Category Archives for Airports.
Video from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport shows a contract security guard in a white sedan racing down an active taxiway between jets as air traffic control calls a “high speed chase on the taxiway.” Planes slam on the brakes, workers scramble, and officials now blame a “possible medical episode.”
Congress is selling Section 373 of the new defense bill as a “helicopter safety” fix after the deadly midair near Reagan National. In reality it invites military training flights back into DC’s already-crowded airspace, with a built-in waiver so the Pentagon can bypass key protections whenever it claims national security demands it.
The U.S. wants visa waiver visitors to hand over five years of social media plus more personal data just to get an ESTA — and to apply only through a mobile app. That won’t just hassle Europeans and other low-risk travelers, it risks driving them to other destinations, cutting flights, cargo capacity, and tourism jobs here at home.
RFK Jr and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy flew into National to scold airports for serving “junk” to travelers, then pivoted to a pull-up competition while ignoring why terminal concessions are so bad in the first place.
American Airlines is paying $30 million to buy two Spirit Airlines gates at Chicago O’Hare—G8 and G10—in a previously undisclosed deal revealed through bankruptcy court filings. This comes after American recently lost four gates to United in a controversial airport reallocation.
Eight Dulles airport police officers are out after internal and criminal investigations into alleged payoffs from limo and ride-share drivers so they could illegally solicit rides inside the terminal. It’s just the latest scandal for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which has already been hammered for weak controls, nepotism, and shady contracting that now puts it among the most corrupt airport authorities in the U.S.
Critics argue that America has adopted the bland sameness of an airport lounge, a prestige-lite world gated by credit cards and tap-to-pay access. But what they’re really reacting to isn’t cultural flattening—it’s the loss of exclusivity as more people move up and gain access to spaces that once signaled status.
TSA caught a man at the Las Vegas airport trying to clear security with a woman boarding pass for a Southwest flight – and that is when everything went sideways. According to federal prosecutors he hit a TSA officer, flipped a responding cop over his back, then grabbed an officer pen and allegedly tried to stab police with it at the checkpoint. Now he is facing a five count federal indictment for interfering with security screening and entering the secure area on false pretenses.
President Trump announced a sweeping overhaul of Washington Dulles — including a plan to replace the airport’s aging mobile lounges — but the airport authority wasn’t told about any of it in advance. The Department of Transportation now plans to take bids for the project even as Dulles continues operating out of 1980s “temporary” concourses and 1960s people movers that were never modernized.
A year ago the DEA was ordered to stop seizing passengers’ cash at airports without evidence or charges. But cash seizures never stopped—they’ve just shifted hands. Homeland Security agents are using drug-sniffing dogs to target travelers, confiscating large sums even when no drugs are found and no charges are filed. Here’s what’s happening, and how they’re getting away with 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 »
