US Air to Charge for 2nd Bag

As airlines continue to unbundle fares and add fees for certain things that used to be included in the price, US Airways said today it would begin charging most passengers $25 to check a second bag. This follows a move by United Airlines earlier this month to do the same.

The last time US Airways announced a reduction in customer benefits -- its recent move to eliminate the 500-mile minimum credit on trips of under 500 miles in favor of credit for actual miles flown -- it ridiculously described the change as some kind of unspecified benefit for customers. (See post of Feb. 14.)

I'm glad to see that US Airways plays it straight in today's announcement. All the usual travel-media scolds will be flapping their arms over this, but the fact is that very few business travelers check a second bag anyway. As I said before, it's usually the Clampett Family lugging all that stuff to the airport.

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The Morning News ...

[Left, French President Sarkozy pretending to be a cowboy. Right: Napoleon showing off.]


---Cowboy Nick puts his boot in his mouth again in another incident

I keep pointing out that M. Sarkozy, who is wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt in this pose, is astride a pony, not a horse, as was universally misreported in all of those gushing accounts of the new style the dashing little rake was bringing to Elysee Palace.

A Carmargue pony, to be specific. And video clips at the time showed that his riding skills are elementary. Dead giveaway, aside from the fact that he's wobbling even in a western saddle: He keeps kicking his horse. A skilled rider gets a horse's attention with a subtle pressure from the leg and seat.

The fearsome Napoleon rode bravely, if not well, while off on his savage missions. He was known among his troops for falling off his horse rather frequently (like any good rider, he got right back on despite the pain). He is shown here in the heroic image the French love so much.

But in fact, Napoleon actually rode a mule over the Alps in his Second Italian Campaign, which would be the sensible way to travel across a mountain if you couldn't fly.

***

---I love reading the contrarian John Tierney merrily debunking knee-jerk thinking, like this morning's entry on his Times blog. I hope he's collecting his stuff, including that landmark magazine piece on recycling of several years ago, in a book.

---Speaking of books, Susan Jacoby's "The Age of American Unreason" is a must read.

---Will this guy ever just go away? (See also Andy Borowitz on Nader.)

---And finally, the excited Drudge headline of the day: "Obesity 'More Dangerous' Than Terrorism."

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Dicey South American Skies

--Another horrible plane crash in South America, this time in Venezuela.

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Cancellations Pile Up At Newark (And Other News)

---Airport delays are piling up today and cancellations are mounting -- and if it ices up late this afternoon, as the forecast indicates it might, it's going to be an air-travel nightmare. [At 9:45 a.m., Flightstats.com was reporting "excessive delays" at all 3 New York airports, and also at the 3 Washington airports, Chicago O'Hare, Philadelphia, Boston and St. Louis.]

{Update: Newark, which had a 20 percent on-time arrival rate by noon, and reported 611 arrivals and departures canceled by 5 p.m. The total number of arrivals and departures scheduled for Newark today is 1,316 -- so already, before the evening rush, nearly half of the flights into and out of Newark have been canceled.}

[Later update: By 6:30 p.m., airports throughout the entire eastern and southeastern United States, from Fort Myers to Boston, were experiencing "excessive delays," Flightstats.com reports. So were O'Hare and Las Vegas. ]

***

IN OTHER NEWS ...

---Oh, great police work. And note the dateline.

---A post on the Times DealBook today says that Northwest Airlines CEO Douglas Steenland could bail out with a golden parachute worth about $7.8 million after a merger between Northwest and Delta. Last week, Steenland was busy assuring employees that they wouldn't be screwed in a merger. We shall see. Steenland, remember, was the guy in charge in 2006 when Northwest sent out that famous booklet on money-saving lifestyle tips to about-to-be laid-off employees. You know, the one that suggested people scavenge trash cans for useful objects to cut down on expenses?

---Real Dumb Magazine Selects Real Smart Cities -- Forbes Magazine comes out with a highly questionable list of the nation's "smartest cities."
...And the Columbia Journalism Review explains (well, partially, at least) why Forbes's list is stupid.

