cnn's aviation correspondent pete muntean is following the story from washington. pete, can you give us the latest on what we know, how long this pilot has been in the air, and what the danger is to the public at this point? >> reporter: well, sara, we know that this plane took off from the tupelo regional airport around 5:00 a.m. central time, 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. we're coming up on the plane being in the air for about five hours now. the plane is a king air c-90. you can see it there, that's a small twin-engine turboprop airplane. it seats between six and eight people. it can go about 250 miles an hour. the question now is how this will end, how this story will end. will the airplane run out of fuel? we've been talking to sources who fly king airs and they tell me it can only fly for between four and six hours if the plane is fully loaded with fuel. that is the track from flighfl flightaware. you can see the plane took off from touupelo airport, circled e airport at a relatively low altitude, then continued northbound over the holly springs national forest

it's as pete muntean said in his package that aired before me. it's a really partisan and trying to negotiate and pass legislation to prevent a labor strike. two republicans specifically, roger wicker and richard burr tried to force a resolution monday to try to prevent a railroad strike. senator bernie sanders blocked it. democrats waiting to see if they can negotiate. the clock is ticking, of course, christine. less than 24 hours before a strike is supposed to happen. take a listen to what house speaker nancy pelosi said during her press conference on where democrats stand on this issue. >> we are hoping that negotiations will continue so there is no rail strike. the main area of disagreement is that there's no sick leave for the workers and that's a problem. >> reporter: christine, the bottom line is congress is of course in session again today. right now they are not eager to cost them that they are having become local workers and the rail and the administration, pu we could not step in. >> let's dig in. the timing here, two years of snarled

cnn's pete muntean has been on top of this situation and story. pete, what do we know? >> reporter: well we know this plane came down in a field in gravestown, mississippi. around 10:00 a.m. local time. int not all that far from where it took off around 5:00 a.m. this morning. you could see a beechcraft, a twin engine commuter, seats about six or eight people and we know from authorities in tupelo that this plane was stolen by what appears to be an airport employee. police received a call around 5:00 a.m. central daylight time where the pilot of that plane, actually we don't know if it is way pilot. but the person flying that airplane called 911 and said they were going to steal the airplane and crash it into one of the local walmarts in tupelo. the plane circled for about five hours above the area. not only above that walmart, but also above nearby neighborhoods and also over a nearby national forest. what is going to be the big question here is what ultimately brought the plane down. i spoke to folks who have flown this type of airline and they say it holds between fo

cnn's pete muntean is live in washington with more. es for the travel industry, and a lot of people want to know where their money is going. . >> you know, a lot of fees have just become background noise for us flying on the airlines, boris, but now the administration wants airlines to essentially say up front the cost of things that would typically be free. times have changed. back when tickets were not really being charged extra. folks were not being charged extra for things like selecting a seat on board a plane. selecting a seat that has no extra leg room even though you're charged extra, sitting with a child. we know the carry on and checked bag fees have become standard now. really the administration says this is all added up, $700 million in total. that's what airlines have charged in 2021 for all of these fees all together. the administration really just looked to score points here after a really bad summer of airline cancellations. we saw 55,000 in total in the u.s. from memorial day to labor day, and now the administration has

pete muntean, cnn, washington. >> thanks to pete muntean for that report. >>> let's get some perspectivenational security analyst juliette kayyem. good morning. great to be on with you as always. walk us through the charges that this suspect is facing, federal charges too, right? >> yeah, federal investigation right now grand larceny, obviously. this was what we call an insider threat. he had access to what could potentially be a weapon of mass destruction. he took it. and then also the terrorist threat charges are really related to threatening a civilian population right now, where there is no reason to believe this was larger than his own, whatever was motivating him. at least not right now. there will continue to be a federal investigation to see if there was any federal charges that are warranted based on his motivation. but, look, he may have issues, there might be mental health issues, was this an attempted suicide by plane? we just don't know. but one of the reasons why you come on strong with these charges is that this is just, you know, exceptionally -- this is not acceptable be

