Free Republic

The boss of Spirit Airlines isn't about to cave in to a dying former Marine, and he doesn't lose sleep knowing his company leads the industry when it comes to customer complaints, he told FoxNews.com. “That’s an irrelevant statistic,” Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza said when told his airline generates gripes at two-and-a-half times the rate of the next most complained about carrier. Spirit racked up 8.27 complaints per 100,000 passengers in January, while United finished a distant second-worst, registering 3.5 complaints per 100,000 fliers, according to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics. By comparison, Southwest notched just 0.2 complaints per 100,000...

A Continental Airlines flight traveling from Houston to California had to be diverted here Tuesday evening because of an “unruly passenger” who reportedly lit a cigarette in the cabin and refused to put it out then fought with a flight attendant, officials said. The man, whose name and age were not available, was taken into custody by the San Antonio police and the FBI and could face federal charges, officials said. San Antonio police Capt. Cris Andersen said the man allegedly lit the cigarette while in the cabin. He reportedly refused to put out the cigarette and when a flight...

Australian aircraft engineers have called for Airbus A380 - the world's biggest passenger aircraft - to be grounded, after Singapore Airlines and Qantas found cracks in the wings of their super-jumbos. 'We can't continue to gamble with people's lives and allow those aircraft to fly around and hope that they make it until their four-yearly inspection,' said Steve Purvinas, secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association.

<p>An off-duty New York police officer helped subdue and arrest a passenger who allegedly punched a flight attendant and assaulted passengers Sunday morning on a flight from the Dominican Republic to New York, authorities said.</p>

One of the more intriguing shows of this fall's tepid television season is "Pan Am," which focuses on a gaggle of young stewardesses - as they were called then - flying for the unofficial American flagship airline during its early 1960s heyday. The series has been derided as "Mad Men in the Sky" for its obvious slipstreaming of the popular show set in a New York advertising agency during the early 1960s. From the two weeks of "Pan Am" I've watched so far, there's a lot of thematic overlap. Strong women beginning to push back at a male-dominated culture, New...

On the same July day that Donald Rumsfeld was patted down by airport security at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, I underwent an upper-body pat-down at Reagan National. I was posing spread-eagle in the full body scanner, in compliance with various mandates of the federal Transportation Security Administration, when something set off a female TSA agent, who began mumbling anxiously into her walkie-talkie. I leaned forward, trying to hear her description of my offense. I was wearing no shoes and no heavy jewelry, and I’d thrown my belt into a bin along with my BlackBerry, my bulging key ring and an Amazon...

Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to escort a flight from Los Angeles to John F. Kennedy Airport Sunday afternoon after three passengers refused to come out of a bathroom. The flight landed safely after 4 p.m. The Transportation Security Administration said in a statement that it was "notified of passengers allegedly behaving suspiciously" onboard the flight at about 3 p.m., and that the jets were scrambled "out of an abundance of caution." "Law enforcement met the flight and will interview passengers," the TSA said. The passengers on American Airlines Flight 34 went into a bathroom and were "not compliant,"...

Complete title: Judicial Watch Uncovers New Documents Detailing Pelosi's Use of Air Force Aircraft for Her Family in 2010 Records Also Detail Massive Pelosi-Led Bipartisan Congressional Junket to Detroit Auto Show Washington, DC -- July 21, 2011Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained new documents from the United States Air Force (USAF) detailing then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of USAF aircraft in 2010. The records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which include flight manifests, expense summaries, copies of receipts and Congressional correspondence, detail a number of...

Yesterday, Miller-McCune’s Michael Scott Moore accused Southwest Airlines of helping to bury a potential Texas bullet train 15 years ago. “Southwest understood better than most high-speed rail critics just how well the trains could work,” Moore wrote. “[High-speed rail in Spain] has reduced Spanish highway traffic — even for cargo, by freeing up space on the older rail network — and it’s cut dramatically into domestic airline business.” Miller-McCune quotes a 2006 story in The Austinist: Dallas-based airline company Southwest Airlines launched a sweeping, aggressive public relations campaign throughout the state in order to discredit TGV and prevent the company...

Southwest Airlines is landing in hot water after they told a passenger that she was "too fat to fly." During a layover in Dallas on Easter Sunday, Kenlie Tiggeman was told by a Southwest employee that she and her mother were "too fat to fly" when they asked what the weight restrictions were on the flight, according to MSNBC. Tiggeman, who has lost 120 pounds in the last two years, told the news organization: "It doesn't matter how far I have come. I have a long way to go, but no one sees that. All they see is my exterior...

