Left Field

Fee-free fracas starts at on-line booking sites

2009-03-17T19:56:28Z

Fees fracas: there's been a lot of chatter about fees that the airlines charge and how to calculate them. But that kafuffle overlooks the fact that some on-line travel sites charge you fees to make a booking, fees that get you the right to pay more fees to the airline. So with the slump in on-line bookings as the sagging economy takes its toll, does anyone online care? Well, yes. Expedia, the on-line travel agency, eliminated its booking fee for airline tickets sold by May 31, while Travelocity waited a few days and then matched them. They must be very nice people there...or perhaps this is just a recognition of the reality that most people use these sites as a reference, cruising through to find out what an airline is charging and then going to the airline website itself to save the booking fees. Tom Botts, a travel industry veteran who blogs at Hudson Crossing, says, "This is a seismic change for the on-line travel agency industry."

]]> It is probably a permanent change, Botts says, explaining, "Adding fees back in is hard - really hard." But PhoCusWright's Carroll Rheem takes it a step further: who is the winner? The real winner is going to be meta-search, the search engines that search many travel websites. They will become the real reference tools as people simply skip the booking sites, do a metasearch and then book with the airline. Dropping the booking fees is just an acknowledgement of the fact that behaviors have changed.

So who moves next? Watch Orbitz to crumble soon.

AA, BA, PJs and ATI: oneworld premium products may differ

2009-03-16T19:14:58Z

Oneworld, the global alliance that's led by BA and AA, is pressing US officials hard to get antitrust immunity for their transatlantic operations; they've included Finnair and Royal Jordanian as well as Iberia, and they insist that their plan is to offer 'metal-neutrality.' That's alliance-speak for it doesn't really matter which member of the alliance you fly on, because the pricing and benefits will be interchangeable. But then again, they say, the on-board service won't be exactly identical: "What has not been decided as this point is the extent to which the parties will continue to offer different products across the different brands in the long run."
]]> get electronic noise-cancelling headphones for the flight, but they don't get pajamas. But BA's first-class passengers do get PJs. It is likely, they says, that all three will offer both silencing technology and pajamas to premium customers, but then again maybe they won't. We want to know if any of the jammies will have doggies or duckies, and if so, how will they keep the barking or quacking from bothering if people take off their anti-noise headphones?

Air Azul's blue-skies plan

2009-03-13T18:53:35Z

You would think the nation has a limited supply of really underserved airport markets, but Allegiant Air has demonstrated that the states have plenty of Grand Forks and Billings. Now comes Air Azul, a tiny turboprop operator, and its very big plans to mimic Allegiant - up to a point.
It has arranged with Sun Country Airlines, the Minneapolis-based carrier that's trying to get out of bankruptcy, to operate public charter flights between big cities on the East Coast and a scattering of service-hungry cities in the Midwest. The carrier, which will use a Sun Country Boeing 737-800, "sees the how the Allegiant model worked. We're slightly different because we're linking underserved markets like Toledo or South Bend, Indiana, with major metropolitan areas, rather than with leisure resorts, but we're clearly inspired by the success that Allegiant has had," says Brian Burling, the vice president of Air Azul. The company announced this week that it will serve South Bend linking it with Newark Liberty, near New York, three days a week. It also announced service between Toledo, Ohio and Rockford, Ill., and Newark, three days a week, and plans thrice weekly service between Newark, and Lansing, Michigan.