cnn's pete muntean joins us from washington. ful. >> you said it, alisyn, you know, everything went from free to fee on the airlines about 15 years ago. you know, background noise for those of us who fly all the time, but, you know, what's serious here is that the biden administration really wants it so that airline passengers can see all of these fees up front when you book your ticket so you can understand the true total cost from the outset. look at fees airlines are charging these days, $30 for a first checked bag on united airlines, $50 aon allegiant. $75 for a same day change fee, most waived those at the start of the pandemic. 50 bucks on spirit airlines to select your see. fees can go as high as $280 to select your seat on maid cabin extra. sometimes those fees can be as low as $4. the issue is that airlines are making a lot of money off of this. $436 million in the first six months of this year according to flight aware in cancellation and change fees. $3 billion in the first six months of this year when it comes to bag

pete muntean, cnn, washington. >>> and without any signs of progress, u.s. futures markets have been in and out of positive territory all morning. you can see there all in positive territory for now. the dow futures up about 1/4 of a percent. trading is mixed in the asia pacific region as you can see and trading has been underway for a little over an hour now in europe with the ftse up .64 there. >>> silence and solemn stream of mourners continue to file past the coffin of queen elizabeth here in london. her majesty is lying in state at westminster hall and her coffin will remain there until her state funeral on monday. when the doors to the hall first open on wednesday the cue of mourners stretched for almost 3 miles along the river thames below me here. so many people waiting for hours to pay their respects to the qu queen. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: well, earlier on wednesday the queen's coffin was taken from buckingham palace on horse drawn carriage to the palace of westminster. crowds lined the streets to witness this moment in history and to pay tribute to britt

. >> let's bring in cnn's pete muntean. first hurt about it. what have you learned from authorities about what's happening right now? >> reporter: boris, a government source familiar now tells me the plane is over holly springs national forest and that tupelo police who were initially communicating with this pilot, we think via phone, are now no longer in touch with the pilot. this plane, you can see in this video, was circling overhead tupelo, mississippi earlier today. this all began around 7:45 in the morning central time, 8:45 on the east coast. so this has been going on on about two hours. i can tell you just by eyeballing a lot of this video, this plane is what's known as a beechcraft king air c-90, has a top speed of 250 knots, about 275 miles an hour. it has a fuel endurance, depending on the model, of between four and six hours. we also know from some of the initial reports around this, information coming from the governor of mississippi, also from local authorities, that the person who is piloting this plane, we d

. >>> in the meantime i want to go to pete muntean who is dry at ragan national airport right now. ey closed all the airports around where i am or are about to close and i have to imagine that the ripple effect of the air traffic is just going to be enormous. >> reporter: the ripple effect is only going to get bigger here, john. with florida taking a huge blow here from hurricane ian, especially the aviation infrastructure, it is a big destination for people in fall. look at the cancellations right now according to flight aware. miami, orlando, tampa top the top three airports for cancellations in the u.s. right now. they make up about half of all of the area. delta flight 2790 bound for atlanta was the last flight out. the official faa airport says they are worried about flooding. there will be an army of volunteers staying behind as the airport expects this to come in. check in with the airport ceo as they are there waiting this out. >> we have a team of storm riders made up of about 120 employees that will ride out the storm. once the storm has passed, our team will conduct a dam

cnn's pete muntean and cnn aerospace analyst myles o'brien joins me now. pete, let's start here. what is the latest on what is happened with the suspect and do we know anything new about what they were doing up there. >> reporter: sessentially the pilot lives to tell the tale, but likely in a courtroom. from two different government sources that the plane that was stolen earlier this morning, around 5:00 a.m., from the tupelo regional airport, according to the tupelo, police, crashed near ashland, mississippi. it flew around the area for about five hours. police in tupelo say they initially got a phone call at 5:00 a.m. central time from the person on board this airplane saying that they were threatening to crash the plane into one of the walmarts in tupelo, mississippi. according to flight aware, the plane flew around for about five hours, north west of the area and then over the holly springs national forest. we heard from sources that a king air like this, a beechcraft, seats between six and eight people, can fly for about four to six hours with full fuel. so that would match

