Delta detailed the changes on Thursday, which are part of a $1 billion plan announced in January to overhaul seats and make other customer improvements.

Beginning in the summer of 2011, Delta will add seats that recline flat in its Business Elite cabin on all 16 of its 747s, which mostly fly between the U.S. and Asia. New coach seats will include a nine-inch video screen with on-demand entertainment. The new seats will be installed by the summer of 2012.

Although the vast majority of travelers fly in coach, competition is intense for those travelers in the front of the plane because a single ticket on a long-haul flight can cost thousands of dollars.

Delta’s 747s currently seat 403 people, including 65 in Business Elite. The new seating plan will eliminate 17 seats from Business Elite. Delta spokesman Paul Skrbec didn’t elaborate on the change, or detail how much the 747 upgrade would cost.

UAL Corp.’s United Airlines, which competes head-to-head with Delta on Asia flights, also removed high-end cabin seats on many of the planes used on international flights, aiming to be able to charge more for those that remain.

Delta said the new 747 coach seats will offer more personal space and under-seat storage because of a new design that uses less space than older, heavier seats they replace.

Delta said in January that it would spend $1 billion through mid-2013 to improve customer service, remodel existing aircraft and improve fuel efficiency, rather than buy new planes like some competitors.

Besides the 747, Delta is also adding fully flat seats in premium cabins on its Boeing 777s and 767s. Work on 767s is beginning soon and will run through June, Skrbec said. Work on the 777s begins in October and runs through July. Delta said it will eventually have the lie-flat seats on more than 100 aircraft that make international flights.

AP Transportation Writer Samantha Bomkamp in New York contributed to this story.

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A statement by the Transportation Security Administration says its investigators, a Miami-Dade police bomb squad and other law enforcement agencies were on the scene.

The federal statement says four of the six Miami airport termianals had been evacuated and airport roadways also were closed as a safety precaution.

The statement does not give further details about what a TSA found at about 9 p.m. Thursday.

Authorites say the evacuation continued early Friday and urge anyone with departures from Miami to check with their carrier.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

MIAMI (AP) — A bomb squad investigated a report of a suspicious package after police evacuated four of six concourses at Miami International Airport for several hours on the eve of the Labor Day travel period, an airport spokesman said Friday.

Police bomb squad authorities went about 9:30 p.m. Thursday to a Customs area of Concourse E near an international arrivals area when the initial report came in, airport spokesman Greg Chin told The Associated Press.

He said between 100 to 200 passengers were evacuated while police investigated and that flights overnight were allowed to use parts of two concourses still open.

Chin declined to elaborate on the nature of the suspicious item and referred all calls to the Miami-Dade police. Police did not immediately return repeated telephone calls for comment.

“I’m still not sure how many flights came in during this time, but any that did were relocated to the eastern or western ends of the airport,” Chin said early Friday.

He said parts of Concourse D and J remain open to flights, but all four of the middle concourses in the 2-mile-long airport complex remained closed to the public for hours.

“We’re just waiting hopefully for an all clear,” Chin said.

He said most of the passengers still in the concourses were initially taken outside.

“We had to have passengers moved out on the curbside,” he said, adding most of those returning to the build were allowed into the areas of the two concourses still open.

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Officials of NJ Transit and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey announced new promotional discounts and outreach programs on Thursday.

Beginning Friday, passengers traveling between the rail station at Newark Liberty International Airport and New York’s Penn Station will be able to purchase tickets for $12.50 each way.

NJ Transit also announced a Family SuperSaver fare, which allows up to two children, age 11 and under, to ride to the airport free with each adult. The fare will be offered through Jan. 2.

The campaign includes a new Web portal, http://www.njtransit.com/EWR, with enhanced schedule and fare information.

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American spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said Thursday it’s a personnel matter and the airline is continuing an investigation.

The flight Wednesday from Dallas-Fort Worth to Cancun was delayed more than four hours as the airline brought in a new pilot, who then had to wait out thunderstorms before taking off, Huguely said. She declined to identify the pilot.

Federal Aviation Administration rules prohibit pilots from consuming alcohol within eight hours of a flight and from flying with a blood-alcohol level of 0.04 percent or higher. FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the agency only gets involved if pilots test positive for alcohol.

