Category Archives for Airports.
When we allocate ‘money for infrastructure’ we do stupid things with it, like giving $100 million to a zombie airport near Detroit that hasn’t had commercial service in 20 years. The plan is to create “a state-of-the-art airport” according to Detroit officials. Of course Detroit already has a state-of-the-art airport.
Two comedians are suing over being searched for drugs at the Atlanta airport while boarding their flights. The stops and searches lack probably cause, and are generally based on racial profiling (duh). Over a 9 month period, police stopped 402 passengers at the jet bridge in Atlanta. 68% of those were minorities. Fewer than 1% – just 3 – yielded ‘drug seizures’ like THC gummies and six prescription pills.
After “Des Moines…?” my immediate thought was to work through whether this was a display of their real capabilities, or a warning shot? But this doesn’t signal they are capable of more. A DDoS attack against a public-facing website is something any modestly savvy teenager could launch. It doesn’t serve as a message that ‘we can reach your systems, and next time will be worse.’
Instead it’s more moderately annoying for the individual airports involved at best, the kind of attack someone would launch who wanted to say that an attack was made without actually doing one.
CLEAR is a private, fee-based service that takes your biometrics and lets you identify yourself with your fingerprints or retina scan instead of showing an ID. At airports where they’re located you can then skip to the front of the security line – whether PreCheck or regular security.
However at some airports, like Atlanta, the lines for CLEAR can be longer than regular PreCheck and as a result this confers no advantage.
This stat may surprise you: Austin’s airport sees more diverted flights than any other airport in the country.
In 2019 there were 574 diversions to Austin. From May through August the airport saw an average of about 50 diversions per month over the past 15 years. Summer thunderstorms are a driver. There are (4) reasons more flights divert to Austin than any other airport.
A passenger checking in at the Atlanta airport reported being solicited for a bribe to avoid the overweight fee on a checked bag. He’s incredulous, despite the bribe offering a significant savings.
A pilot shortage, drawing pilots away from small operators, has left St. Thomas and St. Croix with virtually no air service between the two islands. These islands within the U.S. territory are virtually unconnected by passenger air, and this is the result of U.S. laws which limit the number of pilots, and which prevent world airlines from providing service. That needs to change.
A ground stop for all departures from New York LaGuardia was put in place Wednesday evening, though arrivals were allowed to continue, because the FAA believed that the FBI had “lost track of a fugitive” who was “now loose in the airport”.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was responsible for the controversial New York Times’ “1619 Project” which argues that the real founding of the United States happened when the first salve arrived in Virginia in 1619 and not in 1776, tweeted yesterday about inequality at the airport.
The oddness of complaining about inequality inside of the Martha’s Vineyard airport aside, what struck me about this is that I did not think Martha’s Vineyard airport even had a separate PreCheck line? When I visited Martha’s Vineyard last month I took the ferry in both directions and I didn’t visit the airport. Perhaps I need to update my priors?
I don’t love Chicago O’Hare, but when I book an O’Hare connection I usually think, “at least I can get Tortas Frontera.” And I’ll pick up a sandwich (choriqueso is my go-to, followed by the pepito) even though there’s free lounge food available. I’ll gladly pay for something good enough that I would eat it even if it wasn’t inside of an airport.
There need to be some licensed TGI Fridays and plenty of quick serve places in an airport, to put out a lot of food to travelers with varying palates. But not every place needs to do that.
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 »
