The great-grandfather of all flight recorders from Germany. A porcelain plate with thinning discs, illustrating various possible causes of a crash. In the event of a problem, a crew member would puncture the relevant disc.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=858814377174196&set=gm.10163548664147508&idorvanity=29919442507

I admire this effort to help just ONE employee ( he must be amazing!) A US-based tech firm stepped up to help one of its employees of 3 years, leave the Mexico safely.

Cloud platform company Vercel arranged seats on every available flight headed to the United States from Guadalajara in a bid to ensure their employee and his wife could get out of Mexico pronto.

The Chaos in Mexico on Sunday forced flight cancellations, with flights called off at several of the country's busiest airports

Meanwhile,  San Francisco-based Vercel's leadership team in the United States mobilized, determined to secure a safe exit, they purchased tickets on all US-bound flights from the airport, hoping at least one aircraft would manage to depart.

Their strategy ultimately succeeded. Barba and his wife were able to board one of the flights that took off and later arrived safely in Dallas, Texas. 

https://www.ndtv.com/feature/american-company-buys-tickets-on-every-us-flight-to-evacuate-employee-amid-mexico-unrest-11125193

how did airlines get fooled into letting a nobody get onto airplanes, at airports, and how does that not violate all the DHS, TSA, and FAA security and procedures, for FOUR YEARS?

A former flight attendant accused of posing as a pilot and working airline employee fooled three U.S. carriers into giving him hundreds of free tickets over a span of four years

Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in federal court in Hawaii last October. He pled not guilty

According to court documents, Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fraudulent employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other airlines. Court documents contained no explanation of why, in an industry focused on flight and airport safety, the airlines didn’t recognize the credentials as invalid.

https://apnews.com/article/fake-airline-pilot-fraud-58a2d18d66aabe462e11c3d72002c8ec

just when I think the govt can do a halfway decent job of something as easy as airline and airport security, having learned from the nose dive of it's utterly inept failure to stop the Covid from entering the USA in the ONE SIMPLE WAY by stopping any flights and passengers from China, the proof smacks me in the face that the govt can't learn from it's mistakes, can't realize how important airline security is (9-11 was the only example we needed or ever will need, of how any airliner can be a suicide bomber guided missile)

So WHY the eff isn't the GDMFing govt doing the ONE job it's got 8 alphabet agencies over-budgeted to do? High security enforcement and intel. Time for all of them to self check their commitment 

In 2023, an off-duty airline pilot riding in the cockpit of a Horizon Air flight said “I’m not OK” just before trying to cut the engines midflight.

Passengers aboard an already-delayed American Airlines flight were stuck for nearly 3 hours at Harrisburg International Airport, until after 3 a.m., because of an airport equipment malfunction and an apparent insufficient airline staff to help the passengers off the flight another way.

The jetway was not working, and they said there were no stairs and the pilot wasn't able to arrange for a tug to pull the plane to another gate.

American Airlines flight 1549 from Dallas-Fort Worth 

Passengers finally got off the plane through a rear stairway and walked to the terminal.

That two-and-a-half-hour wait between landing and deplaning would enable the airline to narrowly avoid potentially millions of dollars in fines under what’s sometimes known as the “tarmac delay rule.” Under the rule, airlines face fines of up to $27,500 per passenger for a wait on the ground, aboard an aircraft, of more than three hours.

Airlines at Harrisburg, except American, use contracted “ground handlers,” as the companies are known, to perform tasks such as operating the jetbridges and — in a case like this — bringing stairs and managing the unusual arrival. But American — with more flights than any other airline at the airport plus its own subsidiary, Piedmont Airlines, with a maintenance and crew base at the airport — uses its own Piedmont workers to perform those jobs.

Based on several accounts, no such worker was at the airport when the flight initially landed, with the specific knowledge and training to operate the stairs.

https://www.abc27.com/local-news/passengers-stuck-at-gate-aboard-flight-from-dallas-for-hours-will-airline-face-tarmac-delay-fine/amp/

I suppose the FAA and US Marshalls would lose their fuzzy little minds if someone simply made the call and used the emergency inflatable ramp and get the passengers off the damn plane in a nice bit of "training" in emergency plane evacuation equipment 

this is interesting... sueing for mental anguish, distress, and such - because an airline lost his luggage, and like all airlines, won't find it even when you tell them the location via Airtag

On December 28, 2023, American Airlines had a failure to deliver his checked luggage, which caused a severe mental health decline, due to the absence of essential clothing and prolonged stress from the baggage loss

According to the lawsuit, the traveler was exposed to the extreme cold of a Zurich winter without appropriate clothing, as all winter wear and personal items were inside the missing luggage.

