On Wednesday, American Airlines declared that it would lay off 13,000 workers or 15 percent of its workforce. The company is attempting to emerge from bankruptcy, which it filed last November. Along with the layoffs, the company is seeking to cut employee pensions and some health benefits. AA CEO Tom Horton called the decisions "painful" but said in the end, the moves would preserve tens of thousands of jobs that would have otherwise been lost.

On Wednesday, the European Union's highest court will rule on a lawsuit filed two years ago by two U.S. airlines and a industry trade association attempting to halt the E.U.'s plan to charge for carbon emissions pollution. It would include the industry in the worldwide cap and trade market. If the court decides to uphold the 2008 European law, on January 1, airlines will be forced to reduce their carbon emissions to an historic low, or buy emission credits from companies that pollute less than the base rate.  

American Airlines' parent company, Texas-based AMR, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday morning, making it the last major airline in the U.S. to do so. American, the nation's third largest airline, will continue operations during the restructuring, which it hopes will reduce labor costs and $29.6 billion in debts. AMR has lost $982 million since the beginning of the year, and has posted annual losses for the last three years. In recent years, American has struggled to compete against United and Delta, both of which merged with other airlines after going through their own reorganizations.

In the days after Hurricane Irene, many travelers find themselves stranded after cancelled flights or suspended train service kept them from going where they wanted to go. Even without extreme weather conditions complicating travel, most travelers have an an airline horror story or two, and many times the source of the problem is not the cancelled trip or lost bag, but inadequate customer service or lack of information from the airline. Several airlines are seeking to remedy this problem by using social networking for customer relations — a tactic many different types of companies are employing nowadays.

Earlier this morning, Rep. John Mica (R-FL) told The Takeaway the Democrats were to blame for partial shutdown at the Federal Aviation Agency, after Congress failed to pas a funding extension last weekend. But what does this shutdown mean for consumers at the airport? Barbara Peterson, senior aviation correspondent for Conde Nast Traveler, talks about how airfare has changed since the government can no longer collect taxes on airline tickets.

Partisan fighting over the debt ceiling on Capitol Hill has affected more than just the markets. Over the weekend, Congress failed to pass a funding extension for the Federal Aviation Administration, following a disagreement over cuts in subsidies. As a result, the U.S. government was forced to suspend collection of federal airline taxes, at a loss of approximately $200 million per week. The F.A.A had to furlough 4,000 employees, and airport modernization projects worth billions of dollars are now on hold.

A Sacramento bound Southwest Airlines flight declared an in flight emergency on Friday when five feet of paneling ripped out of the 737's ceiling. Flight 812 made a rapid descent from its cruising altitude of 36,000 feet down to 11,000 feet and later landed safely at Yuma Marine Corps Air Station.  

In the recent past, airlines have been caught being lax in their adherence to maintenance inspections. In 2008, the FAA levied a $7.5 million penalty against Southwest for its failure to do mandatory inspections for fuselage fatigue on some of its planes. Southwest wasn't the only airline.

We’ve been reporting on the devastating East Coast snowstorms all week, hearing your stories and seeing your photos. Today we take a look at how the blizzard has affected post-holiday travel. Yesterday, hundreds of passengers bound for Vancouver sat on the tarmac at JFK Airport in New York for over 11 hours — and that’s not the only horror story circulating between airline terminals.

A breach in air security and the smuggling of explosives onto two cargo planes bound for the U.S. has raised concerns about the screening process of air-freight cargo. Two packages carrying explosives originating in Yemen made their through four countries on at least four different airplanes before being tracked down in Britain and Dubai. Empty printer cartridges were used to hide the bombs.

Officials are now admitting vulnerabilities in the screening of cargo flights that are being exploited by terror organizations like al-Qaida. 

On any ordinary U.S. airliner, you’re likely to find in the seat pocket in front you an in-flight magazine that romanticizes your destination city. Magazines tend to feature articles with titles like United Airline’s “Three Perfect Days: Denver” or US Airway’s “Endless Summer.”  But on Afghanistan’s Safi Airlines, the in-flight magazine paints a more realistic – albeit grim — reality of Afghanistan. The topics range from a piece on dog fighting to a profile of heroin addicts.

