AIRLINE BIZ

Oneworld is about to fill a hole in its global lineup with the addition of the largest domestic Indian carrier, Kingfisher Airlines.

If Kingfisher's introduction follows the expected pace, it would join Oneworld sometime in 2011. That would follow this year's planned addition of Russian carrier S7 Airlines.

This year is turning out to be momentous for Oneworld. After a lengthy battle, it held onto Japan Airlines, a linchpin in its Asian strategy. The U.S. Department of Transportation has given tentative approval to antitrust immunity and a joint business agreement over the North Atlantic.

Now, if it only had a strong China partner to supplement Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific.

Some facts and figures from Oneworld about Kingfisher:

• It carried 10.9 million passengers in its fiscal year that ended March 31, 2009. For the nine months ended Dec. 31, it carried 8.2 million passengers.

• It held 27 percent of the domestic Indian market.

• It averages 383 daily departures. When it joins Oneworld, it will add 58 Indian cities to the Oneworld network.

Oneworld members already serves Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai in India. Its largest carrier, American Airlines, flies to Delhi from Chicago.

For the official quotes, keep reading.

While we do get an occasional bender of a story coming out of the professionally run Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, there's really nothing that comes to mind to compare to this gem coming out of our friends in Atlanta. Read onward.

The gist:

Executives from Delta Air Lines were chatting after a meeting with city of Atlanta negotiators ended when they discovered a high-tech pen on the table. It appeared to be surreptitiously recording their conversation.

Ben DeCosta, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport's general manager, admits that he left the gadget -- he loves gadgets -- on the table with its recorder running. But he insists that he did not intend to record Delta's negotiators, and he even charged later that Delta stole his pen.

The extraordinary story emerged in public documents obtained last week by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

That's good stuff. D/FW Airport and American are still in talks for the use agreement there - maybe the parties should offer to examine writing implements for the other side. (Actually, my queries about the Use Agreement talks haven't elicited much of anything in terms of real friction between the sides and I'd expect terms for a new deal at D/FW to come together over the next few months. I asked D/FW CEO Jeff Fegan about it and he said he wasn't losing any sleep over the Use Agreement talks.)

Lufthansa just put out a statement saying that its pilots union, Vereinigung Cockpit, is suspending its strike as of 5 p.m. Monday CST (midnight Central European Time in Germany) until March 8. A normal schedule won't resume until Friday, probably.

Although the strike has temporarily been suspended, that doesn't its impact goes away instantly, Lufthansa indicated:

"The current special flight schedule for intercontinental flights, however, will remain in place for today and tomorrow, Feb. 22-23, 2010.

"Passengers who have been rebooked on other airlines for flights departing North America today and tomorrow should proceed with those alternate arrangements.

"Passengers who are scheduled to travel on Feb. 24-25 are advised to check lufthansa.com throughout the day tomorrow for updates to the schedule.

"We expect a normal flight schedule for Friday, Feb. 26, 2010."

Vereinigung Cockpit as of 2:36 p.m. CST does not have a corresponding statement up on its Web site.

Lufthansa said late last week that it would operate its Frankfurt-DFW-Frankfurt roundtrip on Monday, but not on Tuesday-Thursday. We'll see how that changes as the week progresses.

Revised schedules posted around 9 p.m. CET, or 2 p.m. CST, did not have DFW-Frankfurt service on Tuesday-Thursday.

A hot rumor popped up on Flyertalk.com: A new airline is coming to Branson, Mo., and it's going to be Southwest Airlines.

It's a hot rumor. However, it's not a true rumor, Southwest says.

"Hey everyone, it isn't us," Southwest Airlines spokesman Brian Lusk said in a comment posted Monday on Flyertalk.com. "I don't know who the carrier might be, but we aren't making any announcement tomorrow."

The Springfield News-Leader reported Sunday that "Branson Airport will announce a new air carrier next week that will provide five new nonstop destinations" at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Right now, Branson has service from AirTran Airways. Frontier Airlines recently announced service between Branson and Denver, to begin April 20.

