Flights

Mammoth Lakes' tourism bureau is offering a discount for those who prefer to fly rather than drive to the Eastern Sierra this spring. The offer , in partnership with Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air, takes about 20% off airfares between Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH) through the end of June. The deal: The airport is a stepping-off point to Yosemite National Park , Mammoth Mountain ski resort , June Lake and, of course, the town of Mammoth Lakes.

The reservation system and website for United Airlines failed Tuesday afternoon, delaying takeoffs and preventing some passengers from checking in at airport. [Updated 3:30 p.m., Aug. 28: Shortly after 3 p.m., United issued a statement saying it was "in the process of resuming normal operations following a temporary network outage that affected its airports and website. " ] The airline confirmed a problem with its system but did not offer details. "A network outage is affecting our airport and united.com functions," airline spokeswoman Mary Ryan said in a statement.

The competitors she will face may not provide as much of a roadblock to success for Olympic shooter Kim Rhode of Monrovia as the airlines. Rhode, who actually has become one of the bigger names in these Olympics despite the obscurity of her sport, recently arrived in London after having to reshuffle her schedule. The culprit? Two straight days of canceled flights at LAX. "I got to the gate last Friday," Rhode said Thursday in London, "and was handing them my suitcase when they said my flight had been canceled and they were booking me on one the next day. So I gathered up my stuff, went home, came back the next day and the flight was canceled again.

This is a good time to keep in touch with your airline if you plan to fly in the next few days to Europe because there is a chance that ash from the huge volcanic eruption in Iceland over the weekend could delay or even cancel your flight. Even as Iceland’s main airport prepared to possibly reopen Monday, Europe was on watch for potential flight disruptions as the ash cloud drifted toward the Continent.   "There is a strong possibility that parts of the ash cloud may impact parts of Scotland and Ireland in the coming 24 hours," Eurocontrol , the European air traffic management agency, said on its website Monday, citing reports from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London.

Here's what airline travelers can expect this summer: higher fares, long lines and jam-packed planes. And if you wait too long to buy a ticket you may be out of luck. With airlines loath to add flights in an uncertain economy, getting a seat at any price on some routes could be tough during peak travel times. "I've been calling my fence-sitters and telling them they better book their flights now if they really need to go, otherwise they may be left with no options," said Jay Johnson, president of Coastline Travel Advisors in Garden Grove.

Airlines have canceled more than 7,400 flights as Hurricane Sandy nears major airports along the East Coast. About 1,200 flights were scratched for Sunday and more than 5,500 were canceled for Monday as airlines scrambled to prepare for a potentially severe storm. An additional 640 flights were dropped for Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com, an airline information service. Many of the cancellations involved flights coming or going to New York area airports, such as Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy.

A U.S. pilot program designed to deport illegal immigrants by flying them to Mexico City will operate for only two months this year and involve 20 flights, a significant scaling-back of what was billed as a humanitarian effort to avoid deporting people to violent border regions. The first flight, which carried 131 immigrants, landed Tuesday in Mexico City, six months after the originally scheduled start date of the program. Slated to run from April through November, the Interior Repatriation Initiative will operate only this month and next.

Super storm Sandy continued its devastation on the nation's transportation system, closing at least eight major airports and canceling more than 16,000 flights. JOIN US AT 2:30 P.M. FOR A LIVE VIDEO DISCUSSION Although the eye of the storm has moved west, away from the major East Coast airports, airlines began early Tuesday to cancel flights for Wednesday, increasing the likelihood that regular flights won't begin for several days. In the period stretching from Saturday to Wednesday, the nation's airlines have canceled 16,271 flights, according to the airline monitoring website Flightstats.com.

In anticipation of a strong winter storm heading toward the Northeast, airlines have canceled more than 2,000 flights for Friday, mostly from New York, Boston and Chicago airports. The 2,004 cancellations for Friday are in addition to 475 flights canceled for Thursday and 454 canceled for Saturday, according to the flight-monitoring site FlightAware . The National Weather Service has issued storm warnings and predicted blizzard conditions when two weather systems meet over the next 24 hours to "produce a major and potentially historic winter storm for the Northeastern U.S. " Because the storm is to cut through in the nation's busiest air space, airline passengers across the country will also feel some of the pain.

If you're having a hard time finding short-haul flights to small and medium-size cities, it's not your imagination. A new study by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation concluded that the elimination of thousands of flights of less than 500 miles is one result of the airline industry's efforts to prosper in the face of higher fuel costs and economic turbulence in the last few years. Another strategy airlines have used to rebound from the dismal financial times that followed the Sept.