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But isn’t getting lost part of the fun of traveling? For me, yes. For others, maybe not.

So-called “augmented reality” became more widely available about a year ago and takes advantage of a smart phone’s GPS and compass features, along with access to high-speed wireless networks, to mash up super-local Web content with the world that surrounds you.

It works like this: You turn on the application, hit the augmented reality button and then look through your phone’s camera at the Brooklyn Bridge or the Empire State Building. Icons pop up that show you other points of interest, or restaurants within a half mile of your location, whether the restaurant is open, and what reviewers are saying about it.

The feature feels a bit like being in a “Matrix” film, but in a good way. I used the application for New York. Being a local, I was impressed with the restaurant selections and shopping options that popped up when I pointed my camera down Broadway in SoHo, or more off-the-beaten-path locations like my neighborhood, Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn.

The mTrip developers partnered with Sparks, a massive travel guide company, to provide content but also rely on user-generated reviews and suggestions. There’s a spot in the app that allows you to send a new place back to mTrip for reviews and additions to its list.

The app also has something called mTrip genius, which works similarly to the genius feature in iTunes. You note whether you want more or fewer parks, religion or monuments, and it designs an itinerary for you.

Overall, I felt the app was a bit busy, offering perhaps so much it could distract the user from the travel at hand, but developer Frederic de Pardieu noted it’s not necessary to use every feature offered.

“We give you options,” he said. “You do with them what you like.”

The first phones with Google’s Android operating system, which enables augmented reality, came out in the past year. The iPhone became augmented-reality friendly with the compass that debuted in June 2009 on the iPhone 3GS. Apple also recently joined Google in making it possible for software developers to overlay images on the phone’s camera view.

mTrip doesn’t specify that you need a newer phone to use this feature. I don’t have one and had to spend a while wrangling a newer phone to borrow in order to test the app, so beware before buying that you have the right device to take full advantage.

That said, augmented reality still feels like it hasn’t fully arrived. The technology can generally pinpoint location to within 30 feet if the user is outdoors, but inside you’re lost. Businesses I saw on the screen weren’t actually in front of me, though they were nearby. But I’m not sure I’d have known that if I was using the app in a foreign city. Often tags sometimes just kind of dart around on the screen and it honestly didn’t make it easier to FIND the locale, simply noting the locale existed.

Another problem: Using GPS for extended periods sucked up the battery life on both my phone and my borrowed iPhone 4 quicker than usual.

Developers are dreaming big about the concept, but it’s not necessarily for everyone. It was cool, but when the initial ooh-aah value wore off, I found myself wanting to walk around and look at the world. John Boris, executive vice president for Lonely Planet in the U.S., said the feature can only do so much.

“Travelers want to be able to fold up their phone and see physically in a virtual world what is around them,” he said. “We can help you get to the heart of the place, but we can’t carry you around.”

Lonely Planet has Compass Guides that use the augmented reality feature with the Google Android, all in international cities.

“It’s the continuing evolution of the traveler’s toolkit,” Boris said. “It’s an important component of today and for tomorrow. But, there will be another piece of technology right around the corner.”

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Comair President John Bendoraitis told employees in a memo Wednesday that the regional airline, based in Erlanger, Ky., will get rid of most of its aging, less-efficient 50-seat jets and keep its bigger 65-seat and 76-seat jets.

The airline plans to shrink its fleet of 97 planes to 44 by the end of 2012. Trimming the fleet should save Comair about $110 million over the next four years, Bendoraitis said. He said most of Comair’s 50-seat jets are leased and those being retired will go back to aircraft leasing companies.

Bendoraitis says Comair’s current cost structure remains about 20 percent higher than its peers on a cost-per-hour basis.

“The actions we are taking are the steps we need to put in place to be successful going forward in a competitive market,” Bendoraitis said in the telephone interview.

Comair begins contract negotiations soon with pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics, and will seek “new, more competitive agreements,” the airline said. Bendoraitis said he couldn’t comment in detail on what Comair hopes to get from the unions. Over 1,000 pilots, 700 flight attendants and 400 mechanics at Comair are union members.

