Wherever you’re flying today – Happy Halloween!

Categories: Holidays, Uncategorized
No Comments »

Jack the cat – the kitty that escaped from his carrier in the American Airlines baggage claim area at JFK airport and was missing for almost two months – is still is in critical condition.

American Airlines is covering Jack’s medical expenses and brought his owner, Karen Pascoe, in from California to visit with Jack this weekend. According to Pascoe’s sister, Mary Beth Melchior, this past weekend Jack’s vital signs were improving. “His red blood cell count has gone up since his transfusion. While his condition is still not optimal, we are happy to see this progress and are looking forward to the day he can return home with Karen,” said Melchior.

You can follow Jack’s progress on the Jack the Cat is lost in AA baggage at JFK Facebook page

Categories: Pets
No Comments »

(photo via Flickr Commons/National Postal Museum, Curatorial Photographic Collection)

Thousands of travelers were delayed and stuck at airports all over the country on Saturday due to the giant snowstorm that hit the northeast.

Most notable – as of late Saturday night – were stories coming out of Bradley International Airport (BDL) in Hartford, Conn., which had a least 30 diverted flights touch down and where passengers on at least one airplane ended up stuck inside their airplane for at least seven hours.

As explanation, JetBlue tweeted: “The safety and comfort of our customers is top priority, both weather and infrastructure issues made remote deplaning impossible,” and “We are sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, sometimes weather can foil even the best laid plans.”

The governor of Connecticut was reportedly sending 1000 cots to the Hartford airport, but that seemed little consolation to @kathylubey who tweeted: “Stuck in Hartford airport after being diverted from jfk. Bar closed all day. Seeking congratulations for weeping only once.”

Categories: Air Travel, Airports, Weather
No Comments »

Each Friday on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin, I track down the answer to a reader’s question. This week’s question was: What happens to all that stuff ‘surrendered’ at airport security checkpoints?

Betty Spencer doesn’t travel much, but she’s curious about what happens to items confiscated or surrendered at airport security checkpoints. “There are so many stories of people having to give up items,” Spencer, a patient accounts counselor in Spokane, Wash., wrote to Overhead Bin. “I wondered if any of the items could be donated or recycled. I would hate to think of so much waste.”

The Transportation Security Administration does indeed end up with a lot of stuff: Since 9/11, the TSA has detected approximately 50 million prohibited items, including 4,600 firearms, during airport checkpoint screening.

Hazardous materials are disposed of, and dangerous or illegal items such as guns and explosives are turned over to law enforcement. But travelers do have some say in what happens to other items.

“TSA offers passengers multiple options at the checkpoint for prohibited items that are less dangerous and not illegal,” said TSA spokesperson Greg Soule. “Passengers can return them to their cars, pack them in checked baggage, or at some airports, mail them home to themselves.”

More often than not, travelers end up surrendering their items at the checkpoint. After that, Soule says, the items end up being donated to state governments “to be auctioned off or sold as revenue. TSA in no way profits from surrendered or lost items at the checkpoint.”

Some states, such as Pennsylvania, operate a brisk and profitable business selling items left behind at airports in the state – and beyond.

“Not all states have a program that’s large enough to accept all the items left at airports,” said Troy Thompson, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of General Services. “But we do. And we receive pallets of items from New York’s JFK and LaGuardia airports and from some airports in Ohio and Maryland.”

Thompson said all the items Pennsylvania gathers end up at a warehouse, where it’s sorted.

“We get a lot of pocketknives, scissors and corkscrews,” said Thompson, “but also frying pans and other cookware, and tools such as drills, saws, hatchets and machetes. Some of it makes you scratch your head and wonder how people thought they’d get those things on the plane.”

A sampling of the items are put out in a store at the state warehouse in Harrisburg, but most of the items get sold in lots, by weight, online at auction. Since 2004, Pennsylvania has earned about $700,000 from auctions held for many years on eBay and, soon, on govdeals.com.

Categories: TSA
No Comments »

Update: The Transportation Security Administration employee who added the personal note (above) to the inspection paperwork placed in a traveler’s checked bag will be fired, the agency said on its blog.

“TSA has completed its investigation of this matter, and has initiated action to remove the individual from federal service,” the agency said.

After traveling with a small vibrator in her checked luggage, New York-based blogger and lawyer Jill Filipovic discovered that someone had scrawled “Get your freak on girl,” across the TSA paperwork left in her bag.

Under the title “Your tax dollars at work,” Filipovic posted the note on the Feministe blog and added her own comment, “Total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not ok, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room.”

She also Tweeted a photo of the note, adding: “Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA. Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag. Wow.”

The TSA inspection card is printed in Spanish on one side and English on the other.

“The note was inappropriate,” said Filipovic, “the agent in question acted unprofessionally when s/he put in my bag, there should be consequences and I’m glad the TSA takes these things seriously. But I get no satisfaction in hearing that someone may be in danger of losing their job over this. I would much prefer a look at why ‘security’ has been used to justify so many intrusions on our civil liberties, rather than fire a person who made a mistake.”

(The original version of this story appeared on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin)

Categories: TSA
No Comments »