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The Wackiest TSA Tale of 2011 Is...

It's that time of the year again, the time when the year just plain ends. Alas, we can't just let 2011 go that easily, especially since travelers spent it both up in the air and up in arms over a crazy range of topics, encompassing everything from nudie scans to tarmac delays. Needless to say, we're ready for 2012, but first we're taking a brief look back at the best of 2011 with the Jaunted Travel Awards,—or as we fondly refer to them—The Jauntys.

We let the TSA off the hook as 2011's Biggest Travel Villain—the agency finished as a runner-up after dominating the category in 2009 and 2010—but obviously they were going to make at least a couple more appearances this year.

TSA's airport security officers are, after all, responsible for the vast majority of airport hell stories (especially when you take out first-world complaints like "the plane was stuck on the tarmac for 25 extra minutes and it was the worst. thing. ever").

But as much as there are genuine concerns about TSA and civil liberties; and TSA and individual privacy; and TSA and private property; and TSA and outright criminal behavior; and TSA and surreal douchebaggery—as much as there are genuine problems in all of those areas, the vast majority of TSA officials and officers and even politicians aren't bad. It's just that so many of them are kind of bumbling and incompetent, and unfortunately they've been put in charge of a task that requires precision and competence.

So when we were choosing 2011's Worst TSA Tale, we looked for something that accurately represented the essence of TSA. Which is to say, borderline-comic incompetence.

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140 Travelers Stranded for a Week in World's Sketchiest, Most Out of Reach Airport

Tenzing-Hillary Airport, a small, beautiful airport better known as Lukla and nestled into the mountains of eastern Nepal, is notable for a few things. First, it really is kind of pretty. Check out the full panoramic shot here. Second, it's where most people start their hikes up Mount Everest. Neat! Third—and as we've warned you over and over again—it's arguably the world's sketchiest airport, and is actually kind of a death trap. Last October saw another crash that killed everyone aboard, and then in December a plane ran into a wall after losing its brakes.

Now that you have a mental picture of what the facilities are probably like, imagine being trapped there with no way out, like the 140 international tourists who have been there since last week. Hollywood makes horror movies that start like this.

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We Slept on the Floor at JFK Last Night, Thanks to Weather and the Tarmac Delay Law

You've watched us move on tarmac regulations from reserved enthusiasm through deep skepticism to outright disdain. We've been predicting unintended consequences for months, and we elevated our forecast to "complete crapshow" last May when we had our first personal brush with Congress's new three hour rule, which imposes on airlines $27,500 per passenger left on the tarmac over three hours.

Now that we've had another run-in with the law, we can report very graphically on how these kind of misguided regulations play out. Specifically, they play out with us spending a night at JFK, and creating a total security breakdown along the way.

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Britain Travel / Airports / Airline Industry / LHR / STN / London Stansted / Airline Strikes / Airport Hell / → All Tags

UK Airport Worker Strike to Shut Down Most British Airports

The last Monday of August is a Bank Holiday in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and roughly a million Brits accordingly use the extended weekend to vacation out of the country. If the BAA employees at London-Heathrow, London-Stansted, Glasgow, Southampton, Edinburgh and Aberdeen make good on their threat to walk out, the loss of firefighters and security staff would force the airports to close, functionally stranding anyone who wants to get in or out of Britain (with the exception of London-Gatwick, London-City airports).

When British Airways employees tried this stunt last year they got slapped down by a judge, because timing your strike to wreck the UK economy violates British fair play or something. Nice to see that the Unite union, which represents both the BA employees and the airport employees who are threatening to strike at the end of the month, is willing to trot out the same routine again. To their friends and family it probably demonstrates admirable spunk. To the rest of the UK, to anyone who needs to fly through the UK, and to anyone at any airport anywhere in the world that will be affected by UK cancellations, it's just obnoxious.

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Singapore Sets Up In-Airport Mailing Service to Save Confiscated Items

We've long since given up any hope that TSA will adjust their seemingly arbitrary and often moronic carry-on confiscation rules. You'd think that the knowledge that they're uselessly defending us tomorrow from yesterday's attack, coupled with the realization that scrutinizing lotion bottles is causing them to sometimes miss upwards of 90% of hidden weapons, would change their focus.

Instead they just announced that summer travel is going to be hell because they don't have enough staff to juggle all their new useless scanners and all of the bags that need to be hand-search for orange juice or whatever.

Which brings us to the experiment being run at Singapore's Terminal 1. SIN and the Singapore Post have launched a two-month pilot project to deliver potentially confiscated goods back to people's homes or ahead to their destinations. Dubbed Speedpost@Changi, the joint service is targeted at people who unknowingly try to carry valuable contraband items through checkpoints.

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The Top Five Easiest Ways to Survive a Tarmac Delay

The storm of last weekend, which brought winds of over 60 mph and driving rain so bad that it stung your face, cancelled and delayed more flights than we care to know. For some, like our friends waylaid at DTW with a 2-day delay, they were lucky in only having to spend three hours onboard the plane before being cancelled. But flights like Virgin America's ''16-hour Flightmare" weren't nearly as lucky, and found themselves stranded on the tarmac at unfamiliar airports, rationing Pringles and water.

