The Mylo is an “internet communication device,” which means it’s a tiny laptop. The prime feature is you can use it like a phone with Skype because it has built-in wireless internet (there is a microphone and ear speaker), making it a gadget of interest for travelers. Mostly you’ll be using it to surf the internet but add a Sony memory stick (no SD cards unfortunately) and you can use it to open files and listen to MP3’s.

I’m going to rate it on two dimensions: looks and personality.

It gets a 7 out of 10 on looks. It’s lightweight and pleasing on the eye and has neon-looking lights at the ends. You won’t be embarrassed with it in your hand. The screen is bright and clear and the keyword is easy to use. The stylus at the end of the wrist strap is discreet. But it’s not hot enough that you’ll make someone else feel insecure about their electronic device. iPhone people will look at it and act all smug-like, going off about the superiority of their phone in a passive aggressive mumble.

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High oil prices. Credit squeeze. Reduced spending by consumers. What to do? Instead of filing for bankruptcy (again), United Airlines has a new strategy: drastically cut the number of flights for leisure travelers. That means no more Ted, United’s Denver-based low-fare division that launched in 2004 to compete with Frontier and Southwest. From where I’m sitting — Sin City — that sounds a lot like economic disaster. According to an interactive graphic posted by USA Today, United’s announced cuts will contribute to a drop of 12.3% in air traffic to Vegas.

Agence France-Presse reports that United said it would trim US capacity by 17-18 percent through 2009, removing 100 aircraft from its fleet and about 1,500 jobs from its payroll. I guess the silver lining in this economic cloud is that the planes United says it intends to retire — about 20% of its fleet — include what the carrier says are its oldest and least fuel-efficient aircraft, namely, all 94 of its Boeing 737s and six Boeing 747s. At least the environmentalists have a little good news. As for leisure travelers, well, you might want to find a business aspect to that next trip, so someone else will pick up the tab.

Back in February, we reported on Farecast, a website that predicts fluctuations in airfares for major airlines, providing an advantage for travelers in a confusing, increasingly pricey market.  Farecast relies on historical airfare data to extrapolate probable changes in ticket prices, and generates graphical prognostications indicating whether an airfare is likely to increase, decrease, or remain the same.

Now, that’s a pretty awesome feat, but we think a new player on the scene, a Seattle-based website bearing the quirky name of Yapta, takes the air travel price comparison game to a new level.   Yapta — an acronym for “Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant” — takes a truly novel approach, allowing users to browse airline websites and bookmark the flights they’re most interested in.   Then Yapta tracks ticket price fluctuations in real time, and sends you an email alert as soon as the price drops.   It literally does the legwork of shopping around for lower fares while you sleep — saving users lots of time and tedium.

Yapta also takes advantage of a little-known policy many airlines have where refunds or frequent-flyer credits are paid to passengers when an airfare is decreased after they’ve already purchased tickets.  Yapta shows users how to take advantage of this policy.  And we understand that many flyers have already saved significant amounts of money, from both the price alerts and the refunds.

What we like best about Yapta — in addition to these innovative services — is the website’s clean, uncluttered user interface and ease-of-use.   The simplicity of design is very attractive and kind of reminds us of Google.  In fact, Yapta is so well-designed that, within minutes, you can create an account and start building a portfolio of travel plans.  From that point, the price alerts and a whole range of other useful features are within easy reach.

Yapta goes a long way to “level the playing field” between airlines and their customers, and is one of those websites that reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke’s famous saying:  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  We think the folks over at Yapta may just have created not just an “amazing personal travel assistant”, but the perfect planning tool for busy air travelers.

