The hyper-security that is now the norm for regular passenger travel is an unleashed beast that knows no bounds. Quite recently I pointed to but now it appears the entire information structure built around stepping on a flight is to undergo some drastic changes.

All travellers in the U.S. will be required to get government-issued credentials and official clearance before every flight, both within the United States as well as internationally.All the dire predictions made about the Department of Homeland Security made at the time of its inception are steadily bearing fruit, and very bitter ones at that I might add.

Romantic Victorian-styled bed and breakfasts stays, walks on the beach, hunting rarities in antiques shops. Skydiving and sailing, kayaking and surfing. Golf, golf and even more golf. Dining and wine-tasting and spa treatments. And then there are the sunsets. Whatever a visitor could want, it’s probably here for the asking. But whether they’re honeymoon getaways, family vacations or business travels, every one of those visits has at least one thing in common: that visitor had to get here somehow.

And these days, the likelihood is increasing that the tourist’s experience started with a flight. Tourism experts say most of the visitors who come to the Monterey region still arrive here by car. The bulk of them arrive in summer, on long weekends, on holidays, from the Bay Area, from Fresno and Sacramento, even Los Angeles. Mostly, they’re travelers on a road trip toward relief from the traffic, the smog, the heat, from work and housework and the humdrum of the everyday. Californians make up 85 percent of personal trips within the state, according to the California Travel and Tourism Commission, and of those, 75 percent are leisure travelers. Tourists to the Monterey Peninsula may have 1,001 ways to spend their time here.

Do you ever wonder what’s happening to air travel these days? I do. Often. Of course, I fly a lot, but even if you only take a few flights a year, there’s a good chance you’ll be taking one this upcoming holiday season. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard that one in every four flights was delayed during the first eight months of this year, according to. But that’s not all. Load factors are at an all-time high, baggage is being lost in record numbers, travelers are poorly dressed and people on the road just seem peeved.

The truth is that air travel woes are equal to, if not worse than, the years prior to 9/11. (That period of time is remembered as the worst for the industry’s problems.) According to the more planes are flying now than back then, so it’s not surprising these issues have come up again. What we fail to recognize is that the industry never solved these problems before, but merely skirted them when demand dropped through the floor in the wake of the terror attacks. That leaves the question: Is there anything we can do now to make the experience of air travel more palatable? In an attempt to find out, I asked travelers about their tolerance and expectations when it comes to air travel.

With a holiday travel crush looming, President Bush announced yesterday that commercial jets will be allowed to fly in restricted East Coast military airspace during the busiest days around Thanksgiving and Christmas.The move will add two flight routes to the dozen or so along the Eastern seaboard and will help get planes out of the New York metropolitan area — the source of much of the nation’s air traffic jams — more quickly, transportation officials said.The improvements will offer little relief, however, if weather conditions send the fragile air traffic system into a tailspin.

And they won’t help passengers if they get stuck on planes stranded on tarmacs.”If the weather overtop this military airspace is bad, then no one’s going to fly over it,” said John Dunkerly, an air traffic controller at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.Yesterday’s announcement comes as travelers brace for a hectic Thanksgiving season. The Air Transport Association, a trade organization for airlines, projects a 4 percent increase in passengers next week compared with a year earlier, with an average of 2.3 million passengers daily on planes that are 90 percent full.Bush said he hoped a series of new “preliminary” proposals would “help address the epidemic of aviation delays” that flare up at this time of the year.

Ahead of the holiday travel crunch, President Bush ordered steps Thursday to reduce air traffic congestion and long delays that have left passengers stranded.The most significant change is that the Pentagon will open unused military airspace from Florida to Maine to create “a Thanksgiving express lane” for commercial airliners. It will be open next week for five days — Wednesday through Sunday — for the busiest days of Thanksgiving travel. Bush said the problems with delayed flights are “clear to anybody who’s been traveling.

Airports are very crowded. Travelers are being stranded and flights are delayed, sometimes with a full load of passengers sitting on the runway for hours.”These failures carry some real costs for the country, not just in the inconvenience they cause but in the business they obstruct and the family gatherings they cause people to miss,” the president said. “We can do better.”The new plan also will be in effect for the Christmas travel season, and White House press secretary Dana Perino said the Federal Aviation Administration was imposing a holiday moratorium on nonessential maintenance projects, allowing all FAA personnel and equipment to be focused on keeping flights on time.Further, the Department of Transportation will propose doubling the bump fee that airlines must pay to travelers who buy tickets but wind up without a seat.

The penalty now is $200 or $400, depending on long the passenger has been inconvenienced. The proposed increase would make the fee $400 to $800. Perino said that rule, if it becomes final, wouldn’t be in place until next summer’s travel season.

Air travelers heading to Thanksgiving destinations are being cautioned to use the same approach to flying as they would to preparing that holiday dinner - plan ahead and be patient. Given the overall increase in traffic at Sacramento International Airport throughout the year - traffic has been up about 5 percent - more travelers are anticipated to come through the airport next week and throughout the holiday travel season, said Karen Doron, spokeswoman for the Sacramento County Airport System.

