Transportation Secretary Mary Peters held a news conference today (and I’ve got all the highlights here), but this one was a little different.

It was just for bloggers. No other media was present. Just nine air travel bloggers — including yours truly.

As Peters herself said, “if I am going to call for twenty-first century solutions for our transportation system, I better communicate them in a twenty-first century way.”

I think that’s just terrific, and I was honored to be a part of the grand experiment. Look for more posts on my interviews with other leading transportation officials — coming soon.

I just finished chatting with Dept. of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, and of course one of the topics we touched on was the zooming price of oil; “I’m no expert on that,” she said, but “I have a feeling that oil prices will stabilize this summer.” We can only hope so.

She did announce some news to the handful of air travel bloggers who were invited to meet with her (yours truly included); here are some of the highlights (and you can see them all, here):

• BAGGAGE FEES - Peters doesn’t want passengers to be surprised at the airport with hefty baggage fees, so, the DOT is calling for carriers and travel agents “to disclose baggage fees in their internet and print ads before anyone purchases a ticket.” Also, the DOT says “airlines may not impose increased fees or new restrictions for baggage after a passenger has [already] bought a ticket.”

Coming up — the FAA/American mess, and delays — so keep reading!

This is the first in a series of reports on the soaring cost of oil; check back here each week for more “Fuel Watch 08″ specials and exclusives

This week, Congress voted overwhelmingly to order the White House to stop depositing oil in a national reserve. The reserve has been getting 70,000 barrels a day.

That’s the proverbial drop in the bucket since Americans have been going through about 20-million barrels a day. But to many in Congress (the measure passed 97 to 1) it’s a gesture to constituents who are getting burned at the pump.

It’s a gesture alright, according to Rep. Joe Barton — a meaningless gesture.

“If all the members of the House would go out onto the steps and clap our hands three times and say, Down prices, down prices,’ that would have as much impact as passing this bill.” — Rep. Joe L. Barton

Bad news: according to an Associated Press article (via the New York Times), major legislation to help fix our antiquated air traffic control system and provide some “real” passenger rights “faltered” yesterday, and it may be doomed.

And Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who heads the Senate’s commerce aviation subcommittee found that incredibly frustrating:

“The aviation system is on the brink of collapse. Our air traffic control system cannot handle the burdens of today, much less tomorrow.” — Sen. Jay Rockefeller

Keep reading, and I’ll try to explain what happened and why we should get angry.

The folks at Fox Business News (Liz Claman and David Asman) will be interviewing me today at about 2pm Eastern time.

They’ll be asking about how the airlines (and passengers!) will be handling the excruciatingly high fuel costs.

If you have the time, listen in, and please comment on this.

Whether due to rising airfare prices or a struggling economy, we’re seeing the first signs of softening demand for air travel. April saw a decrease in air traffic among five of the six legacy carriers, with American experiencing the largest drop from last April (6.6%). While April numbers might be a bit skewed as Easter occurred in March this year, that definitely doesn’t completely account for the overall decline in traffic.

Check out Bloomberg.com for an in depth look at April air travel and insight into how the major airlines performed.

A few months ago when CNN put this salacious headline up “Southwest Airlines Flies Unsafe Planes” — I did a post asking “Where was the Beef” of the story? What other airlines had issues, what was the relationship between inspectors and airlines etc — obviously useful reporting was less important than a juicy headline.

Well! Today the “Beef” has landed!

According to an article in the Wall St. Journal, the Federal Aviation Administration “failed to perform more than 100 recommended safety reviews at major airlines in recent years.”

A once unthinkable barrier has been breached; for the first time in history, the price of oil has surged past $120 a barrel.

Get out your wallets; clearly the airlines are not done with raising fuel surcharges.

Watch this space for updates.

It’s taken a few weeks, but American Airlines is letting loose its attacks on the FAA. You’ll recall that during the week of April 8th, American Airlines canceled thousands of flights and disrupted travel for close to 300,000 travelers. The groundings were due to required maintenance of American’s M-80 aircraft.

When the groundings began, American Airlines was actually pretty quiet on the matter, making it difficult for passengers to get information on which and how many flights would be affected. When American finally returned to the skies in full force, apologies were made, and American Airlines reached out to its frequent fliers with bonus miles options and travel deals.

Now, it seems, American Airlines has put the apologies behind them and turned the blame on the FAA…

At noon today, United Airlines initiated the 13th attempted domestic airfare hike of 2008 - and note that, 8 of the previous 12 were widely successful.

