Category Archives for Airports.
Early in the pandemic I did a bit of cleanup of my recurring subscriptions. I cancelled my Gogo monthly internet service, saving $49.95 a month. And I asked CLEAR for an extension. They pushed my membership renewal date out three months.
Well, I asked CLEAR for another three month extension and they gave it to me. And now I’ve asked for a THIRD extension.
Wait times at London Heathrow immigration hit 7 hours on Monday and a passenger collapsed. An airport executive told U.K. parliament that “police were being called to deal with tensions that flare up as people queue for hours at a time.”
Manual U.K. Covid processing – checking of forms and tests and evidence of booked future tests – is taking so much time that it’s potentially increasing the spread of the virus.
TSA posted to its website that sunscreen had been added to the list of medically necessary items that passengers could bring through security checkpoints, independent of the rule limiting each liquid to 100 milileters and liquids in total to 1 quart per passenger.
Now they say this update was posted in error.
At the start of the pandemic the TSA began allowing passengers to bring 12 ounces of hand sanitizer through the checkpoint, separate from their freedom baggie of liquids.
And now travelers can also bring a full-sized bottle of sunscreen, since sunscreen has been added to the TSA’s list of ‘medically necessary’ liquids, gels and aerosols.
For years TSA has been warning that if you don’t get a ‘REAL ID’-compliant drivers license you won’t be able to fly and I’ve explained that isn’t true because you can fly without ID, in fact people do it all the time.
In fact, the TSA has now posted a video to its social media explaining the process of flying without ID.
The FAA doesn’t even have authority over the name, but won’t recognize the change until they’ve made paperwork adjustments. And they won’t make those adjustments until the Clark County Commission adjusts its own paperwork. And waits four to six months.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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 »
