ICE agents are now at 13 airports, but the deployment looks far more symbolic than operational: they cannot legally perform screening, and in many cases they appear to be standing near checkpoints while TSA lines still run for hours.
A woman was detained by immigration authorities at San Francisco International Airport late Sunday night, and video of the scene is now being widely miscast as part of the new ICE deployment to airport checkpoints. It was not
American Express Centurion Lounges helped redefine what an airport lounge could be, with chef-driven menus, a premium feel, and enough buzz to force airline clubs to raise their game. Now they are too often packed, dated, and serving food that no longer feels remotely worth the crowd.
A United business class passenger reportedly stayed on speaker phone through taxi and the entire safety video, even after flight attendants asked her multiple times to stop. Too many passengers no longer feel embarrassed about behavior that used to be obviously unacceptable.
ICE agents are now showing up at airport checkpoints, but they are not the same as TSA screeners — ICE agents are law enforcement officers, while TSA checkpoint staff generally are not. That changes your rights.
An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 arriving from Montreal hit a fire truck that was crossing Runway 4 at LaGuardia shortly after landing around 11:45 p.m. on Sunday, causing severe damage to the aircraft’s nose and cockpit. The captain and first officer were killed, multiple passengers and first responders were injured, and controller audio captured the tower urgently trying to stop the truck before impact.
A woman and a child reportedly spent a six-hour flight in cockpit jumpseats after an oversold departure prompted the Air France KLM low cost subsidiary to look for volunteers to sit up front instead of in the cabin. The airline says it complied with European safety rules. Paying normal denied boarding compensation seems cheaper than the embarrassment here.
A passenger flying SAS from Copenhagen to Los Angeles after recent surgery says she wound up getting a 30-minute foot massage from a stranger in coach after an expected empty seat between them disappeared. It is an oddly kind story — three women who did not share a language improvising help for someone in pain — but it also crosses a line that most travelers would not want crossed on a plane.
Bilt says it expects to process more than $100 billion in housing payments this year. The real play is using housing relationships to power a broader payments, merchant, and loyalty network that can make the card just one piece of a much larger business.
There is one food airports should probably never be serving right before passengers board a plane, and somehow it keeps spreading: chili. Beans, sulfur, and changes in cabin pressure are already a bad combination at 30,000 feet, which makes airport chili counters and giant lounge bowls feel less like comfort food and more like a threat to everyone trapped in the cabin.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
