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Articles Tagged ‘Northwest’

Virgin America launches in-flight Internet

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

Flights By Joe Brancatelli

NEED TO KNOW

On-the-Road Intelligence to Help You Travel Smarter: Frontier Airlines has changed its same-day flight change policy. Travelers who wish to change flights on the same day now can switch to any available seat for $75. No fare difference will be charged. … Sixteen months after it first announced in-flight Internet, Virgin America this week got a plane with Internet access in the skies. The price is $9.95-$12.95 a flight, depending on travel time. … The Star Alliance has opened a lounge in Terminal 1 of Paris/CDG Airport. … Southwest Airlines got bankruptcy-court approval to buy the 14 slots that ATA Airlines once used at New York/LaGuardia Airport. It means Southwest will be able to fly to a New York City airport for the first time in its history. … The Transportation Security Administration has opened its self-select security lanes at Norfolk Airport. It’s the 50th airport in the country with "black diamond" lines for frequent fliers and separate lanes for families and casual travelers.

SEASONAL STRATEGIST

So Much for That Airline-Capacity Crisis: Remember the "experts" who predicted a calamitous rise in airfares after Labor Day when the Big Six slashed their flights and seating capacity? Never happened, because demand for air travel is actually falling faster than the airlines can cut their capacity. 

  • At American Airlines, available seat miles (ASMs) last month dropped by more than 9 percent compared to November, 2007. Yet American’s load factor, the number of seats filled with paying customers, still declined by 4.6 points. A similar situation occurred at its American Eagle commuter subsidiary: Year-over-year seat capacity in November plummeted by 15.9 percent, but the load factor dropped 4.8 points.
  • Meanwhile, United reported that its November ASMs fell by 14.2 percent, but its load factor declined by 2.7 points.
  • At Continental, the seat-capacity decline was a more modest 7.3 percent, but its load factor still fell by 2.8 points.
  • US Airways cut 6.1 percent of its seats in November and its load factor fell by seven-tenths of a point.
  • The November load factor at Northwest and its regional carriers dropped 1.2 points even though they slashed seating capacity by 4.7 percent.
  • Only Delta and its commuter airlines managed to eke out a higher November load factor: It rose by a meager three-tenths of a percent on 5.3 percent fewer seats.

What’s it all mean to you? The likelihood of fare sales in 2009, as airlines try to figure out how to fill seats.

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Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2008 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.

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Delta adds flights to Europe, Asia, Africa

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

flights
By Joe Brancatelli

ROUTE MAP

Another Huge International Expansion by Delta: You have to wonder what Delta Air Lines sees that no one else does in these depressing economic times. Even granting that Delta is now mixing and matching Delta and Northwest aircraft and hubs, the airline’s announcement it would add more than a dozen new international routes next year seems extremely aggressive. It’ll be intriguing to watch to see if this tranche of the expansion is an air bridge too far. Across the Pacific, Delta will link its Salt Lake City hub to Northwest’s Tokyo  hub for the first time. Delta will also launch a New York /Kennedy-Tokyo  route, which essentially reinstates the JFK-Tokyo run that Northwest dropped several years ago. Across the Atlantic, Delta will add flights from its Kennedy hub to Valencia, Spain; Gothenburg, Sweden and Prague. Also new: a seasonal Kennedy-Zurich flight. But the big boost comes in Africa, where Delta will add new flights from its Atlanta hub to Nairobi, Kenya; Cape Town, South Africa; Monrovia, Liberia; Abuja, Nigeria; Luanda, Angola; and Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The airline is also adding a Kennedy-Lagos nonstop and an Atlanta-Johannesburg nonstop. This is all atop the previously announced new flights to Paris from Pittsburgh and Raleigh-Durham. But some routes are being cut, however. Northwest’s Seattle-London/Heathrow flights are gone effective January 9, just six months after the launch. Also going next year: Northwest’s Detroit-Paris  and Detroit-Osaka nonstops.

HOTEL HOT SHEET

Guess What? More Hotels Are Opening: The sharp fall in business travel is driving down occupancy rates and nightly rates at hotels around the world. But the hotel industry, which has a huge number of new properties in the pipeline, has no choice but to keep pumping out new locations. This week’s notables include an 1,190-room Hilton on the San Diego  waterfront and the 92-room Four Points across the street from the Philadelphia Convention Center. Meanwhile, Hampton Inn has opened a 108-room branch in Mexico City, located in a 19th-century landmark overlooking the Centro Historico. And Shangri-La has opened a 316-room hotel in Tainan, Taiwan. … On the reflagging front, the 222-room Beachside Resort in Key West is adding the Marriott brand beginning on December 15. It was once known as the Holiday Inn, but do not confuse it with the current Holiday Inn in Key West, which is located across North Roosevelt Boulevard from the Beachside.

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Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2008 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.

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What happens when airlines merge?

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Plane
By Michael Banko

I’m sure many of you are wondering what will happen with airline tickets you’ve already purchased should a merger occur within the airline industry. A possible merger between Delta and Northwest has been talked about for weeks. Though there are no hard rules, and airlines can’t comment directly, I’ve experienced past mergers and here’s how they affected my travel:

  • At the very outset, I never noticed an immediate change in front-line operations. It takes time to coordinate such efforts. All of my previously purchased airline tickets were honored.
  • I have never heard of a carrier not honoring already purchased airline tickets. Sometimes the actual carrier providing the flights may change, but this is rare, particularly in the near term. The one time I had tickets purchased 6 months prior to travel, I did experience some minor changes to my travel itinerary.
  • I have experienced actual flight and time changes even for more recent travel, but they were generally very minor. Once when a time change did cause a problem for me, the carrier promptly resolved the issue.
  • On one trip, the merged airline no longer provided flights to the city I was flying to. The airline provided tickets on another carrier at no cost to me.
  • Frequent-flier points in accounts I’ve held in other mergers have always been transferred into the "surviving" or "revised" program.
  • My "Elite" status in the frequent-flier program has always been transferred along with the points.
  • Fare rules for changes and/or cancellations have remained the same as for the originally purchased airline tickets. Actually, I was allowed a little leniency in terms of making a change to one of my tickets.
  • The biggest negative: Some routes I travel regularly saw substantial increases in everyday airfares. But, competition eventually caught up, and the fares leveled out.

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Michael Banko merchandises all Orbitz airline offers. It coincides well with his never-ending quest for that ONE BEST FARE!  Be on the lookout …

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