For those who complain about the state of airline travel, remember this: At least you don’t have maggots dripping out of the overhead bin onto your head.

Yes, maggots. Some genius decides to bring a “container of spoiled meat” onboard and the maggots run free. A delight for passengers, and a PR nightmare for US Airways, to be sure.

Video below, and the full story here. For those who may be squeamish, be forewarned. There will be maggots.

A few weeks ago, Kayak rolled out a new featured, dubbed “Explore.” (It’s a feature right below “Deals” on the left sidebar.) The site maps fares from a given airport and promises to show you everywhere you can afford to fly.

“Explore” set some business media hearts a-twitter (for example…) upon release, with stories of how innovative this site is, but I’m sorry, it’s not good enough. “Explore” is neither a new idea nor the best possible execution of that idea.

Travelocity had “Dream Maps” years ago, which mapped fares from a given city. You clicked on the fare on the map, and you got a detailed list of the fares, the airlines, the fare codes (!), and the rules/dates applicable. You could click on a fare and a calendar with eligible dates popped up. You could choose dates and search for availability on the spot. I miss this.

One major reason I miss Travelocity’s Dream Maps is because they listed all the publicly available fares that were loaded into Sabre. Sure, you had to click through a number of fares before finding something that met your dates, but they were bookable. That’s not what Kayak is providing. You’re not seeing all possible fares. Instead, Kayak’s “Explore” pulls fares from a much more limited pool. From the site itself (emphasis added):

Fares displayed are for round-trip economy class travel found by Kayak users in the last 48 hours. Fares include all taxes and fees but may not include baggage fees charged by carriers. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights or days. Fares are subject to change and may not be available on all flights or dates.

A rolling 48 hour window of search results is problematic in a number of ways. Not only are fares rapidly outdated, and thus useless in a search, but by limiting your results only to those cities where someone else has found a fare in the past 48 hours, you’re only getting a small number of actual fares. You’re essentially relying on others doing the searches for you. And those fares are pulled for specific dates, not a range of dates. Not necessarily your dates.

The fact that the range of results — based on other people’s searches in the last two days — is likely to be limited is especially problematic if you’re searching from small airports. New York fares might be pretty reliable, but how about Walla Walla, Washington fares?

Other sites have taken a stab at this, too. FareCompare currently comes closest. But I’ve had trouble actually booking some of the fares that come up. Mobissimo lets you search by regional destinations, too. And again, some of those fares aren’t bookable.

Bottom line: I like the idea of Kayak Explore. It’s a great concept. But someone (else?) can and should make it better. I know it’s a moving target, and a big set of data to sift through, but it was done once. Let’s map the complete range of bookable fares — again — to truly empower the consumer.

Related:
- Flexible-date search alternatives for international destinations
- Reader mail: I don’t care where I go, it just has to be cheap

Upgraded: Inflight wifi subscriptions
Gogo Inflight (aka Aircell) is making its monthly subscriptions for inflight wifi applicable across airlines — Air Canada, AirTran, American, Delta, US Airways, and Virgin America, to name a few. They’re also introducing discounts: For $19.95 in the first month and $34.95 each month thereafter, it’s all-you-can-surf pricing. I like. I like a lot.

Upgraded: Pilots on the edge
Upgraded: Headline writing
Great headline for a post: “United Pilot Loses Cool, Pants.” Poorly-played, trouser-dropping United pilot. Well-played, BlackBook!

Upgraded: Smaller airports near large cities
Downgraded: Methodology
CheapFlights has released their list of the “cheapest airports” in America, and some smaller airports near(ish) larger cities are on the list. Burbank, Long Beach, Bellingham… no huge surprises. But these lists are perpetually flawed… who edited this thing? Chicago-Midway, Chicago-O’Hare, and Chicago-All Airports on the same list?! The “CHI” code doesn’t really count, guys…

Downgraded: Travel insurance in the UK
If you’re planning to buy travel insurance in the UK, prepare to pay an “ash tax.” Yes, a surcharge to cover prospective volcano ash delays and cancellations.

Upgraded: The ubiquity of opaque bookings
Expedia, which owns Hotwire, will be integrating Hotwire’s opaque (i.e., unnamed until purchase completed) hotel supply into the regular Expedia sales channel. Travelocity added “top secret hotels” back in March. I guess it’s Orbitz’ turn next?…

Upgraded: Yada, yada, yada
Remember the “YADA,” the roving check-in unit being tested by American Airlines last year? It’s coming to LAX.

The economy isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders, but premium cabin traffic has been making a comeback. (No thanks to companies like Energizer…) IATA recently reported global traffic numbers for April 2010, and despite the drama of a big drop (volcano, anyone?), the number of people in the big-money seats is remarkably high. See the chart for yourself:

Some explanation of the steep drop:

The impact on flight segment markets from the ash plume in April is clear from the chart above. All markets connected with Europe slumped sharply, while other major markets continued to grow strongly. Data from the AEA shows that European airlines experienced a sharp rebound in traffic in May on within-Europe, transatlantic and Europe-Asia markets. So it appears as though the impact of the ash plume, substantial though it was in April, has only been a temporary interruption in the air travel upturn.

The volcano is indeed a quirk, so it’ll be interesting to see if the trendline is restored in the next month’s report.

And note that these data are passengers numbers, not paid passenger numbers. Upgraders are indeed included in the figures.

So, with traffic higher, it’s perhaps not a surprise when I read British Airways’ all-premium-seating subsidiary OpenSkies is talking about expansion, with 20 new routes reportedly in consideration. (Their website still predicts that they “plan to operate non-stop flights from New York to additional Continental European cities including Brussels, Milan and Frankfurt.”)

