Joe Sharkey At Large

One example of why we crucially need aggressive local journalism — these kinds of stories wouldn’t get done otherwise. Here’s a Columbus Dispatch report on excess baggage at the sketchy new charter-hybrid airline startup JetAmerica.

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I wouldn’t make too much out of the announcement that a small start-up with one leased 737 plans to fly rounds among Newark, several Midwest cities and Vero Beach, Florida — except that I think it represents what we will see as a trend.

A company called JetAmerica will announce today that it plans to start flying in July, with very low prices on some seats (like the defunct Skybus, which is in its lineage) and low prices on others. The company starts off with a single leased 737-800.

Here’s some background from the St. Petersburg Times newspaper today. Though it’s lacking in context about the niche that is so obviously open.

JetAmerica also starts off to razzing from the sidelines, primarily because of its Skybus connection, and more pointedly because of its shaky genesis. Originally, it seems, the company planned on using the name Air Azul and dropped it. The usual suspects said it was because JetBlue would sue over trademark infringement (Azul=-blue?), but it’s pretty obvious to me that Air Azul in fact sounds like something that might be based somewhere in the Persian Gulf region. Duh.

Besides the Skybus connection (JetAmerica’s chief executive officer, John Weikle, was the Skybus founder, though he left Skybus shortly after it started up), there is a connection to a very interesting niche in charter air travel — supplying lift to areas with casinos that are underserved (or have been abandoned) by commercial carriers. The JetAmerica founder is Steven Schoen, an airline dilettante (and I use the word not necessarily in its negative sense) who used to run a company that flew charter flights between the Tampa Bay area and the Mississippi Gulf Coast casino towns.

I’ve been long predicting that as commercial airlines abandon or greatly reduce service to come cities, charter start-ups will appear to fill in gaps. My hunch is that they will be modeled more along the hybrid-charter lines of the sidelined air-taxi business, though on longer routes with bigger planes than the very-light jets the air-taxi model hoped to use.

Casino charter link? Hmmm, which big city with a lot of casinos is languishing partly because commercial carriers — culling cheap-fare routes — have cut 20 percent of its air service? That would be Las Vegas.

I’d watch this trend carefully. JetAmerica might go nowhere, but there are a lot of perfectly good used airplanes on the market right now, including many parked in the desert waiting for some dreamer to come along and kick the tires.

And air travel has always attracted dreamers. Sometimes, like the well-financed JetBlue in 1999, they actually pull off the seemingly impossible.

So I say good luck to JetAmerica. The charter hybrid model may well be about to redefine a segment of the air travel market. Let there be more competition. Just hope they all have deep pockets and understand that they’re going to get roughed up by whatever competition remains on whichever markets they choose.

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Always trust British newspapers to be amusing in their invincible awe over wealth.

Here’s the Daily Mail, via Huffington Post, all breathless over what it claims is the world’s most expensive hotel. But I’ve seen plenty of fancier hotels around the world. Actually, the fanciest ones tend to be a bit more … subdued.

And a $17,000-a-night luxury suite is not unusual. That’s around what the presidential suite in the very top international hotels costs. What they don’t tell gullible reporters is that if you buy the top suite, they usually throw in a bunch of free rooms for your entourage.

But one question about this joint in Turkey: What the hell is a “remote controlled toilet?” How does it work, exactly?

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As has been the case since early winter, airlines are continuing to pump out flash fare sales, meaning promotions that you have to grab fairly quickly. It’s an indication of the pressing need all U.S. carriers have to raise revenue in a very tough time.

Southwest has a major sale starting today, for travel through Oct. 29, with a 14-day advance purchase. Tickets need to be bought by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday.

Some samples from a long list: Washington-Tampa ($81); Tucson-New York ($180); Austin-Boston ($151); Boston-Los Angeles ($159).

The prices are for one-way travel but, of course, Southwest alone among the big carriers is very happy to sell you a one-way ticket even at a fare-sale price, without insisting that you buy a round-trip.

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Continuing the long-running goatf— of confusion and red tape that is our federal “border security” system, here’s a heads-up on new requirements for identification papers you will need when returning by land or sea from a trip to either Canada or Mexico, or by sea from the Caribbean or Bermuda, effective next Monday, June 1.

That’s the day a program called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative goes into effect. Starting June 1, only a passport or five other forms of officially approved I.D. will be accepted for return to the U.S.

The passport is self-evident. But what are these “five other forms” of I.D. that the media have mentioned without going to the trouble of specifying them? Here are three. I’m looking for the rest.

–U.S. Passport Card – This is a new, limited-use travel document that fits in your wallet and costs less than a U.S. Passport. It is only valid for travel by land and sea. Frankly, I don’t see why anyone would go to the trouble of getting this thing instead of an actual passport.

