Travel

HONG KONG — Police in Hong Kong arrested a passenger on Thursday for allegedly attempting to open the door of a plane during a flight from Boston to the Chinese territory.The 20-year-old male suspect, a Chinese passport holder with the last name Zhang, attempted the act on a Cathay Pacific flight early Thursday and was reported to police, a Hong Kong Police Force spokesperson told NBC News by phone on Friday.“Our cabin crew immediately attended to the situation, inspected the door to ensure it was securely closed, and reported the incident to the relevant authorities and the police,” Cathay Pacific, which is Hong Kong’s flagship airline, said in an emailed statement to NBC News.No crew members or passengers were injured, and the flight landed safely, the airline said. “The case has been...

The Trump administration plans to require all foreign tourists to provide their social media histories from the last five years to enter the country, according to a notice published Tuesday in the Federal Register.The data would be “mandatory” for new entrants to the U.S., regardless of whether they are entering from countries that require visas, according to the notice from Customs and Border Protection.Residents of the United Kingdom and Germany are among the countries from which visitors do not require visas to visit the U.S., which, according to the notice, could add an extra hurdle for travelers. British citizens and people of other waived countries currently can complete “Electronic System for Travel Authorizations” in lieu of obtaining visas.The Trump administration has increased...

Some 46 million people from the northern Rockies to the Northeast remain under winter weather alerts into the weekend, as two weather systems threaten to disrupt post-Thanksgiving travel with chilly temperatures, heavy snow and dangerous driving conditions.Heavy lake-effect snow will continue across the Great Lakes region from Friday through early Saturday morning, with snow squalls bringing quick bursts of heavy snow and potential whiteout conditions for the interior Northeast on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.More than 1,400 flights traveling to, from or within the U.S. were delayed as of midday Friday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware, with 24 flights canceled.That storm already fueled rounds of heavy lake-effect snow across portions of the Plains a...

A record number of Americans will travel this weekend, packing up their bags and hitting the road to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family, friends and maybe some football.But travel this year will look different than it did 12 months ago, according to a bevy of early data, surveys and industry experts.The chief culprits behind the shifts? More travelers; deepening economic anxiety; tensions around geopolitics; and a six-week government shutdown that only ended a few weeks ago.Record travelers, but tighter beltsAAA projects that 81.8 million people will travel at least 50 miles over the long holiday weekend — 1.6 million more people than last Thanksgiving and a record level.Six million of those travelers are expected to take domestic flights, another increase over last year. But AA...

Cold, wintry weather and strong winds are expected in large parts of the country Wednesday as millions hit the roads and take to the skies ahead of Thanksgiving.Up to 2 feet of snow is set to to hit the Upper Midwest and 52 million people are under wind alerts from the Plains to the Great Lakes and into the Appalachians, including in major cities such as Chicago and Detroit. For the areas under these alerts, gusts are forecast to be as high as 60 mph. Blizzard warnings are in place for parts of northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and areas east of lakes Erie and Ontario are under lake-effect snow warnings.A major lake-effect snowstorm is expected through Saturday, in which snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour, combined with wind gusts stronger than 30 mph, will l...

Severe weather throughout the country threatens widespread disruptions during what's expected to be a record-high Thanksgiving travel week.At least 9 million people face the risk of severe storms on Monday throughout Texas, southern Arkansas, and the northern half of Louisiana. These storms could produce large hail, damaging winds , and several tornadoes. The risk of flooding affects 7 million people across central and northern Texas, as well as a small portion of Oklahoma and Arkansas, on Monday. These areas are forecast to be hit by thunderstorms, with 1 to 2 inches of rain per hour through the morning, and an additional 1 to 3 inches possible throughout the day."Flash flood and severe weather threats will gradually move through the Arklatex region today, reaching into the Tennessee V...

Travelers passing through John F. Kennedy International Airport's Terminal 4 on Sunday are facing hurdles after operations went "down" around noon, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.The agency did not immediately provide details about the outage but said its information technology team is working to resolve the issue. Delta Airlines, which operates out of Terminal 4, is not affected, the port authority said. "It is ongoing and there is no estimated restoration timeline," the statement said. "Passengers are urged to call airlines ahead of time." Claudia Hernandez, a traveler in the terminal, posted video on X showing what appeared to be long lines. She said that it appeared the airport servers were down. "I’m still waiting at the moment, we got here at 11:20 a.m....

The Trump administration has officially withdrawn a proposal that would have compensated airline passengers for significant delays caused by issues within a carrier's control.Though the move was announced in September, the Department of Transportation formalized it in the Federal Register on Monday. It stated that it was withdrawing the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking submitted under President Joe Biden in December. Under the Biden-era plan, passengers would have received reimbursements based on how long the delays lasted. The scale began at $200 and went up to $775 for delays that lasted at least nine hours.The proposal was never enacted, but would have put U.S. regulation more closely aligned with airline rules in Europe. A spokesperson for the department said last week that the...

The Federal Aviation Administration will end its flight reduction emergency order on Monday, meaning flights will resume operations as normal, officials announced Sunday. The emergency order will officially lift Monday at 6 a.m. ET, bringing an end to the reductions that caused mass cancellations and delays at airports.The cuts, which started with a 4% reduction in flights at 40 major airports on Nov. 7, were designed to address fatigue and staffing issues among air traffic controllers amid the record-long government shutdown. It's being rolled back now that staffing levels have "stabilized" with the end of the government shutdown Wednesday, the FAA said. The decision to lift the order was made following an FAA review of "safety trends" and due to "the steady decline of staffing-trigger...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday night signed a bill that reopened the government after 43 days, paving the way for airlines to restore regular flight schedules and air traffic controllers, who have not been receiving pay as they worked through the shutdown, to return to work.But it remains unclear when full flight schedules and paychecks will be restored after the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to mandate flight restrictions at 40 high-traffic airports last week. On Wednesday night, the FAA ordered that cancellations would remain at 6% on Thursday, after two days at that rate and an initial plan to ramp up to 10% by Friday. As of Thursday morning, nearly 1,000 flights within the U.S. had already been canceled for the day, and more than 900 were delayed, according to flig...