Passenger Air Transportation

JetBlue Uses America's Hatred Of Politicians For Publicity Stunt; Offers To Ship Disgruntled Voters Overseas

How's this for a PR stunt: you know that obnoxious friend of yours (or perhaps your overly Conservative mother -- hi mom!) who always says that, "if (insert politicians name here) wins the election, I'm moving to Canada?" Well, Queens-based JetBlue airlines wants to make that happen -- but they want ... More >>

Air Safety on the Cheap

They're responsible for airport security but contractors still make poverty wages

Ryanair Finally Adds Standard Porn Amenities

The Ryanair cabin, where you'll be watching porn. ​Ryanair, "bus of the sky," preferred travel mode of student backpackers and tightfisted Europeans, is adding some new in-flight entertainment. Porn. Now, you can sit next to a skeevy old man and watch him watch porn while you fly. Another bonu ... More >>

Stun Guns, the Latest in Travel Chic: Two Found in Man's Luggage at JFK

Hours of airport fun!​In a bizarre coincidence (some might even call it a "trend"), the New York Post notes that a mere two days after a stun gun was discovered in the back pocket of seat 9B of a JetBlue flight that had landed at Newark, two stun guns were found at JFK, this time in the luggag ... More >>

Breaking: Famous Chefs Have More Money Than You Do, Don't Really Cook

The real O.G.​Chefs like to complain about culinary school grads who view working in a kitchen as a brief pit stop on the way to televised celebrity, product endorsements, and global jet-setting. But sometimes, the media makes it difficult to blame them.

9/11 Flight Numbers Will Be Retired Forever

​United Continental will "permanently retire" flight numbers 93 and 175, Bloomberg reports, in honor of the flights hijacked on September 11, 2011. Over the past decade, the numbers have not been in use, but an error earlier this week caused them to pop up again, much to the chagrin of pilots' ... More >>

Big French Plane Hits Small American Plane at JFK

On Monday night an Air France Airbus A380, the biggest passenger plane in use, knocked into a much smaller Comair CRJ 700 Regional Jet at John F. Kennedy International Airport, spinning the tiny thing almost 90-degrees, but injuring no one, NBC New York reports. A minor event when all was said and d ... More >>

Will Smith Quite Persnickety When It Comes to Planes

​Will Smith refused to board an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Manchester the other day because there were no first- or business-class seats. Instead, he chartered a plane for 10,000 pounds, or about $17,000 -- for a flight that takes less than an hour. Will! How precious of you. The Mirror qu ... More >>

Uppity Flight Attendant Wants His Job Back

​JetBlue's Steven Slater, who famously bailed through the emergency slide when he felt an unruly passenger had ticked him off, now wants to put on his fabulous uniform again. You see, he absolutely loves JetBlue. He adores being a flight attendant. He's aware of the inherent problems with th ... More >>

Gay Flight Attendant Who Escaped Though The Chute: A Prison Sentence or a Promotion?

​By now you've probably heard about Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who had an altercation with a passenger who was defying orders, so he made a crusty speech over the loud speaker, opened the emergency exit, and slid down the inflatable slide onto the tarmac, eventually getting in ... More >>

Flight 253 evacuated in Detroit again today

MyFoxDetroit.com​Vigilant fellow passengers and crew members of Northwestern/Delta Flight 253, the same plane involved in Friday's terror attempt by a Nigerian-born suspect, notified authorities and led to the capture today of a Nigerian businessman who locked himself in the bathroom for, like ... More >>

Air travellers face further restrictions after terror attempt in Detroit

​In the wake of what the Obama administration is calling a terror attempt on a Northwest Airlines jet yesterday, the Transportation Safety Administration has announced, but not released, new restrictions on airplane passengers. Not released to us, anyway. Air Canada apparently got a copy.

Computer Glitch Brings Widespread Flight Delays, Cancellations This A.M. (Update: Fixed!)