---Nobody asked me, but ... Shouldn't this guy otherwise be getting out of prison right about now for killing that girl?

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Central Florida Strikes Again

I don't know what it is about the Tampa area, where only last Saturday we heard and saw how a sheriff's deputy had dumped a quadriplegic out of his wheelchair, just for the hell of it, while evidently forgetting about that damn surveillance camera on the wall.

Here's a new candidate for Moron of the Week, Central Florida Division. Via the T.S.A. web site.

Here's the link.

Benjamin Baines Jr. was busted at security at Tampa International Airport last Sunday when the magnetometer at the checkpoint alerted T.S.A. screeners to the concealed box-cutter this master criminal was carrying inside a hollowed-out book.

"Relatives say he's a good kid ..." a local newspaper reports.

They always say that, if you ask relatives. Note all those brain-dead stories on what an otherwise nice, oppressed guy the homicidal maniac who hacked the Manhattan psychologist to death with a meat clever was. He just forgot to take his meds, is all.

Anyway, Baines was arrested, pleaded guilty, and got a 30-day jail sentence. Besides the "artfully concealed" weapon (we have steadily defined down "art." And when did pop singers start becoming "artists," by the way? Don't get me started.) he had a Koran, a Bible and "rap music lyrics referencing police, drugs and guns," we are informed.

Diversity in carry-ons!

A relative, evidently overlooking the weapon artfully concealed in a hollowed-out book, which is a trick I think I first saw in a Jimmy Cagney movie, said Baines was arrested merely because "he was black and carrying the Koran."

Baines says he just plumb forgot all about the knife. No one seems to have thought it especially important to ask why he'd hollowed out a book to carry it in -- which seems to me to be prima facie evidence of criminal intent.

Maybe he was off his meds.

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OpenSkies Chooses Paris

The British Airways start-up all-business-class airline OpenSkies has chosen its initial European city — Paris.

Here’s the .pdf of its filing to the U.S. Transportation Department.

dot-filing-openskies-of-ba.pdf

If it gets approval from the U.S., which isn’t expected to be a problem, the little airline will fly 757s between Paris and JFK starting in June.The airline recently found a slot at JFK amid uncertainty about whether it would need to use Newark as its U.S. port if Kennedy wasn’t available.

OpenSkies, which plans to expand starting later this year, will fly 757s configured with 82 seats, mostly in first-class and business-class. At least for the initial phase, there will be a token small coach section in the back.

The airline, a subsidiary of British Airways, hasn’t yet decided whether the Paris port will be at Charles De Gaulle or Orly airports.

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Insecure Security

---The T.S.A., it seems to me, has been making a genuine good-faith effort to balance the obvious requirements of security with the realization that the civilian public is not, per se, the enemy. Not so U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency that appears to be out of control. (Just ask any European business traveler who flies to the U.S. -- or just look at the sharp downturn in overseas visitors to the U.S. in recent years.) And have a look at this one -- and also this one -- to see an example of what appears to be invincible malfeasance at the border.

–Oh, this oughta work out real well. Amtrak is rolling out “mobile security teams” equipped with bomb- sniffing dogs (and armed, my guess is, with Uzis, flamethrowers and chucka sticks) to “randomly pull people out of line” at train stations for the good old once-over and third degree.

No explanation of why Amtrak suddenly decided to send out the bulls, more than 7 years after 9/11. These will be Amtrak employees, incidentally. Sleep well tonight.

For example:

***

June 30, 2007

From Phoenix News at 5

PHOENIX -- A 65-year-old St. Louis man is missing after Amtrak personnel, mistaking his diabetic shock for drunk and disorderly behavior, kicked him off a train in the middle of a national forest, according to police in Williams, Ariz. ... Police said there is no station or running water at the crossing, which is about 2 miles from the nearest road at an elevation of about 8,000 feet.

***

Anyway, the most feeble national rail system in the developed world says not to worry, the new in-house security measures will not cause the trains to run late. “This is not about delays,” an Amtrak spokesman told the Associated Press, in the non-sequitur of the day (so far). Hardy-har-har.

