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Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) captures security breach, man tasered at LAX on video -- In a scene that could play out only in Los Angeles, actor Verne Troyer, the diminutive sidekick Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies, recorded police officers chasing and tasing a man who pushed past security Wednesday at a Los Angeles International Airport screening area. Troyer chased police through Terminal 6 as officers pursued a traveler who eventually was subdued. Larry Altman/Torrance Daily Breeze AP Veronica Rocha/Los Angeles Times City News Service
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Proposed station in Burbank could serve as hub for California high-speed rail -- There may come a day when a business professional hops on the Metro Orange Line at Warner Center at 7 a.m. and travels to San Francisco for an 11 a.m. meeting without stepping foot on a plane or in a car. That's a possibility that excites Russell Brown. He was one of dozens of area residents at a public meeting at the Buena Vista Branch Library on Monday to hear the latest on the "transformative" infrastructure project that could make that vision a reality: the bullet train that will eventually run from Sacramento to San Diego. Chad Garland/Burbank Leader
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John Wayne Airport urges travelers to plan ahead for Memorial Day weekend -- Memorial Day weekend is traditionally one of the busiest travel periods of the year. John Wayne Airport expects Airport traffic to be heaviest on Thursday and Friday (May 21 - 22) and Tuesday (May 26). In 2014, over 150,000 passengers traveled through JWA between the Thursday before and the Tuesday after Memorial Day. JWA News Release
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F/A-18s scheduled to fly over Long Beach this week -- U.S Marine Corps pilots will fly F/A-18 fighter jets in and out of Long Beach Airport over the course of the Memorial Day weekend, Long Beach city officials announced today. The flights are scheduled to begin Thursday and continue until final departures scheduled for Tuesday morning. Expected flight operations include four to six departures between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m., with landings expected to occur during the late afternoon. Long Beach Press-Telegram
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Is San Jose Airport ready for a major crash? -- San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC) ranks 41st on the list of busiest airports in the country, but an NBC Bay Area Investigation found the airport falls behind other similar sized airports in staffing and hydrant placement. More than a half-dozen critics say those shortcomings in SJC's emergency response plans needlessly put air passengers at risk in the event of an accident. Stephen Stock, Julie Putnam & Jeremy Carroll/NBC Bay Area
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Airport IDs getting into the wrong hands? -- You won't board an airplane unless you clear security. But at airports across the country, tens of thousands of workers have IDs allowing them airport access - often without any physical screening. Those IDs help workers access even the most secure areas. From March 2013 to March 2015, NBC 7 Investigates found 276 ID badges from Lindbergh Field employees or contractors were reported missing. NBC 7 investigates found more than 20 of those ID badges were missing for six days or more before they were reported. In one case 8-months went by. Mari Payton/ABC7 San Diego
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Rhode Island Airport to offer flights to Germany, Cape Verde -- Rhode Island's T.F. Green Airport is adding international options this summer. Starting in June, the airport will begin offering flights to Frankfurt, Germany, and Cape Verde off the western coast of Africa. The airport has a revamped area for U.S. Customs and Border Protection where agents can welcome travelers into the United States through Rhode Island. AP
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Southwest expanding its OIA maintenance hangar -- Southwest Airlines announced Wednesday it is spending $9.5 million to expand and renovate its maintenance hangar at Orlando International Airport. The airline intends to add 20,000 square feet to the facility, as well as new paint, administrative offices and a bigger sheet metal shop. Southwest is Orlando's largest airline, carrying more than 8.6 million passengers to and from the airport. Southwest offers more than 100 daily flights to 40 destinations from Orlando International. Dan Tracy/Orlando Sentinel
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JetBlue is attacking Southwest Airlines head-on -- Over its 15-year existence, JetBlue Airways has thrived by challenging the legacy carriers with lower ticket prices and better service. This approach has served it well, as seen most recently in the strong customer reception to its "Mint" premium service from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, JetBlue is now taking on an even more formidable rival: Southwest Airlines. Like JetBlue, Southwest is known for having good customer service and relatively low fares. Adam Levine-Weinberg/The Motley Fool
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Airline rally unwinding as American spurs price war selloff -- Turns out cheap oil isn't always good for airlines. U.S. carriers sank the most since 2011 amid signs that a year of lower fuel costs has left them poised to ramp up competition for customers with cut-rate fares and more routes. Some airlines are expanding faster than the U.S. economy and offering cheaper flights as the rout in global crude markets reduces the cost of jet fuel, the industry's biggest expense. Jennifer Kaplan & Michael Sasso/Bloomberg Business
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Travel websites allege Delta Air Lines is shutting them out -- A group of travel websites claims that Delta Air Lines Inc. is cutting them and their users off from its data, adding to industry tensions over the way consumers shop for flights on the Internet. Delta has removed its schedule and fare information from over a dozen sites, including TripAdvisor Inc., Hipmunk Inc. and CheapOair.com, saying it didn't authorize the sites to use its data, according to a report to be released on Wednesday by the Travel Technology Association, a trade group for the sites. Jack Nicas/Wall Street Journal
