Delta completes deal to acquire Northwest Airlines

Delta AirLine completed its $2.8 billion acquisition of Northwest Airlines on Wednesday, turning two of America’s most storied airlines into the world’s biggest carrier.
Delta and Northwest closed the deal just hours after the Justice Department said it had no antitrust objections.
The company will keep Delta’s name, Atlanta headquarters, and chief executive Richard Anderson, who used [...]

Better air passenger prescreening expected in 2009

A long-delayed government program designed to more accurately prescreen the names of airline passengers against terror watch lists is expected to begin early next year.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the final rule for the program, called Secure Flight, which would validate air travelers’ information so there’s less chance a person could be [...]

Full names required to fly in 2009

Airline passengers starting next year will be barred from boarding planes if they refuse to provide their full name and birth date, the government said Wednesday.
“You have to give this information,” Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley said.
The rule will “dramatically reduce” the number of people hassled at airports because their name resembles a terrorist’s [...]

Frequent flyers redeem miles to beat higher fares

Airline customers are cashing in more frequent-flier awards this year, looking to avoid higher fares and believing that miles are worth less than in the past.
With so many new ways to earn miles — on everything from car rentals to groceries — savvy travelers fear it’ll soon become harder to go where they want, when [...]

Airlines eye more onboard advertising

As airline passengers grow wary, and perhaps weary, of the more fees and higher ticket prices, some U.S. carriers may look to onboard advertisements as a way to raise revenue without further tapping customers’ wallets and patience.
Advertisements already adorn the bottoms of security bins, in-flight television screens and boarding passes — not to mention ads [...]

Non-Flying Jobs In General Aviation

General aviation – defined as all aviation not classified as military or airline – is by far the largest segment of the aviation industry. In terms of aircraft, there are about 221,000 general aviation aircraft compared to just under 19,000 airliners of all types in the United States. The airlines serve just 650 airports in [...]

EU budget carriers say carbon permits too costly

Low-cost airline claimed monday they will not make windfall profits from a trading program intended to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Union wants all airlines that fly within its borders to trade pollution permits beginning in 2011, forcing them to buy more permits if they want to operate more or longer flights.
The EU’s cap-and-trade [...]