Last month, Californian lawyer and influential Tea Party leader Mark Meckler was arrested for trying to board a plane at LaGuardia Airport with a handgun and ammunition. This week, Meckler pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct (reduced from felony criminal possession of a concealed weapon), but he wasn't too happy about it. He made his displeasure known in a long entry on his website, in which he railed against "NYC’s unconstitutional or tyrannical behavior:" "Until you have felt the handcuffs on your wrists, and until you have heard that cell door close behind you, it is impossible to understand what it means to actually lose your liberty." more ›

Nevermind those pesky strip searches—people still like to bring guns on planes, goshdarnit. The TSA has found 1,238 firearms, or roughly four a day, at airport checkpoints last year. It's unclear whether that figure includes the many, many stun guns that seem to keep popping up around New York, but either way—that's a lot! more ›

Construction to revamp the JFK's international terminal, Terminal 4, has been underway since 2010, with the goal to gussy up the outdated structure and add several new gates, among other things. Today, the Times takes a peek at how things are going over there, despite the fact that the project won't be finished until at least 2013. And what they found, is, surprisingly, kind of good? more ›

It's not often that we agree with Donald Trump, but he was right when he called LaGuardia a "third-world airport"—okay, maybe he's exaggerating a bit, but we back his sentiment. It's crowded and dirty, with the saddest Auntie Annie's pretzel stand we have ever seen—even the Port Authority boss says it's a dump! But could the much-maligned airport finally be getting a makeover? more ›

Today's air travelers are barely allowed to bring colostomy bags on a plane, so we're not entirely sure why a passenger would think she can fly with five grenades in her bag. And yet, that's exactly what one Belgium-bound passenger tried to do this weekend at Newark Liberty Airport. more ›

Drug traffickers, apparently tired of storing their stash in hangers, saris and sneakers, have found a new place to hide the goods: your luggage. So now you can pay a "checked baggage fee" AND bail when you're busted for being a drug mule! more ›

The last time we talked about an animal from way out West moving to New York City and then heading back it was the happy story of Willow the cat. The Times's story today about Emmi the German shepherd? Not so happy! Unlike Willow, nobody seems to want poor 5-year-old Emmi. Not the New Yorker who paid $7,500 to buy her, nor the training company, Kraftwerk K9, who trained and sold her. more ›

Last week, the full lineup for this year's Open House New York weekend was announced, and while dozens of amazing off-limits spaces are already opening their doors, there's always room for a few more, like the retro-fabulous TWA terminal at JFK Airport. more ›

The ramifications of Hurricane Irene are still being felt by the many people who have been stranded at JFK since Saturday. The storm caused the airport to suspend all flights, and it has been struggling to catch up ever since then. Naturally, people are starting to get a little annoyed at the fiasco. So much so that airport security had to be called on some of the complainers. more ›

Airlines have begun cancelling hundreds of flights to and from New York-area airports as Hurricane Irene draws closer—bad news for travelers trying to get the hell out of Dodge. more ›

It's all the rage to overanalyze every single thing that has to do with traveling via airplanes, so it's a bit surprising to learn that New Jersey authorities let a man board a flight after they discovered a hidden knife in one of his bags. more ›

Just one more travel-induced headache: luggage-related larcenies are up almost 30 percent at JFK airport, so maybe think twice before checking that bag. And don't expect to get it back once it's gone—only 28 of the 299 complaints filed this year have lead to arrests. more ›

Unless you seriously love the smell of Auntie Anne's lingering in your hair or paying $34 for a neck pillow that won't inflate properly, it's probably best to avoid Newark Liberty Airport, which is the airport you are most likely to get delayed at. Hope you brought a book! more ›

It's Geese slaughtering season again, and Staten Island is the latest location to get in on the action. Since 2009, the city has been systematically slaughtering Canada Geese that could potentially interfere with air traffic at airports, but in the beginning, Staten Island wasn't interested in getting any blood on its hands. Now, things have changed. more ›

Yes, air travel can be quite the hassle these days, but it's tough to complain about adorable turtle-induced delays, which are currently holding up flights at JFK. This morning JetBlue tweeted: "JFK is experiencing delays as the airport clears turtles off the runway. #cantmakethisup," and indeed, you can't. more ›

What do you do when you get stuck overnight in an airport? Sing "Hey Jude"? These two guys decided to document their adventures, where they were (for the most part) unsupervised. So unsupervised, in fact, that they had no problems messing with the intercom system and pouring themselves some beer from one of the bars. more ›

