Looking for something good to read over the Labor Day weekend? Here are some offerings from some of my favorite sites and bloggers:

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As time permits I will be selecting questions from the Ask Rick Blog Post (in the comments section) and providing some advice. Be sure on all questions to include departure, destination, airline, time frame (as they apply). Kim asks: I just discovered the Aloha flight I booked from Maui to Sacramento has a stop. We will be traveling with my daughter who will be 22 months at the time and I really need a non-stop. I contacted Alohas reservations and the would allow me to change the flight for a $125 fee plus any increase in the ticket cost. When I looked online the return flight available was actually about $5 less than what I originally paid, not the $86 increase they quoted me. Is there any way to get them to waive the $125 and get the lower priced airfare? I wasn’t familiar with the non-stop from Maui (Kahului, Airport Code: OGG) to Sacramento (Airport Code: SMF), a quick check on Farecompare.com flight schedules shows the flight and the list of airfare prices on this route. As background, airline change fees are governed by a rule on the airfare called — oddly enough — “Penalties” — and to some degree requirements in the Aloha contract of carriage and other applicable reservation fee policies (like charges for making a phone call to an airlines reservation agent).

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I want to thank everybody for the great responses and advice regarding my cousin’s and my ongoing battle with US Airways. After weeks of trying to file a claim under the EU’s Regulation EC 261 which should ensure my cousin compensation of 600 Euros (about $819 US) in cash, US Airways offered a travel voucher of $250. After some more prodding, they offered a voucher of $600. The airline has stated that they cannot accept the EC 261 claim because the two days of delays in Munich my cousin experienced were due to unexpected flight safety shortcomings.

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Over the past several years, most of us have watched the good-old airline meal become a thing of the past. We went from “do you want chicken or beef” to “do you want these crackers or this cereal bar?” Even the boxed lunches with a small sandwich and cup of fruit have all but disappeared from the airways. Well, Delta has decided it’s time to bring real food back to the people in coach. There is a bit of a catch, though. They’re going to charge you for it. While some airlines have begun to offer an a la carte menu for basic snacks like candy bars and chips, Delta will be offering more complete meals. Over on Consumerist, they highlighted the menu (set to debut in November on flights over 2,000 miles), which includes things like cereal and fruit for breakfast and California Salad for lunch or dinner. It will even feature selections from world-famous chef, Todd English. First class fliers will enjoy these meals for free, but those flying coach will be charged $2 to $10. I believe that flights over 2,000 miles should have meals on them. After all, that’s a long time to be on plane without food. But I wonder if this is the best way to go, and if passengers will embrace the paid meal menu. My guess is that when faced with hours in the air, many travelers will fork over the money for a meal. But let me know what you think. Would you rather pay for Delta’s Califronia Salad or just grab something on your own before you get on the plane?

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Yesterday, I mentioned the delayed Delta flight that was rerouted to Syracuse and the pilots and customer service folks that made sure the passengers were well taken care of and well fed. Well, we were lucky enough to talk to one of the Delta agents that went above and beyond the call of duty. Your flight has been delayed and then diverted; the weather is bad, and you know you’ll be stuck for hours. Terrible, huh? Well, if you happen to be flying Delta and you’ve been diverted to Syracuse, it’s not so terrible: in fact, its pizza party time! The Delta team in Syracuse has been throwing such parties for stranded passengers, for more than a decade. The latest was held August 17. As always, the party is preceded by a problem that calls for an imaginative pilot who can think outside the plane. In this instance, the Delta pilot decided his passengers would not be subjected to another summertime-hell-flight-saga, so he made 2-simple decisions:

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This post has been moved to a special section.

I get a lot of questions from readers regarding travel tips, airline policies, fare pricing, and more. I do my best to answer every question, but as most of you know, there just aren’t always enough hours in the day to get to everything.

I thought it might be a good idea for me to start a weekly segment on the blog where I choose the questions that seem to come up the most, or those that shed some light on issues that affect all of us as travelers. I’m calling it Ask Rick, and it will debut this Friday.

Please submit any questions you have about the airline industry, travel, or anything else that you think might make your life in the air a little bit easier. My hope is that over time, we’ll be able to cover a wide range of issues, and everybody will be better prepared when they’re planning their next trip.

