I’ve got quite the summer ahead, and to be honest, I’m not excited about it. Lady Astrojets and I will be heading down to Key West for a long weekend in the heat of August. I AM excited about that! Even if it will be HOT! What I’m not excited about is a heavier than normal travel schedule for business smack in the middle of what is shaping up to be a not so great summer on the road.

Crowded airports, crowded airplanes…..ugh. And as you may have heard by now, our airlines aren’t exactly up to the task of providing reliable service when faced with an onslaught of passengers, reduced staffing and typically stormy summer weather. I truly believe that this summer may mark a turning point for the airline industry. If the airlines don’t get their act together, I’m not sure that the traveling public is going to continue to tolerate the mess that air travel has become. If things continue falling apart as they have so far, Congress may legislate its own version of a solution to the problem.

More to post soon…..including a few pointers on keeping your sanity while flying this summer.

Northwest Airlines has apparently found itself short of pilots as we near the end of the month. If you’re flying Northwest, be proactive and verify your scheduled flights.

Here’s a link to an article on the subject from thestreet.com.

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/transportation/10364704.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

Yesterday afternoon as I sat comfortably at the United Red Carpet Club in Denver sipping on a glass of Cabernet, a gentleman charged up to the bar and threw himself onto the stool. You could feel the anger emanating from his spirit before he opened his mouth. He ordered a drink and then, horror of all horrors, started dialing his cell phone. Unfortunately, his intended target answered the phone. And then things headed south.

“YOU ARE NOT GOING TO F**CKING BELIEVE THIS….. GD UNITED AIRLINES IS SH*T!!!” I would go on, but I think you get the picture. He was a 1K this, and flew all the time, yadda, yadda. Long story short, …and I know you won’t believe this…. his flight had taken a mechanical delay. Apparently, this gentleman was the first person in the world who flies 100,000 miles per year and experiences an occasional flight delay. He could not believe that they did not just pull another airplane to operate his flight….etc, etc. As such, he will never fly United again.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been pretty torqued by any airline from time to time, United included. But I pay an annual fee to belong to the Red Carpet Club just so I don’t have to listen to jerks like this when I’m at the airport. If you’ve got a beef, take it up with the airline and don’t inflict your suffering on those around you. United isn’t perfect. But now that I know that this person won’t be flying United again, I’m going to make sure that I book my next flight with them so I won’t have to see this jerk again.

Yes…it’s a minor miracle. On June 22, 2007, yours truly transited Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on United Airlines and almost made it through the entire trip on time. In fact, my inbound flight to ORD arrived early. My departing flight would’ve been on time, but United elected to delay the departure in order to accommodate some late arriving connecting passengers. In my book, that was a reasonable call as this was the last flight of the day to DCA, and the number of passengers that ultimately boarded appeared to be significant enough to justify waiting. It only took 10 minutes for the passengers to arrive, but unfortunately, it was 20 more minutes before their bags made it. Long story short, I walked in the door just shy of 1AM this morning. Oh well….that’s what I get for booking myself on the last flight of the day from ORD.

Greetings from the United Red Carpet Club at Denver International (DEN). My training session wrapped up this morning, and I’m now camped out at the bar having a glass of water for the road and checking emails….and oh yeah….blogging.

I had not planned on ending my work here so early, so I’ve got quite a bit of time to kill. I tried for an earlier flight, but you can probably guess how much success I had with that on Friday afternoon. Better yet, I’m connecting in Chicago. But for now, the weather looks ok, everything shows on time, and life ain’t so bad. And truth be told, if things go south, there are much worse places to be stuck on a summer evening than Chicago. Hotel rooms are available, so I should be ok if something goes wrong. Even still, I’m going to remind myself not to plan any more connections in Chicago on Friday evenings just in case!

I’m here! Flights were fine, and close to on-time. My departure from DCA had a 10 minute delay posted, but we left close to on-time. When I landed in Chicago, I got a text message from United indicating that my flight to Denver was going to be 15 minutes late. It was, but we still managed to make it to Denver ahead of schedule. My upgrades cleared on both segments, and the service was fine. In fact, I emailed United a compliment about the purser on my flight from Chicago to Denver. Very good service, and took the time to address each passenger by name when introducing herself. Little things like that make such a difference.

I’ll be traveling this week. I’m flying out Sunday morning for Denver, Colorado. I’ll be attending a fairly intensive project management training course that my employer has seen fit to pay a not insignificant sum of money for me to attend. I applied to go, and was 1 of 2 employees out of about 100 selected to attend.

I’ll be flying out Sunday morning as I wanted to get in early and get settled for the week ahead. The training is pretty intensive, so I’m told, with plenty of work to do at night in addition to the daily workload. I’ll be flying United from Reagan National (DCA) via Chicago O’Hare (ORD). I’m more than a little concerned about the return on Friday afternoon. I purposely avoid Chicago on Friday evenings, but I just couldn’t avoid it for this trip. Fingers crossed…. I’ll post a trip report when I can.