The winter may be mostly over, but the storms of spring are only now on their way in. So to save you from starvation and frustration, we've prepared this guide to the Top 5 Easiest Ways to Survive a Tarmac Delay.

Check it out, after the jump!

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Detroit Airport Descends Into Chaos During the Weekend's Weather Delays

This last weekend, while the East Coast suffered under hurricane-force winds and rain coming down so bad and so hard that it stung your face, many flights were delayed or cancelled, and a few airports closed down fully. One of the first airports to close was New York-LaGuardia, which called off all flights from the late afternoon on Saturday, just about the time that our friends were flying on Delta from Detroit-Metro to LaGuardia.

Two hours into their flight and thus only a half hour away from LGA, the airport closed and their flights turned around to head back to DTW. Then, back at the tarmac at DTW, they faced the stress of rebooking for another flight, while their checked luggage (one bag, $23 checked fee paid online) caught the first flight out the next day. They waited for 3.5 hours in switchbacked lines to rebook their flight, and the first they could get was two days later—Monday morning. And a two-day delayed flight wasn't the only surprise of the experience, as we heard from their account of the ordeal at Detroit Airport:

Insanity! Chaos! Toiletry kits! After the jump...

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Second Airport Security Breach This Month Delays Thousands of Passengers at JFK

Why can't people just stay behind queues and obey red "no entry" signs? January is quickly turning into Airport Security month, and this crazy even that happened over the weekend does nothing to improve the image of the TSA...

On Saturday, a Haitian evacuee who had just arrived to New York-JFK's Terminal 8 on a flight from the Dominican Republic set off security alarms when we went the wrong way and entered doors marked "For Authorized Personnel Only." And, just as in the Newark security breach of earlier this month, all of the passengers in the terminal were forced to exit back in the ticketing area for re-screening through security.

They eventually caught the man, but he's currently released on bail. Poor guy has been through so much these last few days. Luckily this didn't occur just after a major holiday, like the Newark incident's proximity to New Year's, but nonetheless, thousands of passengers on mostly American Airlines went through airport hell. May we suggest bringing a survival kit and a tent along next time you fly?

Related Stories:
· Arrest in JFK airport terminal security breach [Reuters]
· Haitian Evacuee the culprit in JFK security breach [Gothamist]
· Airport Security [Jaunted]

[Photo: TwitPic]

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What It Was Like To Go Through Airport Hell In Newark On Sunday

Sunday sucked for departing passengers on flights from Newark International Airport, thanks to the small security snafu that sent everyone in a terminal out and back through security. Flights were delayed around five hours, everyone's patience was tried to the max, and they still didn't find the guy who walked the wrong way through the exit doors.

On the ground in the melee, we had a friend who spent the night waiting in middle of the airport mosh pit as she went out and back through security, only to endure the long delay for her 6-hour-long flight to San Diego. It sounded painful. But what were things like from the other side—for arrivals? Just as insane and unorganized, according to a Jaunted commenter.

Read her story of true airport hell, after the jump

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This Weekend in Security Breaches: Newark Airport Evacuates Terminal

It's too bad that Thanksgiving was over a month ago, because we've got some things for which to declare our thanks. The biggest? Well, we are thankful that we weren't flying out of Newark International Airport last night, but that a friend was so that we could hear all about the security breach and resulting airport evacuation from the front lines.

Here's what happened: yesterday evening at approximately 5:30pm, a male passenger walked the wrong way through the security checkpoint; skipping search by heading into the terminal via the "exit" doors. It's not known who he was, if he was a threat or simply a confused traveler, but a search for the man yielded nothing and so the entirety of Terminal C, including planes at gates, was evacuated so that everyone had to go back through security. The issue delayed flights at least three hours, and our friend had her six-hour flight from Newark to San Diego delayed for 5 hours.

A new TSA slogan, after the jump...

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Bangkok Airport Police Target Westerners In Frightening 'Zig-Zag' Scams

Don't touch that duty-free bottle of scotch just yet; you better intend to buy it lest airport security at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport catch you browsing and nab you for shoplifting. This is what happend to two UK travelers, who, shopping at the airport before their flight back to London, were hauled in by airport police and held in the jail until they withdrew and handed over £7,500 (approx $12,250) to clear their charges of stealing a wallet.

The details of their ordeal are the stuff of travel nightmares, as the couple, speaking to the BBC, said they were kept in "a hot, humid, smelly cell with graffiti and blood on the walls" with their passports taken away from them. After they withdrew all they could on one day for "bail," handed over to sketch interpreter working with the police, the couple was allowed to sleep in a motel while the police threatened to imprison them in the "infamous Bangkok Hilton prison" should they get any ideas.

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Wherein We Politely Ask Our Animal Friends To Stop Shutting Down Airports

Just to be very clear: if we were in the midst of a blurry, rushed JFK layover and they delayed flights for 90 minutes because of a turtle orgy, we would be hard-pressed to maintain our pristine environmentalist credentials. Seriously:

Dozens of turtles, presumably on a mating spree, shut down a runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport Wednesday morning for 35 minutes, causing flight delays of an hour and a half... It is unclear whether the turtles pair off, or if the numbers indicated it was a group activity... These turtles were 8 to 10 inches long and weighed 2 to 3 pounds.

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