The busiest day for air travel is the day before Thanksgiving, Doron said, but Friday and Sunday also are expected to be peak travel days.”Some of (the heavy traffic) does start tomorrow, with people taking the whole week of Thanksgiving off,” she said.Return travel days aren’t as heavy because air traffic isn’t as concentrated, Doron said.peak travel periods, extra measures will be in place to help manage vehicle traffic at the airport, including traffic cones and uniformed officers. Airport visitors are urged to watch for cones, officers and pedestrians as they approach the terminals.”We really want to remind everyone when they’re coming into the airport to drive carefully,” Doron said. “There is so much more traffic, so really pay attention to speed limit signs because there’s a lot of pedestrians.”

“The military will make available some of it’s airspace over the East Coast for civilian airspace this Thanksgiving,” Bush said this week. For five days, airspace not used for conventional traveling will be open to all from Maine to Florida. The decision is expected to impact large hubs like Atlanta and New York, but not so much in Charlotte.”Our real problems are the [Transportation Security Administration] and not being able to through people at the check points which can result in huge lines and the air traffic system that can’t handle the volume,” said Jerry Orr with Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.

AAA expects a record 39 million people will travel 50 miles or more in the next few weeks for holiday plans, so President George Bush has ordered several steps be taken to reduce air traffic congestion and long air travel delays.The FAA hopes to re-route airspace and try to use more direct routes for takeoffs and landings. Bush announced that there will be a holiday halt on non-essential maintenance projects so the FAA can be staffed and focused. To address the volume or congestion problems at places like Charlotte-Douglas, the Federal Aviation Administration is planning to cut back on non-essential flights, trying to make things more efficient.

President Bush announced several steps Thursday aimed at easing air travel congestion for the millions of holiday travelers who will head into the increasingly unfriendly skies next week, including the use of a “Thanksgiving express lane” for commercial airlines.It’s kind of a mess up there and at the airports, Bush said in a White House statement.”Airports are very crowded, travelers are being stranded and flights are delayed, sometimes with a full load of passengers sitting on the runway for hours,” Bush said after meeting with Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and acting Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bobby Sturgell.Bush’s moves include:Freeing up military airspace along the East Coast for use by commercial flights during the five-day Thanksgiving weekend and possibly at Christmas.

Declaring a moratorium on nonessential FAA projects during the holidays to allow agency personnel and equipment to concentrate on alleviating delays.Encouraging airlines to add staff, seats and planes to relieve holiday congestion. Bush said airlines have agreed to take the steps, including bringing in more ticket kiosks and rolling staircases.Bush also said the FAA will use its Web site to offer updates on flight delays.”We are determined not to let airline delays turn holiday cheer into runway gloom,” Peters said.The amount of airspace for planes flying in and out of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport won’t change, but holiday travelers with East Coast destinations could benefit from the increased airspace there, said Roland Herwig, spokesman for the FAA Southwest Region.Other elements of the plan and promised cooperation from the airline industry are not aimed at a specific region but are intended to improve flights for everyone, Herwig said. “It should affect Austin in an increased service to the traveling public.”

Both Pearson and the island airport are experiencing delays because of the thick fog this morning.At Pearson International, about 20 flights are running 10 to 15 minutes late, said spokesperson Scott Armstrong At the Toronto City Centre Airport, the first two morning flights left on schedule, but as the weather deteriorated several flights had to be cancelled, said spokesperson Brad Cicero“For the next handful of flights we’re going to be operating in and out of Pearson airport,” he said.

Travelers will check in as usual to the island airport, and after clearing security they’ll be bused to Pearson directly to the plane.“As always we’d like to remind our customers to call in advance to see if their flight is running on time,” Armstrong said.

White contrails crisscrossing the sky over every major metropolis are a constant visual reminder of the fundamental role of airplanes in modern life.A world without air travel is inconceivable, but what might it be like in the future? Is the jumbo’s jumbo, the Airbus A380, a taste of bigger craft to come? And with energy sources in question, will we even be flying?Passenger travel is growing at a rate of three percent each year, with air-freight growing even faster.

Current projections estimate the number of people traveling by air — both in the US and abroad — will double or even triple by 2030 Meanwhile, fuel prices are hitting record highs, with analysts increasingly expecting oil to break the $100-a-barrel mark, while airplanes are branded as global warming enemy number one because of their habit of depositing CO2 emissions high in the atmosphere A legion of aeronautical researchers and designers around the world are seeking to keep up with future demand for air travel while reducing its environmental impact and increase its efficiency. But is it possible?Dr Juan Alonso, head of NASA’s Fundamental Aeronautics program certainly thinks so.Current research points to a dramatic re-design of airplanes which will not only accommodate higher volumes of air travel but will also be more environmentally friendly than today’s craft.”We have to come up with solutions in the aerospace world. A large part of these solutions come from introducing aircraft with new technologies,” explained Dr Alonso.