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Maybe US Airways does have a liquor problem…
Maybe New Mexico’s recent restrictions on US Airways’ serving liquor on flights to and from the state had something to do with company CEO Doug Parker. The executive has apparently been busted for driving under the influence, perhaps after downing one too many mini-bottles from the drink cart. Maybe he should have had a cup of the God-awful “Ma Parker’s roast” coffee that his airline served instead. (Then again, that swill will drive anyone to drink.)

Delta looks the other way
What does Delta owe you if you PROVE that one of their baggage handlers stole a camera out of your suitcase? Nothing! The Consumerist has the story of a sleuthing passenger who tracked down his stolen camera on eBay, got the seller (a Delta employee) arrested (and fired!), and even got his camera back. But he didn’t get an apology voucher from Delta. The airline argues that they’re even. He got his camera back, and they got him from point A to point B, and so he’s due nothing. No mention of the fact that their own staff ripped him off, causing him countless hours of hassle and endless frustration. Jeez, throw the guy a bone! Apologize and give him a coupon!

Oh sure, blame the volcano
Flashback to 1982: A British Airways 747 loses power in all four of its engines, and starts going down. Miraculously, it doesn’t crash and everyone survives. The culprit: volcano ash. It’s a fascinating tale, and a good way to start the weekend. (via David Rowell)

Pilots packing heat: Captain Bernard Goetz wishes you a pleasant flight
The U.S. State Department and Homeland Security are trying to get more countries to allow American pilots to carry guns when they fly internationally. ( “Who’s Bernard Goetz?” See here.)

Reminder: Travvies Nominations close Monday morning, bright and early
Just a short reminder that nominations for the Travvies — the awards for the best travel blogs — end Monday. Then the nominations will be sent off to the judges, who will pick the finalists. Public voting starts just over a week later. Thanks to everyone for all the great nominations so far! Click here for the nomination start page, or click on the award categories in the sidebar.

After updating yesterday’s post regarding British Airways’ absurdly expensive surcharges for checking a second piece of luggage, one item in the fine print stuck with me. It was the exemption:

“World Traveller customers travelling / connecting to or from the US, Canada, Caribbean, Nigeria, Brazil and Mexico will continue to be allowed two checked bags in line with the local government regulations.” (emphasis added)

I did a search for the American regulations, so I checked the rules at the FAA, FTC, and TSA. I couldn’t find anything mandating the inalienable right to two suitcases on flights to or from the United States.

After all, Spirit Airlines just instituted a rule that a second suitcase would cost you $10 extra. So I don’t think there’s anything on the books here in the U.S.

So what is going on? I suspect that British Airways is using the guise of government regulation to create this exemption, given the amount of competition on routes to the United States. Once word gets out, passengers who travel with two bags would be loath to book with BA if Virgin, American, or United will happily take two bags.

In fact, this may largely be the “Virgin exception.” Virgin Atlantic flies to the US and the Caribbean, while Virgin Nigeria flies to Nigeria (obviously). Virgin still permits two free checked bags. To Brazil and Mexico, maybe there’s another carrier that BA is really trying to hold off.

In any case, I call BS on the “local government regulations” line. Corrections are welcome.

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Just three days ago, we learned that Spirit Airlines would start charging $10 each way if a passenger wanted to check a second bag. But that’s peanuts. British Airways will be charging £120 — the equivalent of $235 — for an extra bag. Each way.

British Airways announced this change at the very beginning of the new year, probably (correctly) assuming that reporters were on holiday and not paying attention. But with the effective date of the new policy (February 13) creeping up, the media (and yes, this blog) have now woken up to the change.

I’m in favor of traveling light, of course, and I strongly prefer to travel with carry-ons only, but sometimes that just isn’t possible, especially nowadays, when a fourth ounce of shampoo is perceived as a threat to Western Civilization.

But British Airways’ “New Simpler Baggage Policy” (love that marketing spin!) is outrageously expensive. For travelers in economy, you’ll only be allowed one checked bag without a surcharge, even on long-haul flights. A second bag, limited in weight to 23kg (51lbs), costs £120 for long flights or £60 for shorter trips.

British Airways is seemingly doing everything it can to tarnish its own image in the eyes of consumers. They won’t let you make seating reservations unless you’re on a full-fare ticket — even discounted business class travelers can’t get a seat assignment. They jerked their customers around during the recently threatened strike — flights are on! cancelled! back on! — throwing thousands of travel plans into disarray. And now this. At this rate, upright “seating” may soon be a reality after all.

British Airways has an increasing disdain for their customers. With that kind of attitude, why fly with them?

Unless you want to pack an extra suitcase full of money.