(Reuters) - Southwest Airlines grounded 81 aircraft from its Boeing 737 fleet for inspection after a gaping hole in the fuselage forced one of its planes to make emergency landing in Arizona on Friday, the company said on Saturday. Southwest (LUV.N) and Boeing (BA.N) engineers will inspect the aircraft to try to determine the cause, Southwest said in a statement. Passengers heard a loud noise and suddenly saw a hole about mid-cabin. Southwest Airlines is working with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration on the ground in Arizona to determine the cause of a sudden drop...

British Airways grounded two jumbo jets after a passenger complained of being badly bitten by bed bugs during two separate long-haul flights. The airline fumigated one of the planes on which it confirmed there had been an infestation and apologised to the woman for her ordeal. Businesswoman Zane Selkirk revealed her body was ‘crawling’ with bugs and ‘covered with bites’ during a ten-hour transatlantic flight from Los Angeles to London Heathrow in January. The 28-year-old believes she was also bitten on a second flight in February during a business trip from Bangalore in India to Heathrow. The revelations will certainly...

Well this is living! Marvin Gaye who sung about intercity Blues had no idea that we’d all be receiving sexual healing inside our near-the-city airports. Who among us wakes up every morning and after the morning rituals of hygiene and breakfast bolts out of the door to work where hundreds of women are lined up before you? And your job is either to scan anatomically correct female images all day or to glide your lecherous fingers up and down the nether and frontal regions of the female body? Not your job description? Well one might think it is the job...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday three top Russian officials should spend New Year's Eve in the dark after failing to fulfill their promise to repair damaged power lines. "You said everything would be fine by 1800 (1500 GMT)," Russia's de facto number one said in nationally televised comments to the three. "You should not have said anything if you were not sure," he added during a meeting that included the governor of the Moscow region as well as federal energy minister and the head of the local power utility. The televised comments were followed an hour later by news...

In the wake of yet another Muslim terror plot, we can't ignore the threat profile any longer—or the solution. Asra Q. Nomani argues the case for religious and racial profiling. For all those holiday travelers negotiating the Transportation Security Administration’s new cop-a-feel strategy, there is a difficult solution we need to consider: racial and religious profiling. As an American Muslim, I’ve come to recognize, sadly, that there is one common denominator defining those who’ve got their eyes trained on U.S. targets: MANY of them are Muslim—like the Somali-born teenager arrested Friday night for a reported plot to detonate a car...

Authorities this afternoon are examining two duffel bags stored inside a Delta cargo terminal building at Boston's Logan Airport after a dog trained to sniff out explosives reacted, a Massport spokesman said. Phil Orlandella said that a K9 dog from the Transportation Security Administration "got a hit'' while routine security inspections were being performed around 12:30 p.m. today. The duffel bags carried an address in Nigeria, he said. Orlandella said the package was found inside Delta cargo building 56 and that the 25 people working there have since been evacuated. He said the suspicious package is now undergoing a more...

Just a few days before the busy holiday travel period, the Transportation Security Administration has decided to change the rules of flying - again. At the beginning of this month, the agency began enforcing its name-matching requirements for airline tickets. Passengers must now provide their full names as they appear on a government-issued ID, their date of birth and their gender when they book a flight. After a terrorism scare involving explosive devices shipped by cargo, the government banned printer cartridges from luggage. And the TSA started implementing several new screening measures, including an enhanced "pat-down" protocol for air travelers...

Dear Penthouse Forum,I know that you won't believe what happened to me, and I know that I must be a one-in-a-million guy to have this occur, but last week I was standing in line at the airport...

Our ever-friendly Transportation Safety Administration sure has smacked a hornet’s nest with their new see-through body scanners and overtly invasive body inspections that border on criminal groping if done unofficially. The anger this has raised has once again brought to the front the example of the Israeli method of clearing people through questioning rather than all the hi-tech gadgetry. Some will always criticize the Israeli method due to the fact that it is a form of profiling. This is a mute and unsubstantiated complaint as the Israelis profile not by race, religion, or other physical traits, but profile by the...

