Flood of travel websites may be pushing up demand for human travel agents -- The Internet is teeming with travel Web sites that will can lock in the lowest air fare, find you a plane with onboard Wi-Fi and even hook you up with a travel companion. With so many online sites to choose from, why is there a growing demand for human travel agents? A new report from the American Society of Travel Agents found that 74% of its members employ at least one additional employee or independent contractor, the highest percentage since 2010 when the rate was 77%. Hugo Martin/Los Angeles Times

Oscar winner Julianne Moore fired by Turkish tourism ministry over her "poor acting" -- During her lengthy film career, Julianne Moore has collected an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Actress, two Emmys and two Golden Globes. But if you ask Turkey's Culture and Tourism Ministry, she can't act. Last year, Moore was hired to star in a short film promoting the country, but earlier this week, she was fired for her "poor acting." Jelisa Castrodale/Road Warrior Voices

United Airlines CEO writes letter expressing solidarity with Lufthansa in wake of Germanwings crash -- United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek said in a letter to Lufthansa on Thursday that United stands in solidarity with the parent airline of Germanwings, which suffered a devastating crash in the French Alps that killed all 150 on board in March, USA Today reports. "On behalf of the entire United team, I want to reach out to our colleagues at Lufthansa and Germanwings to express our support during these toughest of times," Smisek wrote. Ismat Sarah Mangla/International Business Times

Delta to keep 20-minute 'guarantee' for checked bags -- Delta Air Lines says a checked-bag guarantee it introduced on a trial basis in February will become a permanent feature. The airline now guarantees fliers' checked luggage will arrive at the baggage carousel within 20 minutes when traveling on domestic flights. Delta will give 2,500 miles to customers' whose bags take longer than that to reach the carousel. Delta first rolled out the offer in late February, but did so on a trial basis. The trial was to expire March 31. Ben Mutzabaugh/USA Today

Delta Air Lines helps gay employees with health care taxes -- Delta Air Lines became the first major carrier Thursday to make same-sex domestic partners whole for additional income taxes they owe for health care plans. Atlanta-based Delta will pay those taxes for employees retroactive to Jan. 1. The tax is only a problem for employees living in states that do not recognize their marriages; Georgia is one of them. Delta executives, pilots, flight attendants and other employees living there have to pay extra tax based on the value of the insurance. Scott Mayerowitz/AP

Delta Air Lines hit by weakness in international business -- Delta Air Lines says the strong dollar is hurting international sales and its U.S. business isn't growing as quickly as expected. Delta said Thursday that passenger revenue for each seat flown one mile was unchanged in March from a year earlier and declined 1.5% for the full first quarter because of the impact of currency rates. Delta said the revenue figure rose for March domestic flights but not as much as expected. AP

Kennedy Airport to shut down 1 runway for repairs during busy summer travel season -- Just what New York's congested airports need - one less runway for the busy summer season. A runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport is going to close down for repairs at the end of April - and stay that way for five months, officials said Friday. The closure could cause a chain reaction of delays at nearby LaGuardia and Newark airports, especially when the weather turns bad, officials told The Associated Press. Ginger Adams Otis/New York Daily News

Tri-Rail opens Miami airport station -- Catching a flight at Miami International Airport? Getting there by train from Broward and Palm Beach counties is about to get a lot easier. On Sunday morning, Tri-Rail was set to begin running commuter trains into a $92 million station that's just east of the airport. From there, it's a five-minute ride aboard a people mover to the terminal. Travelers will no longer have to schlep their luggage off trains at Hialeah and then board shuttles which must fight traffic to the airport. Michael Turnbell/Sun Sentinel

'NewPosThings' malware evolves, malicious traffic traced to airports -- While observing the evolution of point-of-sale malware, called NewPosThings, Trend Micro traced suspicious traffic back to two U.S. airports. The NewPosThings malware family was uncovered last September by Arbor Networks, and in a Wednesday blog post, Trend Micro threat analyst Jay Yaneza revealed that recent malware attempts to connect to NewPosThings' control hub were seen. The traffic resolved to IP addresses associated with the unnamed airports, he explained. Danielle Walker/SC Magazine

EU rebukes Germany for airline oversight before Germanwings crash -- Years before last week's crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 by apparent co-pilot suicide, European Union officials worried that Germany's oversight of airlines was lax and last November formally told Berlin to remedy the long-standing problems. EU officials said Germany's air-safety regulator suffered from chronic staffing shortfalls that could undermine its ability to run checks of carriers and crew, including medical checks, according to two people familiar with the issue. Daniel Michaels & Robert Wall/Wall Street Journal

Aggression, not just depression, led copilot to crash plane, experts say -- Mental health experts say that it was aggression - not just depression - that would have driven 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz to deliberately crash a Germanwings airliner into a mountainside, the copilot breathing evenly as passengers screamed and the plane's frantic captain pounded helplessly on the cockpit door. Unless investigators recognize the toxic role of aggression and hostility in some patients' depression, they say, such troubled individuals will continue to elude detection - to the public's peril. Melissa Healy/Los Angeles Times

NASA hopes to cut back airline fuel emissions with a bug-repellant coating -- When it comes to commercial aviation, even the smallest improvements in fuel efficiency mean millions of dollars saved and fewer harmful emissions in our atmosphere. That's why NASA is looking everywhere for ways to improve fuel efficiency. Two of its most promising projects - a bug-repellant coating and a new technology for smaller vertical tails - are now ready to be tested in the real world. Dante D'Orazio/The Verge

TSA just handed a $15,000 prize to mystery baggage profilers -- The Transportation Security Administration announced that two parties have won an agency-sponsored contest to figure out a way to assess the threat-level of an individual passenger's suitcase. But the award notice, published online, does not identity the victors or what they proposed. Or even how much money they won. The maximum payout was listed as $15,000 when the challenge kicked off last summer. Nextgov

Keep the change! TSA gets cash bonus at airports -- Although you may not intend it-and whether it's been earned or not-there's a good chance you're leaving cash tips for the Transportation Security Administration at the airport. In their rush to get to their destinations, travelers left $638,142.64 in coins and currency in the bins and bowls at airport checkpoints last year, according to TSA data. That was almost $107,000 more than what passengers left behind in 2012, and more than $150,000 than 2011. Harriet Baskas/CNBC