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If a flight is delayed and it’s not due to weather, you may be due for some compensation, according to the airline’s contract of carriage. But if the delay can be attributed to weather, you’re out of luck. Guess what they’ll try to blame… So how do you find the truth?

Following on Scott McCartney’s review of various flight status services, Gary Leff offers a great, if counterintuitive, tip for finding the real cause of delays: Use the airline’s cargo website.

For some reason, some airlines offer the real reason for flight delays to their cargo customers, but not their passengers. But not all airlines do this. In my experience, United and American cargo sites offer reasons for delays — reasons which may differ from the regular airline site. If you’re delayed, log in and check both the regular and cargo sites to see why. If it’s not weather, print-screen, then start negotiating with the gate agent.

Unfortunately, Northwest, Continental, and Southwest cargo sites don’t seem to give any different info than their passenger sites. Delta and US Airways cargo sites don’t even give flight tracking.

If the cargo route fails you, or if you’re looking for some all-purpose flight tracking, I generally recommend flightstats.com and flightaware.com. Flightstats offers great, detailed information on everything from gate information to runway statistics. Flightaware offers snappy live-updating maps and route information for the actual flight en route, but less practical info for the person actually traveling.

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UPDATE December 3, 2007: Southwest issued cease-and-desist orders to both of these sites, too. Looks like the automated check-in game is over.

In June 2006, Southwest Airlines sued the owners of a small website, boardfirst.com, that gave travelers the opportunity to automatically check into their flights 24 hours before takeoff. As Southwest travelers know, the key to getting a good seat under their open seating system is checking in early — especially now that the boarding passes are numbered, and not just divided into groups A, B, and C.

Southwest wouldn’t have any little pipsqueak helping their customers get an early spot in line, so they sued. Well, the airline won.

Speculation is now rife that they’ll introduce their own early-check-in system for a fee someday soon.

Looking back at my post from last year, in which six boarding-pass providers were named, only one is still up and running: PlaneFast. Better yet, PlaneFast is free to use (though they welcome donations). A new entrant, Pass-a-matic, is in a beta testing phase, but with PlaneFast already up and running — and free — why mess with a beta test when you can work with an established player?

So options still exist. Just fewer of them. In any case, boo Southwest.

UPDATE December 3, 2007: Southwest issued cease-and-desist orders to both of these sites, too. Looks like the automated check-in game is over.

Related:
- Getting the best seats on Southwest just got harder
- Southwest’s revised seating policy
- Southwest tests “families-only” section on planes

Sad news on the airport security front, especially for those who ponied up $99 a year for Clear, the “registered traveler” program that promised faster trips through security and the ability to keep your shoes on. No dice. You’ll still need to remove your shoes and feel the cold terminal floor on the soles of your feet as you shuffle through the metal detector in American airports. Here’s why.

The Transportation Security Administration said yesterday that it had rejected the use of a General Electric shoe-scanning machine that was supposed to provide a central benefit for members of the Clear version of the Registered Traveler program: the ability to pass through security with their shoes on. The machine would instead have scanned the shoes electronically for weapons or explosives.

Funny, these apparently ineffective machines have been in use for months now at Clear-equipped airports, so who knows what horrors the flying public has been exposed to…

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Over at the Consumerist, they posted a reader complaint that US Airways was sending out letters to Dividend Miles members with inactive accounts, “encouraging” them to pay up $25 to keep their accounts alive.

Expiration dates are unfortunately nothing new for US Airways. I mentioned it a year ago, and other airlines have similar policies. Most of those airlines with an expiration policy give you a chance to reclaim the expired miles — for a fee, of course — and US Airways is no exception. Their policy has a scale, from $50 to revive up to 4,999 miles, up to $400 if you need to resuscitate 100,000 miles or more.

But what’s notable here is that the notices were seemingly sent to those whose miles had not yet reached the expiration date.

A couple e-mails, a click or two, and here we have the original text of a lucky mileholder’s US Airways expiration upsell:

Dear **NAME REDACTED**:

US Airways introduced a policy last year that rewards our customers for staying active in the Dividend Miles program. In order to keep your account active, you must earn or redeem miles within a consecutive 18-month period.

Our records indicate that you have been inactive since 06-13-2006. We want to make sure you keep the miles you’ve earned. To keep your account active and hang on to your miles, you have several options:

* Contact Dividend Miles at 800-428-4322 and pay a $25 preservation fee with your credit card.
* Earn miles by flying on US Airways or any of our airline partners.
* Sign up and earn miles with one of our credit or debit cards.
* Use any of our other partners for everyday activities such as dining out, sending flowers and more.
* Redeem your miles.
* Shop with over 100 premium retailers for name-brand merchandise at the
Dividend Miles Shopping Mall, where you can reactivate your account for as little as 99 cents.

Take advantage of any of these options by 12-31-2007 and your account will remain active for another 18 months.

There are two ways to look at this. The optimist says that the airline is proactively warning its customers that they’re about to lose their miles, so that’s a good thing. And the $25 fee to keep miles alive is less than the $50 or more that it would cost after the fact.