(Update: British Airways will NOT be charging this fee on EVERY flight. “World Traveller customers travelling / connecting to or from the US, Canada, Caribbean, Nigeria, Brazil and Mexico will continue to be allowed two checked bags in line with the local government regulations.” Lucky for those traveling to/from/through those countries. But muddled rules are a recipe for inconsistent enforcement. If you’re flying BA, better print the rules before you head to the airport…)

(Thanks Hamish!)

Related:
- British Airways limits advance seat selection even further
- Pack light: Spirit Airlines charging fees for 2nd checked bag

Spirit Airlines, known for its clever (and sometimes politically partisan) marketing, is the first airline in America to charge a fee if you want to check a second suitcase.

Effective February 10, 2007, each passenger will only be allowed ONE checked bag of 50 pounds. The second bag will cost $10 and a third will run you $100. Bags over 50 pounds will cost extra, as always. Full detail of Spirit’s baggage policies is here.

Smells like the nickel-and-diming business plan of European discount carriers like Ryanair, and I don’t like it.

As usual, the airline’s business case is understandable. Less luggage means lower expenses for the airline, and we’re already seeing signs that we’re headed for a-la-carte ticket pricing. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. For those who are traveling with a second suitcase, this is effectively a fare hike.

If Spirit is in contention for your travels, it’s time to consider your packing strategy before you buy your tickets. Or just reconsider your airline.

Passengers miss flight because a Northwest crew wanted donuts
Since when do pilots call the shots on the ground, too? A flight crew convinced a hotel shuttle bus driver to go for donuts instead of heading to the airport, causing other van riders to miss their flight. Full story via Chris Elliott.

Wisconsin Dells loses its Wonder Spot
Ah, the Dells… The klassic kitschy Chicagoland weekend getaway. It has now lost one of its treasures, the gravity-defying Wonder Spot. While Tommy Bartlett’s Thrill Show remains, the Wonder Spot will be missed.

My bag is happy to see you
A “vibrating bag” was discovered unattended at Chicago O’Hare. (It contained a sleep apnea machine, so wipe that smirk off your face!)

I came for the transportation, I stayed for the haircut
Virgin Atlantic hires more in-flight beauty therapists.

Love at first sting
Two separate flights, two separate incidents of scorpions stinging people on a plane. Flight one: Chicago to Burlington, Vermont. Flight two, Miami to Toronto. Forget Samuel L. Jackson. Bring me Klaus Meine!

Singapore Airlines’ new business class… reviewed!
Remember Singapore Airlines’ major upgrade to its business and first class cabins on selected routes? The Global Traveller has sat in the business class seat, and offers his review. Live vicariously.

Charlie Trotter and United Airlines reunited and it feels so good
This is where the cost savings from eliminating pretzels in coach must have gone. United Airlines is jazzing up the food in business and first class. They’re bringing back uber-chef Charlie Trotter, whom they ditched after 9/11. Bet you a bag of savory snack mix that it’ll still taste like airline food… (Thanks to Mark L.!)

Oasis coming to Oakland
Oasis, the Hong Kong based discount airline, famous for it’s $128 tickets to London, is coming to the United States. They’ll start flights from Hong Kong to Oakland in June, with 4x weekly service to start, moving up to daily service in August. No word yet on the fare.

Avoid the TSA by shipping yourself in a crate?
This isn’t living the first class life, but it’s first class by shipping container standards: The Travelbox, a crate designed for shipping a person. Bonus: It has its own running water supply.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car adds hybrid SUVs in California
Enterprise will rent you one of 160 Saturn VUE Green Line SUVs in the Bay Area, LA, or Sacramento. Yes, only California. What, no other parts of the country care about fuel consumption? Hybrids: good. Hybrid CARS, and not just SUVs, would be even better… It’s a start.

American Airlines spurns Expedia
If you’re looking for American Airlines’ international fares or premium cabin fares on Expedia, you’re out of luck. The airline is apparently having a little spat with the online agency, and yanked its fares from the site. We’ll see how long that lasts…

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The Jack LaLanne of Planes
What happens if a plane is put on a giant treadmill, designed to counter the motion of the plane’s wheels? Can it take off, or does it just sit there? Debate!

Retro-chic luggage you wish you had
When did airlines stop giving away travel bags emblazoned with their logos? Walk down memory lane, or discover the world of flight before the age of e-tickets at the Airline Bag Lounge.

