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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."

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).

 

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.

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."

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.

'Nah, it's a really good idea. We just don't want to do it anymore.' That seems to be the thinking at US Airways, where chief executive Doug Parker's pulled a 180 and reversed its policy of charging its coach flyers for a soft drink, a coffee or a bottle of water. The airline began the policy last summer as most carriers jumped on the unbundling bandwagon and began charging for pretty much everything that they could. Now though, US Airways has gone back to free water. Explains Parker, "we are firmly committed to the a la carte model. But it is also a work in progress - US Airways has was the only large network carrier to charge for drinks and that put us at a disadvantage."

We always thought slots at airports meant landing and takeoff rights, but there's a guy in Maryland with a different idea. The State is moving to allow slot machines, the so-called one-armed bandits, at several spots, including race tracks and possibly a shopping mall. Now one guy, a state delegate named Eric Bromwell wants to put the machines in the state-owned BWI airport. He wants to put 3,000 slot machines behind the security gates so that people who are just waiting around for their flights will have something to do other than buy $7 hamburgers or browse at yet another leather-goods store. The governor says he's skeptical, but Bromwell told a local television station that his is a good idea because the slots would be in high-security area. We don't follow that. Incidentally, his bill is number H. Bill 777, but he says that's just coincidental. Will it fly?

It is NOT a golf tournament, this Masters. Yes, it's exclusive and by invitation only, but it does not involve sticks, holes or little balls. No, this Masters Program, unlike the famed Masters Tournament of golf, is a pretty high-level gathering of the people who spend the most money every year on corporate travel. The gathering brings them face-to-face with the people they spend their money on, from airlines and hotels to car-rental companies to the companies that supply services like expense-reporting, expense-reporting auditing and expense-reporting policing. It's in Washington next week, and Left Field will be going. Even though it's behind closed doors, Left Field will report back to you what he hears.

Herewith, for no reason, none whatsoever, other than perhaps whimsy, is a picture that we liked very much. We hope you are as eager for your next trip as this faithful furry one, but we hope that you'll have a little more room in your cage.

Yakadak: Left Field was on National Public Radio's Morning Edition this week. In a far-reaching interview (that means we basically were all over the map), long-time NPR hand Linda Wertheimer touched on a lot of issues; then NPR people you haven't heard of  proceeded to edit it into some sense.  The fruits of their efforts are here:. Incidentally, Delta's blog, Under the Wing, picked up on this broadcast, but alas, also thanked Left Field. We have written to the folks in Atlanta, asking them to stop trying to ruin our reputation as a fearless scribbler.