Emirates Orders More Boeing 777 Aircraft

Dubai-based airline expands its large Triple Seven fleet

Emirates Airlines, the Dubai-based, award-winning international carrier, has ordered 30 777-300ER aircraft to add to its 71 already on the books, of which 53 of this model are currently in service. The Triple Seven a long-range, wide-body airliner is the world's largest twinjet. Quite unsurprisingly, even before this latest $9.1 billion order, Emirates is the world’s largest operator of 777s. Plus, just last month, Emirates ordered 32 Airbus A380 planes.

The airline's strategy is to become a world-leading carrier and to establish Dubai as a central gateway to worldwide air travel. In all, Emirates already 86 777s (three 777-200s, six 777-200ERs, 10 7777-200LRs, 12 777-300s, 53-300ERs and two freighters, numbers that are mainly of interest to airline geeks. It operates the 777-300ER  in a three-class configuration with eight first class suites, 42 business class seats and 310 Economy class seats, plus offers an additional cargo payload of 20.1 tons. Oh yes, it also operates 79 Airbus A380s, 70 Airbus A350s and seven Boeing freighters.

I didn't do the math because I don't do math, but Emirates did and says that its fleet totals (or will total, I'm not sure which) 204 widebody aircraft worth more than $67 billion dollars. In a lousy year for world aviation and the global economy in general, Emirates Airline recently reported its 22nd year of profit, up 416 percent to close at $964 million dollars over its 2008-09 profits of $187 million dollars. I add this only because there has been so much whining among US and international legacy carriers that I find all this quite remarkable.  US gateways are New York, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Travel writer colleagues who flew Emirates not long ago to a meeting in Bangkok via Dubai reported favorably on the experience.

Beguiling Shenandoah Valley Loop Drive

A spring drive through a historic American landscape

Scenic drives were part of my childhood vacations in New England, because my parents' generation, with World War II gas rationing etched into their memories, liked to get into the car and go. Similarly, my first husband was fond of to driving around and sightsee through the car window too.

In my present Colorado life, when my husband and I drive somewhere, it is to do something, not as an end unto itself.

I am visiting cousins in Maryland. She is ill, weak and has serious mobility issues, so as a treat, we took a drive southwestward into the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. And it was a treat for us all. As we left the metro area, we passed blooming beds of roadside daffodils. In the valley, we drove through quaint and charming old towns, past places where Stonewall Jackson's Confederate troops trumped Union soldiers, past historic markers, across the gap where George Washington planned to make his last stand if his Revolutionary army couldn't stand up to the Redcoats, past farms, along the meandering Shenandoah River close to vineyards in this increasingly prominent wine area and through woods where trees were budding and, in some cases blossoming. All this in warm sunshine even as Colorado was blanketed in an impressive (and impressively wet) spring storm.

My cousin's husband, a history buff, narrated interesting facts about Revolutionary and Civil War strategy and battle tactics that took place right there. The stories came to life when the sites were right there. The old buildings -- older than anything in Colorado -- were lovely. The mountains have a gentle roundness but are actually rugged and were more so to 18th and 19th century soldiers. The history is interesting to listen to but frankly more than I am willing to delve into. But beyond

everything touristic and historic, I treasured the opportunity to share this day with cousins whom I care about deeply.

I forgot my camera at home, so I'm grateful that the Shenandoah Valley Web folks have made these available to remind me of this precious day and to share them here.

Free WiFi in the Air?

Are airlines contemplating free wireless access in the air?

There's speculation in the blogosphere, fueled by an AP report, that free WiFi might be coming soon. If it does, it will be the first free benefit in several years. As has been discuees here and eslwhere, add-on fees for what was once free have mushroomed in the last three years. Fees are now charged for food, checked bags, a preferred seat, blanket and pillow and on Spirit carry-on bags intended for the overhead to all but elite fliers, adding tens of millions of dollars to airlines' coffers.

Passengers seem to be drawing the line at paying for inflight wireless Internet connections, which are available on some flights for $4-$13. It seems that many are unwilling to pay for what is available for free on land, including at an increasing number of airports. According to the AP report, "Airlines have offered promotions, including some free service, to draw attention to their Wi-Fi. But experts say only about 10 percent of passengers on Web-enabled flights have taken advantage." United Airlines, for instance, offered free WiFi to transcontinenal passengers late last year.

The piece also quoted airline technology consultant Michael Planey as believing that "Wi-Fi will be free as early as mid-2011. But if airlines want to go that route, there's a catch: They still have to compensate the service provider, such as Aircell, whose Gogo Inflight Internet serves every major airline except Southwest."

Again according to the AP report, Planey thinks airlines airlines have a few options to cover the costs:

•Getting big companies like Google or Verizon to sponsor free Internet service. Those providers would make money through advertisements.
•Pay for some part of the service themselves and then use it to cut costs. For example, a flight attendant could use the inflight Wi-Fi to connect with reservations at the terminal and make new arrangements for passengers who missed a connecting flight.
•Airlines could arrange ways to get a commission when travelers buy things online.

