The Air Transport Associattion has made a major announcement concerning the use of alternative fuels, a topic I wrote about back in January when Continental tested a biofuel mixture in one of its 737 jets. This time, the trade group said eight airlnes would be testing the use of a biodiesel fuel in their ground equipment at LAX, starting in about three years. I found few articles about this, but here's one. 

Is it just me, or do we seem to be moving very, very slowly on development of new fuel technology in aviation? Yes, it's a tough problem to produce oil from plants in volumes that make it economically feasible as an alternative to fossil fuel. The infrastruture hasn't been built yet. But shouldn't we be attacking global climate change, and the role airlines play in it, with the urgency once devoted to putting a man on the moon?

Tell me what you think, and I'll write about it again this fall.

Rick Seaney, the head of www.farecompare.com and a frequent commenter on airline fares and service in Winging It and elsewhere, had a fun posting on the daily e-mail I get from him of travel news. Seems one of his employees was flying US Airways from Hartford/Springfield and was warned by an customer-service agent that bags do get lost on airlines and not to put anything of great value in a checked bag.

We immediately thought of the time, a few years ago, when US Airways people in out stations regularly warned customers about checking bags that had to go through PHL. Remember how dreadful things were, with PHL's bag-handling problems dragging down the whole airline? Seaney tells me that in this case, his employee was flying through Charlotte, which also had its share of baggage woes, which have largely disappeared since then.

I doubt the US Airways agent was saying something specific about the airline's hub airports. But it's nice to know that there are airline folks out there dealing honestly and directly with customers.   

I have been trolling the myriad available travel news sources we usually use for some detail on the Transportation Security Administration's new Secure Flight program. Starting this week, TSA took over from the airlines responsibility for making sure you are who your boarding pass says you are. Among new procedures when you buy a ticket, you are now required to give your birthday and gender, and make sure your name is the same as it is on your government-issued ID. I found the article I've been looking for, the New York Times' Practical Traveler column from Sunday. Find it here. 

The National Transportation Safety Board says it's revised its account of what air-traffic controllers could see on radar before the mid-air collision of a helicopter and a light plane with three Montgomery County men aboard. The helicopter was not on the radar screen of the controller at the Terterboro, N.J., airport. Read more in an AP story here.

Most people with a computer, or well, perhaps a few million of them, have now heard about the YouTube sensation "United Breaks Guitars." It's a video ballad about the way the airline damaged the guitar of Canadian musican Dave Carroll during a trip through the Chicago O'Hare hub. Fearful of things with viral in their name, I had not posted anything until now.

Travel writer Chris Elliott approached the topc in the old-media way, actually seeking United's view on what happened rather than just joining the parade of hooting. You can see the video and read his interview with a Unted customer-service official here.

The by-now notorious Continental Express flight from Houston that wound up trapping 47 souls overnight on a regional jet last weekend at Rochester, Minn., has opened the way for multiple approaches by the media to various aspects of the problem. As anticipated in this space last Monday, members of Congress got hot and bothered by the incident and some renewed calls for a bill-of-rights for the stranded. Others are asking hard questions about Continental Express, given this and other problems, including the crash near Buffalo in February.

A good backgrounder on passenger-rights legislation came from the AP in Washington. A wider look at Continental Express, and the commuter-feeder-regional -- whatever you want to call it -- part of the airline industry appeared in the airline's hometown paper, the Houston Chronicle. Find that one here.

After years of contentious relations, the Federal Aviation Administration and its air-traffic controllers union have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. The controllers had been living under a conract imposed on them by the Bush administration four years ago that has contributed to a wave of early retirements of controllers. Read more about the new agreement here.