In the latest updates to Patrick Smith's "Ask The Pilot" column on salon.com:

The EU is phasing out restrictions on liquids in carry-on bags. The Million-Dollar question: Will the TSA follow suit?

• On Thursday, the European Union announced it would begin phasing out its draconian restrictions on liquids carried in hand luggage.
• It's about time. The ban is to be completely rescinded by mid-2013 at the latest, according to officials.
• Liquids, gels and aerosols will instead be run through a new generation of explosives scanners able to screen them for harmful materials. Getting these machines up and running will be very expensive, and the technology is not yet foolproof. But nothing in aviation security is foolproof, and anything is better than the chaotic confiscation policies now in place.

The entire article is available here.
Also:

United and Continental tie the knot - the pending merger from The Pilot's perspective.

• The big, if entirely expected story is Monday's announced merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines.
• At the moment, United is the world's third-biggest carrier, transporting 63 million passengers annually and logging 177 million revenue passenger kilometers. Continental ranks fifth, with 49 million customers and 133 million RPKs. Stick them together and you've got the largest airline on the planet, operating 750 aircraft -- including an immense fleet of long-haul widebodies -- to 59 countries. The new combo leapfrogs ahead of Delta, which took world's biggest mantle after its merger with Northwest earlier this year.
• Strategically, the combined carrier makes sense much the way Delta-Northwest made sense. Delta covered much of Europe, reaching into India and the Persian Gulf, plus multiple destinations in Africa. Northwest had been flying across the Pacific for 50 years, serving more than a dozen Asian cities, including coveted routes into China. Together, they're big everywhere. United-Continental takes advantage of Continental's heavy East Coast presence (Newark hub), and its considerable transatlantic and Latin American networks. United contributes its West Coast presence and Pacific network, including its hub at Tokyo-Narita.

Find the full article here.


All of Patrick Smith's articles are available on Salon.com:

http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/