Boy, we hope you're not flying this morning: the FAA says it's having trouble with its computers, which will delay flights across the nation. The glitch, noticed around 6 a.m., has to do with flight schedules, which the agency's workers are at present doing by hand. The problem was originally detect ... More >>

US Airways Cuts 1,000 Jobs, Ground Crew Base at LaGuardia

​US Airways always comes up when we're looking for cheap flights, and there's a reason for that: like many airlines these days, it's not doing so hot. Today the troubled carrier announces it's going to cut 1,000 jobs and some flights to Europe, and close its ground crew base at LaGuardia and ... More >>

Good News: More New York Jobs! Bad News: They Pay $16-$20K

This morning's Times story on an airline pilot who was busted down from captain to first officer so ExpressJet Airlines could pay him less draws a connection between his sad case and a "steep decline" in total weekly pay for production workers. The numbers are a little abstruse there. But another Ti ... More >>

TV Creatives Hungry for Emmy Respect Disrupt, Ruin Image of Twitter

​What kind of people use Twitter? Horrible celebrities, political obsessives -- and, it now appears, people who actually care that the Emmys changed their broadcast so that eight of the awards will not be presented live. The affected categories are (deep breath) best drama-series writing, bes ... More >>

JFK Nation's Third-Worst Airport for Sleeping, Say Experts

Airport delays have become a way of life -- in fact, a new airline has made a massive delay part of its launch -- so you may be interested in The Guide to Sleeping in Airports and its just-announced best and worst airports for sleeping. As New York naturally figures in all superlatives, you will not ... More >>

High Line Park Results in New Restaurant Row; Green Roofs Everywhere

Mere months after reports claiming the exact opposite, a new study suggests that living near a fast food outlet actually does not increase weight in children, and that living near supermarkets, with their fresh fruits and vegetables, does nothing to lower weight. Go figure. [Science Daily] A survey ... More >>

What Scares You Most About Flying?

That awful Air France crash, after the plane went through thunderstorms and lightning, was horrific--as if I needed more anxiety about getting on an aircraft. Not that you asked, but in descending order, here are the things I'm most terrified of about flying:

Sara Lee Sues Oscar Mayer (No, Really!) & Best Business Class Bites

Sara Lee is suing Oscar Mayer for an ad in which consumers say Oscar Mayer hot dogs are better than Sara Lee's Ball Park franks. Lee calls the ads "false and misleading." [Reuters] New research shows that salmonella loves sugar. Win one for man against the food poisoning bug: the discovery could h ... More >>

Chuck Schumer Avenges Humanity Against Urban Wildlife!

At last, one of our elected representatives is fighting back against nature, which as we previously reported is at war with New York, sending cows, wallaroos, feral parrots and other agents to smite us. Chuck Schumer strikes on two fronts: first, he has put in a bill requiring airports to report bir ... More >>

Quick Hits

Above: A map of sitcoms that take/took place in New York. If you liked our audio of Bill O'Reilly talking dirty, you'll also enjoy the slow jam remix. A soothing demo of Brian Eno's and Peter Chilvers' ambient music iPhone app. Nudes remain hard to come by, but here's 999 Brits wearing shamrock ... More >>

Hello, Goodbye

This morning we're saying goodbye to the lovely and amazing Hailey Eber, who is leaving us for greener pastures. Here's a little roundup of Hailey's greatest hits to remember her by.A dominatrix's thoughts on Gordon Ramsey's Hell's KitchenThe Chopping Block Kinda SucksSo. Much. Top ChefThe Chicken D ... More >>

Near-Bankrupt NY Waterway to Sue US Airways for Water Rescue Funds

We mentioned in January that there were signs that the heroic water landing and rescue of US Airways Flight 1549 might result in lawsuits. Now Crain's New York Business reports that NY Waterway, whose ferries helped haul Flight 1549 passengers out of the Hudson River, "is preparing a lawsuit again ... More >>

Buffalo Plane Crash Cause Debated; "Gawkers" Haunt Site

The commuter plane crash in Buffalo continues to be examined. It has been confirmed that Continental Connection Flight 3407 was on autopilot before its fatal descent, which some suggest was a "deadly error" that shielded the pilot from the severity of the situation until it was too late. Once auto ... More >>

