Airlines

US transportation secretary Norman Mineta has resigned, after five and a half years in the job. Mineta will leave the Department of Transportation on 7 July to “move on to other challenges”, according to his resignation letter to US president George Bush.

Mineta, a former California Congressman and the only Democrat in a Republican cabinet, became transportation secretary in January 2001 and has overseen the overhaul of US aviation security following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.

He has been the longest-serving US transportation secretary. The decision to leave was Mineta’s, says the White House, and his resignation letter says the decision “has been very difficult…I love the subject matter and feel passionately about transportation.”

Reports say Mineta’s next move will be “outside public service”. Between resigning from Congress in 1995 and joining the DoT in 2001, he was an executive for Lockheed Martin.