Posted by Seth on March 31, 2010 under News | 
6 Comments to Read
And it just so happens that the winner of the trip was from a comment posted here on The Wandering Aramean. Congrats to Jonathan Heckman and have a great time in Australia; I’m looking forward to a post card.
And now back to the regularly scheduled coverage of random travels and industry news…
Posted by Seth on March 26, 2010 under News, points | Read the First Comment
On Monday I announced an opportunity to win a free trip to Australia’s Gold Coast, thanks to American Express and BoardingArea.com. There are a whole bunch of entries already out there but still plenty of time to get your entry in if you haven’t yet. Head over to my original post for the contest and enter there. Then click over to the BoardingArea page for the contest and get the 19 other entries you’re allowed with all the other participating bloggers. Couldn’t be easier!
Posted by Seth on October 27, 2009 under News | 2 Comments to Read
As expected, lots of updates hit Continental’s website at midnight CDT this morning, and the Star Alliance details are all over the place. From the hundreds of lounges now accessible for Presidents Club and Star Gold members to an interactive travel reward chart that is actually comprehensive and accurate to many details on upgrades available for travel on other Star Alliance carriers, there is lots of information there to digest.
The Star Alliance upgrades are a nice feature but ridiculously expensive in most cases, charged per segment and require a full-fare (Y or B) ticket to begin with. Not a great value, but it is always nice to have more options.
The reward search online is also quite nice, with more than 10 carriers available immediately. A couple test searches this morning show availability in line with what other Star Alliance carriers are seeing which is quite nice. Of course the three carriers that are delayed in reward integration – Swiss, EgyptAir and Shanghai Airlines – affect me personally (I need a reward on EgyptAir) but I’ll get over it eventually.
The move also means an end to the Continental partnership with Qantas. Hardly a surprise as Continental now has United Airlines and Air New Zealand as partners offering service to Australia. The relationship officially ends on December 17, 2009. Tickets for reward travel after that date will be honored but no new tickets will be issued and no miles will be accrued on revenue tickets.
The lounge access benefit is ridiculously good at this point. There are over 800 lounges available for Star Gold members, a group that now includes Continental Platinum and Gold elites, not just Platinum elites. That’s a lot more lounges for a lot more people. Many of the lounges are now also accessible for Presidents Club members. It might actually be enough to tempt me to join, though with the Star Gold access maybe not.
Partner earning rates were also announced and no major surprises there. The bad news is that the lowest fares on many carriers don’t actually earn miles. Plus most partner carriers will no longer earn bonus miles for elites; only United, US Airways and Lufthansa earn elite bonuses. On the plus side, there are not too many 50% earning fare classes. So it is all or nothing, with plenty of nothing on the cheapest fares. Combined with the new reward chart announced a few weeks ago, rewards are going to be a little more expensive and the miles are a bit harder to earn. That’s not great at all. But the interactive reward chart – more than a year in the works – is accurate and mostly functional (I’ve found one bug). That is a major improvement.
Considering the amount of work required to make the leap from SkyTeam to Star Alliance in a 48-hour span I’m quite impressed at just how much of things are functional. And more will get better over the coming weeks. This change is good on the whole for most OnePass members and Continental customers (with few exceptions). I’m off to book some reward travel now!
Posted by Seth on April 16, 2009 under News | Read the First Comment
I’ve now read this story a few times and I’m still rather dumbfounded by it, partly because it happened at all and partly because of just how detailed and potentially over the top the response was. A shipment of twelve baby pythons in Australia arrived at its destination with only eight snakes in the box and no indication of where the other four went. Were they eaten by the other snakes? Apparently not.
“Our people called in a reptile expert and there was a suggestion that some of the baby pythons had eaten the other pythons because apparently it is not uncommon for baby pythons to eat each other," [Qantas corporate manager David Epstein] said. Qantas staff then weighed the remaining baby pythons to determine if they were heavier, but they were not.
