We're almost beginning to feel sorry for the TSA officials. They spend much of their time dealing with what appear to be the world's dumbest passengers, and then at the end of it all they get yelled at by angry politicians. This week is proving to be particularly bad.

Top agency officials spent most of today facing withering criticism from Senators, up to and including the accusation that they show "arrogant disregard for real Americans who have to put up with this baloney." We're not really sure what that means, and we tend to cringe when politicians start posturing on behalf of "real Americans," but certainly TSA workers have been a little grabby lately with diabetics' insulin and cancer survivors' body parts and other people's stuff in general.

These Senate hearings are almost kind of Congress's way of piling on, given that House members were outright calling for investigations of TSA over the summer. ]]> Omri 2011-10-19T16:50:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/10/12/152912/63

You might remember last spring, when we threw something very close to a temper tantrum over TSA's request to increase the security fees that passengers pay with every ticket. We suggested that maybe the agency should stop wasting the money they already had—the hike was floated right after TSA started rolling out gingerbread man scanners as replacements for their predictably rejected billion-dollar full-body scanners—before they started coming after more of our money.

The idea that TSA is hopelessly wasteful was echoed this morning in a POLITICO story about the agency's budget, which included bits like "tendency to grab on to a new system before it's really validated" (no kidding) and "cycle of faulty equipment and failed programs" (everybody remember puffer machines?)

And yet that's not the most infuriating part of the story. It turns out that not only is an eventual $15 security fee increase back on the table, but—weirdly, unbelievably—it's not even all going to be spent on airport security. Which is kind of weird, because with "security" right there in the name, you'd kind of think that's what it would be for.]]> Omri 2011-10-12T15:29:12-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/8/22/14149/5923

We've explained at length—see here and here, and probably here, and definitely this one—how the Department of Transportation's tarmac regulations are a recipe for travel hell. The assumption behind imposing huge fines for delays is that the airline industry simply wasn't trying hard enough to get its planes off the ground, and that market-based incentives like money and public relations disasters weren't enough to make them want to fly people around.

Put that way—and at the risk of belaboring the obvious—that's a pretty stupid assumption.

But regulations were imposed anyway and, as was easily and explicitly predictable, we ended up with more delays and more flight cancellations. So naturally the government has now expanded tarmac delay laws to include international airlines. ]]> Omri 2011-08-22T15:34:08-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/7/27/141551/638

On Monday we flagged for you the unofficial airfare tax holiday that the United States is currently "enjoying," courtesy of Washington DC being the most insanely dysfunctional place on the planet.

Without getting into too many details: House Republicans told Senate Democrats that they would only fund the FAA if three powerful Senate Democrats gave up on something called the Essential Air Service, which is a program that sends a bunch of money to (ironically) totally inessential rural airports in those Senators' states. Everyone from liberal journalists to travel bloggers agree that the subsidies are totally unjustifiable, so this was partly an attempt to embarrass the Democrats. The Republicans basically said "there's no way you guys are shameless enough to hold up FAA funding just to keep sending obviously wasteful pork to tiny airports in your states," to which the Democrats responded "actually, we're exactly that shameless." And that's why there are no airfare taxes right now, because FAA doesn't have enough money to collect money.

The sad thing is that we don't have the space to dwell on that insanity, because of course Spirit Airlines looked at both sides of the political aisle and said "you want to see shameless... we'll show you shameless." ]]> Omri 2011-07-27T15:31:40-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/7/25/75741/9845

The government’s general ineptitude might just be your ticket to cheaper airfare, but you’ve got to act quickly. Due to the budget battle over the FAA in Washington, DC it seems that certain airfare and travel taxes are now optional—and that means that you might be able to save a few bucks on your next airfare purchase.

The unofficial “sale” started over the weekend, but it seems a few airlines still might be passing along the savings. Initially there were several airlines where you could save a few bucks—including United and Delta—but at this point it looks like Alaska Airlines, Virgin America, and Frontier might be the only ones left. Other carriers—we’re looking at you American and US Airways—bumped their fares to make up the difference right from the beginning, so in reality they’re just charging for the tax as part of their fare and pocketing it. ]]> kjb 2011-07-25T08:39:33-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/6/29/135346/465

Today is the last day of the Texas House's special session, which means it's the last chance for Texas lawmakers to pass their TSA anti-groping bill. The bill, which would make conducting enhanced pat-downs a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine, was first passed by the House, then modified and passed by the Senate, and is now back in the House for a final vote. As of publication time there's still no news on whether the vote is yay, nay, or nothing.

Will Texas lawmakers hold a vote in time? Which version of the bill will pass? What will the Texas public think? Who cares. This law is moronic. It won't pass in any recognizable form. If it passes in any form at all it will be struck down by the courts. If it isn't struck down by the courts TSA will pressure Texas until the law is repealed. This is our third post on the topic, and frankly we're starting to resent Texas just a little bit for continuing with this charade.]]> Omri 2011-06-29T15:25:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/5/27/13352/1580

Given our level of respect for the average politician getting involved in the average travel-related controversy, very rarely will we tell you that an idea is so stupid that it absolutely won't happen. We've spent years covering federal lawmakers who, at the behest of Hotel and Restaurant lobbies, impose fines on foreign tourists in order to promote foreign tourism. After a spike in populist pressure from "passenger rights" lobbies, we saw Congress pass a predictably and obviously counterproductive tarmac law that increased cancellations without doing much about delays. That's the level of sophistication we've come to expect from state and federal officials.

But when the Texas House passed a law threatening to arrest TSA agents for giving passengers enhanced pat-downs, we told you that it was a publicity stunt with flat out zero chance of holding up.]]> Omri 2011-05-27T15:03:42-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/