When I landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport today, I had one of my easiest, fastest and smoothest international arrival experiences. But I wondered where all those airlines that last year fought and won a fierce battle over the right to fly to Haneda actually were.
It appears the industry overestimated Haneda’s appeal to travelers, and it also might have miscalculated how many passengers remain in Tokyo, as opposed to those who connect to other destinations.
It’s true that the March earthquake and tsunami had a negative impact on travel to Japan in general, but traffic to and from the much bigger Narita Airport has largely recovered.
Haneda’s smaller size and proximity to central Tokyo provide a significant advantage. However, as I first wrote two years ago, most medium- and long-haul flights arrive and depart between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. — not exactly the most preferred time by the majority of travelers. In addition, onward flight connections from Haneda are extremely limited.
That didn’t seem to bother most airlines last year, when the rights to fly from various foreign cities to Haneda were being awarded by the Japanese and other governments. U.S. carriers in particular made rather bold proposals. In the end, the Department of Transportation gave American Airlines the right to fly from New York, Delta from Detroit and Los Angeles, and Hawaiian Airlines from Honolulu.
American’s flights are nowhere to be found in its winder schedule, though they are planned for next summer. The same goes for Delta’s Detroit flights. It does operate the LA flight throughout the year, as does Hawaiian on the Honolulu route. Air Canada has postponed indefinitely its plan for flights from Vancouver, even though it started selling tickets late last year.
The Japanese carriers have trimmed their plans, too. All Nippon Airways has kept only LA in North America, while Japan Airlines serves San Francisco. European and other long-haul routes are also very few.
British Airways is the only foreign carrier outside Asia and the United States that currently flies to Haneda — and not every day. The Asian carriers include Air China, Asiana, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, AirAsia, China Eastern, Eva Airways, Korean Air, Malaysia Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways.
Flights loads to and from Haneda are not what those carriers expected — my Singapore Airlines flight was less than half-full in Economy and about two-thirds full in Business Class, where I had two lie-flat seats to myself, though even one would have been just fine.
Related stories:
When ‘open skies’ aren’t really open
U.S. flights likely to Tokyo Haneda
Continue reading about Carriers lose appetite for Tokyo Haneda
One of this column’s goals is to point out nuisances in the air travel system and help you avoid them or minimize their negative impact. As I welcome the many readers who have become subscribers since my book, “Decoding Air Travel,” came out, I’d like to tell you about one such nuisance.
As my regular readers are well aware by now, I always know in what booking class a future ticket will be issued. I search for availability in that booking class and choose flights with available seats. That’s why, even if I have to make a reservations with an agent on the phone, I know how much the ticket will cost before I make the call.
The only time when this strategy fails is when I need an airline to book a seat on a partner-carrier, and the ticketing airline’s agent can’t “see” availability in the respective booking class in the partner’s inventory. I’m not talking about award seats, so comparisons with United’s StarNet blocking practice would be misplaced — this is about revenue tickets fully paid for with money, not miles.
So why don’t agents see availability in a certain booking class or fare bucket on another carrier? It usually has to do with the Global Distribution System (GDS) they use to book tickets. For example, United currently uses Apollo and Lufthansa Amadeus. Although most of the time the two systems show identical data, there may be occasional delays, and a United agent may not see a Lufthansa seat displayed as available on Amadeus.
I can explain most things in the airline world, but British Airways and Iberia posed a new challenge last month that left me utterly perplexed. The two companies and Oneworld alliance members merged last fall, and they both use Amadeus, which would mean that their agents should see the same data on their screens — at least it would mean so to a logically thinking person. That person, however, would be wrong.
I was booking a trip for a friend, who is also a client, from Washington to Africa in Business Class. He has Gold status with BA and wanted to fly BA to London and connect to Madrid and on to Africa on Iberia.
According to the BA website, his destination doesn’t exist — many airline sites don’t show cities they don’t fly to, but it’s high time BA added the airports served by Iberia now that they are one company. Fine, I thought, what’s the other option? Naturally, the Iberia site, as the Washington-London BA flight could be booked as an Iberia code-share. There was one problem, though: Iberia priced the desired itinerary almost $4,000 higher than BA.
Clearly, the only thing left to do was to call BA — an exercise I don’t look forward to because of the long waiting time. When I finally got an agent at BA’s call center in Jacksonville, Fla., she said there were no available seats in Business Class on Iberia’s flight from Madrid to the African destination, which I’m not revealing on purpose.
I thought she was joking. Amadeus was showing seven open seats in the full-fare Business booking class I needed, which is J class on Iberia. BA doesn’t code-share that particular flight, so it had to be booked a “true” Iberia flight number.
I started scratching my head. How was it possible for BA’s Amadeus-powered computers to show no seats at all when there were seven? Perhaps it had to do with the point of sale (POS) — I’ve seen airlines alter the inventory on the same flight, depending on where you view the data. But both the BA agent in Florida and I were in the U.S. Still, I changed the POS from the U.S. to Europe, but there was no difference. I also called Iberia to verify the seats were indeed available, and Iberia’s agent in Miami saw exactly what I did.
