Category Archives for Airports.
A woman standing in line at a TSA checkpoint can’t going through airport security with her booze – so she chugs the full size clear liquor bottle. Reports are this was Don Julio. She chose to drink the tequila rather than give it up – or return to the ticket counter to check it in.
Seattle-Tacoma airport has been offering free menstrual products in all restrooms, including men’s rooms, while a vending machine beside them charges $1 for diapers. The policy is meant to support travelers of all gender identities, but the sharper public reaction comes from the contrast itself: the airport made one category of personal need free and convenient, while putting a price on another.
American Airlines is poised to win back three gates at Chicago O’Hare, undercutting United’s effort to use aggressive growth and gate reallocations to widen its advantage at the airport. If the preliminary determination holds and the FAA’s flight caps stay in place, Scott Kirby’s strategy to squeeze American further out of Chicago will have failed.
A top United executive took a personal shot at American Airlines CEO Robert Isom during FAA meetings over Chicago O’Hare, saying “he’s no Bob Crandall” while arguing American’s weak position there was the result of its own decisions.
More than a quarter of the baggage scales tested at Newark airport were found to be inaccurate, and some were so bad they were taken out of service or treated every bag as overweight. That does not mean every traveler was wrongly charged, but at a major United hub where checked bag and overweight fees add up fast, the odds are high that passengers paid millions they never should have owed.
Air traffic control in Nashville turned a Southwest jet that was going around after an aborted landing directly into the departure path of another Southwest flight, triggering collision warnings in both cockpits. The two aircraft came within about 500 feet vertically before the crews and onboard systems avoided a far more serious outcome.
A pilot in Palm Beach County has sued to stop Florida from renaming Palm Beach International Airport for President Trump, arguing the state has no business forcing a local airport to rebrand itself for political reasons. The case is a long shot, focused on how far the state can go in commandeering a local public asset for symbolic politics.
A court ruling has put real limits on how far TSA can go in changing airport screening without going through formal rulemaking. If the agency wants to bring back shoe removal, make facial recognition mandatory, or impose other broad new checkpoint rules, it may no longer be enough to do it quietly through internal procedures and nonpublic directives.
Airport pickups are not really about transportation, they are about whether you treat a small inconvenience as a burden or as part of caring for someone you love. That is why one husband calling a 30-minute drive for his wife a massive inconvenience touched off a much bigger argument about marriage, effort, and whether love is supposed to be efficient.
You can’t bring this knife through security and bring it on an airplane – but you can be given this knife on an airplane. Make it make sense! This passenger is wrong to blame this on TSA, though, let alone take it out on the front line screener who isn’t expected to ponder the existential nature of the role. Congress did it!
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