Hotels that won’t earn points, but so what
There are themed and kitschy hotels throughout the world, and I’ll always have a space in my heart for them. My wife and I once stayed in a lodge with a “Zulu Room” that featured an oil painting of an obviously-male leopard hovering over a… erm… submissively relaxed female. Classy. But how about a KGB prison-themed hotel in Liepaja, Latvia, where the room costs £7 a night, and the degradation of prisoners guests is complimentary? No? Well, there are plenty of other novelty options, all more interesting than the Motel 6, to be sure. Maybe not luxurious, but certainly memorable. (Hat tip to John Brownlee at Wired’s Table of Malcontents)

Readers are always invited to send in questions, comments, or, as the case of Neale H. exemplifies, their rants. Neale is one unsatisfied Ryanair customer. His e-mail demonstrates that people don’t just want a cheap fare — sometimes absurdly cheap if you buy far enough in advance — they want to be treated with a modicum of respect.

Neale’s requests: The chance to sit together with his kids, and a pooled-luggage policy that doesn’t charge him the equivalent of $100 for going overweight. His e-mail, below the fold, outlines his objections in all their righteous detail.

Ryanair doesn’t come out smelling too clean after Neale is done with his assault. And he doesn’t even mention their skimpy legroom (photographic proof!). And indeed, it sounds like they don’t want kids onboard. But I disagree that Ryanair therefore appeals to the “lonely.” Hey, I’ve got no offspring, either, but that doesn’t mean I’m lacking affection or a social life…

Think Neale is right on? Think he’s being unreasonable? Sound off in comments. And if you don’t think this could happen in the U.S. of A., I have one word for you: Skybus. Click “Read more” to see Neale’s rant.

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It’s not Halloween, it’s ‘Take Your Columnist To Work Day’!
The New York Times’ Joe Sharkey, apparently tired of writing about business travel for his business travel column, pays a visit to someone’s place of business instead. But it’s no ordinary cubiclefest, but the wacky offices of Vegas.com. Joe’s money quote that makes the whole article worthwhile, though, is this: “Once, for a newspaper story in Philadelphia, I went to the animal shelter to bail out a stripper’s boa constrictor that was part of her act (the job of the snake, who adored her, was to untie her bikini top on stage).” Baby, that’s journalism.

It’s not Earth Day, either
Environmentalists in the UK aren’t cutting KLM any slack. The airline is introducing coffee grown on “sustainable” plantations, but the announcement was greeted with scoffs. Since airlines pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a few acres of shade-grown coffee apparently don’t matter. Okay… but the airlines aren’t going to stop burning jet fuel overnight, and they have a choice TODAY regarding shade-grown vs. clear-cut-the-rainforests coffee. Give KLM a little credit.

Tehran is lovely this time of year
Iran is looking to attract tourists, and what better way to get them than to offer cash incentives? Iranian travel agents get a $20 bounty for every Western tourist they attract. Maybe they should start a rewards program for the visitors, though…

Air New Zealand goes ’round the world
Last week, Air New Zealand started flying from Hong Kong to London, making it the only airline to fly around the globe. (United gave up its Washington-London-Delhi-Hong Kong-Los Angeles-Washington circle in 2001, the previous holdout of single-airline RTW travel.) You can fly the loop for £801 (US$1521) including taxes for flights starting in London with stops along the way in Hong Kong, Auckland, and Los Angeles — cheap for a trip around the earth.

The life and times of (lost) luggage
Jane Engle follows the path of checked luggage. It’s a long but interesting tale, with some of the bags ending up at the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Alabama. Her suggestions at the end for making your bags identifiable are good ones, classics of travel advice. One variation on her suggestions, which I keep meaning to employ in practice, but somehow keep neglecting, is to print out your itinerary and put it inside the checked bag. That way, if the tracking tag falls off, it’s presumably easier to reunite you with your luggage.

Better food on Continental
Continental Airlines announced revisions to its menus, featuring recipes concocted by the airline’s “Congress of Chefs.” Call me a skeptic, but a stable of celebrity chefs doesn’t necessarily make the food taste any better at 39,000 feet. It still tends to taste like airline food… But change is good, and I’m all for trying out new recipes, so good on ‘em!

The increase in checked luggage, a side effect of the ongoing War on Moisture, leads many to fear that their bags will be lost. And it’s a legitimate fear, of course. So how do you minimize it?

Pack a pistol in your luggage.

Bruce Schneier links to a discussion on a photographer’s blog, in which high-end equipment owners discuss their options. The solution is brilliant:

• Weapons (including starter pistols, which don’t require a permit since they don’t fire bullets) must be declared by the passenger and packed in checked luggage.
• Thereafter, the suitcase is given priority handling by TSA and the airline, since no one wants to be responsible for letting a weapon fall into “the wrong hands.”
• Therefore, putting a gun in your suitcase ensures that your luggage will be handled carefully, and will certainly reach its destination. It’s essentially like sending your suitcase via registered mail.

