NONKINSENSE

Hurricane Dennis (This is for real. Notice the suggestions for fine dining at the bottom of the page.Dennishttp://www.wvwebsites.com/christ-the-king-motel/) tangled air travel when it hit the Southeast two weeks ago and sent thunderstorms across other parts of the country. On July 13, the FAA counted a record 3,657 delays, or about 3% of the day's 110,000 flights, agency spokesman Greg Martin said. The old record was 3,471 delays on June 14, 2001.

Blakey said the FAA needs to modernize air-traffic control to handle the growth. But, she said, "We don't have the money."

The amount of money that the FAA gets from taxes that travelers pay on each ticket for airport and traffic-control improvements has dwindled since the Sept. 11 attacks because people weren't flying until recently.

As a result, she said, The FAA doesn't inspect new aircraft as quickly as it used to and is considering limiting the operating hours of small airports.

And, she said, "We're not deploying next-generation technology because we don't have the money to do so.