I immediately broke this story, and it quickly appeared in media reports.

Details on the price hike: United raised airfares across the bulk of its domestic route system in a laddered fashion from $4 to $60 roundtrip for leisure travelers in over 5,500 city-pairs, and from $4 to $70 for business travelers in over 9,000 city-pairs.

The AP reports that United blames this 3% to 5% hike on, what else: soaring fuel costs.

You won’t have to travel too far to get hit with a substantial increase; keep reading for more on that.

Did you see those big, bold headlines (on CNN and elsewhere) talking about Delta’s “whopping” losses? Most of them were along these lines: “Delta Reports $6.39B Quarterly Loss”.

$6.39 billion! But, wait. The “realoperating”loss is just…$274 million. Substantial, yes, but nowhere near billions. The other $6.1 billion or so “paper loss”is the “drop” in their expected stock price after coming out of bankruptcy (called a special item - I would say a very special item).

A quick review of the airlines 1^st quarter losses of 2008 (and, Southwest’s profits):

• Southwest Airlines - $34 million profit
• AMR (American Airlines) - $328 million loss
• Continental Airlines - $85 million loss
• UAL (United Airlines) - $542 million loss
• AirTran - $34.8 million loss
• JetBlue - $8 million loss
• Delta Air Lines - $274 million loss
• Northwest - $191 million loss

Reminds me of the screaming headlines from last month that claimed Southwest was supposedly flying unsafe planes. They weren’t. But the headlines garnered a lot of attention, which apparently was all that mattered.

Once again, blame it on the high price of jet fuel.

According to the AP, United Airlines says it’s going to cut 1,100 jobs this year (500 management, 600 union jobs), and it will cut capacity by 9% in the 4^th quarter.

And, the airline will take another 10 to 15 narrow-body aircraft out of its fleet.

Sad thing is, United would have had a good quarter this year, if not for fuel costs, which have risen nearly 50% in a year.

No airline cracked the top 100, but there were seven carriers that made Fortune magazine’s annual ranking of America’s largest corporations, and here they are:

• #109 AMR (American)
• #124 UAL (United)
• #129 Delta
• #178 Continental
• #213 Northwest
• #228 US Airways Group
• #267 Southwest

I’ll tell you which airlines made the Fortune 1000 list, coming right up.

In response to recent issues involving FAA safety inspections and mass cancellations by American Airlines, the Secretary of Transportation, Mary E. Peters, has announced a series of changes to the FAA Safety Inspection Program. The belief is that these new measures will reduce travel disruptions, increase accountability for FAA inspectors and managers, and keep airlines focused on safety.

Keep reading to view the release that the DOT sent out this afternoon…

US Airways is keeping mum, but CNN is reporting that a pilot who accidentally fired his handgun in midflight last month will be axed. That’s per a spokesman for the Federal Flight Deck Officers Association (and here’s their website); the pilot is a member of the group.

You may recall that the pilot was legally allowed to have that gun and he had been trained in its proper use. It just wasn’t supposed to go off like that. No one was hurt in the March incident, but this could have been a real tragedy.

I don’t mind that some pilots are armed, and I know accidents happen. But some accidents are unforgivable. That wasn’t the case here, but I sure don’t want to read about similar incidents in the future…

Good news for people who get bumped from a flight starting next month. The Department of Transportation has increased the amount of money airlines must pay to passengers who are involuntarily denied boarding:

“The Department today finalized changes to its so-called bumping rule, which doubles the limit on compensation airlines must pay passengers who are involuntarily bumped from their flight. Under the new rule which goes into effect next month, fliers who are involuntarily bumped would receive up to $400 if they are rescheduled to reach their destination within two hours of their original arrival time or four hours for international flights, and up to $800 if they are not rerouted within that timeframe.” (from DOT)

With increased capacity loads on flights and talk of a reduction of flights, we could see bumping rates increase this year. It’s important to realize that airlines overbook flights in order to account for those people who miss connections, get a flat tire on the way to the airport, or just plain miss the plane. However, as we all know, sometimes everybody makes it, and there are more airline tickets than available seats. Generally, an airline will ask for volunteers who will be placed on a later flight and receive travel vouchers…

American Airlines began canceling hundreds of flights this evening (and thanks, JoeSentMe for the tip). More cancellations are expected tomorrow (Wednesday).

It took awhile, but American finally put an advisory up on its website.

If you have tickets, check with American’s website NOW. The sooner you can do so, the more quickly you’ll get to your destination. You’ll have a lot of company, trying to make new reservations.

