Travel News - Aviation.com

Cash is king, the saying goes. As if to convince us of this, a press release came across my desk this week touting the ease of wiring cash to airlines to buy plane tickets. No easier way to pay your air fare, the release said. Safe, modern, convenient. No muss, no fuss.

Star Alliance is claiming an airline-industry first with the launch of an automated service intended to simplify the task of verifying passengers' travel documentation requirements.

American Airlines, British Airways and Spain's Iberia Airlines want to become transatlantic triplets.

In their attempt to break the speed record for world circumnavigation by helicopter, the two pilots flying an AgustaWestland 109 Grand twin-engine chopper have made considerable progress since they began their flight on Aug. 7 - but not without incident.

On June 20, a violent storm crossed northern California and the border regions of Oregon and Nevada, producing some 8,000 lightning strikes and starting more than 2,000 wildfires on local, state and federal land.

Since the genesis of powered flight with the Wright Brothers in 1903, the paramount objective of safety has driven evolutionary progress to organize and regulate airspace better. Other imperatives for the organization of airspace have been the need to make the best use of a finite medium and to make airspace usage convenient and logical for both pilots and controllers.

It's getting almost comical the way revenue-hungry airlines are justifying all the new fees and surcharges they are laying on travelers in lieu of charging realistic fares.

It took about a day and a half for Scott Kasprowicz and Steve Sheik to travel from New York to Iceland - a distance of about 3,000 nautical miles. That leaves only some 17,000 nautical miles (19,560 miles) to go before they are home again.

You're paying more to travel, and not just for your plane ticket. Every pound counts as the number of carriers charging for all pieces of checked luggage racks up. So it stands to reason that the public might wonder why airlines don't charge extra for passengers with significant overages of a more, uh, personal nature.

Clear-air turbulence is frightening and uncomfortable for airline passengers, and on occasion can be very dangerous to airliners and the people flying in them. But new research underway at Arizona State University (ASU) aims to make the forecasting of clear-air turbulence (CAT) in U.S. skies far more accurate, allowing aircraft to avoid CAT or letting their passengers be properly prepared for its onset.

Another day, another airline fee. Now it's Hawaiian Air and Northwest joining United and American in charging $15 for checking the first bag, Delta doubling to $50 its fee for checking a second bag - and US Airlines charging for bottled water, starting today.

Much has been written in the past few months about how a regulation called "Rule 240" used to require an airline to rebook you on another carrier when it canceled your flight - and whether or not the rule still exists.

Piper Aircraft's PiperJet is the latest personal jet to take to the skies.

It's early Saturday morning and you're in Houston, Texas. Today you are going to be an airline pilot! You're here to participate in one of the most unique training programs in all of aviation: ATOP.

With fares getting higher, and low fare seats becoming scarcer, there is no better time than now to brush up on your flexible-date-search skills. If you don't particularly care when you fly as long as there's a cheap fare, flexible is the way to go.

Emirates Airline took delivery today of its first A380, becoming the second airline (after Singapore Airlines) to receive one of the Airbus superjumbos and the first carrier to receive an A380 powered by Engine Alliance GP7200 engines.

They're fast, they're dinky, and soon they'll be coming to an airport near you. They are called personal jets.

It's high summer, so congested runways, stormy skies and scheduling snafus are once again grounding millions of air travelers at home and abroad.

The blended winglets that have become a common feature on Boeing 737s and 757s have made their first flight on a Boeing 767.