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It’s one thing being stuck in the dreaded “SSSS” security screening line once, but for those that have been stuck in it time and time again, chances are your name somehow found its way onto the TSA’s No-Fly list. The infrequent traveller might not find it much of an inconvenience, but the business traveler will undoubtedly find it a huge inconveniece. Initially there was nothing you could do about it, but the TSA has since revised their policy.

TSA can’t remove names from the no-fly list, but it can put names on a cleared list, which can help travelers bypass red tape.

Erroneous entries on the watch lists can only be removed by the law enforcement or intelligence agency that put the name on the list.

If someone who is actually on either list contacts the TSA, the TSA now will refer the match to the Terrorist Screening Center, which will then ask the appropriate law-enforcement or intelligence agency to review the record for accuracy. This policy was put into place this summer.

People who have experienced repeated screening and difficulties are being told to fill out this form. As of August 2005, the form has been submitted by more than 26,000 passengers. Of course, there’s always the hope that Verified Identity Pass gains widespread acceptance.

[via Wired]

Lightning struck two airplanes departing Honolulu Airport within an hour of one another yesterday afternoon.

A bolt of lightning struck the aircraft nose of Hawaiian Airlines Flight 20 bound for Sacramento about 10 minutes into the 1:32 p.m. flight, said Scott Ishikawa, Transportation Department spokesman.

About an hour later, lightning hit Aloha Airlines Flight 270 with 119 people on board. The plane departed Honolulu at 2:25 p.m. for Kona and was struck about five to 10 minutes into the flight. It also returned to Honolulu Airport.

Nobody was injured and the planes only sustained minor skin damage. Still, it must have a been a sight — one passenger remarked that, “It sounded like a big bang. The flash lit up the whole cabin for a second.”

[via Honolulu Star-Bulletin]

The plane is currently flying towards LAX for an emergency landing where fire and medical crews are standing by. The aircraft is flying low in order to try and burn fuel, and is scheduled to land by 6:00pm on runway 25-Left (the southern most runway closest to Imperial Highway).

A Jet Blue airliner was dumping fuel over the ocean Wednesday afternoon as officials tried to determine how to make an emergency landing with the plane’s front wheels turned sideways and unable to retract.

The plane left Burbank Airport after 3 p.m. for New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Donn Walker.

Jet Blue flight 292 was circling the Long Beach Airport, about 30 miles south of Burbank.

Walker said the Airbus A320 was dumping fuel over the Pacific.

Correction: Due to the type of aircraft, it is unable to dump fuel and has instead been circling for the past two hours in hope of burning fuel.

I can’t even imagine what has been going through the passengers’ minds — circling for over two hours knowing that you’re about to go in for an emergency landing…

– UPDATE –

After almost three hours, the plane came to a safe (and smooth) landing at LAX around 6:20pm. The front landing gear didn’t fail, but the tires were completely burnt off.

[via CNN and ABC7 News]

A new company called Verified Identity Pass is offering a “fastpass” through airport security. The idea is to allow travelers who have been pre-screened by the Transportation Security Administration against known terrorist-threat-related databases to identify themselves using a small card encoded with biometric data — iris and fingerprint scans.

The reward for that is expedited passage through security in a designated lane, along with the assurance that you won’t be randomly hauled aside for one of those secondary inspections and pat downs. Other future benefits, Mr. Brill said, might exempt travelers from much disliked rules like having to take off their shoes or remove laptops from their cases.

Suppose your airline has marked your boarding pass with the dreaded SSSS symbol. That supposedly means you probably did something suspicious, like flying on a one-way ticket or abruptly changing a reservation, both, of course, common behavior for business travelers. Whip out your registered traveler card and, voilà, the S’s disappear, Mr. Brill said.

All that and a bag of chips for only $79.95 a year. The system is currently being tested in Orlando International Airport.

