Tag Archives for congress.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told the story that after boarding, she stepped back off the aircraft to make “one more” phone call after the plane’s door had been closed, and proceeded to pounded on the aircraft door when she they wouldn’t let her back on. According to McCarthy, the pilot passed the lawmaker’s purse out the cckpit window – and the carrier barred her for life.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing today on airline fees. It’s the end of this session of Congress, the chair is losing his position as control of the Senate changes party. So there was one last opportunity for grandstanding against airlines, who are a popular punching bag.
Sometimes airlines make it easy! But most of the punching would make for bad policy in ways that would drive up the cost of travel and leave consumers worse off.
Congressman Ritchie Torres has attacked the CEOs of United, Delta, and American for ‘effectively boycotting Israel’ with their flight suspensions, noting that the U.S. government has not concluded these flights are unsafe to operate and that El Al continues to fly.
The House and Senate both passed FAA reauthorization bills. That left a committee from both chambers to decide what actually went into the bill that heads back for a vote. What’s in the final bill coming out of conference is probably what gets passed and signed by the President. This is what’s really inside.
The current version of the FAA reauthorization bill in the House, a product of compromise between Republicans and Democrats on the Transportation Committee, would reverse an Obama-era rule requiring airlines to display ‘all-in’ pricing when they advertise fares “as long as they include a link to the all-in price or disclose it some other way.”
It took 20 years – and George W. Bush – for federal employees to be allowed to collect frequent flyer miles on official travel.
Now members of the U.S. House can pay for travel to D.C. themselves, on personal credit cards, collect miles and points and get reimbursed from their House office.
The Senate held a hearing full of mock outrage where Senators got to ask ill-informed questions of airline CEOs, and those CEOs got to give disingenuous answers about nearly $100 billion in taxpayer bailouts received during the pandemic.
There’s some truth in the grandstanding, but legislators should move beyond that and take real steps that would improve air travel in America.
Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) is one of the youngest members of Congress ever, and the first one to be born in the 1990s.
He brought a gun through a TSA checkpoint. He wasn’t arrested, didn’t have the gun confiscated, and wasn’t even asked to take it out of the airport. Instead the gun was stored for him while he left on his trip, to avoid causing him any delay.
What happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th was… deplorable, to borrow a phrase. Using the events of January 6th to impose new screenings for hotel guests, and eliminate guest privacy by requiring chains to track service requests for the government is as well.
IF you prefer a room with a specific view, the government might want to know, to question you later if a crime occurs in the area your room overlooks. Your upgrade requests suddenly become national security concerns.
Last week I wrote that airline rules don’t seem to apply to the rich and powerful after Mike McCaul, the fifth wealthiest member of Congress who is in a tight reelection race, flew Washington Dulles to Austin without a mask over his face.
He said it fell off when he was asleep. But new video has surfaced that calls that into question, and suggests the Congressman likely should be banned by United Airlines.
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 »
