A group in Denver wants the okay to smoke marijuana in Denver International’s “smoking lounges”.

Hey, who knew they had smoking lounges? Who knew they had FOUR of them?!

Anyway, the “Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation” folks want their weed while they wait for their planes.

Yeah, right. Good luck, guys!

Oh, wait…didn’t Denver voters okay a measure to make possession of an ounce or less, within city limits…legal? Indeed they did.

In the biggest affront to the Transformers franchise since Soundwave was left out of the movie, a traveler at London Heathrow allegedly was told he couldn’t fly because he was wearing a shirt featuring a Transformer holding a gun.

The shirt, featuring famed Autobot leader Optimus Prime was said to be offensive by a Heathrow security guard, so the man changed shirts before boarding. This is London quotes a Heathrow rep as saying “If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it, for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it. We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category. If it’s offensive, we don’t want other passengers upset.”

What’s more offensive to me (and to some of those who left comments) is that the guy in question seems to think Megatron is on his shirt. Come on, man. That’s totally Prime.

It seems even supermodels get their day in court.

Back in the beginning of April, we reported on famed beauty and alleged phone-thrower Naomi Campbell causing a scene at Heathrow’s then brand new Terminal 5.

Upon landing, Ms. Campbell was escorted off a plane by officers, and as reported by Breitbart.com, was subsequently charged with “three counts of assaulting a constable, one of disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and one of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour to cabin crew.”

Naomi will appear in court in London on June 20th, so the whole mess should be wrapped up relatively soon.

Now, if only an angry supermodel was the worst problem Heathrow’s Terminal 5 had to deal with.

Okay, there’s mother, father, grandma, grandpa and toddler. Here’s the story of their Big Adventure.

Earlier this month, the happy little family was running, running, running to catch an Air Canada flight in the Vancouver airport. With no time to spare, they made the plane. All got onboard, and all were scattered throughout the aircraft.

Which is apparently why nobody noticed that nobody had the toddler. Yes, the beloved little tyke had been forgotten. He was eventually found by some Air Canadians, no doubt wondering where the heck everyone had disappeared to.

Actually, this is an extraordinary story of detective work on the part of the airline folks, who eventually reunited the kid with his parents (among the hurdles: the child was a lap sitter so he didn’t show up on the manifest, plus he was only 2-years old so he didn’t speak much, plus what little he did speak was Tagalog — this was an immigrant family from the Philippines).

Hey, all’s well that ends well.

Oh, Naomi Campbell. We can’t take you anywhere.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell, as famous for her work on the catwalk as for throwing phones and attacking her maids, is at it again. According to reports by the Mirror and CNN, Ms. Campbell has been arrested on suspicion of assault after being taken off a plane at Heathrow’s already beleaguered Terminal 5. It seems that Campbell’s tirade stemmed from an issue of lost luggage. Had she read our CEO’s report on mishandled baggage at Terminal 5, she may have been better prepared.

Unfortunately, she didn’t handle it well. Passengers claim Ms. Campbell was “aggressive to flight staff,” and she was removed from the plane. No news on as to how this will affect her dancing lizard commercials.

Our clever boss has done it again — in his latest column for ABCNews.com, Mr. FareCompare tells us what to do if we’re trapped in an airport because of delays or cancellations.

But even better, Mr. FC (that’s Rick Seaney to you) has his own post about this, COMPLETE WITH VITAL LINKS.

CHECK THEM OUT. YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID. I PROMISE.

Done shouting now.

Not many know this, but some airports have “theme songs”. Los Angeles International Airport, for example, has the cleverly named, “LA International Airport”, a country hit back in 1971 (hum along with me: “LA International Airport, where the big jet engines roar…”)

Ooh, the goose-bumps! Anyway, this was the subject of a snappy article in USA Today. And it got me to thinking…

Help me out here, people. Let’s find airport homes for The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”, Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’”, and the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Paint it Black”.

Clearly, Jagger & Co. have spent some time in airports.

If you’ve ever cut it close on making a flight, or if you’ve had to change terminals to make and had to go through airport security for a second time in one day while desperately trying to make a connecting flight, you know that the 50 people in front of you with laptops can slow you down. The line just seems to pile up as people (most likely you included) reach into bags to pull out computers, portable DVD players, and any other large electronics they might have.

Well, the TSA feels your pain, and they want to do something about it. Or at least, they want to consider doing something about it. The TSA is in search of the perfect laptop bag; one that will let you run your laptop through while it’s still in its bag.

Keep reading to see exactly what the TSA is planning…

If you’ve ever desperately needed to get some work done in an airport, you know how difficult it can be to find a hot spot. Have you elbowed a fellow traveler out of the way? Have you paid someone off to get that precious plug their using? If so, you should be happy to know that there are many airports around the world doing their best to make your life a little easier. They’re adding free WiFi, business centers, and easier access to all things wired.

