Travel Trends tips

Top 10 lists are ubiquitous, especially in travel; it seems there’s one for everything. And when it comes to destinations, whether it’s a “most popular” or “up-and-coming” ranking, these lists tend to be a mix of well-known cities and semi-under-the-radar places. Unless you’re a Booking.com user planning 2020 travel, apparently.

In the United States, the best airlines for families traveling together are JetBlue and Southwest. That’s according to a ranking by travel-industry blog the Points Guy, which weighed 11 individual factors of flying with family, from entertainment and food to seat size and complimentary seat selection, to create composite scores.

When it comes to keeping the security lines moving, some U.S. airports are simply better than others. And it pays to know which ones are most likely to hold you up with TSA wait times, especially if you’re not enrolled in TSA Precheck.

It’s taken longer than anyone expected thanks to lots of FAA red tape and a 35-day government shutdown, but Southwest has finally started selling flights from the West Coast to Hawaii. Here are the Hawaii flight route details so far, and what it all means.

The no-frills “Basic Economy” airfares many travelers have come to hate (or maybe love, depending who you are) seem to be working in at least one way: The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics says that average airfares in the U.S. were $343.28 in the third quarter of 2018, which is a record low when adjusted for inflation.

The Department of Transportation announced this summer that it will issue new guidelines governing service animals on planes. The agency published a list of enforcement priorities, which offer insight into how it will structure rules around this growing issue.

How much of a hit has air travel taken during the COVID-19 pandemic? The short answer: Like nothing anyone has seen before. Even airline experts with long memories can’t remember a comparable impact of some critical event. Yes, 9/11 stopped air travel cold, but the immediate effect lasted weeks, not months. And the nation had a visible system in place—TSA screening—squarely aimed at preventing similar events in the future.

As COVID-19 vaccines become more available nationwide and more people are able to receive a shot, travelers are having to decide what they’ll be comfortable doing after they are fully vaccinated.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has pushed its REAL ID deadline back once again, this time to October 1, 2021, due to complications created by the coronavirus pandemic. This may seem like a long way off, as most people procrastinate going to the DMV for as long as possible, but the months can fly by quickly. And if put off, you might not be able to fly domestically with your ID.

Were you planning to apply for, or renew, a passport this spring? With the rolling governmental measures in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to do so. The State Department is limiting in-person service at passport offices to emergencies in which travelers need a passport for an international trip within 72 hours because of a “qualified life-or-death emergency.” And mail-in renewals are being discouraged due to “significant delays.”

After a long period of silence after saying last year that inflight animal rules would change, the Department of Transportation is now officially soliciting public comments on new rules about animals in an airline cabin.