He claims this situation directly contributed to a rapid deterioration of his mental health.

During his stay in Switzerland, which lasted several months, KR states that he was admitted to 3 different psychiatric hospitals. He spent more than one month as an inpatient receiving treatment.

Without any form of health or travel insurance, he received medical bills totaling over $50,000 from the Swiss healthcare system.

He had placed Apple AirTags inside the bags and shared precise location data with the airline. Despite providing this information, KR alleges that the airline did not act on the tracking data to recover his belongings in a timely manner.

Because, airlines have not decided to be careful with your luggage, as they really don't care to be responsible for what happens at an airport. They have enough to deal with just flying airplanes, and getting maintenance on schedule, and past inspections. 

https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2026/01/14/american-airlines-passenger-files-50k-lawsuit-amid-lost-bags/#google_vignette

It would be incredibly interesting if someone found a legal way into getting the airlines, and airports, to be vigilant about taking care of everything they are responsible for, and not losing luggage

funny how 50 million dollars are in limbo, and neither Southwest Airlines nor the TSA are willing to refund them to the ticket buyers

TSA insisted it isn’t equipped to refund the 9/11 security fee to millions of travelers—while the agency defended a $48 million penalty against Southwest for allegedly failing to refund that same fee. The fight boils down to a simple question: when a passenger cancels and never flies, who has to send the money back—an airline, or the government that collected the fee?

https://viewfromthewing.com/judge-laughs-at-tsa-as-southwest-fights-48-million-fine-for-keeping-passenger-fees/

1957

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122146100816716349&set=g.246840025517856

Pan Am had a great marketing dept in the 50s... everything was cool, but this? Wow.

http://www.everythingpanam.com/Children_s_Items.html

been a long time since I've heard of these

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=25020560934226866&set=g.408253066033468

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/01/since-2008-alaska-airlines-has.html

unique look at a 747 making con trails

 

By the way, thoughts on the FAA / Airline / Airport issue

 Must SUCK to try and catch a flight from SEMA to get home (I drive from Vegas to San Diego, 5 hours, and sure would be less risky to fly instead of deal with TIREDNESS for a boring 5 hour steering wheel chokehold.... trying to rely on caffeine and  podcasts to combat being up for over 20 hours on the drive home, since waking up a 3 am to get to SEMA to hit it at about 10 am that morning. 

Also, just my 2 cents, as what is the point of a blog if not to make a place to give your two cents about whatever... right?

Sure seems sunlight bright and clear to me that the US Govt isn't playing by the rules of "pass a damn budget, on time, every time, no delay, and balance the damn thing, and consider not blowing a couple trillion more that just gets added to the 34 trillion dollar deficit / bankruptcy thing no one deals with" that they once did, and wouldn't it be nice if instead of the repercussions and fallout being something only the regular citizens have to cope with (no airline traffic controllers getting paid, and neither are the other airport govt workers, are the soldiers, sailors and Marines getting paid?) 

It sure would be nice to see that by not passing a budget (and I don't mean a month to month spending bill that only delays the inevitable "where's the next annual budget?" problem) the hundreds of millionaires that are supposed to work for the citizens, who aren't millionaires (huge gap of wealth between politicians and voters on that point) the politicians, and their office budgets, and their govt provided vehicles, transportation budget, per diem food allowance, and gas cards are all frozen from the day the govt gets into shut down mode, until they work out the solution and get the govt budget passed for the next annual cycle... and that they have to show up to work, in the big ol voting chamber where the House of Representatives, or Congress members, plus the VP and the Pres, sit at those desks and don't get to do anything but look at each other with hate and discontent, and eat cafeteria food made by unpaid US Capitol Building cafeteria workers, and use the bathrooms that unpaid US Capitol Building janitors clean... while those politicians are on a pay freeze. 