Some experts feel that the discount carriers that already promote their policies of giving passengers more for less (e.g., AirTrans, JetBlue and Southwest), will be the first to offer free WiFi.

Welcome Airline Flexibility

A canceled United flight has a happy ending

Yesterday, I wrote about a decidedly unpleasant experience (not mine) that involved a stunningly unsympathetic and inflexible cabin crew that refused to permit an economy passenger with a "bathroom emergency" use the front-cabin lav. Today, I can report on a surprising example of airline flexibility that made a travel experience (mine) go more smoothly than I would have expected.

I am attending a conference in New York starting on Monday, and thought that while I was in this part of the country, I would squeeze in a visit to cousins in Maryland. I was flying United to Newark and intended to take Amtrak to Baltimore. I left Boulder in the snow and arrived at Denver International in the rain. When I checked in, I was told that my 10:55 flight had been canceled, but that there was another at 12:55, and was directed to the "cancelled flight" counter. I explained my plans and asked the counter agent if it would be possible to reroute me to Baltimore, which is where I was going.

In checking with her supervisor, she said that I had been rerouted "through Chicago -- tomorrow." Ohmygosh. How inconvenient! The supervisor approved my one-time courtesy itinerary change, without a fee,to a flight departing at 11:00 -- five minutes later than the original. It's not the kind of response I've gotten accustomed to at United, but I was really happy, especially when I arrived at BWI some three hours earlier than I anticipated. And....when I called Amtrak to cancel, they credited my charge card -- without penalty and no questions asked.

So thanks, United, and thanks, Amtrak.

Mummies and Melodrama

"Reality" TV strikes again in creating a dreadful television series

I've been captivated by things Egyptian since I visited Egypt last year as part of a Society American Travel Writers Freelance Council meeting that included an audience with Dr. Zahi Hawass, the media-savvy, imperious and very gifted secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Dr. Hawass is an aggressive advocate for the protection of ancient Egyptian treasures. He has developed an ego the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza and has a high profile, personally escorting VIPs around the sites, personally announcing every significant discovery, whether or not he made it and appearing on numerous legitimate documentaries.

Against this background, I was looking forward to the History Channel's "Chasing Mummies" series that debuted last night. I have never written a television review-type post, but this misguided show merits a two thumbs down.

The plot was that a television crew was following Dr. Hawass and his team, including a comely intern, during the excavation of an early pyramid at Saqqara near Cairo. Comely intern Zoe, who unexpectedly showed up in place of intern Clare/Claire, but her papers were in order, so she was permitted to stay, often getting in the way. But Zoe is cute so she was invited to take her first look inside the pyramid. After a disjointed exploration, Zoe was improbably permitted, by one of Dr. Hawass's team, to stay in the labyrinthian corridors by herself "for five minutes" to take pictures, which she did with her little point-and-shoot while the chamber was brilliantly lit by television cameras.

Zoe's foot got jammed. Someone turned off the lights and locked the gates, and Zoe became reality TV's equivalent of the silent-film heroine tied to the railroad tracks. If this program were to be believed, only Dr. Hawass, who had to be called from Cairo where he was doing a book signing, had the ability to unlock the gate and turn on the lights. It was contrived, lame and added nothing to the body of knowledge about ancient Egypt.

And then, in the second part, Dr. Hawass and his team traveled to "an oasis near Cairo" to demolish villagers' homes that were built over ancient graves that contained mummies. Curious children watched homes being knocked down, and suddenly, the earth was pocked with holes that presumably led to underground burial chambers. An articulated loader, which was referred to as a bulldozer, broke through the surface of the ground, got stuck and then got unstuck.

Speaking of stuck, I stuck it out through the first episode, but I won't waste my time on another. New York Times television critic Neil Genzlinger didn't think any more of the program than I did. In his review, he called it "an annoying new show." The History Channel's website calls this a "documentary series." They sure have a wry sense of humor! In fact, this entire program was a joke.

Desperate Delta Flyer With Diarhhea Denied Biz Class Lav

And as the late Paul Harvey used to say, "And now for the rest of the story!"

"A man who says he desperately needed to use an airplane bathroom after eating something bad in Honduras faces a federal charge after being accused of twisting a flight attendant's arm to get to the lavatory," according to Associated Press dispatch.

Joao Correa, a coach class passenger on a Delta flight 406 on March 28, had a acute "bathroom emergency" With a beverage cart blocking the aisle, he claims that he asked if he could use the lavatory in business class, but was told that he couldn't, because Federal Aviation Administration policy "requires passengers on international flights to use the restroom in their seating class."

Increasingly desperate, Correa said that he ran for the business class lavatory but flight attendant Stephanie Scott put up her arm to block him. And here the story diverges. Correa says that grabbed her to keep his balance, while Scott claims that he grabbed it, pulled it down and twisted it. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Scott called the captain who permitted Correa to use the business class bathroom -- presumably before it was too late.

When he was finished, Correa returned to his coach class seat, but the incident took a particularly nasty turn when the plane landed in Atlanta. Correa was arrested after the plane landed in Atlanta, charged with interfering with a flight crew, a felony, jailed for two nights and finally released on bond after appearing before a US magistrate.