The BA agent tried to explain the discrepancy by telling me that Iberia hadn’t “given” BA any seats, but I immediately asked her to stop making stuff up. There is no such thing as one airline “giving seats” to another — anyone can book a seat if the operating airline has published it in its inventory, even if the second carrier is not a partner of the first.
Despite all the mystery and frustration, that wasn’t the end of the world, I thought. I asked the BA agent to waitlist the segment in question. My plan was to call back in case another agent could find a way to “see” the seat I needed, and if that failed, I would call Iberia and have them clear the waitlist, since their agent had confirmed availability earlier.
I’ve done just that with Star Alliance carriers several times. For example, Singapore Airlines tends to be stingy with D class availability on intercontinental flights. Star uses D class on round-the-world Business Class tickets, and Singapore deems those fixed fares too cheap. If I issue a ticket with another carrier, it might waitlist a Singapore segment. I’d then call Singapore and ask a supervisor to clear the waitlist if he or she found it appropriate. I’ve also done that with Lufthansa, Japan’s All Nippon Airways, South Korea’s Asiana and others.
However, that simple procedure proved too hard for the merged BA and Iberia, both of which use Amadeus, as mentioned earlier. When I called Iberia back, the agent saw available J seats but said that only BA could clear the waitlist. Except that BA couldn’t, because its agents saw no seats. The Iberia agent’s claim sounded odd, because Iberia controls its own inventory, and I thought it had a way to indicate electronically to BA that a waitlisted seat can be confirmed. So I called back but got the same response from another agent.
Then I phoned BA again and asked the agent to call Iberia, hoping the waitlist could be cleared that way. After keeping me on hold for about 20 minutes, the agent hung up without coming back on the line.
I’d had enough of both carriers’ nonsense, so I took matters in my own hands. I called Iberia yet again and asked the agent to book just that one segment in question separately from the original booking. He gave me the new record locator, and I called BA again, explained the situation and asked that agent if she could incorporate the second booking into the initial one and issue the ticket that way.
She couldn’t but a supervisor was able to do it. Part of me was grateful, but the other part was frustrated that the previous BA agents I’d spoken with never offered me the option I eventually thought of, and wasted hours of my time.
What sort of a merger have BA and Iberia created if they can’t perform the most basic airline function — booking available seats on each other’s flights?
Related stories:
British Air loses bags on $12,000 ticket
The peculiarities of airline agent training
American’s antiquated ticketing process
United fliers hit by pre-merger changes
Continue reading about British Air, Iberia’s dysfunctional merger
My previously high regard for Singapore Airlines has been sinking quickly in the last week. Dealing with its agents regarding an award ticket has been one of my worst airline experiences in years. Now we learn that the carrier did little to help a passenger who suffered a heart attack during a flight last month.
When I wrote about Singapore’s “maddening perfection” in September, I pointed out that it deserves all the accolades it gets for its on-board products and in-flight services. However, the airline hasn’t quite understood that being a global first-class company means much more than that.
I usually try to stay calm with airline agents on the phone and give them the time they need, even when it’s clear they are not very good. That turned out to be a serious challenge last week with Singapore agents assigned to the carrier’s frequent-flier program, KrisFlyer. It’s stunning how poorly trained they are, even though they are based in Singapore — not India, as their accents suggest. A few years ago, the carrier closed its Los Angeles call center, where agents were much better.
I wanted to change the dates of three out of four flight segments on an award ticket entirely on Air Canada, Singapore’s partner in the global Star Alliance. I booked it a few months ago with the last KrisFlyer miles I’ll ever have. As usual, I’d done my homework using the All Nippon Airways’ website, which is the only site showing award availability on every Star carrier. All flights I requested had an open seat.
Normally, if a Star airline has provided a seat for mileage redemption on StarNet, the alliance’s “middleware,” any member has access to that seat on a first-come-first-served basis. You probably know how that system works from my columns about United’s StarNet blocking.
Still, there is a small chance an agent may not see exactly what I see, due to using different systems, time delays and other variables. So when I called Singapore, I gave the agent my first segment and asked him to check for availability. He wanted to know all three flights. I said I couldn’t book the return unless I knew for sure on what day my outbound flight would be. He responded that he couldn’t look for seats one by one, but had to collect all the information from me before searching.
Most airline agents can tell you immediately whether an award seat is available on a certain flight — they either look at inventory or, in rare cases, request a partner seat and see if the other airline confirms it. I later verified with several other Singapore agents that what my first agent told me is indeed how they do things over there. So I gave him all my three new flights. Having written them down, he wanted to read them back to me before starting his search. That took over a minute of odd stumbling over what one would have thought was someone else’s handwriting.