The pessimist finds this “preservation fee” disturbing, and sees this as the first step toward an annual maintenance fee for loyalty accounts. But as the airline’s e-mail states, you don’t HAVE to pay money to the airline to stay in the miles game. You can reset the clock by earning or redeeming miles in any way. Redeem them if you can, or earn a few miles with something small if the balance is worth keeping alive.

So is the $25 preservation charge a great safety net or another twist of the screw? Personally, I think paying the money is rewarding bad behavior, and travelers should view this as another opportunity to re-evaluate their choice of airlines, or the utility of frequent flyer miles in their lives.

Move over Greyhound, now there’s something classier!

DC2NY claims to offer express bus service between New York and Washington, with “clean restrooms,” modern buses, and — here’s the kicker — free onboard wi-fi.

With roundtrips taking four to four and a half hours, with the wi-fi feature, and with a roundtrip fare of $40, this could be a serious competitor to Amtrak and the shuttle. $40! And no TSA!

What it’s missing: Frequency. Five buses on Mondays, for example, but only one a day on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. For now, that’s the Achilles’ Heel. That’s simply not enough frequency to appeal to business travelers. But the company is expanding, so we’ll see if frequencies improve.

In New York, the bus stops at Penn Station. In DC, two stops: Dupont Circle, and 14th & I.

There was a time in the early 1990s when I regularly traveled between New York and Washington via bus, and I grew to be a fan of the Peter Pan service. (I haven’t used them since 1993, so don’t take that as an endorsement today.) I only did Greyhound once, which was enough. Their incredible filth did it for me: My hand slipped between the seats when I got up to grab something from the overhead bin, and my fingers slipped into a gelatinous goo, warmed slightly the body heat of my grungy cowboy-hat wearing seatmate and myself. With no bathroom on the bus, and pre-Purell, my sticky fingers remained filthy until we arrived in the nation’s capital. I need to remind myself to think of that bus the next time I bemoan the lack of airplane cleanliness.

If a bus company can be reliable, cheap, clean, safe, and offer free wi-fi, I’d put it on my short list. But it will take more frequency for the bus to displace the train or plane in the DC-NY route.

Upgraded: The jurisdiction for Southwest’s Fashion Police
Good to see that the memo that Southwest doesn’t have a dress code made it to every employee. Oh wait… “Southwest Airlines said it will apologize to a passenger who was told he would be removed from a flight if he didn’t change clothes, the second time in recent months the budget carrier has been forced to do so.” The shirt read “Captain Jack Hoff: Master Baiter.” Har har har. Those t-shirt auteurs… such cunning linguists! Well, considering how Southwest “apologized” the last time, we should expect a fare sale with a saucy name soon. But what will they call it? “The ‘No shirt, no shoes, no assigned seating!’ Sale” ?? “The Happy Hands Sale” ?? Speculate in comments.

Downgraded: Urns
The Indianapolis Airport was shut down and evacuated because a funeral urn hadn’t been screened properly and the owner couldn’t be found. Talk about adding insult to injury for the family of the deceased. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened with those newfangled security systems that somehow keep hitting the media but don’t actually show up in widespread use at airports. Or maybe it would happen anyway. This is the TSA we’re talking about, after all.

Upgraded: Olympic fever!
Looking to visit the Olympics in Beijing next summer? Over on Peter Greenberg’s site, Mike Day rounds up the ways to get tickets, get a room, and get around. Don’t forget your asthma medication.

Upgraded: Erosion
A 2002 flood created a new canyon in Texas in just three days. And then it took five years to open it to the public!

Upgraded: Quieter hotels
Longtime readers know that one of my pet travel peeves is the noisy luxury hotel, often courtesy of a crappy door with a giant gap at the bottom, allowing in all the noise from the hall. I’m happy to read that soundproofing materials are selling well as hoteliers build new facilities. Better walls, yay! But no mention of better doors. Nice try, people! The Door Wars are still on!

Upgraded: Bio-air-travel
Air New Zealand, Boeing, and Rolls-Royce engines will test a biofuel-powered 747. If you smell french fries in the wind, look up to see if a jumbo jet is passing by.

Delta, following in the footsteps of Northwest Airlines, has taken another step in the continuing devaluation of frequent flyer miles.

For some time, customers have complained that cashing in frequent flyer miles for the so-called “saver” award tickets has been getting harder and harder. The airlines have countered that there are actually two classes of frequent flyer tickets: 1) the “limited seats available” saver awards that may be harder to get, and 2) the unrestricted-inventory awards which let you cash in miles anytime there is an open seat, but at a higher price: generally double the miles. “Where’s the problem?” the airlines quip, noting that the cheapest cash fares aren’t available on every flight, so why should the discounted frequent flyer tickets be?

But that argument — which is problematic in and of itself, given the way frequent flyer programs are marketed — falls apart when you take away the “any seat” availability of awards.