Most airlines that serve the area go into Springfield-Branson Regional Airport, more than 60 miles north of Branson Airport in Hollister, Mo., and about 52 miles north of downtown Branson.

U.S. airlines said last week they want to serve Tokyo's Haneda International Airport from seven U.S. markets: Detroit, Guam, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.

But three of those markets aren't in the Top 10 U.S. markets for passengers going to or from Japan.

Our question this week: Name the four U.S. markets among the Top 10 that airlines have have proposed for Haneda flights.

Bonus question: Rank those markets in number of passengers going to and from Japan.

The National Transportation Safety Board immediately dispatched investigators to the scene of that Austin crash into the side of an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees, among others.

But with all indications that the 53-year-old pilot intentionally flew into the building, the NTSB said Friday it is stepping back and letting the Federal Bureau of Investigation take the lead:

"Last night, NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman consulted with the United States Attorney General, Eric Holder. They agreed that given the apparent criminal nature of the event, the primacy of this investigation should be transferred to the FBI. NTSB investigators will remain at the scene to assist the FBI."

On Friday, American Airlines sent out an update on its negotiations with the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, with a lot of details about the airline's latest offer.

I found it very interesting, particularly since American talked about what it had originally proposed and how it had changed on such issues as pay, scheduling, vacations, sick leave/pay, pensions and medical insurance.

APFA president Laura Glading noticed the update, too, and sent out a scathing hotline to flight attendants, with a lot of bold-faced wording and italics - never a good sign. Her beginning point was that American shouldn't have sent that directly to APFA's members.

Here's part of the new hotline from Glading:

"The deal they claim ready to make means only disaster for our members.

"This desperate step by management, just one week before the start of renewed talks at the NMB offices in Washington next Friday, is clearly a last act of a company so clueless in how to manage their greatest resource that all three unions at AA are mired in contentious bargaining.

"One could be a fluke, two might point to a trend, but all three unions--APFA, TWU and APA--can only be a sign of deep and systemic incompetence from the highest levels of AMR. In fact the TWU, like our union, is on the verge of requesting release from talks and declaration of impasse.

"We ask all members to return the company's email propaganda and their duplicitous packet of half-truths."

The two sides began contract talks in mid 2008. Their next negotiating session will run Feb. 27-March 3 in National Mediation Board offices in Washington, D.C.

Only a little earlier Friday, Glading in her regular weekly hotline had taken the airline to task for announcing that as of May 1, coach passengers who want a blanket and pillow would have to buy $8 packs. That applies to domestic flights over two hours long and some shorter international flights. (Shorter flights won't have the pillows and blankets.)

On that matter, American said the sales weren't a contractual matter and disputed about everything Glading had said in a Feb. 8 letter to an American executive.

Here's our story on it.

President Obama went to Las Vegas on Friday and made nice.

A year ago, he hacked off Las Vegas people when he brought up their city in connection with banks that had received federal bailouts.

"But, you know, you are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you've paid taxpayers back," Obama said at an Elkhart, Ind., town hall meeting on Feb. 9, 2009. "You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime."

Since then, he's been trying to make up to the city and to the travel industry for other comments he made earlier in his administration that criticized business travel by executives of troubled companies.

"There's nothing like a quick trip to Vegas in the middle of the week," Obama announced last May as he visited nearby Nellis Air Force Base.

But his big opportunity to make amends came Friday when he addressed the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Early in his speech, he talked about the flap over his remarks.

"Now, before I go any further, let me set the record straight: I love Vegas! There you go. Always have. Love Vegas. Enjoy myself every time I've gotten an opportunity to visit. In fact, just last night, I drew a flush on the river and cut the budget deficit in half. Some of you know I can play some poker," he said to laughter and applause.

"Now, I did receive a little bit of heat, I know, from maybe some in this room, when I said that folks shouldn't blow their college savings in Vegas. That doesn't mean I don't love Vegas. It wasn't meant to be a shot. I think everybody here would agree that the only place where people should spend their college savings is in college. There's no contradiction there," Obama added.

