Never mind that Gailen has been writing about travel experiences for years, including some pretty snarky bits in the past (but all in a good way, IMO). Nope. Now is the time to go after the folks who are doing their job and doing it well. After all, firing someone with 20+ years seniority is way more effective at cutting budgets than cutting someone more junior. And when you’re facing a 20% budget cut, well, the bigger numbers start to look attractive.

This whole thing stinks. Not classy at all, AA. Not at all.

Airlines have continually cut and cut again on air travel commissions to agents, essentially killing them off outright. But Delta is putting some back out there, at least in the short term, in an effort to drive bookings on their new routes. Here’s what the numbers look like:

I’m not sure how much demand there is going to be for the premium cabin on those routes but even a number of coach fares are getting in on the action. Not too shabby.

It is hard to know if this is Delta responding to soft future bookings on the new routes, trying to raise travel agent awareness of the new routes or something completely different. Regardless of the motivation, it is definitely a blast from the past with the commissions.

Related Posts:

• Postview of the Delta/LaGuardia announcement
• Preview of the Delta/LaGuardia announcement
• New York/Washington slot swap approved

Good thing I like building tools to help clarify frequent flier program data like this. Welcome to the Avios Redemption Calculator.

Put in your preferred city pair and the tool will search connections based on published routes and the Avios award schedule and spit out various non-stop and single connection routing options and their costs.

It is definitely interesting to see how the cost can vary by more than 100%, depending on the routing chosen.

The tool is still somewhat a work in progress as I’ve got a few more bits I want to add to it, especially more partner carriers, but the base functionality is up and running and pretty solid in my initial testing. Give it a try and see what you can come up with.

Well, it is time for the annoyance and frustration to go away. It is time for an easier search interface. It is time for another update to the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools!

The United SWUable tool has been around for a while now, though it has recently seen a number of updates to get it back online after a short hiatus due to data source issues. The Delta version of the tool is a new addition and has just come out of beta and is ready for action.

Here’s how it works:

• Head to either the United or Delta version of the tool.
• Zoom in on the map to find your departure city or destination airport.
  
• Or scroll down and choose from the airports or price points listed.
  
• Check out the fare data and pick the option that works for you!
  

The fares listed are EXCLUSIVE of taxes and fees. This means that any YQ fuel surcharges are not included. I wish they were, but the GDS from which the data comes doesn’t have them and I cannot just make up the data so I’m publishing what I’ve got. Still better than a poke in the eye. Also, the fares are published fares, not necessarily the lowest available on your specific dates of travel. Not perfect, but a good starting point. And the CPM is point-to-point, so odds are you can do better than that with creative routings on most city pairs.

Not seeing the fare you want, but hoping that it will happen? I’ve got a system set up for that, too. Click on the "Manage My Alerts" link and you can set up email alerts for various cities and price points. Every morning after the fare data is collected the system checks the alert queue and sends out emails if the fares are available.

There’s also fare history (more useful for the United data right now, but the Delta data is building) so you can watch trends.

The fare history page also has the actual numbers so you can see those bits, too. And I’ve fixed the bug that’s causing the multiple daily entries the past couple weeks.

Hopefully the tool can help you better apply the SWUs you’ve earned. Happy flying!!

Apparently Congress has decided that they’ve had enough. After issuing a rather scathing report in November 2011 on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the TSA a few have now stepped up to actually act on the recommendations made in that report. One of those recommendations was that the TSA stop stonewalling private screener contract applications. Not surprisingly, the TSA ignored it. And now they are running out of chances.

The new legislation will reverse the burden of proof, requiring that the TSA demonstrate increased costs and decreased efficacy in order to reject contract applications. Given the incredibly high turnover rates and training costs that the TSA incurs, it shouldn’t be too hard for contractors to demonstrate that they can meet those standards. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that things will get better with the screening process. After all, the private screeners will still have to follow TSA-mandated policies and the ludicrous “state your name” test started at SFO which is privately run. Still, there is a small chance that private contractors will be able to better manage their workforce, resulting in screeners who bring guns to the office or get caught on camera stealing form customers actually being fired and prosecuted rather than sheltered by the federal government.

