Word on the secret underground is that United Airlines and US Airways may be in talks to merge, and may even announce their plans as early as TODAY. Other reports say that they're waiting on union approval and could postpone an announcement in early May.

I know we've all been speculating about whether any other legacy carriers were going to merge after the Northwest and Delta deal got rolling; many believed that Continental and United were next in line, especially with Continental's suspicious postings on their new website, co-industryconsolidation.com.

Perhaps that's not the only deal in motion though? United and US Airways, two airlines that have faced particular hardship over the last few years could well-benefit from the consolidation of their services. Both are in the same airline alliance and have numerous domestic hubs that could directly compete with the the new Northwelta.

Keep an eye on the news and UAUA today. Again, this is all still speculation but big news could be on the way.

Remember the US Airways pilot that fired a gun in the cockpit? CNN is reporting that the airline will eventually fire him for the incident.

The Federal Flight Deck Officers Association, the organization "which represents pilots who are federally trained and allowed to carry firearms on flights," will be fighting the termination, calling the incident "accidental not intentional." Well, duh.

I don't think anyone was questioning whether the shot was intentional or not, and its intention doesn't make the bullet any less dangerous. But should he be fired for the mistake?

What do you think?

Do you live in Maryland? Did you find an unknown piece of metal in your backyard this afternoon?

If so, U.S Airways and the FAA, no doubt, would like to have a word with you, as it most likely fell off the wing of one of their planes. A local ABC affiliate reports,

"The company notified local fire departments that a 17-square-inch piece of wing fell off and may be somewhere in Anne Arundel or Prince George's County, or even somewhere near Kent Island."

U.S. Airways officials are confident it fell off somewhere over Maryland, but they're not quite sure exactly where. Help them out, please.

[Via Consumerist]

If there's one thing that fires people up besides shirts with the F word on it, it's guns.

At issue is whether or not pilots should be allowed to carry weapons in the cockpit. While it's a definitive way to reinforce security at 30,000 feet, the presence of a firearm onboard increases the potential for accidents -- and disaster.

That's what happened last Saturday when a US Airways pilot's gun accidentally went off in the cockpit during the flight. Nobody was injured and the aircraft landed safely, but wow, they were lucky.

Suppose that bullet went through the front window instead of somewhere into the fuselage. At that altitude could the pilots withstand explosive decompression? Would the entire cabin decompress and the pilots be killed?

According to the TSA, the pilot in question was trained under the Federal Flight Deck Officers program and last certified in November. Details are still sketchy on how the firearm was stored and what caused it to discharge in the cockpit, but I'm pretty sure that with the safety on and without a bullet in the chamber a weapon shouldn't accidentally fire.

I suppose if it were up to me and on my flight, I would prefer the pilot to have a gun and thwart a terrorist at the small risk of having an accident. While flight deck doors are locked from the inside these days and any instigator would have a really difficult time getting access, the extra layer of security does supply a grain of comfort. I'm glad everyone was safe on the US Airways flight.

I'm not sure if there's a secret sale going on or someone at US Airways messed up the feed today, but ticket prices to the UK for summertime travel just went down. This means that instead of paying 1200$ for that ticket from Chicago to London you now might be able to get away with about 600$. Quite an excellent price for summertime travel.

The fare sale seems to be centered solely around US Airways routes between the United States and London (LON) and Manchester (MAN) with travel between Monday and Thursday. If you'd like a dandy tool to check availability, use this Farecompare link to view a calendar. Plug in your favorite airport in the departure box to check if the fare is available from your city.

London not where you want to go? Consider booking your transatlantic leg into London then booking a separate ticket from there to your final destination (it's called nesting). You can either go through a canonical search engine like Kayak or Opodo, or try your luck at a Low Cost Carrier via flylc.com.

Happy summer travels.

I've been rather harsh on US airlines lately, especially the all-purpose @$!%-hole that is US Airways. So since I don't like to be a squeaky wheel--all the time--I'm going to switch it up and wax eloquent about JetBlue for a bit.