If you want to understand the spontaneous outrage that combusted this week at the introduction of new airport security procedures—an electronic undressing for those who go through the fancy X-ray machines and a groping for those who "opt out"—just look at the pictures of our fellow citizens passing through the scanners. They stand, dishearteningly, with their hands above their heads in the universal pose of defeat and surrender. Yet the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration are, frankly, annoyed at the "traveling public" for making such a fuss. A senior Homeland Security official (who would not allow...

Subject: So Dumb You Can Only Smile A DC airport ticket agency offers some examples of 'why' our country is in trouble! 1.I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!) 2.I got a call from a Kansas Congressman's (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ''I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in...

The National Transportation Safety Board has again recommended that airlines require a separate seat for all children, regardless of age, eliminating the current practice of permitting children under the age of 2 to fly for free on the lap of a parent. Will mandating child restraint systems make air travel safer? The answer is probably yes but that's the visible. Having to purchase an extra airplane ticket, some families will opt to drive to their destination instead. Thus, mandated CRS will force some families to switch to a less safe method of travel and some highway fatalities will represent the...

...After decades as the frontman of Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson has a new second job – in middle management. The English singer has been named marketing director of Astraeus, a Gatwick-based charter airline, where he has worked as a pilot for several years. The announcement at the bottom of the Astraeus website makes it sound like just another corporate position. "With the rapid growth in the business we have increased our commercial team," the statement reads. "Bruce Dickinson as our marketing director, [and] Claire Ronson has now moved to sales and marketing to support our sales team." They don't even...

MYFOXNY.COM - A Playboy centerfold tried to bust out -- midair -- from a jet amid a bad case of high anxiety. Law enforcement officers met a JetBlue plane at its arrival gate in Newark Liberty International Airport Thursday afternoon because of a passenger who was causing a disturbance on board, the airline reported. The passenger was identified as 21-year-old Tiffany Livingston. She was aboard JetBlue Flight 522 from Florida to Newark, N.J., on Thursday when she bolted from her seat and tried to open the door of the plane. She had became agitated because of turbulence and appeared to...

One man is in custody and Miami International Airport is back open this morning after a suspicious device caused a major evacuation and shutdown Thursday night. The security scare happened just after 9 p.m., when a baggage screener spotted a suspicious item in a checked piece of luggage in the Customs area. -snip- A video of what is believed to be part of the suspicious device showed a silver canister, though police haven't confirmed what was found. Police also haven't released the identity of the man taken into custody, but airport officials said he had been on a flight from...

If you are flying out of Boston’s Logan International or Las Vegas-McCarran International airports you can expect the heavy hands of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to come down on you. The TSA has just implemented a more aggressive palms-first, slide down body search technique to properly feel up airline passengers. The new policy replaces the formerly-used almost-as-intrusive back hand patdown. It’s not enough that TSA agents get to ogle your naked bodies — and those of your kids — via the naked body scanner machines. If you refuse to subject yourself to the radiation of the backscatter naked body...

Maggots falling from an overhead bin from a spoiled container of meat forced a US Airways flight to return to the gate so the bin could be cleaned. Passenger Donna Adamo said she noticed a couple of flies on the Monday flight when she got to her seat but didn't think much of it. Then, as the plane was taxiing, she heard a passenger behind her causing a commotion and refusing to take her seat. "Then I heard the word 'maggot' and that kind of got everybody creeped out," she said. "All of a sudden, I felt somebody flick the...

The U.S. government is refining its terror-screening policy to focus on specific terror threats and not travelers' nationalities. The new policy replaces a security requirement put in place after the attempted bombing of a jetliner en route to Detroit on Christmas Day that singled out people from 14 countries that have been home to terrorists. It also expands the pool of foreign travelers targeted for extra screening beyond those whose names are on a U.S. terror watch list. The changes, announced Friday by the Homeland Security Department, come after a three-month review of counterterrorism policies ordered by President Barack Obama...

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will announce a new set of procedures for screening US-Bound air passengers which will use a more comprehensive profile of each passenger to determine who will receive enhanced searches and screenings. These new procedures will replace existing methods which use a more broad brush approach requiring enhanced screenings for all passengers from 14 mostly-Muslim nations. This is clearly a step in the right direction and most likely reflects an implicit admission by the Obama administration that current methods of ensuring secure air travel simply do not work. According to the Wall Street Journal...

