This fee is going into the Airline Stupid Hall of Fame.
Getting his back is Joe Sharkey, who also frequently hates whatever it is airlines are doing these days. The New York Times writer turned over his column today to aviation consultant Michael Boyd, who promptly announced:
Airlines need to realize that they have to get the customer on their side, and you don't do that by making them line up longer at the counter checking bags.
Fair enough. But there is at least one person out there who isn't upset by the new rules. Jeff from Beat of Hawaii actually doesn't mind the $15 checked bag charge--because unbundled extras will keep fares low. As so many airline execs would tell us: Why pay extra for a service you're not using?
It's true. We enjoy Virgin America. The airline's got high-quality entertainment, fun-but-classy crews, low prices and, most importantly, flies where we do. But enough about us. What does grizzled airline reporter Joe Sharkey think?
I was in no mood for a bad trip when I left for a 7 a.m. Virgin America flight to New York. And I didn't get one...The biggest surprise was the seat, which had 55 inches of legroom, compared with the typical 40 inches or less in first-class cabins on most domestic narrow-body flights
The in-flight service was excellent...The in-seat entertainment system had live television and on-demand selections that included about three dozen movies.
Beyond the run-down of the first class experience, Sharkey reports that in-flight WiFi won't be available until fall. Also coming this year are two cities "east of the Mississippi." Let's see: Chicago, Boston and Miami. That's three cities isn't it?
The passengers hung out to dry by Maxjet'sbankruptcy may not agree, but the all-biz-class airline sector is booming. While Eos, Silverjet and L'Avion were likely popping champagne corks when the competition went belly up, they won't be as happy to hear that British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are joining the fray.
BA's secret plans--known as Project Lauren--could be introduced by next week, with transatlantic service between the New York area and a European city starting by May. Thanks to the Open Skies agreement, it's hard to say which city it might be, though Joe Sharkey at the New York Times says Paris is a possibility. (That'd put British Airways in direct competition with L'Avion.)
While Virgin is at work on something, details are still a bit sketchy. In the meantime, the existing boutique carriers are acquiring more planes and looking to expand, making a stylish flight to Europe more available than ever.
Speaking of cruises, sounds like starting a mutiny is the new calling customer service. New York Times writer Joe Sharkey is tracking the "trend" of organized passenger resistance after a recent Sapphire Princess cruise that had to skip many of its scheduled stops when typhoons whipped up seas.
Passengers angry with the unplanned diversions started cooking up schemes, says passenger Carolyn Spencer Brown, who also happens to run the influential site Cruise Critic:
First there was a group of what I'd call rabble-rousers, led by a lawyer. We were missing all of these ports, and they felt they weren't getting the truth...[at one point, assembled in the ship's theater] the attorney jumped up and grabbed the microphone away from the assistant cruise director and said: `We're taking over the stage! We have a petition!'
List of names notwithstanding, officers on-board were able to retain control, and Princess Cruises gave everyone some free spending money and a discount on another cruise. Let that be a lesson for you instigators: Just because you organize a mutiny doesn't mean you won't be invited back to sail again!
Tony Ryan, the founder of Ryanair died yesterday at the age of 71. His airline, which started with one small plane 23 years ago, revolutionized the way Europe travels, even if sometimes it only seems good for ferrying Brits to southern Spain. And, strange as it is to heap praise on anyone involved with airlines these days, even the Prime Minister of Ireland had nice things to say about the billionaire:
The establishment of Ryanair and its subsequent rise to become one of the leading carriers in Europe is one of the greatest Irish economic success stories and will be rightly regarded as perhaps his greatest legacy.
While Ryanair and its founder are glorified, though, airlines in the US are taking a beating. Mostly because only 72% of flights arrived on-time in August, barely better than they did in June and July. How long until there's a "congestion" surcharge next to the fuel surcharge on our tickets?
Well, today we wanted to bust on USA Today for writing a piece on the mancation. Not just because everyone'scovered itbefore but because it's such a silly concept. (And because USAT cites "a $499 'Tough Guys' spa outing in Key West." Riiiiight.)
We were going to cover that. Instead, we'll bust on the TSA like we always do. You know, liquid bans, Best Villain of 2006 Kip Hawley and now--apparently--a ban on snow globes. Yes, snow globes, which as you can imagine are in lots of luggage this time of year. Turns out, even if they're under the 3 oz limit, snow globes don't fly. But they do brighten up the airport:
Just after Christmas at an airport security checkpoint, where a half-dozen festive snow globes -- like the ones with Frosty the Snowman in a liquid-filled glass globe that simulates snowfall when you shake it -- were lined up on a counter.
Wasn't that nice! The Transportation Security Administration had decorated the checkpoint! But as it turned out, Frosty and his co-conspirators had actually been busted -- confiscated from passengers' carry-on bags
We consume travel media every day--hell, we ARE travel media. Podcasts, newspaper columns, magazine articles, blogs, you name it. And of course that includes the New York Times, which we check regularly.
While we were probably most jealous of Matt Gross (a.k.a. the Frugal Traveler) this year, we found Joe Sharkey's reporting from Brazil the most fascinating. Sharkey, a business travel writer for the Times, was caught in a mid-air plane collision over Brazil; his private plane landed without incident, while the large jet it collided with tragically crashed.
Mid-air collisions are rare as is. What were the chances that the Times' business travel reporter would be caught in one and live to tell about it? A harrowing experience for sure.
Is it that time of year already? No, not holiday shopping and tree trimming time. It's time to book "mileage runs" to bump your frequent flier mileage up to where you'd like it to be. At least, that's what Joe Sharkey tells us in his latest On The Road column.
Here's the deal, says Joe. If you want to retain elite status--silver, gold, double-super platinum elite, whatever--you need to fly a set number of miles in a year. (Usually at least 25,000 for the lowest status, which can net you early boarding, free upgrades and smiles from gate agents.) Credit card purchases and the like that accrue miles normally don't count: You've actually got to put your butt in the seat. That means Joe and his buddies have been known to fly back and forth to Guam--twice--to boost their mileage. Our fave part of the article, though, comes when Joe chats with a shadowy figure in the frequent flier world known only as Viajero Joven:
"Some people want to do over 50,000 miles, which is not possible in a single trip because of the size of the planet," he said. "So they do multiple trips, consecutively."
We consume travel media every day--hell, we ARE travel media. Podcasts, newspaper columns, magazine articles, blogs, you name it. And of course that includes the New York Times, which we check regularly.