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pete muntean joins us now. confirming to us, an agreement on the table that ten out of 12 unions involved here have signed off on. two have not. you could describe the sticking points and whether there is any movement there, possibly. >> what we could see here, jim, is all of the rail unions striking in solidarity, even though there are two holdouts. the deadline is midnight on friday. but what is so interesting is that we're already seeing the impacts here with amtrak suspending rounds effective right now, and they're talking about chicago and san francisco and seattle and between san antonio and l.a., but the rub here is that amtrak only operates about 3% of its rails because this strike would have to do with freight rail workers, 9-% of amtrak rails are operated by freight rail companies. so a presidential review board tried to avoid this strike offering big concessions to the rail works, essentially back pay from 2020. bonus pay and big raises effective immediately. talks have been orn going for months. but

pete muntean joins us live in washington with more. do we know what the danger was? >> really a testament to the crew here. also air traffic control and the engineering of this airplane. a boeing 777-200, took off. united flight 100 we're talking about at newark liberty international airport. new video surfacing last night shows a shower of sparks as the landing gear was going up. it was apparent there was a problem. you can see the flight aware attack. the flight went east of the jersey shore and orbitted the atlantic ocean, united says to burn off fuel before the flight came back in to land at newark. 256 people on board. nobody hurt. what is interesting here is that united was pretty quickly able to determine that this was a problem with one of the plane's hydraulic pumps. almost the blood that flows to some of the key parts of the airplane, the landing gear, the wing flaps used for takeoff and landing. also the breaks, the good news on the 777, it was designed with three systems on board, three independent hiydraulic systems. even if two of them fail, the airplan

cnn's pete muntean is at reagan national airport in washington, d.c. how is it looking there, pete?question now, alisyn, as you mentioned, is whether or not airlines can keep it together as so many people are coming back to travel. hoppers expects about 12.6 million to travel domestically. it's been such a bad summer for flight cancellations, 45,000 in the u.s. alone since june 1st. we saw 800 alone just this past tuesday, mostly because of bad weather. remember, airlines got a lot smaller over the pandemic and they've been dealing with staffing shortages. today, so far so good. the numbers are going up. we've seen about 2,200 delays nationwide, about 130 flights canceled. those numbers still pretty small. the good news here is that just in time for this holiday weekend rush, many airlines have completely rewritten the fine print that is attached to your ticket, re-writing what you are entitled to if you are canceled or delayed, in some cases improving those policies in a big way. i want you to listen to passengers i've been talking to. many of them say they've been the lucky ones l

. >> nadia romero and pete muntean, thank you both so much for those updated details. i want to bring in cnn national security annals juliette kayyem and transportation analyst mary schiavo. welcome back to the show, you gave us some great insight earlier in the show. cory wayne patterson, we know, had access to those planes because he worked there as an employee of tupelo aviation. this may change the trajectory of what security measures are in place, because this was someone who was given access because he worked there. is there something that could have potentially stopped him from doing this? >> probably not. i mean, look, insider threat is always a concern, whether it's cybersecurity or aviation security. there is all sorts of background reviews and assessments of who has access to what. it does sound like it was early on a saturday morning. if he had access to the runway or planes for any reason, he could have gone into one. he clearly had some flying experience. so we know that now. so this is just going to require sort of an assessment by especially smaller air

pete muntean, cnn, washington. >>> and most residents in jackson should have water pressure but it still remains unsafe to drink. city officials say that there have been significant gains at the water treatment plant. it has been nearly a week since the main water facility failed in part because of historic flooding. tens of thousands are struggling to access clean water and the white house says climate change denial has contributed to the problem. >> first of all, they have to beacknowledge that there is a problem. i think what has happened is that lot of the fixes that are being used are fixes that were probably would have worked 20 years ago but they won't work anymore. and we have to make sure that we build systems that can deal with flooding, deal with systems that can deal with rising water tables. and all of these issues are not being addressed currently especially in places that don't even acknowledge that climate change is real. and until they make that allege knoc acknowledgement and make the adjustments with working with the bipartisan infrastructure plan to build systems that

