Category Archives for Airports.
American Airlines is installing electronic boarding gates at new DFW gates and pitching them as a way to make boarding smoother, more consistent, and less congested. But these turnstiles do not solve the real causes of boarding delays—and they may leave passengers with less flexibility, less human help, and one more point of failure between the gate and the aircraft.
Airports say concessionaires cannot simply raise listed prices, so instead travelers get hit with a growing list of surcharges that do the same thing more opaquely. The result is a strange bit of airport economics: prices look artificially lower than they really are, wage and benefit costs get broken out as separate fees, and workers may not even come out ahead because those extra charges can reduce what customers leave as tips.
A woman dressed in heavy jewelry and jeweled hair joked that she was TSA’s worst nightmare, then found out what that actually looks like: three scans, a pat down, and extra scrutiny at the checkpoint.
Delta and JetBlue have quietly begun charging passengers to check bags curbside at some airports, turning what used to be a convenience into yet another fee. The change looks small at $3.50, but it is part of a bigger shift: outsourcing a once-premium service, lowering labor costs, and monetizing the airport curb instead of treating it as part of the ticket.
The new DHS secretary says the administration is “looking at” pulling Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in sanctuary cities, which would shut those airports off from international arrivals. The idea is absurd by the standards of the administration’s own policy goals. Many of the airports are not even in the cities being targeted, and cutting off major hubs like JFK, LAX, or O’Hare would ripple far beyond red-blue politics into the entire U.S. air travel system and economy.
Heavy rain turned part of Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport into a waterfall on Monday when the ceiling near Gate 7 gave way, sending passengers scrambling clear just before the collapse. The same storm also hammered flight operations, forcing diversions, holds, go-arounds, and one return to the apron for a total of 40 affected flights.
The best airports in America are the ones that get you there quickly, move you through efficiently, and get you on your way without making the terminal itself the main event. That is why some of the country’s most praised airports, especially LaGuardia, look better than they actually function.
A key Senate aviation Democrat wants TSA to make Americans take their shoes off again at security checkpoints, reviving one of the most visible rituals of post-9/11 airport screening even though there is no clear evidence the policy ever stopped another plot. It’s a distraction when the agency still misses dangerous items and regulates itself.
A conservative influencer walked into a Dallas–Fort Worth airport chapel during Muslim prayer and emerged claiming the space was “basically a mosque,” pointing to prayer rugs and the lack of Christian symbols. But the bigger reality is less dramatic: DFW’s chapels are multi-faith spaces, Friday Muslim services there are longstanding, and in an era when relatively few Americans pray while traveling, the people most likely to make regular use of airport worship space are often the ones most visibly committed to doing so.
Florida just renamed Palm Beach airport for Trump.
But the new name will not actually take effect for months. The law does not kick in until July 1, and there is still federal approval and a naming agreement to get through first.
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 »