There’s a similar security program on the New York City subways, but it’s conducted by the New York Police Department, whose officers are highly trained, motivated, and generally aware that citizens are to be treated with civility unless they provide sufficient reason not to be. I’m not sure that’s in the Amtrak customer-service tradition.

By the way, the good old reliable AP failed to report when this new security program will start. (For some reason, some reporters increasingly overlook the “when” in the 5-W’s).

This week, on the Northeast corridor, is the answer.

Most security experts I know laugh at the idea of “bomb sniffing” dogs as an effective security tool for dealing with moving crowds. Stick a great big ham sandwich in a decoy bag, and that’s where the dog’s attention goes, they say.

Who can blame the dog? Better they should use “busy-body parrots” as security animals. I have two parrots, a big macaw and a little African gray. The little one is always ratting out the big one, and the big one screams bloody murder every time a jogger thumps down the street outside. And neither one can be distracted by a ham sandwich.

Meanwhile, consider the potential of the trained anti-terrorism wasp. USA Today actually did once.

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Clip Job

Not sure whether the verb "clipped" is adequate enough to describe how an airplane's wing "became lodged" in the wing of another airplane, as this story on a taxiway accident at Washington Reagan says. At least they were on the ground in what is described here as "taxi mode."

I've had some experience with the other "mode," mid-air collision mode, so I have an idea of just how serious it can be when airplanes come into contact with one another. They aren't made to do that.

I haven't been keeping track, but it seems to me that runway incursions and airplane fender-benders on the ground are increasing.

Time to start paying closer attention.

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Wheelchair Assistance, Tampa Style

---Another reason to exercise caution in central Florida: Sheriff's deputy dumps quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair, apparently just for the hell of it, after his arrest on a traffic violation.

---And here's still another (and no, this isn't a summary of a Reno 911 episode).

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Airline Merger (s) [Cont'd]

---More speculation on the United-Continental merger that is expected to follow quickly once a Delta-Northwest merger agreement is announced. One bit of encouraging speculation on the UA-CO deal: Continental's Larry Kellner, who succeeded Gordon Bethune as the head of the best-run domestic airline, would run the merged airline, says the Chicago Tribune.

---Given an executive branch accustomed to laughing at Congress while always getting its own way, I have my doubts about Congressional hurdles on the merger-dash track before the Bush gang leaves town in less than a year, but James L. Oberstar, chairman of the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, weighs in on airline mergers nevertheless.

---Patrick Smith, the aviation online columnist, parrots the official industry line in Salon today: "The airline industry suffers chronically from oversupply -- that is, too many seats chasing too few passengers ..." That's one rationale you'll hear for mergers and consolidation: reducing the number of unsold seats.

(Nevertheless, Smith has some interesting insight on staffing, fleets and other merger matters).

One problem with the "too many seats ... too few passengers" mantra: For over a year, domestic airlines have been reporting load factors around 80 percent (a load factor is a measure of the number of available seats sold).

Load factors in the 75-80 percent average range mean most flights are totally full -- as anyone who's been flying in the back of the plane is well aware. And so far, passenger demand has kept growing, despite the huge fare hikes airlines have been sneaking in on selected routes.

At the same time, the major airlines (Southwest excepted) have been steadily reducing the number of seats available on domestic routes. United, for example, cut its domestic capacity by over 10 percent in January, compared with January 2007.

And as to fares, how about $1,200 roundtrip for a coach seat, Newark-Toronto in a regional jet, which was what I was confronted with last weekend when I had to fly to Toronto this week on short notice? Not to worry, though, as my flight, and the one after that, were canceled by bad weather. Back in December, an earlier attempt to reach Toronto from Tucson failed when my flight into Houston arrived too late for me to make the connection.

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US Air Cuts Mileage Benefit. It's For Your Own Good!

Cutting benefits is a perk! Yeah, that's the ticket.

