The new terminal at Beijing airport is big. No, wait, I mean it's REALLY BIG. That is, REALLY FUCKING BIG. And there's plenty of other massive construction projects underway in Beijing, many designed by European architects. Like they say, though, if you wanna make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs. And well, they seem to be doing a better job of that than these guys.
posted on Feb 27, 2008 - View this thread

Discussion of the beauty and consequences of urban decay pops up here from time to time. In 1992 Lambert-St. Louis International Airport began its expansion program. The airport's website has a timeline and lots of photos. Since the planning began, there has been a fair amount of controversy of one form or another surrounding the expansion. Despite all the shininess of their press releases, things are progressing very slowly. The people who have been impacted most, however, are the people who lived in the communities on top of which the expansion is happening. They have all been displaced.
posted on Nov 21, 2007 - View this thread

After several disagreements between the Texas cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, the Greater Fort Worth International Airport at Amon Carter Field opened on April 25th, 1953.
posted on Sep 26, 2007 - View this thread

I now know what to do in case I ever got stuck on an airplane that's not going anywhere- organize and stage a revolt, like the passengers of Continental flight 1669.
posted on Aug 16, 2007 - View this thread

Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 1) Part one of five, Bruce Schneier chats it up with Kip, TSA Administrator. The TSA and airport security have long been hot topics on Metafilter; here is a chance to read some hard questions put to the man himself and his answers.
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

Last week, a woman at DC's Reagan Airport was detained because of water in her son's sippy cup. In an unusual step, the TSA has posted their own Mythbusters site where they show the security footage and the official incident report. Here is BoingBoing's take on the video. And a security/security technology blogger posts about the larger lesson that people readily side against the TSA "because there's no accountability or transparency in the DHS."
posted on Jun 18, 2007 - View this thread

The TSA would like to help you travel with your service animal. As with any set of guidelines, sometimes people try to game the system.
posted on Dec 21, 2006 - View this thread

Bare naked travel? (Previously on MeFi: here, except now they're actually doing it, and here). The TSA wants to see you naked. Just don't paint "Kip Hawley Is An Idiot" on your torso in Pepto-Bismol before you go to the airport.
posted on Dec 3, 2006 - View this thread

"Kip Hawley is an Idiot". Careful what you say about the Director of the TSA when you're waiting to pass airport security.
posted on Oct 2, 2006 - View this thread

News of stupidity in the fight against terrorism: Up to three years in jail for not loudly enunciating, in front of his mom, that he had a penis pump. If you do not know that you are an American citizen, it's your fault and you may be deported as an illegal alien. Manhattan train stopped because of some woman's bottle of iced tea? BC Ferry delayed 3 hours because of a forgotten briefcase (my coworker lives next to the terminal and has learned that this was an RCMP officer's briefcase, though that detail has not made the media). There are so many of these stories...we really need one place to group them all together.
posted on Aug 24, 2006 - View this thread

Bunny versus Airbus A380. The bunny was on the runway as the A380 came in for a landing, but managed to avoid getting pancaked by bolting as the behemoth decelerated. We salute you, Runway Bunny.
posted on Jun 19, 2006 - View this thread

Traveling soon? Check out your airport's food for health or taste. A move away from single concessionaires has brought star chefs and big money to some locations and frustrated locals (Sea-Tac, halfway through article) in others. But the overall airport-food picture is still weak enough to inspire six pages of Rooneyesque diatribe. [more inside]
posted on Dec 19, 2005 - View this thread

Looking for detailed flight info? This site takes airplane flight tracking to air traffic control levels. Be sure to check out the complete airport status and the facinating flight movies.
posted on Nov 4, 2005 - View this thread

The quite amazing true story of the man on which Spieldberg's new Terminal is based. A tale of Iran, torture, McDonalds' breakfasts, dry-cleaning, and a man who really doesn't seem that well. And who doesn't meet and fall in love with Catherine Zeta Jones.
posted on Sep 6, 2004 - View this thread

I *heart* Bea Arthur:

Bea Arthur sparked a security scare at Logan Airport in Boston this week when she tried to board a Cape Air flight with a pocketknife in her handbag. The "Golden Girls" star, now 81, was flagged by a Transportation Security Administration agent, who discovered the knife - a strict no-no following 9/11. "She started yelling that it wasn't hers and said 'The terrorists put it there,' " a fellow passenger said. "She kept yelling about the 'terrorists, the terrorists, the terrorists.' " After the blade was confiscated, Arthur took a keyring from her bag and told the agent it belonged to the "terrorists," before throwing it at them. As she boarded the plane, she told the TSA employees, "We're all doomed."

