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USA Today: Airport Check-in

You know we love Today in the Sky, Ben Mutzabaugh's prescient, perceptive USA Today column on air travel. Today Ben's pointed out a partner column: Airport Check-in, which covers news and notes on airport developments.

With the strength of the paper's coverage of USA travel, may be worth booknoting this one as holiday travel approaches.

Summer Security Equal US Air Travel Snafus

In its quest to protect American shores from terroristic toothpaste and evil iPods, US Airlines set a record for mishandled luggage this August.

According to the Department of Transportation, passengers reported 437,000 pieces of checked bags as lost, damaged, delayed or stolen, as reported in this USA Today piece Mishandled luggage hits record in Aug.

Most of the mishaps resulted from new security rules that forced millions of passengers to check carry-on bags in the wake of a foiled terror plot in London.

Given the circumstances, the number of passenger complaints were relatively low, particularly among the only three US airlines - JetBlue, Southwest and Hawaiian - that did not see their mishandled-baggage rate increase from August 2005 to August 2006.

Farecast Takes Off

That $299 round-trip SFO-JFK flight to catch Yankees and Mets playoff games in October? Better buy it now, according to Farecast.com. The new airline price predictor that tracks airfares and offers advice whether to buy now or hang tight covers 55 cities, and says there's a 74% chance fares will rise before then. Make it 75 if the Yanks continue to stomp the Red Sox like last weekend..

Cheap Airfare aggregators

Two new cheap airfare sites worth checking:

Fly Cheapo: rounding up the latest in the mad European lo-fare airline world

Cheap Air: love the calendar interface.

Fly, be cheap!