Flight Blog
News and Tips about Air Travel, Business / Industry, Flying, Airplanes, and other fun

Archive for April, 2006

Should air travel be free?

Tuesday, April 18th, 2006

What do uncertain business times do? Stimulate new ideas. And this is definitely a new idea — Ryanair is giving away tickets on a regular basis.

Michael O’Leary, Chief Executive of Ireland’s Ryanair (Research), Europe’s most profitable airline, wants to make air travel free. Not free as in free from regulation, but free as in zero cost. By the end of the decade, he promises, “more than half of our passengers will fly free.”

The remarkable thing is, few analysts think his prediction is far-fetched: Ryanair already offers free fares to a quarter of its customers.

Read the article: A radical fix for airlines: Make flying free

Posted in Air Travel, Airlines, Airplanes, General, News, Trends | 1 Comment »

People are flying as much as they did before 9/11, though they’re complaining more

Sunday, April 16th, 2006

According to this year’s Airline Quality Rating study, that is.

Among the study’s conclusions:

• Southwest Airlines had the lowest rate of complaints, 0.18 per 100,000 passengers, while US Airways had the highest, 1.86.

• ATA had the highest rate of denied boardings, 2.75 per 10,000 passengers; JetBlue had the lowest at 0.

• AirTran had the best baggage handling rate, mishandling 3.43 bags per 1,000 passengers; and Atlantic Southeast had the worst, (mishandling 17.41 bags per 1,000 passengers.

Read the article summarizing the report: Report: Airline delays, complaints on the upswing.

Read the report itself

Posted in Air Travel, Airlines, Airplanes, Airports, Complaints, General, News, Southwest | No Comments »

The Other Flight Club

Saturday, April 15th, 2006

The New York Times profiles New York’s Flight Club — a consignment vintage sport-shoe store in NYC … check out the article here.

Posted in Fun | No Comments »