Did you know that hundreds of fictitious flights inhabit airline schedules every day? They don’t exist in real life — just on paper. They are meant to make more money for the airlines by tricking customers and perverting a practice that was actually started to help travelers. In fact, they spell nothing but trouble for passengers.
Those fictitious flights are labeled “direct” by the airlines, which years ago decided to rewrite the dictionary and use that term for flights that weren’t nonstop but made at least one stop on the way to their destination. First, those flights were operated by the same aircraft, but later a “plane change” was introduced. The Department of Transportation has allowed the airlines to abuse the practice any way they like.
On my way back home from Boston last weekend, I was on United Airlines Flight 897, which the purser announced repeatedly was “a nonstop service to Washington Dulles, with continuing service to Beijing.”
I immediately cringed, because there is nothing “continuing” about the two flights, except for their number. The plane I was on was a two-cabin Boeing 757 and arrived at gate C19 at Dulles. The plane destined for Beijing was a three-cabin Boeing 777 and departed from gate C3. So the passengers connecting to Beijing did exactly what others did connecting to Flight 803 to Tokyo at gate C1 — or any other flight for that matter. They left the first plane and walked to their new gate.
Did the Beijing-bound travelers benefit in any way from the fact that their tickets had one flight from Boston to Beijing? Absolutely not. In fact, many of them were probably surprised to discover they were on two separate flights.
Then why does United even have that fictitious “direct” flight? Because it wants customers to think that they can fly from Boston to Beijing without the hassle of a connection — a competitive advantage no other carrier offers.
Have you tried to upgrade a “direct” flight? That can be a nightmare — not just for passengers but also for those who work in inventory management. They have to create inventory for a flight that doesn’t exist and to balance the load of two separate flights on different aircraft types with a different number of cabins and hugely different number of seats. As a result, the lowest booking classes and upgrades are often unavailable on “direct” flights. Some travelers are willing to pay more to avoid the hassle of transfers, not realizing there is a hidden connection.
Almost every international United flight has a domestic tag attached to it, but United is by no means the only U.S. airline abusing the system. All major carriers do it. Delta pretends to fly “directly” from Minneapolis to Moscow, Continental from Amsterdam to Denver, US Airways from Los Angeles to Zurich and American from Tokyo to Boston.
As I wrote two years ago, United and Delta are the biggest abusers, while American seems to be the most prudent in that most of its “direct” flights are operated by the same aircraft. American is also the only one whose website displays a “direct” flight as two separate segments at the very beginning of the booking process.
In the rare cases when foreign carriers, such as Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, operate “direct” flights, they are flown on the same plane, so there is no danger you will miss your “continuation,” which happens regularly on U.S. airlines. If my flight from Boston to Washington had been late, United wouldn’t have held the plane for Beijing just because the two flights share the same number.
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Singapore Airlines topped yet another industry ranking this week, and while it usually deserves the awards it wins, there are a few aspects of the way it does business that drive some customers and partner-carriers crazy. Still, don’t expect those practices to change anytime soon.
The latest awards were bestowed by Britain’s Business Traveller Magazine. Singapore was named best airline overall and also won best economy and business class. Best first class went to Emirates, probably because of the shower on its Airbus 380 aircraft.
I have yet to meet anyone who has flown Singapore and didn’t like it, regardless of which cabin they were in. It has long been the world’s leading carrier in hard-product innovation and luxury, often years ahead of its competitors. One of my favorite features is the “Book the Cook” service, which allows passengers to order meals from a long and diverse menu as soon as they buy a ticket.
Many travelers point out the incredible attention to detail that Singapore flight attendants pay, but that is not uncommon among top Asian airlines, such as Asiana and All Nippon Airways. What has impressed me the most is that, in first class, the flight attendants anticipate your next need or wish and are ready to satisfy it before you even ask.
Once during a flight, I stood up from my seat to go to the lavatory, which was behind me, and when I turned around, I saw a flight attendant dashing toward the lavatory to open the door for me. I had just enjoyed black caviar as part of a five-course dinner I probably couldn’t afford on the ground, and I loved the bedding of the fully flat seat, but for some reason that gesture meant more than the luxuries.
