Tag: air travel

Warren blames Spirit Airlines closure on Iran war after advocating against JetBlue-Spirit merger

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is receiving backlash from GOP lawmakers for pushing former President Biden’s Justice Department to block the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines. 

“The 14,000 employees at Spirit who’ve lost their job loss, the travelers who will now pay higher fares, and the shareholders and debt holders who have been wiped out can thank Elizabeth Warren,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) wrote on X on Saturday. “Electing left politicians, who have ZERO business experience, has consequences.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz reposted a critical Warren post and wrote, “Stunning.” 

Warren defended her advocacy against the merger by blaming a federal judge for stopping it. 

“Spiking fuel prices from Trump’s war was the nail in the coffin for twice-bankrupted Spirit airline,” Warren wrote in a post on X. FWIW, JetBlue merger failed because a judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, said the deal was illegal. Republicans are desperate to shift blame from higher costs hitting families.”

Biden’s Justice Department had detailed its involvement in blocking the merger back in 2024.

“Our win in court is a victory for U.S. travelers who deserve lower prices and better choices,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “We fought this case to protect consumers who, as the court recognized, ‘otherwise would have no voice.’ I am incredibly proud of the Antitrust Division’s team and our state law enforcement partners’ tireless advocacy.”

Warren had pushed the Department of Transportation under Biden to work to block the merger, as detailed in a letter she wrote.

She also applauded the blockage of the merger.

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OOPS: Elizabeth Warren’s Arrogant X/Twitter Post Comes Back to Haunt Her as the Notorious Spirit Airlines Shuts Down For Good After 34 Years In Service

An old X/Twitter Post of Senator Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren (D-MA) has come back to bite her after America’s most infamous airline ceased operations on Saturday.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Spirit Airlines was preparing to shut down after a $500 million government rescue deal put together by the Trump Administration fell apart.

The Daily Mail later confirmed Spirit Airlines had shut down its operations for good after 34 years in service.

Trump said he was willing to save Spirit Airlines but did not want to use taxpayer dollars.

While Spirit Airlines has long offered some of the cheapest flights available, it has become more famous for wild brawls that have broken out on regular basis amongst passengers. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

But Spirit Airline’s apparent demise could have been avoided two years ago had the Biden regime not blocked a proposed merger between JetBlue and Spirit. Biden’s cronies argued that the merger would lead to decreased flights and higher expenses for flyers.

A judge agreed with Team Biden and blocked the merger, thus seemingly sealing Spirit’s fate.

But when the merger was blocked, Warren, who pleaded with Biden, crowed on X that the decision was “a Biden win for flyers.”

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Korean Air bans roosters from flights to Philippines after Texas tied to cockfighting supply

Korean Air has banned roosters on flights from the U.S. to the Philippines, following a report that found a large swath of Texas is tightly tied to supplying birds for cockfighting in the Asian nation. 

According to the airline, the decision was based on care for the safety of animals. 

While cockfighting is illegal in the U.S., breeding and selling roosters for agricultural or other benign purposes is not.

Korean Air restricts roosters

What they’re saying:

In a statement to FOX Local, Korea Air said the suspension applies to all roosters, regardless of age:

“Korean Air has suspended the transportation of roosters of all ages on routes from the United States to the Philippines. Korean Air is firmly committed to the lawful and safe transport of live animals, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.”

The backstory:

Some months ago, an animal rights nonprofit called Animal Wellness Action (AWA) released an in-depth report calling an area including North Texas the “primary hub of illegal cockfighting” in the nation, with multiple reports of rooster breeders taking their animals to the Philippines for that purpose. That report claims Korean Air was the airline of choice for such operations. 

What they’re saying:

“We are grateful to Korean Air for giving us an audience and allowing us to present the mass of information revealing that the company was being rooked by U.S. cockfighters, pretending to be “farmers” and benign “breeders,” but who have been supplying fighting birds to the Philippines every year by the tens of thousands and directly participating in the fights themselves,” the group said in a Monday statement after Korea Air’s announcement. 

