SecTrans Mineta has announced the signing of an order that will significantly reduce flight congestion and passenger inconvenience at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Under terms of the order signed by FAA Administrator Marion Blakey and accepted by both airlines, American and United have agreed to reduce by 5 percent those carriers’ operations during the peak hours between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.  This reduction of 62 scheduled flights, which takes effect in early March and lasts for six months, returns scheduled O’Hare operations to October 2003 levels, the last month prior to significant delays.  “Today’s announcement is a significant, first step toward getting planes into and out of Chicago on time,” said Secretary Mineta.&n

Privacy Group Pushes for Northwest Probe  

As ANN previously reported, Northwest Airlines recently admitted to secretly turning over up to 11 million passenger records to the US government in 2001. If a civil-liberties group has their way, the carrier should be held accountable and possibly fined for sharing this sensitive information. "Northwest broke a promise to keep customer records private and should be investigated for deceptive business practices, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)," wrote in a filing with the Department of Transportation. Sobel indicated EPIC would likely file suit later in the week to compel NASA to disclose more about its research, including whether other airlines were involved. In its filing, EPIC also asked t

Report Says Chicago Skies Too Crowded For O'Hare Growth

A new report by a former FAA official indicates Chicago's plan to expand O'Hare Airport would turn O'Hare into a "truly frightening airport" due to congested airspace and other problems. City officials disputed the new report announced by Sen. Peter G. Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) on Monday. In the report, which was commissioned by expansion opponents, Fitzgerald said it indicates the danger, disruption, and air and land congestion the expansion would cause is not worth the minimum 400,000 new landings it would add to the world's busiest airport. He also charged that a new analysis by Joseph Del Balzo of JDA Aviation Technology indicates the city ignored the expansion's impact on airspace congestion, and used other flawed

Pilots Agree To Chat With Company Reps

Sometimes you just have to bear it and grin. Faced with the prospect that US Airways Group Inc. may have to sell assets to fly through its financial problems, leaders of its pilots union Tuesday grudgingly agreed to talks on reducing costs and boosting productivity. This tightening of the belt is all in the name of fighting off the many low-cost airlines trying to get a piece of US Air's piece of the action.  The Air Line Pilots Association said its ruling council decided to engage in the talks, which could eventually lead to formal negotiations. This comes as good news during some dark days at the nation's seventh-largest carrier. The airline's corporate credit rating was lowered last week by Standard & Poor's Corp. on f

MD-80 Operators Worldwide Notified of Problem

On Tuesday, ANN reported the massive travel delays in Japan caused by the grounding of some McDonnell Douglas jets. Japan Air System's MD-80 fleet is undergoing emergency inspections after cracks were found in some Pratt & Whitney JT8D-200 engines used on this series of aircraft. Now, the US government is stepping in to monitor the situation and take domestic action, as necessary. A FAA spokesman said the FAA is keeping an eye on the situation but say it is too early to order inspections of similar jetliners in the United States. "We are aware of the situation and if we believe any action is warranted on our part we certainly wouldn't hesitate to take it," spokesman Les Dorr said. Mechanics found a crack

Eddington Ponders Pros And Cons Of Packing Heat

While he's certainly no fan of armed guards onboard his aircraft, British Airways CEO Rod Eddington admits it may be appropriate to put sky marshals aboard airliners. However, the BA chief quickly pointed out standards must be set to make sure it's done safely, as Europeans view the notion of putting weapons on airplanes as "abhorrent. We want some protocols agreed to," Eddington said. "The hows, the whens, the wheres, the whys." These protocols were the subject of a meeting last week between Asa Hutchinson, U.S. undersecretary for border and transportation security and European civil aviation officials. Hutchison said the U.S. government would urgently pursue bilateral security standards with European countries to tighte