Airports
Why your next trip to LAX may take even longer than usual -- Travelers should add extra time for their trip to or from Los Angeles International Airport because of new road work scheduled to begin Monday night. Repairs to LAX's upper, or departures, level road are expected to cause delays for all traffic heading in or out of the airport. And there's no good way around the problem either. Shuttles, FlyAway buses and taxis will have to navigate the same crush of cars that may be delayed by the work. About 38,000 vehicles a day use the road to drop off airline passengers. Mary Forgione/Los Angeles Times Darsha Philips/ABC7 CBS LA City News Service Update: Rain forecast delays start of upper level roadway repairs to Tuesday night
LAWA provides sound insulation funding for projects in Inglewood Unified School District -- Los Angeles World Airports representatives presented a $10 million ceremonial check to the Inglewood Unified School District for its Classroom Noise Mitigation Program during the District's board meeting. The symbolic check is part of a total of $44.4 million that LAWA is giving to the District to sound insulate six schools. LAWA Press Release
FAA change would increase noise and pollution, Balboa Island residents fear -- Residents of Balboa Island, Peninsula Point and other Newport Beach neighborhoods have lived with planes flying over their homes for years. Recently their concerns have been heightened by a Federal Aviation Administration proposal to narrow the flight paths at 11 Southern California airports - including John Wayne. The possible change is tied to FAA efforts to replace traditional ground-based air traffic procedures with satellite-based technology at those facilities. Hannah Fry/Orange County Register
John Wayne Airport opens cell phone waiting lot -- John Wayne Airport has opened a cell-phone waiting lot, welcome news to the roughly one-half of travelers who airport officials say are picked up curbside, where cars are not allowed to linger. The free lot opened Sept. 4, near the corner of MacArthur Boulevard and Campus Drive, next to the lot for taxi cabs. The easiest way to reach it is from Campus Drive. Nicole Knight Shine/Orange County Register
Weak link in Asia's flight boom: Airports -- Indonesia has tried for years to live down its reputation as one of the world's most dangerous places to fly. It has fired aviation bureaucrats, hired safety experts, and tightened regulation. Yet its efforts belie a fundamental problem: Despite huge spending on new terminals, some airports remain ill-equipped to handle soaring passenger traffic that occurred over the past decade. It is a concern also seen in other parts of Asia, experts say, as millions of people take to the skies for the first time and airport-safety investments fail to keep up. Daniel Stacey/Wall Street Journal
Now arriving: airport control towers with no humans inside -- Passengers landing at remote Ornskoldsvik Airport in northern Sweden might catch a glimpse of the control tower - likely unaware there is nobody inside. The dozen commercial planes landing there each day are instead watched by cameras, guided in by controllers viewing the video at another airport 90 miles away. Ornskoldsvik is the first airport in the world to use such technology. Others in Europe are testing the idea, as is one airport in the United States. Scott Mayerowitz/AP
Lack of fliers tied to higher Detroit Metro Airport airfares -- Even with falling fuel prices and competition on some routes from low-cost carriers, travelers flying out of Detroit Metropolitan Airport should not expect significantly lower fares anytime soon. The metropolitan area of Detroit is a "shrinking market" with not as many passengers flying, said George Hobica, president and founder of Airefarewatchdog.com, which monitors airfares for travelers. Leonard N. Fleming/Detroit News
Airlines
This is not the change United Airlines needs -- What United Continental Holdings needs is a high-level housecleaning that brings fresh perspective and superior talent to its executive suite. What it's getting is a new CEO with no airline operating experience but long ties to incumbent managers who bungled a merger that should have created the world's greatest airline. Railroad executive Oscar Munoz was a director of Continental Airlines for six years before it merged with United in 2010. Joe Cahill/Crain's Chicago Business
Why dump Smisek? United wasn't first airline to fly a pol's route -- If former United CEO Jeff Smisek was forced out solely because the carrier set up a flight to accommodate a politician, it is entirely possible that someone was overreacting. The practice of establishing flights or increasing flight frequencies in order to accommodate politicians, with profitability a secondary concern, is long-established in the airline industry. It was perhaps most common at US Airways, now part of American. For decades, US Airways has been the primary carrier at Washington Reagan National Airport, the preferred airport for members of Congress. Ted Reed/TheStreet
American, Delta kill a relic of airline industry's awkward past -- The world's two biggest airlines just killed a relic of the ancient airline industry past - the "interline" agreement. The only surprise is that it took this long. The fact that you don't know what an "interline" agreement is and probably have never heard of it indicates just how out-of-date the old operating practice has become. It's also a pretty good indicator that the death of the American-Delta interline agreement will have zero impact on your life. Dan Reed/Forbes
JetBlue Aug. Traffic up 6.7% -- JetBlue Airways Corp on Friday said its traffic in August rose 6.7% from a year ago to 3.97 billion revenue passenger miles. The airline's capacity in August climbed 8.3% year-over-year to 4.56 billion available seat miles. Its load factor in August fell to 87% from 88.3% a year ago. RTT News
