Your money: Spirited away

I am continually amazed at the creativity displayed by the airline industry in coming up with new fees. Today, Spirit Airlines announced that it will charge up to $45 each way for a carry-on bag stored in the overhead bin.

Flying truly is becoming a pure à la carte business model. Will this be the fee that broke the customer's back? Or will we keep paying and paying for less and less?


Life vest $15 if purchased online, $25 if purchased on the plane
($100 if purchased after impact)
 

Interactive urinals and other advertising

Just what is an "Interactive Urinal Communicator," you ask? One of a number of creative ways advertisers are using to engage our eyeballs. (Yes, there is such a thing.) Whether we're peeing, standing in an elevator or pumping gas, we're a captive audience for an apparently valuable part of any given day. And advertisers are increasingly trying to capitalize on that.

Nowhere are we more captive than at 30,000 feet. And advertiser agency Brand in the Hand knows it. They're hoping to earn our goodwill for their clients by hitting us with ads during that brief flash of excitement when the flight attendant hands us a free (for now) bag of peanuts.

But simply slapping ads everywhere isn't the trick. "The challenge for Brand In Hand and any company or marketer entering ambient media is to make sure their brand message is adding value to the consumer," says Andrew Hampp of Advertising Age in the CNN.com article.

I'm a voracious bathroom reader, so I'm looking forward to the day when USA Today sponsors the airplane lavatory and prints the news on each sheet of toilet paper. Talk about adding value....
 

Southwest's baby steps: "optional" fees

Southwest Airlines has so far made a name for itself staying out of the airline industry's Year of the Fees. Last year, I wrote about their marketing campaign in which they bragged about not charging fees to check baggage. That's still the case, even as they lose millions—and other airlines bring in millions with baggage fees.

But now they're taking baby steps into Fee Land, offering an optional $10 fee to get a priority spot in the boarding queue. For those of you who haven't flown Southwest, they do not assign seats; it's first-come, first-served. So your position in the boarding queue is critical if you don't want to sit in a middle seat.

The more people who take advantage of this new option, the fewer aisle and window seats will be available to those who don't. I predict the tipping point will be reached quickly, and the $10 fee will become all but standard. I also predict this is the beginning of Southwest's journey toward charging the same fees as all the other guys.
 

Is Arthur Frommer an "Ugly American"?

Arthur Frommer is one of the most well respected voices in the travel industry. He's been writing travel guidebooks for more than 50 years, and has grown the Frommers line into one of the industry's top brands. But, with all due respect, maybe it's time for him to retire.

I'm blogging about old news at this point, but a couple of weeks ago, Frommer wrote fearfully about the presence of firearms at a political demonstration in Arizona, ultimately announcing a boycott of travel to the state. He felt the very presence of guns was de facto intimidation, and called the gun-toting demonstrators—who were law-abiding citizens—"extremists." I'm probably starting to lose those of you who believe in gun control, but please read on; this posting is not about politics.

The best kind of traveler is he or she who respects the culture and values of the place they are visiting. Conversely, the worst kind of traveler does the opposite, tries to impose their own beliefs and expectations on those who live where they are only visiting. Lacking evidence to the contrary, I have always believed Arthur Frommer to be the former; how else does one become a star in the travel industry over a 50-year career?

But Frommer's rant makes me think of the old label "Ugly American," defined by Wikipedia as "a pejorative term for Americans traveling or living abroad who remain ignorant of local culture and judge everything by American standards." Revising that definition slightly, I'd say the shoe fits: "Pejorative term for American liberals traveling to other states who remain ignorant of local culture and judge everything by American liberal standards."

Yes, maybe traveling from uptown Manhattan to downtown Phoenix does not constitute foreign travel in a strict geopolitical sense; but culturally, the two places might as well be on different continents. In any case, regardless of one's politics or stance on the Second Amendment, the fact remains that here we have a travel professional boycotting a state just because the citizens of that state have different values than he. That's just plain wrong. In my book, that makes him an "Ugly American."

And if that's the kind of perspective that Arthur Frommer has to offer these days, then I think it's time for him to consult his own reference material (pictured at right), before he ruins the reputation of the brand that bears his name.
 

AYCJ: An air travel smorgasbord

I have to hand it to my favorite airline, JetBlue, for their creativity. They have just announced the AYCJ (All-You-Can-Jet) pass: fly anywhere you want, as often as you want, from September 8 to October 8. The cost is $599 (domestic taxes and fees included), and you can choose from the more than 50 cities that JetBlue serves. Read the full details here; it really does seem to be as good as it sounds.

