....with a House vote expected tomorrow:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...y.html?hpid=z2

[Member's first sentence edited to match deletion of another's post which is for OMNI, not TravelBuzz.]

At any rate, I've booked my next flight to China out of YVR instead, just in case.

Nice plan on the surface, but the US controls almost all of the airspace over the North Pacific.

And the House just approved the bill:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/us...s.html?hp&_r=0

And now the House has passed the legislation and Obama is expected to sign today...


House and Senate Pass Bill to Ease Air-Traffic Delays, Obama to Sign Legislation


Good news.

FAA Cancels Furloughs, Says Air Traffic to Be Normal Sunday Evening

I actually think it is a disgrace that we whiney travelers for almost instant relief and it is still a problem for cancer patients to get their medicine. There is something profoundly wrong with this country.

Problem is, "fixing" this most obvious of problems will result in under-funding other parts of the FAA and other agencies, e.g., the Airport Improvement Program is being raided for ATC salaries, and in turn their problems will fester. In particular, capex is getting seriously squeezed right now, and neglecting preventive maintenance now will mean much higher spending in a few years. Penny wise, pound foolish.

:rolleyes:

Easy for the WSJ editorial page to broadcast empty platitudes, rather more difficult to, you know, govern the republic.

1. All agencies received uniform cuts, and USDOT cannot reallocate cuts between departments. That's why a legislative fix was necessary even for FAA to internally reallocate capital funds to operations. (Again, this is a completely unsustainable way to run an organization.)

2. The USDOT's communities grant is the TIGER program. This was (i.e., it's gone now and can't be cut anyways) an example of how USDOT staff made smarter, more economically sound transportation investment decisions than the old earmarks system did: in particular, it was the first USDOT grant program to use economic benefit-cost analysis. (Much more here.) You would think the WSJ editorial board would like that, but no.

3. There's no use playing these "why should I pay for government services that do not directly and immediately benefit me?" games. Why not complain about the new M-8 cars on the Metro-North, or Hurricane Sandy relief, or other federal spending that disproportionately benefits WSJ editorial board members but not really The Rest Of Us?

Latest news is that a typo is delaying the signing of the bill until Tuesday. I, for one, am happy they fixed this. [Text off-topic for this forum edited by Moderator.]

TSA is still impacted by the sequester cuts though, right? Any takers on how long it's going to take for that to get patched by something else?

That is a good point. TSA lines looked pretty bad. Not sure how consistent that is, however.