Archive for February, 2006
February 23 2006
The new Boeing 787, which will replace the 767 with an aircraft boasting significant cost savings, will not be as comfortable for passengers as once thought. The plane was conceived to over 8-across seating in coach, with extremely wide 19" seats (about 2 inches wider than regular coach seats). However, about 2/3 of the airlines purchasing the planes have decided to jam in 9 seats with regular dimensions. On the plus side, the extra 21 passengers squished into the plane should (theoretically) keep fares low. And everyone likes that. Except the dude in the middle seat in the back.
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February 22 2006
I’m excited to announce that we’ve launched a new site that publishes travel specials for travelers in India. Tripmela.com is a bit of a departure from the OTR (in that I hope it will actually be a viable business) — we’re working with airlines, hotels and tour operators to bring together great travel deals for India’s fast growing traveling population.
If you have friends in India, I’d greatly appreciate it if you let them know about our new project — there are fantastic deals available for travel throughout the Indian Subcontinent and Asia. Plus a free weekly newsletter. What more could you want from a website?
Wish us luck!
If you have any questions or want to advertise on it (please!), feel free to shoot me an email.
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February 21 2006
American Airlines, which has expanded into Dallas Love Field to compete with Southwest, said that it will lose money on these routes. A sales executive with the airline said:
"As silly as it sounds, we’re not here to make a profit off this operation, we’re trying to serve our customers…We’re going after Southwest customers."
Now, that is just ridiculous on so many levels that I can barely even think about it. A company (especially a public company) is not in business "to serve our customers" it’s in business to make money. Non-profits are in business to serve their customers. This industry is obsessed with knocking out competition at any cost, regardless of profitability. Think of the business you’re in. Then think about how you respond to competition. Do you make decisions that will lose money, with little long term benefit? No? Shocking!
If American were going to unseat Southwest, fine—I can understand a short-term loss to accomplish that. But American is not going to drive Southwest out of Dallas Love; they’re just going to lose money in the process. If I were a shareholder, I’d be pretty pissed off right now.
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February 21 2006
Did an airline lose your bags last year? You’re not exactly alone. US carriers lost 10,000 bags a day in 2005, the highest number since 1990. The rate of lost bags increased 23% over 2004.
The worst offender? US Airways, which lost 9.62 bags per 1,000 passengers. Well done. Incredibly, this is 30% higher than the next airline (Delta). Gee, and why do people go insane trying to stuff their bags into overhead compartments?
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February 21 2006
No matter how bad your flight delays are this week, they’re nothing compared to passengers who were scheduled to fly on Biman Bangladesh this past week. Bangladesh’s flag carrier faced mechanical difficulties on 3 of the 5 DC-10s it uses for international service, forcing it to strand passengers around the globe. In the past week alone, the carrier has changed its international schedule 17 times. I’m sure Dhaka has its lovely parts, but being forced to spend an extra week there cannot be a happy experience.
An airline spokesman says that they are trying to lease additional aircraft to clear the backlog of passengers.
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February 17 2006
The always-great Ask the Pilot column at Salon.com takes a look at the state of pilot pay. It ain’t pretty. You can read all the details in the piece, but suffice it to say, pilots aren’t getting rich. Salaries for regional jet pilots begin at an unbelievable $16,000 a year. Roughly what the dude behind the counter at Starbucks makes. And at least Starbucks isn’t going bankrupt. Top pay is 40-50% below where it was before everything went to hell a couple of years ago. And while you may snicker at the tales of pilots making $300,000 a year for a handful of work days each month, those days are over. Well worth a read…
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February 17 2006
Nobody’s ever complained about traveling to Paris in May — and neither will you if you check out Gate 1 Travel’s 4-night package deal to Paris. $499 gets you a flight from New York and four nights at some hotel (whatever, you’re not going there for the hotel) good for travel through May 11th. That’s later than many cheap packages allow you to depart. Air is available from other cities, and they offer reasonably priced hotel upgrades.
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February 16 2006
As you may know, El Al doesn’t screw around when it comes to security. To that end, El Al has installed anti-missle systems in all of its aircraft, becoming the first carrier to do so. The Israeli-built system, called Flight Guard, releases diversionary flares if its sensors detect an incoming missle.
Development of the systems, which cost about $1 million a piece, was put on the fast track after al Qaeda attempted to shoot down an El Al aircraft in Kenya back in 2002.
According to the linked article, we shouldn’t expect many other airlines to jump on board with this. On the other hand, the chance of an aircraft going down because of a missle attack is incredibly remote — a DHL A300 cargo plane was struck by a missle in Baghdad in 2004 and landed without incident (well, getting hit with the missle was an incident, but the landing was not).
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February 15 2006
Ryanair has always been able to turn negative publicity into a positive spin, and today is no exception. The airline faced scrutiny in an expose by Britain’s Channel 4, that had reporters posing undercover as Ryanair employees to get scoop on the airline’s operations. As you might imagine, it wasn’t pretty. On the program(me) staff complained about dirty planes, fatigue, and lax security screening. Hardly makes you feel good about flying Ryanair.
Of course, Ryanair fought back, releasing 3 million free* seats (making you once again feel good about flying Ryanair) ["free" does not include the $25 or so worth of taxes, etc], and taking out an advert(isement) in newspapers apologizing. They were apologizing to other airlines for stealing their customers. I love these guys.
You can read Ryanair’s responses to the allegations here.
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February 14 2006
(via Travelzoo) Something called TNT Vacations is offering a $49 round trip fare from New York to Bermuda. The fare is good Thursdays and Sundays through April 20th. Good luck, their site blows. But their fares are cheap!
(If you’ve come to this via Google, welcome to OnlineTravelReview. You can check out other great deals in the Great Deals section over on the right. And please visit our sister site Tripmela.com for great travel deals in India. Which is far from Bermuda, I know…)
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A Bit of Seat Info about the Boeing 787