Earlier Friday, one of his questioners at a Henderson, Nev., town hall meeting said he was from Jonesboro, Ark.

"What are you doing all the way here in Vegas?" Obama asked.

"Everybody comes to Vegas," the man answered, to audience laughter.

Lufthansa will operate its Dallas/Fort Worth-Frankfurt service on Monday, the day its pilots start a four-day strike.

But after that, there currently are no flights scheduled between D/FW Airport and Frankfurt for Tuesday-Thursday, the last three days of the strike.

Here's the complete schedule of Lufthansa flights to and from the United States for those four days:

Monday
LH 412 Munich - Newark
LH 413 Newark - Munich
LH 430 Frankfurt - Chicago
LH 431 Chicago - Frankfurt
LH 434 Munich - Chicago
LH 435 Chicago - Munich
LH 438 Frankfurt - Dallas Ft Worth
LH 439 Dallas Ft Worth - Frankfurt
LH 492 Frankfurt - Vancouver
LH 493 Vancouver - Frankfurt
LH 498 Frankfurt - Mexico City
LH 499 Mexico City - Frankfurt

Tuesday
LH 412 Munich - Newark
LH 413 Newark - Munich
LH 492 Frankfurt - Vancouver
LH 493 Vancouver - Frankfurt

Wednesday
LH 412 Munich - Newark
LH 413 Newark - Munich
LH 434 Munich - Chicago
LH 435 Chicago - Munich
LH 442 Frankfurt - Detroit
LH 443 Detroit - Frankfurt
LH 492 Frankfurt - Vancouver
LH 493 Vancouver - Frankfurt
LH 498 Frankfurt - Mexico City
LH 499 Mexico - City Frankfurt

Thursday
LH 412 Munich - Newark
LH 413 Newark - Munich
LH 434 Munich - Chicago
LH 435 Chicago - Munich
LH 490 Frankfurt - Seattle
LH 491 Seattle - Frankfurt
LH 492 Frankfurt - Vancouver
LH 493 Vancouver - Frankfurt

Lufthansa advises:

Customers can continue to obtain information about their bookings, as well as about the rebooking options and cancellations, at the toll-free number 1-800-645-3880 in the U.S. and 1- 800-563-5954 in Canada.

I wonder if American Airlines' Frankfurt flights are picking up a few passengers.

1. The fight for Haneda slots could get vicious. Delta has an interesting argument -- it should get more slots because it doesn't have a Japanese partner (although SkyTeam partner Korean Air does fly between Haneda and Seoul).

2. Why is that when you're prepared, you don't need to be prepared. It's only when you should have been prepared that you're not prepared. (Thanks, Department of Transportation, for making this an issue.)

3. Place your bets -- Which American Airlines union will be the first to ask the National Mediation Board to release them from mediation, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants or the Transport Workers Union? It looks like it could be a close race. As a tiebreaker, in what month will the NMB release them? In what year?

The long-awaited report by the U.S. Transportation Department's inspector general into FAA oversight of American Airlines' maintenance practices is being released today. We have a story in today's paper based on a copy we obtained.

In a nutshell, the report says FAA has failed to notice breakdowns in American's own maintenance and reliability programs. In one case, the inspector general discloses that FAA's AMR CMO (the oversight office in Fort Worth) failed for two years to perform "required routine surveillance" of American's CASS system, which is the key system for identifying maintenance deficiencies that could cause accidents. Had American's system been better, it might have prevented an in-flight engine fire that occurred in Sept. 2007, according to a National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the incident.

That nugget recalls the findings of another IG's report from 2008, which probed similar maintenance problems and oversight lapses involving Southwest Airlines and the FAA. The IG's report on that matter found that FAA inspectors in Dallas didn't check Southwest's program for complying with federal safety directives between 1999 and 2008. The check was 90 months overdue, the review found.

The FAA says in its response to the latest DOT IG's report that it already detected many of American's weaknesses in a special audit conducted in 2009. It says corrective measures are either completed or underway.

The IG's report is now posted on its Web site.