Kuro5hin offers a novel proposition: Bea for President!
posted on Aug 28, 2004 - View this thread

Buying biometrically into big brother? Privium is an IBM-backed pay service at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport that allows passengers to identify themselves by iris recognition and thus speed their way through security checks. This being the privacy-respecting Netherlands, the biometric information is not stored in a central database, but only on a card you carry with you; other countries may not be so enlightened. This could well become a standard form of identification. In the meantime, could the failure to buy this service qualify someone as a security or insurance risk?
posted on Apr 29, 2004 - View this thread

EFF co-founder John Gilmore was prevented from flying because he was wearing a button deemed to be in "poor taste" and refused to take it off. Seems he won't be flying anywhere for a while, unless he wins his court case. [Source: Boing Boing]
posted on Jul 19, 2003 - View this thread

Meigs Field, a small Chicago lakefront airport, has been destroyed on the orders of Mayor Richard Daley. Citing terrorism concerns because of its proximity to Chicago's largest buildings, Daley sent in heavy machinery to dig large Xs into the runway. Here's Daley's press release, the initial reaction from the FAA, and the website of the Friends of Meigs Field.
posted on Apr 1, 2003 - View this thread

Purchasing an one-way airplane ticket with cash May trigger airport security alert on you. No credit card ? Bad Guy ! Credit Card ? Good guy ! Unofficially sponsored by VISA or Amex ?
posted on Feb 28, 2003 - View this thread

Federal V.I.P. Penn Gillette almost gets his "crank grabbed." Not quite as concerning as the pregnant woman who got her breasts groped by security at the airport but it's an interesting read.
posted on Jan 5, 2003 - View this thread

2" GI Joe Rifle Confiscated in Airport Security Crackdown Airport security staff confiscated a TWO-INCH plastic gun from a toy soldier. "They examined the toy as if it was going to shoot them . . . Then they asked me if there were toy grenades as well. I thought they were joking, but they weren’t smiling — they were deadly serious." Have the terrorists already won?
posted on Aug 5, 2002 - View this thread

Is the passenger screening less secure than purely random screening? According to the write-up in this paper, complete with probabilistic analysis and computer simulation, the answer is yes. I've hijacked the link from BoingBoing.
posted on Jul 24, 2002 - View this thread

LAX shooter is innocent What is the source of this incessant sense of denial that permeates arab society? Between the "absurdity" of an Egyptian pilot committing suicide, the computer generated videos of OBL, and the "impossibility" of a hate crime, why is it that arabs have an over-arching sense of impossibiility of committing crimes of such sort? Is there no crime in arab countries? Do criminal defenses take to form of "I'm a muslim, muslims can't commit crimes, so I didn't do it?".
posted on Jul 8, 2002 - View this thread

Gunman kills one at LAX El Al terminal , is killed by security personnel. Developing. Happy freakin' Fourth of July.
posted on Jul 4, 2002 - View this thread

Airport Security Tightens: Al Gore stopped twice for extra screening
posted on Jun 14, 2002 - View this thread

"You can't professionalize unless you federalize", we were told. So, this is a professional case of giardia, I guess. Still, the kid COULD have mentioned that the muck was a project, and not his favorite tonic.
posted on Apr 9, 2002 - View this thread

Robbers escape with $3m (£2.1m) in cash after hijacking a van at Heathrow Airport, London, the second such raid there in recent weeks. Nice to see that security has improved then, at the worlds busiest airport after 9/11. via BBC
posted on Mar 19, 2002 - View this thread

