Archive for April, 2006
April 19 2006
US Airways and JetBlue are in a bit of a pissing match after JetBlue’s CEO said that passengers in Charlotte have "overpaid for substandard service," a likely reference to US Airways. In response, US Airways’ CEO sent a letter to employees that can be viewed here. In it, he says that JetBlue’s problems are "serious and structural" while adding that JetBlue’s on-time record is far worse than that of US Airways: "To characterize arriving late in JFK with a TV in front of you as
better service than being on-time in LGA…suggests that JetBlue may be looking at the wrong service
standards."
It’s worth a read…
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April 19 2006
You may remember that Northwest implemented a program where you could reserve exit rows and other desirable seats for $15 a pop. After much whining by frequent flyers, Northwest has dropped the fee for passengers with Elite status and is reserving some of its best coach seats for these same flyers (rather than selling than for $15 to non-Elite flyers). The biggest deal here is that Northwest actually listened to its best customers, something you don’t hear all that often anymore. Well done.
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April 19 2006
Good news if your’e a fan of airlines in Bulgaria (?). After a 3 year ban due to unspecified "security reasons", Bulgaria’s airlines are now allowed to fly to the US. This doesn’t mean that any Bulgarian airlines WILL fly to the US, but they can. OK, so it’s not a big deal to you. But it’s a big deal if you’re Bulgarian. And that’s all that matters.
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April 18 2006
Quick note: in the New York Times this morning, Continental Airlines has an ad that reads: "Only one airline flies nonstop to the most cities in Europe from the New York area. And it ain’t Delta." Delta’s been touting their huge increase in New York flights lately. Well, it looks like their SkyTeam partnership does not mean the end of competition. That’s a good thing…
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April 18 2006
A couple of months ago I wrote a little blurb suggesting that MAXjet was not selling a particularly large number of seats (I estimated they were selling 40something percent of available seats). I thought I’d give a bit of an update: the company put out a release saying that March their load factor (their percentage of seats sold) was about 50% (so I probably wasn’t that far off in February. Yay me.) and that their April and May load factors will be in the 70% range. They’ve done a fair amount of discounting, and these numbers don’t include their newly introduced flights to Washington, but it’s a good sign for them, nonetheless.
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April 18 2006
Here’s a disturbing one: Three former Boeing employees claim that the company knowingly installed bad parts in its 737 aircraft between 1994 and 2002. A lawsuit filed by the former staffers says that the company allowed workers to install thousands of parts that they knew did not meet specifications, and that Boeing then fired any workers who complained. As you would imagine, Boeing has denied the claims in the suit.
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April 17 2006
(Via Frommers) Tour company Chinaspree is offering a fantastic deal on their 12-day China Delights Tour. While it’s not as low as the prices we’ve seen in the past from Friendly Planet ($699 for 10 days), this tour offers more. For $999, you get a round trip flight from San Francisco (other cities available for modest add-on charges) to Beijing; internal flights to Shanghai, suzhou, Tongli and Hangzhou; transfers, hotels and city tours. To see a bunch of China quickly, this is hard to beat.
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April 14 2006
Delta reached an agreement with its pilots, averting a strike. Feel free to book with them again…
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April 14 2006
A soldier returning from Iraq was barred from getting on a plane to Minneapolis because his name was on a terror watch list. Staff Sgt. Daniel Brown said that he also had trouble boarding his plane TO Iraq because of the same issue (I’m not sure what the point is of having a common name like Daniel Brown on a watch list…). It’s too easy to bash the terrorist watch lists, so on a positive note I’ll also just mention that after Brown missed his flight, his fellow marines who arrived on time in Minneapolis waited for him at the airport before seeing their families. Pretty cool.
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April 14 2006
United Airlines plans to add 125 flights to its schedule without increasing the number of aircraft. How? They’re going to make their turnaround times more efficient. How are they doing that? They’re hiring NASCAR pit crews to train their baggage handlers. I think this falls under the category of an Idea So Crazy It May Just Work. Should it worry me that NASCAR, which is known for its horrible crashes, is working with an airline?
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US Airways to JetBlue: You Suck