Category Archives for Airports.
One man lived inside Chicago O’Hare for three months. Like a Richard Linklater film though, Allison Robicelli had just one night, and she made the most of it.
There was briefly a ground stop at the Atlanta airport as a loud bang caused mass chaos and mistaken reports of an active shooter on Saturday afternoon. The sound was an accidental discharge from a gun, but it appears no one was harmed.
Reportedly the gun discharged near a security checkpoint around 1:30 p.m. Eastern time and TSA screnners yelled “he’s got a gun” sending passengers into a panic.
The Berlin airport still has huge problems. First of all the airport is on the brink of bankruptcy and expects to run out of money at the start of next year.
Wherever the money has gone, it clearly hasn’t been invested in clean water, which brings us to the second recent problem: the water isn’t safe to drink in terminal 1 which is host to Lufthansa Group carriers, Air France, British Airways, easyJet, United and others.
One of the people challenging the legality of the federal mask mandate is Michael Faris, and he’s filed a motion with the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to be removed from a government terrorism watchlist he was placed on after seeking to litigate the mask requirement.
Another passenger who filed suit against the mask mandate claims to have been placed on a watchlist as well, which they discovered after trying to check in for a Delta flight on October 26.
The $103 million verdict shows just how silly U.S. patent law has become, since the patent is for “send[ing] trays through a checkpoint and us[ing] two carts to move the trays back and forth” including “use [of] a cart to move trays from the end of the checkpoint back to the start.”
He spent October 19, 2020 – January 16, 2021 in the airport because he was afraid of Covid-19. He had flown to O’Hare but didn’t continue onto India as he’d planned. He relied on the kindess of strangers who picked up meals for him, and he talked to passengers about Buddhism and Hinduism.
The man was charged with felony criminal trespass for his time in a restricted area of an airport. And he’s now been acquitted, without having to submit a defense.
A major water main break has deprived the Charlotte airport of water. Restaurants have to close. People can’t use the restrooms, let alone wash their hands (I seem to remember something about needing to do this frequently and for 20 seconds).
American Airlines is telling passengers that they should use lavatories on board their aircraft prior to deplaning.
There’s been a rash of thefts from airport parking lots in Orlando. And the thieves are all going for muscle cars. Airports have some of the toughest security operations in the country, and I don’t mean TSA. There are law enforcement officers of nearly every flavor at major destinations, and cameras everywhere.
But those aren’t deployed to stop crime, they’re often focused on drug interdiction of lifting cash from passengers who aren’t committing any crimes. They’re certainly not protecting cars in the parking lot.
While most of the focus has been on airline workforce issues, and whether a federal deadline of December 8 to comply will wreak havoc on holiday travel (American Airlines says they’ll begin termination proceedings on the Wednesday before thanksgiving!), a big mess could come out of TSA screeners ineligible to work because they’re unvaccinated.
I’ve never once said what I really want for dinner is what they’re serving at the airport. That’s because the constraints of selling food in the airport – bringing everything through security, usually cooking with electricity, lacking storage space, high rents and a need to serve the median consumer taste quickly – means that airport restaurants are bad. And you pay through the nose for the privilege.
Still, at Philadelphia airport they think you might want curbside pickup of your dinner from the airport, and they’re now set up to do just 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 »
