As Congress debates the FAA Reauthorization bill that will effectively guide air transportation policy for the next two years, interested parties from the airlines and airports to pilots’ unions and consumer groups are jockeying for their preferred outcomes.

The bill, which passed a vote in the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee last week, includes a number of provisions that should impact areas from the rights of delayed passengers to air traffic control systems.

It should come as no surprise that the results of the 2009 J.D. Power North American Airline Satisfaction Study, which was just released today, show that passengers are anything but satisfied.

It’s been a tough year financially for airlines, and the strain has taken its toll on the flying public. The study reveals that survey respondents’ overall satisfaction with airlines has declined for a third consecutive year, hitting a four-year low.

The three categories that primarily drove the decline were in-flight services, flight crew, and costs and fees, all of which showed notable drops in customer satisfaction compared to last year.

Let’s start this week with the continuing investigation into the crash of Air France Flight 447.

More than 50 bodies and more than 400 pieces of wreckage have been recovered, but don’t get too confident about that—some of those pieces are smaller than a paper clip with the exception of the tail section.

But the investigators are saying they are getting closer to figuring out what was it that caused the crash.

As Washington D.C. and the rest of the country was trying to make sense of the horrible shooting at the National Holocaust Museum, I was thousands of miles away, walking through an abandoned French school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

It now houses the “Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.”

From 1975 to 1979, it was the center for torture and death in the capital city.

The Fontainebleau Las Vegas LLC and two of its affiliates have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, shutting down a $2.9 billion Las Vegas development project and dealing yet another blow to the city’s struggling tourism industry.

The bankruptcy petition stemmed from several funding hiccups and a long legal battle between Fontainebleau and a group of lenders who retracted an $800 million loan, which would have gone to completing the lavish resort.

This past weekend, Peter sat down with experts to discuss the crash of Air France Flight 447.

He checked in with Greg Feith, former lead investigator for the NTSB regarding the ongoing accident investigation and recovery efforts.

Peter Greenberg: I know you and I have been busy trying to make sense of all of this. We have very little to go on.


This past weekend, Peter sat down with a variety of experts to discuss the crash of Air France Flight 447.

He checked in with retired American Airlines pilot Tom Casey about flying in turbulent weather as well as Greg Feith, former lead NTSB investigator, about the ongoing investigation and recovery efforts, plus pilot Patrick Smith and Wall Street Journal columnist Scott McCartney.

Summer driving season is here, and although fuel prices are nowhere near the crushing costs of last summer, gasoline prices are going up.

According to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report, prices went up today for the 22nd day in a row.

AAA, which surveys 100,000 stations daily, found that today’s national average topped $2.36 per gallon for regular gas, up from $2.06 last month, but down significantly from last year’s average of almost $3.81 per gallon.