More Than Points

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that airlines are now taking advantage of advanced scheduling systems to remove some of the best bargain flights and seat prices from their inventory. They use Southwest as the example of complexity in scheduling:

"No airline has a more complex schedule than Southwest. The low-cost carrier now has more daily flights than any other airline, and it runs a frenetic operation with planes hop-scotching across the country and spending only 20 or 30 minutes on the ground. With more than 500 airplanes and 60 cities to link together, there are literally billions of different ways to set the airline’s schedule.

Southwest’s November schedule was developed with an upgraded version of its in-house schedule-optimization system that reworked the airline’s entire 3,400 daily departures. The airline now flies a completely different schedule on Saturdays – in the past it just erased some flights here and there from the regular schedule on Saturdays. Now some cities like Omaha, Neb.; Salt Lake City; Oklahoma City; and Tulsa, Okla., get nonstop flights to Orlando only on Saturdays.

In January, Southwest will cut 190 flights, reducing its capacity by 6% in the slower winter travel season. That’s more schedule jockeying than the airline has ever done before. And next year, it will add Minneapolis-St. Paul to its route network without increasing its capacity. The scheduling system trimmed flights here and there and improved efficiency, freeing up airplanes to fly to and from Minneapolis."

The next step for the industry is to have different travel schedule for each day of the week. The downside for you the traveler: fewer bargain trips as the airlines maximize their revenue and optimize their resources. It appears that the powers of economics and supply/demand are starting to work against us.

Kayak has an excellent reference for fees across all airlines which is updated on a regular basis.  I’ve attached a snapshot of the table as an example (Click on the thumbnail to get a readable picture).

It’s always a good idea to stay up-to-date on the fees so you can make the right decision for yourself and your clients.

A recently released Senate report estimates that flight delays in 2007 cost passengers, airlines and the broader US economy more than $40 Billion. Take a moment to absorb that figure. $40 Billion from lost productivity, added operational costs to support delays, increased jet fuel consumption, and impact to other industries.

Here are a few key findings from the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee Report

• The total cost of domestic air traffic delays to the U.S. economy was as much as $41 billion for 2007 including higher airline operating costs, lost passenger productivity and time, and losses to other industries.
• Delayed flights consumed about 740 million additional gallons of jet fuel totaling $1.6 billion extra in fuel bills. 
• Passengers were delayed by a total of 320 million hours, when accounting for padding in airline schedules.  Almost 20 percent of total domestic flight time in 2007 was wasted in delay. 
• Flight delays were longest during summer vacation months. Flight delays during the months of June, July and August averaged approximately 414,000 total hours of delay per month. Flights during December – the height of holiday traveling – totaled almost 438,000 hours of delay.
• 78% of flight delays in 2007 occurred before take-off, with 58 percent at the gate, and 20 percent during the taxi to the runway.
• 94 percent of all flight delays were caused by other flights arriving late, national system delays, or air carrier delays (less than six percent of delays were due to security or extreme weather)

The three largest airports in the New York City area, JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports had a total of over 40 million passengers last year.  The New York City area airports combine for more than 27 million hours of passenger delays.And the average per-passenger delay at these three airports is nearly 28 minutes – among the highest in the nation. 

The full report and the technical appendix can be found here

In advance of your next trip, keep an eye on whether your connection takes you through any of ’America’s Most Time-Draining Airports’. Maybe you’ll seek a new route to your destination

Can you imagine what you’d do with that extra 20% of time spent currently in airport delays?

USA TODAY has a very good read which highlights what to expect in the next year regarding flight schedules.  It’s not pretty, especially for those of you who travel out of non-hub cities.  Some tiny airports will lose the majority of their air service as smaller carriers such as Mesa Airlines fall victim to the high fuel prices (currently @$130/barrel).  Regional jets, a popular choice for smaller cities and shorter routes are no longer profitable at these oil prices so many airlines are planning to ground these types of planes.

The fall-out for travelers:

• Higher fare prices as reduced competition allows airlines to raise prices on less profitable segments
• Higher travel times in the form of less non-stop flights and more required connections
• More crowded planes as people squeeze into the available flight schedules
• Less flexibility in travel times and dates, especially for vacation destinations

We may not see this immediately, but it will hit us at some point depending on where we are departing and where we are going.  There’s not much we can do to prevent high oil prices, but you can minimize the impact to your travel plans by planning early.

As frequent travelers, sometimes our flight schedules are fixed so book out as far as possible.  Southwest gives you an edge as there are no costs for applying unused tickets to other Southwest ticket purchases.  The same cannot be said for all the other major airlines.

Plan your vacations and book early to get the dates which fit your schedule.  If you wait too long, you may not have the option to get on the flight and if you do, you may be paying up the nose for the few seats remaining.

In any case, expect higher prices regardless of when you plan to fly in the future.  Play it smart and don’t procrastinate.  Have a good week.

A reader passed on an interesting article from CNN’s travel section which relays some confessions of an ex-airline agent.

There are a few interesting tidbits which give some transparency into the inner workings of airline travel.  It appears the poor financial outlook for airlines is driving down the level of customer service (oh really?).  Poor training, low wages and non-existent perks result in ill-equipped agents manning the front-lines.  An antiquated hodge-podge of systems only add to the difficulties in servicing you - the customer.

The best thing to do is remain calm and have patience regardless of the situation.  While "free" upgrades are a thing of the past, being friendly and courteous can be the difference between spending another night at the airport and getting home to see your family and friends.

And in case you were wondering, there is a way for agents to pass their experiences with you to other agents.

Ticket agents are always updating Passenger Name Records, or PNRs. These computer files, which contain basic details on passengers’ trips, are accessible to most agents at check-in counters and departure gates.

Agents generally use PNRs to record special requests by passengers, but sometimes they also comment on a person’s behavior.

A friend of mine discovered this after she had a heated argument with a ticket agent about getting an upgrade on a flight to London. When she reached her gate and inquired again, the agent remarked on her "inappropriate behavior" at check-in, and my friend was stuck with her economy-class seat.

Good to know.  Safe travels.