But act now; you only have till next Friday—or while supplies last—to buy the AYCJ pass. I'll be picking one up myself. Those friends and family members who live in cities served by JetBlue, better get your couch ready for me!
 

Continental flight "stranding" may be a good thing

If it were a bad made-for-TV movie, it might be called "The Stranding of Flight 2816."

Last week, a Continental Airlines flight spent nine hours on the tarmac while trying to fly from Houston to Minneapolis. Thunderstorms forced the plane to divert to Rochester, MN, where it sat on the tarmac—full of passengers—overnight until it finally deplaned the passengers after seven hours. The airline then waited another couple of hours, reboarded the passengers and completed the flight to Minneapolis.

That's the thumbnail version of the story. But when you start peeling back the layers, more and more outrageous details emerge.

- The Continental plane had only one lavatory, and at some time during the night, it stopped flushing and began to stink up the cabin.

- The plane was only 85 miles from its final destination, which means the airline could have easily put passengers on a bus instead.

- Continental's regional partner ExpressJet (which operated this flight) claimed that the airport was not staffed or set up appropriately at that time of night to deplane passengers safely. According to the manager of the airport, however, there was plenty of staff on hand—ground handlers from Delta Airlines, in fact, repeatedly volunteered to help—and a secure area in the airport was available, where security re-screening would not have been necessary.

- In fact, a Northwest Airlines flight was diverted to Rochester after the Continental flight, and they were able to deplane—and the airline made the decision to bus the passengers on to Minneapolis (where they arrived at about the same time the Continental passengers were just being let off the plane for the first time).

- Tellingly, the flight crew on the Northwest flight had "timed out"—that is, they had reached the maximum time they were allowed to fly. So, if a timed-out crew can be deplaned, but passengers with a crew that isn't timed out have to endure hours of wailing babies and overflowing toilets, it certainly leaves the impression that airline labor issues are more important than concern for passengers' well being.

As the title of this blog posting suggests, there may actually be some good news out of all this, believe it or not. The Obama administration is investigating the incident to determine if any laws were broken. More importantly, the incident may be the final push needed to pass the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in 2007. Among other things, the legislation would mandate deplaning of passengers after a three-hour wait on the tarmac. (Continental already has a policy for doing so "if it is safe," but this incident clearly shows the judgment of the airline's dispatchers can't be relied upon in all cases.)

Enough is enough.
 

RyanAir: Pay to pee

A few months back, I reported that RyanAir was considering the implementation of a fee that has long been a standing joke when it comes to airline fees: a charge to use the lavatory. Believe it or not, they are making good on their threat.

Starting sometime in the next year or two, Europe's budget airline will charge passengers to take a pee. Not only that, they're planning to reconfigure their planes to remove two of the three lavatories to make room for more seats.

As one reader opined in a comment to one of the news stories I read, someone should investigate whether it's legal to sell beverages without providing a free lavatory. While they're at it, they should investigate some of the airline's other new or proposed policies, such as doing away with airport check-in counters and forcing passengers to pay to check in online; firing their baggage handlers and making passengers load their own bags onto planes; and perhaps even charging for air sickness bags. (No, I am not making this up.)

One has to wonder when enough is enough....
 

$9 nonstop fares - no, really

Do you need to fly between Newark, New Jersey; Melbourne, Florida; South Bend, Indiana; Toledo, Ohio; or Lansing, Michigan? For most of you, the answer is probably "No." But if so, news of America's newest low-fare airline might interest you. Jet America opened for business today, and takes to the skies beginning July 13.

The airline's introductory fares, clearly designed to grab headlines, are priced at $9 each way for the first nine seats on each flight. If you manage to get one of those seats, however, then of course you'll pay more. Based on a sample flight that I looked up, the minimum out-of-pocket cost will be $49 after all taxes and fees. Still, not bad for a nonstop round-trip flight on a 737—if you're traveling between any of the aforementioned cities (which, other than Newark, are not exactly high-in-demand destinations).

From what I've been able to find out, it seems Jet America will follow the RyanAir model of making money off miscellaneous fees, such as a $5 fee (each way) for booking online ($10 for phone reservations), and $10 for a reserved seat assignment.

We're getting closer and closer to that coin-operated lavatory....
 