Jim Samuel, an official with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers representing Comair’s mechanics, said his first reaction to the cuts was “sheer surprise.”

While Comair did not give specific numbers of workers to be cut, Samuel thinks it is likely to be about half the work force.

The pilots union said there were many unanswered questions about the plans and that its focus will to be to protect its contract, the company and jobs.

“Once we have more information available, we plan to fully engage with management in an effort to minimize the impact that this announcement has,” said a statement e-mailed by Chris Lanier, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association.

Messages were left Wednesday with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents Comair’s flight attendants.

Delta owned three feeder airlines earlier this year — Comair, Mesaba and Compass. Mesaba and Compass were acquired along with Northwest Airlines in 2008. Delta sold Mesaba and Compass in July, though they still carry Delta passengers under the Delta Connection name.

Asked whether the cuts announced Wednesday indicate a move toward winding down or selling Comair, Delta spokeswoman Kristin Baur said: “We’ve stated previously that we don’t need to own our flying partners in our portfolio in order to derive value from them, and we continue to explore alternatives.”

Baur said the Comair cuts won’t “directly result in any changes to Cincinnati’s flight schedule or any of the locations served.”

Comair has about 2,600 employees and operates more than 400 flights a day to about 70 cities in the U.S., Canada and the Bahamas.

Comair, with its main hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, has been a Delta Connection partner since 1984 and became a wholly owned subsidiary in 2000. Comair had more than 7,000 employees and 1,160 flights before entering bankruptcy protection. Comair and Delta both emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2007.

Delta shares rose 22 cents, or 2.1 percent, to close at $10.68.

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The changes at The Canyons, one of Park City’s three ski resorts, highlight some of the biggest development projects or plans at Utah ski areas since the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics drove major expansions.

The resorts are moving despite the down economy and saving on construction costs because of it. Ultimately they hope to steal market share from Colorado, which draws three times as much skier traffic. Utah’s resorts, with advantages like double Colorado’s snowfall and a short drive from Salt Lake City’s airport, aren’t shy about making investments.

“This is the future,” Mike Goar, managing director of The Canyons, said at the base of the 4,000-acre resort as bulldozers reshaped land for new lift terminals and outdoor patios. “The experience will be so different — it will be like a new resort. The big story is the faith we have in the potential of The Canyons.”

The Canyons is owned by Toronto-based Talisker Corp., a closely held resort operator that won’t reveal how much it is spending. Executives say it is one of the biggest investments by a North American ski operator in years.

The Canyons was considered so valuable that when Talisker bought it two years ago for $123 million, Colorado rival Vail Resorts Inc. filed a lawsuit claiming it had a deal to buy the Park City resort from now-defunct American Skiing Co. but was pushed aside. Vail dropped the lawsuit a year later but grumbled that it reserved the right to seek monetary damages.

Now, Talisker is on a tight schedule to remake Utah’s largest ski resort by December. It is opening an eighth peak for skiing and adding or realigning several lifts, while redesigning the village base.

The main lift, an eight-passenger gondola, is being moved closer to an aerial cabriolet that picks up skiers from a parking lot.

Also at the base, the resort is adding a high-speed chair lift with seats that can heat up to about 55 degrees. That could change skiers’ outlook on a frigid winter day. A bubble shield will keep the wind off as skiers sail high onto the mountain in nine minutes.

The lift is the envy of other Utah resorts, but others have big plans, too.

Snowbird, in the mountains just east of Salt Lake City, and Snowbasin near Ogden have filed plans for major expansions with local governments or the U.S. Forest Service.

Snowbird is an especially steep ski area that is Utah’s most challenging and wants to go higher. It has proposed a second passenger tram from its 11,000-foot summit to a 11,489-foot peak nearby.

It would open hundreds of acres of new terrain for skiing. The new tram is among a number of changes Snowbird filed in May with a master plan to the Forest Service for approval. The full plan would take 10 years to realize.

Snowbasin has even bigger plans for all-season resort development that spill far outside its boundaries onto private land acquired over the years by owner Earl Holding, who initially spent about $200 million to make Snowbasin an Olympic mountain — it held the downhill races in 2002.