My patience was almost running out when the real shocker came — he asked on what number he could call me back once he had looked for seats. Seriously? Award seats could vanish in seconds, let alone in whatever time he needed to perform what apparently amounted to a rather complex task. I said I preferred to hold while he was searching.
After keeping me on hold for 15 minutes, he disconnected the call without coming back. I called again and went through the same motions with another agent. Following a 10-minute hold, he said one of the new flights wasn’t available. I went back to the All Nippon website — that seat was gone indeed. After all, it had been more than half an hour since I’d first called.
Make no mistake about it — I lost a seat because of the incompetence and poor training of the Singapore agents, as well as the carrier’s inefficient system. Such lack of professionalism is to be expected from a third-world airline, but not from a carrier that is often named the best in the world in various rankings.
Slightly off point, the second agent also said that another one of the flights I wanted was not available — however, the All Nippon site was still showing an open seat. Even now, several days later, that flight shows as available on the site. I just called Singapore and a third agent said she couldn’t see it. I wonder if Singapore does its own blocking these days, taking its cue from United.
In my September column, I also wrote about Singapore employees narrowly following rules and not applying their own best judgment to specific situations that inevitably arise during air travel. In other words, they don’t really exhibit much humane behavior.
I was still surprised to learn this week about an utterly puzzling Singapore decision in March.
Max Pearson, a co-host of “The World Today” BBC program to which I listen almost every day, flew to London on Singapore on his way back home from covering the Japan earthquake and tsunami. Shortly after taking off from Singapore, he suffered a heart attack. The airline refused his request to return to Singapore or divert the flight to the nearest appropriate airport, so he could get the care he needed.
Singapore says it took the measures it deemed necessary, implying that Pearson’s condition was not serious enough to justify a diversion. Obviously, diversions are very expensive for an airline, but they are covered by insurance. Plus, Pearson had what has been described by media reports as a “life-saving surgery” as soon as he arrived in London.
It remains to be determined if the more than 12 hours Pearson had to endure on the Singapore plane might have complicated his condition.
Related stories:
Singapore Airlines’ maddening perfection
What to do with empty premium seats?
Airlines require credit cards at check-in
Airlines want budget, premium fliers
Continue reading about Singapore Air’s inept agents, dark side
US Airways has denied recent suspicion that it has begun to block award seats made available by its Star Alliance partners for mileage redemption by members of its Dividend Miles program — a practice pioneered by United Airlines, which I first exposed in 2008.
The airline has been silent on the issue since reports about apparent blocking surfaced last fall. Many travelers said they found award inventory on various Star carriers, using one or more of the publicly available sources — the websites of All Nippon Airways, Continental Airlines and Air Canada — but US Airways agents were unable to see those available seats.
To some of us, that looked very much like StarNet blocking — manipulating the alliance’s award “middleware,” which provides access to any Star partner’s inventory on a first-come-first-served basis, to avoid paying other carriers for seats booked on their flights. The patterns resembled those on United, with the most filtering applied to Business and First Class cabins, though some fliers stumbled on coach seats as well. The most affected availability appeared to be on Lufthansa, but also on Swiss, United and others.
In addition, it made financial sense for US Airways to be limiting access to premium partner awards. In the last couple of years, it has in effect been printing miles with lightening speed, as a result of extraordinary promotions it has had, including selling miles at 100-percent bonus. Many Dividend Miles members bought miles and redeemed them for Business and First Class on partner flights, which likely weighed heavily on US Airways’ budget.
Several travel bloggers wrote about the issue, including Gary Leff on “View from the Wing” and Ben Schlappig on “One Mile at a Times.” Leff was more inclined to give the airline the benefit of the doubt, suggesting the problem might have been caused by technical glitches, as well as US Airways agents’ ignorance that some of their partners have First Class in addition to Business.
I’m not a big Dividend Miles fan, though I did help my sister buy miles for a trip to Europe with her family last summer, so it took me some time to look into the issue. I finally got around to it and alerted a US Airways contact at its Phoenix headquarters who has been very helpful in the past — Valerie Wunder, associate manager of media relations. She asked the powers that be and gave me the following response:
“We don’t block award inventory on other airlines, nor do we do the inverse — other Star partners block us from seeing their inventory to maximize their revenues.”
Probably the most frequent difficulty Dividend Miles members have been experiencing has to do with intercontinental First Class awards on Lufthansa, Swiss and others, so I asked Wunder if US Airways may be trying to restrict access to those specific seats.
“We have no restrictions on redemptions, regardless of class,” she said.
However, she offered no explanation for the problem. The mystery continues.
Related stories:
Clarifying United’s StarNet blocking
US Airways hears feedback, fixes website
New Lufthansa business class in a year
Continental shows new transparency
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.
Related stories:
Round-the-world fare mysteries revealed
What to do with empty premium seats?
Airlines require credit cards at check-in
Airlines want budget, premium fliers
Continue reading about Singapore Airlines’ maddening perfection