Surf the friendly skies

The "World Wide Web" is expanding its reach skyward. This year, a number of airlines are launching GoGo's in-flight WiFi internet service, enabling those of us with WiFi-capable laptops and mobile devices the online access we've been dreaming about. The service is already available on many Virgin America flights, and is rolling out on select American, United, Delta and AirTran routes later this year. (United says the service will be available "in summer" on its JFK-LAX and JFK-SFO routes; I'll be flying the former next month, so I'm eager to see if GoGo is available then.)

Not surprisingly, there will be a fee for access; surprisingly, the fee sounds rather reasonable, at least when you remember how much those Airphone calls cost. For laptops, it costs $9.95 for flights of three hours or less ($12.95 for longer flights), and only $7.95 for those of us using iPhones or other mobile devices. That's a much better deal than $5 for a sandwich that tastes like the cardboard box it comes in. As of now, GoGo will only be available on U.S. domestic flights.

I'm sure this is not welcome news to everyone. But I don't see this changing anything (yet) about the in-flight experience. Laptops are already ubiquitous, and people are well-trained to wear headphones when using them. Browsing the Web is a mostly quiet activity, so I don't see it as any more disruptive as someone watching a DVD on their notebook.

What does worry me, however, is the "gateway drug" nature of offering internet in-flight. It seems inevitable for this to lead to cell phone service in the sky. If that ever happens, then I will suddenly become a Luddite. I would rather fly behind a crying baby or in front of a seat-kicking toddler than next to someone who talks on the phone through the entire flight. (The article I read claimed that Skype would not be available through GoGo.)

Yes, I know that, by my own logic, this won't necessarily change the current in-flight experience, when people are free to talk as much and as loudly as they want to each other. But we've all observed the people who talk loudly on their phones in restaurants, pay more attention to their phones than the road on which they're driving, and bump into you on the street because they're too focused on their phone call to watch where they're walking. Do we really want to fly with those people?

Until then, though, I will happily—and quietly—surf the friendly skies whenever possible.
 

US Airways dipping into your wallet again

Since I'm flying on US Airways tomorrow and have to check a bag, I looked up their latest charges for checked baggage (which they conveniently list on a page titled "Baggage Policies" instead of "Baggage Fees"). Starting on July 9, they'll dip their hands into your wallet yet again.

After that date, if you check in and pay your baggage fees at the airport, they're going to charge you an extra $5 per bag (making it $20 for the first bag and $30 for the second bag). Sure, you can avoid this charge by checking in online and paying your baggage fees over the internet. And we're all already used to the idea of avoiding extra charges by doing things online (such as purchasing our tickets).

But what about those of us who don't have access to a computer while we're traveling? Many of us don't have or choose not to bring a laptop, and many hotels don't offer public computers. So this extra $5 fee per bag will be mandatory for many of us much of the time. How fair is that? And if you have more than two bags to check, their policies force you to check in at the airport; so they'll not only gouge you for the extra fees for multiple bags, they'll also ding you the extra $5 for each of those bags.

US Airways has led the way in the new era of airline fees. They were the first to charge for the first checked bag, and the first to be bold enough to try to charge $2 for a bottle of water. What new and creative fee will they dream up next?
 

Southwest Airlines to service LGA

Exciting news today for New York City-based budget travelers like me: Southwest Airlines—the original budget airline—will begin offering flights from New York's LaGuardia Airport (LGA) beginning June 28. Until now, New Yorkers wanting to fly out of NYC on one of Southwest's cheap flights would have to get out to Long Island's Islip Airport (an inconvenient drive or ride on the Long Island Railroad).

It's too soon to tell if Southwest will offer the cheapest flights out of LGA. A sample roundtrip flight between LGA and San Diego in July came to $456 on Southwest, but $313 on American; a nonstop between LGA and Chicago Midway, however, was less expensive on Southwest ($301) than on Delta ($307), the next cheapest fare. In any case, this is surely good news for Southwest fans and frequent flyers (such as my brother, who now has one less excuse for not visiting).
 

Travel to Mexico still safe

I've been intending to blog about the safety of travel to Mexico, but this Frommers.com editorial pretty much covers what I would have said. My friend Francisco Ussel, a Tijuana resident and business owner, has told me the same things that the Rosarito Beach mayor says in the editorial: that the violence, while serious, is largely taking place between rival drug gangs, and that tourists are not targets. Yet media reports and the general perceptions of Mexico by Americans have been tremendously damaging to Mexico's tourism industry.

Let's be honest: it has never been 100% safe to travel to Mexico. The federal police, or federales, have a well-earned reputation for corruption. The current problems with drug gangs have highlighted the reasons: they can stay uncorrupted, earn $5,000 a year, and get killed by the gangs; or they can work with the gangs, make more money, and stay alive. There are systemic things behind the corruption that need to change. But it has never been 100% safe to travel anywhere.

