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USAIR JET CRASHES INTO FRIGID HUDSON RIVER A US Airways pilot ditched his disabled jetliner into the frigid Hudson River on Thursday afternoon after a collision with a flock of birds apparently knocked out both engines, but officials said rescuers pulled all 155 people on board into boats as the plane sank. After boats rushed to the rescue, the Federal Aviation Administration said that all passengers on US Airways Flight 1549 were off the plane and safe. The pilot, Chesley "Scully" Sullenberger of Danville CA, walked the plane twice after the crash to make sure all of the passengers and crew were safe, Bloomberg said. Most of the rescued were picked up right away and put on police, Coast Guard and ferry boats. He says divers pulled a few passengers from underwater. Sullenberger is an airline safety expert who has consulted with NASA and others, according to his resume posted on the Internet. He has 40 years of experience, 30 with US Airways.

PLENTY OF ROOMS IN PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY/MANASSAS, VA FOR DC PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION Prince William County invites visitors to stay there while bearing witness to history in the making during the monumental inauguration of the country's 44th president. Located just 30 miles from Washington, D.C., Prince William County/Manassas, Virginia is an ideal base for the 2009 Inaugural events. With lodging still available pricing from $150.00 to $599.00 per night, and with easy access to Washington, D.C. via Virginia Railway Express or Metro. Virginia Railway Express is currently selling reserved seats for the inaugural trains. The Metro will operate on a first-come, first served basis. "Itís a bonus for visitors who are finding ëno room at the inní from Baltimore to Norfolk. Staying in Prince William, so close to the Capital," claims Interim Director of the Prince William County/Manassas CVB, Sharon Cavileer, "affords visitors easy access to DC, excellent restaurants, affordable accommodations and warm Virginia hospitality."

GATWICK GOING PRIVATE? Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways, and Sir Stelios Haji-loannou, owner of easyJet, are planning to make a £ 2.5 billion bid to purchase Gatwick Airport (LGW). The carriers are looking for financial backers to help them take over Britainís second largest airport. While neither airline would financially contribute, both would promise to base a certain amount of aircraft at Gatwick to support future revenues. A representative for Virgin Atlantic confirmed the airline is looking to form a consortium to purchase the airport. Other potential consortium buyers include Vancouver Airports, Citigate Infrastructure and John Hancock, a U.S. financial services company. The airport went up for sale this summer and the auction process is expected to begin by the end of the year.

CHANGING AIRTRAN The only low-cost carrier featuring a full-service business class, AirTran, has continued to upgrade the service. Passengers may now upgrade to business class in two new ways: 24 hours prior to departure while checking in online and onboard before departure or at cruising altitude. The cost to upgrade ranges from $49 to $99.The airline has also become the latest carrier to institute checked bag fees. Beginning with bookings placed on or after Nov. 12, customers traveling on or after Dec. 5 will be charged $15 for the first checked bag. Business class travelers and A+ Rewards Elite members will be exempt from the charges.

LIFE IN THE FAMILY LANE The Transportation Security Administration will be opening family lanes at almost every U.S. airport for the Thanksgiving holiday. The lanes are designed to ease stress for parents traveling with children. The lanes, which allow families to move at their own pace, feature assistants to help parents and special scanners for ìmedically necessaryî liquids like baby formula. The lanes will be open by Nov. 20 and will be in place permanently, but will be managed according to traffic flow. Many airports have already started their own family lanes, as well as expert lanes and casual traveler lanes, and all have been found to be extremely popular among travelers.

BIOFUEL PLANE GOES INTERNATIONAL Green Flight International completed the first U.S. cross-country flight with a jet-powered aircraft fueled mainly with biofuel. An Aero L-29 jet trainer flew from Reno, Nev. to Leesburg, Fla., a total of 2,486 miles. The first 1,776 miles were flown using 100 percent biofuel, while the last 710 miles used a combination of 50 percent biofuel and 50 percent standard jet fuel. Certain modifications were made to use the biofuel, including landing with a 25 percent fuel reserve and flying at 13,000 to 17,000 feet. The company is now planning flights in 2009 using algae-based biofuel. Air New Zealand, Continental and Japan Airlines are all planning demonstration flights using second-generation biofuels in 2009.