Gary Leff points to Delta’s latest tweak of the rules at his blog. Delta announced the policy on its website:

Also, effective December 1, 2007, SkyChoice Award Ticket Reservations will no longer be available on every Delta flight in which a seat is available for sale. SkyChoice Award Ticket Reservations will continue to be available on most Delta flights, but seats will be limited and possibly unavailable on some flights. Our SkySaver Award Ticket Reservations will remain unchanged.

In other words, “We will now restrict availability on all tickets, but we’ll restrict some more than others.” Great.

(As an added bonus, there’s this nugget of a policy change on the site, too: “Some airline partners impose a surcharge on Award Travel redemptions for travel on their airline. These charges will be collected at the time of booking.” No word on how much, which partners, or under what conditions. I’ll inquire and report back.)

Delta isn’t the first to devalue their double-mile awards like this. They’re actually following in fellow SkyTeam alliance member Northwest’s footsteps. Northwest made their change to the WorldPerks program recently, though I admit that this one got past me when it happened. The previously unrestricted PerkPass award now “waives Saturday-night stay requirement, blackout dates and most capacity controls.” Southwest, long a holdout against capacity controls, started that monkey business recently too.

The number of people directly affected by this will be slim at first. Most people try to cash in their miles for the “discounted” miles-fares (e.g., the industry standard of 25,000 miles for a domestic U.S. coach ticket, 35,000 from the lower 48 to Hawaii, or 50,000 between Europe and North America). They don’t even consider the “standard” or “choice” awards that cost double. These “full fare” miles-tickets are really only useful when you’ve got lots of miles to burn and you HAVE to go. But as Gary points out, this has been a valuable insurance policy to have on hand, should tragedy strike.

Even worse, this dumbing-down of the once-unrestricted awards gives the airlines leeway to add even more restrictions to their saver awards. After all, as long as the alternative still has better features, you can mess with the saver award as much as you like.

It’s probably a matter of time before other airlines follow suit. But thumbs down to Delta and Northwest for being ahead of the curve on this one.

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Downgraded: Alaska Airlines miles
Alaska Airlines is the latest to cut the lifespan of frequent flyer miles. “Effective April 1, 2008, accounts with no mileage activity for the previous 2 years will become inactive and the miles will be removed from the account. Any mileage earning or award redemption activity on your account will keep it active.” You’ve been warned. (Thanks, Boaz!)

Upgraded: Corporate excuses for illegal activity
Legal news: “The legal dispute between Hawaiian Airlines and Mesa Air Group took an unexpected turn this week when Mesa attorneys told a US Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu that CFO Peter Murnane mistakenly deleted files related to the case as he attempted to purge pornography from his computer.” What is this, the Homer Simpson defense?

Upgraded: The nanny state
Downgraded: Inflight entertainment for anyone over 12
Heath Shuler, Democrat of North Carolina, wants the federal government to regulate inflight movies, which he says have become too violent. I haven’t seen anything too violent on an overhead screen, so I don’t really know what he’s talking about. I have seen some saucy stuff on the in-seat TV’s. If he doesn’t like overhead movies, fly an airline that doesn’t have overhead movies. Like Southwest. But look at the upside: If this bill passes (which I don’t think it will) then the airlines might be incentivized to roll out more in-seat monitors. Maybe? Please? Fingers crossed?

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If your kids ask if they can take their remote control toys with them on your next trip through the airport, better tell them to leave the RC’s at home. Why? The TSA, of course.

Airport screeners are giving additional scrutiny to remote-controlled toys because terrorists could use them to trigger explosive devices, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday.

Fantastic. You just KNOW that some overzealous TSA officer is going to cause some kid to weep when he confiscates the toy, and we’ll hear about it all over the news.

You may want to check them (the toys, not the kids) in luggage, as opposed to carrying them on, but who knows how far “scrutiny” will run.

And what does this “scrutiny” involve, anyway? Taking things apart? Cellphones can be used to trigger explosive devices, too, but we’re not scrutinizing or banning THEM.

Skepticism and tut-tutting over inconsistent policy aside, a few observations:

Fewer RC toys in airports is really a good thing
Maybe Kip Hawley just finds radio-control toys annoying. I know I do, when I’m in public places. I’ve seen kids playing with them in airport terminals, which just wasn’t appropriate. In the middle of the B-Concourse at O’Hare, no less. Not every place is your personal play-space, kid. Welcome to the real world. Lose the RC.

If you get busted, stay cool
If you get hassled, and your child’s toy gets taken away, stay calm, take names, be annoyed, but whatever you do, please, PLEASE don’t lose your cool like this woman did. Though not at a TSA checkpoint, she was arrested for disorderly conduct after throwing a fit when she was denied boarding. The Phoenix police put her in cuffs, possibly “manhandled” her, and now she’s dead, seemingly choked to death, though it’s unclear how. It wouldn’t have happened if she had kept her cool.

Leave the big guns at home
Though it might seem appropriate to bring to the airport, don’t bring your human-sized radio-controlled Airbus A380 model through the checkpoint. Now THAT’S a bad-ass radio controlled toy. Watch it fly in the video here.