cnn's pete muntean who is live for us. this summer has been marred by cancellations and cancellations. how does it look today? >> so far so good. i just checked flight aware. we just crossed the 900 delay mark but only 65 flights have been cancelled which is pretty miniscule when you consider the 45,000 flights that have been cancelled in the u.s. since june 1st. also notable, there are no faa-imposed ground delays or ground stops right now. so this should be a pretty easy day for travel, although the day is still pretty young. take into consideration that there's been so much pressure on the airlines that have been struggling with the staffing shortages, not only from passengers but also from the federal government, also from their workers. members of the airline pilots association protested and major hubs across the country just this past thursday to say that most of the staffing issues that airlines are experiencing are primarily self-inflicted. overall this weekend has been relatively low cancellation-wise. the worst d

e, pete muntean. >>> the u.s.ore than analysts expected, but it did mark another month of job gains slowing down. >> and while it may have been a slower month for hiring, the strong market defied fears of a worsening economy hitting a 20th consecutive month of job growth. here is cnn's chief business correspondent christine romans to help us unpack the report. >> reporter: the labor market remains strong as we head into the labor day holiday, but hiring slowed. employers added 315,000 jobs, well below july's red hot 526,000 pace. some 3.5 million jobs added this year, and the hiring in august was broad based, led by professional and business services, health care, retail and manufacturing. the jobless rate rose to 3.7%. why? well, thanks to more people looking for work. that pushed something called the labor force participation rate up .3%. all in all, a welcome normalization in what has been an anything but normal jobs market. remember, fed chief jerome powell said last week the labor market is, quote, clearly ou

jake. >> all right, pete muntean, thanks very much. >>> newly released data painting a confusing picture. another one missed the mark and mortgage rates hit their highest level in more than a decade. we try to make sense of this and what do the numbers say about when the economy is right now? >> yeah, sometimes the data seems to be pointing in different directions. on the labor front, well, the job market is still strong. we got weekly jobless claims which is our first look at how many americans are filing for unemployment. 213,000 which is lower than economists were expecting. also lower than what we saw last week so people by and large still have jobs, we learned that people are still spending. retail sales data which showed some slight increases, the consumer i think the best way to describe it, still proving to be resilient and holding on. we saw import prices fall which could mean some more good news on the inflation front down the line. where we are not seeing declines our mortgage rates. 30-year mortgage rates are back above 6%, double where they were a year ago and because of the

cnn's pete muntean at reagan national airport this morning. okay, pete, what are we looking at?john, you know, we're not out of the woods just yet. those airline and passengers, as well. the focus right now is getting those airports that close when hurricane ian made landfall back open understand again. those evacuated by air can come back in, also, so relief and help can get into some of these local communities. we just heard overnight that orlando international airport, the busiest airport in the state will reopen at 12:00 noon today. that means that eight of the 11 airports that closed because of the storm will be reopened by the end of today. i want you to listen now to the head of the sarasota bradenton international airport. he was on the roof, able to see the roof from his office when some of the roof just came clear off. he said it peeled off like a piece of paper. that is when a rush of water came into the terminal there and he said that workers scrambled in to help. even some off-duty firefighters to try to clean things up so the airport could get reopened once again.

cnn's pete muntean is joining us from just outside the u.s. bor department in washington where negotiations are ongoing this hour. pete, what's the latest? >> it's a marathon, not a sprint, wolf. we're on hour ten of talks here at the labor department. the biden administration is insisting that all parties remain at the table to hammer out a deal, because we are only just now getting a glimpse into how serious this potential strike and freight rail shutdown could be. >> reporter: it is the latest eve effort to put the brakds on a rail workers' strike. bosses representing unions and railroads met with the labor secretary in a last-ditch effort to reach a deal by midnight thursday. that's when 60,000 workers could walk off the job in solidarity. a strike will mean freight rail, which makes up 40% of all freight in the u.s., will grind to a halt, impacting everything from parts for cars to fertilizer for farming. >> transportation's a big part of the cost of -- to the consumer, and i don't believe there's one person in the country that it won't af