If you’re a “wired” guy or gal like me who loves gadgets, regularly plunks down with your laptop to surf the web for information, and travels a bit, you probably do most if not all of your travel arrangements online. I thought I’d offer up a few travel websites that I’ve found most useful in making the most of my travel experiences.

http://www.flyertalk.com/

If you collect miles like some people collect baseball cards, then you need to read flyertalk. You’ll find a collection of pretty well-versed people offering tips, tricks and advice on collecting miles in your favorite frequent flyer program. In addition to miles, you’ll find helpful information on discounted fares, dining tips, hotel points programs and even travel technology and security.

http://www.flightstats.com/

One of the more useful web tools that I’ve found, flightstats.com offers a wealth of information on airline and airport operational performance in an understandable format. Check it out! I’ve found their flight notification service to be generally as reliable (if not more so) than the airlines’ own services.

http://www.roadwarrior.orbitz.com/

A different “front end” to Orbitz’ fantastic website, the roadwarrior site offers useful tips for the business traveler and for that matter, any traveler.

http://www.joesentme.com/

You’ll find articles by Joe Brancatelli on the Orbitz roadwarrior site, but Joe also has his own site which I’ve been reading for years. In fact, I was reading Joe’s insight and opinion well before I left the airline business. I enjoyed looking at things from the perspective of a customer, and reading Joe was one way I did that.

http://www.americanexpress.com/travel

Opinions vary on this, but I am a big fan of the American Express card. Amex offers a full service travel agency, and their website has some useful information for travelers on it as well. If you book travel with Amex online, the booking engine might look familiar to you if you’ve ever used Travelocity.

http://www.bts.dot.gov/

OK, it’s an awfully governmental looking website….probably because it belongs to the government. However, if you are into looking at raw data on anything transportation related, this site is for you. One portion of the site, http://www.bts.dot.gov/programs/airline_information/airline_ontime_statistics/ is totally dedicated to ontime performance of flights.

Momentum on the airline passenger bill of rights appears to be picking up, and now the Coalition for an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights (CAPBOR) has a new supporter, The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA). The AFA-CWA announced its support in a June 5th press release.

From the press release: “A Passenger Bill of Rights will be an empty promise until Congress enacts serious aviation policy reforms such as substantial investments to update and upgrade our air traffic control system; increases in funding for Airport Improvement Projects (AIPs); a carry-on baggage policy that applies to every airline and every flight; ensuring Essential Air Service (EAS) to small communities; improving cabin air quality for crewmembers and passengers; and providing a safe working environment on board aircraft for flight attendants,” said Patricia Friend, AFA-CWA International President.

My take: I’m surprised it took this long for AFA-CWA and CAPBOR to link up. While I remain skeptical that a legislative solution will be the end-all panacea that many “Bill of Rights” supporters believe it will be, I don’t think there’s any question that the air travel system is reaching a breaking point, and something has to be done. I’ll offer some suggestions in an upcoming post.

American just announced that they will implement an 18 month
frequent flyer mileage expiration policy. This comes after other
airlines such as Delta and United have implemented similarly
shortened expiration dates for your miles. Airlines are undertaking
this effort in order to reduce the outstanding number of frequent
flyer miles they must keep on their books.

Personally, I support this change. All one has to do in order to
prevent their miles from expiring is have some kind of activity in
their accounts at least once every 18 months. Anyone that can’t
manage that doesn’t need an account to begin with. Any activity,
whether adding to or removing from your account, counts for mileage
activity. There are a number of ways to ensure you don’t lose your
miles. Dining out, subscribing to magazines, buying flowers for your
mother, and the real adventurous among us might even try flying
somewhere!

Out and about a bit in June. Blasting off for Oklahoma City next Tuesday morning for a week of work. Would’ve left on Monday, but there just happen to be no airline seats to be had for less than a cool grand one-way to OKC on Monday on United. Yikes. Have to fly UA as they are the government’s contract carrier for the route. Delaying a day got me the going government rate which is…let’s just say….significantly more affordable for the taxpayers. I’ll be staying at the Sheraton OKC again. Really wanted the Hilton Skirvin, but they will not sell a room at the government per diem which is a whopping $73 dollars in OKC!!! Yes, that’s right. I get $73 dollars to purchase lodging in Oklahoma City. Believe it or not, rooms are out there for that rate as long as you pick your dates right.

I’ll be traveling to the Denver area in mid-June for a training class that my benevolent employer has offered me the opportunity to attend. I hope that doesn’t sound snarky, because I’m truly grateful that they are investing a not insignificant sum of money for me to attend. I’ll do my best to put the training to good use.

I’ll post from Oklahoma City. Looking forward to a steak at Mickey Mantle’s this trip. I also noticed a sushi bar called Raw when I was walking around downtown during last month’s visit. I think I know where I’ll be dining on Tuesday evening!

Updated on June 9, 2007

My OKC trip was cancelled Monday morning. We were handed a new priority at work, which will have its own travel requirements, and must be turned around quickly. I’ll still be heading to Denver on 6/17 though.