Stuff: November 2008 Archives

First you build a hanger, then you rebuild the plane. And that's what Luftie is doing up in the snowy wilds of the great state of Maine with its newly built hangar at the Auburn-Lewiston airport. There, it's officially commenced restoration of the Lockheed 'Super Star,' the first long-haul aircraft operated by Lufthansa capable of non-stop trans-Atlantic flights. Over the next three years, the aircraft will be brought back into flying condition so that by 2011 it can take to the air again from its new base in Germany once it has been newly registered and repainted in Lufthansa's historic colours.

 

It seems like yesterday, but it really is 15 years since the flight attendants at American Airlines hobbled their carrier with a strike that lasted five days. If you had to declare a victor in that confrontation, and you shouldn't have to, it probably would be the union: the carrier managed to sort of fly through at first, but the five days cost it about $190 million, leading to a $253 million loss in the 1993 fourth quarter. The union's president, Laura Glading, was on the APFA board during that strike. Now, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants has posted a little site that brings back fond memories of those glory days.

Planes, trains and busses. Everyone knows that the Pittsburgh airport has taken a serious blow since US Airways downgraded it from a hub to a focus city to a spot on its route map. Even with word that Delta will fly between the city and Paris, the region's suffering. Comes now word that at least one city in the region has new service from Pitt. Sort of. It's not a flight but a bus, a very nice bus, which will fly, er drive directly between Pittsburgh's downtown and the state's capital city, Harrisburg. Dubbed the Steel City Flyer, the bus is to be operated by a company called Railroad Development Corp. This company owns rail lines in Iowa, Chile, Argentina, and Guatemala. 

It must have been a hot time out in Hoosier Land the other day. They opened the new airport terminal in Indianapolis, and it's really a new airport, even though they're using the same runways. The thing is, they moved the terminal so it's sort in a logical place rather than being way off to the side, like the old one, so now airliners don't have to take a trip through several counties to get to and from the city's actual airport. We were supposed to talk with John Kish, who runs the airport and the indeed the city's airport authority, but every time we connected, he had to go run to another media demand. You know how those reporters are. We finally got to John, who explained, "it really is a new airport..."

 

Farelogix, which likes to call itself "the last GNE standing," says it is taking a tack toward the open source community with a new application it will be offering travel agents for free, starting next March. Dubbing its open source application Hawkeye, the company's chief, Jim Davidson, tells us that agents can use Hawkeye with or without tying into the main Farelogix products, the FLX platform; agencies can also built the open source front-end package into a custom application. Farelogix, which will be the community coordinator and manager, may be taking a risk in making the source code available for free, but, he says, "a certain number of people will take the source code and come back to us for our black box," which is the FLX middleware.

The leaves are turning, the air is crisp, the sun goes down early...it must be time for a story on holiday airfares. Left Field, for one, is glad of this because some of the self-proclaimed airfare experts have been marking the rounds out there about how there really are still a lot of bargains to be found. Our point is this: airlines will always have sales and promotions and the big print will always say 30% or 50% off. The important point is how much that percentage is off, and in this year's travel environment, it's off a much higher base. We were pleased when the Public Radio show Marketplace called the other day and asked us to discuss this (even though their headline was sort of the opposite of our point.) Also on the show was our friend Richard Aboulafia. You can listen here. 

New from the small change department, bureau of nickels and dimes. Left Field was on the NPR (National Public Radio) show Morning Edition, blabbing about airline fees and charges and the prospect for change. (as it were.) Click on this link to listen, but here are a few more things for the complainers to complain about, including the US Airways plan to start selling pillows and blankets on board and a move by United to show you that they may be skin-flints charging you for your checked bag - but it's still a better deal than the famed overnight purple machine.
US Airways tells its employees in their most recent newsletter that that it doesn't yet have a date for selling the blankies and pillows, but they'll costs about $7, while United says that if you don't trust it to carry your bag and you don't want to pay them, that's okay. You can check it into FedEx when you check in at United, but it will cost: $149 for a flight under 1,000 miles, and $179 for longer flights. This is only avaible on domestic flights. Before you start complaining, this is less than some of the existing bag-schlepping services: $325 to $375 was the quote for an overnight bag delivery from one of the companies that specialises in carrying unaccompanied bags.

AmEx Business Travel took BTX, its on-line community for cor porate travel out of beta testing, and started it live. In the year or so since the concept was launched, the site, dubbed BTX, or Business Travel ConneXion.com, has been intended as a free membership site to share best practices, build relationships, and do all the other things that social networking sites are supposed to do. But BTX will rely on members to supply just 60% of the content. The other 40%, a mix of editorial content and 'advertorials', will be supplied by the site. Over 950 industry members have joined the community, says Charles Petruccelli, president, Global Travel Services for American Express. Content providers include the National Business Travel Association, Executive Travel, PhoCusWright, Rearden Commerce, in which AmEx has invested heavily, and freelance industry writers. Some parts of BTX are intended for American Express Business Travel clients; for instance, the site's 'Product Lab' will allow feedback on new and existing products, but only from AmEx clients. Initially, it will seek feedback related to the design of the latest release of its Axis information solution. Petruccelli will run a live chat with members on November 20th.