cnn's pete muntean joins us live, as always, have reagan national airport. ll us how it's looking there, pete. >> reporter: it seems like we might hit that 12 million passenger projection, brianna, of folks traveling on the airlines and they have been struggling with staffing issues all summer. the pressure has been on not only from passengers but the federal government and workers. workers protested across the country this past week to say many of the problems are the airlines' own doing. look at the latest cancellation numbers according to flight aware. 210 flight cancellations yesterday, that is the worst we have seen over the weekend, but to put this into context this is only about a quarter of the worst day of last week and, remember, there have been about 45,000 flight cancellations in total for the summer. so so far so good. look at the tsa numbers over the week so far, we saw 2.3 million people kick off this rush on thursday. we will see now as we go through the lull of the weekend and we get the numbers of sunday, people coming back to flying that no

pete muntean bravely at reagan national airport this morning, where i'm sure there will be limited joy might be right. the big question, john, is whether or not airlines can keep it together this weekend. we had one day this week of big cancellations. airlines are under immense pressure, not only from passengers, but also from the federal government. there are new protections for passengers in place just in time for this long weekend rush and now we're going to see whether or not airlines can face the music and maybe make a bit of an about face after this bad summer of cancellations. with flight cancellations by the thousands, passengers demanding refunds and pilots picketing at airports across the country, the labor day travel rush is shaping up to be a dramatic end to a summer of travel struggles. on tuesday alone, more than 800 flights were canceled nationwide, mostly for bad weather. the new summer long tally, more than 45,000 flights canceled by u.s. carriers since the start of june. >> staggeringly frustrating because you can be there about ready to board and it is, like, god, no

pete muntean, florida airports are obviously shut down, but will this ripple through the week?the biggest cancellations of event to play out. the ripple effect not only through florida, but we're seeing cancellations as far north as here at reagan. look at the latest cancellations numbers. we just crossed the 2,000 cancellation mark. the top airports -- orlando which closed just a few minutes ago. miami international, which is still open, but many flights to the caribbean are impacted. tampa international which closed at about 5:00 p.m. last night. the last flight out was bound for atlanta. right now the airport is preparing for things like flooding and power outages. a arm of volunteers will ride out the storm. they want to make the airport open again once the storm ultimately does pass. >> we have a team of storm riders, made up about 120 employees that will ride out the storm. once the storm has passed, our team will conduct a damage assessment of our airfield and terminal facilities and determine whether we can reopen immediately or whether we have issues that we need to ad

pete muntean is tracking this trend. avel rush just end heed but the new warning from travel experts is that you should already be thinking about traveling for the holidays especiallyheed but the warning from travel experts is that you should already be thinking about traveling for the holidays especially since the latest outlook says this will be the most expensive holiday season for travel of the last five year. these are the projections from hopper. domestic and international airfare over thanksgiving could cost 22% higher compared to 2019. even worse over christmas. a round trip ticket on average is projected to cost you $463. 31% higher than three years ago back before the pandemic. one more stat. over christmas, an international trip will cost you a whopping $1300 round trip on average. there are a few big tips here. book your tickets ideally within the next few weeks. hopefully before october 10th. also book travel for times that are off peak, not flying on the saturday or sunday after thanksgiving for example. and

pete muntean is live in washington gathering information about what happened here. >> well thankfullycrew and the tron trollers and the 777-200 and flight 149 just after it took off from newark, video surfaces online where you could see a shower of sparks coming out of the plane landing gear is going up. it was fully load and bound to brazil and then in the flight aware track here, but orbits over the atlantic ocean east of the jersey shore to burn off fuel, it is too heavy to come back in and land right away. after about an hour of that, the fight came back in, to newark, landed safely without incident, thankfully. 256 people on board not hurt but what is so interesting here is that united was pretty quickly able to determine that the source of the problem here. they say it was a problem with a pump in the hydraulic system. that is key because that is like the blood of the airplane. if runs some the landing gear and the flaps used to takeoff and landing and also the brakes. good news is that on the 777, there are three independent hydraulic systems. tripping redundancy. so two of the