–Enhanced Driver’s License – Several states and Canadian provinces or territories are issuing this driver’s license or I.D., specifically designed for cross-border travel into the U.S. by land or sea. A trip to the motor vehicles department is required. Say no more.

–Trusted Traveler Program cards – NEXUS, SENTRI or FAST enrollment cards are issued only to pre-approved travelers who are deemed to be low-risk by whatever half-baked criteria the authorities use. The cards are valid for use at land or sea; the NEXUS card can be used in airports with a NEXUS kiosk.

Oh, and you’re bringing a kid back with you? U.S. and Canadian citizens under age 16 arriving by land or sea from contiguous territory may also present an original or a copy of the kid’s birth certificate (all parents carry that, right?), a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, a Naturalization Certificate, or a Canadian Citizenship Card.

Oh, and here’s a twist. Religious groups are among those who get special consideration. Not that we’ve ever had to worry about, um, religious groups and security.

From the Customs and Border Patrol statement:

“Beginning June 1, 2009, U.S. and Canadian citizen children under age 19 arriving by land or sea from contiguous territory and traveling with a school group, religious group, social or cultural organization, or sports team, may also present an original or copy of his or her birth certificate, a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, a Naturalization Certificate, or a Canadian Citizenship Card.

The group should be prepared to present a letter on organizational letterhead with the following information:

* The name of the group and supervising adult;
* A list of the children on the trip, and the primary address, phone number, date of birth, place of birth, and name of at least one parent or legal guardian for each child; and
* A written and signed statement of the supervising adult certifying that he or she has obtained parental or legal guardian consent for each participating child.

Letterhead and a signed statement! No way that can be forged.

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Russia’s S7 Airlines expects to join the oneworld alliance next year, raising oneworld’s membership to 11.

S7 is Russia’s leading airline in domestic traffic. S7 would add 54 cities to the oneworld network, 35 of them in Russia, and bring eight countries into the alliance: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

It will take about 18 months to integrate S7 into the alliance. The Russian carrier’s membership sponsor is British Airways.

The alliance members are American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, JAL, LAN, Malev, Qantas and Royal Jordanian.

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From our correspondent Richard Pedicini in Brazil:

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A twin-engine King Air 350 went down last night on approach to a luxury condominium’s airfield in the fashionable resort area of Trancoso, Bahia, in northeast Brazil, with the deaths of all aboard, which may be as many as 15. The plane crashed and exploded at 9:13 p.m. during heavy rain in a hilly area 500 feet from the runway, which isn’t equipped for instrument landings. The pilot was experienced and the plane had recently passed its annual inspection.

Among the dead are the plane’s owner, investment banker Richard Ian Wright – formerly on the board of Credit Suisse First Boston Garantia – his wife and two children. His first wife was among the 99 dead in a 1996 TAM crash in São Paulo.

The exact number of victims is still uncertain due to the fire, which took firefighters two hours to control. The plane’s capacity is two pilots and ten passengers; four of those aboard were children.

The Terravista Condomium is alongside a Club Med, and about 20 kilometers from the resort city of Porto Seguro and its larger airport, but can only be reached by a ferry and a dirt road.

(UPDATE: The AP is quoting Brazilian media saying that 11 people died in the crash. “Officials with Brazil’s civil aviation authority and the nation’s Air Force that investigates crashes did not answer telephone calls seeking comment.” the AP reports.}

{UPDATE #2: Reuters, which is more reliable than the AP, has the number of dead at 14. Here’s the Reuters story.}

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Anyone looking for a sign that the travel slump has bottomed out won’t find evidence in the domestic hotel business.

The U.S. hotel industry posted declines in all three key performance measurements during the week of ending May 16, according to Smith Travel Research. As has been the case since last fall, luxury hotels had the worst performance.

Compared with corresponding week in 2008, occupancy for all hotel segments fell 12.6 percent; average daily rates fell 10 percent and the key metric, revenue per available room, fell 21.4 percent.

Smith said that none of the top 25 markets showed increases in any of the three performance metrics. Atlanta posted an 18.8-percent decline in occupancy, the largest of any market. The smallest occupancy decrease was recorded by Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (-5.4 percent to 79.4 percent).

Two cities experienced average room rate declines of more than 20 percent: New York, down 31.6 percent and San Francisco/San Mateo, down -22.8 percent.

Continuing a plunge from the fat times of recent years, New York reported the largest decrease in revenue per available room — down 39.4 percent.

