Category Archives for Airports.
Southwest Airlines operates 89% of flights and 92% of seats out of Houston Hobby airport this month, according to schedule data from Cirium. They have suspended inflight alcohol service indefinitely. So everyone is pre-gaming according to state alcohol sales data.
With the return to travel, and passenger growth at the airport, the South Terminal is seeing more passengers than ever before and it cannot fit them all. So passengers are being kept outside the terminal in tents. In the Central Texas summer.
In Denver TSA screeners worked together to find attractive passengers for coworkers interested in those of the same sex to give enhanced pat downs to. At LAX one screener insisted their job included seeing a woman’s breast and inspecting down her pants.
Now a TSA supervisor at Minneapolis – St. Paul was found to have taken photos of 42 young women being screened. However he’s only been charged with leaking surveillance video of a 9 year old boy riding the airport’s baggage carousel to the media.
Austin plans to eliminate its nearly new second terminal to make way for growth of the 1999-era main terminal. One of the fastest growing airports in the country for several years running, they’re figuring out how to accommodate the flights passengers want and airlines want to offer. But in the process they risk what makes the airport so attractive to fly out of in the first place.
CLEAR is expedited airport security. You use biometrics instead of a drivers license to identify yourself, and you skip to the front of the security line. If you’re eligible for PreCheck, you skip to the front of the PreCheck line. And you can leave your ID in your pocket or carry on. They’re also used at some entertainment venues.
When their home was raided they were held at gunpoint, handcuffed, and not allowed to use the bathroom for hours. You might say ‘but they were at the Capitol on January 6th’ and if they were convicted of activities related to the riots that day I might not be sympathetic. But they haven’t been charged. Many people there were innocent of wrongdoing. And there doesn’t appear to be any reason to suspect they’re a threat to aviation. Indeed, they’ve flown successfully and their behavior on those flights proves it.
You can skip showing an ID altogether if you have CLEAR and are flying from a terminal where that service is offered. Your eyes or fingerprints are your ID instead.
But if you don’t have ID, perhaps you’ve lost it or forgotten it, you can still fly. TSA has procedures for that. A viral video tells you how.
The story is a familiar one. Lower-wage employers aren’t able to find workers when they can make as much or more on pandemic unemployment, perhaps they still have stimulus money banked, and they need schools to re-open so they can work without childcare expenses.
Airports are having a difficult time because on-site businesses employ a lot of low wage workers. For instance go find someone to help a passenger in a wheelchair at major airports today.
When I renewed my Global Entry three years ago, the online request (and payment) was enough. I wasn’t required to do an in-erson interview. Not everyone is so lucky.
Somehow I missed the news earlier this month that Customs and Border Protection will now let you do Global Entry renewal interviews over Zoom.
A former Customs and Border Protection officer, now working with Immigration and Customers Enforcement, shared her recent experience having Global Entry taken away from her. It wasn’t because she committed a crime, or forgot to declare fruit she brought back into the country. Instead, she says it was because she complained about an officer who processed her at the border.
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 »