My jaw drops when I see an announcement like this from an airline, in this case US Airways this morning (italics mine):

“As part of out continuing efforts to provide valuable benefits to our frequent fliers, US Airways is making a change to our Dividend Miles program …”

Surely, you’d think, while this announcement is going to contain some PR jive, there must be some arguable small benefit for US Air’s most loyal (and profitable) customers hidden in the palaver. I mean, they say this is part of a continuing effort to provide valuable benefits.

Uh, nope.

Starting May 1, passengers who fly trips of under 500 miles no longer will get a 500-mile minimum credit, the announcement says. Instead, they’ll get credit for the actual number of miles flown. (Most major airlines credit a passengers with a minimum of 500 miles for any trip.)

If anyone has an explanation for this move — which seems certain to infuriate some of US Air’s most loyal customers, while providing very little benefit to the airline itself that’s evident to me — I’d love to hear it. Maybe I’m missing something.

Let’s say I’m a loyal flier on the US Air Shuttle between LaGuardia and Washington, a trip of about 200 miles. As of May 1, I will no longer get a 500-mile credit for each trip. Instead, I get credit for less than half that.

By the way, the current roundtrip US Air Shuttle fare between LGA and DCA is $679.

My response, if I’m that customer: Amtrak here I come. I-95 here I come.

As part of its “continuing efforts to provide valuable benefits to our frequent fliers,” US Air also is slapping a $50 per ticket “quick ticketing fee” on award travel booked online within 14 days of departure.

I just don’t get it. Why do airlines persist in putting out public announcements couched in language that is an obvious attempt at deceit -- on the level of a prevaricating seven-year-old? Do they really think we can’t see this baloney for what it is?

Earlier this month, United Airlines pulled a similar stunt. United blithely sent out an announcement that passengers buying nonrefundable tickets (read: most of us who aren’t traveling at the last minute) would have to pay $25 for a second checked bag. (Which used to be free).

United began the announcement of the new fee with these words:

“As part of its continuing effort to offer customers choice, flexibility and low fares, United is announcing a new, simplified checked bag policy …”

Now, compounding the idiocy was the fact that most of us don’t routinely check bags anyway, and very few frequent travelers check a second bag except on very rare occasions.

If United had simply said, in effect, “Fuel costs are soaring; the weight of those extra 50-pound bags each member of the Clampett Family insists on carrying on affects our costs, and we reluctantly need to charge a fee for that second bag in order to keep fare hikes under control …” — most of us might have seen the point even if we didn't like it.

Insulting your passengers’ intelligence is unwise.

But wait till the merger (s). You’ll be reading more about the “benefits” coming your way.

PS: Here are two sample comments about the US Air move this morning on Flyertalk.com:

"I just called UAMP about this since I fly the shuttle twice a week and they indicated that if booking as a United codeshare you would still get 500 minimum. The trick is not to book as true US in which case you'd get actual flight miles flown."

***

"So fuel is only expensive on flights of less than 500 miles? "

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Airline Workers Happy! No 'Dumpster Diving' Tips from Northwest. Yet

Above: What better way to follow Northwest's 2006 money-saving tips than acquiring this smart used dump truck, which can provide family transportation (plenty of room in the back, kids!) and also haul home those necessities you manage to score at the town dump. The dump truck is being auctioned by the city of Bryan, Tex., with the current high bid at $3,050.


As the Northwest CEO assures employees that there is nothing to worry about (see post below), I was reminded of the infamous Dumpster Diving incident of 2006, when Northwest sent to employees about to be laid off a booklet suggesting "101 Ways to Save Money." I wrote about it at the time.

Here's a link to the booklet on TheSmokingGun.com

Among the tips Northwest offered to the soon-to-be-sacked:

---Do your own nails

---Rent out a room or garage

---Buy spare parts for your car at the junkyard

---Quit smoking

---Take a shorter shower

---Go to a matinee instead of an evening show

---Share housing with a friend or family member

---Don't be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash

---Move to a less expensive place to live

---Borrow a dress for the big night out

---Cut your cable television down to basic

---Buy pre-owned toys and children's books at garage sales

---But software at computer fairs

---Search the Internet for freebies

And my personal favorite, which turns out to have been such good advice for those about to be reduced to marginal incomes in mid-2006:

---Refinance your mortgage

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Airline Mergers: 'Consolidation' Means Happy Workers

Just for the record: We'll have to get back to you on that one, probably after you get your multi-million-dollar buyout, Skippy:

From today's Detroit News:

Merger may aid airline workers

Northwest CEO vows that any deal to join with Delta will be in employees' best interest.

