Transportation

Advertisements for the first airline jobs available in months are real eye catchers.

"Though it comes with plenty of baggage, this job can be quite uplifting," reads a job description on Delta's web site for a baggage handler and ramp operator.

The carrier expects to receive upward of 65,000 applications for around 1,000 openings at airports across the country, Richard Anderson, the airline's chief executive, reported recently on a weekly recorded message to employees. Even so, Anderson said this overwhelming response -- which is likely to require heavy lifting by the company's HR staff -- isn't unusual. "We usually get literally thousands more applications than we have openings," Anderson told employees.

There may be a new hope for consumers tired of abounding list of airline fees. Congress may be readying to step in.

After sharply questioning Spirit Airlines' CEO today about his airline's fees and hearing new reports that the fees are confusing consumers and business people alike and making comparison shopping increasingly difficult, a congressional committee this week heard calls for action, a number from its own members.

"I say to airlines, that if they don't exercise some restraint, then there is going to be push-back from the traveling public and that Congress will act," said Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Jet from New York to Portland, Maine for $10 one way. Fly from Los Angeles to Sydney for $712 round trip. Or travel within Europe for as little as $61 each way. More airlines are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, hoping to snag customers by offering last-minute deals to destinations around the world. While short-term sales on Twitter offering tickets for travel several days later were rare last summer, this year there are all sorts of offers to choose from.

And even as airfares overall keep climbing, Twitter sales provide great deals if you're willing to be flexible.

For example, today JetBlue Airways Tweeted several offers @JetBlueCheeps, including a $39 one-way deal between Las Vegas and Burbank, Calif. Social media savvy JetBlue is the most predictable Twitterer among airlines, Tweeting deals every Tuesday morning for travel that weekend.

Norwegian Cruise Line's newest ship, the Epic, made national television by serving as the setting for NBC's coverage of the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular on New York City's Hudson River, with appearances by Justin Bieber, LeAnn Rimes, a couple of cast members of Eclipse, and Nick Cannon. But there's one more newsworthy event on board the new cruise liner: cabins designed for solo travelers. They may make vacations cheaper.

Usually, when you want to take a cruise vacation alone, you have to shell out and pay as if there were two people traveling in your cabin. That's because until now, the short-sighted cruise industry cost itself business by designing cabin pricing to be "per person, double occupancy." If you wanted to go alone, you had to pay for yourself, and then either for a second, non-existent person (to compensate for the empty space) or pay a steep "single supplement." Either way, the cost keeps lots of people from cruising, either because they want to go alone or because they're the odd person out in a group.

The last thing you want to think about when preparing for an upcoming holiday is what could go wrong. But given that traffic mishaps tend to occur more often over holidays -- thanks to more cars on the road and a propensity among some to drink and then get behind the wheel -- perhaps safety should be the first thing you think about. A little preparation and some precautionary measures can make your holidays what they should be: friendly and fun.

So which holidays demand extra care?

The UPS Store has launched a new product, which it calls "luggage boxes," marketed as a product to enable customers to get out of paying airline baggage fees by shipping their possessions ahead of time.

The boxes themselves, which look like cardboard suitcases with a handle, cost $12.95 for a small size and $17.95 for the larger size -- the comparatively high price for a box is said to be justified by the their touted durability -- but that doesn't including shipping.

But mathematically, they don't work in the consumer's favor if they are used to transport a standard load of personal possessions. The smaller of the two boxes holds a maximum of 55 pounds, which, if fully loaded and sent at the cheapest rate from San Francisco to Atlanta, would cost $66 and take five business days. Packed with just 25 pounds of weight, it would still cost $35 and take five days. (AAA members get 15% off the boxes and 5% off domestic shipping costs, which makes them just really expensive instead of crazy expensive.)

Lonely Planet, the popular Australia-based guide book company for budget travelers, has named the "best places to go around the world right now" in its Best in Travel book series, and there are some surprising entries on the list. The good news is that most of them are inexpensive to visit, at least once you get there.

The list is not numbered, there is no definition of what "best" means, but we can assume that these are the places where you would want to live and travel because they're off the radar of mass tourism at the moment. The list was also complied in 2009, before the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf and the Greek financial crises.

Here are Lonely Planet's 10 best places to go in alphabetical order, along with their reasons why each one made the honors. I also update this list in light of big events that have occurred in the past six months.

The American Automobile Association predicts that there are going to be 34.9 million people traveling July 4th weekend, up 17% from last year. About 90% of them will be driving, AAA says.

The AAA doesn't appear to have any statistics about how many of them will be dragging or driving a recreational vehicle, but when you are out there on a holiday weekend, you'd swear that at least a third of the folks on the road are swinging and swaying along with their housing in tow.

