This morning ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize winning non-profit news organization, wrote about the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) quietly swapping certain Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners from airports around the country, replacing them with other AIT scanners, implying that this is being done for health reasons. ProPublica journalist Michael Grabell writes, “The TSA is not…
On the 20th of September 2012 the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Transportation Committee on Homeland Security released a report entitled “Rebuilding TSA into a Smarter, Leaner Organization.” Within the 59 page report on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Subcommittee covers a wide range of topics, some logically, some that sound good and…
On the 20th of September the Provincial Council of Iraq’s Najaf Province issued a ban on Bahrain’s national airline, Gulf Air, and flights to-and-from Bahrain to Al-Najaf International Airport. The move by the Provincial Council was enacted to support the Bahraini Shiites, the majority of Bahrain’s population, protesting the Suuni leadership in Bahrain. This…
Today’s reader mail addresses something many passengers notice, but tend to not think about … seemingly everyday items that are not what they appear when seen on board an aircraft. This reader mail was spawned by today’s earlier blog post, Alaska Airlines’ Internal Note On An External Wing, and comes from Andrea J., in Manitoba,…
Last Saturday, the 28th of July 2012, as Alaska Airlines‘ Boeing 737-790 N611AS flew along passengers noticed some writing in black magic marker on the aircraft’s starboard side, with an arrow pointing to a cut out in the flap. While the crescent shaped cut out on the 737’s outboard flap has clearly been machine…
Having grown up watching planes fly over my house, all day and night, and having spent the last 27 years (of my 37 years on this Earth) generally found with a camera in my hand, it is only natural that I can at times be found shooting photos of airplanes. Over the years I’ve shot…
The Middle East’s airline industry is growing at an unbelievable pace; the airlines in The Gulf States are among the fastest growing airlines in the world and the largest in the world. The UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are pouring money into their airlines building global presences, Bahrain’s national airline while in significant distress is…
The topic of turbulence and the anxiety surrounding an airplane bouncing around seems to come up often. For some people turbulence, no matter how minor, causes instant panic, for others, no matter how severe it doesn’t bother them at all. For those who have anxiety there are a few things to keep in mind…
(For Disclosure: American Airlines Granted Me Access To The Flights & Facilities Of My Choosing Beyond What ‘The General Public’ Would Be Allowed Or Offered. AA & Its Parent Company AMR Have No Input Into What I Am Writing) It is easy to look back into an airline’s history, or any company’s history, and pick…
In January 1991 I was in the 10th grade, living in my parents house just down the road from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. From my window growing up I watched all the airlines fly by, Pan Am, Braniff, TWA, National, Eastern, and woke up to both the British Airways and Air France…