Update

Now Posted:

• “Flight Change Fees“
• “Flight Delayed, Oops Now an On-Time Departure“
• “Just Because You Bought a Ticket doesn’t Mean It’s Yours“
• “Should You Buy 3 Coach Seats Instead of One Business Class Seat“
• “Multi-City European Trip - Making the Best Airline Ticket Buying Decision“

After eight years of absence, Southwest is once again taking on the SFO to LAX route. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Southwest will begin flights on November 4th. They’ll be kicking off with eight flights a day, which gives them two more flights than Virgin America is offering along the LA to San Francisco corridor.

While Southwest has a history of coming in and taking down the old legacy lines, things could be a little different this time out. While United and American, who also fly between LAX and SFO, might be feeling a bit of the burn from Virgin America, it remains to be seen if Southwest can come in and decrease fares even further, as Virgin has done a pretty good job of keeping things affordable.

In the end it might come down to the age-old battle of mood lighting vs. open seating. In the meantime, Californians and visitors looking to take in the whole state can expect to enjoy the low fares that generally come from stiff competition.

As The Cranky Flier said, Its going to be a bloodbath as these guys fight it out. Could we see the return of $19 fares? One can only hope.

While pondering pizza and pilots and delayed planes, I started to think about how the folks at Delta who helped out the passengers deserve some sort of award. Then I started thinking more about awards, and decided it would be great to highlight outstanding customer service, extraordinary trips, and travel companies and airlines that did something to really stand out.

Now, I realize that there can be no good without the bad, so we should have awards for those that fell short on the job, as well.

So, I have come up with the FareCompare Awards (clever name like “Oscars” is in the works), but we need nominations. If you have an extraordinary customer service story (good or bad), a bizarre travel tale, or any other airline related experience you think is worthy of recognition, please let us know in the comments.

Remember, nominees can be people (no last names for now, please), companies/organizations, or maybe even a situation.

Let the nominating begin! Comments at the link below —->

How do you spell RELIEF when your plane’s been diverted? P-I-Z-Z-A.
At least, thats how a few flight crews have been handling it. I was just reading a terrific article by Joe Sharkey of the New York Times, who reported on a recent Delta flight from Phoenix to JFK, that had to be diverted to Syracuse due to bad weather.

Here’s where good old fashioned common sense kicked in:

1. The pilot told everyone he was going to let them off the plane
2. The pilot then told everyone, he ordered pizza for all

The common sense, and, common decency, seemed to be catching: a Delta customer service agent paid for the pizzas (we’re waiting to hear if she was reimbursed), while the flight attendants said, according to Sharkeys report, If anyone needs anything just ask and we’ll do the best we can.
A similar situation happened with a Continental crew aboard a flight stranded in Albany; once again, pizza (and the flight crews) came to the rescue.

You can bet those passengers will remember what airlines took such good care of them. But in the meantime, let’s let one of the flight attendants have the last word, a flight attendant who dished up pizza while making this observation: We’re all in this together.

All in this together. Finally, somebody gets it. And we at FareCompare salute them!

Yes, sometimes airlines will actually post the wrong price and if you happen to notice it you can save an incredible amount of money. In this case not only was Hawaii on Sale today, one airline filed many airfares for half the sale price (sounds like they coded one-way on the airfare incorrectly to me $223 rt vs. $445rt)

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A nice little autumn airfare sale to Hawaii was in full bloom today.

Almost all the major airlines filed superb deals to Hawaii for travel through early December.

Hundreds of cities from the mainland had price drops on the major airlines (some over $300 roundtrip).

Airfare sales have been coming/going quickly so be sure and get your airline tickets soon (and no I am not going say “Book’em Danno”).

In the past few weeks, there have been several airfare sales expiring and quite a few of them being “renewed” with no particular rhyme or reason.

The bottom line is that fall is normally very choppy for airlines (good for consumers) and this is the first year where the airlines are coming off of record crowds in the summer. I suspect they are wondering if this huge summer will bleed over into the fall and thus their normal airfare sales are not as “needed” as might have been.

Airlines match quickly and raise quickly with their automated pricing systems, to wild swings can occur within a few days or even on the same day.

