Boeing has launched a new “Sky” interior for its current generation of 737s. The design combines elements of the soon-to-fly 787 interior, with LED mood lights and futuristic molding, as well as the 777’s design for overhead bins.

The most touted benefit of the new design is that it provides more headroom than earlier versions. Though the headline in the Seattle Times is a bit much (”Spiffed-up 737 will let passengers stand tall at their seats”), the change is certainly welcomed. (It looks like you can “stand tall” at the aisle, but not at the window or middle seat…)

The new design will be delivered starting in 2010. Minor structural changes and a new engine, will follow in 2011. (The changes will lead to a fuel efficiency improvement of 2% over the current design.)

Of course, in today’s global economic climate, it’s going to be a while before airlines order these designs en masse. So far, Continental Airlines, FlyDubai of the United Arab Emirates, GOL of Brazil, Lion Air of Indonesia, Malaysia Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle, and TUI Travel have signed on to purchase this version.

Alaska Airlines is taking a page from the Domino’s Pizza playbook and offering a delivery guarantee. But it’s not for pizza, it’s for checked bags:

Effective July 7th, if your baggage is not at the baggage claim within 25 minutes of your plane parking at the gate, you’re entitled to a certificate for either a discount code for $25 off a future Alaska or Horizon flight or 2,500 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan bonus miles. If we don’t meet our 25 minute guarantee, simply see an Alaska or Horizon Customer Service Agent and let them know. They’ll ensure that you receive your Baggage Service Guarantee certificate or Bonus Miles.

Vouchers? That’s a “guarantee,” but not a money-back guarantee. Especially since Alaska just launched a fee per bag. If they charge cash, then a guarantee should offer cash refunds. Seems pretty straightforward.

There’s another catch: The guarantee is only valid from July 7 through December 15, 2009. Expect an extra effort from the baggage handlers during this window.

But wait, there’s more! And as an added bonus, the guarantee can be nixed if conditions aren’t perfect:

Alaska and Horizon reserve the right to suspend the BSG in cases of airport baggage system malfunctions, severe weather events, or other conditions out of the airlines’ control that limit or prohibit timely baggage delivery.

Call me a cynic, but I’d expect the invocation of that clause on a regular basis. But points for marketing creativity. Maybe soon we’ll learn have an airline teach us to Avoid the Noid.

Upgraded: Jumping the gun
The EU Health Commissioner must have a wonderful sense of irony: On the very day that swine flu was confirmed on EU soil, the European Health Commissioner warned that EU member states’ citizens shouldn’t partake in “unnecessary” travel to Mexico or the United States. Backpedaling ensued, as the minister was just “speaking personally.”

Downgraded: Flight plans
Way to freak out an entire city: A backup 747 in the colors of the presidential plane known as Air Force One (but only when he’s onboard…) gave the city of New York quite a scare when it gave Manhattan a low fly-over. New Yorkers got the fleeting sense of deja vu. The White House apologized.

Downgraded: Airport upgrades
Fewer passengers, fewer airplanes, reduced cash flow at airports. No surprises there. The result: Airports cutting back on planned improvements. Sydney’s airport is delaying a new baggage handling system and an aircraft parking plan.

Downgraded: Promo materials
Ever go to a hotel, a restaurant, or a destination, and the reality isn’t quite what it looked like on the website? Then perhaps you’ll enjoy this lovely photo from a restaurant website, and mocked (”Tatooine’s finest restaurant”) at PhotoshopDisasters.com. I love the two suns, the perpendicular tides, and the break in the horizon. If you want to attract visitors, give the people as many suns as you can! (Thanks, J!)

Five major US agencies have (temporarily) eliminated booking fees on air tickets. Now, Orbitz is escalating the fight against its competitors by changing its display of rates and reducing the booking fee on hotel rooms.

Orbitz will show the total of base rate, taxes, and fees on the search results page. (No word on mandatory charges like resort fees that hotels hide from searches.)

How much of a change is this? On the surface, this is a positive step toward greater price transparency. But is it really a big shift? Since hotel searches are geographically limited, taxes rise proportionally with base rates. Lower rates would, by definition, mean lower total prices. (This is unlike airfares, where base fares on two airlines may be the same, but the total prices may vary based on the number of stopovers or the airports involved.)

In terms of fees, the simultaneous reduction and integration of fees in results muddies things. Orbitz says they’re reducing hotel booking fees charged by the site, with a sunset clause that expires the reduction after July 15, 2009.

