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.
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The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks this week reminded me of how much can go wrong in the airline industry to no fault of its own. Despite everything outside the airlines’ control, there are many reasons to criticize their performance. But how much slack should we cut them?
I’ve written several times about the increased scrutiny of the airlines by both the media and the public, compared to other industries, simply because of the nature of their business. A commercial carrier has more front-line employees than almost any other company, and it’s easier to complain about a person we see in front of us than about an invisible — and sometimes anonymous — representative.
In addition, the airline industry gets more media attention than other types of businesses by default, as many more people are believed to be interested in aviation than in the workings of a cable company or the food industry, for example — even though the latter two affect no fewer consumers than airlines do.
Let’s face it, an aircraft in any position — sitting on ground, soaring in the sky or, God forbid, engulfed in flames — makes for much better photos and video than a food-processing chain.
Bashing the airlines has been common for decades, but it has become even easier in recent years, thanks for social media and the travel blogs that have mushroomed on the Internet.
All that attention has improved customer service, as well as other parts of the airlines’ performance. I’m not talking about the on-board service, which no longer includes free drinks, meals, pillows, blankets, etc. I mean employees’ desire and ability to resolve problems. There are certainly still those who just shrug shoulders and pass you on to someone else, but the helpful ones seem to be more these days.
As my book, “Decoding Air Travel,” and all my columns can testify, I’m by no means an apologist for the airlines. I criticize them and expose their dishonest practices when they deserve it, but I also praise them when they do things right. I’ve also urged other consumer-oriented businesses to learn from the customer-friendly policies of many airlines.
So I’m more than willing to cut the airline industry some slack — not only in situations beyond its control, but also when honest mistakes have been made. For example, late last month, I had a schedule change on a future ticket, which had to be reissued. The agent I spoke with on the phone was supposed to send the reservation to a certain “queue,” but as I learned a few days later, she sent it to the refund queue. As a result, the entire itinerary was canceled, and of course no one notified me. Good thing I called back.
Things happen, so I didn’t get angry in this case. This week, however, I did get mad at US Airways for its failure to invest in a modern website — not a new issue, about which I’ve also written before. That site is probably one of the worst in the industry.
I tried to check in online for a flight from Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) to New York’s LaGuardia (LGA). Before that, I had attempted to get a seat assignment, but that’s not allowed on shuttle flights until check-in, even in First Class. I did see on the seat map, however, that my preferred 2F was available. So I began the check-in process, but the seat map didn’t open. I tried several times, to no avail. I finally exited, only to find out that the system had automatically assigned me seat 1F.
I didn’t want the bulkhead, but there was no way to change the seat I had. Web support couldn’t help, either, telling me it could only be done at the airport. Of course, by the time I got there the next day, all other seats were gone.
Why is it so difficult for US Airways to offer a working seat map during online check-in? Why is it so hard to allow changes to seat assignments? Why can the websites of United, American and many other airlines provide that service? Is it really rocket science? Almost every airline website has its problems, but US Airways’ beats them all. Its CEO, Doug Parker, needs to realize that it’s 2011.
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United Airlines, already one of the biggest abusers of fake “direct” flights before its merger with Continental, has increased further the number of those flights in its schedule. Its oddest decision was to introduce fictitious “direct” flights, which consist of two or more segments with nothing in common but their number, between its hubs.
If you are shopping for a ticket from Chicago (ORD) to Denver (DEN), be very careful which flight you book. In addition to 10 daily nonstops with flying time of about 2 hours, United currently has three “direct” flights on that route, but they make a “stop” in Minneapolis (MSP), Des Moines, Iowa, (DSM) and Kansas City, Mo., (MCI), respectively.
Watch out for any indication of that, as obscure as it may be. In most cases, those are not just “stops” — the two “legs” are operated by different aircraft, so they are simply connecting flights. For example, the first “leg” of flight 817 yesterday arrived in Minneapolis at gate E6, but the “continuation” departed from gate E10.
As I’ve written before, most flights labelled “direct” by U.S. carriers are fictitious — they don’t exist in real life. 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.
Historically, United and Delta have had more fake “direct” flights in their schedules than any other U.S. carriers, though all airlines engage in that practice.
For years, United has focused on adding at least one domestic tag to most of its international flights. For instance, flight 917 from Frankfurt (FRA) to Washington (IAD) “continues” on to Seattle (SEA), though the second flight has nothing in common with the fist. Yesterday, the flight from FRA was operated by a three-cabin Boeing 777, as usual, and arrived at IAD at gate C1. The flight to SEA was operated by a two-cabin Boeing 757 and departed from gate D4.
In the last several months, United has significantly stepped up the questionable practice on purely domestic flights. Currently, there are very few flights with only one segment. Most flights between Washington National (DCA) and Chicago (ORD) used to be one-leg flights. Now, most are part of fake “direct” flights with two or three segments.
It’s clear why the airline is selling “direct” flights from DCA to San Francisco (SFO) — it wants you to think that you can go all the way to the West coast from DCA with no hassle.
But why on earth is it selling fake “direct” flights from IAD to SFO, given that there are nine nonstops on that hub-to-hub route on most days? In its upcoming winter schedule, it has four “direct” flights between those cities. Two of them have two segments — one “stopping” in Dallas (DFW) and one in SEA. The other two have three segments each — one “stopping” in DEN and Las Vegas (LAS), and the other one in ORD and San Diego (SAN).
