The European Unon's airline emissions trading scheme (or program in American English) faces serious opposition from airlines in the U.S., China and elsewhere. Now Airbus is asking questions, too, wondering if the UN isn't the place to establish rules on who pays for carbon emiission. Read more in this story.
An excellent column by longtime travel writer Bill McGee in USA Today outlines how fees for travel services have spread way beyond airlines and can easily obscure bottom-line costs. The article, found here, includes numerous helpful links to other travel information.
Inquirer beat reporter Linda Loyd has a good story today detailing the long-expected impact of the end of Southwest service on the PHL- Boston Logan route: Fares have shot to the stratosphere on the only carrier left with nonstop flights, a rerun of the gouging US Airways used to do before it had competition on the route. Read it all here ...
The chances have grown in the last year or two for individuals to be placed on a U.S. government security watch list that may restrict your ability to fly on a commercial airline. But if you can avoid that, perhaps your trip through TSA screening at PHL will get faster with the agency's expansion to our local airport of its expedited process for preapproved travelers. Read a little more about it here ....
Additional competition on a nonstop route is always welcome by air travel consumers so this is very good news: Alaska Airlines will launch flights between PHL and its hub in Seattle on June 11, the airport annouced this morning. The airline's Web site is www.alaskair.com.
Remarkably, Congress has agreed to do something in a bipartisan way, although many Democrats are unhappy with the final product: The first reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration in five years. The bill, given final approval yesterday, provides money for the Next Generation air traffic control system and other programs. Read on at this link ...
Another relic of the past, Malev Hungarian Airlines, stopped flying because of financial troubles. The state-owned carrier, established during the Cold War era, could fly again but only if it attracts some private investment. Read more about it here ...
Spirit Airlines is surely getting what it wants these days with its highly misleading statements posted on its Web site about the new federal requirement that airlines display the full cost of airline tickets, including the fare, taxes and fees. After all, here I am writing about it again. But as the Business Travel Coalition points out in a statement, reported today by the Travel Agent Central Web site, Spirit apparently believes that blatantly insulting government regulators is good corporate policy and will help force the government to back down. Spirit added insult to injury by also adopting a new $2 per one-way segment fee to cover the supposed cost of meeting the new regulation.
Once again, as I pointed out in my blog post last Thursday, found just three items below this one, some airlines -- notably for PHL fliers US Airways -- are breaking out taxes from the fare in one simple, easy to understand display. Other carriers are including the taxes as they are now required to do in the ticket cost, but making you look harder for the breakdown between fare and taxes. Spirit is simply not telling the truth when it says it is required to hide the taxes.Yes, the fares may be low (or maybe not after all the fees are added) and some employees good and helpful, but this is another reason to avoid an otherwise sleazy outfit.
For those who only visit this blog for air-travel news, The Inquirer had a roundup yesterday that puts together information from the numerous stories, here, there and everywhere, about what may happen to American vis-a-vis other airlines as it reorganizes in Chapter 11. One key piece of information from the experts quoted: Nothing will happen soon.
Here is another installment in the ongoing saga of the new DOT airline rules, apparently reviled by most airlines and some politicians, that require more transparency in the cost of airline tickets. A group led by the Business Travel Coalition has callled on Congress to use the Federal Aviation Act's existing ban on unfair or deceptive practices by airlines to enforce the new DOT rules. Read more about what the BTC and the 150 companies and groups it represents wants Congress to do, including especially the wise remarks of retired American chairman Bob Crandall.
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