But who would notice? Since the fees aren’t itemized, it’s hard to see what the actual fee to Orbitz is. Customers may not care about whom they’re paying their fees to, but it’s not really transparent.

At first, I thought this would put pressure on Priceline, which claims to be “working hard to keep priceline’s hotel booking fees lower than Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and even Hotels.com.” But if Orbitz fees aren’t broken out, then the real pressure is to show total cost up front.

As far as transparency is concerned, this is still a good move. Let’s hope these changes gain sway with others, and that they last beyond July 15.

American Airlines’ CEO Gerard Arpey dared to dream. He slipped a comment into their recent earnings call which seemed rather off the wall, until Delta CEO Richard Anderson effectively repeated the idea. The proposal? Instead of paying commissions to agencies and websites that sell their fares, airlines would charge those agencies a fee for the right to display and sell their fares.

AA’s Arpey:

“I can see a day, and maybe I’m dreaming here, where those folks who are the intermediary between us and our customer have to pay for access to our product rather than us paying them to distribute our product.”

DL’s Anderson:

“Over time, the industry will evolve,” Anderson told analysts on Tuesday during a conference call to report first-quarter financial results. “People will pay us for our content.”

There’s an odd disjuncture here in the understanding of what it is airlines are selling, and who their customers are. Travelers see airlines as selling transportation services, and that passengers are the customers. But these airlines apparently seem to think they’re selling “content” — their schedule data — and that the agents who sell tickets on the airline’s behalf are the customers. No wonder the airline industry is such a mess.

On the one hand, airline execs are right to be looking for ways to reduce their costs. And when an agency or website besides their own sells a ticket, they’re giving up a cut, largely to the global distribution systems like Amadeus, Galileo, and Sabre that distribute their information to agencies large and small. (Granted, the agent themselves may or may not get a cut, depending on the contract they’re on, with most small agents getting $0.00. That’s why independent travel agents typically charge a “service fee.” The big guys like Orbitz and Expedia get a piece of each sale.)

But charging their sales team — the agencies — for the privilege of even offering fares sounds like a multi-level marketing scam or a 19th century company town. Paging the Pullman Company!

What airlines are missing here is that the bulk of higher-priced tickets aren’t sold via the airlines’ own websites. They’re sold through big agencies, often through corporate travel sites. And even if the US market has moved away from independent shops, the rest of the world is still heavily dependent on agencies. Cutting out other means of distributing their fares could be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

If this really were to happen, it wouldn’t be great for consumers, despite the ostensible cost savings. The problem is transparency. If some airlines would be available for sale through one system but others wouldn’t, it would make meta-search all the more important to find lower fares. (That is, if the airlines allow aggregators to search their sites…)

But honestly, none of this is likely to happen. There’s the fact that the high-revenue sales come through the higher-cost distribution channels, and for all the complaining, the money is too good to just sacrifice.

Plus, even if this happened, and even if we assumed that sales would just revert to the airline’s call centers and website, implementing this would require a ramp-up of airlines’ customer service infrastructure (call centers, web support, etc.), just to do the work that agencies are doing now. Will the commission savings outweigh increased personnel and customer service costs?

Either way, at the very least, American and Delta have ticked off a host of agents. The comments on the TravelWeekly article already number in the hundreds. (419 to be precise, and comments appear to have been closed.) Threats of boycotting AA abound, and there’s ever more bad blood between agents and the legacy airlines who proposed this.

Great move, guys.

(image)

A few weeks ago, I made an embarrassing mistake: I goofed up a prepaid, non-refundable Priceline hotel reservation. I entered the wrong dates. But thanks to a helpful agent at the hotel, “unchangeable” really wasn’t.

I’m no rookie in the Priceline name-your-own-price game. I’ve been doing it for years for much of my personal travel, and it’s been a great way to get a big bang for the buck ($37 Hyatts, anyone?). So I knew that the rules specify that you can’t cancel or change a name-your-own-price room, so I kicked myself for screwing up our check-in date by a single day.

Then, it occurred to me that, in today’s soft hotel booking environment, I might be able to negotiate directly with the hotel. Hey, if Priceline’s mascot is William Shatner as “the Negotiator,” I could channel the Shat and see what comes up.