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No, The Trump Administration Shouldn’t Bail Out Spirit Airlines

At a time when Republicans in Congress need to generate enthusiasm ahead of the November midterm elections, the Trump administration is contemplating a move that would undermine conservative support. The president’s talk of a potential $500 million bailout for a budget airline struggling to emerge from bankruptcy might preserve Spirit Airlines, but it would deflate conservatives’ spirit (pun intended) at a critical juncture.

The president spoke last Thursday of “helping them [i.e., Spirit] out, meaning bailing them out, or buying it.” But the government took stakes in private-sector companies during the Obama administration. It didn’t work out well then, and it won’t work out well now.

Bad Policy 

The list of reasons not to bail out Spirit stands as long as an airport runway. Start with the federal government’s $39 trillion in debt and counting. With the federal government running deficits approaching $2 trillion every year, and lawmakers not showing any signs of taking the actions needed to resolve Medicare and Social Security’s long-term shortfalls, why on Earth should taxpayers throw good money on top of bad to save an airline?

On top of the argument against bailing out airlines in general, this specific carrier doesn’t represent an economically critical business, let alone a company with national security implications. Last year, Spirit flew 3.5 percent of passenger miles domestically, which ranks it only eighth nationwide.

As it pared back services to stay afloat, Spirit has reportedly reduced its scheduled flights from 19,575 last May to an estimated 9,353 next month. Those numbers raise an obvious point: If Spirit could cut more than 10,000 flights in the past 12 months without causing a national calamity — or indeed without generating much notice at all — then the disappearance of its remaining 9,353 flights should not cause any major incident. 

But Spirit’s liquidation wouldn’t necessarily lead to the disappearance of all its flights, as other airlines can, and likely would, buy its profitable routes and planes. Contra President Trump’s claim that “I’d love to be able to save those jobs,” letting Spirit go into liquidation would allow other companies to purchase and run its usable assets, including its personnel, without injecting taxpayer dollars into a zombie company to keep it afloat.

Awful Politics

Conservatives have equally solid political reasons to oppose a Spirit bailout. We know how Republicans would react if the political roles were reversed. When President Obama gave bailout funds to American automakers, conservatives derided the actions of “Government Motors” for years, and rightly so.

Moreover, the White House appears not to remember the trap that George W. Bush laid for congressional Republicans 18 years ago: the trap of TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Coming in the fall of a presidential election year, the Wall Street bailout helped transform a middling-to-bad election cycle for congressional Republicans into a wipeout. Republicans’ catastrophic defeat in November 2008 gave Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama the margins they needed to ram Obamacare down the throats of Congress and a skeptical American people.

With families still struggling under persistent inflation, using more taxpayer dollars to bail out poor choices by airline executives could engender a similar public outrage as TARP among the electorate. Unless Trump has a political death wish, he would steer well clear of this type of golden giveaway.

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Apple Adds Age Verification to Digital ID in Wallet, Moves Beyond TSA Airport Checkpoints

Apple just turned on the next phase of its Digital ID rollout and the framing in the company’s support documentation is almost casual. The passport-derived credential in Apple Wallet can now be used to confirm a user is over 18 when creating an Apple Account, updating iOS, adjusting safety settings, or downloading apps rated 18+. No press release accompanied the change, by the way.

The understated rollout undersells what is actually happening. Apple, like Google, Meta, Discord, and every other consumer-facing platform of significant size, is racing to operationalize digital identity infrastructure to meet a wave of age-verification mandates landing across the US, UK, EU, and Australia.

The companies did not invent this demand; lawmakers did, but the response is arriving faster than the laws themselves, and the architecture being built right now will outlast any specific statute that prompted it.

The UK’s Online Safety Act is already forcing platforms to verify ages with documented credentials.

