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It's Official, Just Blame Your Airline Delay Squarely on New York City

The next time you’re stuck in the terminal—or on the tarmac—with nowhere to go, there’s now officially someone to blame for your delay and disturbance. It’s actually not a person but more of a place, as it’s New York City that’s likely the spot causing all of the trouble.

The New York Times looked into the causes behind a lot of these airport and airplane inconveniences, and they found that the city’s busy air traffic and multiple airports are the places to blame. There’s been different flight plans from the FAA and even less planes overall thanks to the dip in the economy, but that still hasn’t helped the congestion up in the skies above the greater metropolitan area. Apparently the city’s three major airports—along with the airport in Philadelphia—accounted for around 12 percent of all the country’s domestic flights, but those few flights created like half of all delays.

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Airport Security / Airline Security / Sex Travel / TSA / LAX / EWR / → All Tags

This Week in TSA Slip-ups: Sex Toys and Loaded Guns

Oh TSA. It seems like just yesterday when we were talking about how we don't like to pile on the organization, partly because we say that a lot but mostly because it really was just yesterday. But this week is turning into a rough one for the agency in charge of protecting the nation's airport security, and we'd be remiss as travel bloggers if we didn't cover the latest news.

Plus we let a whole month go by before posting this morning's Halloween sex travel story, and we'd like to make that up to you by posting a second one.

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Steaks on a Plane! Frequent Flyer Tweets, Gets Special Delivery at Newark Airport

Sit back and listen to this tale of social media customer service gone right, where frequent flying combined with brand loyalty and humor equaled genuine surprise:

Peter Shankman is as frequent a flyer as you'll ever find; following him on Twitter you'll quickly get a sense of this, plus his preference for Continental Airlines and Newark-Liberty Airport.

Yesterday, as Shankman relates in his blog post, he flew to Miami for a business lunch and dreaded the hunger that would gnaw upon returning to Newark Airport that night. So he tweeted about it:

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Today's Travel PSA: Charging onto an Airport Tarmac with a Knife Will Get You Arrested

Remember that story we did around Easter, when someone dressed up as a giant pink rabbit and attacked a TSA agent with confetti, and then was promptly arrested because that's something you're not allowed to do? This story is kind of like that, except we also get to use condescending lines like "there are certain people who shouldn't be allowed to run with sharp things."

For reasons that are currently being probed by the psychologists conducting his evaluation, Xiang Xun Shao of Manhattan decided that it would be a good idea to put a knife in his pocket, jump over a barrier at EWR, and run onto the tarmac.

From there things proceeded about how you'd expect, and he was very promptly tackled by a Port Authority policeman somewhere around Terminal C. It all happened so fast that the airport didn't even need to delay any flights, which is quite an achievement given that EWR officials once shut down for a day because someone decided to jump into the sterile area and steal a kiss from his girlfriend.

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The TSA is Racial-Profiling at Newark Airport? Color Us Surprised. Not.

Two things to keep in mind as you read this story. The first is our most recent discussion of racial profiling, where we emphasized that "random screening" doesn't actually exist in the real world. TSA screeners always have the option of profiling. Random screening just lets the agents on the ground choose who to pull aside instead of giving them explicit rules, which gives bad apples the opportunity to abuse their authority: "Why did you tag that African-American gentleman / blonde cheerleader / Cowboys fan for extra screening?" "They were fidgeting."

The second thing is that TSA is on the record saying that EWR screeners are some of the best in the country.

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Is New York City Getting Another Airport Nearby JFK?

Everyone knows that the New York City area could use another airport—or at least a major revamp of the existing facilities—but the problem is that there’s just no darned space to construct what's required. Well apparently there’s some underutilized property in Brooklyn that could be the area’s third airport—or fourth if you’re cool counting Newark. Floyd Bennett Field was once home to famous aviators like Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes, and now some want it to reopen as a hub for the modern traveler.

The old airfield sits on Jamaica Bay with JFK Airport not too far off in the distance, so it’s in a pretty decent location to help out all those airplane traffic jams. With the new advances in air traffic control technology, the thinking is that this spot could be used without interfering with all the comings and goings at JFK. The only issue is that the airport is hardly ready to go, as runways would need to be lengthened, terminals would need to be built, and Uncle Sam would need to hand it over to someone like the Port Authority.

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Five of the Best (and Newest) Airport Restaurants

We’re usually all over new routes, but before jetting across the globe you need something to eat. Lately new airport restaurants seem to be everywhere, so we thought we’d round up a few of the new and coming-soon sort for your culinary pleasure:

· Smashburger at EWR
One of the country’s best burger chains has yet to invade NYC, but it has debuted in one of the city’s airports. Newark Liberty International Airport just got its very own Smashburger, and after sampling their burger masterpieces in the Midwest, we have to say that this is definitely a good thing. It’s kind of like Five Guys—but with a little more fanciness—and should satisfy any greasy cravings you might have at the airport. Find the burgers, and their specialized New Jersey menu, within Terminal C3.

