Free Republic

[NEW YORK] Qatar Airways on Monday said it plans to expand its services to the United States, in a move that rankled US airlines which accuse it of competing unfairly through state subsidies. The Gulf carrier announced its first direct flights to Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta from its Doha hub and its second daily flight to New York.

One of the world’s foremost experts on counter-threat intelligence within the cybersecurity industry, who blew the whistle on vulnerabilities in airplane technology systems in a series of recent Fox News reports, has become the target of an FBI investigation himself. Chris Roberts of the Colorado-based One World Labs, a security intelligence firm that identifies risks before they're exploited, said two FBI agents and two uniformed police officers pulled him off a United Airlines Boeing 737-800 commercial flight Wednesday night just after it landed in Syracuse, and spent the next four hours questioning him about cyberhacking of planes. The FBI interrogation...

A United Arlines jetliner returned to Dulles International Airport on Monday night after takeoff when a passenger failed to comply with crew instructions, the airline said. Local law enforcement officers met the plane at the gate at Dulles and detained the passenger, the airline said. No passengers were injured and no weapons were found, said a spokeswoman for Dulles....

Shocking enough are the allegations that a long-perceived unassuming state senator tried brokering an international arms deal with military-style rifles and rocket launchers, but Leland Yee may have narrowly escaped an even more ominous label: supporter of terrorism. Yee, whose arrest after an FBI undercover sting shook the California political world last week, would likely have been charged with aiding terrorists if not for a bureaucratic label missing from the militant Filipino group that he is accused of sourcing for an international arms deal, counterterrorism experts told this newspaper. His ties to the group, whose leader has said he personally...

A young computer whiz from New York City has launched a site to help people buy cheap plane tickets. But an airline company and its travel partner want to shut him down. United Airlines and Orbitz filed a civil lawsuit last month against 22-year-old Aktarer Zaman, who founded the website Skiplagged.com last year. The site helps travelers find cheap flights by using a strategy called “hidden city” ticketing. The idea is that you buy an airline ticket that has a layover at your actual destination. Say you want to fly from New York to San Francisco — you actually book...

Delta Flight 81, en route from Atlanta to Los Angeles was diverted and forced to make an unscheduled stop in Albuquerque over an incident in first class that began with “a 27-year-old Wichita man’s singing aloud to music playing from his headphones, which bothered other passengers.” When asked to stop singing by another passenger and then by a flight attendant, he “made references to the recent Ferguson, Missouri incident” and “also stated he was being harassed because he was black.”(continued)

JetBlue (JBLU) is offering to fly two police officers from each department on its route around the country to New York for the funerals of two NYPD officers killed last weekend. The New York-based airline is also working with its partners to have family members of one of the slain officers, Wenjian Liu, flown in from overseas. Liu and a second NYPD officer, Rafael Ramos, were sitting in their patrol car when they were shot and killed by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a Georgia man with a long criminal record. Ramos's funeral is being held on Dec. 27, whereas Liu's funeral hasn't...

Bowing her head in shame, a senior Korean Air executive whose 'nut rage' delayed a flight made a grovelling apology for exploding with rage after her snack was served in a bag. Screaming Cho Hyun-ah, a senior vice-president at the airline, angrily demanded the removal of a crew member from a flight for failing to serve nuts in a bowl. She then forced the Incheon-bound flight to taxi back to the terminal at New York's JFK Airport to kick the junior flight attendant off the plane.

JetBlue will add bag fees and squeeze seats a bit closer together as it tries to boost profit. The airline said Wednesday that it will create three ticket classes beginning in the first half of 2015, and only the top two include at least one free checked bag. Other big airlines have added fees on checked bags since 2008, when they needed money to cover rising fuel costs. In the first six months of this year, U.S. airlines raised $1.7 billion from bag fees. JetBlue's decision will leave Southwest as the only major U.S. airline to let all passengers check...

A German newspaper has reported that the government is developing a special aircraft designed to transport Ebola patients. At present, only the US has planes equipped for the task. The German government has commissioned flag carrier Lufthansa to develop special aircraft equipped to carry patients infected with the deadly Ebola virus, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Citing government sources, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported that officials planned to develop several planes that were designed to safely carry such highly infectious patients. According to the paper, the planes are meant to be ready by mid-November, which is when the first German...