DELTA STARTS CHARGING BAG FEE Delta Air Lines will impose a $15 fee to check a first bag. The fee will apply to traffic within the U.S. on or after Dec. 5. The charge for checking a second bag will be $25.

AMERICAN BEGINS DAILY SERVICE TO ST. KITTS American Airlines has started daily non-stop service from Miami to St. Kitts. The airline had previously operated just five such flights weekly.

SKI SHOPS INCREASING RENTAL INVENTORY Colorado ski-rental shops are expanding inventory to make it easy for vacationers to rent equipment amid increasing airline baggage fees, according to The Denver Post.

The spike in inventory at some shops comes as industry experts say bringing all the necessary ski equipment in a second, oversized bag can cost skiers as much as $250 each way on some airlines, and that's not counting what it would cost to bring skis for the whole family.

SNOWBIRD OPENS FOR SKIERS Chilly temperatures and a few early snowstorms are allowing ski resorts to open earlier than usual, with the first in Utah opening Nov. 7 at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort. Utah's main competitor in the winter sports industry is Colorado, which had five ski areas open the weekend Snowbird opened. "Mother Nature is getting us off to a really nice start," said Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah. "Right now everybody is just going berserk in getting ready to go skiing. Our phones are ringing and everybody's excited." One industry-touted advantage of skiing in Utah is that some resorts are as close as a 30-minute drive from downtown Salt Lake City. By comparison, some of Colorado's resorts require a two-hour drive from Denver International Airport.

NEW YORK ON ICE The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is opening a 150-foot-by-80-foot outdoor ice rink. Skaters will share the rink with a 17-foot-tall sculpture of a polar bear. The rink will be open to the public from Nov. 22 through Feb. 28.

WHALE WATCHING MADE EASY A whale exhibit from New Zealand has opened at the National Geographic Museum in Washington. "Whales Tohora," on view through Jan. 18, features a nearly 60-foot sperm whale skeleton and a model of a blue whale's heart that visitors can crawl through.

CHEAPER TICKETS Some tourist destinations are dropping prices in response to the struggling economy. For example, Madame Tussauds Washington, D.C., which showcases lifelike wax figures of celebrities, will reduce its admission prices, starting on Election Day, from $18 to $10 for adults. The price for children will be cut from $12 to $8. In Manhattan, the Sports Museum of America announced price reductions too. The top ticket price is now $16, compared with $27 when the museum opened earlier this year. The Washington Nationals lowered some of their season ticket prices for next season. And the Oakland A's are doubling the number of $2 seats for Wednesday games next season-and throwing in $1 hot dogs for the whole stadium.

LAWSUIT BLOCKS MERGER OF MICHIGAN SKI RESORTS Indianhead Mountain Enterprises has announced that discussions on the merger of Indianhead, Big Powderhorn Mountain and Blackjack Mountain resorts in Michigan have ended. Indianhead had intended to acquire the resorts, but a lawsuit related to the sale of Big Powderhorn has tied up the property until the suit is resolved.

ENTERPRISE RAC WINS AGAIN Customer satisfaction with renting cars at airports declined for a second consecutive year, according to a J.D. Power and Associates survey. Enterprise ranked highest in customer satisfaction among rental companies for a fifth consecutive year, followed by Hertz and Alamo. The study measures overall customer satisfaction with renting cars at airports by looking at costs and fees, pickup process, rental car, return process, reservation process and shuttle bus/van. The latest survey showed that overall satisfaction declined from 750 points on a 1,000-point scale last year to 734 this year. Despite the drop in satisfaction, only one in 10 customers said they had a significant problem in the rental experience.

Book about 500 places to see before they disappear They include the last of their kind, unique landmarks, places threatened by rising or falling seas or development, and homes for species or phenomena that might not last forever. These are some of the things you'll find in Frommer's 500 Places to See Before They Disappear (Wiley's, $19.99). The book features natural and historic sites, from ancient places of worship, to disappearing landscapes, to one-of-a-kind cultural treasures like Boston's Fenway Park, one of America's last original ballparks. The list includes Fraser Island, Australia, made entirely of sand and threatened by rising sea levels; the Grove of Osun-Osogbo, a sacred primeval forest in Nigeria and UNESCO heritage site; the Dead Sea in Israel, where water levels have been dropping; and the chestnut tree that Anne Frank gazed upon while hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam. The tree has a fungal disease but work has been undertaken to preserve it.

