Hawaii Vacations Blog - Hawaii Travel by a Hawaii Expert!

Effective May 1, 2009 due to a new Federal requirement, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is requiring the following additional information for every passenger:

·         Full Name As It Appears on Your Photo ID (*includes middle name if printed of your ID)

·         Date of Birth

·         Gender

We here at www.Hawaii-Aloha.com are going to be collecting this information effective immediately for all new customers. 

For existing customers who will be departing May 1, 2009 and beyond, we will need to get the birth dates, genders, and middle initial or name as stated exactly on the traveler’s ID.

The information provided at the time reservations are made must exactly match the data on each traveler’s ID. 

The new program is called Secure Flight – and this will shift the responsibility for checking passenger names against "watch lists" from the airlines to the TSA.  Only passengers who are cleared to fly by the TSA will be given boarding passes.  Personal data on most passengers will be retained for no more than seven days, agency officials said.

Reasons the TSA is requiring this information:

·         Collecting more personal information will improve the quality of the watch lists that contain names of possible terrorism and criminal suspects.

·         To reduce the misidentification of innocent travelers who are mistakenly placed on "no-fly" lists because their names are similar to those found on watch lists.

·         These “watch lists” require selected passengers to undergo extra screening at the airport, including physical pat-downs and hand searches of their carry-on items.

·         Thousands of incidents have been reported in which passengers have been barred from boarding flights because their names resembled the names of suspected terrorists. The most high-profile case involved U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy.

This weekend I stumbled across some Hawaii vacation information that was out of this world!

Rocketplane-Kistler (RpK) is advancing the idea of tourist space launches from the islands of Hawaii.  Space flight participants will be sent up 330,000 feet to the edge of outer space!!!

RpK believes that Hawaii’s many tourists will make the island an attractive location for the flights.  "The flying weather is great, and the views of the entire island chain and the ocean from space will be spectacular," Charles Lauer, vice president of RpK.

RpK is in talks with the state about developing a space-themed education and training facility at Kalaeloa which would support space flights between Honolulu and Kona airports.  It also wants to collaborate with the University of Hawaii on space related research.

The RpK XP spacecraft is expected to start test launching the vehicle from Oklahoma in 2009. Hawaii would have to first gain an FAA-AST spaceport license. Obtaining that license is among a number of aerospace measures making their ways through this year’s Hawaii Legislature.

Supposedly, these commercial spaceplanes aren’t exactly huge polluters (no more than your average airliner) and the launches would be a great source of revenue for the islands in the form of taxes and tourism. And then there’s the possibility of accessing Hawaii via suborbital flightpaths from California and Japan. Flight-time from Hawaii to mainland US could be slashed from five hours to 90 minutes – which means you could leave your house in Los Angeles & be on Waikiki beach in about two hours!

Hopefully they will have kama’aina rates!!