pete muntean joins us live.e families of the crash victims, they fought hard to get this rule in place. >> the faa is essentially siding with crash victims saying you can't back off on training and safety standards just because the faa says that airlines need to hire more pilots. airlines, we know, have been struggling with a global pilot shortage, and that's what's contributed to tens of thousands of delays and cancellations over the summer. who we are talking about here is republic airways. it is a regional airline that operates about a thousand flights a day for american, delta, and united. it tried to get the faa to allow it to hire pilots with instead of 1,500 flight hours, 750 flight hours. 1,500 hours has been the standard since the colgan air crash of 2009. and pilots that graduate from its own flight school should be given a break here. the faa said in a statement it determined that the airlines new training program does not provide an equivalent level of safety as the regulation requiring 1,500 hours.

cnn's aviation correspondent pete muntean is at reagan international airport. fun fact, he lives there. a lot of people trying to get back home. in general, how is travel looking today? >> reporter: i don't look here, although i have asked about office space. today, so far, so good, erica. we just checked flightaware, 612 delays, 62 cancellations so far. but the day is still pretty young. consider the fact that just last week, on last tuesday, barely a week ago, we saw 800 cancellations in a day. so when you consider this entire weekend, the worst day was yesterday, 210 cancellations, that's about a quarter of the worst day of last week. just checked on faa-imposed delays around the country. right now there is only one and it's a very minor departure delay. pretty good if you're traveling today. passengers remain relatively undaunted. the tsa said it screened 2.3 million people on thursday. what's interesting about that number is it's actually about 200,000 people more than the same day back in 2019, before the pandemic. we have to put this all into context. th

but as pete muntean explains, it took someproductprodding from washington to get it in writing. >> reporter: they are being told to step up their game. president biden urged airlines to take a hard look at their policies, called customer service agreements, the airline version of that dreaded fine print. and they layout what you as a passenger are entitled to in case of a cancellation or delay. remember, airlines have canceled about 45,000 flights this summer alone according to flight aware. and now airlines are caving to the federal pressure. american, delta, jetblue, united and southwest have all rewritten their policies. before you almost had to be a lawyer to sift through some of these. but now they rewrote that in plain language. but in some cases they are outright changing the policies themselves. shear one example. on united you used to be entitled to a meal voucher only if your flight was delayed four hours. now united will give a meal voucher to a passenger delayed more than three hours. one big caveat here, the passenger protections only applied to delays and cancellations within

aviation correspondent pete muntean is at a demonstration at reagan national airport. pete?nd cancellations to go up. we're talking by the thousands now according to flight aware. 45,000 flights cancelled in the u.s. since the start of june. the air line pilots association is holding picketing like this at major hubs across the country, not only here at reagan national airport, but jfk in new york, chicago o'hare, also in atlanta, a major hub for delta air lines. the air line pilots association represents pilots from those like united airlines and spirit. they say they're caught in the middle of all of these cancellations along with passengers. >> if you don't have pilots or flight crews ready to fly the flight because they're not trained or timed out or whatever, then you can't get the passengers where they're trying to go. that really -- we understand that frustration because we live t every day. >> reporter: this is one new layer of pressure on airlines not only from these pilots but also from the federal government, which is telling airlines to step up their game, especi

cnn correspondent pete muntean joins us live in i-395 outside d.c. with the details. look at it. low behind you, pete. >> reporter: traffic everywhere, john, here in d.c., but in major metros across the country. so interesting here. after labor day, kids going back to school, but more people are headed back to the office. the latest data from travel analytics firm. travel growing in all ten major metros. up 10% in just the last month. in miami alone. traffic is above pre-pandemic levels in miami and dallas, in houston and in phoenix. still below pre-pandemic levels here in d.c., also in new york, l.a., chicago, atlanta, philadelphia. there is an interesting disparity, though, taking place in the numbers. monday and friday. that is when traffic is typically lower. even lower than it was before the pandemic. wednesday and thursday are the really big days for traffic now in major cities across the country. really starts to begin today, tuesday. what's also interesting here, john, one other factor. gas prices. the national average for a gallon of gasoline now $3.74. up 7 cents in the