DISNEY PLANS HAWAII RESORT Disney's plan for a Hawaii hotel complex is far from another Disneyland, both in distance and concept. But Walt Disney Parks & Resorts' first venture in the islands will add 830 hotel and vacation time-share rooms, a fantasy-laden water play area and an 18,000 square-foot spa to the rapidly expanding Ko Olina resort on West Oahu. The complex is expected to be completed in 2011. It'll be the first such complex for Disney away from a theme park, combining a 350-room hotel with 480 vacation villas on one of Ko Olina's four man-made lagoons, which already feature a Marriott hotel and timeshares, a luxury condominium project and wedding chapels. Disney has several themed resort hotels near Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida, but it never has built a hotel and time-share complex that will stand on its own. Hawaii has no full-scale amusement park.

SE TENNESSEE WANTS TOURIST FOR CIVIL WAR ANNIVERSARY Chattanooga-area officials are working to lure tourists to lesser-known Civil War sites over the next few years as the region looks ahead to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which begins in 2011 and runs for four years. The Southeast Tennessee Tourism Association has plotted dozens of historic sites on a driving tour and produced a brochure highlighting some lesser-known Civil War landmarks.

North Georgia already has driving tours similar to the Southeast Tennessee trail. The Blue and Gray Trail guide, created by the Historic High Country Travel Association, directs motorists to about 60 sites, including battlefields, national park units and museums in Chattanooga and Northwest Georgia.

Queen Elizabeth 2 leaves New York for the last time After four decades of plying the world's oceans, the cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2 made its final visit to New York. The ship is scheduled to be converted into a five-star floating hotel in Dubai, the flashy resort center in the United Arab Emirates. Its send-off from the Big Apple earlier this month featured a rendezvous with sister ship Queen Mary 2 at the Statue of Liberty and a fireworks shower before the two cruise ships headed home to Britain together. They had a similar rendezvous last January but that event also included the newest Cunard liner, Queen Victoria. Launched in 1969, the QE2 has made at least 26 round-the-world voyages and weathered a 95-foot wave during an Atlantic hurricane. At 70,000 tons - less than half the size of the QM2 - it is still considered big enough to succeed as a desert luxury hotel. The ship's final trip will run from Southampton, England, to Dubai, in November.

Celebrity Solstice launches Nov. 23, includes grass deck since at least 20 people died in the riots following the December 27 poll which resulted in the re-election of president Mwai Kibaki. The new Celebrity Solstice cruise ship with a half-acre lawn of real grass on the top deck is scheduled to launch Nov. 23 from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on a cruise to the eastern Caribbean. The seven-night itinerary includes port calls in San Juan, St. Maarten and St. Kitts. Rates start at $899 per person, double occupancy, and rooms were still available as of mid-October. The ship can carry 2,850 people, including about 1,250 crew.

Amtrak offers USA Rail Pass to United States residents Amtrak's USA Rail Pass is now available for purchase in the U.S. Until recently, the pass could be bought only by travelers who lived outside the country. The passes are available for 15, 30 and 45 days of travel. The 15-day pass offers eight segments of travel for $389. The 30-day pass offers 12 segments of travel for $579. The 45-day pass offers 18 segments of travel for $749. Amtrak counts a segment of travel each time a passenger boards a train or connecting Amtrak Thruway bus. The passes are priced the same regardless of when you travel, but you must begin your journey within 180 days of purchase. Keep in mind the pass is not a ticket. Passengers must also have a ticket and reservation for each train they board. If your travels are likely to take you to multiple points in California, you might be better off with Amtrak's California Rail Pass, which offers seven days of travel in a 21-day period for $159. The USA Rail Pass is not valid for travel on Amtrak's Auto Train or Acela Express. Other restrictions apply.

Congress tries to ease restrictions on Cuba travel Democrats controlling Congress are trying to loosen restrictions on allowing people of Cuban descent to visit their relatives on the island. But efforts underway in Congress - including a measure adopted by a Senate panel on Thursday - appear unlikely to loosen the restrictions before President Bush leaves office in January. The Senate panel would block enforcement of restrictions imposed in 2004 on family travel to Cuba. Prior to the 2004 policy change, Cuban-Americans could travel to Cuba once a year to visit relatives, spend up to $170 a day and visit for an unlimited duration. Now, family visits are limited to once every three years for no more than 14 days. Spending is capped at $50 per day.

