NEW YORK (AP) — 2007 was the first year in which more travel tickets were purchased online than off-line in the U.S., according to the PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey.

The report predicted that “the gap between online and off-line will continue to widen as more and more travelers shift behavior to online shopping and buying.”

The study said that 51 percent of U.S. travel was booked online in 2007, and it projected that percentage to increase to 56 percent in 2008 and to 60 percent in 2009.

The survey also said that travel products with multiple components, such as vacation packages, are being purchased less frequently online, while simple components — plane tickets, for example — are being purchased more frequently.

The report also found that travel Web sites are evolving, with more of them offering features like group travel planning and booking, along with content generated by a community of readers and users.

PhoCusWright is a travel industry research company. The study was based on a variety of data, including surveys of travelers, interviews with travel executives and company reports.

FAA plan to reduce flight delays faces political fight over noise; jets wil be re-routed

NEW YORK — On Dec. 19, the Federal Aviation Administration began its first overhaul in decades of the jet routes that crisscross the country’s most congested airspace — a 31,000-square-mile area around New York and Philadelphia.

The corridor has been criticized for years as one of the worst problem spots in the nation’s beleaguered air traffic system. Most the paths were laid out in the 1960s. Some date from the earliest days of air travel, and airlines have been complaining for years that they are horribly outdated.

Over the next five years, the FAA will be rolling out new routes it believes can cut flight delays by as much as 20 percent. Some aviation experts say improvements are essential; nearly three-quarters of all flight delays nationally are caused by backups in New York and Philadelphia.

But a closer look at the revamped flight routes shows that the changes will lead to more noise for tens of thousands of people, many of whom are already are subject to the whine of jet engines because of their proximity to airports.

For years, jets taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport have performed an act of mercy as they roar south.

Moments after leaving the ground, the planes bank left, out over an industrial port district, and away from the residential streets of Elizabeth, N.J., the working-class city that sits right up against the busy airport.
Maneuvers like this are a common method of sparing citizens from the window-ratting noise of jets passing overhead.

But now, such practices are being dropped in some places in the Northeast as part of a federal plan to ease record flight delays. And some neighborhoods that fear they will be subjected to more noise are fighting back in court.

At least 12 lawsuits have been filed so far in an attempt to stop the plan. Congress ordered the Government Accountability Office to examine the FAA’s method for choosing the new routes. Top lawmakers from several states have demanded changes. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., threatened to block Senate confirmation of acting FAA administrator Robert Sturgell if the agency doesn’t halt implementation.

So far, the complaints haven’t stopped the FAA. Last month, the agency began phasing in new traffic patterns at the Newark and Philadelphia airports that allow departing planes to fan out in several directions as they climb, rather than stick to a single path.

In theory, the change will allow more takeoffs per hour.

Since the first of the changes went into effect in Philadelphia on Dec. 19, the airport said it has been getting three complaints a day about noise, compared with about one every two days in the previous three months.

Stranded passengers sue airline

FORT WORTH, Texas — Two passengers who were stranded for hours on American Airlines airplanes diverted during a major storm over North Texas have sued the carrier, accusing it of false imprisonment, fraud and negligence, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Kate Hanni, of Napa, Calif., and Catherine Ray, of Fayetteville, Ark., were on flights diverted from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to Austin on Dec. 29, 2006. After landing, passengers sat in the planes for more than eight hours, unable to leave despite overflowing toilets and little food or water.

The lawsuits ask for unspecified damages as well as legal expenses.

Both suits were filed in circuit courts; Hanni’s in California and Ray’s in Arkansas. They seek class-action status, claiming the airline’s decisions affected 12,000 passengers that day.

The flights were among hundreds that were diverted when an unusual system of storms snarled traffic over the airport.

“A major weather event that no one predicted” happened and caused 119 flights to be diverted that day, the most since 9/11, said airline spokesman John Hotard.

The airline has worked to improve its system for dealing with severe weather, having installed new software for tracking diverted flights and now permit passengers to leave planes after four hours if safety allows, Hotard said.
Hanni has created a passenger-rights group and has been lobbying for an “airline passenger’s bill of rights.”