On the Ground – Blog Roundup

By | June 25, 2007

Well, the flight still hasn’t left…It happens sometimes….so here we are for part two of today’s roundup…Let’s see what the other flight bloggers are up to…

  • Upgrade, Travel Better has a response to their recent query about United-US Airways codeshares…The codeshare program includes 2000 US flight numbers on UA, and an equivalent number of UA numbers on US, making it the largest bilateral codeshare in the industry…limited apparently only by lack of flight numbers(Amusing, huh?). A few highlights: UA codes are not yet on flights operated by America West…this will change, but Express flights of 69 seats or more will not be shared. The website does not display these flights as it once did, and there are plans to rectify this as US Airways repairs its buggy, messed up post-integration system, although they are sold elsewhere. Finally, codeshares are only sold for connecting passengers on routes in which the two airlines compete, ie Charlotte to Chicago, due to government restrictions…
  • The Cranky Flier has an amusing comment on the long list of titles you can select when applying to the BA Executive Club frequent flyer program. They include High Chief, Vice Admiral, Baron, Cardinal, and Cranky’s personal favorite, Her Majesty. Perhaps we should change our email address from guru@flightwisdom.com to HighChiefGuru@flightwisdom.com? Hmm….come to think of it…just email us anywhere….
  • In our previous roundup, we commented on the Coalition for Luggage Security’s take on British review of luggage-free airports. Here’s Cranky’s view…Now, Cranky comments that he doesn’t mind a $5 or $10 nominal fee to check a bag…as opposed to a $40 fee that they predict such a service could cost, and compared to a $70 per bag(minimum $85 per pickup) he cites as currently available. We should remind him of the current cost Ryanair for baggage….We did an analysis of it when Spirit started charging for a second bag…By our calculations it would cost $94 to check a 50 pound bag on a Ryanair flight, including extra weight plus bag fee…and $350 to take two 50 pound bags on them….the standard US allotment right now. For the British, that makes $40 sound pretty good, doesn’t it?

Hmm…time to board…