Travel Blog

As a devoted Macintosh user, I hestitate to mention this cool new Southwest Airlines offering because it only works with Windows machines...ggrrrr. But I'll put my jealosy aside and mention it here anyway. DING! is a small utility that sits quietly on your desktop and alerts you to last-minute and VERY limited-time sales on Southwest flights. And from some of the fares I've seen, the savings can be stunning. If you use a Windows computer, check it out and let me know how it works. Register and download DING!

A judge has set a trial date in a discrimination lawsuit filed against Southwest Airlines by two black passengers who were upset when a flight attendant recited a version of a rhyme with a racist history.

Delta shares have lost more than 90 percent of their value in the last four years, reducing the market value of the company’s stock to only about $500 million. By comparison, discount carrier Southwest Airlines Inc.’s market capitalization of $11.5 billion is 23 times larger.

Competing with airlines that are profitable make decisions so they remain profitable, not because they are desperate for survival. Remember when ATA said they were going to enter the Dallas/Fort Worth Los Angeles market? American Airlines responded with deep fare cuts to all five Los Angeles airports from Dallas / Fort Worth.

...the American Airlines representative at the international desk refuses to believe you don't work for the airline. Apparently I'm not supposed to know how 7-digit booking codes work.

Amtrak, and everyone else in the railroad business, knew that the Acela train would be only marginally faster than Metroliner, because unless and until the track bed is improved, speed is not an option.

Though their marital status is constantly up for debate in the celeb weeklies, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson have bought a condo at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.

Well I'm back from my week in the sun. I didn't have a GPRS connection in Jamaica so I couldn't moblog any pics out there but I've added some photos into my Moblog.

The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, took its maiden flight Wednesday, cruising over the Pyrenees mountains in an aviation milestone that Europe's jetliner maker hopes will give it a leg up in its battle with American rival Boeing Co.

The double-decked plane, which can carry 840 passengers, landed to applause at 2:22 p.m. (8:22 a.m. EDT) after a flight of nearly four hours. About 30,000 spectators watched the white plane with blue tail take off and touch down, 101 years after the Wright brothers achieved the first controlled, sustained flight.

Boeing is also expected to announce an order of eighteen 787s from Northwest Airlines. Northwest was previously Airbus’ third-largest customer.

The tale of the Acela is in many ways the story of Amtrak itself, where political pressures, tight budgets, contested regulations and design changes turned a high-speed train into something slower, more expensive and less reliable than what Amtrak had promised.

A reconstruction of Acela’s history involving dozens of interviews and a review of court documents and other records shows that Amtrak was under intense pressure to deliver its new train as quickly as possible. And that rush to do something bigger and more complicated than the railroad had ever done led to a series of missteps that many experts believe contributed to the problems that have plagued the Acela to this day.

In case you're not aware, the actor James Woods flew on an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles one month prior to 9/11. Alarmed by the behavior of a group of four Middle Eastern men, Woods summoned the pilot and told him that he was "concerned the men were going to hijack the plane." A report was filed with the FAA on Woods' behalf but, tragically, no one followed up with Woods or the men. A few days after 9/11, several federal agents showed up in Woods' kitchen. Woods can't talk about what was said -- he believes his testimony will be used in the trial of the supposed 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui-- but, in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, Woods revealed that his flight "was a rehearsal [for 9/11] with four men."

As our buddy bush tries to starve Amtrak to death and it's suffering bad press, it's a particularly relevant time to turn our heads to the classic debate over mass transit taking place over at The Truth About Cars. On the liberal side is one Colin Murchie, Director of Government Affairs of the Solar Energy Industries Association:

My taxes bought the road you’re idling on and the troopers and snow plows and medevac flights that come with it; as sure as they bought the El train blowing past you on the left. More than $40 billion per year in the next highway bill, not including state taxes.

Home Affairs Minister Randy Horton will have further damaged the reputation of Bermuda's government if the account of his actions on Sunday's American Airlines flight turns out to be accurate.

Mr. Horton did several things that would be unacceptable behaviour for anyone, never mind a prominent member of the government. He tried to go to the bathroom while the plane was coming in to land and the fasten seatbelts sign was presumably on, potentially putting the safety of the other passengers at risk. When told to sit down, he engaged in an angry altercation with the steward, during which he allegedly asked "Do you know who I am?" and suggested that the steward's actions were racially motivated.