Then there was concern that the animals might be endangered, meaning that they could not fumigate the plane because that would mean potentially killing endangered animals. As it turns out, the animals were not an endangered species so the plane was fumigated. Of course, that took time and meant flight delays.
Oh, and they never found the four corpses, so it is not particularly clear what happened to those four snakes.
Escaped snakes ground Qantas plane – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Posted by Seth on March 25, 2009 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments to Read
In a word, very. The airline industry has been struggling to find an appropriate balance between capacity, service, fares and costs pretty much since deregulation kicked in and the CAB was retired in the late 70s. Airlines have launched, folded, merged, declared bankruptcy and otherwise been all over the place in terms of staying in business. But over the past 18 months things seem to have hit a new low in terms of outlook and performance. First it was the fuel price bubble of 2008 and now the economic fiasco continues to pressure the carriers.
Here’s a (no so) pretty picture from the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation that shows just how awful things are right now:
Those numbers are the year-over-year change in passenger loads in the premium cabins on the various routes between January 2008 and January 2009. The load numbers dropping are scary in their own right, but even more so when considered with the fact that many of the long-haul carriers depend on their premium cabin long-haul service to generate the big bucks they depend on to operate their networks. Sure, that may not be the right way to build out a business, but that’s the way they are set up, and these load numbers dropping are sure to cause major trouble in the industry.
If that wasn’t enough, the fares are also dropping like a rock in many cases:
IATA estimates the reduction in average fares and fuel surcharges have resulting in revenues from premium passengers falling by at least a quarter in Jan-2009, which is "wreaking significant damage to network airline yields and profitability".
Along with the 28.5% load drops between the US and Oceania, there are two carriers introducing service this year – V Australia has already started and Delta launches service in just a couple month. With coach fares between Oz and the west coast of the USA now hovering between $500-$700 those flights are not likely to be profitable in the passenger cabin for quite some time. Add on to that the decreases in cargo requirements due to a slowing economy and the increases in cargo capacity pressuring prices down and the numbers look even less appetizing.
Transatlantic travel is suffering similarly. There is the 14.5% decrease in loads in the front cabin and fares continuing to remain very depressed in the back. Want to fly from the west coast to Dublin? Fares in the low $300s are available right up to the beginning of the peak summer season. Historically they’d be higher by now. I just bought a ticket to go to Germany for Easter weekend. The seat map (not an authoritative source but generally a good approximation tool) suggests that the plane is pretty full. Historically in such a situation the fares would be running higher and higher at that point. But only two weeks out I got tickets in the lowest fare bucket available, and at a pretty good price (<$400).
So fares are down. Premium loads are down. Coach loads are stable but not really driving much revenue. This all spells very bad news for the near future. On the plus side, it does mean that I can stretch my travel budget even farther. I’ve been in six countries already this year and have seven more planned already (one will be a repeat). I just hope enough of the airlines survive this mess so that I still have options available at the other end when things start to pick back up.
Posted by Seth on March 22, 2009 under News | Be the First to Comment
A couple bits of news on the “fee” front from over the weekend. Good news out of Oz as Qantas has cut one of the more irrational fees they have. Not so good news out of Chicago, however, as United added a somewhat significant fee to their arsenal, cutting a benefit that many travelers have taken advantage of for years.
First, the good news. Qantas, for reasons that I don’t quite understand, had a fee for joining their frequent flier program if you were a resident of Australia or New Zealand. Nothing like setting up a scheme to encourage loyalty and then charging folks a premium to join. Qantas finally appears to have gotten smart on this front and plans to cut the fee out of their scheme. They are also increasing their partner earning options, adding Woolworths and a number of restaurants into the fold. That’s good news down under.
United, on the other hand, has made another decision in an effort to shore up their books. For many years airline passengers in the United States have been able to buy tickets at any point, knowing that the fares might drop and that they could call the airlines and get a refund or credit for the difference. Over the past several years many airlines have cut that benefit. Specifically they charge the going rate of their “change fee” on restricted tickets. Most change fees these days are at least $150, which means that a fare has to drop a LOT for this type of deal to be of value. As of March 20, 2009, United has joined the ranks of the airlines charging for this sort of change. They did it very quietly, adding a note about the new “administrative fee” to the fine print in their fare rules on Friday afternoon. This has upset a number of customers (at least the ones who have figured this out over the weekend).
