Free Republic

The booming Cuba tourism that brought tens of thousands of American and Canadian liberals to Cuba where, if they were sufficiently famous they could meet with Fidel Castro (now somewhat more difficult) and if they weren’t, they could enjoy juicy bloody burgers, classic cars and sex with 9-year-old girls (Communist Cuba’s child sex tourism business in notorious) is now endangered by fuel shortages. Cuban authorities have notified international airlines that they won’t be able to refuel at the island’s airports, as the country’s energy crisis deepens following President Donald Trump’s steps to cut the island’s oil supply in a push...

Unusual shut down if a fairly major airport for 10 days....national security? Terror threat? Or ???

Orlando International Airport was forced to ground all flights on Sunday afternoon after “extreme cold” sparked an emergency in the air traffic tower. The FAA issued an alert about the ground stop due to a “possible fire” at an air traffic control tower early Sunday afternoon, but the order was lifted at 4:15 p.m. after the cause was determined. In reality, the extreme cold — currently 43 degrees — caused a spinkler head in the fire suppression system at the facility to activate. The agency had sent out a bare-bones “fire alarm/safety” advisory that a tower was evacuating due to...

Pivotal’s eVTOL aircraft dubbed Helix is available to order online for $190,000, with deliveries expected within a year. Buyers don’t need a pilot’s license to operate the aircraft, though they must complete training and take an FAA knowledge test. An advocacy organization has raised safety concerns over crowded airspace. A future with flying cars is no longer science fiction — all you need to order your own is about $200,000 and some hope and patience. The Palo Alto-based company Pivotal has been developing the technology since 2009 and is nearly ready to bring it to market. The company’s founder...

Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Rasheed Walker was arrested Friday morning at LaGuardia Airport in New York after authorities say he attempted to check a bag containing a handgun and ammunition. Walker, 25, was taken into custody at the airport's Terminal C after telling a Delta Air Lines employee that his luggage contained a locked box holding a firearm, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the New York Post. Port Authority police were alerted and searched the bag, where they found a 9mm Glock pistol and 36 rounds of ammunition secured inside the locked case. Walker was charged with...

🚨NEW: Southwest flight erupted in applause after an unhinged leftist woman, who claimed she worked for the Minnesota governor, was kicked off a flight in Miami over the weekend. According to witnesses, the woman was already furious because the airline allowed disabled passengers to board before her. Once on the plane, she began harassing another passenger who happened to be an immigrant. The confrontation reportedly went on for over 30 minutes before the airline finally removed her from the flight. She claimed she was from New York but worked with a progressive Minnesota organization, insisting she was being removed for...

Boeing warned plane owners in 2011 about a broken part that contributed to a UPS plane crash that killed 15 last year but at that point the plane manufacturer didn’t believe it threatened safety, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. The UPS plane crashed in November 2025 shortly after taking off in Louisville, Kentucky, when the left engine flew off the wing as the plane rolled down the runway. Three pilots on the plane that was headed for Hawaii were killed along with 12 more people on the ground near Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport. The NTSB said Wednesday...

Now might be the moment to get a table at Tatiana — because everyone has been stranded in paradise by the Venezuela crisis. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy closed down airspace around the South American nation Saturday night amid the jaw-dropping operation to seize president Nicolás Maduro, meaning that the commercial flights and private jets that were meant to ferry movie stars, moguls and mega-millionaires back to reality after their New Year’s celebrations were grounded. We’re told Queen Latifah, Mike Tyson, Ming Lee Simmons, Natalie Portman and party pacha Richie Akiva were among those beached in St. Barts and the...

Athens (AFP) – Flights at Greek airports were cancelled or delayed Sunday after a technical problem knocked out airspace radio frequencies, the country's civil aviation authority said, calling the outage "unprecedented". At Greece's main airport, Eleftherios Venizelos in Athens, passengers were stuck in long queues as several domestic and international flights were delayed or grounded altogether, an AFP reporter saw. The radio frequency loss was first reported around 0700 GMT. "No plane landed or took off for at least two hours," said the press office at Athens airport, where 31.6 million passengers transited in the first 11 months of 2025....

Business class comes with Champagne, lie-flat seats and an unspoken sense of calm. What it does not guarantee is immunity from crime. A 26-year-old man has been sentenced to 20 months in jail after attempting to steal another passenger’s carry-on bag mid-flight on a Singapore Airlines service from Dubai to Singapore. Liu Ming boarded the August flight with intent. Prosecutors told the court he deliberately targeted business class passengers, assuming premium cabins meant premium valuables. He was seated only a few rows away from an Azerbaijani couple whose overhead luggage contained items worth more than S$100,000, roughly A$116,000. The timing...

