Business traveler Brad DeLong sleuths out some sketchy business practices on JetBlue’s Boston to West Coast flights: The planes don’t have enough gas to make it when the headwinds are strong:
Thus a six hour flight that would be turned into a six and a half hour flight by strong headwinds is instead turned into an eight hour flight by an involuntary refueling stop in Salt Lake City.
The folks at Airport Public Transit Directory put together a list of public transit options for major and medium cities across the U.S. Take a look at the list here.
They also have a list of airports that don’t have public transit options:
They don’t have any information for the Greensboro, North Carolina, or Spokane Washington airports yet. I’m sure there are other cities missing too. Still, three cheers for people putting together useful information on the web.
From TechCrunch:
Purchasing flights purely based on price has been around for a while, but the consumer has never had the power to quickly and at a glance evaluate the cheapest days to fly nor the cheapest destinations to fly to. Flyspy reverse engineers some of the mystique associated with the airline industry and makes it extremely transparent.
The way it works is that I give it a departure city and a destination city and optionally a departure date and length of stay. The search result, which returns very quickly, will present me with a graph of flight prices over the next 30 days so that I can quickly look at which days are the cheapest to fly. To book a flight I just click on the point in the graph. Simple.
Looks awesome. Check out the alpha site here (only works for Minneapolis-bound flights to select destinations), and read TechCrunch’s breakdown of FlySpy here.
Wednesday, says Travelocity. That is, if you’re flying domestic, and your trip is within the next two weeks. Travelocity says all airlines release tickets each Wednesday for weekend travel this weekend and next. So says CNN.com here in The best time to buy everything…
I just wrote this email to a friend, and it’s worth sharing. In the past year the online cheap flight-deal landscape has changed. Things aren’t as simple — no, but they’re better. Witness the CheapAir flexible travel search: You don’t need to enter your desired dates, just your destination. Type in where you want to go and it returns all your options, with what dates they’re available. That’s pretty sweet functionality you couldn’t find last year.
So, here are the places I go now when looking to fly:
… and find them with a cool map that pinpoints your location, and all the other places you can go for cheap (or kind-of cheap) dollars. Kayak Buzz is the best use of google maps and air fares I’ve seen yet, and I like that they took the time to put this together. I haven’t used it to book a flight yet, but I might. Here’s a link to Kayak Buzz. Now if only airfarewatchdog would put something like this together 
.
Hey, in case you didn’t know, Flight Club is an online community for air travelers. Flight Club (the parent of this blog) has online tools that help members meet other members on airplanes and in airports — basically, we’re fun people that make travel more exciting. Business travelers, recreational travelers, if you fly for fun or for work, if you fly just once a year, Flight Club has a spot for you.
Membership is booming, so if you haven’t thought about joining before, then now is a good time. Registration takes about a minute and you can do it at this page. It’s free, it’s a fun site, uh huh oh yeah.
Travel journalist and blog entrepreneur George Hobica bumps his cheap flight report up a notch. A new domain, improved interface, and easier way to find discount air fares going where you want to go. This guy and the people helping him scour the web each day looking for fares the airlines don’t advertise. It’s great stuff.
On the new site he adds features like “Today’s Top 30 fares” — which is cool, but is it worth the effort? Most people looking for fares will search by destination, and then look for deals there.
Not to knock the man or anything … part of the reason I like what he does so much is his attitude behind it. Check out the last paragraph of his recent blog post about a newsletter he’s writing for Frommers. He says, “We often refer you to links and airlines that make absolutely zero for us (because we don’t have a financial relationship with that airline) simply because that’s the best value on a given route. We’d much rather gain your trust than [your money].” That’s awesome — and a definite contrast to someone like Tom Parsons.
Hey, been away for a while … here’s a roundup of some recent off-kilter airline news, enjoy.
Sure, writing about stuff you like is cool. The lucky people get to do that for a living. Tom Parsons, an internet travel entrepreneur, is one of them. He runs a web site about cheap flights. He also gets a few less-than-choice quotes in a recent Southwest Airlines press release (http://www.travel.fresh-coffee.com/flights/286/southwest-airlines-subscriber-fares-ding.htm ).
Quote:
“[Southwest Airlines Product] is an air traveler’s blue light special in the sky,” Parsons said. “Only Southwest Airlines would dare to offer fares this low.”
How much did they pay him for that quote? And after this dedication of allegiance to Southwest, why would I trust him as a source of information about cheap flights on non-Southwest carriers? I know it’s a free world, and a free market. But quotes on behalf of corporations rather than customers compromise the integrity of all the services you offer.
Shilling for the man is a one-way a ticket to the no-credibility parade.