Business Travelers Adapt to Airline Fees and Selected Perks – NYTimes.com

AT the airline departure lounge, I sometimes feel as if I’m some rube from the sticks, lined up with the hopeless mob outside a hot Hollywood nightclub. The red rope does not open for me or any of the others. I am not on the List because, like many business travelers, I have let my elite status lapse on various airlines since it is no longer worth the effort.

Unions tell pilots to avoid body scanners at airports – USATODAY.com

Pilot unions at two of the nation’s largest airlines are advising their members not to submit to body scanners at airport security checkpoints as tension grows over what they see as intrusive or risky checks.

Unions representing pilots at American Airlines and US Airways have advised their more than 14,000 members to avoid the scanners, which peer beneath clothing, and instead get a pat down from Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers.

That has created additional problems as some pilots have complained that the hand searches, which were altered by TSA starting Nov. 1, are invasive. One US Airways pilot said he felt as though he had been “sexually molested” by the pat down, said Mike Cleary, president of the US Airline Pilots Association.

“Our members are just absolutely outraged,” Cleary said.

David Bates, president of American’s Allied Pilots Association, said the TSA hand search is “a demeaning experience,” but he also is urging his members to avoid the scanners. The unions have told members to ask that the pat downs be done in private.

The unions argue that the machines are “intrusive” and that they could emit dangerous radiation. A recent Food and Drug Administration review found that the radiation level was so low — some machines emit no radiation — that it posed no health threat.

The nation’s largest pilot’s union, the Air Line Pilots Association, is working with the TSA to find alternative screening methods but has not told members to avoid the scanners, President John Prater said.

The controversy is the latest flare-up in a long battle by pilots to streamline or eliminate the screening they receive. They argue that if they receive background checks, they should be able to enter the airport without undergoing security checks.

The TSA has tested such a program, but it is currently not funded. Prater says he is calling on airline CEOs and the government to pay for it.

Not all security experts support giving pilots or other airline employees special dispensation at security checkpoints.

The TSA issued a statement saying its security measures must consider “our enemy is creative and willing to go to great lengths to evade detection.” TSA Administrator John Pistole has been reviewing security policies since taking office recently and is discussing alternatives with pilots, the statement said.

Unions tell pilots to avoid body scanners at airports – USATODAY.com.

Related Articles

• Pilot Rebellion: Pilots Refusing to Use Full Body Scanners or Submit to Patdown (abcnews.go.com)

Holiday travel 2010: what you need to know – msnbc.com

As the 2010 holiday travel season comes into view, we can all rely on the airlines to try to claim every possible penny of our holiday travel expenditures.

Luckily, after months of fluctuating prices and shrinking capacity, on the whole the airlines have found somewhat of a sweet spot of late, and are flying full planes and offering fairly stable pricing. The upside of this for travelers is that it is now a whole lot easier to create and stick to a travel budget; the downside is that there are very fewer loss leader and “fire sale” fare sales these days, and this will be especially true this holiday season.

Personally, I don’t necessarily miss rock-bottom fares; back in the days when you would see a $130 fare one day, only to have it jump to $1,300 the next day, I regularly called in this column for a more sensible and predictable fare structure — and now we have it, or something like it.

Does that make pricing any more predictable? Unfortunately not, at least if you are relying on surveys and experts to read the future: Travelocity has fares up by 10 percent; Bing has them down by a couple percent at Thanksgiving and up by a couple percent at Christmas/New Year’s; Rick Seaney at FareCompare.com pegs everything up by 17 percent — and some admit they just don’t know.

One thing we do know:

Time is running out
Numerous historical surveys show that early to mid October is the best time to book your holiday travel, noting that in every year since 2006, prices have come down for this relatively brief window before starting to climb again into the peak holiday travel season. This is not a hard and fast rule, but if you see something you like, you may want to book it, as things will not likely get better than they are right now.

Beware the fees
We have already covered the topic of airline surcharges quite a bit, but at this time of year, when folks who travel less frequently than our regular readers are taking to the air, it is worth repeating. In short you will likely be charged for almost everything you do from the moment you sit down at your computer to search for a fare until you get home — online booking fees, fees to speak to someone on the phone, fees to use your miles or points, fees to pick your seat, fees for every checked bag, fees for headphones, fees for food, even fees for carry-on bags.