I just took their JFK to Pittsburgh flight, and it turned out to be one of the best flights in recent memory. That's not saying as much about JetBlue's performance as it is about the sad state of American aviation.

But props to Jetblue anyways. They already had something like 40 channels of free satellite TV on this flight (which was only an hour in the air). The pilot also had the courtesy to come into the cabin to make his initial announcement. The two flight attendants were very nice. Oh, and the headphones and snacks were free (looking at you, US Airways). Best of all, the flight was 50% cheaper than the next available one.

So normally it's not wise to utter the word "bomb" in the same breath when you're talking about flying. But what to do if you've had a horrible experience with an airline, and customer service just won't help you out?

Last week I posted about the five worst airlines in the US, which got a lot of comments. One of the readers wrote in about getting screwed on US Airways when he did them a favor and volunteered to take a later flight due to overbooking. But surprise surprise, US Airways was no help when he complained.

We have tried calling and writing to their Consumer Relations office. At this point, we have realized that our 24 hour delay was made on the basis of a false promise. Obviously, we will try to never fly on US Airways again; if we must, we will certainly never volunteer to be bumped.

So is this the end of the road? No, thanks to a technique perfected by the good folks over at Consumerist. It's called "executive bombing," in which you go straight pass the lowly customer service people to either senior management or the "elite" customer service desk, which takes care of the really angry customers. To do this, you'll need to track down the contact info for these people, which I'll talk about in a coming post. For now, here's the number for US Airways Executive Office: 877-369-6512. Go get 'em.

These rankings are straight from the US government (courtesy of the Department of Transportation), so at least they're not entirely biased. Based off the number of complaints, the five worst US airlines are Northwest, Delta, United, American, and US Airways (being the worst).

None of this is especially surprising, other than maybe that complaints are surging--as usual. But what is surprising is that America's most hated airline, US Airways (sadly most US travelers will agree with you hands-down on their status), is equally hated, if not more so, by its own employees. Ouch.

In a New York Times story, one worker wrote in, "... I hate to tell you but the interiors of our plans [sic] smell bad and they are filthy. As an employee I am embarrassed to admit working for US Airways." It was also revealed how far the airline will go to cut costs--they're currently on the lookout for a cheaper supplier of their famous pretzels. Right now, each package costs roughly 3 cents.

I've had several bad experiences with US Airways, though to their credit, the last time they randomly canceled my flight--and had the nerves to blame it on the weather--they ended up agreeing to send me a $250 voucher. But I generally go out of my way to avoid flying with them. And so should you!

New Mexico's Regulation and Licensing Department has denied US Airways a permit to serve alcohol in the state -- and that includes the state's airspace.
The decision came after a temporary 90-day permit expired, which was put into place after a passenger who was allegedly over-served on a US flight got behind the wheel. Dana Pabst then drove the wrong way down I25 and hit a van carrying a family of 5. Everyone 6 people including Pabst were killed.

Other incidents where flight attendants reportedly over-served passengers were also taken into account.

US Airways can apply again for a state liquor license, but the company would have to show that it was "prepared to meet New Mexico standards in their practices."

Airlines are treating their passengers worse than ever, with customer service blunders on the rise for the third year in a row. According to the annual Airline Quality Rating, last year saw more people bumped, more bags lost, and more flights delayed than in 2005.

Worst of all, it looks like things will continue to go downhill. An industry spokesman told the Associated Press that because the number of flights is exceeding the capacity of air traffic controllers, "We're going to see more delays and those delays translate to cancellations, mishandled bags and unhappy passengers."

United -- who's stranding of passengers for hours on runways wasn't included because it was weather-related -- tied for the most-complained-about airline with US Airawys, while Southwest registered the fewest complaints.

I'm at the point where I almost expect some kind of delay when I'm at the airport. But what about you, is the change noticeable? Any flight-delay horror stories you'd like to share?