Downgraded: The view on AirTran
While US Airways has long had ads on the tops of their tray tables, which you only see if you pull the tray down, AirTran is going a step further and pasting ads on the undersides — the side you see during takeoff and landing, when those traytables are in their “upright and locked position.” The Ryanairification of American air travel is nearly complete. Stay classy!

Downgraded: Premium seats on Qantas
Qantas is cutting the number of premium seats. No surprises there.

Upgraded: A380 first class seats
The Global Traveller has flown the A380 on Singapore, Qantas, and Emirates, and offers a comparison of all three products. Well played, sir. Well played.

Downgraded: Airbus A380, not so premium
In direct contrast to the previous item, how about an A380 equipped with 840 seats? Air Austral, which travels between La Réunion in the Indian Ocean and Paris, has ordered two single-class A380s, jam-packed with passengers.

Upgraded: Tokyo
Forget Paris, New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago… Tokyo gets the nod for the city with the most top Michelin-starred restaurants.

Downgraded: Flying into de facto lava fields
Horrible event, but a great headline: “Plane Misses Runway, Lands in Lava“… The accident occurred in Goma, Congo, where the runway was cut in half by the lava flow from a 2002 volcanic eruption. Apparently, there were a few injuries, but thankfully no deaths.

Downgraded: Amex cards’ point/mile programs
Want to earn the miles or points from an affinity credit card purchase? Be sure to pay the bill on time. American Express is withholding the points if the cardholder doesn’t pay the bill by the due date. Customers forfeit the points, unless they pay a $29 reinstatement fee, in addition to late charges and interest. This isn’t just Amex: JPMorgan Chase has a similar policy with their United Visa. Expect this to be the norm. And try to pay that bill on time.

Some light fare for a pre-holiday Friday afternoon… My favorite gimmick from the recent (brilliant) AirTran PR stunt, wherein comedian Mark Malkoff lived on AirTran planes for an entire month, ostensibly to get over his fear of flying. In the process, he learned about the vacuum power of airplane toilets, as is evidenced in this video. (entirely safe for work, no worries)

You may have seen it before, but it’s a keeper in my book.

Didn’t pay for first or business class? Didn’t put your name on the upgrade list before the flight? Boarded and seated in your coach seat, and feeling remorse about not pushing for the seat up front? No longer a problem, if you’re on AirTran. The airline has started allowing passengers to upgrade to business class after boarding.

AirTran has been selling upgrades for some time, but the notable change is that they’re now selling those upgrades on board. (Assuming they’re free, of course.) It’s the same price — $49 to $99 each way, depending on the route — as if you had bought the upgrade online or at the airport. But this way, if you decide at the very last minute that you really do want the bigger seat, you now can buy it.

AirTran will continue to sell upgrades at the time of booking, at check-in, at the ticket counter or at the gate, and continue to give complimentary upgrades to elite travelers. Flight attendants will make announcements on board if any upgrades remain and are for sale.
[...]
Passengers pay by credit card to flight attendants, who carry card readers already used for on-board drink sales.

Pretty smart of them. It’s possible that others might follow suit, but don’t expect it on the long-haul international flights where sitting in a bigger, reclining seat really matters.

Don’t expect a big meal or a fancy production. This isn’t Singapore. What you get is a bigger seat and free drinks. Not a bad option to have, though, and I salute AirTran for being creative (and aggressive) in turning those bigger seats into cash.

I don’t expect many airlines will follow suit. Most other airlines have so many elite-level frequent flyer program members, that the seats would already be filled. I haven’t seen an empty first-class seat in ages.

AirTran’s pool of elites is a smaller group, so the airline can both pamper them AND go for revenue from the masses. (Back in September, they announced some improvements to their elite program, including upgrades from any fare class, subject to availability, 40 minutes before takeoff. So elites shouldn’t worry that they’re competing with cash buyers on board, though a cash-upgrader could trump an elite if they buy the upgrade before the 40-minute mark.)