Ads, ads, ads. Recently, atop a Hotmail web page, a banner ad displayed the phrase “Fees Don’t Fly With Us,” accompanied by an image of a Southwest Airlines plane. Plus there’s the new “coupon” (see above). Lower on the page, to back up these claims, a link to an MSN article teased US Airways to Charge for First Bag, Drinks. So now it’s three carriers charging $15 for the first checked bag — American, United, and US Airways. On top of that, starting August 1 US Airways will charge $2 for a nonalcoholic drink. It seems that either the legacy airlines are rushing to yield the skies to Southwest, or that the great blue will become the exclusive domain of the wealthy. One thing’s certain: the skies are becoming less friendly.The MSN article goes on:

As of July 1, Southwest Airlines will be the only U.S. carrier that permits two checked bags for free, according to air travel expert Tom Parsons, who expects still more service fees to come.

As someone who flies Southwest more than any other airline - and so far has not been accused of violating the carrier’s unspoken dress code for passengers - here’s hoping that air passengers continue to have the sans-fee option of flying Southwest.

BBC’s website recently reported that a customs officer at Narita Airport in Japan gave a free spliff to a random passenger. Three questions: Where was that, um, flier headed? Was he/she was the hit of the party at the end destination? More to the point, what would have happened to that passenger had a dog detected the stash? The agent who planted it admits to not remembering into whose bag he put it.

I knew it was going to be expensive on the ride from the airport. Billboards and lighted signs advertised celebrities I thought were dead (Roseanne, Carrot Top) and everything seemed a little too new for a traveler used to paying eight dollars for a foam bed and twenty dollars for a crazy night out in places like Peru and Argentina. If you’re wondering what type of person stays in Las Vegas for seven days, it’s the type who’s used to lounging around in cities for weeks for no other reason than to see who he or she happens to come across. Initially I thought seven days may be too short.

The Famous Sign (Photo Credit: Pirvy)

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If you’re planning to fly American, get ready to shell out more money, *after* purchasing your ticket, for any bags you check. According to a May 22 article in the Chicago Tribune, a $15 fee - each way - will take effect for the first checked bag, for people flying with discounted tickets purchased on or after June 15; in other words, passengers who seek to pay the least for their flights will be the ones hit with this fee. United Airlines is “seriously considering” following suit.

So, what will this do to processing times at airport check-in, when people who forget about this new fee go to check their bag and get told they need to pay on the spot? How many more minutes will it take everyone to check in? And what’s next? A fee to wait in the airport lounge? A dollar for a pillow or blanket? In his May 23 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, William Ernst asks, if the new fee really is a way to cope with rising fuel prices, then why not charge for carry ons, rather than compel people to attempt to cram more items, which they would otherwise have checked, into the overhead bins?

Most importantly, what will people who travel with discounted airfares decide to do? Will they stop flying American, and possibly United, in protest? Will they opt for a full-fare ticket instead? Will they stop flying altogether, and go by car, bus, or train instead?

After more than a decade of taking low airfares for granted, Americans seem on the brink of a major shift in travel habits. Not only might a majority of Americans never own a passport; that majority might stop traveling even within our borders, too.

Bankruptcy. Mergers. Price hikes. And, at the other end of the experiential spectrum, the joy of touching down in a new place — motivation enough for trans-Pacific passengers to endure confined spaces for more than 12 hours at a time.

News reports of the Delta-Northwest Airlines merger bring to mind all the above experiences. In many ways, NWA has been a pioneering carrier. For instance, in 1957 NWA meteorologists created a system for forecasting erratic air currents that occur in cloudless air between altitudes of 7,000 m (4.34 miles) and 12,000 m (7.44 miles), information that has been essential for flying over turbulence-prone mountain regions. NWA is still a leader in this field; the other airlines rely on NWA’s TPAWS (turbulence prediction and warning services) to this day.

Minneapolis-based NWA also has flown what, for me, was a pioneering voyage on a plane. An NWA pilot was at the controls of Flight 27, my first journey to Asia. It was January 1999. I wasn’t thinking of how the airline was founded in 1926 as a domestic mail carrier, and began carrying passengers in 1927. I also wasn’t thinking about how the airline distinguished itself during World War II, gathering valuable information about flight routes over Alaska, on the fly, as it were.