Is it possible that United has run out of flight numbers because of the merger? That may be the case with three-digit numbers, but what’s wrong with four-digit ones?
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The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) seems semi-serious about false airfare advertising. It fined several airlines this week for violating its rules of disclosing taxes and fees, but it still tolerates the disgraceful “one way based on a required round-trip purchase” manipulation practiced by some carriers.
Continental Airlines was fined $120,000 for failing to include fuel surcharges in fares listed on its website. US Airways and TACA, the Central American company, must pay $45,000 and $55,000, respectively, for the same wrongdoing — indicating that fares didn’t include taxes and surcharges, but not disclosing actual amounts.
“Consumers have a right to know the full price they will be paying for airfares,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “We established airline price advertising rules to protect the consumer, and will take enforcement action when these rules are violated.”
Starting on Oct. 24, DOT will require airlines to include all taxes, surcharges and government fees in advertised fares — not just using asterisks and fine-print explanations.
However, advertising only half of a ticket price will continue. As I’ve written before, I have nothing against listing one-way fares — when they can be truly bought as such. To this day, American Airlines, Delta, British Airways, Lufthansa and others promote only half of mandatory round-trip purchases on their websites.
In fact, Lufthansa doesn’t even bother to spell out the words, using instead “OW based on RT purchase.” The German carrier doesn’t do those gimmicks on its European sites because of strict European Union rules.
In March, I wrote that United Airlines became the first major U.S. carrier to begin advertising predominantly round-trip fares on its site. Continental has since followed suit. US Airways still uses a mixed method.
One would hope this item will be next on DOT’s agenda.
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American Airlines has been trying to cut booking costs by fighting to reduce the power of the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) — and the high fees they charge. However, its own ticketing process remains surprisingly outdated for one of the world’s largest carriers, and far from being cost-efficient.
It wouldn’t be difficult for American to save millions of dollars a year. All it needs to do is implement instant ticketing, which most other major airlines have had for years. The carrier says it plans to introduce instant ticketing on its website later this year, but it has no intention to allow phone reservation agents to issue tickets at this time.
“Several technology improvement processes are currently underway, which will ultimately allow instant ticketing for various functions. It won’t happen all at once, but will phase in during the second half of this year, with everything completed by the end of the year under the present schedule,” American spokesman Tim Smith said in an e-mail message.
“For now, our reservations group and its agents will continue to use their existing ticketing system,” he added. “They will, of course, monitor the situation once it’s up and running on AA.com to determine whether any changes are needed with the reservations ticketing model.”
Currently, when you purchase a ticket on AA.com or by phone, your reservation is queued up for ticketing by a dedicated department, which is the only one authorized to process credit cards. If your card is rejected, an employee is supposed to call you and let you know.
That happened to me last month — sort of. I bought a ticket on a Friday on AA.com for travel on the following Tuesday, which should have given it priority in the pipeline before reservations for later dates. But six hours later, the ticket wasn’t issued. I called American and was told there was a problem with the credit card. How was I supposed to know that? No one called or e-mailed to tell me. After I gave the agent a new credit card, it took another eight hours for the ticket to be issued.
In contrast, when you buy a ticket from other major airlines, including United, Emirates and British Airways, you get a ticket number right on the spot — both from phone agents and on their websites. If your credit card doesn’t go through, you are told immediately, so you can react. Just yesterday, I issued a ticket on the Emirates website — it took about 10 seconds.
Imagine how much money American would save if it eliminated the middleman — the so-called ticketing department — in every single purchase. Of course, every airline needs and has a ticketing department. But all those other carriers use it only in special cases, mostly when manual ticketing is required as a result of changing an existing ticket or when the computer fails to price out a ticket automatically.
There is actually another middleman when issuing American award tickets. After you make a purchase online or with an agent, it’s queued up first to the AAdvantage Customer Service. Why? Because that department deducts the miles from your account and verifies that your award complies with routing and other rules. Apparently, American has no trust in its dedicated AAdvantage agents or its automated computer system. Only after that is the reservation queued up to the ticketing department.
Last week, it took American four days to issue an award ticket. I was told that the AAdvantage Customer Service is closed on weekends. About the same time, I got a United award ticket — it took the United agent about five seconds to issue it.
Part of me is glad that many people have jobs, but the other part wonders why American is wasting so much money on creating work for two or three people when those functions can be easily accomplished by one employee.
“Any additional costs associated with our current system is offset by a different aspect of cost-savings for both the airline, the card issuer, and the cardholders,” said Smith, the spokesman. “The current process allows us to do additional card verification and transaction analysis that benefits all parties and help keep costs down. Simply put, less cost from fraud.”
Obviously, fraud is a major issue, but other airlines and companies have found more efficient ways to deal with it. Apparently, American recognizes that, too, since it plans to implement instant ticketing on its website.
Why does it matter when a ticket is issued? I’m told the American system is programmed to hold a reservation for seven days before it gets canceled, which is plenty of time. But what if a booking falls through the cracks, especially if there is a credit-card problem? In addition, if the itinerary includes flights on partner-carriers, those airlines may cancel their seats if they don’t get a ticket number from American by a certain deadline.
One huge advantage of AA.com is that it allows customers to hold a reservation for 24 hours for free before buying it. United’s decision last year to remove that option from its site has caused immense inconvenience to numerous customers. Most airlines, of course, don’t provide a “hold” option online, while others charge a fee for it. Sure, many carriers permit free refunds within 24 hours of ticketing, but that’s not the same thing.
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