Recorded in the St Louis Airport Marriott courtesy of a blown connection by Southwest. We clean out the TravelCommons mail bag, going through listener comments on disabling in-flight electronics, eating alone, and finding good non-chain food on the road. We talk about the sudden collapse of the CLEAR registered traveler program and if in-flight WiFi will really improve frequent traveler productivity. I also give a little personal history about how I came to travel so much. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file.
A Wall Street Journal Middle Seatcolumn illustrated how airlines can make a good thing bad — flipping the proverb to turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear.
In March, American Airlines restarted their program to replace their old gas-guzzling MD-80’s with sparkling new Boeing 737-800’s. As someone who earned 2+ million American AAdvantage miles, I’ve spent a lot of time in those MD-80’s and I just despise them. The dark blue interior and short ceiling gives them a cave-like aura, and the short overhead bin on the 2-seat side has led to many pitched battles for carry-on space. So when I heard that AA is deploying the new 737’s at O’Hare, I started thinking about shifting some of my flying time from United to American.
Until, that is, I read a bit further and saw that American was cramming 2 more rows into the new 737’s for a total seat count of 160 at a 31-inch seat pitch. Seat Pitch is the distance between two rows of seats and is a shorthand for legroom. I’m not that big of a guy (6 ft, 34-inch waist) and I feel like I’m shoehorning myself into Southwest’s seat with a 32-inch pitch. There’s just no way I’m voluntarily doing a 31-inch seat pitch.
Many commentators say that passengers have brought this upon themselves by making travel choices solely on price. It’s an oft-repeated claim, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny — at least for frequent fliers. Five years ago, American had a completely different strategy, differentiating themselves with more leg room — a spacious 34-inch seat pitch. I flew American every time I could — even when it meant paying a higher price — because, even in those cave-like MD-80’s, it was the most comfortable seat in the air. Today, one of the main reasons I’m a heavy United Airlines flier is their Economy Plus section, with its 35-36-inch seat pitch in the front half of the plane. I get Economy Plus seating for free because of my Mileage Plus status, but I know many non-status fliers who gladly pay $350/year for an Economy Plus annual subscription.
While Ryanair’s CEO continues to insist that he’s serious about putting pay toilets in his planes, I expect American’s CEO will soon announce the sale of $15 shoehorns to get in and out of those new seats.
“What do tech-savvy frequent flyers want most? The desire to stay connected via Wi-Fi topped the technology requests, according to a new study conducted by American Airlines and HP,” says an HP press release from last week. The online survey conducted by American Airlines reports that “47 percent of business travelers surveyed indicated Wi-Fi was the most important airport amenity, outscoring basic travels needs such as food by nearly 30 percentage points” — a not-so-surprising coincidence given AA’s recent announcement of their roll-out of the Gogo inflight Internet service.
The survey was obviously constructed to provide publicity around the Gogo roll-out, but I have to disagree with two of the key findings. First, given the dire state of on-board food, I rate airport food availability much higher than WiFi — especially if I’m getting on a flight heading to or from the West Coast. Between my BlackBerry and iPhone, I can handle almost all my communication needs with cellular data. But having to make a meal from one of those $6 snack boxes? That’s a crisis in the making.
The other finding I take issue with is their claim that “work efficiency drops dramatically in the air” for lack of voice and data network connectivity. On the contrary, I think my work efficiency increases without Outlook pinging me with a new e-mail or TweetDeck beeping with the latest tweet or my iPhone vibrating with a new text message or a colleague asking a quick question on IM or somebody calling me to ask how things are going…. I look forward to my 4-hours of enforced solitude on my flights between Chicago and San Francisco. I get an amazing amount of reading and writing done. Thank God that Gogo wants to charge $13/flight for their service. If it was free, I’d never get anything done.
Recorded in the Seattle Marriott Waterfront, this special 4th-year anniversary edition collates the best bits from four years of TravelCommons podcasts. Starting with the “hotel medley” — the roll call of all the hotels that have served as TravelCommons’ recording studios, we move on to excerpts from stories about the TSA, Bose headphones, memories of better airplane food, the hassles of travel, and some of the most entertaining sights I’ve seen in the last four years. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file.
The International Air Transport Association reported earlier this month that premium ticket purchases fell 21% globally in February — which follows January’s decline of 16.7%. Part of the drop is due to falling air traffic, but a good bit of it is from tighter corporate travel policies that are pushing mid-level executives to the back of the plane. Not good for the airlines because, according to one analyst, it can take up to 10 coach fliers to replace the revenue of one business-class flier.
