The airline problems in the USA have improved!  In the past few weeks, the airline executives and the government regulators have achieved a compromise.  The Federal Aviation Administration will continue to conduct its strict inspection of all aircraft and will notify the airlines of any violations found.  The airlines will be given some reasonable time to fix any problem that does not seriously endanger travel.  This new spirit of cooperation has enabled the air carriers to place nearly all of their aircraft back in use.  The massive flight cancellations have ceased.

 In addition, the government regulators of air travel have enacted a few changes to ease the problems faced by passengers.  They increased the penalties paid to passengers that were delayed due to airline overbooking of flights.  Now, any passenger that is "bumped" off of a flight due to overbooking, and is delayed more than four hours will be entitiled to a payment equal to the value of the ticket up to $800.  For delays up to two hours, the maximum will be $400.  For international flights, the delay must be four hours or more.