A United Airlines plane from New York to San Francisco was diverted to Chicago on Tuesday after a passenger reported suspicious materials, but police investigating the complaint said the items turned out to be vials of a harmless herbal extract.

My vote for the next character blog? Travelocity's Travel Gnome.

Has anyone touched on the fact that in the event that if Travelocity's gnome needs to blog, he (They) could Flickr it?

The timeout while I'm entering the credit card information at the Amtrak site has to be the most obnoxious thing ever. My card number is right there for anyone to see until I click submit, and THEN it rejects me. Stupid, obnoxious, and if I were getting the ticket for myself I think I'd hitchhike instead.

FT.com / Transport / Airlines - US to assume pension plans at United : United Airlines has reached an agreement with the federal agency that insures defined benefit pension plans to transfer $6.6bn in pension liabilities, marking the biggest pension transfer to the government.... The agreement with the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation comes after United reached an impasse with some unions over its need to terminate...

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The U.S. Government Kicks in for the United Airlines Bankruptcy:

It would have been even nicer if one of the conditions for transfer of benefit liabilities would have been shutdown of United Airlines.

I suspect that United Airlines doesn't own those airplanes but operates them under lease already. GE owns the largest fleet of aircraft and engines on the planet and moves them around to whatever airline wants to lease them. The airlines learned a long time ago that they couldn't actually buy the airplanes anymore and switched over to leasing. Hence, United can't double-dip to pay an outsized dividend to its shareholders.

Terror in the Skies? Flight 327? I was not aware that Annie has been writing a series of articles about airline security and terrorism. She's been following up on complaints from air marshals about dress codes that endanger them, disingenuous PR campaigns and denial of the facts in the field and bureaucratic stupidity.

In October of last year, Annie reported an incident on a United Airlines flight from London to Washington, D.C. Nine men boarded the flight at the last minute, several without even carry-on luggage, and behaved in a suspicious manner. The Captain radioed back to London and found out that two of the men were on the no-fly list! Even though the Captain requested that law enforcement meet the plane when they landed in Washington, not one law enforcement officer was there, and the nine men, including the two on the no-fly list disappeared in the crowd!

This means customers can travel with the convenience of just one electronic ticket throughout the combined network served by the alliance's eight member airlines - American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Iberia, and Finnair besides Aer Lingus and LAN - no matter how many transfers between these airlines are required along the way. Together, they fly to some 600 destinations in 135 countries worldwide.

American Airlines and Finnair set the alliance's IET programme rolling in May 2002 when they became the industry's first airlines in separate continents to offer this service. American then became the first airline in the world to complete IET links with all its global alliance partners, in June last year.

The new aircraft will allow Ryanair to increase its passenger numbers from an expected 34 million this year to 70 million in 2011, creating 2,500 jobs and taking it ahead of British Airways and Air France. Ryanair reported profits of £20m in the last quarter of 2004.

Been in Hawaii (Diamond Head on Oahu) since Sunday (therefor the low post rates). Doing alot of surfing and not much else. But while reading the local tourist rags, something interesting struck me. There are a bunch of local micro travel aggregators that specialize right here in Waikiki. Like: go Waikiki.com. When planning my trip I went to all the big aggregators (Expedia, Tavelocity, NorthWest Airlines, Hotels.com, Priceline, etc.) and was a bit depressed at how uniform the rates...

Air travel has been undergoing a steady metamorphosis since 9/11, with carriers shrinking legroom, pulling free meals, and even eliminating complimentary pillows. And thanks to high oil prices and intense competition from upstarts like Jet Blue and Southwest, the process is only accelerating.

Today major air carriers begin reporting results and it’s not looking good. American is expected to post a $400 million loss. US Airways, which has filed for bankruptcy protection twice in the past two years, might go out of business entirely. United is expected to remain in Chapter 11 for some time to come. Delta is expected to be next in line to file for bankruptcy. Higher fuel prices add to the burden as the industry faces its fifth straight unprofitable year, with an estimated $5.5 billion in losses this year. Stepping into this apparent...

Jason’s grandfather was in Germany during the War and well…he had a daughter. I do not know the details of the relationship he had with this woman but he never saw his child. Grandpa’s old love has passed away and finally the daughter was told of her real father. Her name is Aujetta and she phoned Grandpa last night and it sounds like things went very well. Aujetta is only 3hrs away from where we’re living so I cannot wait to meet her. She doesn’t have much family left so when she learned about everyone in the states she broke into tears of joy and speaking on behalf of this clan…We all can’t wait to get a hold of this gal and just squeeze her to death. Aujetta was extremely thrilled to learn her nephew Jason & family were living in Germany…..I’m just sitting on pins and needles I tell ya….Grandpa is already checking on airline tickets and I hope these two people come together very soon…I’m so glad I’ll be able to witness it….

