Joe Sharkey At Large

In case you have an unavoidable business trip to Houston coming up, please note: The city has imposed a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew starting tonight, through next Saturday. This AP story says imprecisely that the police say that residents should not be on the streets during curfew hours. Obviously, the curfew includes everybody, not just residents.

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Again, do not be fooled today by that useless F.A.A. “Airport Status and Delays”so-called real-time map at www. faa.gov

See that merry green dot over George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport, signifying no delays, and all is well? Well, there definitely have been no delays at IAH as of 1 p.m. EDT. Yes indeedy — exactly two planes took off so far today, and by dang, both left on time. There were no arrivals.

On the other hand, not shown on the happy little F.A.A. map: There have been 847 canceled flights so far today at IAH, according to the very reliable Flightstats.com

Yesterday, when the F.A.A. site was also showing that “everything’s-hunky-dory” green dot over IAH all day, there were 980 canceled flights at IAH.

By the way, on a totally unrelated note, I read today a feature story that mentioned “Coffee Tea or Me?,” the racy 1967 runaway best seller about the exploits of two sexy stewardesses (and that’s what they were called).

Actually, that book was a wonderful hoax. It was in fact written by Donald Bain, a New York ad man who met two stewardesses trying to peddle a book but realized that they only had a few little anecdotes, nowhere near the stuff necessary to make a book.

So Don and a publisher signed the stewardesses up to pose as the “authors” on publicity tours for the book, full title: “Coffee Tea or Me: The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses.”

Don wrote the book strictly from his own imagination, and didn’t fess up to the hoax till almost a quarter century later, when an anniversary edition appeared. He later went on to write the “Murder She Wrote” mystery series and many other books (80 in all), and he’s a gentleman of the first order.

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To show you how useless it is to depend on media recitations of “flight delays” during what the airlines call irregular operations, George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport has a 100 percent ontime arrival rate this afternoon between 3 and 5 p.m. CDT. No delays!

Exactly one plane took off and dang, it was on time!

No planes arrived.

On the other hand, 936 flights have been canceled at IAH so far today.

Meanwhile, Flightstats.com was showing “excessive delays” at all three New York area airports, at Philadelphia and at O’Hare. That reflected the backup ripples from Houston and, in the New York area, some rain and clouds.

The F.A.A. Web site’s map on airport delays (which has unaccountably sprung back to life in the last day or so, after being comatose for most of a year) has a merry little green dot over the Houston airport. Click on it and you get this clueless information about IAH: “General arrival/departure delays are 15 minutes or less.”

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Continental Airlines just suspended flight operations at IAH through tomorrow.

UPDATE 3:30 P.M. — Continental said this afternoon that it “plans to reactivate the [Houston] hub on Sunday morning, although some flights on Sunday will remain subject to cancellation.”

All operations, including Continental Express and Continental Connection flights, are affected.

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…Because the television media sure aren’t doing it for you.

The excitable Weather Channel has hyped so many storms that you often can’t tell what to really expect. But from that source and from others today, it does appear as if a very bad thing is about to occur, with Galveston and Houston and the Louisiana coast in the path of a hurricane whose chief threat appears to be the tsunami-like sea surge it is pushing northward in the Gulf of Mexico.

But besides its live reports, the Weather Channel also offers information on matters such as airport delays, and my jaw dropped a few minutes ago when I saw the reports on the screen claiming that there are no delays at the major airports in the nation. The information was attributed to the F.A.A.

There’s your first mistake, depending on the laughable live F.A.A. flight-delay data. The media keep referring people to the F.A.A. flight-delay map at www.faa.gov — which hasn’t worked in a year.

Go to a reliable source like Flightstats.com and, whoa:

As of 10:30 Central time today, a stunning 566 flights had been canceled at Houston International Airport. That has the effect of reducing the official delay number (assuming the F.A.A. was publishing that, which is isn’t), because a canceled flight is not, of course, a delayed flight.

On the other hand, the crisis at Houston International (and crisis is the operative word right now) is creating massive problems now rippling into the other big hubs. Atlanta, for example, has a ground hold on traffic, with delays mounting. So do LaGuardia and O’Hare. And just wait till the ripple effect from the canceled Continental and Express Jet flights in Houston barrels later today into Continental’s other major hub at Newark.

I’d ignore the mainstream media if you need information on flying today. They’re stuck in an old formula that looks at inaccurate information on flight delays, and simultaneously ignores the very different measure of flight cancellations. “Many flights were canceled today at O’Hare” is a piece of reportage that does you and me no good whatsoever.

Instead, go online to individual airline Web sites and reliable sites like Flightstats.com and keep in mind that at hubs east of the Mississippi today, it’s going to be a mess.

Oh, and by the way, a lot of people I know think the best online weather-report source is Weather Underground. I agree.

Update 12.30 p.m. EDT: Wait! Everything’s up to date at Faa.gov! Somebody must have got a stern memo, because I see the F.A.A. “airport status and delays” site is finally up again, with live links. Click on the green light at Houston and it says of IAH: “General arrival/departure delays are 15 minutes or less.” Of course, as noted above, that’s because more than 550 flights have been canceled so far today at Houston.

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Yesterday was a magnificent late-summer day with bright blue skies in the New York area, so much like September 11, 2001, and as I drove my wife to the train station for her commute into New York City we felt that day again in silence.