The trouble with perfection is that it’s impossible 100 percent of the time, and most of Singapore’s policies are written for a perfect world, which is also impossible in the airline industry. Employees of every airline must follow certain rules, but Singapore’s staff has almost no flexibility in making exceptions or bending the rules to respond to a specific case or situation.
A couple of years ago, I flew from New to Singapore, with an hour-long layover in Frankfurt. Even though there was no plane change, all passengers had to get off and re-board. As soon as I reached the gate area, I realized I’d forgotten my cell phone in my seat pocket. I wasn’t allowed back because the cleaning crew had begun working, but a gate agent went to look for the phone. She came back and said it wasn’t there.
I was the last first-class passenger to deplane, and coach and business class passengers weren’t allowed in the first-class cabin, so most likely the phone was stolen by a cleaning crew members. But after a lengthy process that involved more paperwork than I’d expected, the airline refused to offer any good-will gesture or compensation.
There is no question that Singapore has some of the best premium products in the sky, but it may be overvaluing them a bit too much.
Let’s say you’ve paid more than $10,000 for a Star Alliance round-the-world ticket in business class. If you want to fly between Singapore and Los Angeles nonstop, you have to pay an additional $900 surcharge just for that one flight for the privilege of enjoying the “new” business class seats, which are now almost four years old. Charges of $500 and $600 apply to most flight between Singapore and both Europe and North America.
In addition, Singapore often blocks access to those flights by zeroing out the inventory in D booking class, which is the one required for round-the-world tickets.
It’s no secret that Singapore thinks the current round-the-world fares are too low. There are suspicions that it’s one of the driving forces behind the drastic increases in those prices in recent years, although there is no way to know this for a fact, because the Star Alliance uses a blind process based on input from its members to determine the fares.
Even more maddeningly for customers, Singapore bans members of the frequent-flier programs of its partners in the Star Alliance, such as Lufthansa, Air Canada or United Airlines, from using miles on flights with the “new” business-class seats. While the seats are the most spacious in the industry, the ban makes redeeming miles to Europe and North America virtually impossible — there are only two flights with the old seats.
Relations between Singapore and some of its Star partners — especially United — have long been sour, mainly because Singapore thinks it’s superior and doesn’t hide it. I’ve always been amazed that Singapore doesn’t code-share any of United’s flights, but it does code-sharing with US Airways.
There have been rumors that Singapore wants to leave the alliance, but so far they are just rumors.
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Continue reading about Singapore Airlines’ maddening perfection
If you are in the hospitality business and a potential customer inquires about a product or service you are not offering at the moment, would you suggest an alternative or simply send the person away? The reservations office at the Dorchester South Beach Hotel did the latter last week, which I attributed to poorly trained staff.
I noticed on TravelZoo’s Twitter page a very attractive deal at the Dorchester, promising a room “across the street from the ocean in Miami’s trendy South Beach Art Deco District for $69 per night.” I just booked a trip to Miami in January, and though it seemed the promotion wouldn’t last that long, I thought I’d inquire anyway.
I called the hotel’s in-house reservations number, and an agent named Alvaro told me the low rate was valid only through late October. I expected he’d ask about my dates and at least check what rates he could offer — if not try to persuade me that the Dorchester’s standard prices are cheaper than the competition and I should absolutely stay there.
But Alvaro was in such a hurry to get rid of me that not only did he care little about when I wanted to visit, but I had no desire to ask about the January rates myself. I hung up in astonishment, but then I thought that it was Saturday and perhaps he was alone in the office and had other calls to answer — although I didn’t hear the phone ringing.
So I called back, only to receive the same apathy. Alvaro answered my question by telling me the standard rate was $179, and then reluctantly checked that a weekend night was $30 more. His tone and terse responses were the same as before. He obviously had no interest in even trying to win me over as a customer.
I expect his boss cares more than he does, but the Dorchester is a reputable hotel and should train its staff better. We all get annoyed sometimes when sales representatives go over the top trying to get us to buy something, even if it’s not remotely close to what we were looking for in the first place. But I’ve rarely encountered such poor customer service at what is supposed to be a luxury hospitality company.
