Posted by admin on March 1st, 2011
Airline passengers should prepare themselves for sticker shock this year.
Posted by admin on February 17th, 2011
Vision Air is landing in a business where profits are often delayed (Photo: Yuri Gripas/REUTERS)
Posted by admin on February 16th, 2011
The bill would make current passenger protections permanent and extend them to everyone flying into or out of the U.S. STORY HIGHLIGHTS
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Posted by admin on January 2nd, 2011
WASHINGTON: The US aviation system’s struggles to recover from snowstorms that closed New York’s airports last week reflect the unintended consequences of airlines’ efforts to squeeze out costs.Flights were so full and scheduled so tightly that there was no room for quick recovery when airports were closed, industry analysts said. Stranded passengers’ complaints about confusion and lack of communication may prompt reviews by air carriers and regulators about what happened and how to best respond the next time poor weather coincides with a busy travel period.”When your planes are all 90 per cent full and you cancel a flight, it’s going to take you another 10 flights to re- accommodate all those passengers,” said Darryl Jenkins, a Virginia-based aviation industry consultant. “We won’t be able to re-accommodate everybody.”Airlines have reduced seating capacity by 9.1 per cent and full-time equivalent employment by 14 per cent in the past five years, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The capacity reduction and increased passenger demand, as the economy improved, have created the airline industry’s highest load factors since World War II.That means that available seats are scarce for the as many as 1.2 million passengers who may have been affected by about 8,200 cancellations due to the snowstorm, and there are fewer employees at airports and reservation centers to assist those passengers.United Continental Holdings Inc’s Continental Airlines, which fired 600 of its 2,600 reservation agents in February because more passengers were booking on the Internet, said on Wednesday that call volume was 21/2 times normal last week as passengers sought assistance in rebooking flights.The airline, which has a hub at Newark Liberty airport, brought in more than 300 additional customer service agents, increased overtime pay and deployed 45 volunteers from Houston to Newark to help rebook passengers, said Christen David, a Continental spokeswoman.Tim Omaggio, a Morristown, New Jersey, father whose daughter was scheduled to fly from Newark to Phoenix on December 28, filed a complaint with Continental after being unable to get help from airline employees at the airport or on the phone.”That should have been all hands on deck, without a doubt,” Omaggio said in an interview on Wednesday. if you’re communicated to and told what’s going on like an adult, people are a lot more understanding. But when you’re told nothing, or sent to something that turns out to be a dead end, it makes it that much worse. It was just a lot of poor communication.”At least 332 flights were cancelled on Wednesday, three days after the worst December snowstorm to hit New York City in six decades. The disruptions affected the nation’s largest and most congested air travel market during one of the busiest times of the year. Thousands of flights were cancelled each day during the three-day storm and aftermath, spokesmen for US airlines have said.’Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways, which has a hub at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, are among the airlines that said on Thursday that they have rebooked most of the passengers stranded by the storm. JetBlue cancelled 120 flights on Saturday. Continental also cancelled 120 flights on Wednesday, primarily those operated by regional partners at Newark Liberty.Because the initial cause of this week’s flight delays and cancellations was weather, customers will be more forgiving than with delays for other reasons, said Dean Headley, co-author of the annual Airline Quality Rating and an associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University in Kansas.”With the load factors being what they are, the capacity reductions and everything, people have to understand that’s a good possibility even with good weather that flights get canceled,” Headley said in an interview on Wednesday. “If you miss a flight, you can’t just hop on the next airplane.”David Swierenga, president of aviation consultant AeroEcon in round Rock, Texas, said demand for low fares has forced airlines to cut costs by, among other things, leaving fewer empty seats.”We deregulated the industry to improve the efficiency of the industry and the airlines responded to that in spades,” Swierenga said in an interview on Wednesday.The eight biggest US carriers as a group in July reported their first quarterly profit after 10 straight losses stretching back to the final three months of 2007.During the three-year period, the airlines faced surging fuel prices, a slump in business travel during the recession and the outbreak of the H1N1 virus that prompted the suspension of some international flights.Airlines’ hands are tied, said Hunter Keay, a Baltimore- based airline analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co.The airline industry and regulators must evaluate what happened last week and make sure airlines, airports and government agencies have coordinated contingency plans, said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the Montreal-based International Air Transport Association.”We have to find out exactly what happened first,” Lott said in an interview. “It will take time. there are many parties involved, but primarily it’s the airlines, the airport and the government. There’s a lot of finger pointing that goes on, unfortunately.” The US Transportation Department is looking into details of the New York flight delays and will review other cases, Olivia Alair, an agency spokeswoman, said in an interview. – Bloomberg
Posted by admin on December 25th, 2010
MANILA, Philippines
Posted by admin on December 2nd, 2010
Sometimes, it does pay to fly. but rarely before the airlines have exhausted all other options. When they get to the end of their rope, that’s when you, the customer, get what’s known as a voucher. It’s also known as credit, but this is the airline industry, and in many ways, the airline industry is stuck in the past, a sepia-toned time, when we had things like mimeograph machines and automat diners.
Posted by admin on November 24th, 2010
Silicon Valley travelers have long favored San Jose’s airport for the nearby convenience, and thanks to its $1.3 billion makeover it now offers comfort and style to boot.
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Posted by admin on November 3rd, 2010
CHICAGO — the Thanksgiving holiday will see more airline passengers, higher fares and packed planes this year as a stronger economy stokes travel demand.
Posted by admin on October 15th, 2010
In the merger-crazy world of the airline industry, analysts and industry experts are scanning the sky for the next big deal.
Posted by admin on October 9th, 2010
Posted at 9:48 pm October 08, 2010
Tags: Airline Industry, Tourism
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MAKATI CITY, METRO MANILA – Southeast Asian Airlines (SEAIR)announced the reopening of its flights to El Nido and Taytay in Palawan on December 1.
