Iberia Airlines

Hertz, Iberia Airlines and Miami-based VE Tours are sponsoring a "Spain on Wheels" program that offers two people flying to Spain together a Hertz car for seven days for $1. The two people must travel together by car as well as by air. All air bookings have to be made through VE Tours, which can also take care of the car reservations. It isn't necessary to make hotel bookings, but VE Tours can handle that as well.

How to get there: Ronda is about 390 miles south of Madrid. Iberia Airlines has daily flights from Los Angeles to Madrid on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Prices range from $986 during high season to $776 low season. Call (800) 772-4642. TWA flies Los Angeles-Madrid daily, with direct flights on Monday and Thursday. Prices range from $1,012 high season to $802 low season. Call (213) 484-9319.

A bomb exploded Thursday afternoon in a suitcase near the El Al Israel Airlines check-in counter in Madrid's Barajas Airport, injuring 13 people, police said. Seconds before the blast, an El Al security officer saw smoke coming out of the suitcase and stopped the conveyor belt that was carrying it to the cargo area, police said. Then the bomb exploded, blowing a hole in the ceiling, ripping off doors and sending passengers fleeing in panic. Airline counters in a 100-yard radius were damaged.

Commercial aviation has soared in the century since the Wright brothers took flight. But in terms of the business of ferrying passengers and cargo across the Atlantic Ocean, relatively little has changed since 1944 when U.S. and European delegations met in Chicago to set international regulations. The propeller airliner of that era is long gone, but carriers still labor under bilateral agreements designed to protect narrow national interests by restricting who may fly where.

Item: On July 7, 1996, a Cuban military officer forced a Cuban plane carrying 16 people to fly to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. No one was injured. Lt. Col. Jose Fernandez Pupo was acquitted in Washington of hijacking. Item: On July 26, 1996, an Iberia Airlines jumbo jet flying from Madrid to Havana with 286 people aboard was forced to land in Miami by a man brandishing scissors and a fake bomb. No one was hurt.

With travel to Spain up significantly from a year ago, helped by the recent start of nonstop scheduled service from Los Angeles to Spain aboard Iberia Airlines, there are some air and rail passes to consider. Iberia has a Visit Spain Airpass for $199, the same rate as last year, which is good for flying to any of 30 destinations in Spain during a 60-day period, including Majorca in the Balearic Islands. You can add flights to and between the Canary Islands for an extra $50 to $249.

An Iberia Airlines DC-10 en route from Madrid to Havana was diverted here Friday by a man brandishing a tinfoil-wrapped package that he claimed was a bomb. The accused hijacker was arrested without incident after the plane landed at Miami International Airport. None of the other 218 passengers and 14 crew members on board was injured. "He had a hoax device," said Paul Philip, a spokesman for the FBI in Miami who identified the suspect as Saado Ibrahaim, 27, a Lebanese national.

Question: In February, I booked a flight from LAX to Istanbul, with a return from Athens. The flight includes legs on American and its flight partner Iberia Airlines. The cost was $1,122. Friends who booked the same trip later paid $822. I called American and asked for a refund but was told that doing so would incur a $250 change fee, thereby wiping out the savings. But I am not changing anything. The itinerary remains the same in every way.

American Airlines is talking with two smaller U.S. airlines and a European airline consortium about selling them stakes in its highly sophisticated computer reservation system. American is negotiating with Alaska Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Amadeus, a reservation system owned by four European airlines, spokesmen for the airlines said. American said it may sell up to half of its Sabre reservation network for about $750 million.