Some of my favorite bloggers covered stories that ran the travel industry gamut this week. You can get tips on meeting the guy or girl of your dreams while waiting for a plane, how to rent the perfect sports car, and much more. Keep reading to see what stories you might have missed…

As promised, we are revisiting the subject of the “slowest single security line in the busiest airports”.

Once again, the information on “wait times” comes from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Other data and criteria we used:

• Airports: We selected our airports from a “Top 40″ list of U.S. airports, the “busiest” ones, based on passenger enplanement statistics from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• Days/Times: We selected as our “target” Fridays from 2pm to 6pm (local times) during the weeks from Nov. 2 through Nov. 30 (in order to show a “busier” time than emerged from our earlier list)
• Maximum “waits”: We purposefully chose to highlight the single slowest line, at a single security-check point, per airport. We did NOT choose to highlight multiple long lines at an airport or terminal; such a list might show only JFK in the Top 10. By highlighting a single “slowest line” per airport, we hope to show you a variety of “waiting in line” experiences.

And the airport with the longest “wait time” at a security-checkpoint? Top honors go to…JFK. Keep reading for the rest.

I can’t say I’m with the International Transport Association (ITA) on this one; according to this article from the Wall St. Journal, the ITA (which represents major airlines worldwide) says there is a “looming crisis” because of a lack of pilots.

Okay, fair enough.

What I’m not crazy about, is their solution to this crisis. Maybe you’ll find it troublesome, too.

Tonight in the 8:00pm EST U.S. domestic airfare distribution the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare processing system noted significant increase matching activity by Northwest Airlines, US Airways and Alaska Airlines.

Northwest Airlines significantly matched the $20 roundtrip increase (initiated by Delta late Monday) for both business airfares (those less than 14 days advance purchase) and leisure airfare in over 18,000 city pairs:

Old media hands recognize a “dog & pony” show when they see one, and that’s what the “Traveling Airbus Tour” sure looks like.

One of the huge A380’s has been dropping in, here and there (Minneapolis, Orlando, Los Angeles) to strut its stuff (and just maybe, find some more buyers). Certainly, it’s got plenty of “stuff” to strut, including a wing span that’s just about as wide as a football field

One place not on the dog & pony trail was Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport; there were rumors that the A380 might pay a visit, but nothing was ever finalized. Kind of a pity, as DFW would be an exceptionally welcoming venue for the A380 …

The parent of American Airlines, the AMR Corp. says it will sell or spin-off its regional carrier, American Eagle, sometime next year.

And, as it often the case with such pronouncements, AMR’s stock promptly rose.

So what is American Eagle worth?

If you ask the folks at Airbus, their trip to Minnesota on Tuesday with an Airbus A380 superjumbo jet at their side was not a sales call. They simply wanted the good people of Northwest Airlines to see the plane up close. If you buy that, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.

Keep reading to see if Airbus was able to close the deal…

Last night in the 8:00pm EST U.S. domestic airfare distribution the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare processing system noted significant increase matching activity by United Airlines.

United Airlines began a fairly significant match of the $20 roundtrip increase initiated by Delta Air Lines late Monday evening — $20 roundtrip increases from United are noted in over 12,000 city pairs (just less than 2/3 of a full match) for both leisure (14 or more days advance purchase) and business airfares:

Every couple of weeks I am going to do a post to see what the airlines have been up to on their U.S. domestic flight schedules.

Who is dumping flights? What cities are getting new flights or worse having flights removed? What sort of planes are they changing out and all sorts of geek information.

I picked today as a start for this type of post because of the the recent run up in fuel prices to see how the airlines are reacting:

This morning in the 10:00am EST U.S. domestic airfare distribution the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare processing system noted significant increase matching activity by American Airlines.

American Airlines began a very selective set of matching of the $20 roundtrip increase initiated by Delta Air Lines late Monday evening — $20 roundtrip increases from American are noted in over 6,000 city pairs (well less than half of a full match) for both leisure (14 or more days advance purchase) and business airfares. Keep reading to see how the American Airlines match could affect travelers throughout the country.

Virgin America is offering low airfares for travel through March 12 of 2008. The deal ends in two days, so act now if you want to take advantage.

And for more cheap airfare sales, visit FareCompare’s Deals Page to get more info.

IATA (International Air Transport Association) is not amused (and I thought only Americans got cranky).

Turns out over 170 countries are not amused either (well at least the airlines in those countries…) about the newly approved EU regulation requiring all airlines to join in the EU plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from its 27 nations by 20% by 2020.

The comments by the chief executive of IATA are (just like a Mastercard) priceless:

Sorry, New Orleans you won the top spot on this list. Yes, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport had the longest security lines of the top-40 busiest U.S. airports.

