Taxiing SkyWest jet collides with truck at O’Hare; 3 injured

Three people were injured at Chicago’s O’Hare airport early Saturday when a city maintenance truck collided with a United Express CL-600 regional jet, operated by SkyWest Airlines. The plane was being piloted by two maintenance workers on a closed runway when the accident occurred; no passengers were on board. The truck driver was listed in critical condition — more details in this article.

FAA adds 3 new carriers to cockpit safety trial

The FAA has announced it will partner with three additional airlines for its upcoming cockpit safety initative, which focuses on Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) and Aural Alerting technology. (FAA fact sheet). The newly added carriers are Atlas Air, CommutAir and Shuttle America, and the three will receive a combined total of $1.7 million in return for access to operational data. Last month, the FAA said it had reached agreements with US Airways, Southwest, SkyWest and Piedmont Airlines to take part in the same trial.

Domestic passenger traffic drops 3.5% in July

The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics released its most current monthly data on passenger traffic today, and the picture is fairly grim. Total July traffic (year-over-year) declined 2.9%, but that number is a bit misleading because the international portion was up 1.3%. Looking only at the domestic passenger count, traffic was down 3.5%. (The complete BTS press release is here.) Compared to one year ago, only US Airways and Airtran added capacity; JetBlue was basically flat, and Northwest and SkyWest were down sharply.