Discord attempted its own age-verification rollout earlier this year, paused after backlash, and has continued reworking the system. State laws in the US are moving in the same direction with Texas, Louisiana, Utah, and a growing list of others passing mandates that target app stores, social platforms, and adult content sites.

Federal proposals keep recycling similar models. The European Union is preparing its own age-verification framework. Australia has already legislated a social media ban for under-16s.

The platforms doing the verifying have a choice. They can build the credential infrastructure themselves, license it from third-party vendors who upload your passport to their servers, or hand the job to the operating system that already lives on your phone. Apple’s Digital ID, and Google’s parallel work on digital credentials in Android, are bids to be the third option. They are also bids to be the default option, because once an OS-level identity wallet exists, regulators tend to treat it as the natural place to plug in.

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Trump Floats Taxpayer-Funded Takeover of Spirit Airlines, Selling for Profit

President Donald Trump said on April 23 that a taxpayer-funded takeover of Spirit Airlines could be an option, with the intention of reselling it when oil prices fall.

The Florida-based airline is undergoing restructuring after filing for bankruptcy protection in August 2025.

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said he was interested in the U.S. government bailing out Spirit, or buying it outright.

“We’d be getting it debt-free. They have some good aircraft and good assets, and when the prices of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a profit,” Trump said.

“I’d love to be able to save those jobs. I’d love to be able to save an airline,” Trump said, adding that more airlines improves competition in the market.

Spirit said in March that it had been working to sell some planes and scale back operations to focus on its “strongest routes and markets,” including Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Detroit, Michigan; and the New York metropolitan area.

Marshall Huebner, a lawyer with Davis Polk who is representing Spirit, told a U.S. bankruptcy court hearing in New York this week that government financing would make Spirit more competitive.

Creditors Notified of Deal

Huebner said details of a potential deal had been shared with all three of the company’s primary creditor groups.

The airline that became Spirit was launched in the 1980s, but rebranded in 1992.

“It all started with our launch as Charter One, flying Guests from Detroit to Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and the Bahamas,” the company says on its website. “When we rebranded as Spirit Airlines, we doubled down on our mission: bringing more guests to more places for more fun.”

Ultra-low-cost airlines have been under pressure for years as they traditionally attract budget-conscious travelers with low base fares, but the rise in oil prices is eroding margins and increasing losses.

Earlier this week, for example, German airline Lufthansa announced that 20,000 short-haul flights would be canceled this summer because of the ongoing fuel crisis sparked by the Iran war and subsequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global oil shipments.

On April 21, Trump urged for someone to buy Spirit and said federal assistance may be available.

“I’d love somebody to buy Spirit—it’s 14,000 jobs,“ he said. ”Maybe the federal government should help that one out.”

In 2024, the Biden administration, citing antitrust laws, prevented JetBlue Airways from buying Spirit for $3.8 billion.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CBS News this week he had concerns about a Spirit Airlines bailout.

“The question will be does the federal government step in and bail out an airline that for a very long time hasn’t been run well,” Duffy said.

He said he was unsure whether Spirit could be saved and “made viable” and was concerned that taxpayers’ money could end up in a company that would eventually be liquidated.

But Trump said he had “a smart person” in mind who could potentially run Spirit and get it back on solid a financial footing.

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FAA Targets Video Gamers to Alleviate Air Traffic Controller Shortage

In an effort to solve the decades-long shortage of air traffic controllers across U.S. airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced a new hiring campaign targeted at video gamers interested in new career opportunities.

“To reach the next generation of air traffic controllers, we need to adapt. This campaign’s innovative communication style and focus on gaming taps into a growing demographic of young adults who have many of the hard skills it takes to be a successful controller,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement on April 10.

Announced last Friday, the FAA’s new air traffic controller hiring window opens at 12 a.m. ET on April 17, allowing interested candidates to apply for what the agency calls “one of the most dynamic jobs in the world.”