JetBlue & American A321s to be first off the US Airbus factory -- The first two Airbus A321 aircraft to be assembled at the new assembly-and-delivery facility in Mobile, Alabama, were shown to the media Sept. 13, one day ahead of the formal opening of the factory. Parts for the first two aircraft began arriving in June. A JetBlue Airways A321 will be the first aircraft to roll off the new final assembly line and is scheduled for flight tests to begin in the first quarter of 2016, with delivery following in the second quarter. Right behind it is an American Airlines' A321. Karen Walker/Air Transport World
US airline fuel hedging Part 2: Alaska Air, JetBlue and Southwest try to crack the hedging code -- Similar to the the US global network airlines Delta and United, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue are greatly benefitting from lower oil prices. And like their larger rivals, the smaller airlines are attempting to manage their hedging portfolios effectively in light of lower oil prices.  Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue are each taking a different approach to managing their hedge programmes. Southwest seems to have been in and out of the market in 2015 while Alaska's strategy remains unchanged. CAPA
6 fun facts about American Airlines' new operations center: Check out No. 4 -- American Airlines just opened its new operations center - the central communications center for the world's largest airline - near company headquarters in Fort Worth. Tuesday, the carrier will dedicate the $88 million center as another major milestone toward the completion of its merger integration with US Airways nearly 18 months after they merged. The dedication ceremony is not open to the public, but I thought I'd share some fun facts about the new Robert W. Baker Integrated Operations Center. Sheryl Jean/Dallas Morning News
Ex-airline manager linked to 9/11 pleads not guilty to sex -- A former American Airlines operations manager who learned of the first 9/11 hijacking before the jet struck the World Trade Center pleaded not guilty Monday to a federal interstate child-sex charge. Ray Wickliffe Howland, 55, of Arlington, Texas, waived his appearance before a federal magistrate and pleaded not guilty through his attorney. Howland was arrested near Pittsburgh International Airport in June by an undercover Pennsylvania state attorney general's agent who posed as a 32-year-old woman with a 10-year-old daughter. Joe Mandak/AP
Travel
Flyers unhappy with in-air WiFi may see relief in 2016 upgrades -- Anyone who has ever been frustrated when attempting to browse the Web while on a plane should be seeing some relief in coming months as three major providers of WiFi for aircraft update their systems to achieve substantially higher bandwidth. The upgrades can't come fast enough for business travelers on a data leash or leisure travelers with an appetite for streaming video, who know only too well that airplane WiFi - with the notable exception of JetBlue - is almost always slow and unreliable. Robert Silk/Travel Weekly
When you need a doctor on your flight -- Is there a doctor on board? It's a call to service that many doctors who fly frequently have heard at least once, and a tough one. It requires providing medical care in a contained space with little equipment or assistance while thousands of feet up in the air. A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine gives doctors instructions on how best to respond to in-flight scenarios of cardiac arrest, acute coronary symptoms, and strokes, as well as other, less serious conditions. Sumathi Reddy/Wall Street Journal
Airplanes
Boeing and GE warned about airplane engine that exploded -- A British Airways flight in Las Vegas was nearly destroyed last week in an takeoff accident-the same kind that the FAA warned about. A British Airways Boeing 777 suffered a catastrophic engine failure on takeoff from Las Vegas last week, with fire and debris shooting into the wing and fuselage.  It was the closest of close calls: The airplane, only seconds from lifting off the runway, was loaded with more than 20,000 gallons of fuel for an 11-hour flight to Gatwick, England. Clive Irving/The Daily Beast
Aviation Data & Analysis
Demand for US Air Travel Up 4.7% YoY in August 2015
Courtesy Oliver Wyman PlaneStats
2024 Olympics
LA24 releases video for Los Angeles' 2024 Summer Olympics bid -- LA24 has released a video touting the city's campaign to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. From a purely sports perspective, the one-minute spot has a grass-roots vibe, with a runner on the streets, a soccer player in the park and a surfer waiting for the next wave. The bid committee also emphasizes population diversity and includes more than a few panoramic shots of downtown with captions touting L.A. as the "Western Capital of the US" and the "Eastern Capital of the Pacific Rim." David Wharton/Los Angeles Times
City Government
New L.A. police commissioner - the board's only black man - has a to-do list -- Matt Johnson remembers sitting on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike on a cold December day, his hands cuffed behind his back, watching a group of white police officers search his car. Then a student at Rutgers University, Johnson had been pulled over by an officer who told him he was suspicious because he had been driving slower than the other cars barreling down the turnpike. Johnson wasn't surprised - back in the late 1980s, police were notorious for stopping African Americans on the roadway. Kate Mather/Los Angeles Times
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