For many people, Thanksgiving means going to visit your family. If you’re lucky, they’re within a couple hours’ drive or train ride. But for the rest of us, it means trekking to the airport, waiting in line, praying you don’t have to deal with a full-body scanner or a pat-down, and then hoping you can still make it to your gate in time. And depending on which airports you’re flying in and out of this weekend, you could be in for a very long wait. [More]
air travel
UPDATE: TSA Says Pilots Can Skip Scanners & Pat-Downs
By 11.19.10
Earlier today, TSA chief John Pistole hinted on Good Morning America that airline pilots might soon be able to skirt the agency’s stricter screening procedures. Now one of the unions that had recently told pilots to refuse being scanned says a deal has actually been reached. [More]
Cancer Survivor Flight Attendant Forced To Show Prosthetic Breast During TSA Pat-Down
By 11.19.10
After 32 years on the job as a flight attendant, not to mention being a breast cancer survivor, a North Carolina woman says airport screeners went too far when they told her to remove her prosthetic breast during a recent pat-down. [More]
Pilots Might Soon Get A Pass On Stricter Security Measures
By 11.19.10
As we wrote last week, two of the nation’s largest airline pilots unions had recently told their members to refuse full-body scanners at airport security, arguing that pilots have already undergone rigorous background checks before getting their jobs. Now the head of the TSA says their could soon be a rule change that would treat pilots differently than passengers. [More]
Airports Looking To Replace TSA Screeners With Contractors
By 11.18.10
In case you hadn’t heard, there’s been a slight bit of public push-back to the TSA’s increased use of full-body scanners and invasive pat-downs at security checkpoints. And at least one airport in Florida is telling the TSA “no thanks,” opting to use a private contractor instead. [More]
Group Of Reddit Editors Make Public Stand Against Grabby TSA Pat-Downs & Revealing Full-Body Scanners
By 11.17.10
There are few sites on the internet more tapped into the zeitgeist than the hive mind over at Reddit. So it should come as little surprise to those familiar with Reddit that a group of the site’s editors — or Redditors — have banded together to create a forum for those who feel less than enthusiastic about the TSA’s roll-out of full-body scanners and its “enhanced” pat-down procedures. [More]
TSA Chief Admits The New Pat-Downs Are 'More Invasive'
By 11.17.10
For the second day in a row, TSA head Jon Pistole was testifying before Senate about the recent negative attention that the agency’s full-body scanners and ‘enhanced’ pat-downs have received. And Pistole admitted that the newer, hands-on procedure is more touchy-feely than it had been previously. [More]
Unions Tell Pilots To Just Say No To Full-Body Scanners
By 11.11.10
Only weeks after an ExpressJet pilot refused to submit to either a full-body scan or a pat-down, unions representing the pilots at U.S. Airways and American Airlines have advised their members to not submit to the revealing scans. [More]
Delta Offering Free In-Flight WiFi During Holiday Travel Season
By 11.8.10
Let’s face it — traveling during the holidays kinda sucks. We know this because they have made movies about it. So in an attempt to convince fliers it’s not the suckiest airline — even if they do publicly lie about their baggage policies — Delta is offering free in-flight WiFi for folks who have to fly hundreds or thousands of miles to deal with passive-aggressive in-laws. [More]
U.S. Airways' "Commitment To Excellence" Has Nothing To Do With Your Customer Service Problem
By 11.5.10
Many of us are continually finding ourselves trapped in Byzantine mazes of bad customer service, where we keep ending up in the same dead-ends with the same undesirable options. And if you dare question the company about its public declarations of quality service and the like, you’re likely to be told that such claims don’t apply to your situation. [More]
Two Airlines Ground Airbus A380s After Qantas Engine Explosion
By 11.4.10
After what Australian airline Qantas calls a “significant engine failure” during a flight from Singapore to Sydney, both it and Singapore Airlines have temporarily grounded their fleets of Airbus A380 jumbo jets. [More]
American And Delta Too Busy To Tag Your Bags, Want You To Do It Yourself
By 11.3.10
Thought there wasn’t much more the airlines could fob off on the customer? You were wrong. Apparently, the employees at American and Delta are so slow at tagging your checked bags that the airlines think you’d do it better yourself. [More]
Delta Fined $100,000 For Lying To Passengers About Lost Luggage Liability
By 11.1.10
According to federal regulations, airlines “shall not limit its liability for provable direct or consequential damages” to less than $3,300 per passenger. Someone should have told that to Delta, which was recently slapped with a $100,000 fine by the Dept. of Transportation for distributing pamphlets telling customers something very different. [More]
Score Better Seats For Holiday Travel
By 10.28.10
Oftentimes, just booking a flight during the holidays is enough to give you the blues. So why not try to make your trip as comfortable as possible by making sure you get a decent seat? [More]
Why Your Flight Attendant Hates You
By 10.26.10
Ever wonder what could drive a flight attendant to curse passengers out, pop open the emergency slide and go for a ride? Well, even if you hadn’t, the good people at Reader’s Digest asked a bunch of flight attendants what sort of behaviors really get under their skin. [More]
A First-Hand Account Of A TSA Pat-Down
By 10.22.10
While that ExpressJet pilot in Memphis was refusing to be scanned or pat down by TSA screeners, travel writer Julia Buckley was busy detailing her adventures with both security procedures for Jaunted.com. [More]
20 People Die In Plane Crash Caused By Loose Crocodile
By 10.22.10
An August plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo was blamed on a balance in the small aircraft. But what caused that loss of balance? According to the flight’s only survivor, the passengers were running away from a stowaway on the flight: a live crocodile. [More]
TSA Disputes "No Scanner For Me" Pilot's Description Of Pat-Down
By 10.21.10
Yesterday we brought you the story of the ExpressJet pilot who refused to go through a full-body scanner or submit to a pat-down at Memphis International Airport. Now the TSA is saying that the pilot’s characterization of the pat-down isn’t accurate. [More]