Here's the top of our Web story on the fine:

The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed a $2.9 million civil fine against Fort Worth-based American Eagle Airlines over improper landing gear door repairs.
The report said Eagle flew 1,178 flights with repairs that did not meet an airworthiness directive. Eagle, which is owned by American Airlines parent AMR Corp., has 30 days to respond to the proposed fine.
"Following airworthiness directives is not optional,'' said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt in a statement Wednesday. "The FAA does not hesitate to levy fines if maintenance standards are violated. Compliance with mandatory maintenance requirements ensures the highest levels of safety."

Here's the response from American Eagle - sorry I didn't get it up sooner.

American Eagle is disappointed that the FAA has issued a notice of proposed civil penalty for this case. Eagle conducted the inspections as called for in the Airworthiness Directive and made repairs when the inspection indicated a repair was required. Eagle self disclosed to the FAA that the repairs on certain aircraft may have been performed while the landing gear doors remained on the aircraft. Subsequent to Eagle's self disclosure, the FAA and the aircraft manufacturer approved the process for Eagle to repair the landing gear doors while they remained on the aircraft, therefore, we do not believe that this case involved a safety of flight issue, or that a civil penalty is warranted.

Having said all of this, the FAA has an established enforcement process to allow a carrier to review the FAA findings with the Agency and provide additional information concerning its case. Consistent with that process American Eagle looks forward to meeting with the FAA to discuss this matter.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek.com and management consulting firm Hay Group has come up with a Top 20 list of companies for leadership and how they develop leaders. Southwest Airlines ranks second on the list, behind General Electric.

Here's what the article had to say about Southwest:

"In an analysis of how survey respondents described their companies' cultures, three categories of organizations emerged. Some, such as Zappos.com and Southwest Airlines, are modern, learning-oriented, fun workplaces. Other large, global giants, such as P&G and GE, are complex companies with cultures that are more traditional. And some, including ABB, are known as 'collaboration for innovation' companies that accomplish work though self-organizing project teams and encourage employees to seek new approaches to solving problems.

"According to Elizabeth Bryant, senior director of talent management at Southwest Airlines, the leadership-development process reflects the company culture. 'It goes beyond formal training and is part of everyday life at Southwest, where employees at every level are exposed to leaders so they get to see how the leaders think,' she says. 'Even informal mentoring and exposure to company executives helps to broaden people's perspectives and stimulate their passion about the job.'

"According to Jeff Lamb, Southwest's chief people officer, the culture in which Southwest's employees work every day is no different from the culture in which the airline develops its future leaders. 'This kind of thing happens organically. There's no course on how to get so engaged that you volunteer to come in on a weekend.'

"Lamb insists that what makes the airline a great place for leaders is the same thing that makes it a great place for employees: 'the freedom to be yourself ... a lack of pretense; the hunger to learn.' He says it's not about any kind of program or leadership training, or how well the company develops talent, but in 'allowing people to enjoy their work.'"

The U.S. Department of Transportation has applications in hand from five airlines for routes between the United States and Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, and it should be making its decisions rather quickly.

Tuesday was the deadline for applications. The original deadline was Wednesday, Feb. 10, but the mountains of snow along the mid-Atlantic blew up the original schedule.

Interested parties have until March 1 to file answers (or provide legal trash-talking, as it usually is) to the applications. They'll have until March 8 to respond (trash-talk back) to those answers.

In their applications, the airlines talked about launching service in October, when a new runway at Haneda is expected to become operational. They need a decision well in advance of that so they can schedule their aircraft, set up their Haneda facilities and market the new service.

But as the DOT said in its original order setting up the Haneda proceeding: "The selected carrier or carriers cannot request Haneda slots for the IATA 2010 winter season until the Department has issued a final order formalizing the results of the proceeding."

Vereinigung Cockpit, the pilots union at Lufthansa, said Wednesday its members voted in favor of a walkout and it will start a four-day strike Monday.

Ergo, here's what Lufthansa is saying about it:

Lufthansa regrets any inconvenience that the industrial action may cause our passengers.

