Essential Travel News for 7/09/07

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FAA/SECURITY

Airlines still running late, with planes fuller than ever

With an aviation system operating at or near capacity at many U.S. airports, airlines are still having problems getting their flights to run on time – and with aircraft that are fuller than ever, passengers who face cancellations or missed connections are having a harder time than ever getting rebooked.


The Transportation Department said last week that during May, U.S. airlines’ had an overall on-time arrival rate (i.e., within 15 minutes of schedule) of 77.9 percent. That’s a slight improvement over the 75.7 rate in April 2007, but not as good as May 2006 (78.3 percent). So far this year (January-May), the average on-time arrivals rate was 74 percent -- the worst since the government started tracking those figures in 1995. The domestic flight cancellation rate for May fell to 1.1 percent, from 1.8 percent in April 2007. Airlines with the best on-time performance were Hawaiian (92.8 percent), Aloha (88.4) and AirTran (85.5). US Airways turned in the worst on-time rate for May (67.9 percent), followed by American (71 percent) and American Eagle (73.4). American and American Eagle also had the industry’s highest flight cancellation rate for May (2.2 percent), while Hawaiian had the lowest (0.2 percent), followed by JetBlue and Continental (both 0.3 percent).


And that was all in May, before the summer travel rush started. During June, major airlines are reporting some of their highest load factors (i.e. percentage of seats occupied) in history. The systemwide June load factor was a record 85.3 percent at US Airways, 85.9 percent at Delta, 86.1 percent at Continental, 87.1 percent at American, 88 percent at Northwest and a scary 89.1 percent at United.

State Dept. adds hundreds of passport workers to clear backlog

Faced with a massive backlog of applications for new passports and renewals, the U.S. State Department is transferring some 350 employees from other duties to handle the crunch. The State Dept. workers have bee temporarily assigned to two months of special service in Louisiana, New Hampshire or Washington D.C. during July and August. The extra staff is expected to speed up the processing of applications, which used to take six to eight weeks, but now can take as long as three months. The department was deluged with applications after the federal government said it would require all returning U.S. air travelers from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean to show a valid passport at the point of entry starting in January of this year. That requirement has been relaxed since then because so many travelers weren’t able to get passports in a timely manner.

INTERNATIONAL

American to revamp London service, adding Stansted

American Airlines said it will overhaul its existing London service to take advantage of the new U.S.-European Union “open skies” pact that takes effect next year, and will also add fights to a new London airport: Stansted.
American – which already flies to both Heathrow and Gatwick from the U.S. -- said it will launch new daily service October 28, 2007 from New York JFK to London’s Stansted Airport, using a 221-seat, two-class 767 equipped with 30 of its “Next Generation Business Class’ seats. It will add a second daily JFK-Stansted flight next spring, and it is pitching the new service to premium business travelers. The company said its new Stansted route “will provide our premium travelers an alternative London airport and convenient access to growing business districts. Our customers have asked for this choice of airports, and we are going to meet that need at competitive prices.” Two competitors with all-premium-class service fly from JFK to Stansted: MAXjet and Eos Airlines; the latter carrier is expanding its service on the route September 9 to 40 flights a week. An American spokesman noted that American’s new service “presents a new challenge to niche airlines serving business travelers on this route that cannot match American’s network, schedule, luxury lounges and the world’s largest frequent flyer program.” The airline also promised its customers will have access to a Stansted departure lounge by the time service starts.
Meanwhile, American said that when the “open skies” changes kick in at the end of March 2008, it will switch its existing daily Raleigh/Durham-London Gatwick flight to Heathrow, as well as one of its two daily Dallas/Ft. Worth-London Gatwick roundtrips. Both of those routes use three-class 777s. British Airways also recently announced it will move its daily DFW-LGW flight to Heathrow effective in late March 2008.

Lufthansa plans Newark-Frankfurt all-business-class service

Lufthansa said it will begin new all-business-class flights October 28 between Newark Liberty International and its primary hub at Frankfurt. At the same time, the airline’s existing Newark-Munich all-business-class service will be replaced by a mainline Lufthansa A330-300 widebody with the usual three classes of service, “to accommodate increased demand” on the route, a spokesman said. The Newark-Frankfurt service will operate daily except Saturdays, using a 737-700 reconfigured with just 44 lie-flat seats and business class amenities, including a new high-tech in-flight entertainment system. The service will be operated for Lufthansa by the Swiss carrier Privatair, as are Lufthansa’s other all-business-class flights, from Newark to Dusseldorf and Chicago to Dusseldorf.