United is the last of the legacy carriers to apply this policy, so they aren’t alone by any means. There are still a few airlines that offer such a deal – jetBlue, Southwest and Alaska Airline – but overall it is a benefit that seems to be disappearing rapidly. And I’m completely OK with that. I’m sure that I’ve benefitted from the program at some point in my life. I don’t really remember it, but I am sure I did. It seems like something I would have paid attention to. But I cannot figure out why this sort of policy is really a great thing. I buy tickets when I’m happy with the price and don’t if I’m not. I get that it does take away one little chance that the customer has to get something back from the airline, but that is part of the game in my view. I don’t expect to pay them more when the fare goes up after I’ve bought my tickets, so why should I get money back if the fare drops?
The real question is whether this will help or hurt their revenue flow. There are probably cases of people spending money to confirm the ticket knowing that they can get a voucher if the fare drops, likely using yapta.com as a resource to know when that happens. So that was revenue now with vouchers issued later. If this policy change causes any drop in bookings that will mean a loss of “now” revenue though less lost future revenue, too. Plus the potential increased revenue of people paying the fee. Of course, as quietly as this happened I doubt that many people at all will notice or that it will really affect anything adversely for United, even as many frequent travelers cry wolf.
Posted by Seth on February 23, 2009 under News | Read the First Comment
A few tidbits of news concerning flights to Australia this week, all of them good for the consumer.
First up, V Australia is finally ready to start operations. They were originally supposed to start up a few months ago during the peak southern hemisphere summer season, but thanks to the Boeing strike they couldn’t get their plane delivered in time. But that’s all behind us now, and they have their first 777-300ER fully loaded with three classes of service – business, premium economy and economy – and ready to fly. They are starting service this Thursday, with 3x weekly service between Sydney and Los Angeles. Service will go to daily in a few weeks when they receive their second plane. Additional service between Brisbane and Los Angeles will start in April and Melbourne is coming in September (both also dependant on receiving additional planes).
If that isn’t enough to drive some competition on the USA-Oz routes, Delta’s planned start of service between Los Angeles and Sydney on July 1 is certainly going to do so. Delta is going to be flying with a 777-200LR. The plane certainly has the range, but they only have 276 seats on the plane. A 777-300LR has 75-100 more seats on it, and the 747s that United and Qantas use have close to 400 as well. And then there are the Qantas A380s that are running on the route, with 450 seats and even more cargo capacity. I have no idea how Delta is going to be competitive in such a market. They have fewer seats to spread the fixed costs over and the fixed costs on such a route are VERY high. But the net result remains the same – cheaper prices for customers and now all three alliances will have service between the USA and Oz.
Last up on the this this morning is an interesting report that came out yesterday regarding potential changes in trans-Tasman service. The New Zealand and Australian governments have apparently agreed to streamline the operations for immigration, customs and quarantine for the short hops between their countries. This is apparently expected to help ease the travel experience and, according to some carriers, cut ticket costs by as much as 30% on those routes. From the article:
Quarantine, security and immigration issues have to be addressed to make the route a common border, The Sydney Morning Herald website said.
An Open Skies bilateral agreement is already in place, relaxing the rules for carriers flying between the two countries.
After two years of discussions, Australian and New Zealand Customs are planning trials to clear passengers before they board flights between the countries.
Sure, none of this is as cool as the crazy Los Angeles – Honolulu – San Francisco – Sydney round trip flights for $600 (I really wish I had bought one or two of those), but it is still all great news for folks headed to or from Australia. Oh, and there are still plenty of great deals to be had for flights ex-Sydney, thanks to the V Australia fares. Enjoy.