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Tales from an era when airlines knew good design -- In lieu of really good service, airlines today try all kinds of lures to win the flyer loyalty. But back in the 1940s, an airline differentiated itself with great branding strategy. In Airline Visual Identity 1945-1975 ($400, Callisto), an oversized 430-page tome, author Matthias C. H�hne documents the era when all that started to change. Heightened competition among airlines dovetailed with the birth of several specialty graphic design firms, which saw the new service-air flight-as exciting terrain. Margaret Rhodes/Wired
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Internet memes come out to play in Delta safety video -- The Internet and its memes are the stars of Delta Air Lines' latest safety demonstration video, which the carrier rolled out Wednesday morning. The quirky video is the latest in a line that has earned Delta a following for its offbeat take on the federally mandated safety demonstration. Delta promises its newest video - which will start playing on Delta flights Monday (May 25) - will be "the best thing to happen to the Internet since the cloud." Ben Mutzabaugh/USA Today
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| These airlines get the most hate on social media -- Love to hate the airlines? Sure you do. And a new study by Crimson Hexagon suggests you're not alone. Raging against airplane travel is becoming a serious national pastime. The research, which analyzed Twitter posts over three months, finds negative sentiment towards the airlines is significantly higher than positive sentiment, at least on social media. Of the five domestic airlines studied by Crimson Hexagon, average negative sentiment is 47%, while positive sentiment averages just over 20%. Christopher Elliott/Fortune |
Search area for missing Malaysia Airlines jet expands again -- Investigators hunting for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have widened their ocean floor search to a larger zone and don't know where else to focus if the jet can't be found there, authorities announced Wednesday. The underwater operation has been "modified" and experts have started searching a larger area of the southern Indian Ocean even before a survey of the original zone has been completed. Until now, the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 had been focused on a 23,000-square mile patch where investigators said it probably crashed. NBC News
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Feds tout 'major progress' on improving air traffic control -- Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Huerta told Congress Wednesday that the federal government has made "major progress" on reforming the nation's air traffic control system. The FAA has been planning for years to discard the World War II-era radar technology that has been used to manage airplane traffic for generations in favor of a satellite-based system known as NextGen. Republicans have criticized the agency for missing deadlines related to the switch, but Huerta told a Senate committee on Wednesday that the conversion is further along than most people realize. Keith Laing/The Hill
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AAA predicts largest jump in weekend travel since 2010 for Memorial Day weekend -- Southern California is expected to see its biggest jump in Memorial Day weekend travel since 2010, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. The Auto Club's forecast predicts that 2.76 million Southern Californians and 4.44 million residents statewide will take a long weekend getaway - a 4.6 percent increase over last year. Other Southland travelers who are headed to Europe will get plenty of bang for their buck because of the strong U.S. dollar, according to the Auto Club. Kevin Smith/San Gabriel Valley Tribune
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Etiquette rules for packed planes this summer -- Bring extra manners this summer when you head to the airport for vacation. Proper etiquette seems to be in increasingly short supply in the skies. As record numbers of travelers are expected to board jets this summer, flight attendants and others warn that travelers are already getting grumpier because of tight conditions aboard planes. From June 1 to Aug. 31, 222 million passengers are forecast to fly on U.S. carriers, an average of 104,000 more a day than last year. Scott McCartney/Wall Street Journal
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Built by women, flown by women: Boeing, United Airlines highlight female leaders at 737 handoff -- Women are increasingly at the controls at every level of the aerospace industry. That inspired United Airlines and Boeing to collaborate on a unique aircraft delivery Wednesday morning. Nicole Piasecki, Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president and general manager of propulsion, ceremonially handed the keys to the new 737-900ER to United executives Cheryl Kappes and Nancy Ricker, at a ceremony at Boeing Field in Seattle. Steve Wilhelm/Puget Sound Business Journal
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Ryu won council seat by seizing outsider status, Korean American backing -- David Ryu went up against the biggest names in Los Angeles City Hall on election day - and won. Branding himself as a City Hall outsider, the City Council candidate defeated a rival backed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, Council President Herb Wesson and a glut of other local political heavyweights, making history as the first Korean American ever elected to the council. Emily Alpert Reyes/Los Angeles Times Dakota Smith/Los Angeles Daily News
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L.A. firms see peril in tying minimum wage increases to inflation -- A little-debated provision of the Los Angeles minimum wage hike - future increases tied to inflation - may produce its most profound and controversial consequences over the long term. In a single vote, the City Council backed a plan that would raise the minimum wage not just once but forever, with automatic annual hikes starting in 2022, after phasing in a $15 hourly wage by 2020. Tiffany Hse & Andrew Khouri/Los Angeles Times
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