Category Archives: News

The Ballad of Newark Airport

Around 5:20PM on January 3rd, a man was observed walking the wrong way down the exit lane out of the secure area of Newark Liberty Airport’s Terminal C. Why no one stopped this man, as we always see a TSA agent stationed at the exit, we do not know. The response of the TSA was to shut down screening, but then two and a half hours later, then ordered the terminal evacuated and all passengers be rescreened. They estimated this would be complete by half past midnight. The event caused a great amount of disruption, as inbound planes were delayed due to lack of gate space, as were outbound planes due to lack of passengers.

Come Fly the Unfriendly Skies

On Friday, a passenger on a Northwest flight set off a small explosive device shortly before landing in Detroit. The man, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, was subdued. He had connected in Amsterdam to the flight from a KLM flight inbound from Lagos, Nigeria. He had been rescreened in Amsterdam, as is standard procedure there. The device failed to fully detonate, and has been described as a mixture of liquid and powder, and were described as more incendiary than explosive.

American Airlines Plane Crashes in Kingston Jamaica

Reports are coming in that an American Airlines plane overshot the runway, crashed, and broke in two.  Flight 331 was landing in pouring rain at its final destination of  Norman Manley Airport in Kingston, Jamaica.  We will update this post as we receive additional information. The plane was carrying 148 passengers and 6 crewmembers. Initial…

DOT Issues New Regulations for Tarmac Delays

This morning, the DOT announced a new rule that will take effect in 120 days which would address tarmac delays. The new rule prohibits U.S. airlines operating domestic flights from permitting an aircraft to remain on the tarmac for more than three hours without deplaning passengers, with exceptions allowed only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.

Stuck at the Airport

Today, while we are stuck in our homes in the snow, our thoughts are with those stuck at the airports. In preparation for this storm, airlines around the Northeast United States preemptively cancelled flights, airports were closed for hours, and some people are being told it might be days before they get home. At least 800 flights were cancelled in the New York Area alone. We don’t have the magic bullet that will solve all of these problems.

Video: Inside American Airlines

Last night, we upgraded the software that runs this blog to the latest version, which now supports embedded video from a variety of sites. We figured we’d see what sorts of things we could now embed. We’ve been posting Youtube videos for some time, but we’ve never tried some of the other sites. So, courtesy of Hulu, we now are offering you a chance, if you missed it, to experience the CNBC documentary, Inside American Airlines. It is a good documentary that shows a lot of interesting aspects of the industry in general, and American in particular. To those of you outside the U.S., unfortunately, Hulu is U.S. only.

The 787 Dreamliner Takes to the Skies

Today is a historic day in the history of flight, one of many, but one we are happy to share with our fellow aviation enthusiasts. We couldn’t be there, so we have sourced some of these pictures from David Parker Brown at AirlineReporter.com.

What’s New in Aviation

We haven’t been writing enough lately. That does happen sometimes when real life interferes with this(which is unfortunately a hobby). Here’s what we’ve been reading about. If Pat Kiernan of New York City based station NY1 can make a name for himself reading the newspaper and running Pat’s Papers online, we can try to see if people like such a feature.

JetBlue to Expand in Boston

Image via Wikipedia JetBlue Airways announced a major expansion in Boston’s Logan Airport. The full schedule of expansion has yet to be announced, but the following highlights are available and will be available for purchase on November 4th. Two Additional Flights to Chicago-O’Hare(Total 3) Two Additional Flights to Raleigh-Durham(Total 3) One Additional Flight to BWI(Total…

What Happened on Northwest Flight 188?

The Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports that the two pilots who overflew Minneapolis last week have advised the NTSB that the reason they lost track of time they were “discussing the new monthly crew flight scheduling system.” The system was put in place as part of Northwest’s merger with Delta Air Lines. They both admitted accessing their personal laptops while they discussed this, something which is in violation of company policy.

How Do Two Pilots Overshoot an Airport?

Pilots of a flight from San Diego to Minneapolis ignored radio calls and flew over 150 miles past the airport. The military was even prepared to intercept. All in all, the pilots of Northwest Flight 188 were nonresponsive for 78 minutes, covering a distance of over 600 miles. With all the attempts to contact them, flashing lights in the cockpit, etc, it is a mystery why this was.

Is Letting Bag-Free Passengers Board First a Good Idea?

[caption id="attachment_1704" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Leather seats with Headrests"][/caption] Virgin America is testing the idea of letting passengers who are traveling without carry-on luggage board the plane first. Now, we aren’t sure of the exact details. We assume personal items wouldn’t count, and this would be limited to actual luggage. Few people travel with only the…