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Contact: Media Relations 480-693-5729 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: US AIRWAYS FLIGHT 1549 UPDATE # 2 TEMPE, Ariz. Jan. 15, 2009— US Airways (NYSE: LCC) has confirmed that flight 1549 has been involved in an accident. The 1549 was en route to Charlotte from LaGuardia. The flight was operated with a crew of two pilots and three flight attendants. US Airways’ primary concern at this time is for those on board the airplane and their families. Flight 1549 was originally scheduled for departure at 2:45 p.m. Eastern Time. The flight’s actual time of departure was 3:03 p.m. Eastern Time. Airline officials are...

“A Muslim must try his best to abide by the rulings of Sharia [Islamic law] whenever possible as much as he can. He should not allow himself to be liable to those western laws that contradict the clear-cut Islamic rulings.” The rulings of Sharia, mind you, include stoning for adultery, amputation of the hand for theft, and institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims. But the speaker was not some fanatic Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia; it was the Phoenix-based imam Omar Shahin, president of the North American Imams Foundation. This is probably one reason why, as The Arizona Republic reported Monday,...

Charging for checked luggage and legroom isn’t enough for some carriers — starting today, coach passengers flying aboard US Airways Inc. must pay for a drink of water. This morning, US Airways began charging fliers $2 for bottled water and sodas and $1 for teas and coffees. First class members, trans-Atlantic passengers and a select group of others are exempt from the extra fees. “This is another clever way to masquerade airfare increases without increasing airfares,” says Randy Petersen, editor of Inside Flyer Magazine. “Everything has been passed along to the consumer.” (snip) Continental Airlines Inc. — one of the...

The full-page ad inside Wednesday's edition of USA Today is as scary as it is unprecedented. The union representing more than five-thousand US Airways pilots accuses the airlines of threatening "termination of their careers" if pilots fail to "reduce fuel levels" "to save money." "Fuel is very critical to any mission. When you start varying the amount of fuel and getting it below a captain's comfort zone, that's why we have an issue here," said Capt. James Ray of the US Airline Pilots Association.

Lawyers for six Muslim prayer leaders removed from a US Airways jet at Twin Cities International Airport in 2006 told a federal magistrate Monday that they want the airline to divulge 10 years' worth of discrimination complaints so they could compare the airline's behavior before and after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Attorneys representing the airline argued they should have to turn over just three years' worth of such data. The reason, said one: 9/11 changed everything. "The bottom line is we're in a post-9/11 world," US Airways attorney Dane Jaques told U.S. Magistrate Arthur Boylan. "Procedures changed. The world...

Moments after boarding US Airways Flight 300 for Phoenix, Michael McCombie, a 3M sales rep from Santa Clara, Calif., jotted a note and handed it to flight attendant Terri Boatner: "6 suspicious Arabic men on plane, spaced out in their seats. All were together, saying '... Allah ... Allah ...' cursing U.S. involvement w/Saddaam before flight. 1 in front exit row, another in first row 1st class, another in 8D, another in 22D, two in 25 E & F." The men in question were six Muslim imams, or prayer leaders, returning home from a conference in Minneapolis. Within minutes of...

US Airways Group Inc. plans to discontinue in-flight movies on about 10 percent of its flights, due in large part to rising fuel costs. Airline spokeswoman Valerie Wunder said the current in-flight entertainment systems are being pulled from roughly 196 of its planes. "These systems weigh about 500 pounds, and whether a movie is showing or not, the plane has to bear that weight," Wunder said. And, she said with changing customer behavior, fewer people are shelling out the $5 to rent the headsets to listen to the movies. "A lot of people bring their own personal devices and their...

CHICAGO - Baggage fees are fast becoming an unavoidable part of U.S. flying — three of the largest carriers now charge $15 for a first checked bag. No. 2 United Airlines and No. 7 US Airways announced their new fees on Thursday, three weeks after No. 1 American Airlines set the precedent for the charge. Most U.S. carriers already have instituted a $25 charge for checking a second bag — part of a potpourri of new fees that reflect a struggling airline industry passing along record fuel prices to passengers in the form of higher fares, fuel surcharges and service...

US Airways is imposing new passenger fees in the face of rising jet fuel prices, but it's going even further than some other airlines have recently. The Tempe, Ariz.-based carrier (NYSE: LCC), which has a large presence at Reagan National Airport, will start charging $2 for nonalcoholic beverages in coach class on all domestic flights. The fee covers sodas, juices, bottled water and coffee. The charge for alcoholic beverages in coach will increase to $7. Following the lead of several other airlines, US Airways also will charge $15 for the first checked bag for tickets purchased beginning July 9 for...

