Tag Archives: air travel

Air China: Our new favorite airlines

Air China, not to be confused with China Airlines which is the one based in Taiwan, is now my favorite airlines for flying with kids. The individual entertainment center on the seat back includes movies, TV shows, inflight information, games, and even a camera showing the view from the bottom of the aircraft. (And yes, wise guy, most of the time, you only see white clouds…) And the movies include kids’ movies, and more than one. So many choices I didn’t know what to do with them so I decided to listen to the music. That’s how overwhelming it was…
This was for a mere 3-hour flight. So now I am dreading our flight back to the US on United, which has absolutely nothing. Nothing to entertain the kids. Nothing. They also now charge $6 for alcoholic beverages, so I cannot even booze up now…

More on the US Air plane landing in the Husdon River…

The BOOT – The Business of Online Travel: Can a plane land on water and have survivors? Of course it can!

This blog post has many more links to information concerning the US Air plane landing in the Hudson River. It is interesting to view this incident from the perspective of someone from the travel industry. (Again, I am able to do all these theorizing now only because everybody was safe and sound).

All of a sudden, there is a Sully fever: apparently more than one fan site was created on Facebook alone, and this one has almost 74,000 fans! And of course, guess what? The domain Chelseysullenberger.com was immeidately bought and put up. America, you never disappoint!

“Pay-As-You-Go Airline Charges by the Minute”

This from one of my fav magazines, Wired.
 
When I saw the headline, I thought to myself, "Great, now they have run out of things to charge us for, since they are asking the passengers to pay for everything including tiny bags of pretzels and water, they are going to charge us for sitting on the runway too?"  Luckily for travelers, the upstart airline, Airtime Airlines based in South Africa, will not be charging their passengers more for time spent by the plane idling and waiting in line to take off.  Whew. Now that's a relief.
 
This reminds me of the "Onion-esque" unveiling of the fictional airliner Derrie-Air threatening to charge by individual passenger's weight: "the more you weigh, the more you'll pay. After all, it takes more fuel—more energy—to get more weight from point A to point B…"  (It's a shame really. That would be one urgent reason for me to finally follow my default annual New Year resolution of getting on a diet…)  Only that Airtime Airlines is not fictional, it is a real airline, or, well, almost a real one, as soon as they get their hands on real aircraft that can fly real passengers… 
 
"Taking a cue from the cellphone industry, an upstart South African airline is selling flights by the minute and allowing customers to buy tickets and book flights via text message…  passengers will buy minutes instead of a traditional point-to-point ticket. They can buy a "starter pack" of prepaid minutes and top off their accounts by purchasing more minutes — by text message — at the going rate of 5 Rand (about 53 cents) a minute. Flight times have been mapped out in advance, so sitting on a runway for three hours won't triple the cost of your ticket.

Topping off accounts is where things get interesting. The cost for Airtime minutes can fluctuate, presumably according to promotions and market factors, so topping off becomes an exercise comparable to fuel hedging. Buy a big block of minutes when you think they're at their cheapest and you look smart, unless the price drops again the next day. Then again, it might go up. The price recently rose from 3 Rand to 5 Rand, meaning the cost of a round-trip flight from Durban to Cape Town climbed from about 750 Rand ($81) to 1,250 Rand (about $134). Still that's cheaper than the $200 it would cost on South African Airlines."

Read the entire article here.

Cliche: History repeats itself OR I am really really pissed

Or is it?

From NPR:

“In 1979, Chrysler avoided collapse by getting $1.5 billion in loans from the government. Charles Hyde, professor of history at Wayne State University and author of Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation, says in return Congress insisted that the company come up with some $2 billion in cost-savings and concessions.”

I mean, is it a cliche if history DID repeat itself?

Or maybe not, since it seems that at the last bailout of Chrysler, the Gov. actually came out ahead (to the tune of $500 million). How about this time? People have changed in the last 3 decades. 30 years ago people did not grow up with such a sense of entitlement, corporate greed was not openly a norm, and personal responsibilities were taught and valued.

Fast forward to today. Ok, fine, Tuesday. The Big 3 Automakers’ CEOs flew on their own private jets, not ONE, but THREE, to Washington today to make the case for their needing to be rescued. Seriously? You can’t make this stuff up.

Here is more of this priceless gem from ABC:

“The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation’s capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.

The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.

All three CEOs – Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler – exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM’s $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.”