The United States will announce on Friday its plans to begin profiling US-bound passengers in a major shake-up of air travel security measures, US media said. Under the new measures to begin this month, which will apply to US citizens as well, the level of screening of travellers will depend on how closely their personal characteristics match against intelligence on potential terrorists. The measures will replace mandatory enhanced screening of all passengers travelling to the United States from 14 mostly Muslim nations, put into place following a failed al-Qaeda attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. "It's...

NEW YORK (Associated Press) -- An air traffic controller at New York's Kennedy Airport is in hot water after he allowed his young son to radio instructions to several pilots. The Federal Aviation Administration said it has placed the controller and a supervisor on administrative leave as it investigates. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt called the episode a "lapse in judgment." The agency says it has also suspended all unofficial visits to FAA air traffic facilities while it reviews its policies.

A Muslim woman is thought to have become the first passenger to be stopped from boarding a flight after refusing to go through a full body scanner for religious reasons. The passenger was at Manchester Airport for a flight to Islamabad when she was selected at random to pass through the security screen. She was warned she would not be allowed to board the Pakistan International Airlines flight if she did not comply with the request but she decided to forfeit her ticket. Her female travelling companion also left the airport after she cited ''medical reasons'' for not wanting to...

As Americans get larger and airplane space comes at a greater premium, it's not difficult to see where friction ensues. The issue was brought to light again Feb. 13, when movie director Kevin Smith was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank, Calif., for failing to fit comfortably into a seat. According to Southwest, Smith originally bought two tickets — "as he's been known to do when traveling on Southwest" (Smith disputed this on his Twitter account) — but decided to fly standby on an earlier flight. After the director received a seat, it was determined that...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Obama administration official says more air travelers may have their hands swabbed as part of a stepped-up effort to screen passengers for explosives. The official says added security measures may begin as early as Wednesday. The official requested anonymity to speak about security plans.

ROMULUS, Mich. -- The Transportation Security Administration says unruly passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit were interviewed by Customs and Border Protection officials after the plane landed.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — A failed airport security test ended up with a Slovak man unwittingly carrying hidden explosives in his luggage on a flight to Dublin, Slovak officials admitted Wednesday — a mistake that enraged Irish authorities and shocked aviation experts worldwide. While the Slovaks blamed the incident on "a silly and unprofessional mistake," Irish officials and security experts said it was foolish for the Slovaks to hide actual bomb parts in the luggage of innocent passengers under any circumstances. The passenger himself was detained by Irish police for several hours before being let go without charge Tuesday.

Even if Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab had never boarded that Christmas flight from Amsterdam to Detroit wearing explosive underpants, a passage on page 17 of a report published in July by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security would still be eye-popping. "Not all known or reasonably suspected terrorists are prohibited from boarding an aircraft, or are subject to additional security screening prior to boarding an aircraft," says the passage. More than eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, people boarding commercial flights in the United States -- and sometimes those boarding international flights bound for the United...

That was quite a revealing -- and understandable -- public tantrum President Obama threw Tuesday. Understandable, because the president has every right to be livid over the "potentially catastrophic breach of security" that nearly saw a terrorist bring down an airliner with 289 people aboard. And revealing, because perhaps Obama has come to understand that he does not enjoy as much control over intelligence matters as he might have imagined. Also, that the Islamist threat to America won't be countered with mere words.

HONOLULU — President Barack Obama said Tuesday “a systemic failure” allowed the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam. He called it “totally unacceptable.” The president said he wants preliminary results by Thursday from two investigations he has ordered to examine the many lapses that occurred. “There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security,” Obama said. It will take weeks for a more comprehensive investigation into what allowed a 23-year-old Nigerian carrying explosives onto the flight despite the fact the suspect had possible ties to al Qaeda,...

While Obama primps and preens for the international press, our friends in Europe, and his friends on the lunatic left, Islamic fascists are on the march. They will not relent in their pursuit of America's destruction, and their biggest ally in that goal is The President of The United States.

Decision Brief No. 05-D 44 2005-08-31 On eve of U.N. push for global government, advocates urge Senate to approve a building block: The Law of the Sea Treaty (Washington, D.C.): As concern grows that the United Nations is intent on replacing what the National Security Guidance calls "an orderly arrangement of sovereign states" with a proto-world government - complete with the ability to impose international taxes, a new push is being made for a treaty that would advance that purpose: the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). This sovereignty-sapping agenda is at the heart of a dispute now playing...

