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.

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.

That’s right. Joe Tangredi broached this possibility in his February 5 post. Airlines are poised to go the way of United — with fees, not just for that second checked bag, but also for select aisle and window seats. And your fares are going up too.One bearer of this bad news, Joe Sharkey of the New York Times, reports on this trend in his April 15 column:

Air Tran Airways will start charging $10 for a second checked bag for most coach passengers, effective May 15. And another low-cost carrier, Virgin America, said it would begin charging $25 for a second checked bag on May 5. All the major carriers except American Airlines recently imposed $25 fees for a second checked bag.

Again Sharkey, in his April 22 column, reports that beginning May 7, US Airways will charge $5 to $15 for so-called Choice Seats. Passengers will have the option to buy Choice Seats upon checking in. (Preferred-status passengers won’t have to pay, “depending on availability,” whatever that means.)

Sharkey cites Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com. Seaney writes in his column that domestic airlines may need to raise fares by 15-20%, just to break even. By early April, all major network carriers had followed United’s lead in announcing the latest across-the-board fare increase.

The upward trend of airfares seems destined to continue in the years ahead. What to do? The Belgians may have an answer. Agence France-Presse reports that Brussels Airlines will fractionally slow the speed of its flights, for an expected savings of €1.1 million (US$1.76 million) on its fuel bill. It’s refreshing to read about an airline that chooses not to balance its budget on the backs of its passengers — at least, for the time being.

British Airways CEO Willie Walsh might be wishing it were all an April Fool’s joke. Bloomberg News reports that BA — largest occupant of London Heathrow and sole user of Heathrow’s newly-opened Terminal 5 — is still managing the meltdown of T5’s brand-new baggage handling system. Unable to deliver the world — or rather, the luggage — on time, BA is using Memphis, Tennessee-based Federal Express to reunite passengers with about 20,000 bags. FedEx is moving about 800 bags per day at Heathrow.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Already saddled with the notoriety of being Europe’s worst carrier for lost luggage, BA was going to turn around its reputation. But if anything, the airline’s biz cred has deteriorated. Since T5 opened on March 27, malfunctions in its computerized baggage system have caused more than 300 flight cancellations, and travelers say they will defect to BA’s two biggest competitors at Heathrow — BMI and Virgin.

So… what happened? Opinions are hitting the radio airwaves. American Public Media’s “Marketplace” reports that Everet Meyer of Jacobs Consultancy blames the glitches on inadequate training of workers and, possibly, industrial sabotage too. And John Hansman, director of MIT’s International Center for Air Transportation, says T5’s barcode scanning technology is outdated.

One thing’s certain: BA’s woes are far from over, and could add up to European Union fines of US$10,000 per stranded passenger, according to Larry Miller’s report on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.”

Imagine an international travel itinerary NOT routed through major cities. Flying out of Baltimore, instead of Los Angeles. Landing in Liverpool, instead of London. (This exists to some extent already, notes my friend and Volette publisher Joe Tangredi. He’s flown Icelandair from Baltimore Washington International Airport to Reykjavik — which flight has now, apparently, vanished from the carrier’s route map. And Virgin Atlantic now flies direct to Manchester from Las Vegas. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule.)

According to Michael O’Leary, chief executive of the Irish airline Ryanair, the base fare for such an itinerary could be as low as €10. At $1.59 to the euro, that would be $15.90. For a transatlantic flight. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But O’Leary says he plans to start a new airline that will offer just that. Why? … Open Skies. On March 30, the US-European Union “Open Skies” treaty goes into effect, lifting restrictions on transatlantic flights between any two airports in the US and the EU. EU-based carriers such as Ryanair will no longer need to take off or land in their native countries; they can build brand-new routes around any EU city. In yesterday’s Travel section of the New York Times, cheapflights.com travel blogger Jerry Chandler was quoted as saying that “open skies” could foster new, vibrant travel routes in markets that currently don’t exist. With “open skies,” European carriers may compete more aggressively with each other on the Continent. And according to an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal, Heathrow is the Holy Grail for US carriers, because of its access to far-flung geographic regions such as Africa. Between now and June, several airlines — American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, and United — will offer direct flights from Dallas, Denver, Raleigh, or Seattle to Heathrow, and potentially — via Heathrow — additional flights to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Record-high fuel prices may severely limit airlines’ ability to lower fares significantly; however, “open skies” may yet prove a boon for segments of the market. For long-haul travelers, these new routes are especially promising. Passengers flying over several continents will save on a priceless commodity: time. Less-restricted travel routes translate into less time going in and out of security checks, and fewer connecting flights along the way. That’s a potential savings of several hours.

