Are TSA Fees About to Increase?

As the rescue and recovery effort continues in the aftermath of wildfires that swept portions of the island of Maui, the local tourism board and airlines are asking travelers to reconsider their travel to the island.  “Vacation travel to West Maui is strongly discouraged for the near future. Visitors in West Maui have largely heeded the call to leave the island. About 46,000 people have flown out of Kahului Airport since Wednesday,” the Hawaii Tourism Authority shared in a news release.

Avelo Airlines will launch flights to Puerto Rico from Delaware this fall, expanding its presence in the state. It will be the first carrier to offer nonstop flights to destinations outside the continental United States from the state.

This month, ballet fans will have the rare opportunity to see the acclaimed Australian Ballet in London. As part of the company’s 60th anniversary celebrations, performances by The Australian Ballet at London’s Royal Opera House will be the only performances outside of Australia. The 2023 London Tour will be the first international tour for The Australian Ballet under the leadership of Artistic Director David Hallberg. It will be the company’s first return to the Royal Opera House after an absence of 35 years.

Today’s announcement that Southwest has a new marketing relationship with a rideshare company was no surprise. As rideshare services have become an ever-larger part of the travel landscape, such tie-ups have proliferated. It won’t be long before every airline and hotel loyalty program has a rideshare company on its roster of points-earning partners.

Planning a road trip this summer? For the sake of safety and peace of mind, your own and others’, add this to the pre-departure to-do list: a review of your driving habits. After all, while there’s nothing you can do to change other drivers’ bad habits, you are at least in control of your own.

With no sign of relief in sight, the TSA’s inability to effectively and efficiently manage airport security screening promises to remain this summer’s biggest bad-news travel story.

The TSA has been in the news lately, and not for a good reason. As you may have noticed, the security lines at most major U.S. airports are ridiculously long—so long that many people are actually missing flights despite arriving at the airport within the typical two-hour window.

It’s been almost 15 years since Richard Reid, better known as the shoe bomber, failed in his attempt to bring down an American Airlines flight with an explosive hidden in his shoe. And yet here we are, all these years later, still shuffling through TSA checkpoints in our socks or bare feet. Why, you might ask, are we still forced to do this?

Give thanks! Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, American and United have launched automated security screening lanes at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Two of American’s 18 lanes have been converted, and United has added three automated lanes of its own.

The long lines, missed flights, and traveler outrage have been front-page news for months. And there’s little prospect that the bottleneck at the TSA’s airport security checkpoints can be ameliorated in time to for the summer travel crush.

Not to be outdone by American’s $4 million lifeline to the TSA, Delta has gone a step further and actually designed and implemented new security checkpoints at Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.

It was only a handful of months ago that we were posting headline after headline bemoaning the seemingly sudden onslaught of schedule-and soul-crushing lines at TSA security checkpoints. Back in May it seemed as if travelers might be in for a prolonged quagmire of unknown duration at the country’s airports.