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Hopping Between London and New York is Easy as Taking a Bus, Except It's an Airplane

By the beginning of next week, it's going to be easier than every to hop across the pond from New York City to London. The reason? Starting March 27, an "enhanced relationship" between American Airlines and British Airways will mean 15 daily flights between the two world capitals; it's almost like hopping a bus, but not really since it costs hundreds of dollars and travels at 35,000 feet. You know what we mean.

The departure airports for the increased flight schedule (up from 11 daily flights) are London-Heathrow, London-City, Newark-Liberty and New York-JFK. Here's a little bit of what to expect thanks to AA and BA becoming super BFFs:

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Big Changes May Be on the Way for NYC-Area Airports

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of flying to or through any of the New York City area airports, it was probably fairly clear that they could use a little bit of help. Many of the terminals at LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark are older and lacking, and worst of all there are just too many darn people and planes trying to escape and arrive at any given time—so delays are pretty much the expectation and the norm.

A new little research plan from the folks over at the Regional Plan Association agree that things are less than ideal, and they only see things getting worse as travel demands increase over the next 20 years or so—especially if nothing is done to prepare for the influx of planes and passengers. They’ve offered up a little bit of a plan to hopefully fix things in the future, but unfortunately it’s going to cost like $15 billion across the three airports.

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Free Cupcakes at Newark Airport This Friday, January 28!

The special-edition Jets cupcake, which sadly probably won't be one of the options at Newark.

Do we have to tell you twice? FREE CUPCAKES AT NEWARK AIRPORT THIS FRIDAY, January 28. Why, you ask? Oh, just because Crumbs Bakeshop, a chain of stores that specializes in cupcakes, is celebrating the opening of a location in the airport's Terminal C.

Here's how to get one: be on a flight into or out of Newark's Terminal C (the Continental terminal) on Friday. The earlier, the better. Crumbs is located next to the C2 checkpoint. They'll start handing out the free sweets at 6am, until all 1,000 are gone. You even get the cupcake of your choice.

If you'd like a recommendation beyond classic chocolate sprinkle, they make a mean chocolate-chip cookie dough cupcake. Or go for one of the New York-centric flavors they've included in combo packs only at this location. There's the New York Collection (Caramel Apple, Madison Avenue, Cosmo, Black and White, Taxi Cab and Blackout) and the Black & White Collection (Blackbottom Cheesecake, Blackout, Black & White, Devil's Food, Squiggle and Artie Lange).

[Photo: Crumbs]

Snowpocalypse 2010 / Travel Tips / Delays / Winter Travel / Weather / Snow Travel / JFK / EWR / LGA / → All Tags

All Three NYC-Area Airports Are Now Back in Business

Rejoice! All you stranded travelers and those waiting at home for them will surely be thrilled to hear that, after tentatively re-welcoming flights last night, New York City's three major airports are back open and in business. These include New York-JFK, New York-LaGuardia and Newark-Liberty, each a major hub and devastating to the rest of the system when closed.

Looking at FlightStats.com—which is where we originally saw our own flight cancelled before the airline had sent a notification email—we see that American Airlines is the only one really outright canceling flights still. Delta too is having a rough starts, with many flight delays approaching two hours, but hey—at least they are flying.

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Snowpocalypse 2010 / Winter Travel / New York Travel / New York / DCA / IAD / JFK / EWR / LGA / PHL / BOS / Airports / Travel News / Delays / → All Tags

Snowpocalypse! East Coast Blizzard Causes Epic Shutdown

We thought Midwest (not to mention UK) air traffic two weeks ago was a total mess, and that things couldn't get much worse. Turns out we called that putt a little too early. If you're reading this right now, you're not suffering power outages like the 60,000 people in Massachusetts or the 16,000 people in New York or the 2,300 people in Rhode Island or the 40,000 people in Canada. So congratulations on that we suppose.

You're also not reading this from a New York airport, since those have been shut since last night. JFK, EWR, and LGA aren't projected to reopen until 4pm EST today, at which point they will have been offline for about about 24 hours each. That shouldn't be a problem, since it's not like a lot of people live in that region or like this was a weekend where lots of people were vacationing.

Ditto for the wave of airport cancellations that hit all three DC airports, plus Boston, Charlotte, Philadelphia, etc etc. Amtrak between New York and Boston is also shut down, so if you were desperately hoping to get to Logan and take the train into New York—which you probably couldn't do anyway—that won't work either.

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