Free Republic

An anonymous source from the airline industry reportedly approached conservative pundit Ashley St. Clair with some unsettling information. Following this secret exchange, St. Clair has asked United Airlines a tough question. If her implications, backed by her source’s revelations, prove to be true, it could be a bomb that rocks the entire aviation industry.Thanks to her source, Ashley is raising questions about a specific incident that took place last summer: a July 29th flight that ended with the airplane nearly totaled. She’s inquiring about who was operating the plane because her source claims the co-pilot was actually an unqualified hire...

CAPTAIN Shane Murdock says the air industry is ‘poised on the precipice of disaster’. A pilot for more than 40 years and a qualified air accident investigator, he has found official data that back up his claim of impending global catastrophe. He adds: ‘When correlated, the data indicate there is an enormous problem that is having, and will have, a significant impact on aviation safety worldwide. There is enough evidence to be sending out red flags.’ There have been many tragedies this year. Phil Thomas, a young graduate of the Cadiz, Spain, flight training academy, fell ill and died suddenly...

U.S. sees its worst stretch of flight cancellations since the start of the pandemic.. ... Carriers have now scrubbed more than 22,000 flights since Christmas Eve. Nearly 1,700 U.S. flights were canceled by Wednesday evening, the 11th straight day of more than 1,000 cancellations and the airline industry’s worst stretch since the start of the pandemic. ... In 2020, the airline industry went through a brutal stretch from late March to early May, when it canceled nearly one-third of all scheduled flights, scrubbing thousands of trips daily for 47 straight days .... The airline industry for months had been confronting...

<p>The global airline industry is expected to pull out of its slump and make its first profit in three years, according to an industry group report Monday.</p> <p>The International Air Transport Association said that it expects to make a profit of $2.5 billion in 2010, its first since 2007.</p>

Many of you know from hearing my stump speeches that one of life’s great unsolved mysteries to me is how anyone elected to Congress suddenly becomes an expert on everything. The new federal guidelines for fines against the airlines for takeoff delayed flights, running $27,500 per passenger are a great example of Congressional stupidity. As a thirty-one year veteran of the airline and aviation industry I could not remain silent on this one. Two assumptions here: The first is that once an airliner leaves the gate, no delays are caused by anything government does, from airport capacity limitations to air...

<p>After a difficult year battling the recession, the airline industry appears to be headed toward a recovery as fuller planes, fewer discounted fares, lower fuel prices and revenue from a variety of formerly free services start to pay off.</p> <p>The signs of improvement are most advanced at low-fare carriers that focus on domestic flights. Passenger miles and unit revenue—the money taken in for each seat flown one mile—at discount king Southwest Airlines Co. soared 12% last month from a year ago.</p>

Downturn Creates Drag on Traffic at Region's Airports Travelers at Reagan National Airport, where the number of commercial passengers fell 8.5 percent in March. (By Dominic Bracco Ii For The Washington Post) By Alejandro Lazo Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 25, 2009 The recession has landed at Washington's local airports. All three major hubs -- Dulles International, Reagan National and Baltimore-Washington International Marshall -- have reported drops in the number of passengers and fewer flights departing their runways this year as the global economic downturn leaves some business travelers and pleasure hoppers sitting at home. The result for these...

Could high-speed rail service with a stop in the Hillsboro area be a reality by 2020? That is the goal set by the Texas High-Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation (THSRTC) following the final planning and design charrette in Fort Worth. The charrette preceded the 10th annual Transportation Summit held in Irving Tuesday through Friday, August 7-10. THSRTC board members met in Houston in May at the Continental Airlines headquarters for the first of the charrettes. Attending were eight international suppliers of high-speed rail for nine different systems in France, Germany, Korea and Spain. In addition, 14 consulting firms of varying...

Why did the federal government help the airline industry following 9-11? Did they give the airline industry money or interest-free loans, etc.? What did they do to help out the industry?

PARIS A man who played a key role in the deregulation of the U.S. airline industry in 1980, Tom Allison, at the time chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, says that if senators had known then what they know now about airline deregulation, they would never have passed the measure. Allison says that by lifting restrictions on airline competition, and on where airlines could fly, Congress unintentionally created unending disruption and cost to both industry and consumers, with gross accompanying inefficiencies. In an interview given to the International Herald Tribune in February, intended to influence the current debate...

The U.S. government released an optimistic forecast on Tuesday for commercial air-travel growth, prompting the nation's transportation chief to formally mark the end of the slide triggered by the 2001 attacks. "For the first time in several years, we are no longer talking about recovery," Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told a Federal Aviation Administration conference. "It has been a steep climb since September 11, 2001. But as of the end of 2005, the number of passengers flying in the United States was 5.9 percent higher than before those horrific terrorist attacks," he said. The hijack attacks on New York and...

Boeing Will Pay $72.5 Million to Settle Sex-Discrimination Suit Associated Press November 12, 2005 6:13 p.m. SEATTLE -- Boeing Co. has agreed to pay $72.5 million to thousands of women to settle a class-action action sex-discrimination lawsuit, according to documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court. The pay out is the maximum allowed under a settlement agreement that won preliminary approval from a federal judge last year, The Seattle Times reported. As part of the deal, Boeing admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to change its hiring, pay, promotion practices and how it investigates employee complaints. "We've moved ahead on numerous...

A "passenger's rights" regulation enacted by the socialist European Union that went into effect on February 17 contributed to a life-threatening mid-air crisis three days later. During the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna, which was convened to rebuild Europe after the Napoleonic wars, European rulers contemplated grand schemes for continent-spanning security, regulatory, and tax systems. One observer at the conclave sarcastically complained: "The Congress is working on a law that will lay down how high birds may fly and how fast hares may run." While those ill-advised designs fell apart by the 1820s, the socialist European Union aspires to create a...

The federal agency that insures pension plans said yesterday that its deficit had grown from $3.6 billion to $11.2 billion in just a year and that it would try to deal with the escalating problem by overhauling its own investments, among other measures. The agency, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, said that two consecutive years of record failures by corporate pension plans and continuing adverse market conditions left it with a shortfall much greater than a year earlier, which had been the previous low point in the agency's 30-year history. People briefed on the new investment plan say the agency...

<p>Southwest Airlines Inc. (LUV), the discount airfare pioneer, Monday reported quarterly profit rose 41 percent, outperforming larger and older rivals as traffic improved for the U.S. airline industry.</p> <p>By earning more than $100 million, Southwest's performance is a standout in the industry, which is only beginning to emerge from its worst financial crisis ever. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker attacks, billions of dollars in losses have piled up for most major U.S. carriers, with the exception of No. 6 U.S. carrier.</p>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pessimistic about the airline industry's condition, U.S. House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt said Tuesday he thinks another bailout is unlikely but aid might be warranted to assist an orderly downsizing. In an interview with Reuters reporters and editors, Gephardt suggested airline executives should report to Congress soon about their continued crisis following a year in which Wall Street analysts say the industry lost $10 billion. Congress approved $15 billion for the airlines last year just 11 days after the Sept. 11 hijack attacks, and Gephardt said he was unsure whether any more legislation addressing the industry's woes...