And, yes, I know that much of the reason the provisions were pushed through was to benefit the constituents in Representative Mica’s (R-FL) district, but I’m willing to put up with that for the sake of maybe getting a bit better service for the billions spent. Maybe.

A guy can dream…Here’s hoping.

Related Posts:

• Happy birthday, TSA!

The filing comes as the company found itself with very little cash on hand when a customer withheld a $20MM payment. They are also faced with significantly declining demand for services as the US Government is reducing troop movements, meaning fewer charter operations. Combined with declining rates for services the company now sees itself with a glut of aircraft on lease. They intend to reject 16 of 30 active leases, returning those aircraft to the lessors as part of the reorganization.

The net impact of all these moves is pretty minimal on most folks but it does show yet another airline that managed to build an operation on unsustainable ideas and the effects of their failures.

Related Posts:

• Malev ceases operations; all planes grounded
• Adios, Spanair

Adria actually blocks the front few rows of the CRJ200 as "Business Class" though the offerings aren’t particularly impressive. I was flying in economy and, other than no mini bottle of water prior to departure, I think the service was pretty much the same. I was fortunate to have an empty seat next to me so I was relatively comfortable for the flight.

The trip from Munich to Ljubljana is a quick one, only about 35 minutes in the air, so no service during the flight though I didn’t mind much. I was rather distracted by the beautiful views out the window. I love flying over snow-capped mountains.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The approach into Ljubljana was similarly beautiful, particularly with the mountains off to the side behind the airport. It makes for quite a first impression getting off the plane.

The flight was quick and pleasant. No service to speak of but really not an issue for 30 minutes in the air. And given their awesome connectivity in the region I can see flying Adria more often if in the area again. And, given how beautiful Ljubljana is, I hope to be back in the region sooner than not.

Read more of my EuroHopping adventure here.

Related Posts:

• A ljubly day in Ljubljana
• Berlin in an hour. At night. In the winter.
• In flight: Stockholm to Berlin on SAS
• Checking in: Hotel Eurostars Berlin
• Maximizing award redemption value. Sortof.

One of my many travel-related projects is the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools website. It includes, among other things, award inventory information for a bunch of airlines. And now that the data is accessible, Korean Air is part of that collection. You can search for award or upgrade inventory for free. And there’s even an email alert function that can be set, allowing you to get a message if the award inventory opens up.

Yes, you have to register to gain access to the data, but it is free and no strings attached.

Here’s a snip of what the search page looks like:

Not particularly pretty, but quite functional. Also of note is that sometimes the system will provide options that don’t quite get you where you’re going, but to an intermediate connecting point instead. On the above Seoul to Singapore search there are two non-stop flights (KE 641 and 643) that are both available, but there is also KE 683 to SGN, from which you might be able to pick up a connection on SkyTeam partner Vietnam Airlines, another of the carriers searchable in the tool collection. Displaying more than just the non-stop options should help folks with flexibility to better find awards that work.

Coach award inventory is not currently available in the system and first class isn’t available to partners, but otherwise the data should be accurate for redemptions.

Give the tools a try and let me know what you think.

The company claims the suspension was triggered automatically by the IATA systems when a technical glitch prevented their scheduled payment from reaching the clearinghouse:

As a result of a recent internal system failure, certain credits did not hit our ICH account in time, triggering an automatic suspension. Kingfisher would like to confirm that all its dues via ICH have been settled in full and it has absolutely no outstanding due as of date,

Despite claiming to be current it appears that IATA has not yet commented or reinstated the carrier to the systems.

Adding fuel to the fire is the announcement today that the planned February 10, 2012 ascension of Kingfisher into oneworld is being delayed, with no revised date yet announced. FlightGlobal is carrying the story, with quotes from both oneworld and Kingfisher executives on this latest development. Said oneworld CEO Bruce Ashby:

These are turbulent times for the airline industry in India and many other parts of the world. We have been working closely with Kingfisher Airlines over the past months and it has become increasingly clear recently that the airline needs more time to resolve the financial issues it is confronting before it can be welcomed into Oneworld. Will work with Kingfisher Airlines with the aim of setting a new joining date once it is through this current period of turbulence.

