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Juvenile life imitates art:

Agent: Alright. We have a blue Ford Escort for you Mr. Seinfeld. Would you like insurance?

Jerry: Yeah, you better give me the insurance, because I am gonna beat the hell out of this car.

And here’s the video proof of what some folks will do to their rental. It’s essentially “Jackass” — travel edition.

I feel sorry for the poor sucker who actually bought that Dodge Neon when it hit the end of its useful life at the rental agency…

The first minute or two is pretty much all you need, and there’s a gratuitous soundtrack, so you might want to mute the speakers in the office.

And if that’s not enough, there’s a whole array of related videos. Rental car abuse is a veritable YouTube sub-genre!

Oh, and don’t try this at home.

(Can’t see the video? Try here.)

The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed changes to the way airports calculate the fees they charge airlines. If approved, the rules will allow airports to charge different rates for flights that land at different times. The logic: By charging higher rates at peak times, there will be incentives for airlines to schedule their flights off-peak, to save money on landing fees.

My initial take: If the goal is to truly reduce delays, I don’t think this will work.

Airlines don’t schedule a bazillion flights to depart from New York simultaneously because they’re being arbitrary. It’s because people want or need to depart during those times.

Sure, some airlines might find off-peak pricing to be an incentive — Skybus, anyone? — but that’s not going to be enough to change the Americans, Deltas, and Uniteds of the world. It’ll just push up the price of tickets for peak travel.

For those who want to get deep into the weeds, Chris Elliott has the full text of the new ruling on his blog.

Despite my pessimism regarding delays, allowing flexible fees isn’t necessarily a bad idea… if you’re an airport. Charging more for peak times is a way for airport operators to make more money. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what this is really all about.

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Flying in Canada? There’s a new rule that prohibits airlines from charging particularly large passengers an extra fee for taking up more than one seat.

The Canadian Transportation Agency ruling Thursday gives Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet one year to bring in a “one-person, one-fare” policy.

The ruling applies to disabled people, including the severely obese, who require two seats to accommodate them. It also applies to disabled persons who need an attendant seated with them on flights.
[…]
The agency estimates the new policy will cost Air Canada about $6.93 million a year, and WestJet about $1.48 million a year. That amounts to about 77 Canadian cents a ticket for Air Canada and 44 Canadian cents for WestJet.

In the U.S., Southwest has been charging an extra fee for some time (but only when flights are booked solid). They’ve been sued at least once, but the practice persists. It’s not just a North American thing, either: Air France was also sued for charging a passenger for an extra seat.

Lawsuits have typically charged discrimination, and that’s how the Canadian rule is framed.

My own view: It’s fine to give an oversized person a seat for the price of one ticket, as long as the other passengers aren’t required to give up their space. 17 inches width is little enough, that should be a minimum we fight to uphold.

But what do YOU think? Is Canada’s new policy fair or not? Should other countries follow suit? Are airlines doing enough?

Vote in the poll, and hit the comments with your thoughts.

(Reading via the feed? Trouble reading the poll? Try here.)

Related:
- Travel by the pound
- Southwest’s “customer of size” Q&A
(Thanks again to reader J!)

Steve Baron of Fox News Chicago sends in a link to his station’s report on a God-awful start to the traveling new year. Passengers on a United flight (a Ted flight, technically) from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Chicago say it took them 33 hours to get from point A to point B. Broken planes which pilots refused to fly, passengers shuffling on and off the aircraft, and just an all-around feeling of customer service breakdown. The one brightside (and this is really a stretch): At least they weren’t stuck waiting for takeoff during all those hours, and got to go back into the terminal.

Yeah, I know. That’s not really much consolation. But they got vouchers! That make you happy? Didn’t think so.

So whatever happened to the Passengers’ Bill of Rights (PBOR)?

New York passed a law back in August, which the airlines sued to stop. They failed. Now other states are close behind with their own legislation. While state legislatures are trying to emulate the New York model, it’s inevitable that some variation will persist. So now this is getting complicated, since rules could vary state by state.

And if legislation doesn’t work to create a national standard, then maybe litigation will. Kate Hanni and Catherine Ray of flyersrights.com have filed separate lawsuits against American Airlines. You may recall that they were trapped on the tarmac in Austin for 7 hours.

