In other airline and travel industry news last week…

• United Airlines reported its January 2012 operational performance and enjoyed another month of increased consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) – up 8.5 to 9.5 percent. On-time performance and the number of flights successfully completed also grew about 1.1 percentage points from a year prior to 82.2% and 98.9%, respectively.
• Staying with January performance figures, Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) saw its strongest January in air ticket sales since 2001, realizing a 10.7% increase from 2011 and a 22.3% gain over 2010. ARC acts as a clearinghouse between travel agencies, airlines, and other companies that sell airline tickets to ensure funds are settled as expected. Adding to the good news was the fact that total transactions were up 3.2% vs. declining transaction figures the entire previous year.
• The TSA announced they will significantly expand the PreCheck trusted traveler program to include more than 15 new airports in the near future. The program is currently limited to select frequent flyers flying out of Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami and Minneapolis. American and Delta were the launch airlines, but the program has since expanded to other carriers. I’m hoping to soon receive notice from United that they’ll be participating at my home airport, LAX.
• Airport administrators across the country have a love-hate relationship with the newly passed long-term FAA funding reauthorization bill. While they are happy with the stability it brings, many airports are balking since the bill didn’t include an increase to passenger facility charges (PFCs), the funds they use for airport improvements. The current cap is $4.50 per flight segment, originally set in 2000, and they feel it no longer covers the increases seen in construction costs during the last decade.
• Alaska Airlines announced two new nonstops from their Seattle hub this week. Beginning June 11, they will launch daily service from Sea-Tac to Philadelphia in direct competition with US Airways, and on July 16, commence service to Ft. Lauderdale. The new Ft. Lauderdale flight will replace existing service to Miami. According to Joe Sprague, Alaska’s VP of Marketing, “By redirecting our flight to the lower-cost Fort Lauderdale airport, we can serve the same geographic area and continue to offer our customers low fares.”
• I think I need to start a new series here on Frequently Flying devoted to the airline-traveling idiot of the week. This past week, a passenger attempted to bring a hallowed-out grenade through security in his (or her – the article is gender neutral) carry-on bag. The TSA caught it (unlike previous items), confiscated it and the passenger was denied boarding. (S)he is now also under investigation by the TSA.

And finally, here are some Quick Hits:

• Air Canada posted a $250 million loss for 2011
• Air France had an awful week of flight cancellations due to labor unrest
• A Qantas A380 is out-of-service for wing inspections
• Chicago’s Mayor meets with United’s newest local employees
• Kayak drops support for their BlackBerry app

I hate change. This week, two of my favorite airfare searching tools either went away or previous versions were disabled. I’m of course referring to the trusty FareCompare Flyertalk page being taken down and ITA Software’s Classic “Matrix 1” being totally removed. I feel sort of naked without them.

The FareCompare site was bar none the easiest and fastest way to find which markets had the cheapest fares from your origin city or region. The tabled list provided a quick snapshot of city pairs, (nearly) all-in fares and although often inaccurate, a cost per mile column. It was particularly useful to quickly see which markets had truly lowball fares ideal for mileage runs.

It’s still listed as a tool on the website, but with a “coming soon” disclaimer. Flyertalk user “gbryan84” received an email from FareCompare’s CEO Rick Seaney stating, “… we are in the midst of a massive rollout of new backend software to comply with new DOT regulations in January. Getting the FT app back up is on the list, but I don’t have an exact time yet.”

They left another feature active that displays fares from an origin on a global map called the Where-To-Go: Getaway Map that can be found here.

It, then, is probably the next best thing at the moment to not-so-quickly see what fares are out there in the markets presently. Kayak has a similar Explore map tool and it, too, requires manual manipulation of the map to view the fares and further details.

I found a potential mileage run fare for Los Angeles to Columbus on both the FareCompare and Kayak map, so made note of it and checked out the routing rules on ExpertFlyer.

Kayak Explore map

FareCompare Getaway map

United Airlines has pretty generous routing rules on their fare in the LAX-CMH market, so I went to ITA Software’s Matrix to check out availability. I’ve used the “new” tool previously and it does eventually get you to the same information, but it takes more click-throughs and I find it slower than the classic version. The routing I wanted was from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Washington Dulles to Columbus for a one-nighter and I plugged in the following:

A calendar appeared showing the fares available each day and the month of February looked to have plenty of availability for the cheapest fare. Once selecting a date, it will take you to a list of flights and their respective fares. Clicking through gets you the same detail as the classic version.

It’s not an efficient method to find mileage runs presently, but at least there’s still a way beyond just plugging in random markets to display available fares. This run, by the way, nets 6,838 EQMs (I can’t bring myself to call them Premier Qualifying Miles yet) at an all-in fare of $258.20, or 3.78 cpm.

My fingers are crossed the FareCompare tool comes back sooner rather than later. I know I’m not the only one truly missing it right now. Does anyone have other tools they’re using to find mileage runs?

[Coincidentally, Ben, too, wrote a similar post at the same time and his method uses ITA Software to find runs. Check out his method here.]

I’ve been scanning the fares for a couple of weeks now searching for good mileage runs coming in around 3 cents per mile (cpm), but haven’t found any gems lately like I did last year. One fare did pop up last night that looked sort-of attractive, so I thought I’d take you through my process for constructing a mileage run.

First, I hunt through airfares originating from my hometown, Los Angeles. In addition to LAX, I also look at Burbank, Ontario and Orange County airports since I’d be willing to drive to any of them if the price was right (maybe even San Diego, too). There are great websites out there like Farecompare and Kayak, which make this process pretty effortless and convenient. To maximize mileage on a purely domestic run, I typically zero in on the East coast cities, and see United Airlines filed a fare tonight from Burbank to Boston showing a base of $202 round-trip before taxes and fees.

United (actually United Express/Skywest Airlines) only flies to San Francisco and Denver from Burbank, but that actually helps me out. The goal is to maximize mileage, so flying to Denver is too direct for this purpose. By flying to San Francisco first, I’ll rack up the minimum 500 miles because I’m an elite, whereas non-elite flyers would only accrue the actual mileage of 326. This also positions me further away from Boston than from where I started.

Next, while United does have nonstops from SFO to Boston coming in at 2,704 miles, I can actually add one more stopover, or transit point, on this fare to increase the mileage even more. The best option here is to fly through Washington Dulles (IAD) airport, and then take another short hop up to Boston to earn the 500-mile minimum again. This routing beats the nonstop mileage by 215 miles.

I would route the return in the exact same fashion, giving me a total of 6,838 miles on an all-in fare (includes all taxes and segment fees) of $268.20. This yields a cpm of 3.92 (airfare divided by total mileage). While not the greatest cpm on a historical basis, it might become more standard this year given the rising price of oil, and the airlines’ overall fare increases of late.

The other piece to constructing a mileage run is understanding the airfares and corresponding rules. There are often day-of-week, transit point, seasonality, ticketing, and other restrictions that can make it difficult to actually find routings and dates like I did for the example above. I’ll devote a future post to deciphering the fare basis codes, and hopefully shed some light on the logic of them. Happy flying!