East Coast Travel -and Stranded Travelers- Recovering from Hurricane Irene

With Hurricane Irene's departure from the Eastern United States, travel operators have been forced to attempt to restore regularity to the travel schedule with as much rapidity as possible. Immense numbers of flights, public transportation systems, business and leisure travelers, and local residents were affected by the damage inflicted by the Category 1 hurricane. Despite the tragedies and damages done by the storm, it is fortunate that the storm did not escalate as expected. MSNBC reports on the recovery process for East Coast travel.

Article from MSNBC.com follows:

The nation's planes, trains and buses had their first full day of near-normal service since Thursday, as most passengers stranded by Hurricane Irene slowly made their way home.

Airlines said overall Tuesday that despite some scattered issues, including a handful of delays and cancellations, most flights were running smoothly because of the overtime put in by crews put in the day before. Most ran extra flights Monday to clear the glut of travelers waiting to fly.

Flight tracking service FlightAware reported only 159 flights were scratched compared with more than 1,700 on Monday. Nearly 14,000 flights were scrapped in the hours before, during and after the storm. That's the most in any four-day period in more than a year, surpassing cancellations during either of the massive snowstorms this winter.

United Continental, Delta and US Airways expect to finish shuttling the majority of stranded travelers to their final destinations Tuesday. American Airlines spokesman Ed Martelle said it cleared its backlog of passengers in New York waiting to take off. And JetBlue spokesman Mateo Lleras said every passenger affected by the storm should be brought to their destinations by the end of the week.

Most airlines reported few problems getting planes back in the air and getting travelers where they needed to go. But some officials said that the decision to shut down major airports — especially the closure of New York's five main airports by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — caused a scramble.

David Holtz, the managing director for operations at Delta, had just about finished its cancellation plan around 6 p.m. on Friday and could have kept flying at New York's Kennedy airport through Saturday evening when airport officials said they would close at noon Saturday.

That "threw a huge monkey wrench into our planning," he said. Delta canceled additional flights to adjust to the earlier closing.

Airport officials thought the 18-hour notice was generous. But with flights of 12 hours or longer scheduled from as far away as Tokyo, the decision forced the airline to act quickly to notify passengers before they left for the airport, he said.

Susan Baer, the Port Authority's aviation director, said the shutdown of New York's public transit system — which most employees use to get to work — affected its decision to close the airports.

Despite the sooner-than-expected shutdown, some airlines praised the efficiency of the airports' reopening.

"The coordination was really extraordinary," JetBlue CEO Dave Barger told CNBC on Monday. "I really don't think we could have had a more effective startup."

Reopening airports means much more than just switching on the lights. In New York, for example, it involved doing everything from clearing cots used by stranded travelers to making sure airport staff could show up to work. With the city's public transportation system limping back into service, Baer said security agents were picked up by their managers in vans to ensure that they'd make it to work on time.

Amtrak resumed service between New York and Boston on Tuesday. Trains are still canceled between Philadelphia and New York because of flooding. Amtrak also canceled trains from the Northeast to cities like Miami and New Orleans.

Travelers who couldn't fly or take the train turned to the bus. BoltBus was fully booked Monday and Tuesday, according to Timothy Stokes, a spokesman for its parent company Greyhound. The only cancellation for Greyhound was its route between Albany and Syracuse.

Megabus also saw an increase in passengers who had tried to get around by other means, according to Dale Moser, president and COO of Megabus parent company Coach USA.

All buses were running again, but some kept their speeds down on roads other than interstate highways as a precaution.

Article originally appeared in Travel News on MSNBC.com
By SAMANTHA BOMKAMP and SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
AP Airlines Writer Joshua Freed in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44325892/ns/travel-news/

Image uploaded from: http://www.ctpost.com/news/slideshow/Hurricane-Irene-30520.php#photo-83

TSA Pilots Traveler Behavior Screenings In Boston

I have only one historical observation; "Papers please! Your papers are not in order! Come with me."
The domestic version of the Global Entry program can not come fast enough for me!


From BTN

The Transportation Security Administration will expand its Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques program by requiring every airline passenger traveling through Boston Logan International Airport to engage in a "brief conversation" with a TSA officer, who will perform a behavior analysis. A 60-day pilot begins August 15.

Confirming several media reports about the new pilot, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said passengers will be asked three or four questions, possibly related to their recent whereabouts, their destination and whether they have a business card.

"All passengers are being screened normally, but during the screening, it's [their] interaction with the behavior officer, not so much your answer," Davis said. "These officers are trained to observe passengers who are [displaying] physical and physiological signs that they fear discovery or that they are being deceptive."

Though the SPOT program first took effect in 2003 and currently is used in 160 airports, "what's different is that we are positioning this right at the checkpoint along with the document checker," Davis said. Up to this point, she explained, TSA officers "have walked around and observed passengers, and they have engaged passengers in conversation, and they have referred passengers for additional screenings." Now in Boston, if a TSA officer is suspicious of a passenger following the behavioral assessment at the checkpoint, that passenger will "undergo a pat-down and have your carry-on physically searched."