You can definitely save money if you are traveling before before Christmas and outside of Thanksgiving, right now — don’t dawdle though.

Yesterday Northwest canceled its 14 day advance purchase airfare sale that it started Thursday evening for smaller cities.

This particular sale was a very limited purchasing window with limited seat inventory — they might do it gain in a few days, but it shows that you need to be diligent to get the very best deals. Use technology like the FareCompare.com airfare email alerts to keep you up to date on pricing activity.

When those good prices occur, you need to be ready to purchase, plan ahead and you will be one of those 10% that get the best price on a particular flight.

There was a time when my flights from Dallas to Houston were scheduled for 55 minutes. Sadly, those days are gone. The Dallas to Houston flight is now scheduled for an hour. While the added five minutes from Big D to H-town might not seem like much cause for outrage, it’s representative of what’s happening on a much larger scale throughout the country. Flights are getting longer. Or at least they’re being scheduled that way.

So, what’s the cause? Has the wind changed? Is America expanding? No. The cause is congestion at the airports and the growing number of delays the airlines are experiencing. In order to keep their on-time rates up, the airlines have simply started working delays into the flight schedule.

The Wall Street Journal had a great piece on the subject back in May where they broke down the changes in flight times between major markets that have occurred over the last ten years:

“A check of two dozen flights from June airline schedules found that “block times” — the time airlines allot in their schedules for the trip — are about 10% higher than they were in June 1997.”

One of the highlights is the JFK to Reagan Airport trip that’s 44 minutes longer than it was a decade ago. Most experts agree that you can actually fly from NY to DC in about 35 minutes.

When based on a value of time system, it’s believed that traditional delays and these new planned delays cost travelers billions of dollars a year. It’s also clear that these types of airline practices lead to even more frustration on the part of passengers.

The jets get faster, but the trips get longer. However, there is hope that as more runways are added to major airports, and as new routes and new technology are put in place, more realistic flight times will reemerge. In the meantime, just prepare yourself to for a longer day of flying, and know that “on- time” doesn’t quite mean what it used to.

There was a lot of big news in the travel world this week. Northwest offered a fare sale, the CEO of Spirit Airlines put his e-foot in his mouth, and my personal battle with US Airways raged into its third week. This week also offered some great posts from bloggers and writers throughout the country, and as I always do on Friday, I’d like to take a minute to highlight some of my favorites:

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While reviewing the 10am EDT U.S. Domestic and Canadian airfare feed this morning — looking for airlines that might match the Northwest Airlines airfare sale to smaller cities last night, I noticed Continental Airlines had a huge number of airfare decreases.

I thought this was odd because they normally would only MATCH the Northwest Airlines airfare sale to smaller cities (not EXTEND it).

Upon closer review, Continental did match the limited airfare sale in overlapping routes — additionally however they removed their $7 each-way ($14 roundtrip) fuel surcharge on thousands of city pairs.

Previously Continental had set its U.S. Domestic/Canada fuel surcharges to expire for travel departing after the 20th of August (by rule on each fare) for thousands of city pairs. They had filed these surcharges earlier this summer as part of a series of 3 attempted airfare increases which mostly stuck on the major airlines.

I had expected them to update their surcharge rules to a new future travel expiry date the past few weeks, not to suddenly remove the surcharge rule altogether.

Continental in the past has had some difficulties filing their fuel surcharges, so I am trying to confirm with them if this is intentional or another one of their “difficulties”.

I can’t imagine this is a mistake because it has gone on for a few days now — this means for the past few weeks (for travel departing after 20th August) tens of thousands of Continental U.S. Domestic/Canada tickets sold at $14 roundtrip discount compared to travel departing earlier in the summer.

Dropping the fuel surcharges is the equivalent of a airfare sale of $7 each way which must be causing other airlines some heartburn trying to match them.

I checked Continentals hub cities, Houston, Newark and Cleveland and they continue to have the $14rt fuel surcharges, so although this is in thousands of city pairs, it doesn’t look to be on their most lucrative non-stop routes.

The Big Question

Is this an “hidden” airfare sale? Summer Time Only Hike? or reaction to Matt Lauer’s Powder Puff Interview of the Continental CEO yesterday? or is it truly a sign that fuel surcharges are going to go lower in the coming months.

