If you think you have problems with Air Travel these days, here is part of a story from the POLITICO NEWS by DANIEL LIBIT & Richard T. CULLEN
Serving in Congress has its privileges, but avoiding the perils of modern air travel is not one of them.
Just ask the three senators running for president.
Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York) have lost campaign events due to flight delays, flights when a problem of ground radar in September, Clinton called for a scheduled appearance at a union convention in Chicago of the airport runway in Little Rock, Arkansas plane Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, landed at the wrong Iowa airport in November and ran into another plane at Chicago Midway International Airport in January.
They are not alone. While the candidates spend more time on the road most of his colleagues, members of Congress, especially those of the West, make a pretty good job of accumulating frequent flyer miles themselves.
They have horror stories to prove it.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)
The busiest airport in the country was named in honor of his brother, but neither that, nor the fact that he is a senator U.S. Seating could save Senator Edward M. Kennedy Airport since March 2004.According existential torment to an article in The Washington Post, Senator was arrested five times in airports that month because his name had been placed on a Homeland Security no-fly after a terrorist list suspect had been found to be using the alias "T. Kennedy.
At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2004, Kennedy described Kafkaesque scene as an Airline Ticket counter agent told him not to be allowed to buy a ticket to Boston. "Well, why not?" Asked Kennedy.
"We can not say," replied the agent.
Kennedy ultimately came to a flight, only to endure the rigmarole same when he tried to return to Washington. "I approached the table and said:" I have been getting on this plane for 42 years. Why can not I get in the plane? ""
Kennedy received his name removed from the list and received an apology from the then Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, to boot.
No matter. Shortly thereafter, an airline agent tried to stop him.
Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
In One Day, when you fly back home to the small town of Gering in western Nebraska, Rep. Adrian Smith can depart from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport by the time it takes 6 pm, and still arrive at your door at 9:45 pm Mountain time. To live in a rural area, Smith says he feels very fortunate for that.
But luck often turns against Smith when he flies to the eastern part of his district, a journey that forces them to stop more than one vertex of the Bermuda Triangle the heart of the country: Minneapolis, Chicago or Kansas City, Mo. The worst was in February, when Smith was destined for some talks in Lincoln, but ended up trapped Chicago O'Hare International Airport for 12 hours. "The short weekends, when it seems to be losing the main event, one wonders whether it should even continue the trip or simply go back to DC, "she said.
Because of his travel travails, Smith has become both a fan of programmers Capitol Hill, who has come to regard as "artists" and an advocate for the expansion of U.S. federal funds the second busiest airport. "First Opportunity I have to help the expansion of O'Hare, I want to, "he said." I think it's a national question.
And a question Nebraska, too.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
There was perhaps no better place to be in Alaska on 27 March 1964 than in air. There is where Senator Ted Stevens was when the state was rocked by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America.
Stevens, who was just beginning in electoral politics, was on a flight from Alaska Airlines from Anchorage to Fairbanks, where the quake hit. Late at night, Stevens and a group of doctors flew return to Anchorage in an F-27 charter. He says everyone was "very concerned about landing."
"When we approached the area regularly went off, "Stevens said." It was a hairy night.
The plane was forced to land at Elmendorf Air Force Base. With roads cracked by the earthquake, the passengers had to get to the city on foot. Stevens came home at 2:30 am, only to discover that part of town where I lived was severely damage in the earthquake.
It was not just the senator's plane scare related. I had a hard landing in Mt. McKinley, in Bush's plane in 1969, and remembers a trip out of Hawaii in a military transport plane had to return to the airport because of mechanical complications.
When asked if any of these experiences have made him hesitant to fly, 85-year-old senator harrumphs. "Oh, hell no," he said. "I flew in World War II. I flown across all hazards. I have no problem with that. "
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Air Travel is Not Easy Since 9-11
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