Category Archives for Airports.
A couple of weeks ago I flagged a movement to rename Las Vegas airport, ditching former Senator Pat McCarran’s name and replacing it with former Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid’s. Things have moved quickly, and Clark County voted to move forward and ask the FAA for its blessing to honor the retired Senate Democrat.
This is less about honoring Harry Reid and more about cancelling former Democratic Senator Pat McCarran, for whom the airport is currently named.
Ten of the top twenty airports in the world for departing seat capacity this week are in China,. Some of the busiest airports in the world may be places you haven’t heard of or at least, couldn’t place precisely on a map like Hangzhou, Chongquing and Kunming.
For all of China’s dominance here in Covid times around Chinese New Year the busiest airport in the world for domestic flying is still Atlantaa – and by a lot (17% ahead of the number two airport). Middle seat blocking helps here (Delta is flying more seats than they are selling) but Delta has retrenched to Atlanta to a large degree and it skews as a domestic hub even during normal times.
The busiest international airports by seat capacity in the world right now are all in the Mideast: Dubai, followed by Doha and then Istanbul. All of the world’s top international airports have seen an increase in seats offered this week compared to last week.
The top 20 international airport whose international seat capacity has dropped the least year-over-year is Cancun. North America close-in leisure travel to warm weather destinations has fared relatively best during the pandemic.
The TSA, which has a hard enough time finding guns and scissors, has a new distraction from its primary mission. They’re now the transportation mask police as a result of taking existing mask rules and making non-compliance a federal offense.
The Transportation Security Administration has announced its new fines for mask non-compliance: first offenses are $250, and fines range up to $1500 for repeated non-compliance. They also have exceptions to mask enforcement, separate from new airline exemptions.
A TSA screener at LAX has been convicted after requiring a female passenger to show him her breasts, and inspecting down her pants.
In Denver TSA screeners were flagging attractive passengers to ‘alarm’ so that colleagues could pat down their genitals. Think this is unusual? It’s not.
Many of us have avoided airports during the Covid-19 pandemic. While air travel is probably safer than most indoor environments, much of what you might do at a destination is off the table. And airports themselves generally lack HEPA air filtration, and there’s often too much congregation at security checkpoints and gate areas.
Which makes it such a strange choice, to me, that one man afraid of the novel coronavirus, decided to live at Chicago O’Hare for the past 3 months. The 36 year old California man has been arrested for criminal trespass.
The Atlanta local CBS television station went to the airport to interview Trump supporters returning home from D.C. where some protested and others stormed the U.S. Capitol attempting to disrupt the counting of electoral votes last week.
While talking to a man in a Make America Great Again hat, a man walks up and identifies himself as a “twenty year Marine” and says he “fought for [the man’s right] to protest” and is offended by how the protests broke down into violence, calling them terrorists.
In 1989 David Hasselhof stood atop the Berlin Wall belting out “Looking for Freedom.” Less than a year later East Germans were finally free.
Thirty one years after David Hasselhof stood between East and West Berlin the East’s old airport finally became Berlin Brandenburg airport. It’s a costly reminder of East German-style planning, with workers still being harmed by the 23 year long project that more than tripled in cost.
CNN is shuttering the CNN Airport Network effective March 31. That means an end to those televisions blaring news across approximately 50 U.S. airports. The cable network explains that this is because of a decline in air travel, and more people “consuming content on their personal devices” rather than watching their broadcasts.
In this video shared to social media, women can be seem arrested at baggage claim in the Miami airport. They’re dragged out as they futilely resist the officers and the younger woman screams that “it hurts.” One woman announces that she has four children. A concerned onlooker worries about the kids, but the officer responds confidently that he has experience performing arrests where children are involved.
According to reports in social media a mother and daughter assaulted a flight attendant on their trip to Miami.
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 »
