This week Fox News reported that US federal authorities are investigating a second case of an air traffic controller sleeping on the job, after a similar incident at Washington’s Reagan Nation Airport caused an uproar (we wrote about it). The article said that the latest report of a snoozing air traffic controller came Wednesday during Capitol Hill testimony. This time the incident took place in, in Knoxville, Tennessee (IATA: TYS). In this case, the air traffic controller appeared to be “willfully” sleeping and the FAA said it is taking steps to fire the person.

Sometimes getting to the airport can be more than just time consuming and annoying, it, in fact, can  be very dangerous. Well, in the case of Elizabeth “Lilly” Littlewood, a 26-year-old from Newcastle, Australia, it was even life threatening as the Sydney Morning Herald reported: It was meant to be a quiet taxi ride to the airport at the end of a South American adventure. But after travelling halfway around the world, Ms Littlewood, was shot in the stomach after she and her partner were held at gunpoint for hours during their last drive through Peru. Ms Littlewood is now recovering in a hospital in Lima.

Better news came from San Francisco this week as Northern California’s hub airport (IATA: SFO) celebrated the completion of a $383 million renovation of San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 2. Silicon Valley’s Mercury News wrote that the renovated terminal is the nation’s first to capture LEED gold status. This means it satisfied certain standards, including energy efficiency and water conservation, set by the U.S. Green Building Council. The terminal will officially open for business on 14th April.

Finally, with the advent of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re sure many readers start thinking of where to spend their well earned summer holidays. But with ongoing tough economies across Europe and the US budgets can be tight. So why not consider our friends and search for cheap holidays to the beach?

[Photo from Flickr – Some rights reserved by martintoy]