In fact, the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association reports that more than 8.2 million U.S. households own an RV. Of those, 45.4% expect to travel more often in their RV this summer than they did last year; 41.9% say they'll be traveling the same amount.

Remember those walking billboards -- the guy carrying a sign urging you to "Eat at Joe's?" Put a California spin on that -- which is to say put it on our cars and make it flashing neon -- and you have the latest idea to come out of the Golden State as a means of ridding itself of a $19 billion deficit.

The state Legislature is considering allowing the state to research the use of electronic license plates. When a driver stops for more than four seconds, which on California freeways is a given, their license plate would begin flashing an ad. The measure's sponsor would like us to believe these ads would be endorsements of good causes -- save the whales, go green, keep an eye out for a missing kid.

Should you pay an additional fee to board a flight early, even when you hold an assigned seat?

American Airlines is betting that enough passengers are fed up with jockeying for increasingly scanty space in the overhead bins to pony up to $38 round trip for the privilege of getting on early.

The new fees don't mean that you will get on first, but that you will be lumped into "Group 1 of General Boarding," which will include members of American's frequent flier program, as well as business travelers and others who purchased unrestricted fares.

American billed its new program, dubbed "Your Choice," as a way for travelers to ease headaches now commonplace to flying -- by paying additional fees to avoid even higher charges if they choose to stand by for an earlier flight, or decide to change their itinerary.

"We're excited to offer customers options to tailor each travel experience to their preferences," said Dan Garton, America's executive vice president of marketing. "Our customers appreciate value and convenience."

"Your Choice" allows passengers to pay an "introductory price" of $9 to $19 each way, depending on the length of the flight, for a package of services including early boarding, standing by for an earlier flight on the day of departure for no extra charge, and half off the airlines' $150 service charge to change an itinerary.

Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard are preparing to fly a solar-powered plane around the world in 2012. They are set to test a prototype which will take flight for 24 hours. Borschberg will be the pilot and must stay awake the full time because the prototype does not have an auto-pilot capability. Borschberg says that the mere excitement of a test flight will keep him awake that long easily.

The test plane will depart from a Swiss airport sometime in June. The catch is that the plane must continue to fly all day to collect solar power so that it will be able to function during the night. In this case, using energy will charge the plane as well, but it must be kept active to keep the energy balance stable.

Bertrand Piccard is known for taking risky but successful air travels. He was the first to complete a non-stop balloon flight around the world. Andre Borschberg is a businessman with a long-time fascination with air travel. A graduate of MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering, Piccard is now the CEO and project co-founder of Solar Impulse, the company behind this latest mission of solar-powered air flight.

This new project is still in its early stages, but perhaps the technology will eventually expand into commercial travels. Until then, the prospect is not without its risks. Would you take a fly on a solar-powered flying machine?

The skies are anything but friendly for passengers planning to fly Spirit Airlines, as the airline's pilots continue the strike that began June 12. An official in the Spirit pilots unit of the Air Line Pilots Association toldUSA Today that the National Mediation Board will meet with both sides on Wednesday to attempt to make progress in the negotiations.

The Pilots Association claims that the company's latest offer would force pilots to work longer hours and pay more for health care, although Spirit was "ranked as the most profitable U.S. airline" last year. At the end of April, the company had 1,951 full-time employees, almost 500 fewer than at the same point in 2008. The airline flew 4,953,000 passenger in 2009.

Spirit has canceled flights already through Thursday. The company is offering those already scheduled to travel on its flights during the strike flight credit for the full amount of the unflown portion of their trip and a $100 voucher for future travel. Those preferring a full refund are invited to call the airline at 1-800-772-7117.

Spirit is not only losing ticket revenue; it is losing big money on the ancillary charges. After all, it was the first airline to start charging $45 for carry-on bags, as reported here earlier this year by our travel expert Jason Cochran.

Given Spirit's self-description as an "Ultra Low Cost Carrier" and its creativity in finding new income streams, I wouldn't be surprised if its first offer to the pilots to sweeten their income was to put tip jars by the cabin door.

Predicting flight delays during the busy summer travel season -- when inclement weather can throw airline schedules off for days -- is difficult at best.

But there are several factors to take into consideration if you have some flexibility in your travel schedule. Crowded flight schedules, as well as the airspace above, causes many airports to be routinely plagued by delays, no matter what the weather, according to a recent survey at Forbes.com.

The accessible slide show singles out the 10 most delay-prone U.S. airports, according to average delays they reported to the federal Department of Transportation over the past three summers.

CBS reality heartthrob Jeff Schroeder, who appeared on last summer's Big Brother 11 and the most recent season of The Amazing Race, will head up a new show by himself. This time, he'll travel the world over 100 days with not a penny in his pocket. In a true test of budget travel, he'll see the world with nothing more than a backpack and help from fans on the Web. The show, Around the World for Free, will be on CBS.com.