My hope for all air travel consumers is the latter.

The ramifications of fuel surcharges beginning to drop especially if this begins to creep into International trans-oceanic flights is significant. These fuel surcharges are running between $120 and $180 round trip…

Update (3:02pm CDT)

We called, emailed and faxed Continental to ask them about this removal of Domestic fuel surcharges. Mary Clark in the Corporate Communications Department of Continental Airlines responds:

“As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on pricing.”

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I have heard some rumblings that US Airways did some fuel surcharge reductions which might be the cause — I just reviewed the past weeks airfare filings (15 of them) and there does not appear to be any significant activity on US Airways this past week.

Last night I noted that Northwest Airlines fired out a airfare sale for autumn travel to smaller cities. I noted that matching was likely to occur.

At 10am EDT, American, Delta, United & Continental matched the airfare sale in overlapping routes (US Airways stayed on the sidelines until just a few minutes ago 12:30 EDT and match overlapping as well).

As always the FareCompare.com free airfare email alert technology notified subscribers hours before these sale airfares actually hit the purchasing sites (including the airline site itself).

Only 10-15% of travelers actually travel on the cheapest priced airfares, so being first in to know is critical to getting the cheapest seats.

This autumns airfare sales have been choppy so everyone in those regional airports book your tickets now.

First things first: CHECK WITH YOUR AIRLINE BEFORE YOU FLY TODAY!

Its nasty out there! There have been some terrible storms overnight, particularly in the Midwest and Southeast, and there have been a lot of flight cancellations and delays. Not where youre flying? Well, thanks to the domino effect you, too, could be affected, no matter where youre heading.

WORST HIT AREAS: In Chicago, the citys 2-airports cancelled 500-flights, even as thousands of local residents lost power. And this morning, Delta Airlines was reporting delays of roughly an hour at OHare and LaGuardia, and 40-minute delays out of Philadelphia. And in Atlanta yesterday, the storms were tying up traffic, which meant Delta had to divert some of their flights to nearby Columbus, Georgia.

The FAA has a good link for checking delays: http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp.

Now, the bad news: according to the National Weather Service, we can expect more storms throughout much of the Midwest today. So let me repeat: CHECK WITH YOUR AIRLINE BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE TODAY!

This evening at 8pm EDT, Northwest Airlines filed an airfare sale for thousands of smaller cities (with a few larger cities).

• Travel is starts September 6th through December 11th
• Savings range from $20 to $300 below the previous lowest airfare price for the market
• Cheapest Travel Days are Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday (in certain markets other days are $20-40 higher)
• Travel is booked in “K” class which is Northwest Airlines most restrictive seat inventory (seats may be hard to find on certain days)
• Blackouts for the day before Thanksgiving and Saturday after
• Minimum 2 night stay
• Example in the picture is Cleveland to Cincinnati where the price is $120 lower than the closest competitor
• Airfares will be loaded on purchasing sites (including NWA.com) after midnight EDT.
• 95% of the cities with an airfare sale are not in the top 70 by traffic (smaller regional cities)

Thursday nights are the most common time for airlines to file both increases and sales. The other major airlines may or may not match since this is Northwest’s most restricted seat inventory.

Smaller cities rarely get a break, so if you are in a smaller regional please check your city pair as soon as possible tomorrow.

FareCompare.com airfare email alert subscribers were notified of this sale hours ago, 4 hours before the airfares even load for purchasing.

Being first in line on airfare sales is vital, due to the limited number seats they provide at these low prices.

Enjoy …

OK, I admit it, I figured as a new blogger I couldn’t truly be indoctrinated into the blogosphere without at least one Paris Hilton veiled reference.

I have been waiting patiently and Delta today provided the the tenuous connection to travel…

A press release from Delta today announced new non-stop service from Salt Lake City to (you guessed it) Paris beginning in June of 2008.

Our CTO lives in Durango, Colorado and transits through Salt Lake on Delta frequently and happens to be a big fan of the Tour De France (assuming they can get enough drug free racers next year), so I am sure he’ll be off to buy his tickets in the morning for next year.