I called the hotel. I told them upfront that I knew I had screwed up, and if they wanted me to go pound sand, it was in their right, and I would be fine with that. But I asked politely if they might be able shift my stay by a day. Instead of Friday and Saturday nights, I wanted Thursday and Friday nights.

The answer I got surprised me: “Sure!” No argument, no scorn, no lecture on how I should know the rules. Just “Sure!”

They made the change in their system… but there was a catch. I had to call Priceline and get them to change the dates on their end. The agent at the hotel explained that this was a function of their accounting system, and that the dates of the reservation had to align with the booking agency’s dates. I knew I was in for a fight, after all.

I called Priceline’s customer service, but they wouldn’t budge. They were friendly enough, but hustled me off the phone when their answer was “no.” (Their smooth move to end the call: “If there’s nothing else we can help you with, I’d like to thank you for choosing Priceline, and I hope you have a nice day.”)

So, I called the hotel back. She sighed. “Of course Priceline can change the reservation. If you give me your Priceline request number, I’ll call them and fix this.” Wow. I gave her the number. Five minutes later, she called me back and told me it was done. She told me that the Priceline rep she had spoken with wanted her to tell me that this was a one-time exception. My record has probably been noted in some way. I received an e-mail from Priceline confirming the change, but without any chastising.

I’m grateful that this option existed, because it certainly saved us a few bucks. And I’m very impressed with the customer service that the hotel provided me in going to bat for me. (Though the hotel employee didn’t seem to be afraid of any ramifications of the move, I’m not naming names because I don’t want anyone to catch any inadvertent flak.)

I realize that it was a bending of the rules, and that this shouldn’t be abused. I share this story for those times you might actually need to make a change, but are told you can’t. It’s possible. It just takes the right agent.

An act of terrorism, caught on film.
Downgraded: Tourist photography
The UK authorities’ security obsession is as bad as the US’. Austrian tourists in London were forced to delete photos off their digital cameras because they focused on transportation — buses and a bus station. How pointless. Don’t the bobbies know that any of these landmarks are already already visible on Google Maps StreetView from the comfort of your computer?… Klaus Matzka, the harassed camera-operator, wrote a letter to the editor of the Guardian, in which he asks, “I understand the need for some sensitivity in an era of terrorism, but isn’t it naive to think terrorism can be prevented by terrorising tourists?” Amen.

Upgraded: Hostels
The NYT has a piece on European hostels, and how they’ve improved over the years, reaching out to travelers who want more privacy (e.g., a double room instead of a bunk in a dormitory) and more luxury (if an ensuite bathroom is your idea of luxury… my bar is a tad higher). Remember, though, that no matter what the appointments are and the increase in private rooms, hostels are designed to bring people together. A (good) night’s rest may be coincidental to the social mission, so if you’re not feeling social, hostels are not for you. Maybe I’m a cranky old fart, but I prefer to choose the moments when I want to be social. Subsequently, hostels are not my cup of tea.

Downgraded: Offshore outsourcing
Airline call centers have famously been outsourced to offshore call centers, but as passenger numbers (and call volume) shrink, the size of the call center operation has shrunk alongside. Delta has now announced that they will no longer send calls to India, where they’ve been routing calls since 2002. Delta will also reduce call center operations in South Africa and Jamaica. Like most people, I’ve dealt with international call centers, but my complaint hasn’t ever been about understanding the person on the other end of the line. Acoustically, I could understand them. But on more than one occasion, they couldn’t understand what I wanted to do, or they were unable to perform any but the simplest reservation tasks. I often wondered if these outsourced call centers were costing the company more money (in disgruntled customers) than they saved in salaries and benefits. It took a while, but perhaps that equation has finally tilted back toward better-trained in-house employees. (Via FlightWisdom)

Upgraded: Hotel deals in Tampa
The sharpest hotel rate declines in the US? They’re in Tampa, with a 31% decrease, year-over-year, according to Hotwire.

(image)

Yesterday, United Airlines joined the majority of its peers and announced a new policy for passengers who can’t fit into a single seat. The irony of the fact that this news hit the wires on the same day I posted on the new “Slimline” seats is not lost on me. But in the end, the question remains: Why is this a controversy?

United’s policy doesn’t break any new ground for the industry. Southwest has had a policy like this for years: If you can’t fit into a single seat with the armrests down, you need to buy a second seat.

The only countervailing tendency is in Canada, where a one-person, one-fare rule was recently enforced by the courts.