Lufthansa has set up a toll-free number in the US and Canada for customers to obtain information about their flight bookings, and for any re-bookings or cancellations.
The US number is: 1- 800 645-3880
The Canadian number is: 1 800- 563-5954

Information about ongoing flight operations can also be found at www.lufthansa.com under "Arrival and Departure."

Passengers who are already booked on a Lufthansa flight during February 22 to 25, 2010, and wish to change their travel plans can rebook once free of charge to another Lufthansa flight -- provided their ticket is issued before February 18, 2010 and their new travel date is before March 31, 2010. Their departure and arrival destinations must also remain the same.

Applicable rules for flight cancellations caused by strike action:
Should the purpose of a journey become null and void because of a flight cancellation, passengers can annul their flight booking free of charge.

Lufthansa has daily service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Frankfurt.

American Airlines spokeswoman Missy Latham has responded to the Transport Workers Union's statement that it will ask for a release from mediation if talks don't result in a deal by March 8:

"American believes any talk of 'impasse' or 'release' at this time is premature. A self-help determination is also not up to the union, even if it asks the mediator for such a ruling. Only the mediator, working with the NMB, decides when the parties will be released from mediation.

"Historically, negotiations settled during mediation in the airline industry last an average of 19 months after the mediator comes on board, and again on average, a declaration of impasse by the NMB takes even longer.

"American remains committed to the mediation process and focused on making further progress with TWU at the negotiating table. American Airlines and the Transport Workers Union have been in mediated talks with most groups for just about a year and have reached tentative agreements on 71 percent of all items."

The Transport Workers Union said Wednesday it will ask the National Mediation Board to release it from mediation if it doesn't get a deal in the next round of contract talks with American Airlines.

"Four years is time enough to settle a contract," TWU international president James C. Little said in TWU's statement.

"In the dark days of 2003, when AMR was in desperate financial straits, it took us just two weeks to reach an agreement which included major sacrifices from our members in order to keep this company alive," Little said.

"If we could get the job done in two weeks in 2003, an agreement years in the making can certainly be reached by March 8," he said.

The TWU represents more than 28,000 AA employees, including mechanics, baggage handlers, fleet service clerks and others -- nine bargaining units at American.

If the TWU does request a release, that could make two American unions wanting a clearance for a possible strike.

Association of Professional Flight Attendants president Laura Glading has told members her union will seek a release from mediation if it doesn't get a deal in the next round of talks, set for Feb. 27-March 3 in Washington, D.C.

To refresh everybody's memory, neither side in airline negotiations can engage in "self-help" until the talks go through a process set out in the Railway Labor Act. The NMB must make the decision to decide talks are at an impasse, not the negotiating parties.

If the NMB agrees that the talks are stuck, it will offer both sides binding arbitration to decide the remaining items that haven't been settled. If either side rejects arbitration, the NMB starts a 30-day clock ticking, the so-called "cooling-off" period.

If the 30 days end without a deal, either side can resort to self-help. For the union, that can be strikes or slowdowns, for example. The company could impose its last offer or lock the employees out, for example.

It's been a long time since the NMB has declared an impasse at one of the big U.S. passenger carriers and allowed a strike. Just asking for a release doesn't mean a union will get one.

In late October, Hawaiian Airlines pilots asked the National Mediation Board to release them from mediation. The NMB kept them in mediated talks, and in December, the airline and Air Line Pilots Association reached a tentative agreement. Members approved the deal in January.

For more from Little and John Conley, TWU air transport director, keep reading.

We've already developed our working theories on which U.S. airlines will win the much-desired slots at Haneda International Airport.

The envelope, please.

The winners are...Oneworld, SkyTeam, Star Alliance and Hawaiian Airlines.

To refresh your memories from yesterday, here are the airlines and the gateways from which they want to serve Haneda:

Detroit: Delta

Guam: Continental

Honolulu: Delta and Hawaiian

Los Angeles: American and Delta

New York: American and Continental

San Francisco: United

Seattle: Delta

American is Oneworld, Delta is SkyTeam and United and Continental are Star Alliance. Let's examine the possibilities.

