Hurricane Dorian upended Labor Day travel plans for hundreds of thousands of people in the Southeastern US Monday, as fierce winds and torrential rains forced widespread cancellation of rail service and airline traffic. According to FlightAware airlines cancelled 1,152 flights on Monday. The hardest-hit airport was Fort Lauderdale International in Florida, which closed at noon Monday and where 543 flights were canceled, three-quarters of the airport’s total scheduled for the day. Daytona Beach International Airport and both Orlando International Airport and Orlando Melbourne International Airport also closed Monday. For Tuesday, airlines have canceled more than 550 flights already, according to the website. At least three airlines –- American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, and Southwest -- announced that they were waiving cancellation and change fees for flights involving storm-impacted airports in Florida and the Bahamas. Southwest also waived pet fees for travellers trying to evacuate their dogs and cats from Florida and South Carolina. Dorian had slowed to a crawl over the Bahamas on Monday but was expected to gradually turn to the northwest to begin a run up the US East Coast.<br/>
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Panicked travellers abandoned carry-on bags and scrambled for the exits at a Newark Liberty International Airport terminal on Monday night, just as the busy three-day Labor Day weekend was drawing to a close. An Alaska Airlines employee at Gate 30 in Terminal A grew suspicious of two male passengers as they were about to board a flight, according to Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport. The airline employee tried to confront the men and then pulled a fire alarm, which led to the evacuation around 8:30 p.m., the authorities said. It was not immediately clear what had prompted the flight attendant to be suspicious of the men, who were later questioned by the police and then allowed to board. A spokeswoman for Alaska Airlines, Oriana Branon, said the carrier was still gathering information about the episode. The authorities were also questioning the airline employee who had prompted the evacuation. Police officers with tactical rifles converged on the terminal, with some travellers seeking refuge on the airport tarmac. The airport returned to normal operations just before 9 p.m., with shaken airline passengers returning to personal items strewn all over the gate area in Terminal A after the latest episode to unnerve people in public settings.<br/>
American Airlines and United removed Boeing’s grounded 737 Max from their schedules into December, while other carriers are giving up on getting the narrow-body back in time for the Christmas and New Year holidays. For American, the extension means the cancellation of 140 daily flights through Dec. 3, according to a statement Sunday. While United pulled the Max from its flight plans until Dec. 19, Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA is among the major Max customers that isn’t counting on a return to service until 2020, its interim CEO Geir Karlsen said Monday. American said it’s confident software updates and a new training regime devised by Boeing will lead to re-certification of the 737 this year. Southwest, the largest Max operator, has scrubbed the plane from schedules through Jan. 5, while Air Canada is counting it out until Jan. 8 at least. Ryanair, the biggest European customer, said in July it expects to receive barely half of the 58 jets due for next summer, though the delivery schedule is complicated by its order for a higher-density variant. The FAA is likely to conduct its certification flight for the Max in October, people briefed on the matter said last month. That would broadly match Boeing’s estimate that the aircraft will return to service early in Q4.<br/>
Seven countries including China, Russia and Australia have won 26 of the 50 new international slots created at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in the run-up to next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, transport ministry officials said Monday. Finland, India, Italy and Turkey have also been handed slots, alongside one region, Scandinavia. Sweden or Denmark is likely to get that regional opening. The remaining 24 slots had already been allocated to flights to and from the United States. The government is trying to attract 40 million annual overseas visitors to Japan by 2020. The additional slots will be in service daily from late March. Airlines will decide which cities they will fly to, according to the officials at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Flights to and from China will receive eight slots, those to and from Russia and Australia will get four each, and the others will get two each, the officials said, adding that — except for China — the slots will go into service for the first time during the airport’s daytime from 6 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. Japanese airlines will receive half of the 50 slots, with All Nippon Airways landing 13.5 of them and Japan Airlines getting 11.5. New flight paths over central Tokyo will be introduced in the spring of 2020, as the government plans to increase the number of international flight slots from about 60,000 to 99,000 before the Tokyo Games.<br/>
Airports have clamped down on drunken passengers who cause disruption before flying, as new figures reveal arrests of unruly travellers are falling. Police arrested 117 people on planes in 2017/2018 but this fell by 25% to 87 people in 2018/19. Among the biggest reductions were at Gatwick and Glasgow, where arrests made almost halved in that period. Drunk travellers who sexually abused staff, urinated in public and were too intoxicated to fasten their seatbelts were among those prevented from continuing their journeys. At Bristol Airport, one passenger was arrested on suspicion of being drunk on an aircraft and sexually assaulting female crew. Another was found urinating in a walkway en route to a plane. Passengers convicted of being drunk on an aircraft face a maximum fine of GBP5,000 or up to two years' imprisonment. Freedom of information requests were sent to 16 police forces which cover Britain's 20 busiest airports. The ages of those detained ranged from 20 to 58. It comes after the Home Office opened a consultation on whether alcohol licensing laws at airports should be amended to tackle disruptive behaviour. The decision is yet to be announced.<br/>