If you see someone with their dog or pet on your next flight or at your favorite restaurant do not be surprised. The person is probably not pulling a fast one. They are using a new provision in federal policy that allows emotional support pets on flights or in restaurants, and their is nothing the companies can do to stop this. So if you think cell phones are annoying, wait till you are seated next to a person with a yappy dog for a 4 hour cross country flight.

Health care professionals have recommended animals for psychological or emotional support for more than two decades, based on research showing many benefits, including longer lives and less stress for pet owners.
But recently a number of New York restaurateurs have noticed a surge in the number of diners seeking to bring dogs inside for emotional support, where previously restaurants had accommodated only dogs for the blind.
“I had never heard of emotional support animals before,” said Steve Hanson, an owner of 12 restaurants including Blue Fin and Blue Water Grill in Manhattan. “And now all of a sudden in the last several months, we’re hearing this.”
The increasing appearance of pets whose owners say they are needed for emotional support in restaurants — as well as on airplanes, in offices and even in health spas — goes back, according to those who train such animals, to a 2003 ruling by the Department of Transportation. It clarified policies regarding disabled passengers on airplanes, stating for the first time that animals used to aid people with emotional ailments like depression or anxiety should be given the same access and privileges as animals helping people with physical disabilities like blindness or deafness. via New York Times.

As many of us noticed, the threat of the strike by the pilots cost the airline millions of dollars per week. The end result of all this posturing, more damage to the airline and not much difference to the long term future.

Delta, which filed for bankruptcy protection in September, previously agreed to $1 billion in annual concessions, including a 32.5% wage cut, in a five-year deal in 2004. It then sought an additional $325 million in cuts from its nearly 6,000 pilots, who threatened to strike as an April 15 deadline for an agreement approached.
“Even the threat of a pilot strike was costing Delta millions of dollars per week in lost sales, as concerned passengers and shippers booked flights on other airlines,” Delta said in its filing, adding to its argument that the court should accept the pilot agreement. via USATODAY.com

With the new technologies, airports all across the country and world are looking to stop the loss of over 30 million bags a year. This represents a significant cost in terms of money and customer dissatisfaction for the airlines. There are  new technologies that are being looked at, the most prevalent being RFID to track bags. MASSPORT, the managing concern for Boston Logans airport is looking into the pros and cons of RFID as a baggage tracking technology.

With roughly 30 million suitcases lost during air travel every year and a tracking standard — a paper bar code on each item — that is only about 75 percent accurate, airport officials from Logan to Lisbon are searching for new technologies to help stem the tide of lost baggage.
Chip-based radio frequency identification (RFID) has been presented as a possible solution, and some airports, including the Beijing Capital International Airport, which launched a pilot program last month, have gone so far as to implement limited trials. But static electricity that builds up as suitcases rub and bump along conveyor belts can render chip-based tags impotent, while exposure to X-ray machines can affect data transmissions, say officials. via Mass High Tech

A tax change on aviation fuel has taken money from the national air traffic infrastructure and put it into the highway funds not to mention that it raised the taxes on an already burdened aviation industry. Conrad Burns, the Republican Senator from Montana is looking to remove this tax until 2007 when the tax is supposed to expire so that it can be studied. This is a very wise move.

The current rule, enacted last year, has raised the cost of business aviation only slightly. But it has irritated general aviation fuel vendors while directing millions of dollars to the highway trust fund that had previously gone to fund aviation infrastructure and operations.
Burns’ bill would suspend the rule until Sept. 30, 2007, when all aviation taxes will expire and need to be reauthorized. Proponents of the measure say the time is needed to study how difficult compliance with the rule change has been for fuel vendors and to further investigate the issue that prompted it.
The rule, which took effect October 2005, was created in response to reports of truck operators buying aviation fuel to fraudulently avoid the higher fuel tax rate, 24.4 cents per gallon compared with 21.9 cents per gallon. Organizations that fought the rule disagree that such fraud is widespread, saying they have yet to see statistical evidence of trucks filling up on aviation fuel. via The Business Journal of Jacksonville:.

Even though it does not  have regulatory approval to fly, Virgin America is getting ready to hire the first 6 flight attendants for the  new airline. With help from Governor Arnold Swartzenegger, Virgin America is acting confident that all their regulatory approvals will pass in the near future.