The same rules of travel that apply elsewhere (even to travel within the U.S.) apply to Mexico as well: Stay alert, be aware of what's going on around you, try to blend in as much as possible. And if you're going to Baja, try to avoid driving after dark (common sense advice that applied long before the drug violence erupted last year). Put things in perspective: as the Frommers article points out, New Orleans had far more murders per capita than any city in Mexico last year.

I'm not necessarily advocating travel to the border towns of Tijuana (sorry, Francisco) or Ciudad Juarez, but if I lived in San Diego again, I'd still spend the occasional weekend driving through Tijuana for points further south. There's just too much natural beauty, great food and adventure to be had, and by all accounts that I trust, it's as safe as it ever was.


Overlooking the bay of La Bufadora, near Ensenada
 

The Twitchhiker

Big hats off to Paul Smith, a.k.a. the Twitchhiker. This creative traveler has taken online social networking to new heights—or should I say, to faraway places. Whatever the proper wording for the metaphor, this guy is my new travel hero.

Harnessing the social power of Twitter, Smith set out to travel from his home in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK to a small island off the coast of New Zealand (the exact opposite side of the globe) within 30 days. The rules for his expedition: he had to travel strictly via free offers of travel and accommodation that he received from other Twitter users; he could only make plans less than three days in advance; and if he received no offers within 48 hours, he would have to return home.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, it's a microblogging site where users post very brief messages about whatever they're doing at any given moment (as those of you who use Facebook do when you update your status). Smith set out on March 1, and he's already in New Zealand. Simply astounding. And proof positive of the sense of community that social networking sites like Twitter create.

Read more about his story; it's quite impressive.
 

Check-ins of the future

I've had some interesting hotel check-in experiences. At the W Times Square in New York City, the lobby was not on the ground floor. Instead, I boarded an elevator just inside the ground-floor entrance, went to the seventh floor, and stepped out into a nightclub lounge. Tucked away off in a corner, I eventually found the front desk and checked in.

At the Omni Hotel in San Diego, I had barely stepped into the lobby when a waiting clerk greeted me and asked my name. Before I even reached the front desk, the clerk handed me a key and guided me to a nearby elevator. No lengthy credit card verification or reservation confirmation; just "welcome" and "here's your key."

While those check-in experiences impressed me, I would sure like to try checking in at an Andaz, Hyatt's answer to Starwood's hip W brand. At Andaz, you don't walk up to a check-in counter; you take a seat in a comfortable chair, and they come to you, checking you in via a handheld computer.

Of course, I look forward to the day when embedded chips in my luggage and wallet enable the following check-in scenario: I get out of the taxi and drop my bags at the entrance, where they'll be scanned and automatically routed to my room. As I walk through the entrance, a scanner reads the chip in my wallet and checks me in. I stroll to the elevator, where a scanner detects my chip, displays my room number on a screen, and takes me to my floor. When I reach my room, I wave my wallet against a card reader to open the door. Now that's a fancy check-in.
 

"Year of the Fees" here to stay

I've blogged aplenty about new airline fees for everything from checked baggage to pillows, even calling 2008 "The Year of the Fees." However you may feel about these fees, get used to them—they're apparently here to stay. This New York Times article outlines ways in which the airline industry is standardizing and codifying these a la carte fees. They wouldn't be doing that if they considered these fees a temporary, stop-gap measure to recoup losses.

So, I hope you've learned some useful skills this past year to avoid these fees—carrying on all your luggage, packing your own snacks, bringing your own pillow—because you'll be using them for the foreseeable future.

Happy flying.
 

Quoted again by Fodors

Fodors likes me. Or at least likes what I have to say. I've been quoted again, this time in the 2009 edition of their Washington, D.C. guidebook. On the intro page to the "Side Trips" chapter, you'll find my recommendation to rent a bike and ride the Mt. Vernon Trail to the home of George Washington (again quoted as "RaymondLuxuryYacht," my handle in the Fodors travel forums).

Now that I think about it, I can't believe I've never written in this blog about the Mt. Vernon Trail, or even posted a Friday Travel Photo from that gorgeous bike trail. It was my favorite thing to do when I lived there, and I'd call it a must-do if you visit our nation's capital. Seeing the National Mall, the Potomac and Mt. Vernon are all common sights to see for most visitors, so why not rent a bike and see them all from the saddle? You can ride along the Mall, stopping to see some of the monuments; cross over Memorial Bridge (which crosses the Potomac between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery); and cruise alongside the river for about 10 miles to Washington's historic plantation home. Along the way, you'll travel through lush green tunnels of trees on a smooth and well-marked bike trail.