Early this morning I kissed her goodbye as she left for a flight to Washington, and we felt that day again without words.

Here.

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Something’s going on with a few smart airlines. They seem to realize that treating your best customers right is a good marketing idea. Who’da thought …

Now we have AirTran actually improving frequent-flier benefits for its best customers — at a time when the tin-eared major carriers seem to be making great efforts to alienate their most loyal customers by reducing elite-status benefits.

Here’s the AirTran announcement today:

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AirTran Airways Upgrades A+ Rewards Program for Travelers’ Benefit

…Low Cost Carrier Offers More Benefits to its Best Customers -

ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 10 — AirTran Airways, a subsidiary of AirTran Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: AAI), today announced new upgrades for its A+ Rewards frequent flier program as part of the airline’s mission to provide more options and benefits for its most loyal passengers.

Effective immediately, changes to the A+ Rewards program include:

– Elite members will be allowed to upgrade to Business Class at the gate starting 40 minutes prior to departure, regardless of fare class purchased and based on availability. Up to one extra passenger may be upgraded if the flight is booked on the same reservation.

– Elites and A2B corporate customers will be given priority standby status.

– Elites will have access to an exclusive phone number for calls and questions regarding their program, reservations or redemptions. This phone number can be found when Elite members log in to their account at www.aplusrewards.com.

– Elites will have the same privileges as Summit members when traveling on our partner Frontier Airlines. These privileges include free DIRECTV(R), complimentary inflight beverages, exemption from redemption fees and exemption from change fees.

Other changes include:

– Effective February 1, 2009, A+ Vouchers for A+ Rewards flights will no longer be created. After that point, A+ Rewards credits may only be redeemed for flights or upgrades.

The A+ Rewards program allows passengers to redeem A+ credits for one-way flights and operates with A+ credits rather than miles for a faster route to a free* ticket. No matter how many miles are flown, four round-trips equal a free* one-way ticket. AirTran Airways’ current A+ Rewards policy has successfully avoided fuel surcharges, increased requirements for redemption and other stringent policies that complicate many frequent flier programs.

“At AirTran Airways, we value our frequent fliers and take great pleasure in rewarding their loyalty to our airline,” said Tad Hutcheson, vice president of sales and marketing for AirTran Airways. “We have heard two primary complaints about other loyalty programs: ‘Free*’ tickets are loaded with fees and complex requirements, and more and more benefits are being taken away. At AirTran Airways, we have addressed these issues so that our free* tickets truly are free*, while adding benefits and perks to our best customers instead of removing them.”

AirTran Airways is also careful about selecting its partners for the A+ Rewards program in order to not flood the system with A+ Rewards credits. As a result, fewer people compete for available free* seats, making it easier for passengers to redeem their A+ credits. With a two-year expiration policy for our Elite and A+ Visa customers, travelers have plenty of time to cash in their free* tickets. …”

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Singapore Airlines today cut its fuel surcharges for short-haul and medium-haul flights, citing declining fuel prices. Let’s hope the trend catches on in the industry, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The airline, which operates the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight (18 1/2 hours between Newark and Singapore), is keeping the $180 one-way fuel surcharge for flights between North America and Singapore.

But it’s lopping $10 off the $110 surcharge for flights between Singapore and Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Also included are flights between Dubai and Istanbul, Dubai and Moscow, and Bangkok and Tokyo.

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There’s a stone brilliant full-page piece of advertising by Southwest Airlines in today’s Wall Street Journal print editions. It goes right to the heart of the various extra charges airlines like to pile on after they tell you what the fare is.

The headline says: “These fares look the same until you hold them up to the light.”

Below that, on the left side of the page, it says: “Southwest Airlines: $69.” And on the right side of the page it says “The other guys: $69.”

But hold the paper up to the light and you see a drop-list of extra charges piled onto the $69 fare by the “other guys.” It’s printed in reverse on the back side of the page. Under the Southwest “$69″ is empty space.

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I’m always annoyed in general by Web stories that don’t have dates on them. But here’s a case in which some numbskull evidently put a brand new date on a six-year-old newspaper story and blithely sent it out today as news.

No, United Airlines says, it has not filed for bankruptcy. That’s soooo 2002.

But the Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the false story “quickly circulated on Wall Street” until United got out its statement denying it.

Shares of United’s parent company, UAL, collapsed this morning after the false report circulated, to the point where they were trading at $4 in late morning before trading was halted. After noon, with the story debunked, the shares resumed trading, and closed at $10.92 today, down $1.38.

In its statement, United hastily blamed the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel for the foul-up and demanded a retraction from the paper, which is owned by Tribune Co.

But the Wall Street Journal and the Sun-Sentinel said that the error was made after a reporter for Income Securities Advisors, a newsletter about distressed debt that is carried on Bloomberg News business terminals, mistakenly picked up the six-year-old Chicago Tribune report from the Sun-Sentinel archives while Googling “bankruptcies.”

Bloomberg itself then apparently compounded the error by flashing a headline about the false report. Then, it was off to the races on Wall Street.

United entered bankruptcy in 2002 and exited in 2006.

Meanwhile, the headline on the fiasco on Bloomberg.com this afternoon reads, a bit churlishly, it seems to me:

“United Parent UAL Says it Didn’t File for Bankruptcy.”

United couldn’t be reached for comment on when it didn’t stop beating its wife.

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