Travel
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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It’s now official: After months of working individually with readers of my column and participants in my “On the Fly” Seminars on various travel issues they had, I’m officially launching the travel advisory services of Kralev International LLC.
This is not a travel agency — there are plenty of those, and most have fallen behind the times. They rely on computers to tell them what to do. We rely on creative thinking and our extensive knowledge and experience buying airline tickets and actually flying around the world. We advise you how to make your travel as cost-effective and comfortable as possible. In fact, having received our specific advice, you can continue to use your travel agent to issue tickets.
Here are the initial services we offer to both companies and individual travelers:
Budget management
We can help you stretch your travel budget by reducing costs by 10% to 30%. We can design strategic plans based on little-known airfare intricacies and booking techniques and assist you in their implementation. This service includes a big-picture year-long plan and detailed monthly plans covering specific trips — with an emphasis on achieving the best combination of the lowest fares and the most efficient and convenient itineraries. Between our monthly meetings, we will be available to provide ongoing advice to your employees who book concrete trips as needed. We can also advise them how to resolve unexpected situations during travel most effectively.
Executive privilege
This service is designed to provide exclusive travel care to senior executives and other corporate managers, who greatly value convenience, comfort and luxury. We can book business and first class tickets at prices significantly lower than what you can find online or through a travel agent — between 20% and 40% in savings on average. We can build itineraries reflecting your specific desires: truly flat beds, luxurious on-board amenities, high-quality meals and wine, most convenient connecting airports and best business lounges. We can also keep an eye on your flights and rebook you in case of delays or cancellations. Think of this service as your elite travel concierge.
Corporate training
If you have employees who book air travel in-house, we can train them how to use our unique, comprehensive and highly effective booking process. That process is based on directly accessing and understanding real-time airline data without the filters of third-party online booking engines and travel agencies. Our courses also provide strategic planning techniques and specific creative tools, which could save your company thousands of dollars a month. In addition, we can teach your employees how to react quickly and efficiently to any flight disruptions experienced while on the road.
These client services are separate from and not to be confused with the “On the Fly” Seminars, which are open to the public.
If you are interested in discussing any of the services — or any combination or variation of them — you can contact our sales team.
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Three major travel-industry organizations begin a campaign on Tuesday to compel the airlines to disclose all fees not included in the ticket price at the same time as the actual fare — and before the ticket is issued. But will such a campaign succeed?
The groups — the Business Travel Coalition (BTC), the American Society of Travel Agents and the Consumer Travel Alliance — want consumers to sign a petition to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The text urges him “to require airlines to fully disclose their fees, whether airfares are purchased on an airline’s website or through an online or brick-and-mortar travel agency.”
The organizations plan to deliver the petition to LaHood on Sept. 23, which they have designated as “Mad As Hell Day.” They have created a special website and a YouTube channel.
“It is imperative that we, as consumers, have the ability to comparison-shop and know the full cost of a trip before committing to a purchase,” BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell said in an e-mail message on Monday. The “airline hidden fees can surprise us at the airport, ruining our holidays, or vanquishing our business travel budgets. For example, check baggage fees can add 30%, 40% or more to the price of a ticket.”
The campaign is in support of the Department of Transportation’s Notice of Proposed Rule Making, regarding airline-passenger protections, Mitchell said.
What’s the likelihood that this initiative will be more successful than previous attempts to extract similar disclosures from the airlines? How long has the battle over false airfare advertising been going on? To this day, you see examples like this one on most U.S. airline websites: $199 each way, based on a required round-trip purchase, plus taxes and surcharges.
If a round trip is mandatory, why on earth are they quoting half of the price? It’s actually less than half, given the extra taxes. As I’ve written before, such deception is not tolerated in Europe and most other parts of the world.
If you can’t get the airlines to be open and honest about their fares, how are you supposed to force them to disclose additional fees? While everyone has to pay for the fare, many passengers are exempt from luggage, standby and other fees — an argument the airlines will no doubt use against the new campaign.
Getting those fees waived is easier than most travelers think. As I wrote in July, all you need is the lowest level of elite status on any member of one of the three global airline alliances — Oneworld, SkyTeam or the Star Alliance — to have your bags fly for free alliance-wide. And sometimes, it takes as little as 3,000 miles to achieve that.
As often happens, my advice has to do with travel education. Air travel has become a maze of rules, fees and restrictions that’s hard to keep up with. So travelers need to invest time to learn the system and find ways to work around it. My experience so far with “On the Fly” Seminars shows that most people don’t think they need to get educated. How many more fees and other frustrations will it take to change their mind?
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U.S. carriers have made major progress in listening to direct customer feedback in recent years, while foreign airlines have been less aggressive in pursuing new creative approaches. Finnair, however, is trying to change that. It’s looking for “quality hunters” — fliers who will spend two months on flights around the world and report their findings.
Product-testing and sampling is certainly not a new concept, but the scale on which Finland’s largest carrier plans to implement the program is rare — as is the public way it has chosen to recruit the four travelers it needs.
Finnair, which is a member of the Oneworld alliance, calls them “independent advisers, whose task is to travel to various destinations in Europe, Asia and the U.S. to investigate the elements that determine quality in travel.” They “are expected to communicate their impartial views and recommendations to the company on a regular basis throughout the two-month period” in October and November, the airline said in a press release this week.
In an attempt to improve its products and services in a very competitive environment, Finnair has launched a new project and created a website called Rethink Quality. This is where you can apply for one of the four slots by Sept. 26, if you can make yourself available for the duration of the exercise. That same site will feature blogs by the “quality hunters” once they begin their travels.
“The recruitment of the quality hunters is one means for Finnair to focus more
closely on issues that are important to today’s travelers,” Antti Nieminen, global marketing communications manager at Finnair, was quoted as saying in the press release.
As often happens, the release didn’t answer some of the obvious questions about this experiment: How and by whom will the winners be selected? Will they be compensated? Will they earn frequent-flier miles for the flights they take? Will they fly in economy or business class?
So I asked Nieminen and quickly received the answers. A 10-member panel of judges from Finnair and its PR agency will choose the “hunters” based on “creativity, excellent writing skills, ability to use modern technology, no-fear attitude and open mind to explore quality and provoke conversation.”
“The hunters will be paid compensation,” he said. “The exact amount is confidential contract information but can be compared with an average salary. No miles are granted to the hunters as they are flying on duty. They will be flying in both business class and economy class, since we want them to blog in a versatile manner from all angles related to flying.”
Nieminen also said that “Finnair staff will not be warned about them in advance,” so they shouldn’t receive special treatment.
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