Nathan Hurst / The Detroit News

Amid speculation that Northwest Airlines Corp. is close to reaching a merger deal with Delta Air Lines Inc., Northwest CEO Doug Steenland told employees this week that his airline's board will make sure any transaction is in the workers' best interest.

"I, the management team and the board of directors will not move forward with a transaction that does not benefit all of our key stakeholders: our employees, our customers, our shareholders and the communities we serve," Steenland said Monday in a recorded message on Northwest's employee hotline. "Any merger would have to put our airline in a safe harbor and offer long-term stability and job security for our front-line employees." ...

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Airline Merger (s)

The official line coming out of Delta Air Lines is that worries about deep cutbacks and consolidation in the imminent merger with Northwest Airlines are overblown, that the route structures will compliment each other and that more cities will have better air service.

Put me down as skeptical on that. But with all indications being that Delta's corporate culture will predominate in a merged giant airline, not Northwest's, at least we can expect a change of tone, in time. Northwest's work force in my opinion is the most demoralized in the industry, and that's saying something.

Delta recently had 50,000 people apply for 1,000 openings for flight attendants.

Delta has been sharply beefing up its international routes in recent years, especially eastward. Northwest, of course, is a major presence on trans-Pacific routes. A major priority in a merged airline will be to stimulate feeder traffic into domestic international hubs.

IS there any good news for languishing mid-sized and smaller cities currently seeing a sharp decline in air service? Not much, if they can't come up with international connecting traffic to feed the beast.

Mike Boyd has some thoughts on the prospects for medium and small city air traffic in his essay this week at the Boyd Group.

Meanwhile, the next shoe to drop is a likely United-Continental merger. Oh great. There goes the remaining value of my Continental elite status and miles.

Meanwhile, I'm off for an overnighter in Toronto. In an RJ. And it's about to snow. Shoot me now.

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I'm Just Sayin' ...

--[News notes, Inside Baseball Dept., No. 1:] BULLETIN: Journos Upset When Billionaire Owner Utters a Curse Word!

I despair at the pursed-lip scolds who now dominate journalism. And I understand Sam Zell for whom six billion dollars is truly f-you money. Under the same circumstances, I might have muttered the same thing after that photographer -- photographer! -- asked a snotty question and then theatrically turned her back on him at a staff meeting at the Orlando Sentinel -- a newspaper that has seemed in recent years to be determined to put into a coma the half of central Florida that isn't already in one. The photographer now denies intending to turn her back as a gesture of contempt, but some people saw it differently. Meanwhile, the pursed-lip scolds won't just let it be. Imaging, cursing during a newspaper meeting! Miss Grundy, bring the salts!


Surely, a harrumphing Public Editor is settling down on the landscape somewhere in a big hot-air balloon. Ah, yes.

***

--[News notes, Inside Baseball Dept., No. 2]. I'd hire this kid. The news business used to be full of pains in the ass like him, and it needs new ones desperately.

***

--Excited Drudge headline of the day: "Chertoff Worries About 'Earth-Shattering' Events" ... Don't we all, dude, don't we all.

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The Olympics Fun Begins ...

The Olympics hype is starting, a long time before the first sprinter drops dead of pollution in Beijing. Some updates:

Photos from top:

1. Britain's Olympic fox-hunting team is in for a challenge as the foxes work on their strategy.

2. Britain's team giving the Nazi salute at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. See this actual story from today about how the current UK Olympics team will be required to sign statements promising they won't criticize China at the summer games.

3. What a horse can do.

4-5. The U.S. Olympics shooting team, in intensive practice.

6-7. Me, at the Great Wall of China, failing to qualify for the Olympics equestrian team despite that elegant levade.

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And Away We Go ...

