Author Archives: Andrew

Southwest Airlines Begins Flying to LaGuardia

Posted on June 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

Southwest Airlines has begun to have flights in and out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport today. It is Southwest’s hopes that they will be able to pick up more business travels. A nice addition for New York travelers is that with Southwest coming to town airfares should begin to drop even more.

As of right now Southwest will be flying five times a day to Chicago’s Midway Airport and three times a day to Thurgood Marshall Baltimore/ Washington International Airport. With those two airports being main connections, Southwest fliers have one-stop flights into and out from New York City.

So that is the just of the news for Southwest’s new flight. However, we all know Southwest is just a little bit different. Gary Kelly, chairman and CEO of Southwest, got to ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on June 18th, celebrating the 38th anniversary of Southwest’s first flight. Before he rang the opening bell, he was outside handing out muffins and coffee. What a good way to pick up a few business travelers.

Southwest also plans to clean up Queens Park and mentor students at a Queens middle school. “When we come to a city, we’re interested not just in offering our customer service and low fares at the airport, but we want to be involved,” Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said.

Southwest is always a little bit different. I think they find success in the Big Apple. Southwest also plans adding service to Boston Logan and Milwaukee in late summer/ early fall.

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LAX Using New Runway Safety System

Posted on June 13, 2009 | 1 Comment

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) showed off its new runway safety system Thursday. Like larger airports, LAX has had many close calls over the years with its taxiways and runways. The new safety system cost a $7 million dollars.

The new safety system uses radar and red lights on pavement of taxi ways and a runway so pilots know if it is safe to take off, or to cross a runway. If ground radar notices a possible hazard the red lights began to blink to warn the pilots. Once the red light begins to blink a pilot must obtain clearance from air traffic control before they may continue.

The lights have been running since April. LAX had had the most runway violations in the nation for eight years. The lights were first tested at San Diego and Dallas-Fort Worth airports before being installed at LAX. At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the numbers of close calls from before and after the installation of lights dropped significantly.

“This system has proved that it is highly effective in preventing potentially dangerous runway incidents from occurring,” Wes Timmons, the FAA’s director of runway safety, said.

The FAA plans to continue adding these safety systems to other major airports.

Kudos to the AP for breaking the news.

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Hooray, Bye to Booking Fees?!?!

Posted on June 2, 2009 | Leave a comment

I missed the weekend, so I wrote one today because I knew everyone missed me… right? Written by Andrew.

Reuters is reporting that booking fees may be gone forever? The major booking companies Orbitz Worldwide, Expedia Inc, Travelocity, and Priceline.com have expressed that they will be removing all booking fees. As some interested in all things aviation I do check out flight fares and so on. Orbitz had a promotion going on that they had removed booking fees but said yesterday that the promotion had been made permanent. Travelocity and Expedia also said they would continue not charging any booking fees. Priceline.com appears to be a consumers friend without charging fees since 2007.

From the article:

“To be honest, when they say permanent, I don’t know how truthful that really is,” said Morningstar analyst Warren Miller.

“I can’t see them not coming back at some point. That’s how they make money,” he said.

Miller noted that online travel agencies typically make about 15 percent of their total bookings value in fees.

No one is happy about the poor economic conditions. Although, these economic conditions have brought on these decisions to drop the booking fees and has led to some pretty nice price airfares.

As stated before who know if these fees will ever make a return? Personal opinion says that it will be hard to resume booking fees unless all four decide to begin charging.

When looking for good airfare I like to use Airfarewatchdog.com and BookingBuddy.com

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Awesome, Ryanair Adds “Fee”

Posted on May 24, 2009 | Leave a comment

Ryanair has announced plans to phase out check-in desks at airports all together. They hope to have them phased out by October first and will rely on internet check-ins. Ryanair was recently in headlines for some other stupid ideas for fees, check out my post here.

I will let Stephen McNamara and Ryanair have the first word before I finish with my rant.

Passengers travelling without checked in bags have already embraced our online check-in service and the extension of this service to all passengers, including those with hold luggage and those travelling with infants will allow all passengers to forever avoid check-in queues. This will also allow Ryanair to lower our airport and handling costs and pass these savings to all passengers in the form of even lower air fares next winter.

“Ryanair’s web check-in service allows passenger to check-in from 15 days to 4 hours before, and print, or re-print, their boarding card up to 40 minutes prior to their scheduled departure time. Web check-in can be accessed via ryanair.com using booking confirmation numbers or flight details.

Passengers get the pleasure of paying for a 5 Euro online check-in fee per passenger, and if they wait until at the airport check-in each passenger will face a 40 Euro “boarding ticket re-issue” fee.

While I understand taking airport check-in away will help save money, I do not understand the 5 Euro online check-in fee. Is it really a fee if it is something that one HAS to use to enable them to fly? I understand Ryanair likes any attention they can receive and they are proud of their fees to make their fares look low. The facts are though passengers are confused more than ever and one reason Southwest thrives is that they do not have as many little stupid fees as other airlines.

I have not flown Ryanair, but the lack of customer service, maybe instead of being called a no-thrills airline, they should be called the bully airline.

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