How bad is it? I recently saw a $9 one-way fare on Spirit Airlines, which charges for absolutely everything (including your carry-on bag), and for kicks and giggles priced out a complete roundtrip itinerary from Atlantic City to Boston. By the time I was finished adding up all the surcharges (based on one carry-on and one checked bag, which is pretty typical of most holiday travelers), the price had surged to $156 roundtrip. This is still a pretty good fare, but US Airways was offering $140 roundtrips just 40 miles away in Philadelphia, which after the checked bag surcharge of $25/bag each way was $190.So in the end the $18 roundtrip fare ended up costing only $50 less than the $140 roundtrip fare. As I said above: Beware the fees.

Peak Days: Thanksgiving
Over the past few years, Thanksgiving travelers in particular have modified their travel habits and booked away from the traditional horror-show Thanksgiving travel days — Wednesday outbound and Sunday return — such that these are no longer the meanest, nastiest travel days of the year. Well, Wednesday isn’t, at least; numerous eyewitness reports from friends and readers the past few years have told of very manageable airport crowds on Wednesday the past few years — one frequent traveler said it was the least crowded he had ever seen his very busy home airport.

Since everyone has to get back to school and work on Monday morning, and many try to milk every last hour of the long weekend, there is probably no getting away from crowds on the Sunday return date.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving has become a much more popular date of late, and the airlines have noticed; it is now the priciest departure date, according to Travelocity’s Thanksgiving Travel Report ( see our analysis here). By booking away from Tuesday and Sunday, you can save yourself up to $170 on average. The least expensive days? Depart on Thanksgiving Day, and return on the following Tuesday.Expert tip: The fact that the airlines charge the most on what they expect to be the peak travel days will drive some folks away from those days — and that is without even considering the “holiday surcharges” most airlines are firing up again this year in the $10 – $30 extra range on peak travel days (use this great chart to see 2010 holiday surcharges by airline and date). As we get closer to Thanksgiving, you will almost inevitably see fares start to climb on almost all of these dates as planes get fuller and the airlines adjust fares. If you see a great deal now, grab it before other folks start booking flights and the airlines shift their pricing to match booking trends.

Peak days: Christmas and New Year’s
Both Christmas and New Year’s fall on Saturdays this year, which is a boon to employers who save some holiday off-days, but the bane of a swarm of holiday travelers hoping to bust home on Sunday. When Christmas and New Year’s fall mid-week, folks tend to travel a bit more willy-nilly, some the week before, some on the preceding weekend, some at the last minute, etc. A Saturday holiday will create a huge rush mid-week before both holidays, both coming and going; it could be a rough one.

Studies of holiday travel patterns have indicated that a mid-week Christmas and New Year’s offer a 16- to 19-day window for travel, but a Saturday holiday shortens that span to 14 days. And everyone will be mightily incentivized to use that entire stretch, which will create some real logjams at either end of that period, particularly at the end.

The peak holiday season will officially start for trips that begin on December 17 and later, and end more or less on January 3. The most popular Christmas travel dates will inevitably be Thursday, December 23 and Sunday, December 26; if you can avoid those dates, you will save yourself irritation and money as well.

Finally, if there is one travel day you avoid, make it Sunday, January 2. The entire country is going to be due back at work on January 3, and everyone will be scrambling home, whether by plane, train, automobile, magic carpet, you name it.

Expert tip: If you can travel on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day proper, you will almost always have clear sailing and easy going. It’s not for everyone, and certainly not for folks recovering from holiday revelry, but it has its charms, with empty airports and empty roads.

Expert tips: how to find the best fares
Almost every booking engine of any usefulness offers a “flexible dates” function that will show you fares on alternate dates — most return a calendar showing prices by date, on which you can click for more information.

Also, many search engines allow you to search on a destination city, rather than a specific airport, which will return prices for all nearby airports. You can even combine the two — flexible dates and city search — for a very broad look at your options.

Finally, for families traveling together, Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com recommends that you search first for a single seat, as when searching for multiple seats, most booking engines show the fare of the highest priced ticket — and in most cases charge you that price for all the tickets you purchase. Search instead on a single seat, which will tell you the lowest available price on that flight, and you can make a better informed purchase.

After avoiding it for over a decade, it looks like our family will be traveling on a couple holiday weekends this year; see you at the airport! Hopefully not on the third day of January

Holiday travel 2010: what you need to know – Travel – Seasonal Travel – msnbc.com.