Looking out the window, at the white Arctic land below, I wasn’t thinking of how NWA had discovered that trans-Pacific routes over Alaska saved as much as 3,000 km (2,000 miles) on a New York-Tokyo route. I was thinking about the flight’s ultimate destination: the Philippines, an archipelago I’d never visited on a continent I’d never been to. A developing country. In the tropics. Where tropical diseases could strike down a person, sometimes forever. The list of recommended immunization shots included Japanese B encephalitis, hepatitis B and C, and a half dozen others. The luggage contained anti-malarial prophylactics. I dressed as conservatively as I knew how, just in case people in the Philippines frowned on the baring of skin. Besides, couldn’t you get instantaneous skin cancer in the tropics if you weren’t careful?

Not only did I not, obviously, die in the Philippines, but in the process of making the connecting flight to Manila I visited Narita International Airport for the first time, which is located 60 km (37 miles) away from downtown Tokyo and has been a major Northwest hub since the 1950s.

So? Well, if NWA and Atlanta-based Delta follow through with their April 14 public proposal to create the world’s largest airline through an all-stock merger deal valued at $17.7 billion, then what happens to the in-flight meals? Will passengers still receive sashimi and green tea? More importantly, what about airfares? What about jobs for pilots? Flight attendants? Flight capacity?

It looks as if pilot contracts will be among the first details worked out. According to the Associated Press and The Enquirer (a paper based in Cincinnati, a Delta hub), pilots from Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. will meet for two days this week to begin working out a joint contract.

So, is this all a good thing? Not surprisingly, passengers already seem to be feeling the sting. Today’s total round trip airfare for Flight 27 and its connecting flights, which I used to take several times a year? $1,508, for a trip departing August 10 and returning August 20. That’s up from $850, the fare I used to pay. Proponents of the merger cite anticipation of increased competition from foreign carriers, via expanded Open Skies agreements. Skeptics, by contrast, see little or no promise of greater synergy or cost savings as a result of a Delta-NWA merger. (Both airlines emerged from bankruptcy within the past year.)

Speaking of cost savings, or lack thereof… The days of taking it for granted that you can buy affordable berries (or other products) from Chile on a winter day in a North American supermarket may be numbered. But so long as you or your neighbor yearn to explore the world beyond your own community, be it hamlet or metropolis, experience tells me that people will continue to seek and find the most viable trajectory for getting from here to there — even way over there. That means flying.

The cheap prices, the beautiful people, the adventure backdrops, the pumping nightlife—Argentina had it all except for one thing: nice beaches. For that I had to take a three hour ferry east from Buenos Aires to Uruguay, where I could start my journey to their two most talked about beaches: Punta del Este and Punta del Diablo. You wouldn’t be far off calling Uruguay mini-Argentina, but higher numbers of blue-eyed and blonde-haired inhabitants with an edgier vibe of punk and goth teenagers tell you you’re not in the land of tango and glaciers anymore.

The famous Punta del Este hand

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Just when it seemed the Invisible Hand (and mismanagement) might never stop smacking down the U.S.-based airlines, one carrier has good news. Vegas-based Allegiant Travel Co. reports not just a first-quarter profit (11 percent), but also revenue of over $133 million for the same period. That’s a revenue increase of 58 percent, writes Benjamin Spillman in the April 30 edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Allegiant, a low-cost airline and vacation seller, also has increased the percentage of full seats on each flight to 87 percent — the highest in the airline industry, according to Spillman. And its stock is up nearly 34 percent.

And what of the tourism slump in Allegiant’s home city, Las Vegas? It’s having a mixed effect on air travel. Since November, traffic at McCarran International Airport has decreased; however, the cost of Vegas hotel rooms also has decreased, drawing more Allegiant customers to the carrier’s partner hotels in Sin City.

Another Allegiant city, Bellingham, Washington, has seen increased traffic from Canadian travelers, who are enjoying the convenience of a small airport and the relative strength of the Canadian dollar. Beginning in June, Allegiant plans to add San Francisco and San Diego to the list of four other cities that connect with Bellingham — Reno, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Palm Springs, California.

Not bad for an airline that, like so many others, was once in bankruptcy.