The question that no one seems to want to ask is — is a seat in the business-class cabin worth a 10x price premium? I flew business class on the three international legs of my recent trip between to Johannesburg, South Africa — South Africa Airlines on the outbound New York-to-Johannesburg leg, and then returned on Lufthansa from Johannesburg to Frankfurt, and United from Frankfurt to Chicago. It’s a long trip, and so should highlight the value of business class. But for me, it didn’t — it just reinforced the question.
None of these flights were particularly memorable — the service was marginal, the food was at best just OK, though the wine selection wasn’t bad (SAA was the best). The big difference was the seat reclines — full flat on SAA, almost flat on Lufthansa, and Lazy-Boy recline on United — which certainly made for a much better night’s sleep than the 3-4 inches of recline provided in coach. So, the $5-7,000 premium is really about a shorter check-in line, 3-4 free glasses of wine, and a night’s sleep. Can you justify that in these economic times? The airlines certainly hope so.
Recorded somewhere over the Atlantic in the business class toilet of a South African Airways A340 and the Rosebank Hotel in Johannesburg at the start of a week’s stay in South Africa. We talk about inconsistent rules for mobile devices on planes, the value of renewing my CLEAR registered traveler membership, the three things that make a restaurant a great place to eat solo, and listener suggestions on the one thing you never want to hear on a flight. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file.
I travel frequently through Denver International Airport (DEN) to visit family and to ski. From this first-hand experience, I’ve always believed that the DEN TSA crew is among the nation’s worst. According to an internal TSA report, a key reason is the local TSA management. Denver’s NBC affiliate obtained a copy of the report and ran an investigative segment on last night’s 10pm news. The internal report labeled the DEN TSA management team “retaliatory,” “inconsistent,” “lack integrity” and “antagonist.”
Former screeners claim that the hostile atmosphere detracts TSA employees from effectively screening passengers and luggage. One current screener who asked not to be identified said “The culture is one that really promotes a lot of underhanded, retaliatory action from people and doesn’t really promote hard work and ethical behavior.” No wonder the TSA is at the bottom (220 out of 222) of the latest Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings. Next time I get hassled at Denver, I’ll try not to take it personally — apparently it’s just the TSA way.
The two reasons most frequent travelers invest in a frequent flyer programs — status perks (e.g., free upgrades, pre-boarding) and free trips. While comparing status perks between programs is pretty straight-forward — most airlines proudly list every status perk, the number of seats that can be booked with miles seems a closely guarded secret, making comparisons between frequent flyer programs difficult.
IdeaWorks, a travel consultancy led by ex-Midwest Airlines executives, took a shot at clearing away just a bit of the smoke by generating some real comparitive data on mileage seat availability. Looking at the popular transatlantic awards, IdeaWorks “made 6,400 booking queries at the websites of five US-based airlines and five Europe-based airlines during the latter half of January 2009.” That’s either some good web code or a lot of keyboard banging.
The results? Iberia, the Spanish carrier, took top honors, offering reward seats for 83% of IdeaWork’s booking attempts. American Airlines was the best US carrier at 58%, which earned it 4th place in the standings. Indeed, the oneworld alliance took 3 of the top 4 spots. The worst was no surprise — US Airways at a Scrooge-like 4% reward seat availability. The full results are available here.
Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago at the end of a full week home, decompressing after 6 weeks of straight travel. We talk about some “travel rules” violators — the woman whose airport meltdown is a YouTube hit and an Amazing Race couple whose violation got them eliminated. A listener suggests a topic — what is the one thing you never want to hear on a flight? And we close with a couple of suggestions on how to avoid the growing cacophony of flat screen TVs shouting out the depressing state of the world. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file.
When I used to work in Detroit’s Renaissance Center, international cellular calls would occasionally appear on my bill. After way too many calls to AT&T, I finally figured out that whenever I used a certain conference room in Tower 600, my phone would grab the cell tower directly across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario.
However, my hassles were nothing compared to a fellow Chicagoan who received a $28,067.31 bill after watching the Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions football game on his PC through his AT&T wireless data card. In the Chicago Sun-Timesstory, Wayne Burdick said “I was in Miami on Nov. 2 getting ready to go on a Caribbean cruise. I wanted to catch the Bears game before we left port. It was 1 p.m. Florida time. The Bears game was starting. The ship was not leaving Miami until 4 p.m., so I slid in my wireless card and brought up my Slingbox and watched the game on my computer.”
It appears that Burdick’s wireless card associated with the cruise ship’s microcell, which connected to the Internet through a satellite link and billed at international roaming rates. Even after providing proof that the ship hadn’t left the dock, the best offer he could get on his own from AT&T was a reduction to $6,000 — still a good bit more than the $220 he normally pays for his unlimited data plan. When Burdick got The Sun-TimesFixer to shine some media light on the problem, AT&T relented.
As more and more portable devices seamlessly link to cellular data networks, travelers who are even close to an international border need to watch out.
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