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If anyone had any doubts that putting together the European Union’s new diplomatic service would be an utterly messy task, that is now an undisputed fact. A high-profile ambassadorial list released this week provoked publicly aired quarrels rather uncharacteristic of diplomats, and it raised questions about the future effectiveness of the EU corps.
The long-anticipated list, unveiled by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Brussels, was apparently based not on merit, but on what Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called “esoteric considerations.”
What are those? A quick look at the list shows that the most important ambassadorships are going to diplomats from the oldest EU members in the West — China was given to the Germans, Japan to the Austrians and South Africa to the Dutch. What about less important but plush posts? Of those, the Spanish got Argentina and Singapore went to Luxembourg.
So the considerations Sikorski referred to had more to do with where the diplomats come from, rather than what they can accomplish in their respective positions. “Appointments should be made on merit,” he said. “We in the new member-countries have people who speak the languages of the former Soviet Union, we have expertise there.”
Four posts out of 29 went to diplomats from Central and Eastern Europe. Despite Sikorski’s protest, Poland did better than any other former communist country, winning South Korea and Jordan. The Bulgarians got Georgia, and Afghanistan had gone to the Lithuanians earlier.
“I have appointed the best people for the right jobs,” said Ashton, whose official title is EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, as well as vice president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body. She was also criticized for choosing only eight women.
“We have made a start to address the important issues of geographical and gender balance,” Ashton said in an apparent admission that those problems are not yet resolved.
The nominees, who have to be approved by the European Parliament, may be the “best people” for the jobs from their country, but it’s questionable whether they are the best from any EU state. It’s not clear, either, that the top criteria during the selection process were actually skills, qualifications and experience.
“We are deeply disappointed,” said Slovenian Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar. “We expected more transparent decisions and that geographic balance would be taken into account, in particular for those states, like Slovenia, which have no presence at all in the EU’s foreign institutions.”
Creating the European External Action Service — the diplomatic corps’ official name — is a daunting task, and Ashton has an impossible job. She won’t be able to please everyone even if she really wants to. But more consultation with Eastern European members would go a long way.
If there is hostility among diplomats from different countries even before the foreign service’s launch, which is expected in December, it will likely affect trust and their ability to work together at the dozens of missions they are setting up around the world.
Here is the full list released by Ashton’s office on Wednesday:
China — Markus Ederer (Germany)
Japan — Hans Dietmar Schweisgut (Austria)
South Africa — Roeland van de Geer (Netherlands)
Afghanistan — Vygaudas Usackas (Lithuania)
Albania — Ettore Sequi (Italy)
Argentina — Alfonso Diez Torres (Spain)
Macedonia — Peter Sorensen (Denmark)
Bangladesh — William Hanna (Ireland)
Jordan — Joanna Wronecka (Poland)
Uganda — Roberto Ridolfi (Italy)
Senegal — Dominique Dellicour (Belgium)
Angola — Javier Puyol Pinuela (Spain)
Botswana — Gerard McGovern (Ireland)
Burundi — Stephane de Loecker (Belgium)
South Korea — Tomasz Kozlowski (Poland)
Gabon — Cristina Martins Barreira (Portugal)
Georgia — Philip Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Guinea-Bissau — Joaquin Gonzalez-Ducay (Spain)
Haiti — Lut Fabert-Goossens (Luxembourg)
Lebanon — Angelina Eichhorst (Netherlands)
Mozambique — Paul Malin (Ireland)
Namibia — Raúl Fuentes Milani (Spain)
Pakistan — Lars-Gunnar Wigemark (Sweden)
Philippines — Guy Ledoux (France)
Singapore — Marc Ungeheuer (Luxembourg)
Chad — Helene Cave (France)
Zambia — Gilles Hervio (France)
China (Deputy) — Carmen Cano de Lasala (Spain)
Papua New Guinea — Martin Dihm (Germany)
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By Nicholas Kralev
The Washington Times
December 21, 2009
Chris Guillebeau has never had a “real” job. At 31, he makes a living by advising others how to make a living without having a “real” job.
Mr. Guillebeau started out as a blogger less than two years ago, but he is already on track to earning six figures annually by selling self-published manuals on “life, work and travel.” That’s his projection for 2010. This year, he estimates he has earned up to $80,000.