Keep reading for a look at the list of Forbes’ top five airports with WiFi (OK. Top six. There was a tie)…

Sick of taking off your shoes at airports? Tired of seeing grandma getting frisked?

Tell the TSA!

Yes, the fine folks at the Transportation Security Administration have their own blog! (Thanks, Jaunted). Here’s the site–now, fire away, and keep reading for a sample comment that might sound pretty familiar…

Some homeowners in near Philadelphia’s airport are not pleased with recent FAA changes to departure headings.

It means more jet noise for them. So they sent the FAA a message. It’s on their roof.

Even though the message is only “initials” I don’t think we can get away with printing it. So you’ll just have to click here, and see the photo for yourself…

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has spoken, and it looks like Chicago O’Hare has the worst on-time departure percentage once again.

For the second straight year, the Second City’s mammoth airport has let more than a few travelers down when it comes to getting them to where they need to go on-time. Passenger traffic and weather of course affect O’Hare’s ability to keep on-time departure percentages up, but other “bad weather” and busy airports faired considerably better.

Congratulations are in order for Salt Lake City. With on-time departures at 84.94%, SLC ranked #1 among major airports.

Check out rickseaney.com for the complete rankings.

JFK is turning into some horrible movie where a bunch of aging actors stand around and talk about “pulling off one last heist” while holding postcards of the island resort where they’ll retire and live a “normal life” once said heist has been pulled.

In case you’ve been out of the loop, in a relatively short period of time, workers at JFK have stolen credit card numbers, run smuggling rings, and made off with people’s baggage. Well, I guess none of those was worthy of “one final score” status, because JFK workers are now being accused of stealing $250,000 in diamonds.

Oh, JFK workers don’t you know that those heist movies almost always end poorly. Check out The Consumerist for all of the details.

Liked this story? Check out “Odd Uncle = D.B. Cooper?”

No matter how much time I have on my hands when I travel to Los Angeles or Las Vegas, getting to In-N-Out Burger always tops my list of priorities. Sadly, the times I’ve had layovers at LAX, I’ve been unable to sate my hunger for those delicious burgers.

Thankfully, the good people at Gadling have made sure that will never happen again. They’ve laid out a surefire way to get from LAX to In-N-Out for free in a very short period of time. It involves a shuttle and maybe a little bit of subterfuge, but if you’re willing (and you know you are), you can get your hands on a delicious burger and be back in time to catch your flight.

Read Gadling’s Free LAX shuttle to In-N-Out Burgers to get all the details.

No, no, that’s the wrong answer and you should be ashamed of yourself. The correct response is, both have made the “No Fly” list.

The senator has since gotten himself off the list, but not so our young hero. The 5-year old Seattle area lad was at Sea-Tac last week, heading to LAX with his mom.

Then, the long arm of the law reached out: Not so fast, son! You Are On Our List.

Of course, it was Mom who got frisked. Go figure. But eventually, they got on the plane.

Saw this on Consumerist. And Consumerist never leaves you hanging–here’s their link to getting yourself OFF the “No Fly” list. Oh, and here’s some video of the kid. He seems harmless…

Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson has been named the busiest (in terms of flights) airport for the third year in a row:

“The Atlanta airport logged 994,466 flights in 2007, up 1.8 percent from 976,447 in 2006, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Flights include takeoffs and landings.” (From the Boston Globe)

Sure, it may log more flights, but my recent experiences have proven, at least to me, that ATL is far easier to handle then JFK and far easier to get out of than LAX. Seriously, LAX, do something about the cab/shuttle/car situation out there. It’s a nightmare.

Ever wonder what the world’s Northern-most and Southern-most commercial airports are? Of course you have!

And, in case Alex Trebek ever asks you to name them, say the following in the form of a question:

1. Northern-most: Longyearbyen, Norway

2. Southern-most: Ushuaia, Argentina (Islas Malvinas)

Yes, yes, we KNOW there’s an airport on Antarctica, but we can’t find any regularly scheduled flights there. So there. Info courtesy FareCompare.com.

Preparation is a favorite topic of ours around here (yes, we are an exciting bunch), because it really can save you substantial time and spare you some of the headaches associated with air travel. You can even make your trip through the security line at the airport a little easier with just a little preparation.

Fly Away Cafe has a great post that lays out the best way to save time (hopefully) when heading through security. Some tips are as simple as “Think about what you are going to wear, and make sure that it’s something that can easily get through security.” It’s little things like that we travelers often overlook.

It’s written by a flight attendant, so you know she’s seen her share of security lines. Check out the post to get more tips of security line prep.