American Airlines, looking ahead to next winter's getaways, is adding new flights to the Caribbean and Mexico. Beginning Dec. 21, the airline is adding new Saturday-only service between: Chicago O'Hare and St Thomas; Chicago O'Hare and St Lucia; Dallas-Fort Worth and St Thomas; New York LaGuardia and Bermuda; Charlotte, North Carolina, and Grenada. American is also adding Tuesday and Saturday service between Dallas and Acapulco and Huatulco, Mexico, on Dec. 21. Those flights will operate in the winter and summer. Huatulco, on Mexico's Pacific coast, is a new destination for American, and the Acapulco flights mark the airline's return after an eight-year absence. For skiers, American is adding Saturday-only winter flights between Philadelphia and Vail, Colorado, beginning Dec. 21. The new flights are among 16 new routes American announced on Thursday, May 9.<br/>
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A flight attendant from Dallas was fined after she was accused of showing up to work an American Airlines flight four times over the legal drinking limit. Flight attendant Cynthia Struble, 64, reportedly arrived at London's Heathrow Airport on Dec. 28, 2018, ready to board a 9:30 a.m. flight headed to Dallas and was found to be intoxicated. Struble's case was heard May 7 in Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court in Britain, according to The Independent. A security officer said she stopped a uniformed Struble after smelling alcohol on her breath as she made her way through the security line. "I started to engage in conversation with her, and as she was talking I could smell alcohol strongly," security officer Angela Klaire read from a statement. "I talked to her more and definitely could smell alcohol. It was very strong." Prosecutor Cheiran Mondal told the court: “The result came back in a toxicology report. This confirmed 93 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood – the legal limit being 20.” This translates to roughly a blood alcohol level of .09, with the legal limit for flight crew members being .02. The “bottle-to-throttle rule” is the amount of alcohol pilots and crew members can have in their system eight hours before takeoff. The United Kingdom limits are some of the strictest in the world. Struble was arrested at the airport. <br/>
Mini Vegemite servings were out and compostable crop starch cutlery was in on what Qantas says was the world's first zero-waste commercial flight. Passengers flying from Sydney to Adelaide on Wednesday sipped from water bottles destined for an Adelaide recycling plant and ate meals out of containers made from sugar cane as the Australian carrier trialled an initiative it says will cut 100m single-use plastics by the end of next year and eliminate 75% of the airline's waste by the end of 2021. About 1,000 single-use plastic items were substituted with sustainable alternatives or, in the case of individual Vegemite servings, removed altogether as the Qantas group embarked on its aim to reduce an annual mountain of waste equivalent to 80 fully laden Boeing 747 jumbo jets, All used in-flight products on the two-hour flight from NSW to SA were separated and will be composted, reused or recycled. Qantas domestic boss Andrew David said, with the cost of landfill rising and onboard waste the No.1 concern raised by passengers, there was a strong business case for the initiative. While there will be an initial expense, David said the move will eventually save money by cutting the cost of waste disposal and would not push airfares higher.<br/>