No Profiling, No Saftey? ...to placate special interest groups that fear profiling will result in widespread racial or religious discrimination, authorities are imposing screening quotas that are unlikely to thwart a future terrorist attack. They should be doing the very opposite by creating more sophisticated profiling systems that catch real criminals. Is it really "damned if they do, damned if they don't" or is there a better way?
posted on Mar 11, 2002 - View this thread

Targeting Toddler Terrorists "There, at midnight, is a 30-pound, 36-inch-tall peanut with his arms and legs spread, wand searching his body, one security agent removing his shoes to check for explosives and another rummaging through his Scooby-Doo backpack."
posted on Feb 26, 2002 - View this thread

A Congressman gets debriefed. In other news, lawmakers finally reap what they sow.
posted on Jan 8, 2002 - View this thread

New travel package minimizes the amount of time it takes for you to get from the airport to the beach. Now you can get off the plane, and start swimming and sunbathing in no time! Isn't this amazing?
posted on Dec 12, 2001 - View this thread

Terrorism is always disgusting, but this is just plain gross. Wired wonders if terrorists will start carrying explosives inside their bodies. They don't explain whether they'll, uh, "remove" them before detonation. Will Argenbright start issuing rubber gloves? And on a more serious note, does this underscore the fact that planes can never be fully secure, meaning I can get my plastic lunch knife back? (I think so.)
posted on Dec 6, 2001 - View this thread

Some people are so lazy that they’ll hold up the busiest airport in the world for 3 hours, rather than be inconvenienced. Is this a sign of social breakdown, this inability to follow the rules of civilization, or am I just a curmudgeon? Or both?
posted on Nov 17, 2001 - View this thread

This is fascism.
posted on Nov 16, 2001 - View this thread

How, exactly, did this happen? I'll tell you how. I happened to be at O' Hare yesterday, and the security drones there were about as dumb as a bag of wet mice (more in comments).
posted on Nov 5, 2001 - View this thread

Hillary tries to run a security check point if John Q Public were to attempt this, what do you think would happen?
posted on Oct 15, 2001 - View this thread

In the case of airport security, the free market has failed to provide for the public good.
posted on Sep 26, 2001 - View this thread

Now is probably a poor time to start making bomb jokes at the airport.
posted on Sep 20, 2001 - View this thread

Senator Biden says that yesterday's arrests at NY airports were NOT connected to Tuesday's attacks, and those arrested were not carrying knives.
posted on Sep 14, 2001 - View this thread

This is a list of airports currently meeting FAA security standards. Possibly of some benefit to those needing to use air travel for business, to reunite with loved ones, etc. I discovered this link while visiting Flightview, which has been down most of the day, presumably due to traffic. Flightview is a flight tracking system which runs on standard PCs.
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Let me take you down (from 15,000 feet), 'cause we're going to... be landing at John Lennon Airport. The renaming ceremony for Liverpool's airport takes place on Monday. So, who else deserves an airport named after them? [more]
posted on Jun 29, 2001 - View this thread

Boeing chooses Chicago for new corporate headquarters. This, despite O'Hare's growing reputation for cancellations and delays, and the gridlocked politics that prevent a near-term solution to the air transportation problems in Chicago.
posted on May 10, 2001 - View this thread

Didn't these folks do this last year with Apple's "Airport"? Perhaps they should heed the advise/wisdom of Mr. Bentham...
posted on Jun 9, 2000 - View this thread

Apple is going to have to rename it's AirPort for the Japanese market because of a previous trademark already issued for the name. They're going to call it AirMac instead. Hmmm... Seems to me they could have put a bit more oomph into it, like AirThang or AirConnector. Must have been pressed for time to get the thing launched.
posted on Jan 28, 2000 - View this thread

Of course, I want one of these, but more exciting than that is the new wireless LAN. At work, we have a 1Mbps wireless than that cost thousands, but this looks 10x faster at 1/5 the cost.
posted on Jul 21, 1999 - View this thread