Assuming the Financial Times is right, the long-rumored Delta-Northwest merger is about to happen. (Meanwhile, I'll wait till I see some confirmation in the Wall Street Journal).

... Oh

Then this.

The Northwest Airlines CEO is already assuring employees that a merger would be designed to be in their best interests. Translated: "Dear employees, you are about to get shafted ... again."

Wait till you see the executive-suite buyout packages.

As airline mergers happen, and this probably won't be the only one this year, Wall Street types will cheer -- which never means good news for airline passengers. Note already how the prospect for a merger to "squeeze excess capacity" is treated as a good thing.

No. For passengers, squeezing excess capacity means higher fares. Plan on it. In fact, if you have firm travel plans ahead, with fixed dates, book those tickets now.

Mergers mean mean fewer domestic seats, more crowded planes (which already are flying with record passenger loads) and fewer options when even routine disruptions occur, such as missed connections or long delays.

Remember, this is the year we'll later refer to as Annus Horribilis in domestic air travel. Plan on that, too.

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Home, James!

Top: Air traffic, mostly private jets departing from the Super Bowl or arriving to pick up passengers after the game, around Phoenix last night just before midnight Eastern time.

Bottom: 7 a.m. (EST) Monday.

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Super Bowl Sky Jam

Above: Flight arrivals and departures at Phoenix Sky Harbor and Deer Valley Airports, 6.50 p.m. (Eastern time) Friday

I've been writing articles recently about the hype and hustle in the walk-up to Sunday's Super Bowl in Phoenix (actually, at the University of Phoenix Stadium in nearby Glendale).

You know, private jets pouring in, $5,000-a-head parties, celebrities and sports figures for hire by the hour like a herd of $3,000 hookers (and there's that, too). Super Bowl is a football game on television. To most of those who go there, though, it's the year's greatest corporate toga party.

The spectacle is compounded by the huge golf crowds already on hand this week for the FBR Open in Scottsdale, one of the major PGA tournaments.


There's a good follow-up story in today's Wall Street Journal reporting that lots of the Super Swells arrive, party, network -- and get out of town before the game!

Now, one reason for that is that those arriving by corporate and private jet are well aware that Super Bowl Sunday Night has become an infamous super traffic jam for private jets. And this year, the greatest influx of private jets ever is arriving at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where two of the three runways are going to be used exclusively for private jets Sunday night.

The latest figures show that in excess of 1,000 private jets are expected to arrive for Super Bowl at Sky Harbor and at a half dozen smaller general aviation airports in the region.

That's roughly one in every 10 private jets in the world.

Fancy corporate reception tents and centers have been set up at private-jet terminals at Sky Harbor and other Phoenix-area airports -- for private jet passengers to cool their heels and maybe their tempers as the departure traffic mounts Sunday after the game. I'd love to be on hand just to see some of those hot-shots bellowing in a rage, "Do you know who I am?""

Anyway, for those of you keeping score, FlightExplorer.com has a nifty Super Bowl Phoenix air space tracker that will show you the pile-ups for the next several days, commercial and general aviation. The snapshot image above is from 6.50 p.m. tonight.

If you really want to drill down into who's what in the skies, including real-time traffic by tail number and aircraft type, here is the amazing site to do it: www.FlightAware.com


The weather forecast for Phoenix, where it hardly rains, is not good for Super Bowl revelers trying to beat it home on the G5 after the game: Showers and thunderstorms in early evening.

So be sure to tune in on Sunday night.

[Update, Feb. 2 -- By the way, here is my pick for the sorriest Super Bowl "color" feature, not that there haven't been dozens of other candidates this week. And the AP just jacked up its rates for its client newspapers, too.]

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War: The Ultimate Business Trip

I'm a Vietnam veteran. I had a great-grandfather in the Civil War; both grandfathers in WW I, my father and three uncles in WW II, an uncle in Korea ... I really don't really recommend "50 to 100 years " more of this.

Just passing along this link showing Johnny "Bombsaway" in scary combative form from TheRealMcCain.com via YouTube.

And Johnny, stop that ranting on P.T.S.D. Really, stop it now.

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