Delta also posted an introductory price of $499 each way + tax, which was matched by several competing airlines today with connecting service. This is a pretty good price for summer travel — but not spectacular by any stretch.

An interesting thing caught my eye on this release:

Delta notes “New flight positions Delta as the only U.S. carrier to operate non-stop service to French capital from the western United States“.

Hmm, I checked our flight database (http://flights.farecompare.com) and sure enough — only international airlines have flights from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle other than Delta to Paris from the western United States.

The release also notes that this flight is being operated in conjunction with Air France …

With Open Skies (the new pact that makes it easier to get routes to/from U.S. to Europe) next March, I would hope that we will see a lot more cheaper non-stops from the western U.S. to dozens of European destinations in the coming years…

I was just heading out to the office and I happened to catch an NBC Today Show interview with the CEO of Continental Airlines.

You can click here to view the video.

Matt, say it isn’t so, our friends over at Consumerist.com said you asked the tough questions with the CEO of Southwest Airlines in early August — your interview with Jet Blue CEO a few days ago was definitely toned down a bit (on purpose or required?)

Your interview “Today” with the Continental CEO was — to put in mildly — the yawn of the century.

I have opined before about these types of segments in the past, because what passengers want is answers and action on the tough issues.

I should start off by saying that by all accounts there are several things going in Continental Airlines favor:

• Recent J.D. Power Award (for what its worth)
• Wall Street with Higher Stock Price Targets
• Environmental Headway & Accolades
• Profitability

Where in the World was Matt Lauer? when the interview started out with “it is going to be easy because Continental is doing so well” and “I don’t have any hard questions,” — did the Continental Media Specialist lay down some ground rules? or was it your researchers got carpal tunnel and couldn’t use Google or Lexis-Nexis.

I have no qualms with Continental. In fact, they are one of the best in the same day refund guarantee bake off I did recently, and I have nothing but praise for the call center I contacted a few times. But when you have the CEO of one of the 7 major airlines in the U.S. in your cross hairs, at least lob a few grenades instead of just tossing softballs like July delays (weather is such an easy response) and how Continental was lobbying hard to keep Virgin America from flying in the U.S (which most the public doesn’t really understand or care about other than San Franciscans).

The Southwest CEO interview (and precursor segment) had a great question on the “slot” issue, where 20 flights all “depart” at 8am (how does that work exactly) — this time it just sort of fizzled.

Hmm, let me see if we can think of some questions …

In the past few months there have been 2 Continental passenger horror stories, documented in hundreds of media sources. Obviously isolated incidences but they provide good context for several more interesting questions.

• What should be done about people being stuck in planes on the tarmac for 5+ hours (Continental had Passengers Finally Revolt on a flight diverted to Baltimore on its way to Newark, and Toilets stopped up and overflowed on a Continental flight traveling across the Atlantic — both documented in the NY Times just down the street).
• How Continental, along with other major carriers, has reduced domestic capacity in an attempt to drive up prices (to the delight of Wall Street) thus packing planes to the gills and magnifying 10 fold delays and cancellations because there was no place to put anyone
• New York State just passed a passenger bill of rights — because the Feds couldn’t/wouldn’t — what was his take on that?

Hey Matt, next time you need some more tougher questions just give us ring …

As you know, I’ve been struggling with US Airways on my cousin’s behalf for three weeks. She was on Flight 707 set to depart Munich on Wednesday, August 1st. Due to delays, she ended up spending two nights in Munich and one night in Philadelphia, finally arriving in Dallas on Saturday, August 4th.

I’ve chronicled my ordeal with US Airways in several previous posts (Pack For a Few Days Extra on International Flights, On Hold For an Hour With US Airways, and US Airways on Redial).

At the center of the argument with US Airways is EU Regulation EC 261 which leads one to believe that my cousin and others who have to deal with cancellations and extended delays on flights flying to and from an EU country are due 600 Euros in cash compensation. (US Airways EC 261 Handout provided to my cousin)

Now, I would like to lay out the steps and missteps I have taken over the last three weeks to finally get a claim filed, and I will relay what US Airways has to say on their behalf. My hope is that this will help all of you who have left comments that were on this flight and asked questions regarding Flight 707 and the EU Regulation.