TSA will use the pilot in Boston to "inform any next steps," Davis said. "We will look at the data that we collect during the 60 days and we will look at how the program impacts passengers and screening operations, and how it impacts wait times."

TSA acknowledged the program could make some travelers uneasy, but accepts that "normal behavior in an airport involves some level of nervousness and anxiety," Davis said. She also claimed the program "is an antidote to racial profiling because race and ethnicity is not something we look at all. If you just focus on someone's race or ethnicity you are going to miss a terrorist."

TSA warns against new threat

The Transportation Security Administration has started warning airlines and foreign security agencies against a new terrorist threat: surgically implanted explosives. White House spokesman Jim Carney says that there is no immediate threat of an attack, but terrorists are attempting to adapt to increased security and there needs to be an awareness of the possibility. In order to cope with these new developments, security agencies are intentionally acting “unpredictable” by using a variety of screening tactics during security checks.

I don't even want to imagine what this means to the aggressive airport screening procedures.

Hilton ends franchise deal with Las Vegas hotel

I have been to this hotel two times this year for site inspections. I instinctively knew something was going on.... so, this is not surprising although sad.
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Hilton Worldwide will terminate its franchise license agreement with the owner of the Las Vegas Hilton on Jan. 1.

The casino hotel, built in 1969 by casino magnate Kirk Kerkorian, opened as the International Hotel. It was sold to Hilton in 1970 and was renamed the Las Vegas Hilton in 1971.

At 2,956 guestrooms, the hotel is the largest Hilton in the world. It is next to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The current ownership group, led by Colony Capital, has owned the Las Vegas Hilton since 2004.

TSA to pilot trusted-traveler program

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration intends to test a new trusted-traveler program this fall that would expedite airport screening for frequent travelers, TSA Administrator John Pistole this week told a congressional committee.

"We hope to be piloting some initiatives starting this fall in select airports with U.S. carriers," Pistole said during a hearing held by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "We do want to make sure to manage expectations with the traveling public, and it's a complex issue, so I basically want to under-promise and over-deliver that we will be doing some things that some passengers will see as early as this fall."

TSA intends to work with U.S. airlines to collect information on those travelers "willing to share information about themselves," Pistole said. That would help TSA "make informed judgments."

Pistole in March told Congress that the "one-size-fits-all approach" currently used for airport security is not "efficient or beneficial for the traveling public" and that he had "several working groups" exploring program options.

This week, he said, "We want to spend as much time as possible on those who we don't know much about, and the least of amount" on people who, for example, have flown more than 100,000 miles annually for the past 20 years. "The challenge, as we know, becomes the practical application of that."

The U.S. Travel Association issued a statement supporting TSA's efforts to create a program "similar to trusted-traveler programs operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection," including Global Entry for frequent international travelers.

During its legislative summit this week, the Global Business Travel Association "encouraged attendees to ask Congress to support key business travel initiatives, including ... implementing a trusted traveler program," according to a statement.

Getting 'smarter' on pat-downs

At the hearing, senators scolded TSA for what some deem as overly invasive or otherwise unnecessary pat-downs at airport security checkpoints.

"A lot of people in America think you are going overboard and you are missing the boat on terrorism because you are doing these invasive searches on 6-year-old girls," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

"You said that you see flying as a privilege. There are those of us that see it otherwise, the Supreme Court included. I think I feel less safe because you are doing these invasive exams on a 6-year-old, and it makes me think that you are clueless, that you think she is going to attack our country and that you are not doing your research on the people who would attack our country. It absolutely must involve a risk assessment for those of us who are traveling."

In response, Pistole said, "Unfortunately, we know that terrorists have used children under 12 years old as suicide bombers. We also know that two grandparents had chosen to be suicide bombers. It's informed by the intelligence. But I agree with you, we need to be smarter in how we go about doing things and we need to use more common sense."

This report originally appeared in Business Travel News.

Airline Considers Banning Children From First Class

First-class passengers aboard some Malaysia Airlines flights won't have to worry about being woken up by a crying baby anymore.

The airline has banned infants in first class of its Boeing 747-400 jets, and has plans to do the same in their new Airbus A380 superjumbo jets, the Australian Business Traveller reported.

The ban comes after the many complaints from first-class passengers who couldn't sleep on their pricey flight due to wailing infants, MAS CEO and Managing Director Tengku Azmil told the Australia Business Traveller.

Amidst the controversial move, Azmil took to his Twitter account to defend the company's decision not to install bassinets in its Boeing 747-400 first class cabin. In response to a post about the ban, Azmil tweeted: "Also hv many complaints from 1st class pax dat dey spend money on 1st class & can't sleep due to crying infants."

Travelers with babies will now have to book seats in business or economy class, which are equipped with bassinets.

Routes affected by the ban include long-haul flights from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam, London and Sydney.

In February, several airlines including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic were considering creating children-free flights.

POTHOS is on the move

Please see our latest press release

http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/146312-1307555880-pothos-becomes-the-meeting-management-company-for-1st-annual-national-acquisitions-conference.html