News and notes from around the interweb:

• Democrats and Republicans demanding TSA comply with a congressional subpeona. The House Oversight Committee is looking into “inappropriate conduct” in the TSA’s personnel policies. TSA has said that complying would “violate attorney client privilege” oh and they didn’t even refuse to comply by the deadline set to produce documents.

  

• What Caused an Epic Meltdown at Delta the airline’s crew scheduling system melted down, with crew not aware of the flights they were assigned to. It wasn’t just that, though, since elite lost baggage phone lines had 10 hour wait times even once the meltdown was supposedly over.

  Overall a good Scott McCartney piece but I’m skeptical of the claim “Delta thinks it has found better ways to anticipate thunderstorms.” And I’m unimpressed that “In the future, communications will include mobile phones.”

  

• Etihad has agreed to provide financial support to air berlin for at least another 18 months

• El Al has stopped selling first class on certain routes for winter:

  eff 29OCT17 Tel Aviv – Newark
  eff 01NOV17 Tel Aviv – London Heathrow LY315/316 Day 13, until 31JAN18
  eff 03MAR18 Tel Aviv – Hong Kong

• Why You Can Never Find a Dinner Reservation for 7 P.M. Online (HT: Alan H.) How restaurant bookings are changing and will continue to evolve.

• I point out to the New York Times that when American says they’re offsetting reduced seat pitch with the design of the seats that means less comfortable seats — and that the move could backfire failing to raise more revenue.

  “Airlines put in more seats by using seats with less padding, so that’s not more comfortable for the customer,” said Gary Leff, the author of the travel blog Viewfromthewing.com. “It’s less legroom and more uncomfortable seats.”

  …“Even if the average traveler doesn’t pay attention to this and has an uncomfortable flight, major travel buyers with corporate contracts care about the experiences their travelers have and the airline may risk losing lucrative business travelers,” Mr. Leff said.

• Just sayin’.

  

• What a Pilot Sees on an Overnight Flight from Zurich to Sao Paulo (HT: Paul H)