Most of the time, hanging out at the airport is not exactly a pleasurable experience—but not when Robyn, the platinum-haired Swedish pop star, is hanging out there, too! On June 20th, she'll play a show at JetBlue's Terminal 5 (no, not that one) for JetBlue passengers. So go book a flight now! Just kidding. (Kind of.) The performance is part of JetBlue's Live From T5 concert series, developed by Superfly, the producers of Bonnaroo. They've previously done shows with Sarah McLachlan, Taylor Swift and Raphael Saadiq. more ›

Some pleasant news to send you off into the weekend in comfort: a high-ranking Port Authority Police Officer testified at a state Senate hearing today, and pointed out all the many vulnerabilities of the AirTrain at JFK Airport. "It's unmanned and unpoliced...it's just a bad situation," said Robert Morris, executive vice president of the Port Authority PBA. more ›

We already knew that certain TSA agents are adept at copping a feel off of passengers in the guise of safety pat-downs; but now it turns out that some of them are actually doing the regular-old kind of stealing! Two TSA agents at JFK airport were busted today, and accused of stealing $160,000 in cash from the checked bags of unsuspecting passengers. Will we ever trust TSA agents again? more ›

New York City's rodent population is becoming a little bit too fearless. This morning we all witnessed a rat board the subway only to crawl onto a sleeping man's face, and now new video evidence shows that New York's Fearless are going after us in the airport as well. This was filmed at LaGuardia on Tuesday... and if that woman had spotted this little guy he would have most definitely suffered death by hot pink Ugg. more ›

While we are thoroughly on record as against people flying in their pajamas, we understand that sometimes when you're traveling, especially with lay-overs, connecting flights and such things, one can run out of proper, clean clothes rather quickly. But one entrepreneurial Queens man is going to remove any excuses (and stains) with his new operation: Elmhurst resident Taeyoung Kim opened the first dry cleaning service at JFK airport last week. Kim ran a two-chair shoe-shining business in Terminal 4 for the past seven years. He imagines that 80 percent of his business will come from airport workers, but he offers a three-hour express service for travelers in a rush. We can think of at least one person who must be super pumped. more ›

The movement to ban the so-called "Porno Scanners" at airports got a boost today from a group of City Council members who held a press conference at City Hall in support of legislation to ban the scanners at LaGuardia and JFK airports. To back up their argument that the scanners are as useless as they are invasive, the lawmakers cited Israeli security experts' refusal to install these scanners at Ben Gurion International Airport, which is widely hailed as the safest airport in the world. Rafi Sela, the former Chief Security Officer of the Israel Airport Authority, said he could "overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to take down a Boeing 747." It's probably for the best he didn't elaborate further on that. more ›

These days, it's getting harder and harder to find a good way to smuggle your drugs through airports. The NYPD has finally figured out that you store drugs in your underwear. They know all about the drugs in your hangers, and the drugs in the fibers of your clothing. And now they've finally sniffed out the drugs in your Nintendo Wii exercise pad and carrying case. Jean Vargas, 23, of Paterson, was caught on Sunday at JFK with more than six pounds of cocaine, valued at $280,000, stuffed inside his Wii pad. He faces up to 40 years in prison. "Smugglers are cunning," said Customs spokesman John Saleh, but obviously not cunning enough to use their Xbox. more ›

Well, this is gruesome. For some reason the Brooklyn Paper needed some closure on that whole Canada goose massacre that went down in Prospect Park this summer, so they got their hands on the documents that detailed the extermination. Turns out the 250 or so geese that were sent to the gas chamber from the Brooklyn park were just part of the city-wide slay, which brought 1,676 geese to their deaths. more ›

It's almost time to travel for the holidays, and here's your reminder that our airports are The Worst. The Daily Beast has done some number-crunching to determine that LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark airports rank the lowest of the 27 largest airports in the nation. The site explains that the airports were ranked in seven categories, using holiday travel data—they ask: "Does your holiday travel include a stopover at an airport from hell?" And the answer, New Yorkers, is yes. Here's the breakdown: more ›

It seems like people really love trying to sneak heroin into JFK, but considering how often they get caught, you'd think they might try a different airport. In the third incident in as many months, custom officials seized more than 16 pounds of heroin in six pairs of pants and five pairs of cargo shorts at JFK. more ›

Remember those full-body scanners that were supposed to be installed in NYC-area airports last month? Well, as anyone passing through JFK, Laguardia or Newark Airports knows, they aren't there. The Star-Ledger asked the Transportation Safety Administration what's up with that, only for the TSA to cite issues with installation and promise they would be coming in the upcoming weeks. Still, the Star-Ledger points out, "Harrisburg International, Milwaukee Mitchell Airport and dozens of other airfields with little or no known history of terrorist travel are among the locations that have received scanners ahead of the three major airports serving New York City, site of history’s worst terror attack, in September 2001, and several attempts since." more ›