BBC NEWS | Americas | Shoe alert shuts New York airport New York’s LaGuardia airport was evacuated and flights were halted for about two hours after a man’s shoe set off a false alarm during screening. A search was launched for the man after he was allowed to pass through security despite setting off the alarm for explosives residue. Oh, so that’s what it was. The really troubling thing is that after he was selected for secondary screening, he put his shoes on and walked away. Somebody screwed up, royally, by not keeping an eye on him the whole time,…

The TSA is really working hard to keep us safe and secure when traveling… I checked around just now because of rumors of a security breech at Laguardia Airport in the Delta terminal, and found my way to the Transportation Security Administration’s “security checkpoint wait times” site. They’re so tightly wired, they’re warning about delays for the Fourth of July weekend. Now that’s thinking ahead. TSA | Transportation Security Administration | Wait Times Due to the increased passenger traffic expected at airports over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, you may encounter wait times at the security checkpoints that are…

CNN.com – Baseball-sized hail smashes Oklahoma – Mar 9, 2006 Oh, yeah. There’s a severe weather warning for much of the Southeast, plus Air Force One’s passenger is screwing up air traffic for the world’s busiest airport, and here in Chicago, the second busiest, we’ve got heavy fog and really poor visibility. Just got off the line with a lady affected by some kind of flight cancellation – probably related to the weather, but she was supposed to go via Atlanta, and that’s all messed up. So she gets to spend the night in a hotel I reserved for her,…

News4Jax.com – News 4 Georgia – President Bush Visits Atlanta Today Just heard from a client of mine, who I think of as a loveable PITA, that Bush is visiting Atlanta today for about 2 hours, and that he’d heard the highways would be closed or at least jammed. It’s for a political fundraiser – $1000.00 a plate. You can bet that’s the real reason he’s flying around the Gulf Coast area this week “inspecting recovery efforts” – pressing the flesh for his faithful (but increasingly fractious) minions.

Two years ago, I was “angy” about a big mess that I got stuck with at work. Today, I was angy all over again. It’s that group again. The same one that is characterised by secretaries booking “their” people 6 months in advance, changing the personnel constantly, changing dates constantly, and the housing bureau is always about 6 or 7 change requests behind. This year, I thought I managed to stay ahead of the wave the whole time, as I’d had to send a number of faxes and emails to the bureau just to get changes done – and some…

Reuters AlertNet – Record snowfall in northeast US strands travelers NEW YORK, Feb 13 (Reuters) – New Yorkers dug their way out of thigh-high record snowfall on Monday after the biggest snowstorm of the season canceled flights and delayed trains across the northeastern United States. The sun came out as people returned to work after relentless snow kept falling most of Sunday, sinking New York City into its deepest snow on record. The storm cut power to tens of thousands of homes and stranded many people who had gone away for the weekend. Yeah. I got called into the office…

“most annoying hold music” – Google Search I’ll add to this Google search on the “most annoying hold music” by saying that Continental Airlines’ agency desk (where travel agents call and request help with pricing and ticking issues) is teh brain-sucking evil. Its print equivalent would be saying “doot!” several thousand times, to a mindlessly peppy and very short tune. Thus, you hear the same short musical phrase dozens of times while waiting to find out from the agent if they can help you or not. Sometimes, it’s a dog’s life being a travel agent. That is all.

Chicago Tribune | Computer failure disrupts United flights worldwide Hee hee! I’m on SABRE. However, this impacted us anyway, because no record locators were coming back on our bookings, and we couldn’t issue tickets on UA. So they had to issue a blanket fare waiver today, and we had to issue tickets and store the fare manually. Which was a bummer, but hee hee! SABRE makes that kind of thing easy.

Angry passengers sue after plane delay – Yahoo! News BERLIN (Reuters) – Six German airline passengers who said they were being held against their will on an aircraft stuck on the runway for hours during a snowstorm have filed “false imprisonment” charges, German police said Saturday. The passengers filed charges against the pilot of a British Airways Berlin-London flight that sat on the runway for seven hours before it could take off, a federal police spokesman said. The general consensus around here is if an airline can at least push back, they get paid. Otherwise, if the flight continues to…

I heard this one just now, and gave it the thundering silence it so richly deserved. Remember, people, if I’m talking to you on the phone at work, the clock is ticking! Don’t crack a joke unless it’s actually funny! Me (in just-the-facts mode): “What’s your phone number?” Caller (in sheepish I’m-such-a-hick mode): “It’s my pager.” Me (in crisper, fact-checking mode): “Pager number?” Caller (in damn-I’m-funny mode): “1-800-I-WISH-I-HAD-A-CELLPHONE” Me (in crickets chirping mode): … Caller (in damn-I’m-not-so-funny mode): “Sorry…” Me (in even more crisp JUST THE FACTS mode): “PHONE number?” Keep in mind, I can type at dictation speed, so…