A nasty fight erupted outside of Miami International Airport on Monday as travelers were seen pulling each other's hair and dragging one another to the ground. The fight began just after 9 pm EST near the airport's lower-level doors 16 and 17, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office. A video of the altercation went viral on social media, depicting the terrifying moments when two individuals began beating each other. As fists flew, others ran to join the fight. The brawl involved both men and women, as some attempted to de-escalate the violence. At one point, an individual was pulled by...

Down Under, the pace of life in the control tower looks entirely different. Shorter weeks, more predictable schedules, and a culture that prioritizes balance – it’s no surprise that it’s drawing attention from those feeling crushed by the system back home. Many of these professionals aren’t chasing bigger paychecks. Over 40% of controllers in the US regularly pull six-day weeks with 10-hour shifts. Many opt for patterns that promise a few days off but come at a steep cost to the body’s natural rhythms. You might finish an afternoon shift and then start a midnight one just hours later. It’s...

An Alaska Airlines customer exploded at staff after they refused to let her stash two cats under her plane seat. The passenger, who later identified herself as Alexandra Compton, from Portland, Oregon could be see lashing out at the workers Sunday as they calmly explained their pet policy. 'Show me the policy, then, before I booked the flight, that said that I had to have a certain weight of cat to go under the seat,' Compton, who lives in Las Vegas, fumed. She then accused airline staff of 'ruining Christmas' after they explained that the cats would not have a...

Forget, ‘no good deed goes unpunished’. More accurately, no corporate wokeness goes unpunished by those taking advantage of it. Affirmative action is one of the worst examples as companies set themselves up for lawsuits like this through their illegal and immoral pursuit of diversity. A group of 18 former student pilots sued Fort Worth-based American Airlines this week, alleging the company misled them and racially discriminated against them while they were enrolled in a flight training program. The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a federal court in San Diego by a group of plaintiffs who identify as Black, Asian or...

Air travel has grown more chaotic in recent years, and one trend stands out for its brazenness: passengers requesting wheelchair assistance to board early, only to walk off the plane unaided at their destination. Social media has dubbed these “miracle flights,” with the sudden recoveries credited to a tongue-in-cheek figure called “Jetway Jesus.” The practice exploits a system meant to help those with genuine mobility needs, and it’s drawing sharp criticism from fellow travelers and industry observers. The issue gained fresh attention this Christmas season with reports of passengers faking mobility problems to skip security lines and claim priority boarding....

A former TSA agent speaks out about what she saw and what she calls an obvious connection to billions of dollars of fraud. A former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent, Liz Jaksa, joined Liz Collin on her podcast. She who worked at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport from 2016 to 2021. She explained to Collin, “I’ve seen a lot of things, but the most shocking is exactly that. I saw suitcases filled with millions of dollars of cash, and the couriers were always Somali men traveling in pairs.” While flying with cash isn’t illegal and must be declared, it still...

This potty-mouthed passenger took a stand — and lost her seat. A United Airlines passenger’s meltdown went viral after the irate woman lobbed a few choice words at a poised flight attendant during a delay on the tarmac at Newark Liberty International Airport. A fellow traveler captured the woman’s entire tirade — which quickly garnered nearly 500,000 views on TikTok since it was posted on Nov. 10. Then, in a moment of karmic glory, the testy traveler realizes she’s being recorded and goes dead silent. She drags her gaze away from the phone and tries to play it cool. From...

Well, this could get interesting. On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an advisory stating pilots should exercise caution in and around Venezuelan airspace, citing an increase in military activity in the region as well as a "worsening security situation."The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has warned pivots (sic) to “exercise caution” when operating in the region around Venezuela because of the “worsening security situation and heightened military activity” in and near the South American nation as tensions with the United States simmer.The FAA’s advisory, issued on Friday, notes that “threats could post (sic) a potential risk to aircraft at...

A knife-wielding suspect was shot and killed Friday morning at St. Louis Lambert International Airport after refusing orders to drop his weapon, police said. The officer-involved shooting happened around 1:05 a.m. local time as "STL Airport Police officers were conducting routine security checks in Terminal 1" and "encountered an adult male with a knife," according to St. Louis County Police. "The suspect refused to drop the weapon and was tased by one police officer. The suspect continued to advance towards officers, and a second police officer fired his service weapon, striking the male suspect," police added. "He was pronounced deceased...

The FAA has long needed to hire 3,000 more air traffic controllers to fill vacant positions.The Federal Aviation Administration lifted mandatory flight limits on Monday at 6 a.m. They were put in place to reduce the workload on short-staffed air traffic controllers at 40 large airports during the federal government shutdown.The reductions affected passengers on thousands of flights and exposed a shortage of air traffic controllers that began more than a decade ago.There is a need for 3,000 more controllers to work in towers and regional air traffic centers all over the country.Controllers have been working mandatory overtime and six-day...