pete muntean over at union station, thanks very much. let's discuss what has happened and what is going on with a key figure in the negotiations, the labor secretary of the united states, marty walsh. mr. secretary, thank you so much for joining us. as you fully understand, the white house clearly celebrating right now. but this is still a tentative deal to avoid what you said would have been a catastrophic disruption. how soon do you expect this agreement will pass? and is there any chance you believe mr. secretary this deal, god forbid, could still fall apart. >> well, first of all, thank you for having me tonight, wolf. there is 12 unions that we're talking about on the rail system, and they've all reached an agreement -- actually, 11 have reached an agreement. there is still one they're working a little bit on to get that into the hands of the membership. what happens now is it will be floating over the next six weeks to two months different radification dates. the two we negotiated last night and came to a deal they will get that in

cnn's pete muntean live at reagan national airport with more. or everyone who is traveling this summer. >> reporter: you know, so true, brianna, we are talking about big changes to the dreaded airline version of the fine print which amounts to a pretty big win for passengers in some cases. american, united, delta, southwest and jetblue have all rewritten what is called their customer service agreement. it essentially amounts to what you are entitled to in the case of a cancellation or delay. airlines have rewritten these policies in plain language but in some cases they have completely changed some of their policies. one example, united airlines was offering you a meal voucher if your flight was delayed four hours. now they are offering you a meal voucher if your flight is delayed more than three hours. a pretty big shift there, especially considering the fact that airlines have canceled 45,000 flights in the u.s. since the 1st of june. the department of transportation really pushed airlines to do this. transportation secretary pete buttigieg sai

let's check in with pete muntean at reagan national.is the travel outlook for the next few days? >> big question now is whether or not airlines can keep it together after this really bad summer for flight cancellations. according to flight aware, more than 45,000 flights have been canceled since june 1. we saw about 800 flights canceled on tuesday alone. that was mostly because of bad weather. today so far so good. we've seen about 17 or 1800 delays at last week according to flight aware, about 120 flights canceled so far today. you know, the good news here is that there are new tools just in time for this holiday weekend rush? department of transportation has rolled out this new dashboard essentially breaking down airline by airline what you are owed in the case of a cancellation or delay. a lot of pressure on airlines from the federal government to step up their game. i want you to listen now to the department of transportation which says in many cases airlines completely rewrote the fine print that is associated with your ticket. >>

. >> cnn's transportation reporter pete muntean is here with us.ion about this. >> the list keeps growing. amtrak owns only about 3% of its rails. if there is a freight rail worker strike, that would have a big impact on amtrak. the other 97% is freight rail impact. we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. chicago to seattle. chicago to san francisco. chicago to l.a., l.a. to san antonio. the list has grown. chicago to new orleans. seattle to l.a. new york to new orleans. boston, new york, chicago. new york to miami. la to new orleans. unions are saying they're making some concessions now on all of this, but that is before these talks potentially go to d.c. starting tomorrow. you know, what's at issue here is really unpaid leave that these rail workers want. it's crazy that this could come down to a simple thing like unpaid leave. there's been a presidential review board that says they should get bonuses, back pay. we're seeing this all come to a head at the 11th hour. we're just around the corner from the deadline to avert the rail workers strike

pete muntean, thank you. >> you're welcome. >>> the new shots target the two omicron covid strains thatin the u.s., and it comes as researchers look for what new ways there could be to treat long covid symptoms that are believed to be affecting millions, millions of covid patients. cnn's medical correspondent dr. sanjay dupe ta reports on an experimental treatment with the brain fog that often comes with long covid. >> i went home on oxygen for 500 days. i had physical therapy. i had a nurse who came every day. >> was there a point when you said, okay, these symptoms are not going away? >> yes. four weeks after a left the hospital, i couldn't understand why i still felt so bad, why everything hurt. i was on a walker. i was crying. my pcp held my hand and said, barbara, you have long covid. >> reporter: that was september 2020. barbara vanmeter's life was turned upside down. 4 years as a retail manager leading and coaching was no more, now exchanged for a life of alarms, reminders, and pills. >> i had this list of alarms for thinks they need to do daily. >> reporter: in the years to come