First, it's hard to argue against San Francisco. That's a major airport for Asian travelers, particularly for United. Let's tentatively award the Star Alliance route to United.

That leaves Continental out in the cold, even thought its Newark hub serves the very big Asian population in the New York metro area, and Guam is a major hub for its Continental Micronesia subsidiary.

But I would guess that DOT will decide that if it has to give the flight to some Star airline, the SFO gateway is a better one.

That's because there's another applicant for a New York gateway, American's request for service from New York Kennedy. That takes care of Oneworld.

Delta is the one SkyTeam applicant here, so we'll presume they'll get one route, picked from Seattle, Los Angeles and Detroit. I'd rank Detroit and Los Angeles as a tie, with Seattle third.

It won't be considered for a Honolulu-Haneda flight because Hawaiian Airlines also wants to serve that market. Approving Hawaiian would give DOT a new entrant into the U.S.-Japan market, and DOT always wants to bring in new competition if there's a logical entrant.

Hawaiian flies to the Philippines, Australia, Tahiti and Samoa, but not Japan. Considering the large number of Japanese tourists that visit Hawaii, it would be a logical addition.

We could also see a scenario where Continental gets the New York flight, American gets the Los Angeles flight and United is left out of the mix.

We'll see. The lawyers are already busy at work on filings to tell the DOT why their airline's application is the best and why the other ones just aren't as good.

American Airlines is applying to fly to Tokyo's Haneda International Airport from New York Kennedy and Los Angeles.

Haneda is a close-in airport that wasn't available to U.S. carriers. But a memo of understanding inked last year would allow U.S. airlines to operate four flights a day to Haneda, which recently completed expansion that allows more flights.

Continental Airlines also announced it was applying for Haneda flights from Newark and Guam, and United Airlines is seeking a San Francisco-Haneda flight. Hawaiian Airlines wants to fly to Haneda from Honolulu.

The requests from American and Continental might seem a bit aggressive compared to the applicationis from United and Hawaiian for one flight each. At least they appear so before we saw the Delta Air Lines application, which seeks four flights from Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle and Honolulu.

In other words, Delta would take all four pairs of takeoff and landing slots that are being made available. But, again, it is the world's largest airline, and the world's largest airline logically would have the world's largest appetite.

The Haneda flights are in addition to the carriers' service to the larger Narita International Airport, which is farther out from central Tokyo. American flies to Narita from New York, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth and Los Angeles.

We haven't seen American's submission, but we presume it'll stress its newly strengthened partnership with Japan Airlines.

The U.S. Department of Transportation acts as the referee in route awards.

Keep reading for the better parts of the press releases from the five carriers. I'm made a partially futile effort to delete the puffery.

American Airlines and American Eagle will return to Haiti on Friday, about 5½ weeks after the massive earthquake hit the Caribbean nation. American said its flights would be the first commercial flights back into Haiti.

"All of us at American Airlines and American Eagle have been eager to restore our normal operations into Haiti," said Peter Dolara, American's senior vice president for Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America, in a press release.

"These flights serve as major milestones toward helping the country rebuild," he said. "With commercial air service restored, we can better connect loved ones and provide consistent transportation to and from Haiti."

American said it will provide the following service to Port-au-Prince:

• Two daily flights from Miami

• One daily flight from Fort Laurderdale

• Four flights a week from New York Kennedy

• One daily flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico

• Beginning March 12, two daily flights from San Juan to Port-au-Prince through Santo Domingo and Santiago, the Dominican Republic.

American also offered this quote from Ralph Latortue, Haiti's consul general for the southern United States:

"We have begun our journey to recover from the catastrophic earthquake, but with support from companies like American Airlines, we hope it won't be nearly as long.

"We are very grateful to American Airlines and American Eagle for their continued commitment to Haiti. Not only are they the first passenger airlines to return to Haiti, they were the first commercial airlines to start bringing relief supplies to help our people."

Isn't it interesting how Southwest Airlines always seems so often to be in the middle of controversial, yet ultimately insignificant, issues that capture the public's attention?