Amtrak officials speaking at Union Station said the trains will resume service once replacement brake parts are retrofitted onto the trains.

The new U.S. rules will also apply to Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean and Panama. Eagan-based Northwest Airlines is a big player in tourism to Mexico and is the largest U.S. carrier to Canada. Many Canadians travel to northern Minnesota, and Minnesotans often drive to Canada as well.

The new report showed that even outside of food and energy, there were significant price pressures last month. The so-called core rate of inflation rose by a worrisome 0.4 percent in March, the largest jump in 2 1/2 years and double what economists had expected. It reflected higher prices for clothing, hotel rooms, airline tickets and medical care.

American Airlines ran a fly 3 transatlantic flights earn 60,000* bonus miles. Cha-ching! Okay – so I knew I wasn’t going to make the 60,000 mark because I fly cattle class, but I thought I was going to get something. Nope – fraid not, none of my tickets were the right fare type to qualify…I had 4 different fare types & none of them matched up to the acceptable ones on the list. The fare classes eligible must be the stupidly expensive fully-refundable ones. I'm flying BA from now on...I get a much better flight for the same mileage.

Ah yes, I was going to tell you about the return flight. It wouldn’t have been so bad had the plane not been so full. It was absolutely packed. I heard the flight attendants tell another passenger that every seat was taken. I’d hate to know how much money Continental Airlines made from that flight - there were well over three hundred people on that thing. There was also this rather large guy sitting in the window seat next to my aisle seat. He smelt bad. And started singing. For half an hour. It was painful, so very painful. People just...

John Tierney, writing in today’s New York Times, quotes former Amtrak official Joseph Vranich about Amtrak’s recent woes:

Such blunt talk is refreshing to hear, but also distressingly true. One of the reasons I don’t like traveling outside of New York City is the traffic I routinely run into; Amtrak’s great promise was to emulate that one area in which Europe and Japan have routinely bested us: the use of mass transit to ferry people to and fro.

Amtrak, of course, never could achieve its promise, because politicians have turned it into another example of pork barrel politics: Amtrak has been forced to run its trains through sparsely populated states, for which “mass transit” is not only an oxymoron but also irrelevant. On the so-called Northeast corridor, the heavily populated area between Washington, DC and Boston, MA, mass transit makes sense.

On an American Airlines packet of nuts: "Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts."

Check this out. It's a fabulous special feature by the Christian Science Monitor called "All Aboard? Amtrak and the Future of Passenger Rail in America.

You'll need a high speed connection. The section called "A Business Wreck" contains a fabulous intreactive map on which you can click on the various Amtrak routes (and also notice how much of hte county isn't served) for comparisons of time and cost among Train, Car, Air and Bus options. You can also see the profitability (or, more accurately, the lack thereof).

I have long wanted to fly Aeroflot. I figured that, since I was flying to Moscow Air France, I would be giving up my one chance to fly Aeroflot. Well, I just picked up my tickets, and the Paris - Moscow - Paris portion of my flight is handled by Aeroflot. I’m so stoked.

"Southwest Airlines would like to welcome you to Los Angeles." I never thought I would be so happy to hear those words. My trip to Nashville was actually great. It was the plane ride home that was a nightmare.

Sacramento International Airport says the top traffic gainers for the first two months of this year were Southwest, JetBlue, United and Mexicana.

Amtrak officials had initially said Monday that it was going to run one Acela train daily between Washington and New York through Friday, spokeswoman Tracy Connell said. But later in the evening, officials decided against that, she added. No Acela trains will run through Friday, possibly longer.

The article, titled "Bush Budget Gives No Money to Amtrak for Operations" states the following:

"In a letter to Amtrak employees, Amtrak President David Gunn called the budget request 'irresponsible' and a 'surprising disappointment.' He continued, '[The budget] isn�t accompanied by any kind of plan for how Amtrak could continue operations. In a word, they have no plan for Amtrak other than bankruptcy.'"

Amtrak is a private business and should be operated as one. It's up to you as president of the company to determine how your company "could continue operations."

So who is the "irresponsible" one? This, my friends, is the prime reason why Amtrak fails as a company - not even its president understands business. Either that or he simply refuses to accept responsibility for the company that he is responsible for.

