June 2007

It seems like every post I write these days is about some sort of horrific delay or sewage mishap. But I think this one takes the cake. 400 passengers spent 7 hours stranded on a Cathay Pacific Airways jet at San Francisco International Airport this Tuesday. Passengers boarded the plane around midnight, then spent 3 hours waiting on the tarmac without being told what was going on.

Around 3AM, the PA system and the lights went out. At 7:30 AM, the flight was cancelled due to equipment failure and the passengers were allowed to leave. While the airline claims the evening was similar to a well-stocked slumber party, passengers told a markedly different story. Passengers claim not only was there a lack of food, but a complete lack of communication by the airline.

A woman flying into East Midlands Airport on Tuesday thought she hilarious when she joked that a bomb was on the plane. However, the pilots didn’t think it was too funny. Nor did the police who were called in to investiage. The women is currently is jail awaiting charges. In case anyone is still currently unaware of this, joking about bombs is prohibited in planes and airports and can lead to felony charges.

Northwest Airlines canceled 192 flights yesterday as of 6pm, or 14 percent of their total scheduled flights. For the month of June, they have canceled 2,100 flights, 7 times as many as June of 2006. The majority of these cancellations have occured in Detroit, the Twin Cities, and Memphis. According to the Air Line Pilots Association, the reason for the unusually large cancellation numbers, the highest in the industry, is a shortage of pilots and flight staff. NWA has not commented.

This year has set a lot of air travel records, and not the good kinds. Records like most delayed flights, lowest customer satisfaction, most crowded planes, and highest number of passengers.

The last one is expected to be broken every year until we start using jetpacks. Which means the first three records are also going to be broken for many years. Forbes magazines disagrees, however, provided we take a few steps towards fixing air travel. The most significant are:

- Installing a 20 billion dollar global positioning system (most likely paid for by the US government)

- Adding billions of dollars worth of new runways and airports (also paid for by the US government)

- Allowing foreign carriers to fly in the US.

- Developing lighter jets.

- Passing the Passenger’s Bill of Rights.

I just returned from a relaxing and uneventful flight on Southwest Airlines. With this past week’s sewage and computer malfunctions, that seems to be saying a lot. I waited only a few minutes in the line for Southwest (thank god for self check-in kiosks), and only a few more in security. I am also a huge fan of Southwest’s self-seating; one might think it would make the process take longer, but in fact it goes much faster.

Southwest is a little low on entertainment or food. There’s no entertainment, 8 (tiny) pretzels, and 10 peanuts. But the flight left on time, and arrived early, so I’m happy. The only eventful aspect of my trip: I forgot to bring my Passport or my Washington State Driver’s License. Fortunately, my invalid Florida driver’s license was sufficient to get me through security. Four times.

The Department of Homeland Security has yet again proposed new rules for travel in the Western Hemisphere. Its original plan was to require a passport for all travel into the US. It relaxed these rules after it failed to keep up with the passport application surge. Here are the new rules.

A transatlantic flight on Continental Airlines became a little uncomfortable for the passengers as raw sewage spilled out from the toilets in the middle of the flight. Passengers had to hold their noses and deal with raw sewage flowing up and down the aisles for several hours.

A computer outage this morning lasting from 9AM to 11AM, EST, caused nationwide delays for United Flights lasting up to two hours. Some planes were forced to sit on the tarmac full of passengers for an hour and half while the issue was sorted out. Most of the delays were only about 20 to 30 minutes, and the United delays did not affect other airlines flight times. United is still trying to figure out what caused the computer outage, and why there were no back-up systems in place.

Expedia.com debuted its Business Travel Page today. The new service is designed for business travelers who book their flights independently rather than through a corporate service or human resources department. The marquee feature is MileageManager, which streamlines frequent flier points and miles. The site also plans on offering regularly updated deals and fares exclusively for business travelers, as well as business travel advice. As an independent contractor, I intend on using the site the next time I fly.