Frankly, I wish Congress or the Department of Transportation had had the courage to create some meaningful legislation or regulation, since market mechanisms have clearly failed. But legislators and regulators didn’t do enough, thanks in part to heavy lobbying from the airlines. Which leads us back to 33 hour delays.

Congress and the DOT have left a void. Nature hates a void, which the states and the courts are now starting to fill.

I just hope someone, or something, comes up with a standard, and does it soon.

Related:
- Should we trust airlines to improve passenger rights?
- United’s half-assed policy changes: Not quite a bill of rights, and not quite an upgrade policy fix
- Passengers’ bill of rights: Slow but steady progress?
- Chicago City Council to mandate passengers’ bill of rights?

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Looking up into the sky, you’ll often see lines of white contrails painted against the blue. Sometimes it’s a mesh, sometimes it’s remarkably parallel, reminding you that there really are highways in the sky. Rarely does a day go by that we don’t see the cloudlike atmospheric footprint of travel in the jet age.

Ever wonder what those jets’ contrails actually do to the atmosphere, and how they affect the weather 35,000 feet below?

For an answer, we turn to to Chicago weatherman extraordinaire, Tom Skilling. For those who don’t know Tom Skilling’s weather reports, they are an exercise in most excellent geekdom. His 9:30 forecasts on WGN go on for far longer, and in far greater scientific detail, than any other local weather forecaster or Weather Channel report I’ve ever seen. We may no longer live in Chicago, but my weather-nerd wife can’t let go of Tom Skilling. His blog remains her daily read. If only his brother, Enron’s disgraced CEO Jeff Skilling, could have followed Tom’s footsteps. At least the older brother made good.

Tom offers this on the contrails question:

The grounding of all U.S. and Canadian commercial air traffic for three days following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks constituted a gigantic unplanned experiment, one result of which was a demonstration that high-altitude contrails affect weather at the ground. Contrails, the long, narrow, wispy ice-crystal clouds that form behind high-flying jet aircraft, result from the condensation of water vapor in jet exhaust. It was learned that contrails lower daytime and raise nighttime temperatures slightly in high-traffic jet corridors. Lacking those clouds for a few days after Sept. 11, the spread between daily high and low temperatures increased by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thanks, Kim!

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Downgraded: Boeing’s onboard computers
The Boeing 787, which has yet to actually fly, has been declared susceptible to hacking by passengers, because the planned inflight internet computers are “also connected to the plane’s control, navigation and communication systems.” Great. Boeing promises to fix the security gaps before the plane actually alights.

Upgraded, mostly: British carry-on luggage rules
After the alleged liquid bombing plot, British authorities limited carry-on luggage severely. Now, things are starting to get back to normal. Most — but not all — British airports allow two carry-on bags again. If flying to London, Heathrow and Stansted all two bags. Gatwick and Luton allow one. The BBC has the list.

Upgraded: The Evil Eye
Better not look too shifty and suspicious at airport security. The increased use of behaviorial profiling, known as SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique), hopes to capture more genuine baddies and let the innocents pass through security unharmed. The problem, of course, is that you might just set off someone’s hackles unintentionally. Is it working? “Since January 2006, behavior-detection officers have referred about 70,000 people for secondary screening, Maccario said. Of those, about 600 to 700 were arrested on a variety of charges, including possession of drugs, weapons violations and outstanding warrants.” That’s 1% accuracy, folks. Nothing to be too proud of, yet. But it beats frisking nuns.

Downgraded: The Concorde
Upgraded: Tort law
Allstate Insurance has to pay out nearly a million dollars to a homeowner whose home was damaged five years ago by a low-flying Air France Concorde.

Downgraded: Airline blankets
Mmm… airline blankets… Reader J opines on his new blog about the fact that United doesn’t clean their blankets between flights. Yuck, indeed. Not to be an overly jaded buzzkiller, but that’s nothing new. Ditto for the pillows. Look for the plastic-wrapped blankets for maximum freshness. The pillows? Good luck.

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Reader J writes in, with the excellent subject line “Sidestepping government buffoonery”:

So I was wondering if you know if it’s possible to get a temporary PO box or a similar thing in order to mail your shampoo, cologne and other liquids to yourself at your destination city ahead of time to make sure you know it’s there before you even step on the plane. Are there such services?

Why yes!

You’ve got a few options, actually, and as long as you’re packing well and not mailing things that violate postal service regulations, then this could be a great way to avoid checked luggage, avoid the theatrics of the TSA war on moisture, and avoid having to buy stuff at your destination, all in one swoop!

