Airports

Category Archives for Airports.

We’re Finally Going To Get Answers On TSA & DEA Seizing Travelers’ Cash At Airports

civil forfeiture
Apr 01 2021

A year ago a nationwide class action lawsuit was filed against the TSA and Drug Enforcement Agency over seizing the cash of travelers at airports.

The case started when a woman helped her elderly father downsize from a house into an apartment. He didn’t trust banks and kept his life savings of $82,000 squirreled away. She convinced him that she would set up a joint bank account with him, and took the money home with her to Boston – but the government took it all away.

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American Airlines Is Borrowing DFW Airport’s Balance Sheet To Load Up On More Debt

american plane
Mar 31 2021

Two new American Airlines projects at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, put on hold during the pandemic, are getting the green light: $100 million apiece for a new flight kitchen and parts warehouse. The current kitchen is too small, and blamed for 2300 flight delays in 2019.

Most striking about the story is that the airport says American is borrowing on its balance sheet because of the airline’s high cost to add additional debt on its own.

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The Reason Taiwan Wants U.S. Immigration Preclearance

Mar 28 2021

Taiwan has a strategic interest in closer security ties with the U.S. Seeking cooperation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security advances that interest. So does adding flights between Taiwan and the U.S. ahead of real passenger demand, which will mean fare deals and award availability.

Whether or not Taipei gets a preclearance facility depends largely on U.S. judgments about its relationship with China.

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Biden Administration Considering Adding More U.S. Citizens To No Fly List

Mar 23 2021

The ‘No Fly List’ is the government’s pre-crime profiling that keeps people off of U.S. airlines and airlines flying to the U.S. without having been convicted or even charged with a crime.

It’s a secret list that people haven’t been entitled to know how they got on or to confront the evidence relied upon to put them on it. Legally there is very little recourse, and when challenged the government claims ‘state secrets.’

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New 14 Gate Concourse Replaces The Worst Gate In America On April 20th

airport escalators going down
Mar 18 2021

The worst airport gate in America is 35X at Washington National across the rover from D.C. You descend an escalator into a crowded pit with insufficient seating, where you wait to be dispatched into crowded buses that take you across the airport. And your reward for this has been a cramped American Eagle 50 seat regional jet.

On April 20th though 35X will be replaced by an entirely new concourse that supports larger aircraft, features an Admirals Club, as well as upscale dining options.

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Pittsburgh Airport Will Use Artificial Intelligence To Know When To Clean The Bathrooms

toilet
Mar 09 2021

Airport bathrooms have always been sketchy places, and not just because you might run into former Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Whether it’s a hand poking through a men’s room wall at the Hong Kong airport, someone replacing the soap with a bodily fluid in Detroit, or a collapsing toilet sending a man to the hospital in Hefei, China, these are places you’ve wanted to get in and out of as quickly as possible.

With the Covid-19 pandemic airport bathrooms have taken on a new urgency because of risk of virus spread.

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