Record throngs of travelers are expected to jam into airports over the Thanksgiving break and airlines are adding hundreds of flights a day in response. The Transportation Security Administration said Wednesday that it expects to screen more than 26.8 million passengers between Nov. 22 and Dec. 2, a 4% increase over last year. The busiest days figure to be the…
Federal regulators are rejecting the idea of setting minimum standards for airline seats and legroom as a safety measure. The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday that it saw no immediate safety issue that requires new regulations. The FAA is responding to a group called FlyersRights, which had gone to court to prod the FAA to act. The group says cramped…
Delta Air Lines says customers’ payment information may have been breached in a cyberattack last fall. The airline said Wednesday the incident involved (24)7.ai, a chat-services provider used by Delta and other companies. Delta says only “a small subset” of customers were affected, with payment information exposed from Sept. 26 to Oct. 12. It says no other personal details about…
United Airlines says it is changing the keypad codes used to open cockpit doors after the previous codes were accidentally posted on a public website. An airline spokeswoman said Monday that United sent a memo to pilots over the weekend telling them to use alternative security measures. United said the breach in security measures was not the result of hacking…
Federal regulators aim to maintain the ban on in-flight cellular calls. The Federal Communications Commission is looking to kill an effort it started in 2013 to give airlines the option of installing on-board cellular equipment for calls and other services. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai appears to have enough votes to axe that plan, which he considers “ill-conceived.” Pei says keeping…
American and United have started selling cheaper “basic economy” fares as they battle discount airlines for the most budget-conscious travelers. American announced early Tuesday that it began selling the new fares for flights starting March 1 on 10 different routes from its hub airports in Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia and Charlotte, North Carolina. Now United says it too is selling cut-rate…
The government says U.S. airlines canceled fewer flights in 2016 than any year on record, while also posting record-low numbers for lost bags and passengers getting bumped off oversold flights. And it says airlines had one of their best years for on-time arrivals, although it wasn’t a record and December was worse than the same month a year earlier. The…
The nation’s leading airlines are confident they can handle higher Thanksgiving travel this year partly because more people have signed up for quick-screening programs that are designed to keep airport security lines moving. An airline trade group said Wednesday that about 27.3 million people will fly on U.S. airlines over a 12-day period that starts Nov. 18 and ends the…
As airport security lines get longer, the finger-pointing over blame is growing too. The nation’s leading airlines, already feuding with the Transportation Security Administration, are now taking on Congress. The trade group Airlines for America on Thursday says Congress should reverse a 2013 decision that diverted $12.6 billion in passenger-security fees to reducing the federal budget deficit. The airlines want…