Now, Snowbasin wants to add golf courses, hiking and horseback trails and 5,500 housing and hotel units. It also plans lift upgrades and a second base area on the mountain.

“We have a lot of faith in the future,” said Kent Lyons, Snowbasin’s general manager. “It’s not a bad time to do construction now if you can afford to do it.”

Last year Utah’s resorts drew skiers for just over 4 million visits and generated $1 billion in spending for the state’s economy. Colorado drew nearly 12 million skier visits.

Among other Utah resorts sprucing up their mountains:

• Park City Mountain Resort is adding snowmaking on the lower mountain and brighter lights for more night skiing terrain. The resort says it’s spending $4.5 million on those and other improvements, and saving on more efficient night lighting.

• Deer Valley, the perennial favorite of Ski magazine — it has earned readers’ No. 1 ranking for three years in a row — says it’s investing $4.5 million in mountain amenities this year. It’s updating the interiors of ski lodges and replacing equipment including snowmaking machines with more energy-efficient models.

• Brighton Resort says it has invested $5 million in ski lifts over the past few years.

• Alta, Utah’s legendary powder palace, hardly ever needs improvement, but the ski area is planting trees, shrubs, mountain flowers and grasses. It’s upgrading snowmaking capacity and overhauling a quaint rope tow that pulls skiers between base areas.

• Powder Mountain, about 20 miles northeast of Ogden, is expanding popular snowcat-assisted backcountry terrain for a total of 7,000 skiable acres. The Canyons, with 4,000 lift-serviced acres, claims to be Utah’s largest. Powder says it’s bigger, but skiers there have to climb, shuffle along mountain ridges or get pulled by a snowcat to reach much of the terrain.

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This year, he and his family are home after Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm canceled the fair, saying debt-ridden Michigan could no longer afford to subsidize it. Granholm’s decision makes Michigan the only Midwestern state and one of few nationwide without a state fair.

The Michigan State Fair had been a state tradition for 160 years and held at Eight Mile and Woodward, within Detroit city limits, since 1905. But the fair had been running deficits and needed $360,000 from the state in 2008 to cover losses. Fewer than 220,000 people passed through last year. At its peak in 1966, the fair drew 1 million.

Usakowski, 44, who lives in St. Clair County, northeast of Detroit, called the fair’s closing “a bummer” and said it had given his daughters a grand stage on which to compete. This year, they have been limited to county fairs and competitions run by the American Rabbit Breeders Association.

“It takes some emphasis in our state off agriculture,” Usakowski said. “The state fair was unique and special in what it does.”

Like those in other states, the Michigan fair had its roots in agrarian fairs in Europe, where farmers met to discuss farming techniques and equipment. As waves of immigrants came to the U.S., they influenced the fairs, which added ethnic foods and other attractions.

One thing that hurt the Michigan fair was the state’s economy. Michigan’s unemployment rate of 15.2 percent led the nation in August 2009 when the last fair was held. Detroit’s jobless rate is about 30 percent.

But part of the problem also seems to have been the fair’s inability to successfully marry its agrarian roots with money-making entertainment as other state fairs have done.

“State fairs, like the one in Iowa, attendance is up or steady because they have been made as major tourist attractions,” said Pam Riney-Kehrberg, professor of agriculture history and rural studies at Iowa State University. “In states where they haven’t been able to cultivate a special ethos for the fair, numbers are going down.”

The 11-day Iowa State Fair drew about 970,000 this year. Along with typical fair fare, including 4-H livestock judging, a cow sculpted from butter, and chicken and husband calling contests, it had a musical lineup led by country music star Keith Urban and pop singer Sheryl Crow.

In contrast, the Michigan fair’s top entertainers last year were the aging rockers in Starship and Survivor, along with Billy Squier. Several little-known country acts also performed.

“The Michigan State Fair being canceled, that’s just tragic,” said Jerry Hammer, general manager of the Minnesota State Fair.

He thought one problem was the fair’s reliance on state subsidies because when those ended, the fair essentially collapsed.

“We don’t have any government support here, and that is critical to our success,” he said.