Michael Finney of “7 On Your Side,” a consumer advocacy program on the television station KGO in San Francisco, recently reported on the woes of a Travelocity customer. Scott Stanton of Willits, California shoots video around the world. About a year ago Stanton used Travelocity.com to book a flight on Air China. When he checked in for the flight, things got weird. The clerk at the counter told him he had two seats on the same flight, and that he had paid for both, even though he was traveling alone. Immediately, Stanton called Travelocity. The travel agency told him it would credit his account back, and not to worry about it. Then, post-trip, his bank statement showed not only a charge for two Air China tickets — $1,079 each — but also a double charge of the $24 Travelocity booking fee. This time Travelocity told Stanton that it wouldn’t reimburse him until Air China paid it back, and that it could take up to 90 days to process the refund. More than a little ticked off, Stanton contacted the consumer advocacy television program “7 On Your Side.” Program staff investigated the issue, and Travelocity said it would give Stanton a refund. But then Stanton encountered another hitch: Travelocity would refund his money only by crediting the same debit card he had used to purchase the airline ticket… a debit card account he no longer had. “7 On Your Side” staff stepped in again, and Travelocity sent Stanton a refund check. So, a happy ending at last for Stanton. And for the rest of us? How do we keep from being double-charged? By keeping careful records, according to KGO’s website:

Travelocity … was still looking into why the system did not catch Stanton’s double-booking. … [It] regrets the delay in refunding the money. If you ever find yourself with two tickets, keep all receipts and both ticket numbers, so you can quickly prove that you didn’t buy or use both seats.

As ever, caveat emptor… buyer beware!

According to BBC News, on Sunday Virgin Atlantic pulled off the first partly-biofueled flight by a commercial airline. The Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet flew from London’s Heathrow over to Amsterdam, fueled partly by a babassu palm nut that grows wild in the Amazon. Virgin says that it believes such flights will become routine in 10 years. That’s all good, right? Well… depends who you ask.

Reuters reports that environmentalists are not pleased, for two reasons – doubt that biofuels will significantly reduce carbon emissions, and concerns that biofuels will divert staple food crops away from people’s plates. This from Friends of the Earth, an international environmental network:

There is mounting evidence the carbon savings from these crop-based fuels will be small at best. Even if every plane leaving the UK was able to run on biofuels from tomorrow, any carbon savings would be wiped out in less than 10 years by the rapid growth of the aviation industry.”

As for another concern — that biofuels may divert food crops from people’s mouths and into fuel production — Virgin said that it was ill-founded:

[Virgin] said the babassu tree, native to Brazil, and the coconuts did not compete with staple food sources, but rather, came from existing mature plantations. … Both products are commonly used in cosmetics and household paper products.”

Virgin founder Richard Branson insists that biofuel technology is viable, saying he believes algae produced in sewage treatment farms will be a likely source of renewable fuel for the airline industry in the future.

Continue Reading…

If a budget airline makes it more affordable for people to travel, isn’t that a good thing for economic activity? Not so much, says Greg Dawson, director of communications for Travelodge Hotels Ltd, a large hotel chain which serves the UK, Ireland, and Spain, and is a £675 million investment for Dubai International Capital. Businessweek.com and The Guardian UK have reported that Dawson gave evidence on the travel sector of the UK economy, on January 29, before members of the UK Parliament. An “uncorrected transcript of evidence,” on the UK Parliament website, records Dawson as saying that discount airlines such as Dublin-based Ryanair and UK-based EasyJet are creating a deficit of domestic travelers in the UK. According to the transcript, Travelodge Hotels Ltd CEO Grant Hearn has said that for every two foreign visitors coming into the UK, five British nationals are going the other way.

Continue Reading…

On Friday, USA Today and Techcrunch reported that Seattle-based Farecast.com – a website that predicts airfare fluctuations – now predicts ticket prices not just for domestic US flights, but for certain international routes as well. This is big news for people who plan their travel well in advance, who can fly on the spur of the moment and purchase tickets just before flying, or who don’t care about flying the same airline every time for frequent flyer points. Though it may take some tweaking and expanding their route information, the site is also a potential boon for travel agencies and companies whose staff travel a lot – travel costs can be predicted pretty accurately in advance.

Continue Reading…