City officials lobby FAA to close Santa Monica Airport -- Santa Monica staff, officials and anti-airport activists flew to Washington D.C. this week to advocate for closure of the Santa Monica Airport. The group, including Rep. Ted Lieu, Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKeown, Santa Monica Mayor Pro Tempore Tony Vazquez, Santa Monica Councilmember Sue Himmelrich and 16 other local constituents, met with FAA in a meeting facilitated by Lieu and Congresswoman Karen Bass. Matthew Hall/Santa Monica Daily Press

Editorial: ONT negotiations would beat litigation -- There's a flurry of activity around L.A./Ontario International Airport this week. It's not, unfortunately, a big influx of additional flights or passengers. Rather, the activity has been taking place in a courtroom in Riverside and in a state Senate committee room in Sacramento, where arguments are being advanced in the fight for local control of the airport. The loss of flights and passengers at the Ontario airport over the past seven years or so is the central issue in the effort to transfer control of ONT from the city of Los Angeles to a local agency. Inland Valley Daily Bulletin Editorial Board

Stuck on the waterfront, the airport's sky isn't falling as once feared -- Nearly 15 years after local politicians carved Lindbergh Field out of the Port of San Diego and created the Airport Authority, take-offs and landings are down almost 22 percent from their peak but the airport's budget has nearly tripled. Even with fewer planes coming and going, passengers going through the airport have risen 45 percent from 12.9 million in '95 to nearly 18.76 million last year, airport data shows. Ashly McGlone/Voice of San Diego

United Airlines expects profit margin in lower range of outlook -- United Continental Holdings Inc said on Thursday its pretax profit margin for the second quarter will be in the lower range of its earlier outlook and said the strong U.S. dollar has hurt demand from travelers abroad. The Chicago-based airline said it expects a pretax margin of 12 to 13 percent for the quarter ended June 30. Its prior forecast was for a pretax margin of 12 to 14 percent. Reuters

United Continental is still shaky five years after merger -- The computer malfunction that prompted a temporary grounding of United Continental Holdings Inc.'s global fleet is the latest in a series of disruptions that suggest the carrier still is struggling to smooth its operations five years after its merger. United, the world's No. 2 airline by traffic, suspended its flights world-wide for about two hours on Wednesday morning because a faulty router prevented the company from checking in passengers. Susan Carey & Jack Nicas/Wall Street Journal

What we learned from the NYSE, United Airlines tech outages -- Say what you will about Plain Old Telephone Service, but it worked. The functionality of POTS, as it was known, was limited to making calls, and they were expensive. But many traditional phone companies offered 99.999% reliability, which allowed for about five minutes of downtime a year. Today's networks are far less expensive, infinitely more capable and nowhere near as reliable as the wired-to-the-wall phone, as a spate of network outages on Wednesday demonstrated. Steven Rosebush & Steven Norton/Wall Street Journal

Now playing on JetBlue: Live Major League Baseball games -- JetBlue is adding Major League Baseball to its lineup of in-flight entertainment. Customers can now stream games in-flight on their laptops and supported smartphones and tablets via Major League Baseball's "At Bat" mobile app. The baseball streaming option is available to all customers flying in the contiguous United States on JetBlue's "Fly-Fi" equipped aircraft. The app will provide customers with complimentary access to MLB.TV, which offers on-demand access to live and archived games. Ben Mutzabaugh/USA Today

The one airline that's actually improving the middle seat -- Tired of trying to wedge yourself into a middle seat? Frontier Airlines may have solved your problem. The airline, known for its bargain fares and bare-bones service, is installing new seats that give passengers in the middle an extra inch of width compared to what they'd get next to the window or aisle. The new 19-inch-wide seats are the broadest flying in the U.S., according to Frontier. Brian Sumers/Conde Nast Traveler

Southwest Airlines, unions struggle toward new deals -- While the bankruptcies of major competitors opened opportunities for Southwest Airlines, it also caused problems between the airline and its unions. The issue: Southwest saw its labor advantage erode as Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, US Airways and Northwest Airlines cut the wages and benefits of their employees and boosted productivity in bankruptcy court contracts. Terry Maxon/Dallas Morning News

SWISS schedules brand new Boeing 777s (photos) -- Lufthansa subsidiary SWISS will make a big upgrade to its long-haul fleet next year with the delivery of nine new Boeing 777-300ERs. San Francisco and Los Angeles are among the routes where the planes will first be deployed. SWISS said the new widebodies will start flying from Zurich to both West Coast cities when its summer 2016 schedule takes effect; it currently operates A340-300s on both routes. Travel Skills

Ethiopian Air looks at aircraft orders in plan to double fleet -- Ethiopian Airlines is considering placing orders for Boeing 777-X, Airbus 350-1000 and Bombardier Q400 aircraft, part of plans to nearly double its fleet to 150 by 2025, its chief executive said on Thursday. The state-owned airline is also in talks with Airbus to bring forward the delivery of 14 A350-900 to 2016-2017 from an original target of 2016-2018, Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Tewolde GebreMariam told reporters at the launch of the airline's first direct flight to Manila. Reuters

FAA to drop Donald Trump-related navigation codes -- Three navigation coordination points above Palm Beach International Airport that had been named in honor of Donald J. Trump will be renamed, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. "In general, the FAA chooses names that are noncontroversial," said an agency spokeswoman, Laura Brown. A growing number of businesses have been severing ties with Mr. Trump since the Republican presidential candidate made derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants in a campaign speech. Karen Schwartz/New York Times

Watchdog urges TSA to improve security of boarding passes -- A federal watchdog repeated a recommendation Thursday for the Transportation Security Administration to make airline boarding passes more secure, a day after computer problems at United Airlines and the New York Stock Exchange sparked concerns about the threat of cyber terrorism. TSA and airlines have resisted encrypting bar codes as technically difficult and expensive. Bart Jansen/USA Today

The mystery of vanishing hotel reservations -- Michael Kotula and his wife booked a hotel room through Expedia eight months in advance of their daughter's University of Delaware graduation in late May. They reconfirmed directly with the hotel two months before the big event. Two days before check-in, Expedia told them in an email the hotel was canceling. And when they called the Hilton Wilmington/Christiana in Newark, Del., to complain, Mr. Kotula was told reservations made through travel agencies like Expedia weren't as secure as booking directly with the hotel. Scott McCartney/Wall Street Journal