[via NY Times]

Definitive Hip. Herbert Ypma is the creator of a series of well illustrated travel books on boutique hotels called Hip Hotels. There’s a Hip Hotels book for every region on the planet. With Atlas, every region on the planet is now in a single Hip Hotels book. Six sections/regions to be exact; Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, and South America, each with its own introduction and atmospheric historical map. It’s a biggie, 528 pages, more than 1000 photos, hardcover and $31.50 at Amazon. Due in November of 2005.

[via MoCo Loco]

Tens of thousands of people armed with 100 tonnes of plum tomatoes took part in the “Tomatina” on Wednesday, joyously splattering each other in the Spanish town of Bunol.

The town hall of Bunol, which lies just inland from Valencia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, spent €24,960 on the fruit and dumped it the streets for the chanting masses.

…

Like the weeklong celebrations held throughout Spain in the summer, the Tomatina encourages all-night public revelry and behavior that’s frowned on for the rest of the year.

[via AP]

[gallery: Tomatina: Tomato Fight]

Defnitely not for the faint hearted, an American Indian tribe that controls land along the Grand Canyon is planning to build a glass-bottom walkway that extends 70 feet from the canyon’s edge with a clear view straight down, 4,000 feet straight down.

The horseshoe-shaped skywalk, expected to open in January, is part of the Hualapai Tribe’s $40 million effort to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land into a tourist destination that will also feature an Indian village and Western-themed town.

I’m not sure how many of you have stood on glass walkways, but why is it that everyone on the walkway feels the need to jump up and down? What are they thinking will happen? Oh, alright, I do it too, but that one time it cracks I promise I’ll stop.

[via AP]

A 50-foot black cube was proposed to have been constructed in the middle of Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark’s Plaza) in Venice, Italy. The art installation, which was to be created from scaffolding covered in black fabric, was titled “Cube Venice 2005″ by artist Gregor Schneider. It is said to have been inspired by the Ka’aba in Mecca, the holy site of Islam.

According to a scrolling text on the screen written by the artist, the work was meant to remind us of the cultural elements people of different religions have in common. Unsurprisingly, the work was rejected for “political reasons” and “against the wishes of the curator”. City authorities in Venice admitted that they vetoed the installation because “they were afraid it could harm the religious feelings of the Islamic community and block the view of part of the square”.

The picture above is a digital rendering of the proposed installation.

[via we make money not art]

The Great Pyramid of Giza, seen here along with the Sphynx in the lower right, was constructed around 2560 BC and took more than 20 years to build. With an original height of 145.75 m (481 ft) it was the tallest man-made structure on the planet for more than 43 centuries. With a perectly square horizontal cross-section at any given level and a maximum error in side lengths of less than 0.1%, it has over 2 million blocks of stone each weighing more than 2 tons (enough to build a stone wall 10ft high and 1ft thick around all of France). It is the oldest and only remaining of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. But to Steve Wynn, it’s merely a “Lego Toy” compared to his new hotel.

His new creation was received by some travel writers and architectural critics not with the awe they greeted his Mirage in 1989 and Bellagio in 1998 but with questions about why it cost a record-breaking $2.7 billion and with mocking of Wynn’s over-the-top boasts that this resort is the most complex structure ever built. Yes, ever.

And yet, Wynn doesn’t back down. On an exclusive tour with Wired News this month, the 63-year-old hotelier goes further than ever, exclaiming “The engineering and the coordination of putting those two things together — the tower and the mountain — make a pyramid of Egypt look like a Lego toy! A Lego toy!”

It’s that sort of comment that gets Wynn, 63, into trouble. Comparing a Vegas casino — each of which is likely to be imploded and rebuilt, by the next century anyway — to the world’s greatest and most enduring structures is an invitation to snickering, even if it might actually be true.

[via Wired]

In the week that most of BA flights have been grounded with an industrial dispute, an SMS flight delay service covering most UK major airports has been launched

Nearly every major UK airport is covered by the service, which constantly monitors both arriving and departing flight data every minute of the day using the airport

Flight details can be registered via the website or if the flight is arriving or departing on the current day, by simply texting FLIGHT, followed by the flight number and airport code to 63344, will begin the alert service. Each message costs 50p plus normal text charges

[Full Article]