Slowly and steadily, wireless Internet service is coming to the airlines, with American, Continental, Delta, AirTran, Virgin America and maybe others I can't recall equipping some of their planes. Southwest has said it's making plans to add the service in the next year or two.

Yesterday, American said it was making a widget available that would enable customers to determine if WiFi is going to be available on a particular flight. Read a little more about that here. And Air Canada said it would begin experimenting with a system, which, like the others will cost about $10 per flight unless a carrier is running a special promotion. More on that ...

The flight attendants at American Airlines may be a long way from actually going on strike but they're serious about pressing their case for a new and better contract. The FAs conducted informational picketing at major airports yesterday, Read more about it ....

The largest U.S. airlines, Delta and American, are battling for influence with Japan Airlines, a deeply trroubled company that could be forced into bankruptcy because of its operating losses and debt. Delta today offered $1 billion for a stake in JAL; AMR also has a deal on the table. Read more .....

The major network airlines have been busy in recent weeks devising ways to increase revenue from fares without calling what they're doing a fare increase. OK, technically it's not be an increase in base fares. Let's just call it by a more accurate name: It's a COST increase (forgive me for shouting), and for a growing number of air travelers it could be a substantial one.

First, the surcharges applied only to peak travel days around the upcoming holidays. Well, heck, it's always been more expensive to travel on those days, with the lowest-priced tickets selling out months in advance, so you have to expect higher costs. But a $50 surcharge on Feb. 8 on Delta, Northwest and United (and with others likely to join the party) ? The only thing one expert, Tom Parsons of bestfares.com, can fathom is that it's the day after the Super Bowl. Huhhh? You mean airplane seats are really precious that day, no matter what teams are playing and fans traveling?

For a full list of when the surcharges apply look at Parsons' Web site here.  US Airways took a simple path to increasing customers' costs by saying it would surcharge every ticket all the time by 5 percent starting in May. See the post below for a little more on that.   

Is it any wonder that many travelers have a sort of low-grade anger all the time about airlines? US Airways says it's adding a 5 percent surcharge to all tickets after May 8. Also, other carriers increased their surcharges for certain days this spriung.

Remember, these are not a fare increase, they're a surcharge, but can you tell the difference? We know that with the big capacity cuts, it's going to cost more to fly next spring and summer. I guess we should be grateful that now we know that in addition to higher fares that come with fewer available seats, we have a predictable "surcharge" to add to the cost. Read more here.