Inadequate handgun rules designed by Department of Homeland Security officials are to blame for last weekend's accidental discharge of a pistol by a commercial pilot during landing preparations, a pilots association said yesterday. "The pilot has to take his gun off and lock it up before he leaves the cockpit, so he was trying to secure the gun in preparation for landing, while he was trying to fly the airplane, too," said David Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance. "In the process of doing that, the padlock that is required to be inserted into the holster pulled the...

A US Airways pilot accidentally discharged his gun in the cockpit during a flight from Denver to Charlotte, N.C., according to the Transportation Safety Administration. The Airbus A319 landed safely after the incident Saturday and without any injuries to the 124 passengers on board, a spokesperson for the TSA told ABCNEWS.com today. The TSA said the passengers were unaware that a gun had been fired in the cockpit. The pilot, who both the TSA and US Airways declined to identify, was a member of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, an initiative put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001,...

CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- A US Airways pilot’s gun accidentally discharged during a flight from Denver to Charlotte Saturday, according to as statement released by the airline. The statement said the discharge happened on Flight 1536, which left Denver at approximately 6:45am and arrived in Charlotte at approximately 11:51am. The Airbus A319 plane landed safely and none of the flight’s 124 passengers or five crew members was injured, according to the statement. It was a full flight. An airline spokeswoman said the plane has been taken out of service to make sure it is safe to return to flight. A Transportation Safety...

US Airways and Minneapolis airport officials are demanding a jury trial in a civil rights lawsuit filed by a group of Muslim imams who were removed from a flight for suspicious behavior. The airline and Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which oversees Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, are also claiming immunity for their employees named in the suit, citing a "John Doe" law passed by Congress last year that, among other things, protects people acting in an official capacity to prevent terrorist attacks. "We believe the police officers acted appropriately and that it is important that airports across the nation be able...

Exposing the "Flying Imams" by M. Zuhdi Jasser Middle East Quarterly/Winter 2008 (excerpt) (I cut out the intro and background on this Flying Imams case, just to shorten the article a bit) My Experience with the Phoenix Imams I have known three of the plaintiffs in the U.S. Airways suit for almost a decade. Soon after settling in Arizona in 1999, I became involved in the local Muslim community. Before moving to Scottsdale, I usually attended Friday congregational prayer services at the Islamic Community Center of Tempe, Arizona. Often, Ahmed Shqeirat, now the primary plaintiff, delivered sermons at the mosque...

A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by a group of imams against US Airways and a Minneapolis airport can proceed. U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery said in a 41-page opinion late yesterday that the imams, who say they were discriminated against when they were removed from a flight last year, have a plausible claim that their constitutional rights may have been violated. The imams "have adequately stated a claim" that airport police may have "seized plaintiffs in violation of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," Judge Montgomery ruled.

WBZ) BOSTON 5 crew members of a U.S. Airways flight became ill on a flight to Boston Monday morning. The airline says the two pilots and three flight attendants were working on Flight 2022, a Star Alliance shuttle from Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C. to Logan Airport when they got sick. The flight landed at Logan without incident. The crew was treated by emergency medical services at the gate. EMS told WBZ it took the five to Massachusetts General Hospital with symptoms similar to carbon monoxide poisoning. There were 81 passengers on the plane. None of them were ill. A...

A group of Muslim imams today dropped all charges in a federal lawsuit levied against "John Doe" airline passengers for reporting the men's suspicious behavior that led to their removal from a U.S. Airways flight last year.

A legal squabble in a lawsuit brought by Muslim imam passengers is escalating among lawyers over the question of who is being sued over their removal from a flight last year. "John Doe" passengers are named as parties in the litigation for reporting suspicious behavior of the six men, which led to their removal from the flight. Employees of U.S. Airways and a Minneapolis airport are also targets of the lawsuit now proceeding through a federal court. One of the attorneys representing the six Muslim men says they do not intend to pursue the passengers in litigation, but the Becket...

US Airways is asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of Muslim imams, saying the airline followed government guidelines when it removed the men from a flight because of suspicious behavior. The response to the lawsuit, filed March 12 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, says the airline "is required to adhere to the main points of the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Common Strategy regarding security threats in the aviation context."

Lawyers and a Muslim group say they will defend at no cost airline passengers caught up in a lawsuit between a group of imams and U.S. Airways if the passengers are named as "John Does" and sued for reporting suspicious behavior that got the Muslim clerics booted from a November flight. The six imams are suing the airline, Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, and the unnamed "John Does" to be named later, for discrimination, saying they were removed from the flight for praying in the airport. Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix-area physician and director of American Islamic Forum for...