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Time to short Samsonite stock?
Continental is the latest in a long line of airline to slap an additional fee on checking in a second suitcase. Yes, some exceptions apply, so OnePass elites as well as premium-cabin customers won’t have to pay the bill. But the bottom line: The 2008 flying environment dictates that the “2PC” rule is dead. One checked bag per person, or pay up.

UPDATE: Cranky points out that United has tightened up its rules on the 2nd bag. Previously, a refundable (read: expensive) ticket meant you got a waiver on the 2nd bag fee. Not anymore. How nice of them to make the policy so much more consistent, while, surely coincidentally, adding a revenue opportunity for the airline!

Another one bites the dust
Not quite the level of drama as the ATA, Aloha, and Skybus shutdowns, but Midwest Express’ commuter feeder Skyway Airlines is no longer flying. Their routes are being taken over by Skywest, a few letters apart, but a different company nonetheless. Passengers may not even notice, as the tickets were sold by Midwest and simply subcontracted to a different supplier. But the pilots and employees of Skyway will be feeling the sting.

Fuel cell-powered airlines coming someday?
It’s a small plane, without tons of passengers and cargo, but an encouraging sign nonetheless. Boeing successfully tested a small plane that ran on batteries and fuel cells. Its only emissions: Water vapor. Now if only they could create a fuel cell large enough to fly to Singapore…

How would US Customs & Immigration rate?
Jan Chipchase blogs about customer service feedback opportunities at Beijing and Frankfurt airports. I’ve flown through Frankfurt, but not Beijing, yet I’ve never been asked to give my opinion of the customs/immigration experience. Harrumph. The Beijing mechanism — an electronic device that invites you to push a button, rating your customs agent on a Likert scale — is nutty, and frankly unexpected at ANY airport, much less in China. (Jan snapped a photo of the device in the airport, which, in itself, is amusing, considering the general securitization of the customs area…) Nice idea, as long as you can rate the agent AFTER you’ve completed your business. I can only imagine how the surly agents at JFK would rate.

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Late Friday, Skybus announced on its website that it would shut down by the end of the day. If you hold tickets on the discount airline for travel today (Saturday, April 5, 2008) or later, call your credit card company immediately and try to secure a refund.

I say “try,” because you may not be able to get your money back. If you booked tickets well in advance and you’ve already paid the bill, you may run into snags with your credit card company in getting a chargeback. You generally can dispute charges when a company fails to deliver the services it promised, but if you’ve paid your bill, your bank is far less likely to work on your behalf. Banks vary; call them. Now.

If you’re already halfway into an itinerary, you can try to get your ticket honored by another airline, but as Chris Elliott has pointed out after previous airline shutdowns, there’s no law requiring them to do so. If any other airline accepts a Skybus ticket, even with a surcharge, it’s as close to an act of charity as you’ll ever see from a for-profit enterprise.

So far, no statement has appeared on any of the major airlines’ websites to woo Skybus customers. Who would want to attract a cheapskate customer who only paid a measly $10 one-way fare, I guess. In contrast, you’ll see announcements of standby policy for stranded ATA and Aloha customers on airline websites like Northwest, US Airways and United. For example, ATA customers can fly standby (on a space-available basis… good luck) on US Airways for $100 per segment. Not truly “cheap,” but better than paying a walk-up fare to, say, get back to the U.S. mainland from Honolulu.

But back to Skybus: Their failure is a surprise, but only for its timing. The third scheduled airline this week to close its doors, after the much older Aloha and ATA. (I’m sorry, I don’t count the charter airline Champion Air, which also folded this week. Bad week for the industry.) High fuel prices and bad business models combined to create this week’s carnage.

I never flew Skybus, though I had been considering trying them out on a Greensboro-Chicago/Gary flight. I flew Aloha inter-island in 1994, which was pleasant, and I flew ATA in 2003, which was less than pleasant. (I swore never to fly ATA again after a miserable experience with their front-desk staff at Chicago/Midway, who refused to issue a boarding pass, even though I was at the gate more than 45 minutes before the flight. “You’ll never make it through security in time.” “I bet I can.” “Nope, you won’t. The next flight is in 7 hours. You’re on the standby list.” I’ve never been angrier at an airline employee.)

Taking three airlines out of commission is pulling a good chunk of supply from the market, especially to Hawaii, which will allow other airlines to raise fares. For the short term, these airline failures are bad news for all flyers, not just the folks who hold tickets on the defunct carriers.

