Flight Wisdom

Over a week ago, Chris Elliott pointed out a recent fee applied by ultra-low-class Spirit Airlines. Spirit had hidden a $10 Convenience Fee in their Contract of Carriage for booking anywhere but at a counter.
Now, booking online is certainly convenient, but this fee seemed somewhat dishonest. Spirit’s site is, to quote Elliott, “awash in new [...]

With the announcement that Northwest would be charging for the first checked bag for all flights purchased on or after July 10th for travel on or after August 28th, it brings the total to four legacy carriers who charge for anything you put under the plane. The others are American, United, and US Airways(but they [...]

The recent revelations of the end of a paper ticket have put us in mind of the way travel is going.
Recently, Walletpop.com listed as #5 of 25 on Comebacks We’d Like to See as Pleasurable Air Travel. As they put it…
Once upon a time, a traveler flying from Columbus to Denver arrived at the airport [...]

The New York Post reports that a Manhattan lawyer is suing Delta Air Lines for one million dollars. He claims that their “absolute incompetence” ruined his elderly mother’s eightieth birthday celebration.
Richard Roth says that he’d arranged for his entire family, including several cousins, to meet in Argentina. Roth started planning the trip in September of [...]

Airline passengers think that their ticket gives them the right to have themselves and their luggage transported to their destination. They are wrong on both counts. Most recently, the legacy carriers have now imposed a twenty-five dollar charge for the checking of a second bag.
Chris Elliott, in his blog, commented that United’s chief revenue officer [...]

We were never more disappointed as we were when we heard Skybus was starting flights. Our post on the subject was entitled, It’s the End of the World as We Know It. Why was this?
Skybus’s philosophy was not one we appreciated. Ten dollar fares sound good, but what was the real cost and quality of [...]

We were intrigued when Southwest announced it will be testing inflight internet access hopefully this summer on four aircraft. The service, in partnership with Row 44 will give its passengers full access to Internet including e-mail, music, shopping, and work through a virtual private network(VPN).
But why is Southwest doing this? Their press release on the [...]

Good morning, class.
Today we are going to talk about fuel surcharges. This week, United Airlines announced they were increasing their domestic fuel surcharge to twenty-five dollars each way on all routes.
So, what makes this different than a fare hike? Well, a fuel surcharge is not part of the fare. It is separate. One could say [...]

Well, it is the holiday season, and nearly the end of 2007, and we thought we would briefly comment on the loss of airlines. The best review we’ve seen so far of the loss of airlines in 2007 is Cranky Flier’s Airlines We Lost in 2007.
Cranky includes little graphic tombstones, symbolizing this year’s loss of [...]

Christmas and the New Year fast approach. What hopes do we have for 2008? USAToday seems to feel it is full of hope for fliers. Their reasons?

The Boeing 787

Despite delays, the plane is set to have its test flights and first delivery in 2008. The first delivery will be to ANA, and the first [...]

Overbooking is annoying. With the exception of Jetblue, which does not, airlines typically overbook by 33%. Find another industry where, with the approval of the government, a company is allowed to knowingly sell more of a product than they know they have. What reaction would this have if it were done at the theater, for [...]

When we saw a recent commercial for the iPhone where a member of the flight crew uses his iPhone to find out the weather was not what he was told, and, breaking the news to the apparently clueless rest of the airline, air traffic control, and others involved and thus leaving early.
Planebuzz has a story [...]

Last month, we berated Cheapoair for fake positive comments on our spinoff blog, Infrequent Flier in a post entitled Cheapoair Fakes Positive Comment on Site. Apparently, they didn’t get the message.
We received two comments on this post.
Comment from Cheapoair Customer Assistance
Time: October 22, 2007, 9:32 am
If you find a lower fare on another [...]

Jetblue will be inaugurating service from Buffalo and White Plains to Ft. Myers. Both routes will operate once daily from January 8th through April 30th, using the E190 regional jets. This continues Jetblue’s philosophy of this year of route-building by connecting existing stations.
Jetblue has many deficiencies in its network. These include:

No Midwestern focus city.
Despite the [...]

The last time we spoke of Southwest, they were changing their open seating policy. Pre-boarding for families now comes after the A group, passengers are numbered within their letter class in order of check-in. Families were upset. Suddenly, they were told they were not as important anymore.
But…now they’ve made another bunch of rapid changes. They’ve [...]

Airlines have, with few exceptions, adopted the hub model. They establish a hub, or a focus city(aka hublet - little hub), and build service to and from it to the point that you know if you want to fly with them, you’ll be passing through there.
The hub model has many logistical issues as it is [...]

USA Today has an article on three cities losing airline service after subsidy cuts.
On October 1st, Hagerstown, MD, along with Lancaster, PA and Brookings, SD lost scheduled commercial service because they were deemed ineligible for subsidies because they are too close to bigger airports.
The article goes into the calculations…but we are not surprised the federal [...]

A few months ago, we here at Flight Wisdom spun off a new blog/site, Infrequent Flier, which we hoped to do some advice stories for the less frequent traveler. One of our posts was on Cheapoair, entitled You Get What You Pay For - Cheapoair.
We have never patronized Cheapoair, so we went out onto the [...]

Airlines have been making many changes in management of late. It inspired us to do a little review of what airline management has been saying, as well as some new initiatives.

Westjet

Westjet CEO Sean Durfy thinks the Canadian discounter could control as much as half of the domestic Canadian market by 2013. The airline currently [...]

According to the Washington Post, officials at Nepal Airlines sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairib, the Hindu Sky God, after problems with one of their Boeing 757s. The goats were slaughtered in front of the plane at Kathmandu International Airport in accordance with Hindu traditions. It is common in Nepal to sacrifice animals like [...]

Ryanair has done it again…For those of you who haven’t noticed, we aren’t big fans of the European discount carrier. For a better understanding of some of their safety concerns, you can check out the Youtube presentation of a documentary….Ryanair: Caught Napping(Click to Play), which doesn’t even cover their disgusting business practices, just the inflight [...]

A friend of the blog and occasional commenter recently flew ExpressJet from New Orleans to Austin. We asked for them to send us their opinion…
This weekend I took a flight from New Orleans to Austin using ExpressJet. To start with, I prefer discount airlines as they are more efficient and timely than the premium carriers. [...]

We are looking for the people who actually take the Coalition for Luggage Security seriously. Let’s review some recent airline news through their lens…

On August 3rd, they noted that British Airways was forecast to lose over 1.3 million bags this year. British Airways has a less than stellar baggage handling record. Solution from the [...]

We have long said, on the blog and elsewhere, that the best thing that the Federal government could do to encourage change would be to review involuntary denied boarding compensation…The number, set at $400 for passengers forced to wait for a new flight over two hours, $200 for less….has been unchanged since deregulation in 1979…means [...]

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 [...]