The gory details are outlined next — long story short — a $600 voucher has now been offered instead of the $900 in cash — So, I now pose a question:

Should my cousin and I accept the $600 voucher and just be happy that we got anything, or should we fight on and take our claim to the EU? (Note I am itching for a tussle)

Post in the comments if you think I should go to the last step (appealing to the EU) or not!

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A tale of two-airlines, and two-VERY different responses to customer concerns.

Lets take Spirit Airlines first: it seems a passenger on one of their flights ran into some lengthy delays which ruined their trip. After many unsatisfactory calls to Spirit customer service reps, they sent Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza a politely worded email requesting some compensation. Did they “deserve” any? Maybe not. But they didnt deserve this, either:

The CEOs response:

we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.

By sheer accident — it looks like he hit reply all evidently — Baldanzas inexcusably stupid response was sent back to the passenger, and is now all over the internet: Alex Rudloffs informative blog had it first, quickly followed by our friends at Gadling and Chris Elliott.

Let him tell the world how bad we are. — Uh, Ben, I think you just did that yourself.

180 Degrees

Now, heres a recent example of how Southwest Airlines does things: my wife and a colleague were traveling together on a recent flight, and they had no problems, EXCEPT her colleague left his Blackberry on the plane.

Well, the people at Southwest went to the trouble of checking the blackberry’s calendar, saw he had a lunch meeting with my wife, matched her name to the manifest, and called her to ask if she knew who owned the Blackberry. Then they mailed it to him at no cost!

Apples and oranges? Maybe. But customer service starts at the top, the attitude trickles down — treating people as numbers on a financial sheet (or worse) just doesn’t cut it in my book.

The Southwest people had to WORK to get that Blackberry returned. And they could have simply tossed it in Lost & Found (they now have at least 3 customers for life, me, my wife and her colleague).

Maybe its no surprise that the airline industry overall ranks below the IRS in customer satisfaction. And people werent all that satisfied with the IRS, which had a score of 65%. Only one airline ranked above 70%: yep, you guessed it — Southwest (who is also the only profitable one in the past 5 years — go figure)

**USA Today has done a follow-up on this story, so get caught up on the latest.

Yes, a pilot shortage is looming; and the airline industry needs to hire about 65,000 new ones over the next 4-years. And its a problem, right now: Northwest had to cancel 2,000 flights in June alone, because it didnt have enough pilots.

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that pilots are a very important part (if not the most important) of the air travel experience — this issue gives me pause.

As usual the shortage blame game is directed all over the board

• Airline management short sightedness
• Upcoming retirements
• Competition from overseas airlines
• Our own Military

What to do? Well, heaven knows the airlines have furloughed enough pilots over the years; just hire em back.

Except, a lot of them dont want to come back. According to Capt. Chris Beebe of the Air Line Pilots Association, in some cases, only 1 in 10 pilots are responding to the recalls. Beebe, a pilot with US Airways, told FareCompare.com Editor Anne McDermott that there are a growing number of pilots who feel, Its just not worth it anymore.

Beebe cites a number of factors, including more working days for cockpit crews. Pilot fatigue, says Beebe, is an insidious and creeping problem.

And then theres the pay: Pilots who work for airlines that have gone through bankruptcies have seen their pay drop from 40- to 60-percent and seen an enormous erosion of benefits. And, thats with the big boys; if you get hired to fly a regional carriers 50-seat planes, you may be making just $18,000 a year.

OK, time for a reality check. A lot of white-collar America knows all about furloughs; its just that they call them lay-offs. And they know all about pay cuts. Why should we care more about pilots than our down-sized middle managers?

Well, does your middle-manager hold your life in his/her hands?

Back to Capt. Beebe; why is he still flying? What about the others? A lot of the fun IS gone, he admits, but its still the most uplifting thing. I just love flying.

Hurry! The auction to snag a seat on the inaugural flight of Singapore Airliness brand spanking new Airbus A380 (from Singapore to Sydney) begins on August 27 and ends Sept. 10.

This is the world premiere flight of this humongous plane, which seats more than 500-passengers (but Singapore Airlines has configured it to seat 471).

Want to get on? Head over to the eBay Singapore sign up. The money goes to charity. And don’t forget to send us photos!