This delay is somewhat reminiscent of the frequent delays that Air India suffered in their attempts to join Star Alliance over the past few years. Those efforts were eventually scuttled after multiple delays.

Without access to interline booking revenue is seems unlikely that Kingfisher will be able to realize the revenue needed to pull themselves out of their financial morass. With many unpaid or severely delayed bills the future of the carrier is very much in question. It is not surprising that the alliance is not interested in bringing the carrier on board as their liabilities for interline travel could be significant.

This is a serious blow for oneworld, as another member carrier, Malev, ceased operations today, also under financial pressures they could not overcome.

Not a good day in the aviation world at all.

Hat tip to Flying With Fish for the head’s up on this one.

Related Posts:

• Kingfisher set to join oneworld. If they can stay in business.
• Kingfisher looking even more shaky; I’ll book elsewhere
• Malev ceases operations; all planes grounded
• Star Alliance, Air India link "on hold"
• Air India: Shining Star or Black Hole?
• SkyTeam, oneworld announce expansion

Overall the website changes appear to be mostly aesthetic, which is fine. Unfortunately, however, they managed to leave the one bit of the old site that is pretty awful on the old platform. The online check-in process is still the same flash-based mess that it has been since the Sabre migration happened. That was the one bit that really needed help and it didn’t get any. There are other bits of the site, like the airport guides, that have a rather unfinished feel to them. Hopefully those get touched up soon enough.

The mobile app, on the other hand, is a pretty solid offering overall, particularly for a v1.0 product. It offers flight booking, management, tracking and check-in functionality, all the basics that a mobile app should have to be useful. But it also has more.

The flight booking option is a slightly different interface than the other mobile apps I’ve seen, most notably in the seat selection, which comes on a scroll wheel rather than a seat map picker. I’m not sure if it is good or bad, but it is definitely different. It can also use geolocation to display default departure airports based on where you are, which is a neat feature, though not necessarily incredibly valuable.

There are some bugs in the flight booking interface still (remember, it is a v1.0 product), so scrolling down to the bottom of the page can result in seeing things like all the error messages that might be displayed if something goes wrong, but that doesn’t seem to interfere with the actual functionality so not a huge problem. I expect that those will be cleaned up soon enough.

The in-flight entertainment guide is pretty basic, but it includes a list of the DirecTV channels available and the movies showing, along with reviews. The in-flight section also has details on the food and snack options, including wine pairing suggestions such as Sauvignon Blanc with Terra Blue chips (apparently the citrus finish is great with the salty chips).

The highlight of the app, to me, is the "My trips" section. The display of upcoming trips is intuitive and offers up all the appropriate information on a single screen. The online check-in, social media share (Twitter and FaceBook) and "Pick me up" email features are also very nice. The flight review bits on the mobile app are arguably better than those on the main website.

And, there is more available via the trip interface. Tap on the city and you get access to the City Guide section of the app. In addition to airport information the City Guide includes tips on sights, dining and activities in the destination cities. Strangely, I cannot find any way to access that information other than via a scheduled trip, but it is nice to see that the company is working on making that happen. Hopefully they can add more content (it is somewhat sparse right now) and they expose it more directly in the near future. It would also be nice to see this content make it into the main website; it does not appear to be there right now.

Speaking of things that I hope to see in the future, there is a section in the flight booking portion of the site, both on the main website and the iPhone app, called "Add extras." Currently that section only says, "The flights you have selected don’t offer any upgrades," so there is nothing that can be selected but it certainly opens up a number of possibilities for things that might be coming. This is separate from the Even More Space seating option, though that might be something that is listed here. But there could be other things as well. This is definitely an interesting revelation that I’ll be keeping an eye on.

Overall the app is a much bigger leap forward than the website updates. Both are nice, but the app is very impressive, particularly in the my trips section. Hopefully the Android app which is expected soon will be similarly functional and both will continue to improve, fixing the little bugs that are showing today.