Category Archives for Airports.
Aircraft make great hiding spots for drugs, like when the nose of this American Airlines jet hid 31 pounds of cocaine.
But what on earth led Hong Kong Customs officers to do a full tear down on an aircraft engine leading them to an incredible haul?
Over the weekend police stole $138,980 from a passenger departing from Boston’s Logan airport.
The man had missed his flight and bought a new ticket. The cash was spotted as he went through the TSA checkpoint. And the cops took it. There’s no insinuation he was involved in any crime. In fact, he was allowed to go on his way – just $140,000 lighter.
We’ve seen social shaming of airlines for failing to block middle seats. Oddly people are shocked there would be others sitting near them on a plane. They’re surprised the airline was selling them a ticket and selling tickets to other people, too.
A new front in the traveler shock and frustration over crowding in the coronavirus era is the airport security checkpoint, which became a big deal today at the end of a three day weekend despite travel still being down over 80%.
TSA is rolling out changes to the security process, already in effect in some airports and complete across the nation by mid-June. They want to reduce contact between passengers, and between passengers and screeners, and to remind customers to minimize actions that lead to screeners opening up bags and giving pat downs.
With borders closing in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, and national policies in some cases changing quickly, some passengers got stuck in the middle. Most people got advance notice, but what if their flights home were cancelled? Or there was confusion, and they were allowed to board a flight when they won’t be admitted at their final destination? Not every country ran rapatriation flights, either.
The point of an airport is to get somewhere. The best airports are the ones get are easiest to get to and get through. They make your travel more efficient, rather than adding to an already cumbersome and stressful experience. That has little to do with how much high-end retail there is (airports offer expensive shopping for their benefit, not for yours).
That means the best airports are close-in to the city center, and once you get there security is near the entrance and gates are near security. There’s enough taxiway space and runway capacity to handle flights, too, minimizing delays.
After arriving in Hong Kong, it’s an 8 hour process involving quarantine forms, downloading a tracking app, and registering a tracking bracelet you have to wear – before taking a COVID-19 spit test and awaiting the results. This gripping report walks through it all, step-by-step.
The CEO of the American Association of Airport Executives told Congress that $10 billion is the minimum that airports want in a second bailout, and they aren’t even coming first offering to clean up corruption at airports including Atlanta, Detroit, and Washington Dulles and National and New York LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark.
The first $10 billion, which distributed funds to 3200 airports, became such a mess that some airports received 25 to 50 times their annual expenses.
Atlanta’s airport is the most corrupt in the country (although in fairness Detroit may be a close second).
In Atlanta if you want to open a restaurant you donate to a political campaign and pay the former mayor’s daughter. The airport’s former manager was fired for being insufficiently corrupt, and then the city council buried the payments that bought his silence. Now a new bribery scandal and a guilty plea.
In mid-April it seemed like the best place to get coronavirus testing might be the Dubai airport. And since they were running tests right away, it might even be faster to fly there, get tested, and come home. However the plan there was only to deploy testing for passengers heading to destinations that required a negative test for entry.
Starting Monday testing is available to anyone who wants it at the Vienna airport at a cost of $210. And Vienna is much closer than Dubai.
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 »