See how we figured this out, and view the rest of the 11-slowest security lines, by clicking “more.”

Update: Wanted to say thanks for all the response to this post. I also wanted to clear up why we chose Monday (2:00pm - 6:00pm) the idea was to pick a time that was relatively busy, but by no means the busiest time of the week. I am going to follow up this post (see it here) with a look at the TSA’s data for Fridays during the same time period which is a much busier time window. Maybe we’ll see some longer waits at airports that didn’t make the initial list. TSA provides the data, we are just interpreting it across a wide range of airports.

In the midst of $20 fuel surcharge increase by Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airways, the airlines have fired out “off-peak travel day” cheap airfare sales through early spring next year. The legacy airlines are furiously matching these sales in the 10:00am EST airfare distribution.

Flexible travelers should be buying now for travel into the wee days of spring. The Southwest sale is for Tuesday and Wednesday travel and AirTran adds Saturday as well:

Well, most of us dodged a bullet last week, despite doom-and-gloom predictions; Thanksgiving travel seemed to go off without a hitch, as travel writer Chris Elliott pointed out in a post called, “Oh, never mind!”

But most of us (including yours truly) weren’t crying wolf. We were pointing out what COULD have happened. And I think, on some level, we may have helped prevent an apocalyptic scenario.

This evening in the 8:00pm EST U.S. domestic airfare distribution the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare processing system noted significant fuel surcharge increase activity by Delta Air Lines.

Before this evenings 8:00pm EST U.S domestic airfare distribution Delta Air Lines had a system-wide fuel surcharge of $4.19 ($5 with tax) each way.

At 8:00pm EST this evening Delta increased this surcharge to $13.95 ($15 with tax) each way - effectively hiking the bulk of their U.S. domestic airfare by $20 roundtrip ($10 each way)…

As you might have noticed I like giving things “pet-terms” (it makes it easier for me to remember things within vast amount of esoterica I review each day)

A while back I waxed on about the “Northwest Airlines Crazy Ivan ‘K’” airfares and thought now would be an interesting time to highlight American Airlines version of these I call “Oh-No” airfares.

I call them “Oh-No” because a) These great deal airfares show up for a brief time and just as quickly “Oh-No” they’re gone b) They are booked in the limited seat inventory “O” class.

If you are flexible traveler and want to learn more about the super cheap airfare deals on American Airlines read on …

Okay, officially we made the list of the 7-Most Influential Travel Bloggers of 2007!

How, you may ask?

Because…well, go ahead and read what travel expert Chris Elliott had to say about us.

I’m blushing.

Better read for yourself.

All I can say is, it had to do with our ability to find cheap airfare sales…before anyone else can.

With talks about legacy airlines merging set off by the unprecedented price of fuel — I thought I might throw my 2 cents in on the consumer side. Competition = Low Prices, lack of competition is not a good thing for consumers — spin it however you want, it won’t be a good thing for airline ticket prices. A classic example of competition is the new entry of Virgin America into the U.S. domestic market.

While everyone else is battling the crowds at the mall, you can shop for holiday gifts on your favorite airline’s website. Frontier, for example, is now offering gift cards in denominations of anywhere from $25 to $1,500. Not very exciting, you say? Okay, how about the gift of more leg-room? I’ve got the scoop on that and other offerings, inside…

Update: some refiling of Xmas airfare specials started to show up this afternoon (details at the link)

Late Wednesday evening I noticed that there was some significant increase activity going on in the walkup (0 day advance purchase) airfares on several airlines.

The increases seemed awfully high and upon closer inspection of each individual airline it was clear that those super discounted “turkey” and “holiday” airfares had begun to expire.

As expected, so much for the cheap airfare sales.

The list of airlines with expiring holiday airfares includes:

I hope wherever you are this week, you have a safe and happy holiday.

From all of us at FareCompare.com and rickseaney.com to you and yours, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

And when you’re too stuffed to do anything else, come back to us…and we’ll help you find some cheap airfare sales!

UPDATE: This increase is actually a “fuel surcharge” ($5-per ticket) but I have to say, for most passengers, an increase is an increase. The comments have a very nice response from US Airways …

Could they still be a little upset over their dismal performance I reported on in the latest Zagat Survey?

ORIGINAL POST (changed to show increase is $5-per ticket): This evening in the 8:00pm EST U.S. domestic airfare distribution the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare processing system noted significant airfare increase activity by US Airways.

A brief 2 week respite after the eighth (8th) airfare hike since Labor Day has been broken this evening as US Airways initiates the ninth (9th) increase — $5 per ticket — encompassing both business (less than 14 days advance purchase) and leisure (14 or more days advance purchase) airfares on over 21,000 city pairs across their U.S. domestic route system.