I’d expect to see Spirit and Virgin America follow suit soon. Perhaps airlines without an “unlimited” upgrade policy for elites (e.g., United and American) would be also consider testing this sort of program.

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The other day, FareCompare.com CEO Rick Seaney sent over an analysis of AirTran’s recent fare sale. “When is a fare sale not really a fare sale?” The answer: When the airline hikes its fares, only to lower them with great fanfare a few days later. Hooray for the status quo?

Rick suggests that this is tantamount to those stores that once lined the streets of midtown Manhattan, declaring they were going out of business. That is, until you saw that the name of the store was “Going Out of Business, Inc.” or something like that.

So how did AirTran join such esteemed company as the all-things-must-go merchants of New York City? Within a one-month period, Air Tran raised their fares three times — twice for three days, once for five days — and then brought them back to the previous level. Each time, their return to normal pricing was heralded with breathless press releases and a marketing blitz, announcing a sale.

Rick is right: This is an at best questionable, at worst deceptive business practice. Think about it: If a department store jacked up its prices for a few days, then brought them back to normal, customers might be filing complaints with the Federal Trade Commission. Perhaps AirTran thinks that the fluctuating nature of air ticket prices makes them immune to such charges, but I think they’re walking on some very thin ice.

So now they’ve been called out on it. We’ll see if they’ll change their tune, of they’ll just keep right on doing it. If enough people catch on, the phrase “AirTran fare sale” might be like the boy crying wolf.

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Hell freezes over: Southwest makes its fares more widely searchable
(corrected) It’s a bizarre reversal of their earlier strategy of keeping their fares out of the major online booking systems and travel agencies, and forcing you to go to their website to check their prices. But they’ve opened it up: Southwest Airlines has signed on for a ten-year pact with Galileo, one of the major computer networks used by travel agents and online booking companies to pull up fares. What does it mean for you? Easier comparison shopping. (Some background here, from when jetBlue similarly linked up other sites.) Until now, Southwest has never shown up in airfare searches outside of their own site, so it’s pro-consumer to see their fares head-to-head with other airlines’ offerings. But there’s a catch: They’re keeping some of their lowest fares out of Galileo. Baby steps. (Clarification: Travel agents who subscribed to the Sabre GDS were able to book Southwest flights for their clients previously. But the big online agencies — Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. — couldn’t. It’s not clear if the new deal will integrate Southwest into those sites yet.)

Non-news: People aren’t happy with airlines
It should come as no surprise whatsoever that the general public is dissatisfied with the airlines in America. Only slightly more surprising is just how much some airlines’ ratings suck. United Airlines’ miserable showing is worst in the airline sector. But even more telling, the only company (in any industry) in the survey that out-awfuls UAL? Charter Communications. When you’re in a dead heat for last place with the cable guy, you know something is wrong. (As an aside, looking at the trendlines, I’m obviously not the only person who liked bankrupt United better…) Click here for the full ranking — for all companies, not just airlines.

Reason #7,619 to avoid checking luggage
The Today Show’s Peter Greenberg discovers the dark side of European low fare airlines when easyJet hits him with over $500 in excess luggage fees. Each way. He wasn’t transporting an entire apartment across the Channel, either. Flying on Air France, with those same suitcases, would have cost him less in the end. But Peter, why are you traveling low-rent on easyJet in the first place? (via Elliott)

Midwest and Northwest codeshare, but will it matter once AirTran buys Midwest?
Midwest Airlines and Northwest have started codesharing, which lets customers of both airlines earn miles on a lot more routes. Great, but considering that AirTran is launching a hostile takeover of Midwest, and already has nearly 57% of shares, will this deal survive the seemingly inevitable acquisition?

ID required, just not necessarily real ID
You may have to pull out identification in order to pass through airport security, but as a recent undercover investigation proves, the ID doesn’t need to be real. Just plausible enough to look real. That “Official Bikini Inspector” ID you got on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey in 1985 won’t cut it, tough guy.