At least two passengers were removed from an LAX flight bound for New York's Kennedy Airport after a man insisted on using the restroom just before takeoff. According to LAX spokesperson Nancy Castles and passengers, United Flight 22 was preparing for takeoff when a passenger said he needed to use the restroom. An attendant asked the passenger to sit but he refused. The attendant considered the passenger's behavior suspicious and alerted the captain. The plane returned to the gate. Authorities removed two men and took them into custody, according to LAPD spokesperson Lt. John Romero. Passengers reported a third person...

By now, most everybody in the U.S. has seen or heard of the tragic airplane-helicopter collision over the Hudson River in which 9 people (all 3 on the plane, all 6 on the chopper) tragically lost their lives. Eyewitness reports seem to place the blame on the fixed-wing light aircraft (a Cessna), which apparently intruded on the airspace of the helo as the rotary-wing aircraft was merging into the traffic stream that runs up and down the river. This incident highlights a fact that was just highlighted in certain media reports the other day which laid out the nation's 5...

ExpressJet Airlines says it's sorry 47 passengers aboard a flight to Minneapolis were forced to spend a night trapped in a grounded plane during the weekend. Airline spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas told Monday's (Minneapolis) Star Tribune that weather problems at Twin Cities International Airport Friday night forced the pilot of a Houston-to-Minneapolis flight to land in Rochester, Minn., where the regional jet sat on the tarmac for nine hours. ExpressJet was operating the plane as a Continental Express flight, the newspaper said. ExpressJet's Web site says it flies more than 200 50-passenger Brazilian-made Embraer ERJ145 aircraft for Continental Airlines. Nicholas told...

June 10, 2009 -- Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged. French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31st. Flight AF447 crashed in mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.While it is certain that there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out. Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Générale de la...

June 1, 2009 No hope for 228 passengers and crew feared dead in Air France catastrophe Philippe Naughton and Charles Bremner in Paris All 228 people on board an Air France jet are feared to have been killed after the packed aircraft went missing over the Atlantic Ocean. The flight from Brazil was probably brought down by a lightning strike after hitting a fierce storm, the airline said today, as it faced up to the worst disaster in its history. Flight AF447, which had 228 people on board, took off from Rio de Janeiro at 7.03pm local time yesterday bound...

A Russian-born woman has been jailed in the U.S. state of Maine after purportedly consuming prescription drugs, wine and liquid soap from the lavatory and scuffling with flight attendants on a London-bound jetliner. U.S. prosecutors said Galina Rusanova, a British citizen born in Russia, punched and kicked flight attendants and at one point fell to the floor and began "snapping like a dog" while trying to bite a crew member's leg. Rusanova, who made a court appearance Friday in Bangor, Maine, remained in custody pending a detention hearing Monday in U.S. District Court, where she is charged with assault and...

Woman Starts Brawl On Flight Bound For Detroit POSTED: Saturday, March 28, 2009 UPDATED: 11:14 pm EDT March 28, 2009 DETROIT, Mich. -- Southwest Flight 1402 from Phoenix, bound to Detroit, was delayed Saturday and airline officials said one woman was to blame. A company representative said a woman became unruly and began acting erratically, fighting with passengers and crew alike. Travelers walked off the flight at Metro Airport, around 7:30 p.m., shaken and relieved their in-flight ordeal was over. “We had to pretty much restrain her because she started hitting some of the passengers,” said witness Aaron Nichols. Other...

Just when you thought you had the Transportation Security Administration rules all figured out, here comes a new procedure. Starting sometime in the next few months, you'll have to provide your birth date and gender whenever you buy an airplane ticket. The TSA is giving the airlines some time to change their websites and retrain their phone-reservations agents to be able to implement the agency's new Secure Flight program. Expect the changes on domestic flights by this summer. The change is supposed to help reduce the number of Americans who are misidentified as individuals on the agency's no-fly and "selectee-for-further-inspection"...

Musician Chris Llewellyn was among those who sprang into action after a man shoved a flight attendant and tried to open an exit door. Chris Llewellyn was staring out the window of Delta Airlines Flight 110, watching the landscape of Los Angeles rise up toward the plane, when he heard the screams of a male flight attendant: "Help me! Help me!" Turning quickly, he saw that a passenger had pushed the attendant to the floor and was trying to open the rear emergency exit. Chris Llewellyn Video: Passengers take down man..."Don't come near me," the man warned. "I have a...