The latest is the brouhaha over actor and director Kevin Smith's unhappiness that he was allowed to grab a standby seat on a full Southwest Airlines flight Saturday night, then asked to get off because the airline thought he was too broad to occupy one seat.

Smith was all a-Twitter about it, Tweeting about how stupid and wrong he thought the carrier's actions had been. He's kept it up, even though Southwest fairly quickly offered an apology and $100 voucher.

In September 2007, we had the "too sexy to fly" incident in San Diego in which Kyla Ebbert was briefly booted from a Southwest flight because a Southwest employee determined that her outfit was too revealing.

In February 2008, we had the "too pretty to fly" incident in which two 18-year-old girls were removed from a flight. They said they thought the older Southwest flight attendants were just jealous of their youth and good looks; the airline said it was because the two behaved very, very badly on the airplane.

We had the case of the 2001 flight in which two older African-American sisters were deeply offended because a young Southwest Airlines flight attendant said over the public address system: "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, grab a seat, we got to go."

The flight attendant had never heard the racially offensive version of that rhyme, but the two passengers were well aware of it from their youth. In 2004, the sisters lost their racial-discrimination lawsuit.

We had the October 2009 case in which a noisy California toddler and his mom were removed from an Amarillo flight. The reason, Southwest said, was that the boy was yelling so loudly that passengers couldn't hear the flight attendants' safety instructions.

And, of course, the Saturday incident with Kevin Smith isn't the first time that Southwest's policy on large passengers has come into play.

Just last September, a 350-pound Illinois man was outraged when Southwest wouldn't let him fly back from Las Vegas to Chicago. He said he was told he was "too fat."

Southwest said he was advised that he could buy a second seat for half price, and that he was removed for becoming belligerent, not for obesity.

And this doesn't get into controversial situations that Southwest willingly embraces, such as its decision to put the photo of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model down both sides of one airplane. The model was wearing nothing but a (you guessed it) swimsuit.

There's no conclusion here, just an observation that Southwest and splashy controversies seem to go together.

The International Air Transport Association said Monday that premium passengers on international flights increased 1.7 percent in December over December 2008, the first year-over-year increase since May 2008.

"2009 was a year of very distinct halves," IATA said, "with severe recession early in the year and post-recession upturn in the second half." IATA added that "at its low point in May premium travel was down 25 percent.

IATA said the number of international passengers flying in premium seats is still down 17 percent from early 2008, even though the premium numers are up 11 percent from May 2009.

"This implies that premium travel has lost six years of growth," IATA said.

Inside North America, the picture isn't so rosy. IATA said the number of premium passengers was down 13.3 percent in December from a year earlier, and down 20.1 percent for the full year.

Across the North Atlantic, premium traffic decreased 1.1 percent in December and 12.2 percent in 2009. Across the North and Mid Pacific, premium traffic dropped 1.1 percent in December and 12.2 percent for the year.

But to and from North America, international premium traffic increased 18.9 percent to South America, 5.9 percent to Central America,

About budget passengers, IATA said:

• "Economy travel was 5% higher in December than a year earlier; • "Economy travel hit a low in February with a year-on-year decline of 9%;

• "Since then economy travel has risen 7% but by December the size of this market was still 3% smaller than in early 2008;

• "Economy travel has lost just over two years of growth."

For those of you craving the lastest from Director Kevin Smith and his Quest To Shame Southwest Airlines for yanking him off a flight, you can follow his Tweet-rage right here.

The headline is that Smith, director of several very funny films (your mileage will vary on them) and several films that no one understands how they were released (I'm looking at you, "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"), says that he actually passed the carrier's test on whether a "person of size" gets to stay in his seat and not have to buy 2 tickets. He says on his tweets that he typically buys 2 tickets because he, frankly, doesn't like to interact with people on the plane and he's darn shy. (His "Silent Bob" character is known for not really saying much of anything in his films)

The background: Smith had purchased 2 tickets for his scheduled Southwest flight and had no problems on the way there; on the way back he tried to stand by for an earlier flight, which went well except for the flight was full and there weren't 2 extra seats for him. No problem, Smith says, as he put the armrests down on each side of the middle seat in the front row and also buckled his seat belt without an extender, which he claims in his tweets is also part of the test but others say it's NOT part of Southwest's test.