Indian airline will begin U.S. service; another signs deal with Continental

August 5 is the launch date for a new competitor in the U.S.-India market: Fast-growing Jet Airways plans to kick off Newark-Mumbai service via Brussels on that date, to be followed by flights to Toronto in September and to New York JFK and San Francisco by early next year. The Indian carrier recently established a European hub at Brussels, where it has formed a partnership with Brussels Airlines. With a fleet of 63 planes, Jet is a major player in south Asia; it has 20 intercontinental wide-bodies on order, including 777s and A330s, to satisfy its expansion plans, which include new routes to Europe, Africa and Asia in addition to the North American service. Earlier this year, Jet Airways acquired Air Sahara, another Indian carrier with a fleet of 24 737s and regional jets.


Meanwhile, India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Continental Airlines said they have entered into a partnership for reciprocal frequent flyer and airport lounge privileges, to be followed later this year by code-sharing. Effective October 1, Continental OnePass members will be able to earn and spend miles on all Kingfisher flights; and Continental’s Presidents Club members and BusinessFirst flyers will have access to Kingfisher airport lounges in India. Continental currently has daily non-stop service between Newark and Delhi, and will begin daily Newark-Mumbai flights October 1.

AIRLINES

JetBlue, Frontier may add text messaging, email later this year

Passengers on JetBlue and Frontier Airlines flights may be seeing a new technological perk later this year: The ability to send email and text messages in-flight from their own laptop computers or other wireless devices. According to Bloomberg News, the capability is being developed by LiveTV LLC, a wholly-owned JetBlue subsidiary that currently provides satellite TV reception for JetBlue and for Frontier. A JetBlue official told the news service that the technology being developed by LiveTV would be offered free to passengers – but it would not include web surfing, nor would it include the ability to make cell phone calls in-flight, since many surveys have found that air travelers don’t want that. A Frontier spokesman told the Denver Post that his airline is also likely to offer the LiveTV technology when it becomes available. Currently, no U.S. airline offers text messaging or in-flight email, although Southwest Airlines is aid to be experimenting with in-flight Internet access and may announce a capability later this year.

Frontier’s new subsidiary starts flying to three cities in October

Frontier Airlines’ new all-turboprop regional subsidiary will begin service in October from its Denver hub to three cities: Wichita, Kans.; Rapid City, S.D.; and Sioux City, Iowa. The new unit, called Lynx Aviation, will use Bombardier Q400 turboprops; it has ordered 10 of the planes. According to a spokesman, Frontier expects Lynx to be flying a total of nine cities by the end of the year. Frontier sent out requests for proposal to 62 towns to see if they were interested in new air service to Denver, and it got back positive replies from 62 of them, the spokesperson noted. The Q400 has a noise reduction system that makes it “the quietest, most vibration-free turboprop in the sky,” the spokes person said, noting that it also burns 30 percent less fuel than a comparably-sized jet. The Wichita flights will begin October 1; service to Sioux City and Rapid City is slated to start October 5.

Company launches single-seat charter searches

A Florida-based company called Business Jet Seats Inc. (BJSI) has started a new web search capability that lets individual travelers find empty seats on charter aircraft that they can book at a substantial savings vs. chartering an entire plane. One of the firm’s directors is Joseph Vittoria, who also sits on the board of United Airlines and was formerly the chairman and CEO of Avis. The firm said it has an “exclusive arrangement” with CharterX, a leading online exchange for aircraft charter services, to help its customers find the empty seats. The search service is currently available in 215 domestic markets, BJSI said. The price won’t be proportional to the number of seats on the aircraft, but “you should save over 50 percent compared with convention air charter (i.e. full-plane) prices,” BJSI said. Moreover, “you will obtain a single, guaranteed price for your flight when you book – so there are no additional charges, and no surprises. There are no up-front costs or membership fees.” All flights are operated by FAA-certified charter operators, with a total fleet of some 2,000 planes. The service is at www.businessjetseats.com.
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