This company has been subsidized for so many years that it has completely neglected to become self-sufficient. I understand that the government's intentions were good in helping to promote Amtrak while it was on the verge of bankruptcy; however the original intent was nothing more than a glorified unemployment check. You're still expected to find a job. If you don't find one before the checks run out, tough luck! Welcome to America, my friend.

Posted by Chris Bianchi in Domestic Issues at 09:28

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» Amtrak has cancelled all its high-speed Acela trains until at least Thursday because, it says, cracks were discovered in some of the trains’ brake discs during routine inspections. I’m not sure what kind of problem this is, but it must be serious. Acela express trains account for 20 percent of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor service.

His first triumph in the U.S. market was selling 100 narrow-body A320s to Northwest Airlines. Steven Rothmeier, the airline's chairman at the time, remembers being enthralled by Leahy's presentations, which seemed to anticipate all of his questions and supply well-thought-out answers.

Northwest Airlines is also within days of buying 787s to update its aging fleet. Boeing and Northwest won't comment, but sources say a key part of the deal may be upfront financing from Boeing.

I found the same contrast up in the air. American Airlines is racing to the bottom as fast as they can. The staff has given up. No smiles, no service, no effort. Saving money is the order of the day. Jet Blue, on the other hand, continues to strive to get to the top. From the free wi-fi at JFK to the terminal they want to build there, to the snacks (they even suggest mixes--created by taking say, animal crackers and pretzels and mixing them up--even though it means people are taking twice as much!)

Tomorrow morning it is back onto a plane to head to Orlando Florida. I am contemplating listing my home address as a United Airlines flight number...

» One thing I’ve always liked about the Amtrak regional trains is that you can buy an unreserved ticket and use it whenever you wish. Well, it’s time to grow up: The days of unreserved freestylin’ are over!

Beginning April 25, all Amtrak northeast regional trains will require reserve tickets. Having a “reserve” ticket doesn’t mean you have an assigned seat. It just means the ticket is only valid on its assigned train. While this helps the railroad keep track of its customers, it makes rail travel less convenient.

Amtrak’s spin is that the new policy will guarantatee all riders a seat. Color me skeptical. I’ve twice ridden on Amtrak all-reserve trains where passengers had to stand because there were too few seats.

Acela Fleet Grounded: And if you're planning any Acela travel up the East Coast, be aware that Amtrak has grounded express train service because of brake problems. Regional and Metroliner service is not affected.

American Airlines' frequent-flier program birthed the misleading idea that companies could buy loyalty. Because it appeared to work, companies in all industries started creating their own versions. IMO, there is no such thing as a "customer loyalty program." Look at any company that has true customer loyalty and you'll find that they don't need a loyalty program. Starbuck's has enough loyal customers that they don't need to distribute "buy 10 and get 1 free" punchcards.

Beginning today, American Eagle, the regional affiliate of American Airlines, will begin offering customers the opportunity to purchase a snack box for $3 on most flights throughout the American Eagle network.

Various food concepts have been tested on both American Eagle and its mainline partner, American Airlines. Survey results supported the idea of selling food in-flight and contributed to the design of the new program. Nearly 2,000 passengers were surveyed, and more than half were either “positive” or “very positive” in their reaction to the availability of a snack for purchase on their flight.

The snack boxes also are available for purchase in the main cabin on select American Airlines domestic routes longer than three hours. In addition to the snack box, customers traveling on select transcontinental and Hawaii flights will be offered a freshly prepared breakfast sandwich or wrap for $5.

US Airways tried unsuccessfully to walk down the aisle with United Airlines, but the latest talk of a marketing marriage with America West might actually lead to an exchange of vows. The Arizona Republic reports today speculation by a JP Morgan airline industry analyst of a "linkage" between US Airways and Tempe-based America West. At first glance, a relationship makes sense because America West has strong roots--and routes--in the West, while US Airways is a player on the East Coast. But the problem is, US Airways is...

Here's a headline you don't see much these days in the airline business: "First-Quarter Earnings Triple." But that's just what Southwest Airlines announced this morning, attributing its good fortune to lots of passengers, cost cutting, and, mostly, lower fuel prices. It's that last point that sets Southwest so far ahead of its competitors--the airline wisely hedged fuel prices long before oil climbed to more than $50-a-barrel. For example, 83 per cent of Southwest's fuel needs the second quarter of this year will only...