Southwest's celebration of America250 continues with extra trading cards (ask a pilot for some) and a partnership with FilghtAware where N1776R (the one with the 250 livery) gets a special icon for tracking. #$LUV #AvGeek

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN called on the international community to stop funding UNRWA, stating that its schools "indoctrinate hatred of Jews and glorify terrorism" and arguing that the organization has become "a subsidiary of Hamas," with employees who took part in the October 7, 2023 massacre.

Spent years building up a big following on Twitter, essential for publicising my aviation blog, which I live from. Desperate to leave it & publicise on nicer platforms, but I have too few follows. If you want to help me escape, do give this a share. Much obliged. My blog here: hushkit.substack.com

Under NCAA rules, people assigned male at birth cannot compete on women's teams or receive scholarships for women's sports. MGP is missing the opportunity to calm people's irrational fears, and instead leaning into nuance that doesn't exist to justify bigotry.

AWESOME!

I had to write a bit of an #avgeek rant last night: What part of "post a schedule so tourists and residents can be prepared to see and hear hundreds of millions of dollars in flying military hardware blast overhead" does the Trump administration not understand?

So why can't we have people in charge of transit that really truly believe in it? Read my deep dive on what to consider when rethinking transit governance -- and the one change we could make right now to get true transit champions.

Now on Cranky: Cranky Weekly Review presented by Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport: Breeze and Avelo Add, Alaska Subtracts crankyflier.com/2026/06/26/c...

Great op-ed by @nondriver.bsky.social "In the context of Sound Transit, this would mean asking why, with the ability to appoint 10 of the 18 board members, the King County Executive wasn’t able to negotiate more for King County access in the recent re-alignment" open.substack.com/pub/ericacba...

Tried to make a point at #KCHRA that I don't care if you hire the host of Hacks & Wonks to come up with a comms strategy for @mayorofseattle.bsky.social but when KCHRA is getting in the way, there aren't 500 tiny homes. There's also an addiction component to homelessness.

We're a few weeks into JFK AirTrain fare capping. It works but feels like a hack. The OMNY.info portal has zero info about this fare cap, there's no progress bar like MTA has. You have to trust & manually check it. Once riders hit the monthly fare cap, it's listed incorrectly as "Weekly Fare Cap" 🤦

Maybe time we DID wind down a #KCHRA that can't bring up the fact the @mayorofseattle.bsky.social failed to have 500 tiny homes before the World Cup.

Well worth a read. @nondriver.bsky.social

Every airline should take note: Alaska now has an online tracker where travelers can follow how many planes are equipped with Starlink. news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airli...

This year's ILA Berlin Air Show is breaking records, primarily because of the booming defense sector, which is reaping billions in contracts as a result of wars and crises www.dw.com/en/gold-rush...

Worth a read

Absolutely!

This is totally unacceptable. And a major reason why we need to reform how Sound Transit is governed. I filed an initiative to create a hybrid board: 11 directly elected members, 7 appointed technical experts. More here:

#FCAS — Berlin declares the Franco-German fighter jet dead in blow to Emmanuel Macron. The failure is likely to tarnish his defense legacy. The Elysée hinted the decision to pull the plug for good was made unilaterally by Germany. www.politico.eu/article/berl...

The F-47 can't be flying yet. This may be some technology demonstrator or early prototype. www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3b_...

New episode just posted:

The new issue has dropped. 💥 Triggered by recent events, we're celebrating the Snowbirds in June. @terencecgannon.com kicks off with a personal retrospective on the team, and then segues into some thoughts about their future. Surprisingly, he thinks it's brighter than many might think. | 🛩️ ⚔️ 🥇

Unbelievable but posting @ericacbarnett.bsky.social can get you banned from the @sound-transit.bsky.social reddit.

Another WWII outpost reemerges in the Pacific to support classified U.S. missions theaircurrent.com/defense/wake... (via @cjohnston.bsky.social) #staycurrent

I am a fan of this 60 Minutes pushback - and the whole leaked audio of internal meetings genre! www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/b...

Or have PR people & paid influencers whine to editors... and editors normally in a word: fold.

Exactly. This has become a problem, especially with way too many journalism-to-PR hires.

launching this Friday!

Listening now.

About to have a big interview with a WA House Republican - I hope, so I have "The West Wing" music on. open.spotify.com/track/09w6MN...

A model for the future @sound-transit.bsky.social board @kccclaudia.bsky.social and @robertcruickshank.com ? You don't have to like Gov'r Polis to consider this... www.masstransitmag.com/management/n...

A Conversation With the BC Information & Privacy Commissioner #bcleg #FOI advocatescorner.beehiiv.com/p/a-may26-co...

Sound Transit’s $34.5B funding gap and delayed lines are a sobering reminder: the richest nation on earth has a systemic capital project delivery crisis. If we want a sustainable, mobile future, we absolutely must solve our project costs and controls problem. www.king5.com/article/news...

For the cost of a little white paint we could also build some transit only lanes on I-5. I'd even take carpool lanes. Why can't we do this, WSDOT?

While the Sound Transit Ballard cuts are awful, I'm also sad that the train to DuPont got further delayed yesterday. Nobody wants to sit in this traffic. Even my car dependent dad was saying he'd rather spend 4 hours on a Oly to Seattle ferry (if it existed) than drive I-5 these days.

Staying tuned.

BREAKING: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up at Launch Complex-36 while attempting to static fire.

Cool

The underlying story here: Sound Transit internally has a projected completion date for Ballard rail. They have not shared it publicly. There are many rumors out there about it, that it could be in the 2060s. If they know a date internally, they need to share it publicly. Level with us.

"She specifically credited Alex Hudson, the former Transportation Choices Coalition (TCC) executive director who is now her Senior Policy Advisor on transportation issues, with doing a lot of the heavy lifting." Common @blacksandpaper.bsky.social win. Congrats!

Indeed

While I'm personally thrilled to have this station coming to my community, it's only as useful as the places you can get to. When we don't build planned lines, we all lose. It's time to take a hard look at how our transit governance structure ended up failing transit riders so badly...

Thamk you @kccclaudia.bsky.social

An elected Sound Transit board?

The last couple of speakers have talked about the potential for Sound Transit government reform. The agency is governed by an 18-member board of elected officials that includes no community members and cannot be removed except by losing their elected positions (mayor, county council member, etc.)

"We are here surrounded by colorful shirts and signs and people wanting more transit to more people more quickly," ST CEO Dow Constantine observed. West Seattle, where Constantine lives, will get most of the rail line voters approved, while the extension to Ballard is being deferred.

TRUTH

#TRUTH and when housing is far away from community & opportunity, the costs of transportation go up.

@mallorymcmorrow.bsky.social: If taxpayer dollars are going to support a company to create jobs, they should be required to do exactly that, not turn around and put money back into the pockets of their shareholders.