The FAA has faced a significant shortage of air traffic controllers since the 1980s, with thousands of retirements during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating the deficit. Congress has provided the agency with supplemental funding over the past two years to increase staffing, and the Trump administration said it has thousands of trainees in the pipeline.

The FAA is also not the first federal agency to target video gamers with keen hand-eye coordination and quick decision-making skills for high-stakes positions. Both the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security have deployed similar strategies for tech-related roles in complex environments that require hours of focus.

The FAA is rolling out a new YouTube ad with bright and fluid graphics asking gamers, “Are you up for the challenge? You’ve been training for this.”

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Trump’s New DHS Head off to Blistering Start, Considers Crippling Sanctuary Cities’ International Airports

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin may take action against “sanctuary cities” that subvert federal immigration laws by removing customs agents at their international airports.

The move would crush the tourist economies of sanctuary cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco by rendering them incapable of processing international travelers.

Mullin floated the idea Monday during an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier.

“I believe sanctuary cities — it’s not lawful,” the DHS boss said. “This one area we may take a hard look at is … some of these cities have international airports. If they’re a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city?

“If they’re a sanctuary city and they’re receiving international flights, and we’re asking them to partner with us at the airport, but once they walk out of the airport, they’re not going to enforce immigration policy — maybe we need to have a really hard look at that,” Mullin continued.

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Austria denies US military access to its airspace for Iran operations

Austria has rejected multiple US requests to use its airspace for military operations against Iran, citing neutrality laws, Austrian Defense Ministry spokesperson Colonel Michael Bauer announced on 2 April.

“There have indeed been requests, and they were refused from the outset,” Bauer said in a statement reported by public broadcaster ORF, adding that “every time a similar request involves a country at war, it is refused.”

A Defense Ministry spokesperson confirmed there had been “several” requests from Washington but did not specify the number, noting that each case is assessed under Austria’s legal obligation to avoid involvement in active wars.

The ministry added that Austria is not enforcing a blanket ban but is reviewing overflight requests individually in coordination with the Foreign Ministry. 

Still, officials emphasized that neutrality remains the main guiding principle behind each decision.

Opposition figures in Austria have called for an even stricter stance, with Sven Hergovich saying Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner “should not approve a single further US military flight to the Gulf,” warning the war is harming “Austrian economic interests, Europe as a whole, and world peace.”

US President Donald Trump criticized European allies as “very unhelpful” and said Washington would “remember” their refusal to support military efforts to take control of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran.

The move places Austria among a growing group of states restricting US military access as Washington and Tel Aviv continue their assault on Iran, favoring either diplomacy over military operations to end the fighting.

Earlier, Italy had also restricted US military access, denying warplanes permission to land at the Sigonella Air Base after flight plans were submitted mid-air without prior approval. 

Officials said the request fell outside existing agreements and lacked authorization, prompting Rome to block the landing except in case of emergencies.

Italian political figures had stressed that Italy “is not at war with Iran and does not want to enter it.”

Earlier, Spain had also barred US-linked warplanes involved in strikes on Iran from using its airspace and bases for combat operations, rejecting all related flight plans, including refueling missions.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Madrid had denied access for “this illegal war,” while allowing limited logistical support under existing agreement obligations, and also maintaining exceptions for emergencies. 

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Israel retaliates against France

Israel’s Defense Ministry has announced retaliatory steps against France after US President Donald Trump openly criticized the European NATO member for refusing to allow access to its airspace for arms shipments being delivered to the Middle East.

Posting on Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump described the French decision as “very unhelpful” to the US-Israeli war on Iran, adding that Washington “will remember” the move. France’s restriction on facilitating weapons transfers to Israel came alongside a broader embargo on arms sales to West Jerusalem introduced more than a year ago.

Israeli Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram stated in a Channel 12interview on Tuesday that he and Defense Minister Israel Katz aim to curb reliance on foreign arms suppliers, especially from countries such as France that Israel does not view as “friendly.”

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