What is open for US travellers?

 Well, it looks like we can go to Somalia for a vacation!  No, well try Mexico, although I know someone who went to Cancun, caught virus and had to quarantine before heading home to New England.  So you might be safer in Somalia (even if it is a Level 4 - Do not travel based on Travel.state.gov.

Your call.  (Do not travel to Somalia due to COVID-19, crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health issues, kidnapping, and piracy.)

American Airlines has a weblink for info.

In any case get vaccinated, PLEASE!

and wear a mask.

Winter Olympics 2022

Seems to be some travel headaches for winter Olympic athletes.  Since the global crisis, flights to and from China have dwindled making it a a challenge for people to get to the events.

Further, and complicated this year due to the crisis, are the challenges to host such a mega event.

One good thing is that vaccines are required or face a 21 day "layover."

Oh yeah, be sure to watch Curling (photo from 2018, Vegas men's world Championship).

Unruly Airline Passengers hit with mass fines

 Even Fox News reports on this bad behavior.

"Rowdy airline passengers have now racked up a record $1 million in potential fines this year, a toll of the tumult in the sky as travelers have returned after most were grounded by the pandemic in 2020."

And one major hub, Atlanta, Georgia. is recorded as:

"A passenger was fined $30,000 for an incident involving a Frontier Airlines flight from Atlanta to New York, N.Y., on Jan. 3, 2021. The passenger was allegedly interfering with the flight attendants’ deplaning procedures upon arrival. The FAA said he attempted to gain entry to the flight deck by physically assaulting two flight attendants, threatening to kill one of them, and demanding them to open the door. The captain called for law enforcement to meet him after exiting."

No one likes to have to wear a mask while squeezed in a metal tube flying 30,000 feet in the air at 600 mph, but it is essential given the fact that many people have refused to get the free vaccination.  Had we been good people this past spring and summer, the conditions in the air would likely have been better.

Grow up people.  It is not about your freedom, it is about your family, friends and neighbors.

Remember Red Green's famous quote:

"Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together."

Frequent Flyer Miles

 If, like you, I had declined to fly for a significant time due to the pandemic, but my miles still grow.

I read this morning an article by Jamie Lauren Keiles in the The New York Times Magazine and then took Bubba-Doo for a short hike.  Yes it was short since the road to get to Shatterack Mountain Trail was closed for the winter so I redirected to the Army Corps of Engineers Knightville Dam but that place was crowded (sunny and cool today).

So returning, I stoked up the woodstove and started this piece.

I started flying on a regular basis in the Eighties.  At that time it might have been a trip a year, but not knowing any difference I signed up for airline frequent flyer programs in anticipation.  After moving the New England, my flights continued for work and when it was personal travel, we tended to fly TWA since St. Louis was a hub.  About the same time I signed up for a credit card tied to the airline.

Early use of miles was mainly used to offset expenses for a vacation.  If I could knock off a couple of thousand dollars for a weeklong vacation in the Caribbean, why not.  Then I used the miles to upgrade to first class tickets.  During those times coach may have been $600 each while first was $900-1000 so not really a big difference, but recall this is for two people.  

Flying more frequent for work and fun meant I became a loyal flyer with a particular airline and even would pay a bit more to rack up the miles over lesser priced competing airlines.  I could then get free first class tickets and travel in style.  I knew for example to get a good free ticket, you might need to schedule that vacation 11 months out, but with a school schedule that was not too hard.

So I got a couple of tickets in limbo right now due to Covid, and a bunch of miles, so I am looking at January 2022 for a vacation at a distant and safe location.

Am I too optimistic?

Covid and Tourism

 There is no shortage of news related to Covid.  Southwest Airlines is threatening massive layoffs or furloughs if union employees don't take a pay cut.

On the other side of tourism news, Colorado wants the ski industry to get the first vaccines, after essential employees to spur the economy.

And you can always do a Scholar Google search for more stuff to read.

 This is one of those examples when it is not a good idea to "save" your credit card information on a website.

British Airways fined £20m over data breach

"The data stolen included log in, payment card and travel booking details as well name and address information."

Remember this the next time your purchase online asks if you want to save the credit card number.

Easyjet shareholders get £174 million dividends as airline appeals for taxpayer support

We certainly are not all in this together. (see Red Green wisdom)

Airlines are really being hit, I get it.  Nobody wants to ride in a tube with other (infected) people.  And we shouldn't be travelling anyway.

