This was a quiet week for us, mainly due to the holiday on Monday. I hope you all had a good long weekend and returned to work relaxed and happy 
BTS released only one new data set: November 2011 Airline Traffic Data.
System Traffic Down 0.1 Percent from November 2010.
U.S. airlines carried 58.1 million scheduled domestic and international passengers in November 2011. The airlines carried 0.2 percent more domestic passengers and 1.9 percent fewer international passengers than in November 2010, resulting in a systemwide decrease of 0.1 percent. The November 2011 passenger total was 6.0 percent above that of two years ago in November 2009. See the Air Traffic Release for additional data.
Here are some good resources that I used this week to answer incoming emails, and that might be of interest to some of you:
- Air travel: Service animals are not pets.They are working animals that assist persons with disabilities. There is no limit to the number of service animals that can be on any flight. Service animals do not need any health certificates to travel and they do not need to be confined in a container or cage.More info: http://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_pets/cabin_pets/
http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/editorial_1056.shtm
- The 2012 Pocket Guide to Transportation is out! I love this little book, which gives a general overview of pretty much everything transportation-related. It will give statistics, but won’t bore you with long tables and thousands of numbers.
- As usual, the Secretary’s Blog has some pretty cool posts, which are easy to read and not too long. So take a break for a few minutes and check out http://fastlane.dot.gov/. One post that is of particular interest to people like you and me is about the distraction guidelines for auto makers, recently released by the US DOT: http://fastlane.dot.gov/2012/02/distracted-driving-guidelines.html
The Secretary as well as everyone here at DOT welcomes comments.
That’s it for today! Have a great weekend, and drive safe 