But, more interesting than my notion of how the politicians should have to be burdened by the results of their lack of results on doing the only job they are hired to do - do not vote for a single one of them to get re-elected, they obviously are not capable of doing their job, and only us regular people have to bear that burden -  

is it NOW clear that a high speed rail system around the country would be a great idea, and a way to avoid using the airlines/airports/air traffic controller who are not getting paid, and actually govt ordered to cut 10% of all flights? 

Yes, a high speed rail system is expensive, and so are airline tickets. It would be nice to avoid the monopoly, and instant death of transport when the airports shut down, if we had a high speed rail system. 

We've recently seen just how paralyzing the airlines are when ONE little thing happens, like

the volcano in Iceland diverting all air traffic from that New York to Europe route in April 2010, 

or the covid pandemic cutting 90% of all air travel at it's worst, 

the combo 1-2 punch of 2008 recession and jet fuel price surge, 

the 2019 Boeing 737 Max groundings, 

the 2017 British Airways data center power fail, 

the Feb 2018 and Jan 2021 storms that screwed up Europe's airports

the Jan 2023 Southwest Airlines snafu back to back with the NOTAMS failure

the June 30th 2023 United Airline fiasco in Seattle-Tacoma airport

the March 2025 electrical substation explosion at Heathrow

Fall of 2025 drone intrusion into European airport airspace

Anyway, clearly, airports can be easily shut down by tech fails, uncommonly harsh weather, and paychecks getting cut off. 

Sure would be a good thing to have another fast transportation way to get around the country, instead of driving your own car

A woman is suing American Airlines after she alleges she was framed for trying to smuggle opiates into the U.S. by an airline employee who checked a bag full of drugs in her name

workers at the Lynden Pindling Airport in Nassau, Bahamas, are checking bags under the names of passengers to the U.S., then having conspirators pick up that narcotics-containing luggage at baggage claim in the U.S

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.697760/gov.uscourts.flsd.697760.1.0.pdf

In April, Dominguez was arrested for allegedly trying to traffic more than 100 bottles of codeine in a bag, only for her to later be cleared of wrongdoing when it could be proven she never checked a bag at all, and this bag was checked in before she ever arrived at the airport. 

 “ALISON DOMINGUEZ and the relevant law enforcement agencies would later learn that an AMERICAN AIRLINES employee falsely checked the bag in ALISON DOMINGUEZ’s name as part of a drug importation scheme designed to take advantage of the U.S. Customs pre-clearance system

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/airline-workers-smuggled-drugs-in-bag-falsely-tied-to-passenger-lawsuit/

Plans to revive the long-defunct Pan American World Airways are moving forward.

a comprehensive business plan for the potential relaunch of Pan Am has been announced, the airline certification process with the FAA has started, which could reestablish Pan Am as a Part 121 scheduled carrier.

https://airlinegeeks.com/2025/10/09/pan-am-begins-certification-process-with-faa/

Qantas partnered with a luggage company to sell the next-generation luggage with the technological capabilities to make it easier for airline passengers to monitor their luggage throughout their journey, integrated into the TSA lock system

https://aeronewsglobal.com/qantas-launches-a-collection-of-trackable-luggage/

Imperial Airways, the early British commercial long range air transport company, from 1924 to 1939, serving parts of Europe but especially the Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East (thank you George!)

https://industrialhistoryhk.org/the-history-of-imperial-airways/

https://www.aussieairliners.org/shortfb/g-adhl/gadhl.html

as long as you don't live near major airports, (annoys the hell out of me), the industry is looking for ways (except for the obvious, opening a school in a top 10 largest population city in the USA) to recruit and retain more new hires amid climbing air travel demand

 If you live near Tulsa Oklahoma, or Broomfield Colorado, and want to be a pilot or aircraft maintenance technician

So, why hasn't that Spartan College opened a school brank in Los Angeles? San Jose? San Diego? New York? Atlanta? Cities with LARGE populations? Houston? Chicago? 