Personally, I have never flown first class. I sleep on every flight I fly on from the time I stow my bags until the person next to me drops their luggage on my head. But if I couldn’t sleep, I would do pretty much anything I could to get out of the cramped coach and into the roomy first class, especially since at this point you can pretty much expect at least an hour’s delay on your next flight.

Firstclassflyer.com can help those of you who desire first class on a coach budget, explaining in its monthly newsletter how to maximize miles, points, and promotions for free flights and first class upgrades. And just in case they can’t get you out of 39F and into 2A, you should also check out insideflyer.com and webflyer.com. Unless you are flying out the country, in which case you should check out globalflight.net.

Since this has been the worst year for commercial travel since 1996 in terms of delays, and airport security has been increasingly frustrating to deal with, charter jet services are on the rise.

Virgin Group, which owns a commerical airline in Britain and a new one coming to the US, is currently launching an online service, Virgin Charter, to help reserve, review, and rate charter jets, as well as view safety audits of the plane and pilot.

Because corporate jets fly empty so often, the service plans to connect empty flights with moderately wealthy fliers, who may not otherwise have the cash to rent a plane, at a discounted price. Virgin Group’s owner, Richard Branson, called the current practice “incredibly inefficient.”

The Virgin Group is also working with Boeing to begin using biofuels on planes. It also is planning on using ultra-light planes, such as Textron Inc.’s Cessna Citation Mustang, to decrease carbon emissions.

If you flew this past weekend, I feel sorry for you. Particularly if you were flying on Friday, when the national on-time arrival rates for the seven largest airlines at the top 10 airports dropped down to: 69 percent, Continental, 67 percent, United, 65 percent, Southwest, 62 percent, Northwest, 59 percent, American, 57 percent, Delta, and 36 percent, US Airways. Essentially half of all flights nationwide were delayed Friday.

The cause of the massive nationwide delays was an air traffic control computer failing in Atlanta in the morning. By the early afternoon, delays began to pile up to several hours on other airports such as Kennedy, La Guardia, Newark, Boston, and Philadelphia.

So far this year, almost 25 percent of domestic flights have arrived late. This is the worst track record in 13 years. While some problems, such as rough weather, cannot be controlled, some causes for delays can be fixed.

James C. May, president of the Air Transport Association, has been lobbying for the FAA to improve the air traffic control system, saying “The consequences of Congress not acting aggressively to make difficult choices on a next-generation air traffic control system are going to be even more extraordinary delays.”

A while back the State Department decided that US passports would be required for air travel to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. Unfortunately, the backlog involved in processing all the additional requests has become frustrating to many people hoping to travel this summer who applied for passports three months ago and still have not received one.

Because of this backlog, passport requirements will be suspended until September. Passengers without a passports will have to show a receipt from the State Department showing that they had applied for a passport and government-issued identification, such as a driver’s license. They will also have to undergo additional screening, including extra questioning and bag checks.

Andrew Speaker, now infamously known as the TB patient, claimed today that CDC did not warn him against travelling. Local health officials claim that they told Speaker he was in fact contagious, just not highly contagious. What is most troubling about this is that local health officials were not allowed to prohibit Speaker from flying even if he had been contagious.

Additional questions have been raised about the fact that Speaker crossed the border from Canada into the United States in a car, even though border officials were told Speaker posed a risk and were to contact health officials immediately upon re-entry.

I just found a great new site. Shows every major airport, and the current weather-related delay status. Green means that there are no ground departure delays above 15 minutes, yellow is over 15 minutes, and red means that flights are being grounded. Its infinitely quicker than actually looking up your flight number.

Andrew Speaker, now infamously known as the TB patient, may end up facing civil, if not criminal charges, according to legal experts in the medical field. So far there are no reports of any other passengers on his flights becoming infected, which makes the possibility that he will be punished low.

However, based on similar cases where HIV patients who knowingly infect others, flying while you know you are infectious may result in civil lawsuits if it leads to sickness, and possible manslaughter charges if there are any related fatalities. Just in case anyone still doesn’t get this: do not fly with an infectious disease.