]]> cutbacks of 2008, but offer a blend of business and leisure flyers. South Bend in particular is a good example he says, noting that the Indiana city is home to Notre Dame University and has many loyal graduates in the New York area who will fly to the campus (at right) for sports games. "They love their football team," he says. Traffic at the South Bend airport is down by 20% so far in 2009. In Toledo, hard-hit by cutbacks by major carriers, regaining air service to the New York area has been a goal for many years, says the airport's interim director, Paul Toth.
Burling insists though that Air Azul does not want to compete with Allegiant, and in fact, the Las Vegas-based Allegiant shifted its central Michigan base from Lansing to Grand Rapids last year. It also serves Rockford, but only to warm-weather destinations.
Burling is a veteran of the direct-charter business, while the firm is headed by Trevor Sadler, who worked for CityBird in Belgium and for USA 3000, the Philadelphia-area scheduled charter carrier

AMR's Tom Horton to AMR's pilots: be grateful

2009-03-11T21:32:37Z

Our mother always told us that we should be grateful, either for the roof over our head or the vegetables on our plate. She probably would have felt that same way about employment. Too bad she didn't know Tom Horton, the chief financial officer of American Airlines parent AMR Corp. Horton was at the JP Morgan investor conference where people in the audience asked about labor negotiations.
They were especially worried about American and the Allied Pilots Association, where talks have at best been real unfriendly and real slow. Horton responded, "In a world where lots of people are losing their jobs and benefits, and the world looks pretty dark, well I'll just speak for myself, I feel pretty good to have a job."

]]> lot, they have good benefits, they have pensions. I think a lot of people in the country feel that way about their jobs right now." So, boss, if you're reading, yes, we are grateful. And because they won't let us anywhere near the cockpit of a plane, you should be, too.

O'Leary: we weren't kidding about airport check-in.

2009-03-11T19:25:59Z

We didn't believe him when Michael O'Leary came out and began moving his lips. He was yakking about how Ryanair was going to start charging people to use its on-board lavatories (oh the headlines!) and then said while it was improving customer comfort this way, his airline would get rid of airport check-in counters. Everybody would have to check in on line, O'Leary said.
Well, he was serious, at least about the airport part. Ryanair now officially plans to eliminate its airport check-in by October. You will have to check in from home, and the airport will only offer a drop desk where you can check your bags (for a fee).

]]> As we reported or posted, Spirit Airlines down in Florida said it was thinking about taking this step, and Air Asia tells our colleagues in Singapore that in a few years, it too would be an all-Internet check-in carrier. Ryanair isn't stopping there: it just opened a competition in which its flyers can suggest the next thing to charge for. Among the most interesting entries, according to the carrier's Stephen McNamara: charging for toilet paper, each sheet of which would have an image of O'Leary imprinted. There's also the concept to the left.

An airline union with a positive message

2009-03-09T21:03:59Z

Southwest began its service to Minneapolis/St. Paul, which may be big but is old news. What is new news is that the airline wasn't just welcomed by mayors, airport officials and others. One of Southwest's largest unions, the Transport Workers Union, ran radio advertisements taking note of the fact that Southwest is both the nation's most unionized and its most profitable airline. TWU represents flight attendants and ground workers on the Dallas-based airline. To listen to the radio spot, click on this link: Transport Workers Union. Also glad to see Southwest in the Twin Cities: folks with sore backs. The airline was giving out free backrubs as a promotion.Gary Kelly, Southwest's chief, was pretty chuffed, as the Brits say, in explaining the new service (above).

Bailout backlash blasts better venues

2009-03-06T20:47:00Z

Kerry wins! John Kerry, that is. The 2004 presidential nominee may have lost that race by seems to have won his campaign to shame US companies into cancelling their cruises and meetings. Outraged by reports that companies taking US bailout funds were still having nice meetings, sometimes very nice ones, the Massachusetts senator wants to ban luxury travel for any of the 400 or so bailees, and he has led congressional attacks on fancy forums, on those rich, uncaring SOBs with their private beaches and massages, at places they flew to on private jets, all paid for by either taxpayers or shareholders. It's a catchy theme and, as they say in Washington, one with legs.
]]> been extremely or moderately influential, says Meetings and Conventions magazine. The travel industry is trying to fight back with a letter-writing campaign and a website, Meetings Mean Business. This effort points out that many relatively low-wage jobs depend on hotels and resorts, and notes that some states are heavily dependent on business travel as well as the meetings and convention business. But which do you think will win: resentment or numbers and sense?