There are essentially three options:

1. Your hotel
   Where you stayin’? Call the hotel, ask if they hold mail for guests, and what the restrictions are. In all likelihood, this will be the most convenient and most reliable way for you to receive packages. Tip: Be sure you include “hotel guest” after your name when you address the package.
2. Post office
   The magic words: “Poste restante,” or “general delivery.” Poste restante is an old fashioned mail-pickup service that most countries’ postal services still provide. Mail is addressed to a person, but in lieu of an address for delivery, the mail is sent to a post office branch, where you pick it up. You’ll usually address mail to Name, Poste Restante, the specific name of the post office (usually the main, central office), that branch’s street location, city, postal code, and country. Of course, you need to KNOW the location you’ll be picking it up from beforehand. Check the website of your destination’s postal service before you ship things off. FYI: The USPS’s sparse info page for general delivery is here.
3. American Express
   American Express cardmembers and travelers’ check holders can have mail sent to an American Express Travel Services office anywhere in the world. I took advantage of this once, and it worked great, but it’s been a while (1994). See here to find an office. Call them before sending them mail, and ask if they receive and hold Amex client mail. Not every office will do it.

In all of these cases, underline the addressee’s last name for good measure, or write it in all caps. It can’t hurt to put a statement like “Hold until (date)” on the front of the envelope or package, too.

There may be some restrictions, such as weight. Take New Zealand’s poste restante rules, for example: Packages under 2kg are stored at no charge. Over that weight, and you’ll pay a fee to pick up the goods. Be sure to check with your destination’s post office rules before you ship stuff off poste restante.

Locations holding your mail won’t hold it forever, either. 30 days in the norm, but it’s not universal. (In Mexico, for example, it might only be 10 days.) When in doubt, call ahead.

And even if you mail things to yourself at your destination, be sure you’re not mailing something you’d be upset to lose. Mail can be slow, or can disappear. If you care about the contents, insure.

So the bottom line: Yes, you CAN mail things ahead of time. But at the end of the day, which is the bigger hassle? Dealing with the TSA, or dealing with the post office?

Related:
- Update: TSA compresses 100ml to 3.0 fluid ounces
- Airport Security: TSA Re-Allows Lighters on Board; Non-Flammable Water Still a Threat to Safety
- Rescuing your prohibited carry-on items from the trash
- Japan and China introduce liquid-explosive detectors: Why can’t the US?
- American Express (aff)

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This was on “Mythbusters” the other night, but I couldn’t find a clip in English. So, here it is dubbed into Portuguese, instead. Why the heck not.

If you’re impatient, the final minute of the video has the payoff.

(If you’re reading this via the feed and can’t see the video, try clicking here.)

Reminds me of Maho Beach in St. Martin, located right at the end of the runway. Below you’ll see the photo I took of the awesome warning sign located just outside the SXM airport fence.

A recent article on fuel surcharges offers a hypothetical scenario of what consumers might expect in coming months or years:

“If fuel continues at this level, you may have a situation where an airline prices a ticket absent fuel,” said Terry Trippler of TripplerTravel. “Other than that they really don’t have a lot of options (to offset higher fuel costs).”

Much recent innovation in pricing in the travel industry (not just at airlines) has centered on the concept of “a la carte” buying. Pay only for what your use, not for a package of all the services available. So unbundling the cost of fuel isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Cruise lines and hotels have already done something like this, requiring a fuel surcharge that wasn’t included up front at the time of reservation. Travelers were shocked with a bill at the time of check-in. Shady? Yes.

But if fuel wasn’t a surcharge, and was simply a charge that everyone paid in full at the time of check-in, it might be less offensive to multitudes of travelers.

So what might this look like? You’d buy a ticket that covers the privilege of getting onboard, much like you pay a fee for renting a car. Your ticket would reflect your class of service, and any “amenities” you chose (food, baggage, early boarding, legroom… whatever) but the cost of the fuel wouldn’t be included up front. You might pay for the fuel at the time of check-in, or the carrier might give you the option of pre-paying (hedging?) and locking in a rate.