I just find it ironic that an all-premium airline is able to gain 29% share of the Paris-New York market in 2010, while the other coterie of all-business class airlines (Eos, Maxjet, Silverjet…) couldn’t make it happen in happier economic times.

Hypothetical situation: Let’s assume you work for a company that pays for business class travel on long haul flights. If your company’s travel manager offered you $2000 cash for flying in economy on a trip where they would otherwise pay for your seat in business class, would you take the money — and the downgrade?

That’s the bargain that employees at Energizer and other firms are being offered, according to this article in the NY Times.

[Energizer's] solution [to increasing travel costs] was an incentive program: it pays employees to fly coach, instead of business class, when traveling overseas.

“What we do for all locations except for Asia is we share the difference in the ticket price for up to $2,000,” said Doris Lee Middleton, the human resources and travel services manager at Energizer. “For Asia, it’s $3,000.”

Taxable, but still. That’s real money.

The plan isn’t without its downsides: On the one hand, as the article argues, it potentially creates divisions within the employee base. Those who travel get extra cash. Those whose job descriptions don’t include travel aren’t getting anything extra, and can be resentful of a backdoor raise.

Further, the kickback scheme perverts incentives to travel. If you know you’re going to get paid extra cash to fly, you’ll find reasons to take a longer trip than might be necessary.

From where I sit, the Energizer plan seems like a decent deal for the employee, since the offer retains a choice. From a manager’s perspective, I’m surprised they don’t move to this model:

There are other variations on incentives, too, that feel less rewarding to employees but nevertheless reduce companies’ travel costs. One is allowing employees to fly business class if they book a flight on a less expensive route, but requiring them to fly coach on a more expensive itinerary.

And then there’s this option:

A few companies do another variation on travel incentives — reimbursing employees who use their own points to take a trip. “As an employee, it allows you to monetize your frequent-flier miles,” Mr. Steiner of Ovation Corporate Travel said.

This seems like a bad idea. If I’m running a business, I don’t want to depend on the vagaries of award availability. And if I’m the employee getting paid for the miles (a taxable event), I might be concerned that the airline would nix my account if they ever got wind of the sale of miles. And will the cents-per-mile rate at which the company compensates the employee be sufficiently generous?

I’m still stuck on the idea being bought off — getting paid cash to fly coach, essentially splitting the difference between coach and business class with the company. Is this a great option or a further step in making business travel miserable? Would you take the deal? Vote in the poll, hit the comments, and speak your mind.

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(Can’t see the poll? Reading this via the feed? Click here to visit the site to vote in the poll or leave a comment.)

Who charges a hefty surcharge — twice — when you buy a ticket for someone else?

Greyhound.

The travel marketplace is clearly diversifying: It’s not just airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies that are bilking customers with poorly-disclosed and poorly-justified fees. We can now add Greyhound bus lines to the list of offenders.

Longtime friend of the blog Dave H. writes in with a tale of bus tickets run amok with fees:

[My wife's mom] usually drives the 2 hours from Delaware to us but wanted to take a break this upcoming visit [...] so we bought her a ticket on Greyhound. 62 bucks roundtrip, Wilmington to Newark. (Amtrak was about double that.)

Clicked “purchase”, then *after the fact* learned about their $18 “gift service fee”. So talk about an online bait-and-switch! (Aren’t online retailers required to show a complete grand total before completing a transaction?) And then, only on reading the fine print in the receipt did she learn about another $15 “will call” charge if the traveler is not the purchaser. $33 in fees on a $62 ticket. Undisclosed until after purchase. And of course it’s a non-refundable fare. (And also in the fine print: seats are first-come, first-served, and if the bus is full they’ll just put you on the next bus, so there is *zero* incentive to buy ahead of time.)

Greyhound justifies the $18 charge by asking complaining customers — after putting you on interminable hold, of course — how much would it have cost to wire the money to the giftee? No justification offered for the $15 will-call fee. [...]

We, of course, have options: we’ll dispute the charge with our credit card issuer, who will either open a dispute or more likely simply eat the $80 to avoid the hassle of a dispute. But the target of this predatory business practice — people with no credit cards, i.e., the poor — are just getting milked.

To verify the process, I initiated a bus ticket purchase myself, for the same exact schedule as Dave’s purchase. While Dave is quite correct that the $18 “Gift Ticket Fee” is obnoxious, it is disclosed. Here’s a screenshot from the purchase page. See right below “Please Note”:

Disclosure is okay, but come on: What justification is there for this fat surcharge? Fraud risk? I’ve paid for plane tickets for others, which cost a heck of a lot more than that. And the way the rule is written, a husband can’t buy a ticket for his wife without paying the surcharge. Ridiculous! Disclosed or not, the fee offends.

And the $15 will-call fee? Not disclosed prior to purchase. Clicking for details on the ticket delivery methods would — at a minimum — be a good last-ditch opportunity to mention such a surcharge. Nope. Here’s the in-window popup:

It’s not just the lack of disclosure: It’s the size of these fees. $15 to pick up a prepaid ticket would make even Ticketmaster blush.

And whom are they hurting most here? Greyhound’s business model here is painfully apparent in the customer service agent’s justification of the gift ticket fee. Wiring money is the comp? If Greyhound is using Western Union wire fees as its reference point, then they might as well start offering payday loans, furniture rental, and an in-transit pawn shop.

So don’t reward bad behavior. Until Greyhound finds some pricing ethics, seek alternatives where they’re available. Chinatown buses, Megabus, Peter Pan… anything.