These policies aren’t new at most other airlines, either. But they weren’t really well-publicized. SmarterTravel did the legwork a few months ago and ran a rundown. The still-active policies are reprinted below:

* American: Passengers over 250 pounds should recognize that there may be limitations to the service that the airline can provide. However, it does not require that you purchase an extra seat automatically.
* Midwest: Like Southwest, passengers are encouraged to know their needs in advance. If staff determine that two seats are required, the seat will be sold at the lowest possible fare, with a refund available if there is one or more open seats on the flight.
[...]
* Air France: Passengers with “high body mass” may receive a 25 percent discount on an extra seat, knowing that if they choose to not buy the seat, they may risk not being able to fly.
* JetBlue: You are required to buy a second seat, and there are no refunds.
* Delta: The airline “works to accommodate” passengers with special needs. Upon request and availability, it will try to make sure the next seat is unoccupied. However, if the plane is full, you will most likely be asked to leave the flight and buy a second seat on the next available flight. (You can actually count on this being a fairly typical practice on most airlines.)

United was doing three things when it announced the policy.
1) First, it got a policy, period. Previously, there was none.
2) Second, UA’s policy wisely follow’s Southwest’s standard: If the armrests don’t go all the way down, you’re infringing on your neighbor and need to buy another seat. This is far more sensible than simply calling an affected passenger “obese” or “overweight,” or applying an arbitrary or difficult to enforce cutoff like 250 lbs. or a “high body mass index.” Armrests are an easily-tested and functionally-relevant standard. Thumbs up.
3) Third, United made it a publicly-visible policy. The other airlines had policies (or at least consistent practices) in place, but didn’t have the courage to publish them on their websites or in their contract of carriage. Transparency is good.

The problem with transparency is that it opens the airline to criticism from those who find such policies objectionable. (As a passenger who fits between the armrests, and enjoys their use, I approve of the change. I realize that those whose bodies spill over the 17 or 18″ of seat width are not trying to impose on their neighbors. But face it, sometimes they do.)

Perhaps another airline will try a different tactic. Melissa Lafsky offers the following alternative:

…but what about the possibility of rewarding socially “good” behavior rather than punishing “bad”? There’s always offering skinny people ticket discounts, priority boarding, more preference on seat assignments—or even letting them sell part of their seat space to larger passengers.

I’m offering an inch of room for $100 per hour in-seat. Any takers? Cash only.

United Airlines will “test [their] U.S. domestic customers’ acceptance of a new economy-class seat” later this month, when a Boeing 757 gets outfitted with a new economy seat design. The plane, with “Slimline Seats” will go into service later this month.

Thanks to an e-mail forwarded to me by a reader of this site, we’ve got UA’s internal-company pitch of the new seats:

New features of the modified B757 include:

* four additional economy-class seats
* leather seat covers in both classes of service, United First and United Economy
* in-seat power available in both classes of service
* life vests installed for all passengers and crew members (given that the seat cushions are not floatable in the new design)
* brand-new seat cushions

The new, slimmer seats have 40 percent fewer parts, making them easier for Maintenance to service, and they are of a lighter weight. In addition, the passenger control units which are typically placed on the tops of the armrests are located on the sides of the seats for a smoother armrest surface.

Literature pockets on the new seats are located above the tray tables, opening up additional personal space surrounding the knees and legs. A smaller, mesh pocket is available lower down on the seat to hold incidentals such as PDAs or eyeglasses.

The test aircraft will enter modification at Timco in Greensboro, N.C., on April 18 and is scheduled to return to service this month. Testing will be conducted for 60 to 90 days to determine customer response.

The aircraft is flying as nose number 5493 today; it will be renumbered 5093 after the modification.

Squeezing four more seats into the 757? I’m trying to figure out how that will work on the seatmap.

Inseat power in both cabins is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t require en EmPower or other adapter.

Reconfiguration of the seatback pocket to provide more room at the knees sounds good, too.

The big risk? Butt and back support. These 757s fly cross-country, and a thinner seat means less padding. (The seat cushions are no longer a floatation device…) Materials science has admittedly come a long way since these planes were last outfitted, so the slimmer seat may be equal to the existing, well-worn seats. But passengers should hope for an upgrade, not a lateral.

And that’s where the phrasing of the announcement worries me. “Testing customers’ acceptance” of the new seats doesn’t sound like the kind of thing you say when there’s an improvement at hand.

