NAACP Issues Travel Warning Against American Airlines

by Gary Leff

british airways plane
Oct 25 2017

The NAACP, co-founded by the legendary W. E. B. Du Bois, was one of the most important organizations — not just civil rights organizations — in the history of America. It’s pursued some of the most important lawsuits in the country, and did incredibly important work fighting Jim Crow laws.

We need an NAACP, even one tilting at the windmill of everyone’s passenger experience onboard commercial airlines. But suggesting that American Airlines is targeting African Americans for discrimination is simply unsupported by any of the facts offered, and runs counter to many of the facts available.

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Broken Toilets are Keeping an Airline From Adding Seats to Their Planes

by Gary Leff

jetblue plane
Oct 24 2017

One of the ways airlines are squeezing more seats onto planes is by shrinking the lavatories. It’s part of American’s plan for 30 inch pitch coach on Boeing 737 MAX aircraft (and eventually retrofitting their existing 737s with more seats, too).

JetBlue is adding seats to their planes, though not quite as many, and they too are shrinking the lavs.

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Federal Government Blinks on Real ID: Your Drivers License Will Be Allowed for Travel After January

by Gary Leff

Oct 24 2017

The Real ID Act regulates, among other things, what state identification will be valid for federal purposes. Those federal purposes including identifying oneself to the Transportation Security Administration in order to board commercial aircraft. And several state drivers licenses do not comply with those rules. But DHS appears to largely have blinked on refusing these state IDs at security checkpoints next year.

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