cnn's pete muntean joins us. about the pilot shortage for months. all the flights cancelled or delayed, 50,000 this summer alone. the gold standard that airlines say is keeping them from hiring more people is what's known as the 1,500-hour rule. that is how much flying time a new pilot needs before going to the airlines, and what happened back in april is that one of these regional airlines where most new pilots for the airlines start out republic airways, it flight about 1,000 flights a day for american, united and delta, it said that its pilot that graduate when its own training program don't need to be under the is a hundred-hour rule. they argued to the faa they should only have to have 5750 hours of flight time, but now we're hearing from the faa that it is soundly rejecting that saying that the graduates of republic airways' own flight training program essentially don't meet the same level of safety that the airlines and the faa would like to see. this is a pretty big shift here, and this was a huge controv

let's bring in cnn correspondent pete muntean to tell us what's happening here.hat are you seeing? >> what's so interesting here is the impact, the deadline to avoid this possible rail strike is midnight on friday, but amtrak is already preemptively canceling some of these routes. we are talking about some of the longer haul routes between chicago and l.a., chicago and seattle, chicago and san francisco, also 2010 l.a. and san antonio. the rub here is that amtrak owns and operates only about 3% of the 22,000 miles of track that it uses. the other 97% are freight rail track. the talks have been ongoing to avoid this strike for months. rail work ers want major concessions from rail companies. a presidential review board suggested some major changes here getting back pay for rail workers for 2020 bonus pay, an immediate 14% pay raise. the issue here is that there are still two unions that represent key employees for rail companies. those are engineers who make up the two-person crews on board trains, and if they hold out here, then all other rail unions could strike

pete muntean, thank you very much this morning. >>> "new day" continues right now. >>> the message was unmistakable, democracy is under assault and donald trump and his allies are the ones doing the assaulting. i'm john berman with brianna keilar and those were the words from president biden, taking direct aim at what he calls maga extremism. biden says it is threatening the soul of the nation and fanning the flames of political violence. >> flanked by marines in the shadow of philadelphia's independence hall, the primetime speech was more than a warning, it was a call to action for voters to make their voices heard in the midterm elections. it may have sounded political, but the white house this morning insists it was, quote, entirely about democracy. here are some highlights. >> as i stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. we do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise. donald trump and the maga republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. they promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence t

cnn aviation correspondent pete muntean is at reagan national airport outside of washington with thest long weekend of the summer is the latest big test for airlines that have been struggling with staffing shortages. cancellations really peaked on sunday, with more than 200 flights canceled nationwide, according to flight aware. but it's a small fraction of what we saw on the worst day of last week. more than 800 flights canceled last tuesday, mostly because of bad weather and an even smaller fraction of the more than 45,000 flights that have been canceled nationwide since the first of june. airlines have been under a lot of pressure, not only from passengers but also from the federal government, also from their workers. members of the airline pilots association protested at airline hubs across the country late last week, saying that most of these issues are self-inflicted by the carriers themselves. even still, passengers are undaunted by all of this. 2.3 million people screened at security at airports across the country last thursday. that number is significant because it's 200,000

pete muntean joins us now.t's when 60,000 workers are threatening to go on strike. when you talk about freight rail, that moves major commodities, crude oil for gasoline, grain for bread, parts for your car, chemicals to clean water. it's a really, really about impact and could have a huge trickle down. in the immediate we are already seeing some passengers raid services, not just commuter rail, but also am track suspend some services preemptively. am track using about 97% of its tracks come from freight rail providers. also, from places like l.a. to new orleans, this does not affect the northeast corridor. those rails are owned by am track, but we'll see as the impact piles up. >>> the biden administration is in a bind. the negotiations have been going on for weeks, though we're right up on the deadline. >> pete, thank you very much. >>> it does put the president, the biden administration in an interesting position, given their position on unions. >>> markets, a big story today. the dow is actually in positive