As the Space Shuttle Discovery flew over Washington D.C. earlier this morning, we are reminded that the Space Shuttle Enterprise (our space shuttle) will be coming home to New York City on April 23rd. NASA announced that the shuttle will fly into the city on top of a 747 next Monday, and they're bringing the ol' gal in at low altitudes, creating an amazing photo op. more ›

One Rhode Island family is telling the tale of how they were kicked off a JetBlue flight—headed to Boston from Turks and Caicos—because their two-year-old child didn't want to sit her seat and instead wanted to be held by mommy. See, the pilot decided to turn the plane around and return the family, Dr. Colette Vieau, her husband, 2-year-old Natalie and 3-year-old Cecilia, to the airport. And of course there were no flights to Boston that day, so they ended up spending $2,000 for a hotel and a new flight back. more ›

The city's three major airports are resuming and rescheduling the hundreds of flights cancelled by Hurricane Irene, though officials warn that not everything is hunky dory just yet. more ›

Apparently laser pointers never, ever, get old! The fun-time favorite of legions of 12-year-olds are once again being used to blind pilots at local airports. The latest incidents involved two planes on their way to Newark Liberty Airport, and the authorities are on it. more ›

Turns out that Robert Vietze, the 18-year-old who allegedly got drunk and peed all over a sleeping 11-year-old girl on a JetBlue redeye to New York earlier this week, is a member of the US Ski Team who probably just pissed away his chance at Olympic glory. more ›

The JetBlue redeye from Portland to JFK made a strong bid for Worst Flight Ever yesterday, when a drunk 18-year-old boy allegedly peed all over a 11 year-old girl in her seat, which did not go over well with her father. Oh, and then someone puked. more ›

An Orthodox rabbi faces up to six months in jail for groping a female Israeli army officer as she slept next to him on a flight from Tel Aviv to JFK at the end of March. Rabbi Gavriel Bidany, a 47-year-old father of 11, was found guilty of molestation today, even though he had claimed that his hands were moving involuntarily while he slept and that any contact with the unidentified 23-year-old woman was accidental. "If these were random reaches of a sleeping man why is it the defendant had such precise accuracy, reaching private areas?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney David Sarratt. more ›

Celebrities, they're just like us! Except sometimes they're entitled douchebags sitting in first class and acting like the laws don't pertain to them, only to the cattle in the back. Like young Josh Duhamel for example (we know, he seems so nice in the movies!). According to TMZ, Duhamel was on a flight from New York (LGA) to Kentucky yesterday and he flat out refused to turn his BlackBerry off—a move that eventually got him kicked to the curb. more ›

On November 5th, Kanye West was on a Delta flight to New York City and decided to give his fellow passengers an impromptu concert. According to Hollywood Life, Kanye was sitting in First Class and after about 30 minutes in the air he came on the loud speaker and rapped The Good Life and Gold Digger. One passenger on board told them, “He was like, ‘Yo, this your n***a, Kanye.' Then he couldn’t decide if he wanted to do The Good Life or Gold Digger, so he was like, ‘I’ll just do a little bit of both.’ It was awesome… but I still have no idea how he got into the cockpit.” (Note: it's unclear if he actually was in the cockpit or not.) more ›

Oh the fleeting star of celebrity. According to AP, JetBlue has yet to find anyone on Steven Slater's flight who can confirm that he got into such a nasty dispute with a passenger. Slater claimed his grand, double-fisting exit was preceded by a fight with a rude passenger, but passenger reports say it was Slater who was rude for most of the flight, and nobody has recalled the final dispute. Now a few are saying Slater, who may have been drunk on the flight, was lying about the head gash that may have started it all. more ›

Virgin-gate continues! Reportedly the pilot on the Virgin Atlantic flight, that ended with passengers baking inside of the aircraft on the tarmac for four hours, asked to get passengers off the plane once they landed in Connecticut. The airline says he was threatened with arrest by customs officials, but customs denies the allegation. more ›

MyFoxNY reports that a woman on a Continental flight from Tel Aviv to Newark says she was drugged and robbed by a fellow passenger: "The alleged victim says another woman, a stranger who was sitting next to her on the plane, spiked her soda and then stole her pricey Swarovski jewelry out of her purse. The Port Authority confirmed that the woman filed a report on Sunday. The Port Authority forwarded the case to the FBI, which would have jurisdiction. However, the FBI will not comment about whether it is investigating the case." Last month, a man was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman on a Hong Kong-to-Newark Continental flight. more ›

A 75-year-old man on a flight from Chicago to Long Island was arrested after telling a flight attendant there was a bomb in his carry-on luggage. When the plane landed at MacArthur Airport, a flight attendant asked Draco Slaughter about a bag on an empty seat near him. Slaughter said the bag was his and "there was a bomb in it." However, a police investigation found no explosive devices in Slaughter's luggage, and he was arrested for first-degree falsely reporting an incident. more ›

The weather was gorgeous so Barry Maggio, 59-year-old Massachusetts resident, decided to fly an ultra lightweight aircraft around New York City—and within 150 feet of the Statue of Liberty. According to the Wall Street Journal, "the U.S. Parks Police notified the Federal Aviation Administration, the New York Police Department launched a chopper to intercept the flight. The police helicopter radioed Mr. Maggio as he neared the George Washington Bridge" yesterday morning. more ›

Yesterday a Delta flight bound for JFK had an in-air nightmare when a 58-year-old woman was declared dead. According to the Daily News the passenger died of natural causes, and was attended to by two doctors who happened to be on the flight. They were alerted after the passenger next to the woman was unable to get a reaction when nudging her. A Bronx local who witnessed the scene told the paper, "They tried to revive her. They brought her up to first class, next to me, to try to help her. They put something in her chest. The flight attendants told everyone to stay seated. It was scary." Allegedly protocol for an in-flight death is to cover the deceased with a white sheet until the plane lands. Creepy. more ›