By charging the passengers for fuel on the day of travel, the airline would avoid the fluctuations of the oil market almost entirely. Fuel hedging strategies would be moot. Airlines that did this could sell seats without worrying about the price of Jet-A kerosene. And in a sense, this is logical: Hertz and Avis aren’t really affected by changes in oil prices, so why not Continental and jetBlue?

Of course, this would be awful for consumers, whose ability to predict the actual cost of travel would be flushed down the toilet. Budgeting would be harder. Travel expenses would be much more fluid, and the net effect on prices would likely be upward. And upward by a bit, since the fuel bill on a 7000-mile trip can change substantially with small shifts in the price of oil. “Low fares” would be a thing of the past, unless the airlines started “free fuel” promotions.

The saving grace for consumers is that it would take some cartel-like coordination to see all the major airlines start treating fuel this way. If it’s a single major airline that’s the first mover, there is bound to be a strong negative reaction in the media. But as the article cited above notes, it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried this:

If airlines do unbundle fuel costs from ticket prices, it would not be the first time. During the energy crisis of the late 1970s, charter airlines had separate fuel charges that were set just before takeoff.

Yesterday, it was charter airlines. Today, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Skybus or Spirit try something like this, since they’re already nickel-and-diming their customers and they’re known for doing anything to make a buck.

But either way, look out. Unbundled fuel could be coming your way, and you shouldn’t be happy.

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The ink barely dried on the demise of Maxjet, when this report in the New York Times hints at the next premium class carrier to try its hand at the cross-Atlantic luxury market. But it’s no venture-capital-backed startup. As mentioned last summer, it’s British Airways.

Much of the attention will be focused on British Airways, which is expected to introduce a “mini-airline” on Jan. 9. The discount start-up, developed under the code name Project Lauren, plans to begin service in May, flying a Boeing 757 configured mostly with premium-class seats between a European city (Paris and Brussels are the leading candidates) and New York (either Kennedy International Airport or Newark Liberty International Airport).

People involved with Project Lauren said the name of the new airline is likely to be Open Skies, a nod to a new agreement that takes effect in late March and greatly expands the ability of international airlines to choose new routes between Europe and the United States.

Historically, sub-airlines are a problematic proposition, because they end up competing against the parent company. And while many subsidiaries are on the discount end of the spectrum (Continental Lite, Delta’s Song, United’s Ted) this is a little different, as it’s aiming at premium passengers.

But what’s interesting is one word in the quote above: “mostly.” As in: “flying a Boeing 757 configured mostly with premium-class seats.” That means we’re looking at some economy seating on those flights.

Which, in turn, raises the question: Why bother? Why create a full-fledged multi-class airline, when a multi-class parent airline — BA — already exists? The answer may be labor costs. (Or, if you prefer, labour.) Pilots for the new airline would operate under a different (presumably less expensive) contract than regular British Airways pilots. A-ha.

So perhaps this is all just a way for BA to skirt existing contracts and pay their staff less money to do the same work they did before.

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Effective January 1, 2008, travelers to, from, or within the United States will have yet another rule to track: A new, more stringent policy governing the transportation of rechargeable batteries, which have occasionally caught on fire.

If you’re putting rechargeable batteries into your carry-on, you’ve got little to worry about. But if you put any of those rechargeables into checked baggage, you’ll need to master the arts and science of lithium weights and measures. Huh?

For example, a “Lithium Metal Battery, Spare or Installed (over 2 grams lithium)” is now prohibited across the board. But under 2 grams lithium? No problem in your carry-on.

Huh? Lithium Metal vs. Lithium Ion? 2 grams vs. 8 grams of lithium in the battery? How many travelers know the difference? Perhaps more importantly, how many airport security personnel do?

But this isn’t a beef with the TSA… yet. No, the TSA isn’t to blame for this new rule. Rather, reserve your ire for the Department of Transportation and its Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

The DOT’s battery website shows just how confusing this can be. The TSA’s site, on the other hand, offers a far simpler set of guidelines:

Under the new DOT rule, lithium batteries are allowed in checked baggage under one of the following conditions:

* The batteries must be in their original containers.
* The battery terminals must not exposed (for example placing tape over the ends of the batteries).
* The batteries are installed in a device.
* The batteries are enclosed by themselves in a plastic bag.

Of course, the biggest risk, going forward, is uneven enforcement. In a few days, I’m sure we’ll start hearing stories about some legal batteries being removed, or prohibited batteries being permitted aboard. THEN, you can go back to griping about the TSA.

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