But when an airline sends out dividends totaling 174 million pound sterling ($US 215 Million), something is wrong here.

People should get something from their investments, but to give out that much money, and then get (ask for) loan money to bail them out....Come on folks.... we need to pull in our purse strings, suck it up and maybe not order caviar for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Keep employees employed and maybe the stock holders should not expect a huge payout.

UK Labour MP David Lammy described the move as “greedy super capitalism at its worst”.

Boeing's nightmare

It has been over four months since I had a first hand experience with the Boeing 737 Max cancellation fever.  I was returning home from Nevada when I got a text alerting me that a delay would mean I would miss my connection later that day.  Scrambling around to find my options, we opted to take the delayed flight, spend a night in Dallas - Fort Worth and make the connection the next day.

Sorry folks, red eyes are not my idea of fun, although I realize it is a function of those transatlantic flights we need to do to get across the Big Pond.

Seems that the grounded that day in March has caused thousands of rescheduled flights, cancellations of orders from airlines for new planes and is otherwise is a big pain.

Also seems to be a time of name calling, from blaming Boeing, the airlines and the federal government for pawning off the responsibility of regulatory oversight.

Seems to be a time to increase regulations, if not to reduce deaths, but the economic pain experienced by the airlines AND the consumer since the market place has failed here.

And while deaths in aircraft pales in comparison to auto deaths, when it happens, it is quite dramatic.

Wow Went?

Low cost carrier Wow, is leaving Iceland.  Believed to be a major contributor to Iceland's incredible growth in international tourism, the question remains to see how much low cost travel is important to tourism for Iceland.

Wow's unexpected departure has left tourists stranded.

I mean, Iceland is not a cheap place to visit.  It is not cheap like SE Asia or the Dominican Republic.

But the old saying "you get what you pay for" may be prudent here.

Airlines adopting Gender neutral recording

One of the challenges I have to stress to my Quant students is that you cannot calculate the "average" gender.  I mean if you code women 1 and men 2, and you want to know the mean, you get something like 1.4.

What does that mean?

The better way to describe a nominal variable is using mode or a frequency count.

So now that American, Delta and United will update their booking options to include a gender "non-binary" value, say click on Female, Male or undisclosed (or unspecified), we will still need to calculate it as a mode or frequency.

Finally, and kind of unrelated, I just did a survey online for the NYT, and I hate it when they force you to answer a question when you really want to say "none of the above."

Goodbye Airbus Superjumbo A380

800 seats in a plane?  well not much of a demand it seems.  The production of the huge Airbus in France is being halted by 2021 with the final 17 jets.

Seems most of the buyers (airlines) prefer smaller planes, even for the long haul flights.

For a news report and a great photo, visit WSJ.

Overbooked Flights

Seems this topic has been the topic around the water cooler lately?  What, no water cooler, well then what about the coffee maker?

Well anyway, PBS republished report last week just for you and me.

Further, a quick little google search will find tons of sites discussing this very common hassle at teh airports.  See this one for instance.

The only time we had to deal with this was on a flight to Orlando for vacation.  Instead of the 6 am flight, we flew a 10 am flight, first class and started our vacation a bit later.  No big deal.

Open Air Airport.  Our flight from Puerto Plata got cancelled since New England was snowed in.  So we flew to San Juan, PR and spent the night there.  Our return home trip took 48 hours!

US Airlines Report $25.6 Billion Net Profit in 2015

Data from the US Department or Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports a "U.S. scheduled passenger airlines reported an after-tax net profit of $25.6 billion in 2015 up from $7.5 billion in 2014, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported ..."

Whew!

Now, for us, what does that mean?

Air Travel for me is needed to do two things:

Travel Far, and
Get there fast.

Trouble is, that there are places you can't travel to....easily.

Take for an example my interest to fly to Tobago.  And this is in the Caribbean.  We used to be able to fly direct on American from Hartford (BDL) to Puerto Rico (SJU), and from there travel to anywhere in the Caribbean. Now, you need to go through Miami (MIA) and to continue through to Trinidad, you have a 8 hour layover, only to arrive at POS by midnight.  Do you risk catching the small plane to Tobago (TAB), or do you spend the night and catch the morning flight?

The challenge for airlines is to maximize passengers to the markets they desire, in an appropriately sized plane.  Do you fly a Boeing 777 once a day between markets, or do you fly a 737 twice a day?

This is why my trip to Tobago will take 26 hours!