Related Articles

• Travelocity Identifies Cheapest Days to Fly over Thanksgiving (eon.businesswire.com)
• Looking for a low holiday airfare? Book now (msnbc.msn.com)
• Thanksgiving holiday airfares up 10% vs. last year (usatoday.com)

Airline fees never going away, $1.2 billion in first half

In the first six months of 2010, U.S. airlines raked in $1.2 billion – and that’s just from change and cancellation fees. The industry is on track to see $2 billion in revenue just on ticket-related fees this year.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, here’s where the money’s going:

1. Delta had the most at $347.1 million in the first half of 2010
2. American Airlines was a distant second at $235.3 million in ticket related change fees
3. United Airlines pulled in $158.3 million
4. US Airways generated $128.3 million from ticket fees
5. Continental Airlines picked up $120 million

JetBlue didn’t hit the top five (finishing sixth), but it did lead the low-cost category in change and cancellation fees, with $55.7 million.

Airline fees never going away, $1.2 billion in first half | Gadling.com.

Related Articles

• Fares and fees add up to strong 3Q for airlines (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

US Airways: no solo flights for the disabled | Gadling.com

If US Airways is looking for a motivational speaker to help it inspire employees and improve customer service, I have one in mind. In fact, he knows US Airways well, including the service areas most in need of help. Johnnie Tuitel tried to fly the carrier recently but was told he was too disabled to go it alone.

According to the Associated Press:

“I was raised to believe I could grow up doing what I wanted to do and it didn’t lead me to any entitlement,” Johnnie Tuitel, 47, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Saturday. “By them denying me the ability to fly, I couldn’t do my job.”

It’s not like this motivational speaker, who has cerebral palsy, isn’t accustomed to flying. He has logged 500,000 miles to give his speeches.

Tuitel actually made it onto the plane, which was going from West Palm Beach to Kansas City, when a gate agent took him and wheeled him back to the terminal.

The reason he was given was straightforward:

“He told me I could fly on U.S. Airways if I could find a companion to go with me because I was a danger to myself and others if something went wrong,” Tuitel told WZZM-TV. “Trust me, they made a mistake.”

Two days later, he flew alone, as usual.

US Airways is leaning on policy (shocking, right?):

“The airline requires that the passenger has to be physically able to assist himself or herself in the event of an emergency. If the passenger cannot, the airline requires that someone else travels with the passenger who can provide assistance in the event of an emergency,” she told the television station.

US Airways: no solo flights for the disabled | Gadling.com.

Some airline fees up by more than 50% – USATODAY.com

Airline fees are steadily increasing — some by more than 50% since a year ago, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The analysis, which compared 13 U.S. airlines’ fees today with those in effect in June 2009, also reveals that passengers are encountering new types of fees.

Six big U.S. carriers now have priority boarding fees, and Spirit Airlines has begun charging for carry-on bags.

The numerous fees are a sore subject for many fliers, but their dissatisfaction hasn’t deterred airlines from bringing in record revenue from additional fees.

U.S. airlines brought in $2.1 billion in ancillary revenue during this year’s second quarter, including nearly $893 million from checked-bag fees and about $600 million from changed reservations, government statistics released Sept. 20 show.

That’s up 15.8% from the same period the year before.

USA TODAY’s analysis shows that:

•Most U.S. airlines charge $23 or $25 for a first checked bag. Only Southwest and JetBlue do not charge. Most airlines charged $15 — and four airlines charged nothing — in June 2009.

•The most expensive change fee for a coach ticket has jumped from $250 to $300, which American charges for some international flights. The most expensive change fee for Continental, Delta, United and US Airways is $250.

•Booking a reservation by telephone — even for a free frequent-flier ticket — can be costly. US Airways charges an extra $35 for a phone reservation for an international flight. Allegiant Air charges a $29.98 round-trip booking fee and a $14.99 convenience fee.

•The most expensive fee to cut the line and board before fellow passengers is $39 charged by United. The airline also has less expensive priority-boarding fees.

•The maximum charge for a preferred seat on some United Airlines flights has jumped from $119 in June 2009 to $159. Such a seat offers 5 more inches of leg room than other coach seats.

•Continental says it’s not new, but the airline and at least three other carriers — American, Hawaiian and US Airways — charge a little-known fee for passengers who request receipts after they have flown. Continental charges $20 if a passenger requests a receipt more than seven days after a flight. US Airways charges the same amount if a receipt is requested more than 30 days after a flight.

via Some airline fees up by more than 50% – USATODAY.com.