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 Air Travel News
Delta warned about rodent droppings
April 2011. As if we needed more reasons
to not fly, the FDA recently gave a warning to Delta Airlines after
finding rat droppings "too numerous to count" in the food prep area of
a Delta plane. Yuck. (more from CNN)
United and Continental merge
September
2010. United and Continental are becoming one. Has a
Zen Buddhist ring to it, doesn't it? They're keeping the United
name, but using the Continental logo. Unfortunately, I think the
merger is bad news, for a few reasons. Remember how when the feds
bailed out big businesses, the excuse was that the businesses were "too
big to fail"? Well, if that's the case, then why did the
government allow two big airlines to join together and become even bigger?!
Another problem is that United is the crappiest
U.S. airline ever, so what does this mean now that United and
Continental are merging? If we were optimistic we'd think that
some of Continental's real customer support would rub off on United,
but I'm guessing it's going to be the other way around, and the part
that was formerly Continental will now soon start to suck.
Finally, decreased competition in the airline industry means that
Unitinental has even less incentive to provide decent customer
service. In the past, customers who were fed up with United
switched to Conintental. But now where are they going to go?
Airlines
lengthening flight
schedules to make flights appear on time
February
2010.
The Wall Street Journal reports that airlines are adding time to flight schedules, in
an effort to make more flights appear to be on time. The flights
are taking the same amount of time, but now more simply appear
to be on time since the flight schedule is longer than it was before.
Airlines
now losing $60 per
passenger!
May
2008. BusinessWeek
has a good article explaining how soaring energy costs are crushing the airlines.
The shocker: Airlines are now losing $60 for every roundtrip
passenger they fly.
Some airlines will either go out of
business or merge with
existing airlines. The airlines who remain will likely get a another
federal bailout -- which is rather ridiculous. Why should
taxpayer
money be going to for-profit businesses? This is a rather
curious kind of welfare. I say, if the businesses can't remain
profitable, let them fail.
A bailout would be a temporary
band-aid anyway. The price of
oil isn't
ever coming down again, so without drastic changes from the
airlines, they'd need a monumental bailout every year.
Fortunately, airlines have started
making these changes.
They've eliminated huge numbers of unprofitable (unpopular) flights,
they've raised prices, and they've started charging for things that
were once free -- like checked baggage and even pillows. But
they're
going to have to do a lot more of these things in the post-Peak Oil
world. They'll have to cut even more routes and make prices even
higher. This will make air travel unaffordable for many, but
that's
what we expect when oil is no longer abundant and cheap. There's
no way
around that.
Expect bus
and rail travel to grow
massively now as the airlines shrink.
Travel
Tips
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from
The
Wizard of Odds
1. Choose the Emergency Exit Row. Unless
you're with a child ask for the emergency row aisle. You'll get about a
foot extra leg room. (Children aren't allowed to sit in emergency
aisles.) On a separate page with list exit rows and other seats with
extra legroom for a couple of airlines:
2. Try to get bumped. When a
flight is overbooked the airline will ask for a volunteer to get off
the plane and catch the next one. The airline offers compensation, such
as a travel voucher or free roundtrip within the U.S., plus overnight
accommodations if the flight is the next day. If you're not in a hurry,
volunteer to be bumped if they ask.
3. Bring your own headphones.
Some flights allow you to listen to a variety of music stations, but
charge $4 for headphone rental. Bring your own headphones and save your
money. Some airlines will require an adapter which I think you
could get at Radio Shack.
4. Be careful about starting a
conversation with the person next to you. They might bore you for
hours and you'll have nowhere to go.
5. Hold a lemon to avoid motion
sickness.
6. Good airports:
Vegas, Baltimore, Pittsburgh. Bad airports: Newark,
JFK.
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 Thanks
for visiting, and I hope you liked the site.
I'll leave you with a couple of hand-picked
ads.
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If you liked
my guide to Cheap
Airfare, you might like some of my other sites:
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Summarized Tips for
getting the cheapest airfare
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Be flexible with your travel dates (click
"flexible dates" at Kayak or Travelocity,
and see our flexible
dates tips).
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Book at least 2-3 weeks in
advance, 30 days for intl. flights.
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Fly mid-week if you can.
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Check fares at nearby airports (e.g.,
Newark, NJ instead of NYC). Most search engines
have a checkbox to do this automatically.
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Check roundtrip fares even if you're
traveling one-way. Round-trips are often
cheaper, for some strange reason.
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Travel on Thanksgiving Day itself instead
of the day before Thanksgiving.
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After Thanksgiving, return on Friday,
Saturday or Monday instead of Sunday.
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Fly on Christmas Day itself instead of
the days before Christmas.
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If you're traveling to more than one city,
use the engine's special Multi-City
search.
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Use the best website for your particular
situation. See our complete
tips.
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