October 2006

For those of you who want to hedge bets when traveling next year, forget about the old paper policies for travel insurance. E-air travel insurance is here.

This is not really surprising since I currently get my auto-insurance at esurance.com and haven’t spoken to an actual person and have no paper policies for that. For those of you who are attached to the old way of getting insurance, let me just say that it took me two hours to get insurance when I had to get a paper policy, and six minutes online.

Delta announced today that it is going to begin using Boeing’s 777-200LR aircraft as early as 2008. This is significant because Boeing’s 777-200LR aircraft has the abiility to go farther than any commercial planes currently in use. How far? From anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world.

Delta plans on using the new Boeing’s to offer non-stop flights to destinations halfway across the world. The new planes also include six-foot three inch long seats that recline into twin-size beds, privacy screens, and aisle access to all seats. The new planes should be about as easy and comfortable to sleep in as most trains, and should make flying from the US to Europe and Asia much less stressful.

Okay, so maybe this doesn’t have quite as much to do with flying as usual. But considering I spent last night drinking Plymouth Gin for free at Maggiono’s, courtesy of Randall PR, and considering that it was amazing, I thought it deserved mention.

While I’m not normally a fan of gin (more of MillerTime guy), after about four Rasperry cocktails with Plymouth Gin, I have to say that I wish I had gotten a few free bottles. Plus, I’m not even hungover, which is rare for me. Mix-master Simon Ford explained to me at some point in the night why Plymouth Gin is less likely to cause a hangover than most hard alcohol, but apparently I had too much gin to remember what he said.

Currently when you go to Mexico and Canada, all you need is a birth certificate or photo ID. As of January 7 next year, travel into both of these countries will require a passport. Since it can take up to eight weeks to get a passport, it is a good idea to get one now if you don’t have one already.

The luggage club recently relaunched its popular website, www.luggageclub.com, to make itself easier and more relaxing for business travelers to use. The luggage club’s main purpose is to help those who can afford to travel in style do away with the frustrations of lugging luggage, but it also has other helpful service you can check out at their website.

For those of you coming into to town for the Blog Business Summit this week, it might make flying in a little more relaxing. And for those of you who aren’t coming to the Blog Business Summit this week, I strongly recommend checking it out.

MTV Vet recently launched a new site, Travelistic, to provide a forum for travelers to post vacation pictures, movies, stories, tips, and reviews to the whole world.

Travelistic aims to be the YouTube of the travel industry, and has regularly appearing shows professionally produced by MTV, such as “The Thirsty Traveler,” for wine connoisseurs such as Steve and Teresa, and “Focus On,” which explores lesser-known destinations.

The site’s CEO, Nicholas Butterworth, says the site is not designed to compete with existing travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity, and hopes to syndicate content to major travel sites in order to compliment each other, rather than compete.

I posted a while back on the birth of services which allow fliers to offset the pollution produced by their flights. Apparently, this is starting to really take off, since global warming seems to be an issue for a growing number of people. Just wanted to remind people, since this a really cool service.

Singapore Airlines recently unveiled its new and improved First Class, Business Class, and Economy Class Cabins. The airline poured $360 million dollars into improving comfort, style, and entertainment.

The overhaul has set a new standard that is expected to spur improvements among other regional carriers. Given the duration of flights from the US to Asia, it is not surprising to see the importance of in-flight luxury and entertainment becoming a top priority.

Apparently, Americans aren’t using up their vacation days, despite evidence that vacations increase job satisfaction. So, in order to encourage Americans to take some time off, Congressman Jon Porter (R-NV) has announced a House Resolution declaring October 23rd “National Plan Your Vacation” Day.

The new holiday falls on Expedia.com’s tenth anniversary. Roger Dow, president of the Travel Industry Association, applauded Expedia for leading the charge against vacation deprivation, as many travelers don’t take a vacation due to a lack of time for planning. The idea behind the holiday is to get people to take some time to plan a nice relaxing week of travel.

While I’m not a fan of companies getting to make their anniversaries into national holidays, I am in favor of taking more vacations.

Henry Isaacson, the head of the Piedmont-Triad Airport Authority recently sent a letter to Delta Airlines, as well as the mayors of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem. The subject of this letter was the airport’s recently 17% drop in passenger traffic from a year ago, over two-third as a result of a major drop in Delta passengers.

The reason Isaacson believes this drop has occurred is price-fixing by Delta. Delta flights out of the airport often cost three to four times as much as neighboring airports. For example, a flight from Greensboro to Boston costs $798. By contrast, a Delta flight from the Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte airports, which are only an hour and a half drive away, are only $158 and $262.

While it is common for prices to vary, such extreme differentials are rare and have been criticized by industry experts. As Delta expects to pull itself out of bankruptcy in 2007, the last thing it needs is bad press.