But rest assured, much like lottery tickets always find a market, capital always seems to flow to start-up airlines, though it’s not overnight. Perhaps a Charleston, West Virginia based airline might be the next big thing. Or even a Louisiana-themed discount carrier named after gumbo.

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Upgraded: Evidence that airlines are unwilling to break the status quo
The Air Transport Association, fresh off its successful lawsuit that overturned the Passenger Bill of Rights in New York, is threatening to sue the Department of Transportation over the proposed introduction of congestion pricing at the busiest U.S. airports. The airlines will do what they can to stop the proposal, they say. So what’s the airlines’ solution to overbooked airports? Cue the crickets…

Upgraded: Olympic condoms
With the summer games coming up, Chinese hotels are stocking up on condoms. Yes, really. “The condoms shall not be used as evidence of prostitution and whoring.” Well thank goodness! But will they be found in the minibar?

Downgraded: Commemorative British Airways newsletters
Upgraded: FedEx
Five years, and billions of capital spent, and the Terminal 5 fiasco at London Heathrow continues to be a headache for all involved. Last week’s grand opening of the posh new terminal was marred by the now well-publicized luggage handling failure. 20,000 checked bags still need to be reunited with their owners, and British Airways is calling in the cavalry: FedEx. Another reason that BA has decided to scrap a commemorative in-house newsletter celebrating the terminal opening.

Upgraded: Single travelers in Delta coach
Downgraded: Ghetto upgraders
Delta is buying Thompson Solutions’ “Cozy Suites” for its widebody jets, to be installed in 2010. The seats are a little odd, with a staggered configuration with no two people sitting precisely next to each other. More armrest space is one perk with this approach. Good for solo travelers, bad for couples and families. But even worse for anyone hoping to get a “ghetto upgrade” — an entire row of seats to oneself, allowing you to lift the armrests and stretch across. It’s also somewhat reminiscent of the alternating forward-backward-forward seating that was floated just about a year ago. But it’s thinking differently, and I like that. (via Cranky)

Hopefully everyone got the April Fool’s ha-ha’s out of their system today. But the winner, in my book, is Canadian airline WestJet, which announced that they were converting their overhead bins into sleeper seats.

Their press release offered this explanation:

By offering our existing overhead bins as sleeper cabins, guests will now have the opportunity to lie down for a period of time and arrive at their destination refreshed, rested and ready to go.

Well-played, WestJet. Well-played.

And in an alternate joke bound to make Chris Elliott cringe, “Richard Branson’s Virgin Blue airline got into the April 1 spirit by running newspaper ads offering half-priced fares for passengers willing to stand, with free calf massages on flights longer than two hours.”

Uncovered: the previously secret blueprint for airline business plans. It’s all here: inventory management, pricing, flight scheduling, route selection, maintenance, and even duty free shopping. Courtesy of Monty Python.

American Airlines grounded its entire fleet of MD-80 jets to check wiring on the planes. As I write this, 325 flights are canceled.

Delta, also with a sizable MD-80 and -90 fleet, canceled several hundred flights for the same reason.

Earlier in the week, United took a number of its 747s out of service, also to perform maintenance checks, “to ensure compliance with federal maintenance standards.” All of a sudden? “The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary groundings after discovering that test equipment used at a South Korea maintenance station was faulty.”

What’s going on?

After Southwest’s brief grounding of more than 40 737-300 jets because of possible damage to the aircraft’s metallic “skin,” the FAA is cracking down on maintenance. The agency “recently launched spot checks of compliance with safety requirements for all U.S. airlines.”

Well, good. After apparently not doing enough spot checking, the agency is playing catch-up. It’s encouraging, I suppose, that the inspections are being done now. But what does that mean for recent flights, like those, say, a week before these recent groundings? Wasn’t maintenance taken seriously before? Were you taking a risk?

There probably wasn’t much risk to passengers, frankly. I always comfort myself with the notion that the pilots are as much at risk as passengers. If they’re willing to get on board, then so am I.

But, as a matter of principle, I prefer that my airlines don’t cut corners and don’t skimp on maintenance. I also prefer that my government’s regulatory bodies do their job and actually keep companies under scrutiny in a clear, defined, and above all consistent manner. That clearly didn’t happen. And that is what needs to be addressed. The sky isn’t falling, but things could sure be better.

