Bwi

If you don't have a hotel reservation for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, it's probably too late. Perhaps time your visit for just before or just after the games begin Feb. 12. You can also fly to Seattle and drive to Vancouver. $219 Continental Seattle $455 Northwest Vancouver $469 United Vancouver Restricted roundtrip fees as researched online Tuesday, the day before the Travel section goes to press.

A man was struck by a vehicle after stepping off a bus near the BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport train station on Wednesday afternoon, according to Maryland Transportation Authority Police. The driver of the vehicle was attempting to pass the bus when the incident occurred about 5:35 p.m. on Amtrak Way, a loop road near the BWI station that serves both Amtrak and MARC rail passengers, said 1st Sgt. Jonathan Green, a MdTA Police spokesman. The man who was struck sustained non-life-threatening injuries but was transported to Maryland Shock Trauma Center as a precaution, Green said.

Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport leapfrogged ahead of Washington Dulles International Airport in terms of passenger counts in 2012, according to Airports Council International. BWI was the nation's 22 n d busiest airport in 2012, bumping Dulles down a place, according the council, which released passenger data for North American airports on Tuesday. Passenger volume at BWI rose 1.25 percent to nearly 22.7 million last year, while Dulles slipped 2.89 percent to 22.4 million.

A man with a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun in his carry-on bag was arrested at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Monday - marking the seventh time this year officers have seized a firearm at the airport's checkpoint. The Transportation Security Administration said in a news release Tuesday that officers staffing the checkpoint X-ray machines detected the handgun, which was loaded with eight rounds of ammunition, inside a Hidden Valley, Pa. resident's carry-on bag. Officers contacted the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, who confiscated the firearm and arrested the man, TSA officials said.

The average fare at Thurgood Marshall Baltimore Washington International Airport increased more than 13 percent percent in the second quarter to $289.25, compared to $254.54 for the same quarter last year. Nationally, average fares were $341, up more than 13 percent from $301 in the second quarter of last year. Fares at BWI were lower than those at other airports in the region. Average fares at Dulles airport in Northern Virginia were $424.05, a 10.7 percent increase from $383.22 last year.

Thanks to competition between AirTran and Southwest Airlines, you can choose from more than a dozen daily flights from Baltimore to Orlando, Fla. A little more than $200 — less if you catch a sale — gets you to Disney World and back. The market works — but only as long as regulators set rules to keep it strong. And if the government doesn't do just that by intervening in Southwest's proposed acquisition of AirTran, watch fares from Baltimore to Orlando and many other places take off like a Boeing 737. "Travelers in Baltimore could potentially really feel the loss of competition there," says Diana Moss, a vice president at the American Antitrust Institute in Washington who closely follows airlines.

Council seeks participants in BWI Air Cargo Forum The BWI Development Council is seeking representatives from the air cargo industry to participate in its Air Cargo Forum. The group's goals include encouraging the expansion of airfreight at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Information: 410-859-0124. BWI Pathfinders sets volunteer orientation BWI Pathfinders will hold an orientation from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 24 for people interested in volunteering to assist airport patrons.

Worker appreciation day set Tuesday at airport Baltimore-Washington International Airport employees will be treated to an Airport Employee Appreciation Day tomorrow. The event will be held on the upper level of the Observation Gallery, and is sponsored by the BWI Development Council and the Maryland Aviation Administration Office of Marketing. AirTran nonstop service to Dallas to start this week AirTran Airways will begin daily nonstop service to Dallas/Fort Worth from BWI, starting Wednesday.

Dozens of flights have been cancelled or delayed at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport Friday morning due to a grounding of air traffic in Chicago following a fire at a nearby radar facility. By nearly 9 p.m., there had been 38 flights cancelled and 142 flights delayed at BWI, according to flight tracker FlightAware.com. Police in Illinois have said the fire at the Federal Aviation Administration facility in Aurora, which grounded hundreds of flights at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airport, was intentionally set but "is no terrorist act. " A contract employee was found in the basement of the radar facility suffering from self-inflicted wounds, police said.

Many of the airplanes overhead in the Baltimore region could start looking a bit different soon, as Southwest Airlines unveiled a new logo and design for its aircraft Monday. The Dallas-based airline is the largest carrier in and out of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport in Anne Arundel County, operating more than 70 percent of the flights along with subsidiary AirTran. The new red, yellow and blue logo is in the shape of a heart, meant to convey the people-first ethos long espoused publicly by the airline, it said.

The statistics are in, and one of Baltimore's coolest months of August on record helped make it the mildest summer here since 2000. The average temperature at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in August was 72.5 degrees. That made it the coolest month of what was a chilly summer overall, though on average, it is typically the second-coolest month of the year behind July. It was Baltimore's coolest August since 1992 and the fourth coolest on record. August 1927 and August 1903 rank as the first- and second-coolest, respectively.

Federal prosecutors pursuing a drug money case based in part on a police dog whose certification has been questioned said in court filings this week that the dog might actually have been properly trained. The case stems from the seizure of $122,000 in suspected drug money at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport last fall. An attorney for a woman who claims the money is hers asked a judge to throw out the case, alleging that prosecutors used a faked K-9 training certificate produced by the Maryland Transportation Authority Police to bolster their case.

A leak on a natural gas line forced the closure Friday afternoon of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport's parking lot for people waiting to pick up arriving fliers. The airport's fire department responded to the so-called "cell phone lot" just before 3 p.m., and determined a leak along a Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. line, said Jonathan Dean, an airport spokesman. The leak presented "no real hazard to the public or travelers" at the airport, but the lot was closed as BGE crews worked to repair the line, Dean said.

Erin Sharp arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport a little less than two hours before her 9:40 a.m. flight to San Diego on Sunday, timed so that her 11-month-old son would zonk out on the plane and they would arrive home with the afternoon to spare. Instead, Sharp wouldn't leave the Anne Arundel County airport for another nine hours, she said, after an enormous ticketing line for Southwest Airlines caused her and other passengers to miss their flights and the airline couldn't immediately get her onto another.

One of the principal security gates at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport is being closed in the mornings because of congestion around the adjacent Southwest Airlines ticketing counters, according to airport, airline and Transportation Security Administration officials. The shift started last week after officials found lines at the ticketing counters were blurring into lines at the security gate for Concourse B, particularly during busy morning hours. "It has to do with the safety and commingling of passengers," said TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein, who said entering and exiting through the gate had become a concern.

Two people have been arrested at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport in as many days for attempting to board planes with handguns in their carry-on bags, Transportation Security Administration officials said Friday. A Prince George's County man was arrested on Thursday after security agents spotted a handgun in his bag. On Friday, Maryland Transportation Authority police arrested a woman who attempted to pass through security with a .38 handgun. TSA said that the firearm spotted on Thursday had been reported stolen.