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Charlie Leocha

BA flight attendants go on strike, NW/DL pilots who overshot MSP airport can regain licenses, co-pilot minimum hours increased by FAA and Senate

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Forbes presents some thumbnail etiquette advice for the world’s most visited countries. Here are is a sample from each country. You never know when a social gaffe might destroy a budding friendship.

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Over the past year and certainly over the last few months, fears about the effects of radiation on passengers passing through whole-body scanners have been splashed across newspaper headlines. The bottom line from researchers: Its OK. It would take something like 1,000 screenings per individual per year to exceed radiation standards. We are safe! Radiation won’t kill us. But, what about all of those TSA screeners?

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Where are our Congressional watchdogs these days? When it comes to counter-terrorism issues, they are all hiding. No one wants to seem to be soft on terror even as our pockets are being picked by misdirected spending and millions of Americans are facing more and more travels hassles.

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In the Big Apple, they do it bigger. Someone once told me that as I was walking through the office-building canyons in midtown. It was a good thing I wasn’t driving through these same canyons in a taxi. I may have been being fleeced without my knowledge.

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After a long day of negotiations between Senate aides and committee staffers over wording regarding when passengers will get to know what taxes and fees will be added to their airfares, there was no final agreement. That means the Menendez amendment to the FAA Reauthorization bill will come up for a vote sometime today, and the fate of how we purchase airline tickets and view airfares will hang in balance.

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As with everything in Washington DC, there is time to push hard and a time to wait. The Consumer Travel Alliance is in the push-hard part of an effort to force the airlines to tell travelers all of their fees upfront in the ticketing process.

The Menendez amendment to the FAA Reauthorization Act, being debated today, will mandate that airlines and travel agents disclose the full price of a ticket, including taxes and fees, right up front.

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The Consumer Travel Alliance strongly supports the Menendez amendment to the FAA Reauthorization Act. As noted below, this amendment will compel the airlines to be upfront about their various fees. The airlines should present all fees prior to the point where customers have already completed a portion of the purchase process.

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This is an alert for anyone concerned with the deteriorating airline service. Those following negotiations with airline pilots are betting that the mainline carriers will soon allow regional pilots to fly aircraft carrying up to 125 passengers. That means more regional flights for domestic passengers. Translation: more poorly trained pilots, smaller planes, underpaid staff, less service and more consumer confusion.

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In case anyone was planning on traveling through Greece in the near future, think again. Greece is in the midst of a dramatic uprising focused against the country’s austerity program and tax increases designed to strengthen the country’s currency and keep the government out of bankruptcy.

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