Landing Fees may be used in attempt to ease congestion

Airlines and Airports do not appear impressed with US Government plans to use landing fees to help ease congestion on major US air travel routes. Landing fees are paid by airlines to airports and the proposal is to raise the landing fees during peak times in an effort to move more flight traffic to off peak.

The New York Airport Authority, operating five of the nation's largest airports, is not optimistic about the proposal suggesting it offers too little to be effective. They want a broad, regionally and nationally integrated policies to optimize routes and travel.

High Flying WiFi - the downside?

This report suggests that on board flight internet might create a host of new problems, leading to "turbulence" of the human kind. I'm skeptical. On the contrary this will be so effective at keeping kids occupied, keeping nervous people focused on other things, and for most of us just turning a few hours of mildly stressful cramped seating into productive time.

Bah and Humbug - bring on the high flying WIFLY ASAP!

AA to provide on board WIFI

A gigantic hat tip to American Airlines AA.com for the decision to provide WIFI to passengers in flight. Crunch Gear reports today that this plan is in the works and it appears WIFI on AA flights will be available soon.

New York Airport congestion may tangle holiday travel

AP reports , via Advanced Travel, that New York Airports will see 1.7 million travelers for this holiday, and that Airlines may have booked more traffic than those airports can reasonably handle without delays and problems.

The twin challenges of massive travel and security are straining the TSA's ability to safeguard the nation's traveling public. My view is that TSA has failed to implement technological as well as common sense solutions fast enough. This is partly just bureaucratic inefficiency but also comes from unreasonable demands from the public to create the impossibility of perfect safety and no inconvenience.

FAA - Flight status tools

At the FAA Flight Status page you can get a lot of good information, some in real-time, about flight status, Airport delays, and more. This is generally not a good substitute for going directly to Airport websites and Airline websites for information about specific Airports and flights, but it's a good tool for a quick overview of flight information. If you need information about a specific flight you'll generally want to go to the website of the airline. This is more often than not the best information source although some airlines don't update the sites often enough, leading to some confusion.

Seat Guru provides great airline seat info and diagrams

SeatGuru.com is a simple and clever site that provides seat information for most of the aircraft on almost all the major airlines. Clicking your airline and then the type of plane you'll be on will get you detailed diagrams showing "good" seats and other important information.

Many airlines now allow you to select seats and print boarding passes online, and this is a great way to take care of business before you get to the airports. Preprinted boarding passes often get you to the gate much faster if you have only carry on luggage. When I'm travelling alone I tend to pack light and just lug my luggage around to avoid the hassle and delays of checking my bags. I can then print up my pass and avoid the ticketing lines and head straight for the gate.

With the family this does not seem to be worth the trouble of keeping track of all the bags during flight transfers so we generally print the boarding passes but then check the luggage at the airport.

Flight Explorer for excellent up to the minute travel data

Flight Explorer is an excellent website for up to the minute flight and airport information. They report regularly on CNN and have some great free tools that show air traffic, weather delays, WIFI hotspot list, and more. Here's the link to their TRAVEL section: FlightExplorer.com

Airport to avoid? Nah

Smarter Travel's got comments on USA Today's "blacklist" of airports that statistically suffer from more delays, crowding, and other things you'd want to avoid. Also, the white list that seems to be smaller airports that would be hard to factor into your trip.

I'm not convinced this approach makes much sense. Factors outside of the airports control are the main things affecting flight delays and I'd rather shave off a few hours of flying than have a slightly "nicer" airport experience. Also, the larger airports offer more restaurants, lounges, and sky clubs which are often the best way to make a long flight delay the least stressful.

Obviously large hub airports are going to have more troubles, but they also are going to offer you the more desirable routing. Sure, all other things equal you may want to choose the whitelisted airports at Oakland, Houston (Hobby), San Jose, Dallas (Love Field), and St. Louis, but good luck finding good, inexpensive routes through those airports if you are not headed in or out of those particular destinations.

Tracking Germs on Flights

Purdue University (USA) has been working on a system that will track contaminants using mathematical models and sensors on aircraft. The idea is to isolate/locate infectious or dangerous chemicals and identify the passenger who could potentially cause problems.

In addition to the great value of stemming the movement of contagious viruses or explosives, this type of approach has a potentially troublesome downside in terms of privacy since the Government screening agency is going to be secretly collecting critical information from law abiding citizens. However as with most of these things you need to balance the benefits with the costs.