Cheap Airline Tickets / Airline News

(UPI Top Stories Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) The U.S. aviation security agency reportedly wants the airline ban on lighters lifted because screeners are spending too much time looking for them.

Kip Hawley, head of the Transportation Security Administration, was quoted as telling USA Today the ban on passengers carrying lighters aboard airplanes does not add to security any more.

Hawley told the newspaper requiring screeners to confiscate lighters at checkpoints is a distraction from the serious nature of finding (bomb) components. (more…)

Air Canada Jazz has suspended four mechanics a day after they publicly raised concerns about safety at the airline.

Dave Avella, Gianni Ballestrin, Grant Anastas and Ron Anstey, all mechanics at Jazz’s Toronto facility, were suspended with pay pending an investigation by the airline into comments they made to the Star, including allegations they are pressured to release planes with defects that could compromise public safety.

Meanwhile, Transport Canada yesterday said it was launching an audit into Jazz’s mechanical operations in the next three months. (more…)

Air Canada is imposing stricter new weight limits on passengers’ carry-on luggage.

Like every carrier, Air Canada is battling to pare costs as the price of jet fuel has skyrocketed in recent months. In an effort to lighten each plane’s load, the airline has tried measures ranging from dumping empty wine bottles in the middle of a round trip and, in one high profile experiment, even stripped paint off the fuselage of one plane.

With the busy summer flying season now at hand, the ACE Aviation Ltd. unit has shifted its gaze to the check-in counter.
(more…)

A worried Ulsterwoman last night told how she was able to carry a razor-sharp knife onto a packed Aer Lingus holiday jet.

Shocked Sally McManus, who uses the knife for work, only discovered the deadly blade in her hand-luggage once she had arrived at her hotel in Croatia.

Sally (42), who was travelling with her partner Johnny for a week’s holiday, hit out at Dublin Airport’s security scanners for not spotting the knife. (more…)

(UPI Top Stories Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has confirmed an employee’s laptop computer containing personnel information was lost on a commercial flight.

Agency spokesman Terry Lemons said an unidentified employee was flying to a job fair last month and checked the laptop as luggage on an unidentified airline. (more…)

Swiss authorities say they have arrested seven people of North African origin suspected of plotting to attack an Israeli El Al airliner.The Swiss attorney-general’s office said the attack was to have been carried out in Switzerland but it did not specify how, when, or precisely where. It said no explosives had been found.”We do not have an exact date. We just know about the plans.

“We got wind of them towards the end of last year,” Jeanne Balmer, a spokeswoman for the attorney-general’s office, said. (more…)