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Britain sees security improvements, while the U.S. languishes. Or worse?:

Granted, they’re just rumors, but if they’re even close to true, look out: A FlyerTalk message board offers a frightening glimpse into the thinking of TSA supervisors on the future of airport safety. Some of the proposals supposedly under discussion — and again, this is rumor, not fact — include:

1) A relaxation of carry-on liquid rules (yay!) BUT a prohibition on liquids in checked baggage. Why? Terrorists could allegedly construct containers that mix explosives automatically in the cargo hold, causing fire or worse.
2) A limit of one checked bag per passenger. TSA is having a hard time keeping up with the increase in checked bags, so they’d like to lighten their load. (Airlines might not object to this…)
3) A prohibition on entering security more than two hours before your flight. (I don’t see this happening.)
4) A ban on printing boarding passes more than three hours before your flight, or a ban on printing connecting boarding passes at the time of check-in. Online check-in would be nixed. (What would this solve?? Airlines would have a fit.)

Again, these are rumored proposals, not policy, and they’re worth what you just paid for them.

Over in the UK, the Times of London reports that Britain’s restrictions on carry-on bags will be changed soon, allowing for “normal” sized carry-ons instead of just the small briefcase-sized bags. (Yay.) Liquids will still be banned. (Boo.) Still, full-size carry-ons are good news for travelers.

However, kicking passengers while they’re down, discount carriers EasyJet and Ryanair are raising their fees for checked luggage.:

EasyJet is to start charging passengers booking from September 1 if they check in more than one bag. The fee will be £5 if paid online or £10 at the airport. The airline said the charge was to relieve pressure on check-in staff and to encourage people to travel light. The allowance for checked-in baggage remains 20kg, as does the excess charge of £5 per kilo, regardless of the number of bags checked in. Ryanair is to raise charges from September 1. Currently, every item checked in is charged at £2.50 for those who book and £5 if passengers pay at the airport. These fees will rise to £3.50 and £7 respectively. The airline has an excess baggage charge of £5.50 per kilo and, from November 1, the allowance per person will drop from 20kg to 15kg.

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tags: travel | airport security | Easyjet | Ryanair | TSA

With air travelers increasingly checking bags, skycaps at airports have been doing better business. But Bags to Go and BAGS, Inc. (an acronym for Baggage Airline Guest Services) take the skycap business to the next level, by letting passengers check bags and get their boarding pass offsite — at locations such as hotels, convention centers, or cruise ship terminals.

It’s a great idea, and it’s bound to get a boost in coming months. Depending on the location, you can check your bag as early as 24 hours in advance, or as late as 2 hours before the flight. They take your bag to the airport, where it’s screened, etc. Since they also issue you a boarding pass at the remote site, you just get in line for security when you get to the airport.

San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center, Chicago’s McCormick Place, and Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center already have agreements with BAGS, while Bags to Go is limited to Las Vegas — the convention center, and the Venetian. Bags to Go charges $20 per person (not per piece) for the service, while BAGS rates vary by location.

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tags: travel | baggage | skycaps | BAGS, Inc. | Bags To Go

Save the world’s first motel
San Luis Obispo’s Mo-Tel Inn, out of business for over a decade, is a dilapidated heap today. It’s the first motor-hotel in the world, built in 1925. But there are talks to make the building a shrine to roadside lodging. Bring it on. (A short history of motels is here.)

Save Antarctica from over-tourism
(Is “over-tourism” a word? It is now!) 26,000 people visited the continent last year, and plans are afoot to better manage their environmental impact.

Save the children
A 12 year old boy who ran away from a “care home” got onboard a Monarch Airlines flight from London-Gatwick to Lisbon without a passport or boarding pass. How’s that for tightened security?

Save me from overreaction
United flight 923 from London to Washington was diverted to Boston due to a claustrophobic passenger who started freaking out. Early reports of screwdriver-wielding passengers bearing al Qaeda literature and Vaseline — all were hyperventilating bunk, like a game of “telephone” with real-world effects. Will every flight diversion, due to medical or other non-terrorist reason, be bold-faced breaking news on every news site now? Probably for the next few weeks. Sigh.

Save time, but not money
Unsurprising news: Private jet services that charge by the hour are doing brisk business since last week.

Save your bag check receipts
Over 20,000 checked bags have been lost at London’s Heathrow Airport in the past week. Most will turn up eventually, but still… 20,000 !!?

Save the music
Losers in the security ruckus: Orchestras. Musicians are nervous, since they tend to carry-on their instruments, or in the case of cellos, buy the instrument its own (miles-earning) seat. Hopefully the recently-relaxed rules will make orchestras’ travel possible again.

Saved! Skycaps
Winners in the luggage carnival, as predicted: Skycaps.

(image: beachcalifornia.com)