Among the seven chain-scale segments, the Midscale with Food and Beverage segment posted the largest drop in occupancy (-14.6 percent). The Luxury segment led the performance declines in the remaining two performance measurements. It experienced a 20.1-percent average daily rate decline to $237.05, and a 31.3-percent fall in revenue per available room, to $150.40, Smith said.

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Lots of people will be driving on holidays this weekend, and the National Motorists
Association, a group that opposes revenue-generating speed traps and intersection traffic surveillance cameras, issued a report on the best and the worst states
“when it comes to exploiting the motoring public,” the group said.

This is also useful for business travelers who rent cars, and sometimes are astonished to find a surreptitiously issued traffic ticket in the mail weeks later, giving them little recourse but to pay.

Here are the worst 15  states:

1.  New Jersey
2.  Ohio
3.  Maryland
4.  Louisiana
5.  New York
6.  Illinois
7.  Delaware
8.  Virginia
9.  Washington
10.  Massachusetts
11.  Colorado
12.  Oregon
13.  Tennessee
14.  California
15.  Michigan

The National Motorists Association says the state rankings were calculated using seventeen criteria related to specific traffic laws, enforcement practices, and the

treatment of traffic ticket defendants. The rankings are designed to provide guidance to travelers who do not want their vacation ruined by speed traps, arcane laws or “kangaroo” traffic courts.

The group’s statement said:

“The state most likely to find its way into your wallet is New Jersey. With its toll roads, roadblocks, and speed traps, New Jersey has left almost no stone unturned when it comes to extracting cash from motorists. The state has also recently pushed through a red-light camera pilot project at a time when many states are banning the ticket cameras because they’ve proven to have a negative effect on traffic safety. Add in “driver responsibility” fees, which are ineffective and have a disproportionate effect on the poor, and you have the worst state in our rankings.

“On the opposite end of the spectrum, the five states that treated motorists most fairly are Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, and Kentucky. The complete list of rankings can be found on the National Motorists Association website at wwww.motorists.org/rankings.

“Jim Baxter, President of the National Motorists Association, said ‘”It is not exactly a well kept secret that many traffic laws, enforcement practices, and traffic courts are more about generating revenue and political posturing, than they are about traffic safety. During holidays, like the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, we’re bombarded with messages about intensified enforcement, _click it or ticket,’ and horrendous fines when in fact most vacation-related traffic accidents are caused my inattention, distraction and fatigue. However, these are accident causes that don’t generate much in the way of government revenue, so instead our highways are overrun with unmarked police cars and ticket cameras.’

“Baxter added, ‘The long term solution to aligning legitimate public interests with government policies is to remove the money from traffic regulation, enforcement, and adjudication. Until that happens, the focus on revenue generation will continue to trump effective traffic regulation and ethical enforcement practices.’”

The group maintains a during the holiday may want to check out the NMA’s National Speed Trap Exchange – a listing of speed traps across the country – at
www.speedtrap.org.

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AirTran Airways is running an interesting sale on business-class seats, by way of underscoring its unconventional approach to selling the front of the plane. Tickets must be purchased by the end of today, however, for travel through June 23. Round-trip purchases are not required, though a seven-day advance purchase is. Seats are limited.

Some sample one-way business-class fares: Atlanta-Boston ($149); Atlanta-Chicago ($159); Atlanta-Houston Hobby ($159); Atlanta-Los Angeles ($269); Milwaukee-Boston ($144); Milwaukee-Seattle ($249).

Last week, during a demonstration flight to show off AirTran’s new Wi-Fi system, Bob Fornaro, the chief executive officer, told me that the business-class cabin and pricing strategies were central to AirTran’s evolution in recent years from a strictly leisure carrier to one with a growing business-travel clientèle.

AirTran now lets you chose to pay extra at check-in, 24 hours in advance, to upgrade to the front of the cabin on its Boeing 737s and 717s. Depending on availability, it costs about $49 to upgrade from a Y fare on a short-haul flight, and $99 on a long-haul.

Obviously, promoting for-sale upgrades (and running business-class fare sales) brings into question the balance between selling seats up front and awarding them to elite-status customers. Fornaro said that so far, he thinks the airline has been able to maintain a balance.

[AirTran elite-status members:  Let me know if you disagree with that, please].

“Business class has been our most important feature and has allowed us to transition from a completely leisure airline to an airline that is competing in both segments of the market now,” he said.

“When I joined the company in 1999 we looked at it and said, is this something we should be doing? The company launched in late 1997. We gave it a trial, at a time when a a lot of or even most companies were not allowing people to buy business class, or first class.”

So the buy-on-demand feature was introduced, coded to a coach fare. “It’s helped us at the beginning trial; we got the load factors us, and it’s been a good entrée for us to break into corporate sales. It allowed us to bring something different to the party,” Fornaro said.

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