Posted by Seth on June 22, 2008 under News | Be the First to Comment
I hate surcharges. I’d much rather just see what the cost of an item is and make a decision based on that number. The airlines seem to disagree, trending towards surcharges and fees to generate revenue in pretty much every situation. Airlines have actually raised fares a dozen times so far this year, so they’re doing that, too, but the fees can get out of hand. The most egregious fee, in my opinion, is the fuel surcharge.
The fuel surcharge is unlike the checked baggage or assigned seat fees in that it actually applies to everyone. If I don’t check bags or care about my seat assignment I can fly for just the cost of the plane ticket. By when fuel surcharges come in to play the cost cannot be avoided. It is essentially part of the fare, but the airlines hide it as an extra fee, helping them advertise fares lower than what they are actually charging.
And now the fuel surcharge has broken into new territory, surpassing $1,000 for trips between Sydney and London on Japan Airlines. That is $1000 in addition to the actual fare. The flight is about 10,000 miles each way routing via Tokyo, and the $1,000 is a round trip fee, so the fee is only $500 each way. That’s about $0.05 per mile flown. Considering that the airlines pay about $0.03-0.04 per seat mile flown for fuel (based on CASM numbers published by the airlines) this fee will actually more than cover the fuel costs for the flights. Plus passengers are still going to pay the rest of the fare, meaning that the airlines should be able to cover their costs OK, but without charging higher fares, at least not officially.
Of course, if the airlines just raised the fares the folks paying money for their tickets wouldn’t really see any difference, as the end number is the same. But for passengers looking at reward redemptions they have to pay all taxes and fees as part of the redemption, in addition to the miles. So if you participated in the JAL frequent flier program and were looking to redeem your points to go from Sydney to London you’ll also have to pay the $1,000 fuel surcharge, since it is not part of the fare. That just sucks.
Interestingly enough, the fees vary from airline to airline, even for the same flights. I’ve just booked a flight on Turkish Airlines using some of my US Air miles. If I purchased the tickets outright from Turkish Air the taxes would be ~$70 for one person. Using my US Air miles the taxes were $6. Even with paying the US Air fee of $40 to book the ticket through the call center despite the fact that the online site doesn’t even recognize the destinations I still came out ahead on the cost by using the miles.
Posted by Seth on June 16, 2008 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
Qantas has decided that they needed a bit of extra publicity around their launching of their A380 service later this year. And apparently selling seats at ridiculously cheap prices is their means for getting that publicity. Flights from Los Angeles or London to Sydney or Melbourne are on super sales, as low as GBP380 or USD470 for a round trip ticket. These fares are good for flights in November and December it seems.
It is VERY tempting, even though it would mean 15 hours in a 31″ of seat pitch. Plus I don’t know that I really have the time to spare. But it sure is tempting.
Posted by Seth on February 16, 2008 under News | Be the First to Comment
Recently Europe opened up to an Open Skies (unlimited flights between any destinations) agreement with the USA. Now Australia has signed on as well. Prior to this agreement non-stop flights from the mainland US to Oz were limited in frequencies, destinations (LAX/SFO only on the USA side) and there were some controls on pricing. All that goes away with this agreement. Any carrier based in the USA or Australia can operate any flight to any airport between the two countries. This is going to be a big hit on Qantas’s operations, as they currently operate ~77% of the capacity between the two countries (United has the rest), and they do so at a significant premium over their other main longhaul route (Oz-London). The airline most likely to benefit in the immediate future is Virgin Blue, the Richard Branson operation down under. They’ve got the planes on the way and he’s got some experience taking on a major flag carrier on their money routes and winning. With all the recent news in the US travel market being about the potential mergers and the associated reductions in service levels that are likely to follow, this improvement is a nice one to see come to fruition.
Update: On further study this agreement is only semi-open. Perhaps “Ajar Skies” is a better description. The main limitation here is that the carrier has to be US or OZ-based, while regular open skies allows any carriers. This was done to prevent Singapore Air and Air Canada – two carriers that actually want to fly the routes – from competing. No US-based carrier has expressed any interest in starting the route in the immediate future, though Continental and Delta rumors are starting to swirl.