Amendments and the FAA bill, made complex

2009-03-05T21:52:55Z

Why do they do this: so when a guy in a congressional committee offers an amendment, it's supposed to make a bill better, right? And people are supposed to talk about the amendment and then vote in it. So the other day when members of the House transportation committee were eager to bring up amendments to the FAA bill, but promised to withdraw them immediately, we were slightly befuddled. There is however a reason to this sidestep in the dance of legislation.
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Akron-Canton's Fred Krum has passed away

2009-03-04T19:35:48Z

This post is as much a personal note as it is professional one: we take note of the passage of Fred Krum, the man who ran the Akron/Canton airport and more or less single-handedly made CAK, as the airport's known, into a center for low fares that competed, and competed successfully, with its giant neighbor some 38 miles to the west, Cleveland Hopkins. Krum was director of the northeastern Ohio airport for 28 of his 33 years of service there. He was able to lure AirTran, which has thrived there, as well as Frontier, providing a balance to the presence of Southwest at Hopkins. Fred retired last September when medical conditions had slowed him down; he was only 57 when the brain tumor that had slowed him finally was to claim him. ]]> The airport and its indefatigable marketing and communications manager, Kristie van Auken, have produced a page about Fred. If there's a moral, maybe it's this: airports may well be the products of local bureaucracies and governments and may well be run by committees, but it only takes one strong individual to master those strictures and make one set of runways and terminal buildings into a real force for competition and for public service.

This just in: people hate connecting flights

2009-03-04T09:26:58Z

Eternal truths: Veritas Aeternas. From MIT, home of smart things, comes this profound insight; people do not like connecting flights. Also breaking from this institution that drinks deeply from the all-wise waters of the Charles River, evidence that flyers prefer first-class seats to sitting in the baggage hold. Seriously folks, enough snark. The MIT working paper from Steven Berry at Yale and Panle Jia at MIT takes a very disciplined economic look at some of the ups and downs of the airline industry in the past year or two. Among their findings is the fact that "the number of passengers on a direct flight would reduce by almost four-fifths when a layover is added to the route."
]]> load factor, but it also requires extra fuel, both for the two extra landings and the longer distances passengers have to travel. Okay, now that fuel is way down, is this still true? Well, we know what passenger preferences are...Just ask these folks who missed their connections...

Virgin entry provokes Boston triple response

2009-03-03T09:03:57Z

American Airlines moved to protect its position at Boston's Logan International Airport, announcing it will give its frequent flyers three times as many miles when they fly nonstop between Logan and the West Coast. So any two roundtrip flights between the Hub of the Universe and San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego by May 31 will get a flight free; three paid roundtrip flights will earn enough miles for a free roundtrip ticket between Boston and Europe. But this offer, along with a sale on fares (on all routes), is only good on Logan routes. So does America just like those friendly Bostonians or what? ]]> Virgin America, which last month started flying nonstop between Boston and both San Francisco and Los Angeles. This isn't the first time a major has moved to stifle Virgin; personally, we hope it won't be the last. American begins its nonstops to San Diego on April 7; the sale is good for travel by May 21. American also competes with JetBlue and United on these transcontinental routes.

Someone takes Ryanair's O'Leary seriously

2009-03-01T20:06:12Z

So, is he kidding? Or, who (m) does he think he is kidding? He is Michael O'Leary, the head of Ryanair, Europe's largest really cheap carrier. O'Leary went onto BBC to tell a morning 'chat show' that maybe Ryanair would perhaps possibly begin charging its passengers to use the lavatories on board its Boeing 737s. O'Leary had a more or les straight face as he chatted with the a.m. show, but then again he usually does.
While few are taking his potty talk seriously, O'Leary also said the other day that Ryanair would be doing away with check-in counters at all of its airports, a statement that he is still standing by - and which he repeated in the course of the BBC interview. We spoke to a few US and Asian carriers that adhere to the same really low-cost philosophy that Ryanair champions, and we found one that did not outright dismiss the O'Leary counter-culture concept. At Spirit Airlines, the 'ultra low-cost carrier' based near Miami, "we're not laughing at them," says chief marketing officer Barry Biffle.

