A Qatari diplomat with a disregard for the rules and an odd sense of humor managed to create a major air incident — including the dispatch of a pair of F-16s — for trying to sneak a cig in the lavatory of a 757 while in flight. ABC’s Rhonda Schwartz, Richard Esposito, and Brian Ross [...]

WSJ’s Scott McCartney explains “Why a Six-Hour Flight Now Takes Seven.” our airline seat may not have much padding, but the airline’s schedule sure does. Delta Air Lines Flight 715 from New York to Los Angeles now takes more than seven hours to fly across the country, according to the airline’s March schedule. That’s an [...]

AP’s Harry Weber offers some tips to “speed through airline security.”  For the most part, they’re rather dubious. Consider bringing your laptop in a sleeve. Skooba Design sells a laptop sleeve for $19.95 that you can carry on your own with a removable shoulder strap and can unfold to lie flat on the airport X-ray [...]

Yet another incident aboard Flight 243 from Amsterdam to Detroit. Sources tell Fox 2 that a flight from Amsterdam into Detroit Metropolitan Airport was held on the tarmac after landing because of unruly behavior by some of the passengers.The source says four men from Saudi Arabia were saying something in Arabic that alarmed four on-board [...]

One refrain we’ve heard lots of since the 9/11 attacks, with an uptick every time there’s a new incidents, is that the United States should get serious about airport security and be more like the Israelis. FP’s Annie Lowrey recounts a personal trip through the security at Ben Gurion. Once inside, a team of pleasant [...]

By any reasonable measure, we’re far too apprehensive about terrorism and expend far too many resources and sacrifice far too much liberty defending against its risks.  But there are smart ways and dumb ways to make that point. Nate Silver, responding a few days ago to one of my posts, demonstrates the former: Over the [...]

Not surprisingly, TSA is going to make flying even more aggravating in a stupid overreaction to the Detroit terror plot. In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed a new layer of restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports and limit the ability [...]

The federal government is placing limits on the ability of airlines to mistreat customers. They don’t go nearly far enough. U.S. airlines could face stiff fines for stranding passengers aboard grounded planes for more than three hours, according to a regulation that officials said on Monday was aimed at upholding passenger rights. The Transportation Department [...]

One of my commenters brought to my attention an issue that’s not receiving much attention:  Residents of several U.S. states could have to show their passports for domestic travel — or to enter a federal government building — starting January 1 because of the REAL ID Act.  Chris Strohm for Congress Daily: More than half [...]

Reflecting on the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, Megan McArdle wonders why the space program lost its momentum.  Jim Henley reckons it’s because “space travel is expensive, dangerous, unprofitable and (medically, biologically) kind of” problematic. I’m old enough to have been alive for the moon walk but too young to remember [...]

Quentin Letts informs me that Ryanair, an Irish no-frills outfit of which I’d never previously heard, is contemplating charging passengers a fee to use the toilet. That is how it manages to charge such low basic fares for its flights. What they give you in discounted tickets, they try to claw back in the way [...]