It's like they are avoiding putting a school where actually large populations exist, with a larger likelihood of a steady supply of students

After all, it's likely that the low pay, grunt work, lousy hours, (to support a multi billion dollar profitable industry) are going to motivate a number of those mechanics to find something less arduous, that pays better. So, the studies that show that the industry will need more than 700,000 new technicians to meet global demand over the next 20 years, from Boeing, and a 2022 report from consulting firm Oliver Wyman looked into the issue, predicting a roughly 25% shortfall in North America by 2027.

Lionel Taylor, a recently retired aircraft maintenance technician from California who worked for American Airlines for more than 30 years, said he seems to still be in demand for technician jobs. “When I go through my email, I see that I'm being offered positions from companies all across America, and I haven't filled out a resume in a long time,” he said. 

https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/colorado-schools-working-to-get-more-airplane-technicians-off-the-ground-as-demand-climbs

By the way, Air Traffic Controller pay is only about 22 an hour to start. It's 22 an hour working at a In and Out burgers, here in San Diego. Yes, really  https://www.usajobs.gov/job/818403800  https://www.in-n-out.com/employment/restaurant/home

AT-2152 AG - this is the position level for selectees who are NOT former FAA 2152 Certified Professional Controllers (CPC); salary $40,649 (20 an hour) which is only minimum wage here in California for fast food https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1228

So, does the government, or the FAA, or the airline industry feel air traffic controllers worth being paid more? Nope. 

Since 2006, airliner passengers in the USA have had to take their shoes off because one moron tried to blow up his shoes while on a flight from Paris to Miami, finally, after 19 years of no one else even thinking of such an idiotic thing, the govt will quit wasting our damn time with this when going through security

 
Travelers at U.S. airports will no longer have to remove their shoes as part of routine airport security screenings conducted by the Transportation Security Administration, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Tuesday. The new policy goes into effect immediately at all airports nationwide.

She said that efficiency at the nation’s airports will be especially important in the next few years because of major events that will bring large numbers of travelers to the United States, including the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tsa-ends-shoe-removal-policy-for-all-us-airports-192305816.html

https://onemileatatime.com/news/tsa-no-longer-requires-shoes-removed-security/

Why that dumbass flying out of Europe caused every innocent person in a different country on the West side of the Atlantic to take their shoes off, still is a weird jump in logic. 

People are busted every damn day carrying a pistol onto airlines, but do they check everyone for pistols? That don't show up on metal detectors? Nope. 

According to that Clint Eastwood secret service movie, (Line of Fire) and some other movies, a 22 bullet in a plastic or ceramic tube, or 3d printed pistol. 

Anyway, the point is, Hollywood has shown everyone, for decades, how the bed guys always come up with something that will effectively take over an airliner, or whatever... but has TSA wasted people's time on that bullshit? Nope. Just the damn shoes. 

there was a monumental breakthrough on Feb 10 as Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 aircraft accomplished the unprecedented in aviation history: supersonic flight without generating a sonic boom over the Mojave Desert

Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 has changed this narrative through its implementation of Mach cutoff technology. This innovative approach exploits atmospheric conditions to redirect shock waves upward rather than toward the ground. By carefully selecting specific flight altitudes and analyzing atmospheric data, the aircraft effectively minimizes the impact of these pressure waves.

The recent test flight’s success was meticulously documented using advanced Schlieren photography, which visually captured the aircraft’s shock wave patterns. These images provided concrete evidence of the technology’s effectiveness, showing how the waves dispersed without forming the concentrated pressure front that creates sonic booms.

https://www.paris2018.com/news/this-plane-just-did-impossible-historic-supersonic-flight-silences-sky-zero-sonic-boom-first-time-ever/#google_vignette

Five flight attendants from American Airlines have been awarded $18.6 million by a California jury over severe health issues allegedly caused by toxic uniforms.

 https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/06/14/american-airlines-flight-attendants-gets-18-million-in-uniform-lawsuit

I've been telling people lately, that work is going to get a lot harder to find... every day about a thousand people are laid off by corporations that would rather lay off a thousand employees, than 10 upper managers, who make the same amount of money

Southwest Airlines plans to cut 15 percent of its corporate workforce, about 1,750 jobs, in a bid to cut costs. The layoffs are the first in the airline's 53-year history

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/consumer/article-14407267/southwest-airlines-slash-mass-layoff-routes.html