So says Michael Arrington in his post RealTravel Trip Planner: Cut, Paste & Share Travel Tips:

Arrington says:

They now have very deep travel content - mostly written by users, and some from a recent partnership with Frommer’s. The site has an active community of tens of thousands of frequent travelers who talk about their experiences and freely give their recommendations via blogs, forums, photos, etc.

From what I can see, this site largely leverages content posted by readers in their own blogs hosted by RealTravel. I did find some posts about Seattle that profiled spots that I agree should be of interest, but the content for a favorite destination of mine, Sun Valley Idaho, were somewhat anemic.

I’d say business travelers headed for a major U.S. city would do themselves a service by heading to RealTravel prior to departure.

A few weeks ago I posted on how planes are becoming more cramped than ever. The gist was that it doesn’t matter what airline you fly on, expect to have people sitting next to you. The only advice I had to offer was to find the best seats in the air. Now I present to you, the best seats in the air.

Soon enough, everyone at the airport could have a little tag that goes everywhere they do. The tags, which are about the size of a microchip, would track every passenger inside an airport, from the time they check in until they board their plane. They would be used to flag passengers who are considered suspicious.

When combined with x-ray sensors and a number of other new gadgets, these tags could be used to track drug dealers and terrorists, and prevent them from boarding aircraft with illegal or dangerous cargo.

What do you think? Are you willing to be tracked to this degree in an airport situation in exchange for some extra security? Or does the idea of airport personnel knowing every time you go to the bathroom during a long layover creep you out?

According to flightglobal.com, “Boeing has stopped charging for the use of its Connexion by Boeing in-flight broadband Internet offering ahead of the full termination of the services at the end of the year.” Has anyone been using the service for free? We’d like to hear about their experience.

The past few years have not been particularly good for business travelers: terrorism, packed planes, long-lines through security, and technological advances allowing companies to track employees every move. Additionally, there was a strong trend a few years ago to tighten the reins on expense accounts.

Fortunately, however, this trend appears to be in reverse, due to a tighter labor market for highly skilled business executives, and fear of travel burnout by key employees. This is good news for travelers, good news for hotels, and good new fare airlines.

Hopefully this will become a trend among all carriers. According to the USA Today travel blog, the US Airways “Everything Counts” promo (good until the end of 2006) will allow all miles earned via charge cards and other non-flying means to be applied toward achieving elite frequent-flier status.

Two studies were recently released, with very good news for anyone who spends a lot of time at 20,000 feet.

First, a recent poll found that most fliers feel safer when flying than they have since the attacks five years ago. This comes as a surprise to me, given the recent British terror plot, but I suppose the fact that it was foiled gives people a lot more confidence in the air.

Secondly, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics found that more flights departed on time and fewer flights were canceled this previous August than the August a year ago. This was not my experience in August (I spent the night in an airport terminal after a flight cancelation), but it represents a very positive trend for frequent fliers.

In the event that its bid to be the latest airline to fly into Chicago O’Hare is rejected, JetBlue is considering the possibility of using Gary/Chicago International Airport as an alternative.

Located just across the Indiana border, about 26 miles from Midway and more than 40 miles from O’Hare, Gary is located ideally for those who want quick access to East Chicago.

But this geography also presents unique obstacles. Chicago has truly outstanding public transportation. Renting a car on a business trip to the area is for the most part unnecessary. But that all changes if you’re flying into Gary. Neither the Red nor the Green lines come even close to the airport. This means that travelers will have to rent, take an expensive taxi, or brave Chicago’s notoriously rough South Side by bus. By contrast, O’Hare has its own El stop: the terminus for the Blue line.

If JetBlue wants travelers to take the Gary option seriously, their prices will have to undercut those of other airlines by at least the price of a car rental or taxi fare. Otherwise, travelers will scurry for Midway, where JetBlue competitor Southwest Airlines reigns supreme.

AirTrans announced a two-day Business Class sale for all its destinations. The sales extends to all its flights until November 9, and ends tomorrow.

This was recently brought to my attention by a commenter, Mary McCombie.

For those of you who are constantly traveling through more time zones than you care to account, as I did a dozen times this year, you will often find yourself jet lagged to the point of exasperation. Fortunately, there is an investigational treatment referred to as light therapy, which may be able to reduce or eliminate the effects of jet lag.

Essentially, when you switch time zones, your circadian rhythms get messed up. This can be fixed, to some degree, through several different methods. One is by getting a significant amount of a melatonin agonist presently known as LY 156735. Another more radical solution is through special anti-jet lag sunglasses developed at Flanders University in 2002. Or, if you are fortunate enough to arrive in the middle of the day with nice weather, simply by spending a few hours in the sun after arriving will greatly reduce jet lag.