Did U.S. Air treat you right recently? Got something great you want to share about a customer service encounter or some trip you took with them? Share it here.
» Read the rest of the Flight Blog (unofficial) Praise-This-Particular-Airline series here.
Alaskan Airlines / Horizon Air services mostly the West Coast of the United States, so if you haven’t heard of them that’s why. And if you have heard of them, and have flown them, and have complaints you’d like to air about their customer service or some other aspect of travelling with them, go on and share those greivances here.
» Read the rest of the Flight Blog “Complain About an Airline” series here.
» Read the full version at Yahoo! Finance’s article, 10 things your airline won’t tell you
The “Complain About This Particular Airline” series on Flight Blog is back up and running! This time: U.S. Air. If you’ve been done wrong by U.S. Air, if you’ve got some complaint about their customer service, airplanes, schedule or whatever, share it here.
Getting the seat you want may or may not be a big deal to you. That’s fine — if it is, this is a roundup of MSNBC’s article on how to get the best seat on an airplane:
Read the full article here, and read more Flight Blog posts about air travel tips here.
Here’s a tale from a ticket-sales agent at an unnamed airline:
I’ve made it through all the calls from adults who didn’t know the difference between a.m. and p.m., from mothers of military recruits who didn’t trust their little soldiers to get it right, from the woman who called to get advice on how to handle her teenage daughter, from the man who wanted to ride inside the kennel with his dog so he wouldn’t have to pay for a seat, from the woman who wanted to know why she had to change clothes on our flight between Chicago and Washington (she was told she’d have to make a change between the two cities) …
In five years, I’ve received more than a boot camp education regarding the astonishing lack of awareness of our American citizenry. This lack of awareness encompasses every region of the country, economic status, ethnic background, and level of education. My battles have included everything from a man not knowing how to spell the name of the town he was from, to another not recognizing the name as “Iowa” as being a state, to another who thought he had to apply for a foreign passport to fly to West Virginia.
Another airline bites the dust. This one, EOS Airlines, was a business-traveler specific carrier with hefty price tags and twice-a-day NYC-to-London flights.
From the Associated Press article about the demise:
The airline reconfigured Boeing 757s meant for 220 passengers with 48 seats that could extend into a fully flat bed. Flights served wine, champagne, cocktails and gourmet foods. There were individual DVD players, and helicopter rides to the airport were offered to some travelers.
The price for the New York to London flights, which it offered twice a day, ranged from $3,500 to $9,000 roundtrip.
From EOS Airline’s adios-note on their site:
To Our Valued Guests,
The relationship we have is very special. You have shown a true appreciation for the commitment and service that defines Eos Class and it has always been our pleasure to deliver Eos Class service to you. The sense of camaraderie and level of engagement we’ve developed together transcends the traditional airline space.
Our unique relationship makes it all the more difficult to share with you the news that Eos has filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York. On April 26, 2008, we plan to operate Flight 6 (8:30pm) from JFK to STN. On April 27, 2008, we plan to operate Flights 3 (1:00pm) and 7 (6:30pm) from STN to JFK. Flight 5 from STN to JFK and all flights from JFK to STN on April 27, 2008 are canceled. We will cease operations entirely after April 27, 2008.
This announcement is particularly regrettable since we have achieved so much, including having a term sheet in hand for additional financing. Clearly, even in today’s challenging economic and credit environment, investors believe in Eos. Unfortunately, some issues arose that prevented the parties from moving forward.
We sincerely apologize to those of you who have travel planned in the days ahead. Eos Guests should seek alternative arrangements for travel and should contact their credit card companies or travel agents directly for information about how to obtain a refund for unused tickets.
For our Club 48 members, unfortunately, in the face of this bankruptcy filing, you will no longer be able to redeem your points for rewards. Any value related to your membership will be determined by the court as part of the bankruptcy process.
…
Again, we apologize and thank you for everything, especially for being our Guests.Sincerely,
Jack Williams, President & Chief Executive Officer
Dave Spurlock, Founder and Chief Commercial Officer
Tom Martin, Chief Financial Officer
Gil Morgan, Chief Operations Officer
Adam Komack, Chief Lifestyle Officer
John Turnipseed, Chief People Officer
Jim Prebil, Chief Information Officer
John Morgan, SVP, EMEA
Andy Menkes, SVP, Sales - Americas
DelayCast is a new flight data aggregator that goes one step beyond crunching numbers. It predicts the likelihood that the flight you book will find itself delayed.
From their site:
Use our on-time prediction engine to help you book your flights. We’ve built mathematical models of the U.S. air transportation system to predict delays and cancellations. If you need to make that meeting on time or are afraid of missing a connection, don’t book until you check out the predictions here!
The cool part about the numbers game they’re playing is it’s easy to figure out if they were right or not. According to their FAQ, “looking across all of our delay duration predictions, month after month, we are within 15 minutes 80 - 90% of the time. Of course that varies by airport.”
Here are a few examples of the different data you can get from their site:
Right now you have to have the airport codes of the airports you’re travelling in memorized (if you need help with that, I copied and pasted all the U.S. Airport codes from the department of transportation’s website in a blog post here).
United States Airport Code information from the U.S. Department of Transportation:
Here’s a good write-up on a study of overbooking and how many passengers get bumped (voluntarily and involuntarily) from flights:
In short, valuable business travellers want refundable tickets. Because of this and other reasons, about 10% of booked tickets become no shows. Airlines recoup the loss by over-booking. Implicitly, they trade off the potential for dissatifying a few unlucky passengers (who would be bumped from their flights) and the potential for flying with 10% empty seats (in addition to unsold seats). Optimization algorithms (constantly tuned by entry-level staff) try to strike a balance.