The AJC quoted Correa as saying, “I’m devastated. I’m so traumatized emotionally. It’s been really, really hard on me. I’ve never had any event with the police in my life.” He is 43 years old, lives in Ohio with h is wife and two children and is a marketing manager with Philips Healthcare who had been a business trip to Central America.

The media reported that Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott released a statement saying flight crews "do everything within the limits of the law to ensure the safety and security of our passengers."

The Consumerist, a website that didn't opt for delicacy or diplomacy, commented, "Had he [Correa] followed their [the crew's] instructions, Delta would have had an entire flight full of angry, complaining, and sickened passengers, along with quite likely a lawsuit from the man they forced to shit himself because they were too busy passing out drinks. Instead, Delta loses nothing, the TSA* continues to say this is in everyone's best interest, and Joao Correa is charged with a felony because he had diarrhea on an airplane." *The FAA actually, but the two agencies' initials are not germane to this unfortunate incident.

International Travel Trade Organization Weighs in on 'Unbundling'

Business travel trade reps press Congressional committee on hidden airline fees

I hardly ever simply post a press release, but this one from the Business Travel Coalition, founded in 1994 "to bring transparency to industry and government policies and practices so that customers can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations" seems interesting enough to share it as it was released. My own comments, also in red italics, follow the text of the release.

Industry Survey Results Reveal Significant Concern Over Airline Unbundling Practices

U.S. DOT Rules Required To Protect Consumers, Managed Travel Programs

JULY 13, 2010, WASHINGTON, DC - Business Travel Coalition (BTC) today published results of a survey of 188 travel industry professionals from 11 countries, including corporate travel managers and travel agency executives, regarding airline product unbundling and ancillary fees. These survey results are being released ahead of a July 14 U.S. House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation hearing regarding airline fees at which BTC is providing testimony.
The overriding message from survey participants is that ancillary fees are wrecking havoc on corporate managed travel programs and the U.S. Department of Transportation must, through it Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, require airlines to make add-on fee data easily accessible not only on their websites, but also to the travel agency channel through any GDS in which an airline has agreed to participate.

The following top-line results represent a sea change in thinking among travel industry professionals regarding government oversight in commercial air transportation:

• 100% of corporate travel managers indicated that unbundling and these extra fees have caused serious problems for their managed travel programs.

• 86% of travel managers believe that airlines, absent government regulation, will not make fair, adequate and readily accessible disclosure of their extra fees and charges so that travel managers and/or their TMCs can do comparison shopping of the all-in prices for air travel across carriers.

• 95% of travel managers support the proposal that the U.S. DOT require airlines to make ancillary fee data available and easily accessible to the travel agency channel through any GDS in which that airline has agreed to participate.

• 95% of travel managers do not support an airline distribution model wherein access to airfare and ancillary services content is available only on airlines’ websites, or through direct connections to multiple airlines’ inventory systems.

“Importantly, survey participants are business people who, as a general proposition, do not favor government intervention in a marketplace. However, as with BTC, who testified four times since 1999 against passenger rights legislation, these industry experts lived through 10 years of airline stonewalling and broken promises and finally realized that the airlines were never going to take extended tarmac delays seriously until made to do so, said BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell. “Travel managers and travel agency executives do not want to wait 10 years, or even 1 more year to see if the airlines will properly disclose their ancillary fees in all channels in which they sell their products - and thus already make their published, but now incomplete, fares available, he continued.”

Here are sample comments from survey participants:

• “Determining the actual cost of transportation is now so difficult that we cannot help departments prepare travel budgets for the following year.”

• “The comparison of different providers’ options is difficult as there are all-inclusive, partly-inclusive, status-inclusive, non-inclusive prices. At the moment the extra services and fees are not available for total cost calculation in our preferred channel, the GDS.”

• “I can no longer manage costs as the fees are hidden. There is no way to determine if the traveler paid for baggage or upgraded to business class.”

• “Because airlines are not forthcoming with information, we cannot relay the true cost of an itinerary to the traveler.”

• “Many airlines want to hide these charges from buyers so that they can distort the real ticket cost in the GDS and other distribution channels.”

• “Many consumers still use their local travel agency as a resource for making travel arrangements, therefore, it is essential they have that all the information concerning ancillary fees available to them/and the consumer at the point of sale.”

• “All fee data should be made available to travel agents through their GDSs. All airlines should be required to provide full and fair disclosure by law.”

The bottom line is that represents of a business travel organization, which might be expected to be empathetic to the airline business, is very concerned over hidden fees and surprise add-ons. We individual travelers find ourselves paying all sorts of extras on top of our "bargain" fares, but for corporate travel, these surprises add up to a big debit on a company's balance sheet. (The release should read "wreaking havoc, not "wrecking havoc," but I'm splitting grammatical hairs over a very valid point made by an international trade group -- albeit one that I don't remember ever having heard about before.) Since Congress tends to listen to business much more than to us voters, I hope that this will make an impact that will help all of us who fly. Note: The end of the release also referenced an organization called the Consumer Travel Alliance’s "just-released analysis of hidden fees."