A nurse infected with Ebola may have had symptoms sooner than originally believed, authorities say, and an airline is notifying up to 800 passengers linked to flights she took between Dallas and Cleveland. In addition to Amber Vinson's round trip, Frontier Airlines is also reaching out to others who were in five subsequent flights that used the same plane. Vinson was hospitalized Tuesday, a day after she returned from Cleveland to Dallas aboard a Frontier Airlines flight. The nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas was part of a team that treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed...

A resident of Belton, Texas sat within three feet of Amber Vinson, the Dallas nurse who is the third confirmed Ebola case in the United States, when she was flying from Ohio to Texas this week. The family of the person will now enter quarantine for 21 days, or the incubation period for the virus, to ensure that they didn’t contract the deadly disease from Vinson. Vinson was originally reported as not showing any symptoms on the flight but a CDC official later said that she was showing symptoms prior to the flight. Ebola spreads mostly through direct contact with...

Remember when Obama said "Putin was isolated", despite the Russian having the explicit support of the BRIC nations, and thus at least half of the world's population? Well, as irony would always have it with this particular US president, the tables have promptly turned, and paradoxically where ISIS failed to "terrorize" Americans into a state of paralyzed daze, the West African virus has succeeded in isolating none other than America, and as a brand new Reuters poll reveals, nearly half of Americans are so concerned about the Ebola outbreak that they are avoiding international air travel! In other words,...

AKRON, Ohio — Akron school officials announced that Resnik CLC was closed Thursday as a precaution after a student’s mother had contact with Ebola patient Amber Vinson. Details of their contact were not made available. The student was in voluntary quarantine along with his/her mother. The health department did not order the school to close, rather the district made the decision as a precaution. It will remain closed until Oct. 20. BRECKSVILLE, Ohio — The PNC Bank processing center in Brecksville will be closed today as a precaution after learning an employee traveled on one of the same planes as...

A Northeast Ohio area teacher was on board the same plane that carried Amber Vinson, the Dallas nurse who travelled through Cleveland and was hours later diagnosed with Ebola virus. Two Solon schools announced that they will be closed on Thursday as a precaution after learning that a Solon Middle School staff member traveled home from Dallas on Frontier Airlines on Tuesday on a different flight, and an elementary teacher from Cleveland who confirmed contact with an Ebola infected person will be staying home from work until cleared by health officials to return to work. Solon sent the following email...

Amber Joy Vinson CLEVELAND, Ohio – Did you spot or make contact with Dallas Ebola patient Amber Joy Vinson during her recent trip to Ohio? Vinson, 29, was diagnosed with Ebola this week after visiting family in Akron. She came to the region last week and returned to Dallas Monday on a Frontier Airlines flight out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport....

I have been out of the country all month, returning over the weekend. Staying up on American news while abroad was not a priority for me; I looked in every few days. When I was standing in the customs line at JFK, a fellow passenger told me that the airport was going to begin screening travelers from West African flights for fever starting tomorrow. We talked about Ebola, and took comfort that it isn’t passed pneumonically. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized what a vector for transmission an airplane toilet would be. The BBC asked...

* First Sargent Albert Marle boarded plane wearing a jacket lined with medals * Asked US Airways attendant if she could hang up his 'Dress Blues' uniform * But she reportedly refused, saying coat closet was for first-class fliers only * Outraged passengers offered Sgt Marle their seats, but he politely declined * After fliers spoke of the incident online, social media users hit out at airline * US Airways has since apologized and launched investigation into incidentUS Airways has sparked outrage after a flight attendant allegedly refused to hang up an Army Ranger and combat veteran's jacket to stop...

Striking workers protest lack of durable gloves and face masks for job that entails ‘contact with a lot of faeces and vomit’ •‘Cases growing exponentially’ in West Africa, UN warns •Ebola: the 10 basic questions you were afraid to ask About 200 airline cabin cleaners walked off their jobs at New York’s LaGuardia airport on Thursday, to protest what they say are working conditions that do not protect against potential Ebola contraction. “When I do bathroom, I come in contact with tampons which I have to grab with my hand, with a glove that’s so cheap that it breaks easily....

Nearly 200 airline cabin cleaners walked off the job at a New York City airport overnight, striking over health and safety issues that include fears over possible exposure to Ebola. The protest involves Air Serv cabin cleaners in Terminal D at New York’s LaGuardia airport, a contractor that serves Delta, as well as supporting workers from LaGuardia and JFK International airports. Protesting workers carried signs and chanted during today’s rally, protesting against conditions that they say often find them encountering hypodermic needles, vomit and blood. Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ was scheduled to conduct infectious disease training...