News notes from around the interweb:

• Every day, a new record low for U.S. airline passengers since they’ve been keeping count this way.

  BREAKING NEWS: Who's flying? On Tuesday, 146,348 individuals were screened at @TSA checkpoints nationwide. It's a new record low for the past 10 years. Exactly one year ago, 2,026,256 people went through security checkpoints.

  — TSAmedia_LisaF (@TSAmedia_LisaF) April 1, 2020

• I’ve never seen anything like the airline bailout, where the government is supporting companies that can raise money themselves. Just today Southwest accessed another $2.3 billion and announced it in the very same communication where they said they would apply for CARES Act funding.

• The requirements airlines will face to continue to provide service if they take government bailout money.

• Icelandair gets government money to fly to Boston and either London or Stockholm. Meanwhile Japan is expected to subsidize its airlines, too.

  

• American’s credit card companion tickets are still expiring. I asked about this and was told, “We’re evaluating this, but for now we are handling extension requests on a case by case basis.” Of course American still hasn’t stopped expiring miles either.

• Vietnam has suspended most air travel through April 15

• American AAdvantage web special (revenue-based) awards can now be booked by phone, too.

  AA web specials as of today can now be booked via phone agents (vs. on-line only.) Not sure I know why/if that would make any difference

  — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) April 1, 2020