Plane from Newark crashes into Buffalo house; 49 killed

Eyewitness footage A commuter plane from Newark, Continental Connection Flight 3407, smashed into a house near Buffalo at 10:20 last night. Everybody on the plane was killed. Reuters: "Doomed plane suddenly lost contact - tower tapes" Buffalo News: "After the crash, tower warned other planes to ... More >>

Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark smashes into Buffalo house; all 49 die, plus 1 on ground

Eyewitness footage A commuter plane from Newark, Continental Connection Flight 3407, smashed into a house near Buffalo at 10:20 last night. Everybody on the plane, and one resident of the house, was killed. Two people from the house escaped with minor injuries. Reuters: "Doomed plane suddenly los ... More >>

In-Flight Hanging Apparently False, But Stephen Fry Really Stuck in Lift

American Airlines flight 834, arriving this evening from the Dominican Republic, was met by emergency personnel because of a medical situation with a passenger -- not, American Airlines spokespeople insist, because the passenger had tried to hang himself, as persistent twittering had reported. The ... More >>

Passenger, Bill O'Reilly Spoiling "Miracle on the Hudson" Buzz

Remember when US Airways Flight 1549's heroic Hudson River landing made us all feel good about America and ourselves? Well, it's all going to shit. Earlier this week Chicago's Joe Hart, one of the survivors, told USA Today that he'd like to be "made whole for the incident," and we all know what ... More >>

Senators Join Tabloid in War On Birds

This weekend the New York Post called for a goose holocaust to prevent another jetliner from being brought down by birds in the engines as US Airways Flight 1549 was last week. We knew politicians couldn't be too far behind so absurd a curve, and sure enough, today state senators Eric Adams and Hir ... More >>

NTSB Tries to Extract Downed Airliner, Fails

The tail of Flight 1459 bobs out of the water, surrounded by disaster personnel. (click to enlarge) Saturday, the city tried for a second time to pull doomed US Airways Flight 1549 out of the soup. After the belly flop into the Hudson River on Thursday afternoon, the corpse of the airline--from wh ... More >>

Crash Landing: Hudson River Rescue Roundup

The remarkable emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 preoccupied news outlets. Some took a new-media angle. "Hudson Plane Crash & Obama Show Social Media Legitimacy," bragged WebProNews, and everyone swooned over the twitpic of the fallen jet taken by Janis Krums from a rescue ferry. Reporte ... More >>

US Airways Crash? How About a Great Feat of Aviation

photo allegedly sent by rescued passenger via twitter If what we're hearing in preliminary reports is true, the pilot of a US Airways flight that left La Guardia bound for Charlotte this afternoon found himself in a terrifying situation: the plane ran smack into a flock of geese, which apparently ... More >>

Have a Happy Flight-Delayed Christmas

Joining the Mile High Club Just Got Easier

Now that airlines offer WiFi on flights, try cybersex at 30,000 feet.

W. Indian American Day Parade Hot, Loud, Fun

At JFK, Erhan Yildirim Clears Corpses For Takeoff

A wing and a prayer

Gay Pride Was Our Umbrella Ella Ella...

Ah, Entitlement! Contrasting Two Airport Stories

Court Strikes Down NY's Airline Passenger Bill of Rights

13th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema

Status Ain't Hood Podcasts 18 & 19

Colonialism Revisited on Greenwich Avenue

Out of Control

When air traffic control shares blame for fatal crashes

Pensions: Why All You Whipper-Snappers Are Walking to Work

Kerry and 9-11

Jersey Girls support him, but a pre-attack warning could haunt him

Flying Blind

Among the Terminal Ills: Bodies in Wheel Wells

Letters

What Color Is Your Parachute?

Her Boss at United Got $3.2 Million. She Got Shoved Out the Door.

Airport '99

Get Ready For Takeoff as the Rucker Tourney Heads For Its Final