The airlines affected are canceling flights wholesale today, though they promise to be back on schedule soon. That’s the immediate bad news for travelers today. The fact that regulation has been haphazard is frankly of greater concern.

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After 9/11, there was a debate over whether pilots should be trained in small firearms and permitted (or required) to carry a pistol in the cockpit. From the get-go, I objected. I felt that the risks of firearms exceeded their benefit, especially if the Federal Air Marshals program already had armed law enforcement officers on board.

The risk of an accidental discharge, or worse, a pilot with less-than-honorable purposes, makes guns in the cockpit a substantial risk. And now it’s happened: A US Airways pilot discharged his weapon during approach to Charlotte.

What on earth was the pilot doing with his pistol during the approach? Shouldn’t he have been working on landing the plane? And why wasn’t his weapon holstered, with the safety on? What were they doing up there, talking about their favorite (and still, to this day, most disturbing) scenes in Christopher Walken movies?

The whole thing makes me feel less safe. Both because I don’t like the idea of hot lead flying through the fuselage, and because I like my pilots to be flying, not playing with guns.

The pro-gun argument has always been that armed pilots serve as the last line of defense in the case of a hijacking or other incident. Or that armed pilots are themselves a deterrent to hijackers.

But it’s impossible to prove whether or not the arming of pilots actually improves safety by scaring potential bad guys from trying anything on board a plane. You can’t prove or disprove that proposition, unless you’ve got an al Qaeda focus group that you’re running.

A more concrete case that would support the pro-arming side would be incidents of threats who were subdued by an armed pilot. I haven’t heard of a single incident wherein a pilot was called upon to unholster his or her weapon in flight. If readers have a link to such a case, please send it my way.

As it is, the passengers on this plane were lucky that nothing worse happened. Arming pilots remains a bad idea.

(Thanks to David, Kim, and Richard for sending this one in!)

UPDATE:
Here’s a photo of the gunshot hole, via the Associated Press:

Reader Michelle sends in a link about the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s plan to make the outlying Stewart Airport “carbon-negative.” Carbon-negative? So flying from Stewart actually HELPS the environment? Uhh, yeah.

In reality, the airport would offset the carbon dioxide produced on its premises by planting forests wholesale. All well and good. But is it realistic to expect an airport to counteract all of the fossil fuel burning machines that grace its pavement? And then some?

I don’t buy it. Airports aren’t exactly minty-fresh. Never have been, and as long as their tenants burn hydrocarbons, they won’t be. Offsetting the pollution they create is an honorable goal, but face it, that’s a lot of trees. Especially if the airport is expected to grow.

And it doesn’t help the local environment. “People who live around Stewart have concerns that expanded operations will exacerbate air and noise pollution and fuel sprawling development.” Indeed, I’m sure they will. And planting trees fifty, a hundred, or a thousand miles away won’t fix that.

This is a “greenwashing” PR stunt.

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In the United States’ never-ending quest to piss off every single foreign visitor to our country, Congress has decided that international visitors must be fingerprinted like criminals when they arrive AND when they leave the country.

But Congress didn’t say who should be responsible for taking the prints. So the airlines are being fingered (sorry…) by Homeland Security to do the deed, and they’re resisting.

On the plus side: Airlines are finally standing up for their international customers and pushing back. But they’re not pushing back against the culture of fear; they’re making a legal argument about unfunded mandates and the role of the private sector in performing government functions.

But let’s face it, airlines only objected once they had to start actively participating in the fingerprinting scheme. They only objected when they had work to do.

So if Homeland Security takes responsibility for the mandated ‘printing, will any airlines maintain their objections to the scheme? Don’t bet on it.

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No surprises here, but US Airways copied its Star Alliance brethren United and started charging a fee for a second checked bag. United announced their change earlier this month. No surprises here, but it still sucks.

As Cranky notes, this isn’t just for domestic travel, either. International flights will be hit with the charge as well.

But as I’ve argued before, the really key point in the spread of “a la carte” pricing is that it’s becoming harder and harder to compare apples to apples. Comparing base fares is increasingly going to be meaningless, as individual customers’ final prices will vary greatly.

And right now, there’s no search engine that’s equipped to help. You’ll need a magic decoder ring to know which airline charges extra for bags, for seat assignments, etc. The Travelocitys, Expedias, and Orbitzes of the world can only quote you the base fare and taxes. Not the real cost.

