Trump dumps on LAX; Garcetti defends airport
The sentence structure was a mess, but it was clear during Monday’s presidential debate that when Republican nominee Donald Trump mentioned Los Angeles International Airport, he was not paying the facility a compliment.
“You land at LaGuardia, you land at Kennedy, you land at LAX, you land at Newark, and you come in from Dubai and Qatar and you see these incredible — you come in from China, you see these incredible airports, and you land — we’ve become a third-world country.”
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti shot back this week, saying LAX is undergoing billions of dollars in upgrades.
In fact, Garcetti took part at a ceremony Thursday to open a $148-million facility that connects the Tom Bradley International Terminal to the terminals on the south side of the airport.
“If Donald Trump wasn’t jetting around the world on a private plane — or had ever walked through our terminals like the tens of millions who fly in and out of our airport every year — he might know about the largest public works program in the history of Los Angeles: the $14 billion we are spending to modernize LAX by connecting it to rail, building a brand-new rental car facility and renovating eight out of the airport’s nine terminals,” the mayor said.
“The comment is just another example of Donald Trump throwing around wild insults without regard for facts.”
Garcetti already has endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Incidents of unruly passengers rise 16%
A woman who became disruptive on a flight from New York to Los Angeles last month forced an American Airlines flight, carrying 97 passengers, to return to John F. Kennedy International Airport.
What caused the woman to lose her cool is unclear but such incidents are on the rise. In 2015, the world’s airlines reported 10,854 incidents of unruly passengers, up 16% from the previous year, according to data from the International Air Transport Assn., the trade group for the world’s airlines.
The trade group found that the cases involved verbal abuse, failure to follow the instructions from crew members and other problems. Alcohol and drug use was involved in 23% of the cases, although the trade group said that the drugs and alcohol were often ingested by the passengers before boarding.
“The increase in reported incidents tells us that more effective deterrents are needed,” said Alexandre de Juniac, director general of the trade group.
A recent study by a social psychologist at Harvard Business School suggested that incidents of air rage are more common in planes in which economy and upperclass passengers are segregated.
The data suggest that resentment and jealousy between passengers cramped into coach seats and wellheeled travelers relaxing in luxury lie-flat seats might play a role in sparking such incidents of air rage, said Michael I. Norton, the author of the study.
The plane that returned to JFK airport after the disturbance last month was an Airbus 321 with 10 extraroomy lie flat seats in first class and 36 economy seats in the back.
Key step scheduled in airline merger
If all goes well, American Airlines passengers won’t realize that the Fort Worthbased airlines took a key and potentially tricky step Saturday in its merger with US Airways.
The combination of American Airlines and US Airways to create the world’s largest carrier was announced in 2013, but the process takes several steps and won’t be completed for at least another year.
On Saturday, the airplanes and pilots for US Airways will be moved to the scheduling system of American Airlines. The system is used to determine which planes and which pilots fly each route and to schedules vacations, fill vacancies and arrange pay cycles, among other tasks.
To avoid the glitches that plagued previous mergers, American Airlines scheduled the switch for one of the slowest flying times of the year. The carrier also canceled several flights on Saturday to reduce the number of passengers who could be affected by a catastrophe.
“Our mantra has been ‘How do we reduce risk?’ ” said Maya Leibman, executive vice president at American Airlines.
In the years after United Airlines merged with Continental Airlines, the carrier was plagued with computer problems that many experts attributed to the union of two complicated computer systems.
Even if American Airline executes the scheduling system merger Saturday, the carrier still needs to merge the scheduling system for flight attendants, technology workers, maintenance crews and engineering staff. The airline also must finish painting dozens of US Airways planes with American Airlines colors and logos.
“We are certainly not spiking the ball too soon,” Leibman said.