Articles tagged “dot”

Norman Y. Mineta, the Transportation Secretary who closed the U.S. airspace and ordered the grounding of 4,000 planes in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has died.…

The Justice Department is reviewing the controversial new partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways for antitrust concerns. If the deal is off, what does it mean for an airline industry battered by the pandemic?

Airlines want to do everything they can do hold onto cash. Many of them are in a rough position. But they still have to honor their pre-Covid-19 policies.

The Department of Transportation means well with its tarmac delay program. And it has been helpful for customers, who need not fear being trapped on planes for hours. These fines on the airlines are nothing, but the publicity is a reminder to try to do better.

The State Department just closed the books on the last long-running airline-related diplomatic saga in Washington — Open Skies agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Now, apparently, the government is turning its attention to a feud with Russia about so-called overflight rights.

The fine here is miniscule. But the issues are interesting. Qantas has the right to fly between New York and Los Angeles, and it does so every day. But it can only carry a small subset of passengers.

The Obama Administration's decision to block Qantas' application for antitrust immunity with American came as a surprise to most observers. The Trump administration's Department of Transportation would normally be likely will rule otherwise. But this new administration is unpredictable, so it's hard to say for sure.

The terms aren't as generous as Delta wanted, but the carrier still should be able to get plenty out of its partnership with Mexico's only full-service airline.

The DOT doesn't have as much regulatory power as other government agencies, so it's doing what it can to try to protect consumers. At the least, if an airline permits voice calls, it will have to tell consumers what it's doing — before they buy a ticket.

It's nice that the DOT finally got around to approving Norwegian's Irish unit to fly to the United States. But this is not as big of a game-changer as some have suggested. Norwegian was going to grow in the United States and offer low fares on transatlantic flights, regardless of whether this happened.