]]> , and at Spirit almost everyone checks in on-line or at a kiosk. So when you consider that the 'ticket counter' is pretty much the most expensive piece of airport real-estate that we have, you have to ask what to do with it. People use it to check bags and that's about it."
Unfortunately, though, Biffle says, "we don't yet have the technology to do all the things we now do (with the counters). But we don't rule it out." As for charging for the use of the toilet, Spirit says no.

Obama releases a few hints on aviation budget

2009-02-26T22:58:59Z

How much? President Obama gave us a few hints about his aviation thinking with a budget outline, one that fell far short of the details a budget often has. That's understandable, since it's his first, but Obama tantalises. And promises. He does say he would increase funding for Essential Air Service, the subsidy that keeps rural flights operating, with a proposed $55 million increase over the 2009 level, intended to meet increasing demand. Last year's Bush budget had trimmed EAS to $50 million, although appropriators rejected the administration position and added about $75 million. This may help the new president avoid what had become an annual legislative charade: slashing or zeroing out EAS, then waiting for Congress, in particular the appropriations committees with their rural state members, to restore funding. The problem with this no-no, yes-yes approach is not just its inherent chicanery, but the fact that legislators, working from a base of zero, feel pressured to control their largess.]]> documents indicate that the present fee, sometimes dubbed 'The 9/11 Fee,' captures only 36% of the cost of aviation security. The increase would be another fee, tax, charge or impost on an airline ticket.

Tweets tell tales of airline disaster, short and very fast

2009-02-25T21:21:45Z

This is not the kind of Tweet you want. Pretty much every airline, major and minor, uses Twitter, the short-message, mini- microblogging sort of email service. They 'tweet' when they have sales or when there's a tie up at an airport; they also listen when they're Tweeted, good or (usually) bad. But there's a new type of Twitter that really disproves the marketer's old myth that it doesn't matter what they say so long as they get the name right, and that's disaster Tweets.
When a Turkish Airlines Boeing landed short and broke apart at Amsterdam's Schipol, the first word to the public was a Tweet, sent out by a fellow who lives near the airport. "Looking at a crashed aeroplane near Schipol," he wrote within minutes of the Flight 1951's impact - which killed at least nine people. His postings, at 140 characters, maximum, were running ahead of the Internet, and Twitter was soon outpacing even that fast-paced electronic communications system once known as the web.
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So also when a US Airways Airbus ditched in New York City's Hudson River last month, first word - and first pictures, above, courtesy of Twitter - came as a Twitter. Even though the very first was from an eyewitness, some of the survivors of Flight 1549 soon Tweeted. None of these though has the immediacy of last December's historic Tweet - by a passenger on board Continental Airlines' Flight 1404, which skidded off of a Denver runway and burst into flames. This Tweet came from a guy right after he got out of the plane and was standing near the runway. The fellow, named Mike Wilson, also posted the picture above.

As a journalist, we can think of a few pluses; as an airline guy, we can think of a lot of negatives to this 'Disaster Tweet' trend.

Travelport touting new agency desktop for all brands

2009-02-25T09:46:21Z

Travelport, Tantalizing. Travelport is planning something called a universal desktop, which if it lives up to its promises will offer almost everything they need to travel agencies in one nice little box. Gordon Wilson, the Brit to the right who heads up Travelport's GDS, the former Galileo, spent a little time telling Left Field about this new tool, which will be able to wrap into one 'box' access to all of the Global Distribution Systems, including rivals Sabre and Amadeus. This is something of a holy grail for agents, both retail 'Main Street' types and more importantly the corporate agencies. Agents often become tied to one or another GDS through its desktop presence in their offices. But one screen to search means faster ways to find deals, comparison shop, and keep the client content, if not happy.
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