That’s going to put pressure on other airlines to follow suit. And it’s going to make online fare search that much harder.

(image: gratuitous use of the Staples Copy Cat)

If you invest in socially-responsible mutual funds, you may not be investing (however indirectly) in airlines much longer. And it has nothing to do with labor practices, if that’s where your mind is drifting.

Fund manager Standard Life is dropping airlines from its “ethical” portfolios:

Airlines have been labelled unethical by one of Britain’s biggest investment firms, which plans them to blacklist them alongside arms dealers, pornographers and animal-testing laboratories.

Concern over the millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide produced by commercial aircraft has prompted the Edinburgh-based Standard Life to cease investing in carriers such as British Airways, Ryanair and EasyJet on behalf of tens of thousands of customers of its ethical funds.

Sure, the parallel with arms dealers and pornographers is intentionally inflammatory, and makes great headlines. And if the funds have an environmental focus, then the exclusion makes sense. Air travel isn’t without its carbon impact (though short-hop airlines like Ryanair presumably have a greater negative impact than long-haul airlines like British Airways…)

And let’s not forget that airlines have been pretty lousy long-term investments. But that’s not ethics, that’s business.

But above all, this highlights how different the discourse of travel is in Europe and America, despite perpetually increasing environmental awareness among Americans. Sure, airlines spew plenty of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but this is barely an issue in the US.

Ethical investment? Or a distasteful stain on any self-respecting person’s portfolio? Hit the comments.

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For U.S. travelers, the old pre-deregulation Rule 240 was a godsend, a way to practically ensure that you’d get to your destination if your booked flight was delayed for reasons other than weather. Invoke rule 240, and the airline would put you on the next flight to your destination — even if that flight was on the competition!

It’s true. Airlines were once required to simply sign over tickets to another carrier if their flights were delayed or canceled, as long as weather wasn’t the cause. Customers won. (And I could imagine that this would encourage tip-top maintenance, too.)

With the demise of regulation, Rule 240 was no longer a standard requirement for airline contracts. Each airline could tinker with their contracts of carriage here and there, and they did. Some kept the old rule 240 in the contract, and they even called it “rule 240.” But the global requirement that there be such a rule was gone.

Every so often, the subject of rule 240 comes up again in the travel media. This time, eminences grises Peter Greenberg and Joe Brancatelli posted opposing views on the existential question of whether or not Rule 240 exists, with Chris Elliott playing referee. Read ‘em all.

The bottom line, to me, is this: There is no true Rule 240 anymore. Some airlines have it, some don’t. And it’s not a rule, as much as it is a practice, with a bit of discretion and leeway for the gate agent. But it’s worth asking for, in a pinch. It can’t hurt to try.

Above all, the key is that Rule 240 is not universal, neither in name, nor in scope. Airlines and passengers are supposed to abide by the terms of the contract of carriage, which differs by airline. And these contracts change from time to time, much to travelers’ chagrin. You don’t like that? Tough luck. It’s not like you can cancel your ticket without penalties, even if the airline changes its contract. (Who writes these things? Must be a sweet gig.)

But just because Rule 240 isn’t a blanket rule across all carriers doesn’t mean you can’t try invoking it, or its contractual descendant. If you’re delayed, ask to be rescheduled on another flight. But remember, if the delay is due to weather, you’re out of luck. And guess what airlines will try to blame the delays on?

As I’ve argued before, always carry a copy of your airline’s contract. I usually lug a laptop with me, so I download the contract before I leave. If there’s a delay, you’ve got the documentation to scroll through.

Personally, I’ve never actually invoked Rule 240, or any of its variants, to fly on another airline at no further cost. (Though a kind Delta agent once put me on an American Airlines flight from Seattle to Chicago, when I was traveling on a “free” SkyMiles ticket from Anchorage that wasn’t routed anywhere near Seattle… It’s a long story. In retrospect, she probably 240′ed me.) I’ve been rebooked many times on alternate flights on the airline that operated my original ticket, but that, to me, isn’t really Rule 240. But I know people who have, to some success. But things change, and I wouldn’t bet on it working out for you if you tried “invoking” it today.

But how about you? Have you used it? Have you been denied?

Hit the poll!

(Reading this in the feed? Trouble voting? Click here to vote.)

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