Virgin America Inc. is about to hire the first of roughly 100 pilots it wants to add in 2006 as the startup airline continues preparations to start flying this year.
The Burlingame-based airline said it will begin by hiring six pilots. Those six need to be veteran flyers because they will help Virgin America as it seeks necessary regulatory approvals. Virgin America said it is reviewing pilot resumes and will make job offers around March 1. Training will start in April. via San Francisco Business Times:.

The airline industry reported that it filled up more than 80 percent of available seats in April, 2006. Yet the airline industry continues to lose money hand over fist.  That is what happens when you sell a 10 dollar steak for 5 dollars.

The competition in the airline industry on price is killing it. Until the airlines figure out this lesson that competition does not mean destruction the industry will continue to be in turmoil.

And the early results from April, which indicate that more than 80% of U.S. airlines’ seats were filled with paying passengers, portend a record-setting — and uncomfortably crowded — summer travel season ahead.

Seven airlines that have reported for April all show fuller planes. No. 4 Northwest ran fullest: 84.9%. No. 1 American filled 81.7% of its seats. And No. 5 Continental filled 82.9%. No. 3 Delta, despite a public battle with pilots over cost cuts that included threats of a strike or shutdown in mid-April, filled 77.6% of its seats. Even discounters Southwest and AirTran, which normally record load factors lower than the big network carriers, came close to filling 80% of their April seats.

For all of 2005, the domestic airline industry filled 77.6% of its seats, according to the Air Transport Association. The April numbers are good news for an industry that has lost more than $40 billion over the last five years. Better yet for the industry, travelers have been paying on average about 13% more for their tickets than last summer. via USATODAY.com

The Centers for Disease Control is asking the domestic airline carriers to invest billions of dollars to develop a system to track all passengers in case of the bird flu or other epidemic breaks out. The costs of such a system would run into the billions of dollars, a cost the airline industry is not prepared to absorb at this time, and they are balking at implementing it.

The CDC wants to be able to easily find, notify and recommend treatment to airline passengers who have been exposed to bird flu as well as such diseases as plague, dengue fever or SARS - even if the travelers’ symptoms don’t appear while they’re traveling.

Health officials are especially concerned about a flu pandemic. Though bird flu hasn’t yet spread from human to human, they fear it could mutate into a strain that does.

The CDC plan calls for airlines to ask passengers their full name and address, emergency contact numbers and detailed flight information.

Airlines would have to keep the data for 60 days and, if asked, transmit it to the CDC within 12 hours.

Civil Liberty advocates also are against such a plan as it would violate an agreement with the European Union.

Barry Steinhardt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said the U.S. government blithely ignored its agreement with the European Union that it wouldn’t share passenger records.

He also doesn’t think the CDC plan will work.

“This is probably physically impossible,” Steinhardt said. via The Seattle Post Intelligencer

CNET has an amazing pictorial on the future of the airlines. While the pictures remind me of the auto industries concept cars, it still makes one wonder on the future of airline travel.

Of course, lets look at the reality of the airline travel. The airline industry is cutting back at every opportunity and the low cost carriers are setting the tone for the industry.

But a man can dream.

The FAA team buckled and granted Category 1 status to Venezuelan airlines to avoid the threat of US airlines banned from entering Venezuela. So planes that were considered unsafe will now be considered safe as the FAA bows to political pressure.

The decision came after an FAA team visited Venezuela late last month to examine Venezuelan airlines’ planes and procedures within the country’s aviation authority.
The FAA had recognized the “efforts to improve the level of aviation safety oversight in Venezuela” made by the National Aviation Institute, or INAC, the statement said.
The Venezuelan government had protested its lower Category 2 ranking, which prohibited Venezuelan airlines from flying their own planes to the U.S. or from launching new services such as expansions in routes.
The restrictions, in place since 1995, forced Venezuelan airlines to rent planes and crew for flights to or from the United States. via SignOnSanDiego.com

I hope anyone thinking of flying on a Venezuelan airline will take the recent decision under consideration by the FAA as a political one. And I pray that when there is a crash by a Venezuelan aircraft, the FAA is honest on why they allowed the planes to fly in this country again.