| TSA moves to fire Honolulu workers and Gas prices headed downward, survey finds |
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Washington (CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration took steps Friday to fire 36 screeners and bosses at Hawaii's Honolulu International Airport after an investigation substantiated allegations that bags were allowed on planes without proper screening.The firing is believed the biggest in the agency's history, and officials said it underscores that they will not tolerate employees who compromise security.In March, Honolulu's KITV 4 News reported that TSA officers assigned to a morning shift regularly allowed checked bags to be loaded onto flights on nine daily departures without being screened for explosives. Sources told the TV station that the lapses occurred for as long as four months and involved thousands of checked bags. CNN confirmed the investigation.TSA officers are required to screen 100 percent of all checked bags before they are stored in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft. [Read the full article] (CNN) -- If the smell of jet fuel or the mere sight of a vapor trail is enough to get your pulse racing, then chances are you don't need to be told that the biggest event in the airline industry is about to take place.For one week from 19 June 2011, an airfield on the outskirts of Paris will become the center of the airline universe, as anyone who is anyone in the business flocks to Le Bourget for the International Paris Air Show.The event, held every two years at the very airfield where Charles Lindbergh landed after the first solo transatlantic flight, is the largest and oldest of its kind -- it celebrated its centenary in 2009.Traditionally it is the venue at which aircraft manufacturers unveil the next big thing: Concorde, the Airbus A380 and countless other innovations all made their debut in Paris. [Read the full article] Editor's note: Brett Snyder writes a weekly CNN.com travel column. He is the founder of air travel assistance site Cranky Concierge, and he writes the consumer air travel blog The Cranky Flier.(CNN) -- It's been more than a year since the so-called tarmac delay rule went into effect, promising hefty fines for flights that sit on the ground away from the gate for more than three hours.The Department of Transportation is proclaiming the rule an unqualified success, as it has every month since it started. It's true that long ground delays have disappeared, but there has been collateral damage. Canceled flights have gone up significantly, despite the DOT's claims to the contrary.There were only 20 ground delays of three hours or more between May 2010 and April 2011, compared to 693 in the prior year, according to the DOT. That's absolutely true, and there was no question that long ground delays would disappear with the threat of fines of up to $27,500 per passenger in place. [Read the full article] 
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