Airline fees are high enough, but do you really know how much you are paying for your plane ticket? Consider the amount you charge on your credit card when you purchase your tickets, plus the extra fees you pay to check your luggage or get that extra leg room or window seat. Those kinds of costs alone raked in an addition $8 billion in 2008 and 2009 for airlines, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Now airlines are facing mounting scrutiny from the Obama administration and Congress. And soon new guidelines may be put in place by the GAO.

• TIMES SQUARE BOMB TAKEOUT: WNYC reporter, Arun Venugopal, spoke with tourists and street vendors in Times Square to find out the impact of the attempted bombing this weekend. He catches us up on the reactions, the resilience and on the fast moving police investigation. 
• MONEY TAKEOUT: United and Continental Airlines are merging to become the biggest single airline in the world. Louise Story, finance reporter for The New York Times explains how this might affect the ticket price wars, and why it's likely to pass anti-trust tests.

European officials struck a deal yesterday to reopen most of Europe's air space to plane travel as early as this afternoon, assuming Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continues to subside. This would end the worst peacetime travel disruption in history, a travel crisis that has left thousands of passengers stranded for days and cost the airline industry hundreds of millions of dollars. But in the midst of the chaos and inconveniences, one philosopher took a moment to reflect on what our world would look like without airplanes.

• Travel Takeout: Over sixty thousand flights have been canceled in the past four days, leaving hundreds of thousand people in Europe devising alternative travel plans. Seth Stevenson, author of "Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World" looks at their ground travel options.
• Listener Takeout: By phone, on Twitter, via email and posted on our website, Takeaway Listeners told us about the global reach of the Icelandic volcano's disruptive plumes.

A massive cloud of ashes has kept thousands of fligfhts on the ground in Northern Europe yesterday after a volcano in Iceland erupted a second time this month, spewing huge amounts of silicate ash into a busy airspace for travellers in the region. Some of Europe's busiest airports have closed down in what appears to be the biggest shutdown of flights since 9/11.

• KING TUT: For years it was thought that King Tut had died from foul play, but new research reveals that he most likely was killed by a severe bout of malaria combined with a degenerative bone condition. He even used crutches! Egypt's top archaeologist and Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass solved the mystery behind King Tut's death and discovered clues in the young pharoah's DNA that give us new insight into his ancestry.

• AIRPORT SECURITY: In a few weeks, airport screeners will begin walking through terminals taking chemical swabs from randomly selected passengers and their luggage to check for explosives like those used in the attempted Christmas Day bombing. Joining us is Col. Randall Larsen, the founding director of the Institute for Homeland Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The National Transportation Safety Board released its report on what it believed was the cause for Continental Flight 3407's crash in Buffalo nearly one year ago. After a year long investigation, the NTSB concluded the crash was caused by pilot error, and "complacency and confusion that resulted in catastrophe."

The botched Christmas Day terror attack was only the latest blow for an already-hurting airline industry. Before that, there was the recession, which brought smaller travel budgets for companies and American travelers. That was on top of the soaring price of fuel, which led some airline companies to charge extra to cover the gas bill… Add to the picture the swine flu outbreaks, pension costs and new airport safety measures and you can really wonder: is the airline industry reaching a breaking point?

With us today to answer this question is Robert Crandall, former CEO of American Airlines. He led the company for 18 years in the '80s and '90s.

President Obama said intelligence officials failed to connect the dots to prevent the Christmas Day almost-bomber from boarding a Northwest flight in Amsterdam bound for Detroit. We talk with our Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich about yesterday's meeting between the president and intelligence agencies, and with Michael Hurley, the senior counsel on the 9/11 Commission, about what went wrong and how intelligence officials can better communicate to prevent terrorism plots in the future.

Tightened security measures have come into force for all passengers flying to the United States, following the failed attempt to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day. Under the new guidelines, airport staff are carrying out full body pat-downs on passengers travelling from countries the U.S. considers to be a security risk. They include Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and Nigeria. But are these new security rules the right ones?

Not according to Isaac Yeffet, former head of security for the Israeli airline, El Al.