Photos of the new seat below (admittedly small pics, but they’re all I can get at the moment.) I enjoy the way the seats are untethered from the confines of an aircraft cabin, and have a backdrop of staircases and shrubbery…

Two weeks ago, George Hobica of Airfarewatchdog posted about a seemingly dramatic new change in the ways airfares are collected and disseminated, which he claimed would throw a wrench into the already-frustrating system of regularly fluctuating prices. “[A]irlines will be able to change their fares more often and more quickly than ever before, and consumers will need to keep on their toes like never before.” His suggestion caught my attention. The problem is, it’s a non-problem. The more I thought about it, his post just didn’t add up.

Under the title, “Airfares may change more often than ever in the near future,” George writes that “ATPCO, the folks who act as the airfare intermediary between the airlines and you, the consumer, via airfare distribution systems such as Travelocity, Expedia, and your local travel agent, will soon be implementing real time, instantaneous airfare updates, according to a person who is familiar with the matter.” The consequence of such a change, according to George:

What it means for you is that fares can fluctuate much more frequently than before, which may make shopping for airfares even more of a challenge.

What is means for airlines is that in order to respond to their competition’s airfare increases and decreases, they could conceivably have their pricing analysts work in a 24 hour environment. On the plus side for airlines and the online travel agencies such as Travelocity, they’ll be able to eliminate fare mistakes almost instantaneously instead of waiting for the next fare update, which could be hours away. On the minus side, airlines might have to add staff to their pricing and fare analysis departments, and really keep on their toes.

Right now, airlines file fares continuously throughout the day with the ATPCO clearinghouse, who then distributes those fares to reservation systems at set times (3 times daily for domestic fares on weekdays; once daily for domestic fares on weekends; up to 8 times daily for international fares on weekdays; and 3 times daily for international fares on weekends). Subscribers to those ATPCO feeds — airlines, and the global distribution systems such as Galileo, Amadeus, etc. — pass the information on to their clients, usually agencies. As long as inventory holds up (and if fares are low, that’s a big if), fares will be stable for a several-hour window.

On the surface, George’s account of the possible shift from periodic updates to real-time updates of airfares sounds like a plausible tale, and a big shift in the way the business works. (Except for the “pricing analysts” working 24-7… They have computers that do this sort of thing these days, you know…) But the more you think about it, the more it just doesn’t make sense for anyone to worry about this.

For starters, the concept of live-updated fares in ATPCO isn’t new, so George’s post is a few years too late. It’s been around for at least five years, and I can find evidence of it on the ATPCO website going back to at least February 2007. It’s currently pitched under the name “Instant Subscriptions.” It’s an option for subscribers, not a new standard. So the service is available, but it’s not being implemented. Which begs the question, why not?…

I called Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare, who works closely with ATPCO and knows more about their airfare products than any person really should. I asked Rick about the prospects of a shift to an instant-fare-update world. He confirmed my skepticism.

For starters, Rick pointed out, the technical challenges of implementing a system like this are huge. Huge hardware investments. Rewriting software. In today’s environment, this is highly unlikely.

Then there’s a collective action problem, and the issue of fare variation: Let’s assume that some agencies subscribing to ATPCO feeds would opt for the live updates, but others don’t. Then assume Airline A raises some of its fares. If Agency XYZ gets its fares through a live-updated feed, but Agency ABC doesn’t, then ABC will show the old (lower) fares. Now XYZ’s low-fare-guarantee would kick in, because its competitor ABC would be offering the same flight for less. So XYZ could lose money if it offers the live-updated fares. Unless everyone opts for live updates at once, it’s going to be a problem.

More to the point: Even if — if — airlines were signed on to constantly update new fares in real-time, would they want to? What’s the benefit in doing so, if you’re an airline? There are already multiple updates, only a few hours apart, so when one airline lowers or raises fares, their competitors don’t have long waits before they can respond.

And finally, even if the published fare changes, there’s still the matter of inventory. Airlines can publish all the fares they want, but if there’s no inventory of seats to back it up, any fare war is moot.

So is it possible that we’ll see live-updated fares someday, with prices bouncing around like a bank stock on options-expiration day? Sure, if every subscriber to airfare prices joins the fun, and if there’s plentiful inventory to back up each price point. None of this is happening anytime soon.

So let’s not fearmonger (or faremonger)…