Disney Googles 3D Map of Disney World Tourists overwhelmed by the mind-boggling size of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., will now be able to plan their tour with the help of a 3D Google Earth map created by the Walt Disney Co. The map of the four theme parks and 22 hotels at Disney World shows souvenir shacks, merry-go-round horses and even benches for resting. Google Earth, an interactive 3D mapping program, allows users to create travelogues by embedding photos, videos and commentary about locations they highlight. Disney called its entry the largest corporate initiative on Google Earth.

Impressionist art by women at San Francisco museum Impressionist paintings by four women will be the focus of a summer exhibition at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The new exhibition, "Women Impressionists: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzales, Marie Bracquemond," will run through Sept. 21. The museum says that in the 19th century, these painters were ''marginalized because of strict social rules and the artists' gender" and that they were "treated with critical ambivalence.'' All four women were born in the 1840s, lived in Paris and were members of Impressionist

Hotel rooms still available for Beijing Olympics There are still plenty of hotel rooms available for the Beijing Olympics. Tourism officials said the crunch that was predicted doesn't seem to be happening. About 500,000 foreigners were expected for the games, a figure Beijing officials have long been predicting. But only 77 percent of capacity at Beijing's five-star hotels have been booked during the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games, and the four-star hotel rate is only 44 percent. And it's even lower for three- and two-stars.

One reason could be China's crack down on visa procedures, targeting students and others on short-term stays who might be activists intent on protesting during the Olympics.

Royal Caribbean names world's largest ships The Miami-based cruise operator said that Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas were chosen in a "Name that Ship" contest. The names were submitted by George Weiser of Livonia, Mich. Oasis of the Seas will hold 5,400 passengers and is scheduled to launch late next year. Allure of the Seas will launch in 2010. Both ships will be more than 35 percent bigger than the current largest cruise ship, based on volume.

Summer Air Far hikes Look out! Major carriers have more than doubled or even tripled their cheapest U.S. fares from last summer's fares. That's on top of the new fees for checking luggage and other services.

The major airlines have raised fares about a dozen times since late last year to offset skyrocketing costs for jet fuel, which has nearly doubled in price over the past year, pushing most airlines into the red. Other carriers are also adding or increasing fees for things such as checking a second piece of luggage, changing flights and putting a pet on board. In May, American will begin charging $15 for the first checked bag.

United Airline cuts With the merger option off the table for now, Chicago-based United Airlines is slashing its fleet, cutting hundreds more jobs and a yet-to-be-determined number of routes to avoid a financial disaster as fuel prices soar and the economy slows.

The nation's No. 2 carrier will cut mainline domestic capacity by 17 percent to 18 percent in 2009 and trim international capacity by 4 percent to 5 percent. It also is scrapping the coach-only Ted service, adding first-class seats to those jets.

American, the nation's biggest airline, is cutting domestic capacity 11 to 12 percent after the peak summer travel season but already has begun trimming flights. American will end its short-lived service from New York to London's Stansted Airport and drop a daily nonstop flight from Chicago to Honolulu. The carrier also is pulling out of Oakland, Calif. It plans to retire 45 to 50 planes, most of them gas-guzzling MD-80s, and its American Eagle sister carrier will retire 30 to 35 jets.

Pirates of Africa take yacht Pirates have seized a French cruising yacht off the coast of Somalia, with 30 crewmembers and no passengers onboard, according to the cruise line. Compagnie des Iles du Ponant said its 64-passenger sailing yacht, Le Ponant, was taken over by pirates in the in the Gulf of Aden, between Somalia and Yemen, as it was sailing from the Seychelles to the Mediterranean.

In 2005, pirates fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on a Seabourn Cruises ship about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia. In that attack, the Seabourn Spirit repelled the pirates by using a sonic weapon, and the attackers were not able to board the vessel.

ARA is kaput! American Trans Air, ATA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. ATA then announced it was ceasing all services, effective 4:00 AM EDT, Thursday April 3, 2008, citing the unexpected loss of a major contract for its military charter business, arranged by FedEx that dejected it, along with recent increases in jet fuel prices. The flights in the air at the time of the announcement proceeded to their destinations. Flight 4586 from Honolulu to Phoenix was the last ATA flight, departing almost 2-hours late at 12:10am (HDT) arriving April 3rd, 2008 at 8:48am (MST).