Smith argues that since he passed those tests, he didn't need 2 seats and the whole incident was taken to crazy proportions by Southwest. Maybe the flight captain really despised Smith's "Jersey Girl."

Hm. I'm not sure Southwest is going to say much beyond the apology it already gave out and reiterating its "of size" policy guidelines. Southwest says this a.m. that there's nothing to add. Here's Southwest's response via its BlogSouthwest if you want their initial take on this.

A little behind-the-scenes tale about how I wrote a story Saturday about American Airlines' getting approval for its Oneworld alliance across the North Atlantic.

And may I add, if I were smart, I would have just let the Dallas Morning News run the Associated Press or Bloomberg story.

But it galled me to have someone else write a story that I should write, and I'll tell you one very good reason why: I had already written the story.

I prepared a long article Friday and was just waiting for the DOT to issue the order that afternoon so I could add the actual findings and get some quotes.

But the DOT for unknown reasons (see my theories a couple of items below) did not issue the order Friday. It never issues these things on Saturday, and Monday would be a federal holiday. So Tuesday would be the first possible date it would be issued.

About 3 p.m. Saturday, a DMN editor, John Gandy called me to tell me that the DOT had issued a ruling and asked what we wanted to do since I was off.

In fact, I was way off - about 280 miles away in a backyard in Pasadena, Texas, helping dismantle and load a weight-machine I had bought for my wife.

Well, dang. I had the story written. We couldn't run a wire story. But I didn't have my computer with me. So here became the sequence of events.

1. I called my wife at home, where she was sitting in the dark wondering when the power would come back on (the answer was after about 10 a.m. Sunday, some 50 hours after the electricity failed). I asked her to take the computer somewhere where she could access the Internet.

2. She took the computer to the Arlington branch library near our house. I guided her through logging on, finding the story, logging onto email and sending the story.

3. My iPhone battery died around 4 p.m. just as we were finishing. I didn't have a charger with me.

4. I found a payphone to make a call - 50 cents anywhere in the U.S. I had about 65 cents in coins, enough for one call. I called my wife to tell her to send the story to Gandy. Instead, I got her voice mail.

5. I jumped in my minivan and drove 31 miles to a Fry's Electronics in north Houston where I could get an iPhone car charger. Got there about 4:45 p.m.

6. Checked out of Fry's in the longest Fry's line I've ever seen, not including that time in Arlington when all the credit card readers at the cash registers didn't work.

7. Got the charger plugged into my iPhone about 5:10 p.m. Waited a long, long five minutes for it to charge up enough to turn back on.

8. Called John Gandy, found that he got the story, without any modifications yet. Called my wife, thanked her.

9. Drove to a nearby Burger King with Wi-Fi. I had 15% power on the iPhone. Bought a small drink and cheeseburger.

10. Downloaded and read the 44-page order on my iPhone (try that sometime).

11. Copied and pasted my original story from an email to Notes on the iPhone.

12. Downloaded American's comment from Internet, pasted into the Notes file.

13. Downloaded DOT announcement from Internet, pasted into the Notes file.

14. Rewrote the story on the iPhone (try that sometime, too).

15. Phone ran out of power, shut down again.

16. Returned to minivan, plugged in charger, waited a long, long five minutes.

17. Emailed the story to Gandy, looked for more comments, emailed them to Gandy.

18. Called my wife, told her I was about done.

19. Read email from Gandy with edited story, liked it, emailed back. Talked by phone to say I was heading out.

20. Drove four hours back home to Arlington, arriving to a Hampton Inn shortly before midnight.

21. Joined family where they had relocated while the electricity was out. Got onto my laptop and read the final version.

22. Around midnight, hunted down a copy desk chief to ask for one last change to the story.

23. And then I was done.

Isn't technology wonderful? Isn't technology frustrating?

Look at this airplane and explain its history.

Answer below.