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Reader Bill writes:

I need help! I accidentally booked flights for the wrong weekend via Air Tran. The flight is from Chicago to Sarasota, and it was a promotional fare that ended last night. Not only are they charging me to switch the flight (it’s in APRIL!), but they are also charging me the difference in fare because the promotion is over. Anything you can suggest?

Sorry to give you bad news, but you may be out of luck. AirTran has a pretty standard set of rules — published here — and requires a $60 fee plus any difference in the fare if you want to change a ticket.

I don’t see any way you’re going to get out of that policy, unless you can sweet talk the call center into making an exception.

Alternatively, instead of rebooking the tickets, you could pay $60 to cancel these tickets, and have the value of the tickets put into a credit voucher, for you to use within one year. (I assume they’d just deduct $60 in value from each ticket, rather than making you actually pay $60.)

This voucher option may be the way to go. If AirTran has another fare sale, you could potentially get better bang for your buck than you could right now. But it’s a gamble, and you may not be able to use the voucher for the Sarasota trip as planned.

UPDATE: Looks like Bill is quite the sweet-talker after all!

Thanks Mark! I ended up speaking with a supervisor who waived the $60 change of ticket fee, meaning I only had to pay for the difference in fare (around $65). Not too bad.

Not too bad, indeed. That supervisor was a good soul, since you didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. But it proves that a friendly request can go a long way.

Airline mergers are headlining the news again today, with United and Continental in early discussions, and with AirTran’s offer for Midwest Airlines confirmed (but declined). This of course comes on top of the US Airways offer for Delta, which Delta is resisting.

So consolidation is afoot. Like lemmings, the airlines run off the cliff, hoping to grow bigger. My feelings on mergers like this are negative, and I’ll just repeat part of an earlier post, when Continental and United were first being bandied about as potential merger partners:

But the bottom line for travelers doesn’t look good. Planes are full, demand is there, and airlines are eking out a profit, even with high oil prices. When airlines say there’s too much capacity, it just means that they want to charge more. A merger would drive out competition and increase prices — at ALL airlines, not just United-Continental. Not to mention the mess that could arise from merging two frequent flyer programs. I’m wary of a merger, and hoping it doesn’t happen.

That said, the counterargument suggests that consolidation will breed the rise of new competitors, or the expansion of other carriers to fill the void (and higher prices) in the wake of mega-mergers.

Possible, and probable in the long run, but in the short to medium run, mergers like this aren’t pro-consumer. They’re pro-Wall Street, and pro-airline executives, and that’s about it.

A few small Friday afternoon items (RJ-sized, perhaps?):

- Spirit Airlines $8 each way (pretax) fire sale fare sale ends tonight. Dates and availablity are obviously limited, but it’s darn cheap. The booby prize, if the $8 fare is sold out, is a $44 fare. (via smartertravel.com)

- A DeLand, Florida teacher was suspended for offering his students extra credit for collecting AirTran coupons from Wendy’s beverage cups. (32 cups equaled a free ticket under the promotion.) On the plus side, very few Wendy’s cups were littering America’s streets, and one school’s kids got a valuable less in frequent flyer miles… (via Today in the Sky)

- What better way to spend $37,200 than on a SINGLE NIGHT at Cannes’ Hotel Martinez penthouse suite, the most expensive hotel room in the world?

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USA Today’s Ben Mutzabaugh follows up the recent fracas over possible cellphone use in flight by contacting individual airlines and asking them what their policy on cellphones is.

The roundup:

AirTran: no to voice
Alaska: not sure yet
American: hedges, noncommittal
Continental: no comment
Delta: not sure yet
Frontier: hedges, noncommittal
JetBlue: yes to silent mode/texting, no to voice
Northwest: not sure yet
United: yes to wi-fi, no to voice
USAirways: not sure yet

Conspicuously absent from the list: Southwest. (The singing of “Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round” will remain permitted, encouraged, and complimentary, though.)

Consider writing to your air carrier of choice with your views on the matter, too. So many of these companies say they’re “listening to their customers,” so they need to hear from you.