Aloha Air is done! Aloha Airlines will cease all passenger service after Monday March 31, signaling the end of an airline that has served Hawaii for more than 60 years. Flights from Hawaii to the West Coast Monday were canceled, as were flights within California and Nevada. Aloha, which filed for bankruptcy for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 21, says it will stop taking reservations for flights after Monday.

Aloha has suffered since Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group Inc. launched a new interisland carrier called go! airlines in 2006, triggering a local airfare war. "We simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business," said Aloha President David Banmiller in a statement. "We had no choice but to take this action. Unfortunately unfair competition has succeeded in driving us out of business," Banmiller continued.

New border crossing rules to take effect at the end of the January 2008 will initially mean longer lines for those entering the country, including returning Americans, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said January 17. But he said the rules are necessary to prevent another Sept. 11-style attack. Starting Jan. 31, a driver's license and oral declaration of citizenship will no longer be enough to enter the United States for Americans and Canadians age 19 and older. People will have to present proof of citizenship, usually in the form of a passport or a birth certificate. A driver's license is not proof of citizenship. More than 8,000 different documents have been used to enter the United States, including library cards and student IDs. The proof-of-citizenship requirement will greatly reduce the ability to sneak by border agents with fake papers, Chertoff said. Border agents will now only accept about two dozen types of ID. However, under the new system agents will likely be examining many more birth certificates, which pose their own counterfeit risks.

Also beginning in February, people can apply for a passport card that will be smaller than a regular passport but will include security features. Even as border security gets tougher, the birth certificate requirement marks a setback for the agency's effort to enforce a post-9/11 law called Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI, designed to "get control" of the borders by verifying the citizenship and identity of everyone entering the U.S. by land, sea, or air from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Two baggage handlers at New York's Kennedy airport are accused of stealing more than $250,000 worth of diamonds and other jewelry. Queens prosecutors said Monday that a 51-year-old worker and his 39-year-old supervisor are charged with grand larceny and possession of stolen property. They say the jewelry was stolen from a container marked "high value" that was being shipped from Switzerland to Brazil.

An air traffic controller mistakenly gave a passenger jet the frequency for the wrong airport, an error that put that plane and another landing at Newark Liberty International Airport much closer than they should have been. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the near miss, which occurred at 2:10 p.m. January 16 between a Boeing 737 and an Embraer 145. The Boeing operated as Continental Flight 536 arriving from Phoenix and the Embraer was Continental Express Flight 2614 arriving from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Regarding mergers Houston-based Continental acknowledged it is closely monitoring the industry landscape as Delta Air Lines is exploring a deal with Northwest Airlines or United Airlines. It emphasized that it will do what's in the best interest of its stakeholders. Years of higher-than-average growth, particularly in international markets, have made it the most profitable of the conventional network airlines, and the second-most profitable in recent years, behind only discount king Southwest Airlines. But the possible combination of No. 3 Delta with either No. 2 United or No. 6 Northwest would create a new No. 1, and could trigger further consolidation.

A British Airways Boeing 777 airliner flying from the Chinese capital Beijing with 136 passengers on board came down just short of the runway, skidding across the grass on its belly as the undercarriage collapsed January 18. Everyone on board was evacuated safely, with only 18 needing treatment for minor injuries and one woman with possible concussion kept in hospital overnight. British Airways

British Airways 777 sits after crash landing

named the pilot of the plane as Captain Peter Burkill, 43. The jet was due to land at 1pm but was forced to put down 18 minutes early near a busy perimeter road. Witnesses saw it come in at a very low level, banking heavily, and one said it was "so low you would think you could lean out of the window and touch it".

United cancels flights, blames weather. Pilots say airline is lying. United Airlines canceled dozens of flights on January 2, adding to the more than 1,100 cancellations since Dec. 23 that the No. 2 U.S. carrier blamed on weather but its pilots blamed on insufficient staffing. "The majority of today's cancellations are as a result of continued recovery from yesterday's weather," said UAL spokeswoman Megan McCarthy. United's pilots union, however, said the airline was simply understaffed during the hectic holiday travel season. Other experts also doubted UAL's explanation but declined to speculate on the airline's staffing needs. Between Dec. 23 and Dec. 31, United canceled 1,033 flights, compared with 243 cancellations by American, which also has a hub in Chicago.

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