Lufthansa Strike

Lufthansa Strike?

"German airline Lufthansa said Sunday that its services were more or less back to normal after a four-day walkout by pilots, but unions warned of further disruptions, possibly over the Easter holidays."
"In all, around 220,000 passengers were hit by the four-day walkout, Lufthansa said."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-lufthansa-says-services-back-to-normal-after-pilots-strike-2015-3

Seems the European airlines go on strike more than American airlines.  I remember a few years back when Alitalia was threatening a strike, much to my displeasure on a planned trip to Rome!

Ahhhh, the joys of flight travel.

Planning air travel

you know what I hate about air travel? Well several things but one problem I have now is trying to find out who flies where and on what days.  So I can use a search engine to find flights, but what do I do when an airline only operates 2 or 3 times a week?  My travel dates a flexible so if a schedule could be downloaded I can find my flights.  Instead I am forced to plug in multiple dates and times, connecting airports and then eventually book my flight on my timetable, on my connecting cities and my duration.

this stinks.

Air Rage and smaller seats on planes

Southwest and United cram six more seats on their flights to increase profits.  That is at a loss of one inch of space on each row.  American added 10 seats on 737-800s increasing the number of passengers to 160.  And Delta shrunk the toilet  to gain 4 more seats (as if the toilets weren't small enough).

So this does not sit well with the passengers who must go through security gauntlets, fight for the limited space in the overhead bins and otherwise be herded like cattle.

So, everyone must remain calm.

Airlines merge (American and US Airways)

Since I frequently head south during the winter to warm up in the Caribbean, these two airlines are frequently used.  I try to stay faithful to rack up frequent flyer miles and have earned several flights, upgrades to first class and otherwise enjoyed some modest perks from frequent flyer programs.

We have accounts in both airlines and can't wait to combine miles for the next trip.

That said, as with any flight planning, you really need to check sources of flights.  AA and US Airways are used after I have searched the major travel search engines (Hipmunk, Kayak etc.) if the flights are time conveniently and priced well.  Some places you can't use your favorite airline (Iceland is a good example).  And while I have used American to fly to Europe, Air Canada's schedule and price could not be beat one time.

The final point here is that these two airlines have different pricing depending on which site you are searching. So check both sites for prices!

9 inches by 14 inches by 22 inches

Sounds like a pack of gum, eh?  Well that is the size limit United Airlines is imposing of passengers who try to board the plane with those huge suitcases for the overhead bins.

As people scramble to be first to board, they can claim the best storage leaving those in Groups 5, 6 and 29 without a place to store the kitchen sink.

Promoted as an effort to quicken loading and ensure space is available for all, it is certainly something that all airlines will likely embrace.

I just hope I don't get a bulkhead seat!

KLM To Use Biofuels To Power Transatlantic Flights

Gosh, if KLM partners with McDonalds, it might put Exxon out of business?

But see the press report about "KLM Royal Dutch Airlines says it will begin operating weekly transatlantic flights between New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol using a biofuel mixture consisting of 25 percent cooking oil and 75 percent jet fuel."

Is Exxon worried?  Well, probably not since Exxon and others are investing heavily in biofuels.

But it might make the Big Apple smell like french fries.

Are $US 99 airfares gone?

The Feds are now requiring airlines to post the final and complete price for airfares. Gone, supposedly, are the teaser fares that may jump 200% after taxes and fees are added.

Economy airlines are complaining citing that no other industry has to post taxes on purchases. Spirit Airlines even created a website to garner some support.

So as an example, I looked at Spirit to book a flight from Boston, MA (BOS) to San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO)

FLIGHT $580.00
TAXES & FEES $131.31

APHIS User Fee $5.00
CR - National Tourism Fee $15.00
CR-Common Area User Fee $7.69
CR-Security Fee $2.74
Immigration User Fee $7.00
Passenger Facility Fee $13.50
Passenger Usage Fee $33.98
September 11th Security Fee $7.50
US Customs Fee $5.50
US-International Departure Tax $33.40

TOTAL $711.31

Next I searched the same dates on Hipmunk.com and found this:

The best price found would be on Continental and a total price of $US 660.00.

Granted, I didn't check prices before the feds made retailers quote total price, and we all know that air fares change frequently during the day, but I am in favor of honest pricing. Also, schedules, airlines reputation, frequent flyer accounts and such all contribute to the consumer's decision, so let's see how this plays out.