In fact, why not pick up a Fodors guidebook now and plan your trip to D.C.? While you're there, maybe you can talk some sense into our leaders, so they'll get our economy back on track.
 

Quoted in Fodors Paris 2009

I just learned that I was quoted in one of the "Word of Mouth" sidebars in the 2009 edition of the Fodor's Paris travel guide. My quote concerned the Catacombs, a place of darkness that is ironically one of my favorite places in the City of Light. The quote, attributed by Fodors to "RaymondLuxuryYacht" (my Fodors.com handle, with apologies to Monty Python), doesn't offer much info, so I'm not sure what prompted them to select it. By all means, go out and buy a copy of the guide, especially if you have plans to visit Paris, but I also invite you to read my more in-depth impressions (pardon the pun) of the Paris Catacombs.

On an unrelated note, I've put this time away from blogging to good use, and just succeeded in meeting the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. I still have to slog through more pages to finish the first draft, but I achieved the necessary word count to be called a "winner" of the "contest."
 

Hurricane Omar brushes Dutch Antilles

Last week, a late-season hurricane named Omar swept through the Caribbean. The election-frenzied American media barely gave it a passing mention, and I didn't pay any attention myself.

So imagine my surprise to learn tonight that the storm brushed Curacao, the island in the Dutch Antilles where I proposed to Cassie last month. I quickly emailed Sunshine, a friend we made down there, who described destructive waves, flooded homes and widespread damages (though fortunately no loss of life).

Back in August, when flooding wreaked havoc on Havasu Falls in Arizona, I posted a before & after set of photos. Sunshine sent me links to pictures of Omar's fury, and I found one that showed waves pounding Playa Lagun. Check out the before & after pics below. I shot the first one during our visit; the second was taken last week. It's no tsunami, but keep in mind that Curacao is supposedly outside the hurricane belt, and the seas are flat 360 days a year.

I'm glad the people are okay. I hope the coral fared as well.




 

Southwest flies into the red

The hard times in the airline industry in particular, and the broad economy in general, finally hit that bastion of airline profitability, Southwest Airlines. Today, they posted their first loss in 17 years—an amazing streak that has finally come to an end.

It's no surprise. With the crazy economic times we find ourselves in, even a savvy, creative company like Southwest is going to find it challenging to maintain profitability. I'm hardly the poster boy for these hard times—I make a decent living, I'm not a homeowner, and I haven't cut back much on my traveling—but even I am trying to fly less. I abandoned several potential trips earlier this year because the air fares were too high; I'm driving to Buffalo this weekend instead of flying; and we're using a combination of auto and train travel to go to Indianapolis for Christmas.

I'm not sharing anything new when I say that the reasons for flying less are more than economical. In my opinion, the airlines might not be having quite as bad a time if they'd tried to offset higher fares and new fees by increasing the quality of customer service. Any reasonable person understands the business need to raise prices when costs increase. But to do so in a way that negatively affects the service experience ($2 for water?) is just dumb. And to not try to ease peoples' pain by offering better customer service (which costs nothing, except for perhaps additional training) is even dumber. You're already turning people off with the higher prices; why push more of them away with bad service?

So again, it was no surprise to read that Southwest went into the red. The real surprise is going to be the news that an airline posted a profitable quarter. Who knows when that will happen?
 

Plan for New York airports ready to take off

In case you didn't hear about it yesterday, the Bush administration finalized plans to auction off slots and cap the number of flights at the three major New York City area airports. The Port Authority, airline industry and key members of Congress oppose the plan, saying it won't solve the problems, and that it'll hurt already-hurting airlines.

I have no idea if the plan will work. But the fact is that our three crappy, overcrowded airports are responsible for two-thirds of all the flight delays in the country. Even if you're flying nowhere near New York, chances are good that your flight started its day here, or flew through here. They pack too many flights in here, and when the inevitable weather issues throw a wrench in the gears, the effects ripple all the way through the system.

As usual, the opponents of this plan complained loudly but offered no alternatives. If you don't have a better plan, then sit down and shut up. Maybe this plan won't work, maybe we travelers will pay the price when the airlines pass on the auction costs to us through ticket prices and surcharges. But at least someone's trying something.