“I help people live unconventional lives — to think differently, question assumptions and authority, find out what they are passionate about and overcome gatekeepers,” he said. “For me, a large part of challenging authority involves looking for alternatives to the way most people do things.”
His blog, “The Art of Non-Conformity,” is still free, but his manuals have attracted enough interest so he doesn’t need another income to live on.
“About 95 percent of the people who read me will never buy anything, and that’s totally fine. But the model is able to sustain itself because 5 percent do invest in the products,” he said. “Next year, it should be a six-figure business. I don’t need to grow it beyond that — I’m not trying to get rich.”
Mr. Guillebeau, who lives in Portland, Ore., said he has “personally connected” with about half of his 20,000 readers — mostly by e-mail, but also meeting many of them during his travels across the country and around the world. Travel is one of his passions, and he has visited more than 100 countries so far.
Ben Lopatin, business director of Wellfire Interactive, a Web-design firm, said he was initially familiar with Mr. Guillebeau’s travel blog posts but “kept reading because of his writing about entrepreneurship and unconventional perspectives on work life.”
“He’s not preaching a ‘Get rich quick’ message,” Mr. Lopatin said during one of Mr. Guillebeau’s “meet-ups” on a recent trip to Washington, where about three dozen of his fans showed up. “He’s offering tips and perspectives on rethinking how to work for the things that really matter to you.”
Elliot Susel, another reader who works for the consulting firm Accenture, said it was “abundantly clear” from his conversation with Mr. Guillebeau that “he practices what he preaches.”
“Although he’s able to provide highly individualized guidance, he instead focuses on empowering each individual with the tools that they need to make tough decisions,” Mr. Susel said.
From Mr. Guillebeau’s writing, one wouldn’t know he is a high-school dropout — after a year, he decided that, while he liked learning, he disliked everything else about high school. He began taking classes at a community college in Alabama at 16.
“They never asked for a high school diploma, and by the time they realized I didn’t have one, I’d finished one quarter and had good grades, so they let me keep going,” he recalled. When he transferred to a four-year college, he was attending classes at three schools at the same time, then pulled all his credits together and graduated in two years with a degree in sociology.
Around that time, Mr. Guillebeau got the closest thing to a “real” job — working the night shift at Federal Express in Memphis for a couple of months. Next, he started importing coffee from Jamaica and reselling it to U.S. distributors. He also sold things on eBay.
“In 1998, you could put anything on eBay and sell it. You could go to the store, buy things and people would pay more for them, just because of the novelty of it,” he said. “I went from making $20,000 to $200,000 a year.”
Having made some money, in 2002 he moved to West Africa with his wife, Jolie, whom he married at 18. He became a volunteer for a medical charity, but he “didn’t have any skills,” so his “job for the first year was to carry boxes around,” he said. Later, he moved up and was in charge of 120 people. He was also “a liaison between the organization and host governments, meeting presidents and hanging out with warlords.”
After four years in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Mr. Guillebeau returned to the United States and earned a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Washington in Seattle.
He started his website in early 2008, writing mostly about his travels, but soon “realized there would be a limited audience for that.”
“I had a message to share and wanted to establish a career as a writer; how do I do that? I wrote to every person I knew about the site and to fellow bloggers and other writers. This was going to be the most important thing I do, so I wanted to focus all of my creative energy on making it happen,” he said.
He also wrote his “flagship manifesto” with the deliberately provocative title “A Brief Guide to World Domination.”
In the past 15 months, Mr. Guillebeau has self-published five manuals, ranging from $39 to $129, on self-employment, on how to build a small business, on how to succeed as an artist without relying on established norms, on using social media and on how to play the frequent-flier game.
“The most important thing [in starting a small business] is creating a product or service with an active group of people who are already interested in the topic. This is much easier than trying to convince someone they need something they haven’t heard of before,” he said when asked for an example of the kind of advice he offers.
The best sort of entrepreneurship “focuses not on trading time for money,” as is the case in consulting, “but on developing systems that earn money while you sleep,” he added.
“The typical paths in life — school to college to entry level to mid-level to professional — don’t work for everyone,” he said. “I want to help people avoid some of the unnecessary steps to get closer to what they really want.”
This story was first published by The Washington Times
