Passengers

You look fat in that. Of course I'll be late. Your baby reminds me of Gollum's uncle. This is what the 2013 Subaru BRZ might say if it could talk. The all-new, rear-wheel-drive sports car starts at $26,265, and boy is it honest - perhaps more so than any other car on the market today, save for its mechanical twin, the Scion FR-S. The two were jointly developed by Subaru and Scion's parent company, Toyota, with both assembled by Subaru in Japan. The question about the BRZ is, can you handle the honesty?

WASHINGTON - The crowded US Airways flight from Paris to Charlotte, N.C., had just reached the northeastern tip of Canada when one of the passengers, a French citizen who was born in Cameroon, handed a flight attendant a cryptic note that said she had something hidden inside her body. Alarmed that the woman could be carrying a surgically implanted bomb, the crew notified authorities. U.S. f ighter jets were scrambled, and the pilot was told to make an emergency landing in Bangor, Maine.

Lamar Odom's voice on the phone frequently was barely above a whisper. The pain clearly registered in words that flowed in stops and starts as he delivered a soliloquy about death and the effect it has had on his psyche. The Lakers forward spoke deliberately and expressed how emotional it has been for him to deal with two recent deaths. Odom attended a funeral in New York on July 13 for his 24-year-old cousin, who Odom said was murdered. The next day, Odom was a passenger in an SUV in Queens when it collided with a motorcycle.

A suspect has been detained in the fatal shooting of a Metro bus driver Sunday morning in West Hollywood, authorities said. Shortly after 9 a.m. the 51-year old bus driver on Route 105 was leaving an MTA layover area near the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and West Knoll Drive when the shooting occurred, said MTA spokesman Rick Jager. The driver was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and died at 9:30 a.m. The name of the driver, a five-year veteran of the agency, has not been released.

WASHINGTON - The crowded US Airways flight from Paris to Charlotte, N.C., had just reached the northeastern tip of Canada when one of the passengers, a French citizen who was born in Cameroon, handed a flight attendant a cryptic note that said she had something hidden inside her body. Alarmed that the woman could be carrying a surgically implanted bomb, the crew notified authorities. U.S. f ighter jets were scrambled, and the pilot was told to make an emergency landing in Bangor, Maine.

New rules on delayed flights Under a directive announced by the Transportation Department, starting in April domestic airlines must: Allow passengers to return to the terminal if they have been stranded on the tarmac for more than three hours. The only exceptions are if safety or security reasons prohibit the plane from returning to the gate or if air traffic controllers advise against it. Provide food and water and access to a working bathroom after a plane has been delayed for more than two hours.

Trying to reverse its low grades from the flying public, Los Angeles International Airport marked a milestone in its modernization program Tuesday by dedicating a $238-million renovation of one of its aging passenger terminals. The remodel of Terminal 6, the new home of Alaska Airlines, includes a variety of improvements to bag check, ticketing, security screening, waiting areas at gates and more. "The whole thing is designed with the customer in mind," said Bill Ayer, Alaska's chief executive, who attended the terminal's grand opening.

Paging Samuel L. Jackson! No snakes this time, but authorities are grappling with the best way to handle bats on a plane. OK, just one bat. But still, it's not the type of thing one expects to read about in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a bulletin produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It may sound more like a movie than a true public health issue, but this report is indeed based on actual events. At 6:45 a.m. on Aug. 5, a flight took off from Madison, Wis., with 50 passengers, two pilots and one flight attendant on board.

Higher-than-normal levels of radiation have been detected on the clothes of airline passengers arriving in South Korea and Taiwan from Japan, although the levels did not appear to be high enough to be dangerous and the passengers did not appear to be ill, wire services reported Thursday. Radiation was detected on a Japanese man from Fukushima prefecture, where the damaged nuclear reactors are located, arriving at Incheon International Airport in Seoul, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Based on the numbers, America's major airlines are doing a better job of getting us to our destinations on time and with our luggage in tow -- assuming we can get on the flights. Not only is the rate of lost luggage lower than it has been in years, the on-time performance for the nation's biggest airlines reached a record 88.6% in November, the best rate since the Bureau of Transportation Statistics began keeping track of the numbers in 1987. But there is a growing trend that spells trouble for travelers: More passengers are getting bumped from flights.

