine operations, are up against the neigh-impossible -- with crews and planes not where they are supposed to be. And the passenger demand is severely backed up and will be for many, many days if not weeks.

By the way, both last week and this week, airlines preemtively canceled thousands of flights well before snow began falling. An argument can be made, I think (and I intend to pursue it once I am able to sort out the mess) that airlines went overboard on preemptive cancellations because they are worried about the new Transportation Department policy that provides sharp fines for every flight that sits stranded on a tarmac for more than three hours.

Unintended consequences? An industry brazenly determined to demonstrate its opposition to the new rule by essentially shutting down rather than accepting passengers who might be the cause of big fines?

That's the story.

Meanwhile, the sad-sack FAA air-traffic delays site (at FAA.gov) that the media always refer readers to is, again, utterly worthless today. Hey, it's a Snow Day in Washington! Nobody needs to be on the job! As of noon, the FAA map shone merrily with green dots (meaning no delays) over every major airport in the U.S. Here's a link to that infamous, useless, supposedly live-time FAA map, as of noon EST today:

Flight Delay Information - Air Traffic Control System Command Center

Again, your tax dollars at work!

UPDATE: And for pure bureaucratic asininity, please do read the anonymous comment to this post (clearly from a government worker on government time) saying that the map shows all green dots because there are no delays, just cancellations. Again, your tax dollars at work!

###

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.

###

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."

###

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.

###

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.

###

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.

###

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.

###

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.

###

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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