With maintenance shutting down JFK Airport's largest runway for a few months, some airlines have been fighting to push back a new rule that would fine them for keeping passengers on the tarmac for more than 3 hours. The rule would also demand working toilets and that after 2 hours passengers be provided with food and water. more ›

There was quite a bit of nastiness aboard a Delta flight from Atlanta to LaGuardia on Sunday night, according to an FBI complaint obtained by the Daily News. The cause of the disturbance was one Kimberly Goodwine, who was "heavily intoxicated" when she boarded the plane, says G-Man Michael Lewis. The aptly-named Goodwine, originally from Staten Island but now employed at an Atlanta hotel, passed out peacefully in an aisle seat. However, the seat she snoozed in belonged to a pregnant woman, and Goodwine was not happy about being woken up and asked to ride bitch in the middle seat. more ›

A Qatari dipomat's alleged nicotine attack on a flight from D.C. to Denver could mean a big job transfer: The Denver Post reports, "A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. government was discussing the case with the Qataris and said the department had conveyed the seriousness of the matter to the Qataris.... The State Department official said Qatar had not yet informed the administration how they will handle the case," but it appeared the country was "leaning toward transferring him out of the U.S." more ›

Despite invasive full body scanners popping up at our nation’s airports, Janet Napolitano says you’ll still have to take your shoes off to get through security. According to the Homeland Security Secretary, shoes are so impenetrable that they can’t be fully screened while they’re on your feet, reports the AP. Too bad these never caught on. During a live video chat session, she also spoke to the shortage of air marshals on domestic and international flights, and about incidents, like the Newark airport kisser, where non-passengers cause security meltdowns by entering unauthorized areas. She said that for now only ticketed travelers would be allowed in secure areas but that "It may be possible to change that as we move forward." more ›

Well there's good news... and there's heart-wrenchingly awful news. WABC reports that Saturday night two 6-week-old puppies journeyed from Mexico City to New York City inside a cargo bay on an aircraft bound for JFK. But during their flight the temperature dropped and when they landed, Customs and Border Protection officers received a call saying they appeared to be dead. more ›

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens on your flight there will end up in the papers! The Daily News reports that passengers on a United Airlines flight bound for Sin City had to tackle a New York man who approached the cockpit door with a large bag while in the air on Saturday. Six passengers restrained him after he tried to open a side exit door, and then started banging on the cockpit door. Around 5 p.m. the flight made an emergency landing in Denver, where the unruly man was arrested and interviewed by the FBI — he is currently undergoing medical evaluation. more ›

First birds, now cranes: On January 8th, pilots trying to land at La Guardia had to work around a giant crane on a barge in the middle of Flushing Bay, 2,000 feet from the runway. The crane is being used to build a controversial trash-transfer station in College Point, which critics predict will attract thousands of additional birds, like the ones that brought down U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. While construction cranes are permitted near airports, ideally they're not supposed to get between planes and the runway. An FAA spokesperson tells the Post some flights had to be diverted until the barge was moved out of the flight path. more ›

The new uptight airline security procedures aren't just affecting the insignificant, tweeting rabble—now even VIPs like Joan Rivers are being inconvenienced. Rivers, 76, was ejected from a Continental Airlines flight bound to Newark from Costa Rica on Sunday because her passport reads: Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers. (Rosenberg was her late husband's last name, or so she says.) Rivers was cast out by a "nasty and cruel" gate agent because the passport raised a red flag, and she was all alone with no ATM card and just $100 in her purse. Finally back in NYC Monday after spending a night in San Jose, Rivers described her ordeal to the Daily News: more ›

As flying out of Newark Liberty, Kennedy, and La Guardia airports continues to get more and more tedious, some passengers are turning towards smaller airfields where even at busy travel times like the day before Thanksgiving there are "no lines at the check-in counters, no lines to clear security and no lineup of idling planes on the runway," according to the Times. more ›

In the wake of Friday's foiled terrorist bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, tough new security measures are being implemented on international flights bound for the U.S. Basically, we're just a couple more failed bombings away from flying handcuffed to the armrest, naked except for hoods over our heads. But for now—in addition to much more invasive and time-consuming pre-flight screening—the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has decreed that the last hour of every flight be spent confined your seat (no bathroom privileges!) without a blanket, pillow, reading materials, personal belongings or even the precious succor of television. Those who flew over the weekend say it's a whole new world up there. more ›

Senator Chuck Schumer is doing damage control today after he was overheard calling a flight attendant a bitch. The Pool Party lover was sitting next to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand aboard a US Airways shuttle as the crew prepared to begin a flight from New York to Washington on Sunday. Both senators were talking on their cell phones when an unidentified flight attendant approached and told them to terminate their calls. Can you believe the nerve of this woman, telling famous ruling class elites to follow the rules? more ›

There's been much debate about how to handle overweight passengers on flights. While some airlines may charge for an extra seat, not all do — and now a flight attendant allegedly snapped a photo on an American Airlines flight (destination and take-off point unknown), which of course has been leaked to the press. more ›

During the first nine months of the year, LaGuardia, Newark, and JFK have maintained the worst record for on-time arrivals among the 31 major U.S. air hubs, according to the FAA. And because so many flights pass through these hubs, nearly three-quarters of all delays in the U.S. could be traced to a problem in New York. The line of planes waiting to land at LaGuardia Airport can sometimes stretch unbroken in the sky for 40 miles, according to one air traffic controller, who tells the AP, "All we can do is take them and space them out as close as FAA rules allow. It's not like you can put more aircraft in there. That's it. We're just maxed out." more ›