The Minnesota State Agricultural Society controls the fairgrounds in Minneapolis, approves the $36 million budget, sets rates and raises money for the event. Last year, the fair drew 1.79 million people and made $1.5 million in profit.

While the event has become known for unusual foods, such as chocolate-covered bacon and deep-fried pickles on a stick, Hammer said its focus on family farms and agriculture is still the main draw.

“This is where you come face to face with the people who grow your food,” he said. “These are the people who feed you. Where else can city folk go to see this stuff?”

In Michigan, agriculture remains the No. 2 industry behind manufacturing, and the state is among the nation’s leaders in production of sugar beets, cherries, apples, corn and other produce. Smaller fairs continue to celebrate that heritage, and at least one appears to have benefited from the state fair’s closing.

The Armada Fair, held in northern Macomb County in mid-August, drew about 57,000 people — 2,000 more than in 2009.

“We were up in exhibitors by a few hundred, especially the livestock,” said Mary Straubel, an employee of the Armada Agricultural Society, which runs the fair. “We had far more horses this year, beef cattle and dairy cattle.”

But that’s no consolation to people like Annette Ellis, who grew up going to the Michigan State Fair and continued the tradition with her two daughters.

“We would get together and enjoy the state fair, the rides and some of the performances,” said Ellis, 49, a former pharmaceutical worker from Detroit. “It was a nice family get together.”

Smaller community fairs don’t have the same rides and cost too much for what they offer, she said.

“I miss the bumper cars and the Tilt-a-Whirl,” Ellis said. “It’s very disappointing.”

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Since it opened in December 2009, the Boot Hill Casino & Resort in Dodge City has brought in total revenue of about $24.2 million. That puts the casino on track to meet its first-year goal of $39.7 million, said Ed Van Petten, executive director of the Kansas Lottery.

“We’re somewhat amazed and very pleased,” Van Petten told The Hutchinson News. “It’s a very first-class facility. The numbers are strong. We were fearful that the projections were aggressive, but they are meeting them and are slightly above.”

The casino’s revenues have meant $362,801 apiece for Dodge City and Ford County.

“The numbers have gotten stronger,” Van Petten said. “June showed a slump, but July and August are very good. The management is making money. They are being successful.”

General Manager Mark Kashuda said the casino is averaging more than 60,000 visitors a month, with about 70 percent of the visitors 45 and older.

“Back when we first opened and the weather was cold, we had a few instances when we had a line of people waiting outside the casino,” Kashuda said.

Kashuda said most of the casino’s customers are from Kansas.

“Oklahoma is second, Texas and Colorado, and then it’s a tie between Nebraska and Missouri,” he said.

Nettie Bray of Sterling tried her luck on the quarter slot machine last week at the casino.

“I won just a little bit,” said Bray. She said it was her fourth trip to the casino, and she’s thrilled to have a casino so close to home, rather than going to Topeka or Oklahoma for occasional gaming.

Dodge City Police Chief Robin James said the opening of casino has not led to an increase in crime.

“When we do get calls, it might be for something medical, nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.

The first thing visitors see when they walk into the casino is a contact number for those with problem gambling. And 2 percent of all revenue from the casino goes to a fund for treatment and prevention for substance abuse and problem gambling.

Mark Blakeslee, who teaches treatment for problem gambling at Dodge City Community College, said he supports the casino but cautions that problems that may arise.

“The casino is a necessary thing for the revenue to keep the state going and will generate a lot of money,” he said. But it also could create problems without strategies to encourage people to gamble in moderation.

“Gambling is entertainment,” Blakeslee said. “If you’re going to the casino to win, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

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The tour planned for next month is also being sponsored by the Kentucky State Police for the event, which will benefit the museum and the State Police’s Trooper Island Camp for underprivileged children.

The trip begins Oct. 13 at the museum and will stop at sights like the Land Between the Lakes, the International Bluegrass Museum and the Louisville Slugger factory.

Organizers say drivers of Corvettes and all other vehicles are welcome on the tour, which costs $625 for the driver and $225 for a guest. The fee includes lodging for three nights and lunch.

Registration ends October 4.

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