A cabbie accused of preying on arriving passengers at New York's Kennedy Airport has pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment after driving off with passengers when officers approached. Authorities say the driver locked the doors and took off, then got into a car crash. Queens Dist. Atty. Richard Brown says driver Bhupinder Singh is facing six months in jail . . . . Planning your summer camping? Note that of the 12 campgrounds in Yellowstone, five of them - containing more than 1,400 individual sites - can be reserved online at www.YellowstoneNationalParkLodges.com or by calling toll-free (866)

WASHINGTON - The FBI is analyzing a sophisticated explosive device, similar to the underwear bomb used in an attempt to blow up a passenger jet over Detroit in 2009, that U.S. officials believe was built by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen in an effort to target Western aircraft. U.S. officials said Monday that no one was captured by U.S. agencies as part of the operation. The officials emphasized that they found no sign of an active plot to use the new bomb design against U.S. aviation or U.S.-bound jetliners.

The Transportation Security Administration reached what seems like a lofty milestone last week when it announced it had screened 1 million passengers through a new accelerated security program at airports across the country. But the TSA acknowledges that the new security program, dubbed PreCheck, has served only a small fraction of the nation's air travelers. The TSA screens an estimated 1.8 million passengers a day at 450 commercial airports. That means that in the same time that the PreCheck program screened 1 million passengers since it launched in October, the TSA has processed nearly 335 million passengers.

In Catharine Hamm's column "Causing a Stink on the Airplane" [On the Spot, April 8] regarding the appropriate place on an airplane to change a baby's diaper, the issue of hygiene was not addressed. I am appalled that the cabin crew would permit a baby to be changed on a passenger seat. I, for one, would dread being the person on the next flight to sit there. After all, not only can you not avoid touching surfaces that most certainly have been contaminated, this is the place where you will be served refreshments or, on a long flight in business or first class, a full meal.

A program that lets preapproved air travelers zip through security lines will be expanded later this month to Delta Air Lines passengers at Los Angeles International Airport. The program, dubbed PreCheck and operated by the Transportation Security Administration, has been available for several months at LAX but only for passengers who fly American Airlines, one of the largest carriers at the airport. Starting April 24, it will be offered to Delta passengers as well, the TSA announced Friday.

Paging Samuel L. Jackson! No snakes this time, but authorities are grappling with the best way to handle bats on a plane. OK, just one bat. But still, it's not the type of thing one expects to read about in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a bulletin produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It may sound more like a movie than a true public health issue, but this report is indeed based on actual events. At 6:45 a.m. on Aug. 5, a flight took off from Madison, Wis., with 50 passengers, two pilots and one flight attendant on board.

Robert Knisely, a Transportation Department official, told a congressional panel today that passengers, not the federal aviation trust fund, should pay for better aviation security.

Susan Spano's "Das Cruise" (July 25) makes interesting reading except for her arrogant, self-centered, condescending attitude toward elderly passengers, whom she refers to as "liver-spotted dowagers who made a habit of turning their noses up at me." The adage "travel broadens the mind" does not seem to apply to her. PHIL REAMON Glendale

Some days, the terminals at L.A./Ontario International Airport can be as quiet as a ghost town. The number of passengers using the airport - about 40 miles east of downtown Los Angeles - dropped to about 4.4 million in 2011 from 6.8 million passengers in 2007, according to federal statistics. In January, passenger traffic again dropped 7.4%, compared with the same month in 2011. Passenger numbers also dropped, although less dramatically, at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. In contrast, Long Beach Airport, about 20 miles south of L.A., continued to boom, serving more than 3 million passengers last year, a 7% increase over 2007, with growth continuing in 2012.

Several Los Angeles leaders backed a revised business plan released Monday by the agency overseeing California's ambitious high-speed rail effort, saying it lowers costs and speeds construction while bringing jobs and world-class transit to the region. By embracing a "blended" approach, the plan shaves $30 billion off the cost by using some tracks that now carry regional passenger lines rather than building new ones exclusively for the bullet train. "High-speed rail is the natural extension of the transportation network we are building in Southern California," said L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.