The reason for the cancellations: apparent concerns by the FAA that American did not properly complete previously mandated re-inspections on its MD-80 aircraft.

If you’ve read anything at all about the world of airlines, airports and airfare in the past days (and months), you may be reminded of an ongoing soap opera. I know I am. For instance:

• Guiding Light: What you need if you hope to find your lost luggage at Heathrow
• Secret Storm: Weather that delays and cancels far too many flights
• Young and the Restless: American Airlines’ new PR offensive on Facebook
• General Hospital: Where sick airlines go to die; unfortunately, four have “died” this past week alone (Aloha, ATA, Skybus, and Skyway).

Intrigued? I hope so. Please keep reading, and send me your feedback!

The newly released Airline Quality Rating study (covering the year 2007) shows something that really isn’t much of a surprise to most of us: complaints about the airlines are up — way up.

The respected, annual study (sponsored by the Aviation Institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and by Wichita State University)shows that airlines failed in the study’s 4-categories: on time performance, baggage handling, denied boarding, and customer service.

But again, the most glaring aspect of the report was the rate of complaints; they were up 60% overall. And, that rate more than doubled for US Airways and Comair. In fact complaints were up for all but one of the 16 airlines in the study (the exception was Mesa Airlines).

But that doesn’t mean Mesa came out on top in terms of customer satisfaction. Keep reading for for details.

Skyway Airlines ceased operations over the weekend, with a lot less fanfare than the demise of Skybus.

Skyway, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based commuter airline, was a subsidiary of Midwest Airlines, until Sunday anyway.

Also shutting down: the Bloomington, Minnesota-based Champion Air, a charter that’s flown tourists, sports teams and the military (it will cease operations on May 31^st).

First Aloha, then ATA, then Skybus…and now these two: 5 airlines shutting down in about a week. It’s the understatement of the year to say a pattern is developing…

As of today (Saturday), Skybus is ceasing operations. No more flights.

This is the third carrier in a week to go under: the first was Aloha Airlines, then ATA, and now Skybus. Kind of makes you wonder who’s next?

If you have tickets, check the Skybus website; unfortunately it simply tells you to try and work something out with your credit card company (and we have information on how to do that in our ATA post).

The shut down occurred for the usual reasons: “the combination of rising jet fuel costs and a slowing economic environment.” This is sad news indeed. And I know a lot of people are going to miss Skybus’ $10 airfares.

A quick recap of news and tidbits:

FAA/Airline Congressional Hearings: Southwest denies it got too “cozy” with the FAA, claiming it was not a “kissy-kissy” relationship.

FAA/Airline Redux: One of the U.S. presidential contenders released a statement calling the FAA’s approach to policing the airlines “troubling”. I’m not going to name names, but I will go out on a limb here and guess the others are probably on the same page here.

Heathrow Chaos, Supermodel Edition: Coming up next!

Southwest founder Herb Kelleher said his planes that failed to undergo complete inspections last year should not have been in the air. But Kelleher also said safety was not compromised, “in any way shape or form.”

However, one of the U.S. Representatives questioning Kelleher (and others) pointed out that, “At 35,000 feet in the air, there’s no curb to pull over to, to get out and look under the hood” if there is a problem.

This was all part of the congressional hearing formally titled, “Critical Lapses in FAA Safety Oversight of Airlines: Abuses of Regulatory Partnership Programs’.” Click “more” for the rest.

Cheap Flights from Omaha to Orlando - OMA to MCO

UPDATE: Important Information from Southwest

First, there was Aloha Airlines. Now, it’s ATA Airlines‘ turn. ATA has discontinued all flights, all operations, effective NOW.

If you have tickets with ATA, check their website, but a quick read of their FAQ’s indicates you’re on your own and will have to make alternate flight arrangements at your own expense.

There is an exception: Did you purchase your ATA ticket through the carrier’s code-share partner, Southwest? If so, Southwest IS going to help. Click “more” for the details.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Newly discovered parachute is NOT Cooper’s. Mystery deepens.

March 26: Just a couple of months ago, I reported that the FBI was dusting off some of their files in the case of hijacker D.B. Cooper, who gained lasting fame back in 1971 by parachuting out of a plane with $200,000.

Cooper became a sort of mythical figure, mainly because no one has seen him since.

Well, now they have what appears to be a new clue in his disappearance.

Or is it?

Keep reading, because mysteries just don’t come any better than this…