Every now and then, I get an email I feel compelled to share; usually my correspondent is amazed or angered by an airline’s performance (mostly the latter). The “Elite” issue has been brewing this week as Chris Elliott stirred the pot in his MSNBC column. But these emails are more than rants — I often learn something from them (not sure why a seat wasn’t confirmed for her at purchase time …). Let me know if you do, too.

Hey, Rick!

Just had an interesting experience with American Airlines: interesting as in, “awful.” Here’s what happened:

I needed to go to Dallas, so I booked my trip from LA about 10-days before. Like any good citizen, I planned to leave the house with my boarding-pass in hand. Hah!

You know how you can only get the pass beginning 24 hours before your flight, right? And there I was, 24 hours ahead of time, ready to make my seat selection and print out the pass. Only one problem.

There were no seats.

Keep reading - you may be surprised how long it took her to get seats.

But now, new owners say the airline will return to the skies in a matter of weeks (the British-based carrier ceased operations last month for a variety of reasons including the crushing cost of oil).

Silverjet had been the last of the business-class only airlines flying between London and New York, in the wake of the collapse of MAXjet and EOS.

The carrier is now under control of a Swiss investment firm, and they say their planes will be in the air again later this summer.

It looked like it might be the beginning of the end for Silverjet when they suspended share trading on the AIM last week after failing to receive funding they believed was coming their way. Even though the UK-based all-business class carrier insisted they would continue to fly, it seemed to many that Silverjet was headed down the same path as now defunct business class carriers eos and MaxJet.

Today, Joe Brancatelli of JoeSentMe confirmed that despite Silverjet’s optimism, the carrier has ceased flying. Joe also reports that Silverjet is still fighting to stay in commercial air travel, but as we’ve seen, commercial air travel has not been kind to business class carriers:

“Silverjet says it is trying to arrange alternate funding to resume operations, but, given the state of things with airlines, that looks extraordinarily doubtful. And, if you are keeping score, that means all three all-business-class airlines launched between the New York area and Greater London have now folded. Only L’Avion, which flies between Newark and Paris/Orly, remains in the all-business-class category.”

Rising fuel surcharges and increased airfare have sent many business travelers back to coach. This coupled with competition from larger carriers like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic has finally taken its toll on the New York to London niche all-business class market.

A question from an online Australian publication called “The Age”:

Is business class a thing of the past?

Well, in their neck of the woods, the answer seems to be “yes”.

According to a survey taken in the Australian state of Victoria, only about 10% of business travelers are still flying business class! And 47% of those business travelers looked for the cheapest airfare available.

But, interestingly enough, the road warriors and companies surveyed also said that business travel is still a necessary expense. They just don’t want to pay more for it than they have to.

Will we be seeing the demise of business class in the U.S. anytime soon? More crowding in “cattle” class? Your comments, please!

More than half of all round-trip airfares between the top 50 domestic citys (about 1,200 city pairs) now have minimum-stay requirements.

About 1/3 of these are of the less onerous type (1-night — same day trips) while most require a 2 or 3 day stay, or a Saturday or Sunday night stay. In other words, nearly half of the cheapest round-trip airfare on the most popular flights now require that you stay-over on a Satruday or Sunday night, or you need to stay over 2 or 3 nights.

If you don’t do this (and this is something business travelers rarely do), you’ll pay a substantially higher price (the business rate) for your airline ticket. This is less of an issue with the low-cost airlines because they have a one-way airfare structure where minimum-stay rules are not applicable.

We recently pulled the rules for over 40,000 round-trip airfares between the top 50 cities by traffic (about 1,200 city pairs) — why? — because airlines and analysts are now saying that “minimum-stay requirments” are making a comeback — so we decided to check it out.

The data was used in an article this week in USA Today entitled “Minimum stay airfare rules irk fliers”.

Which airlines are the worst offenders? More importantly — what can you do about this? Keep reading, and I’ll tell you…

Silverjet has suspended trading of their share on the AIM. Was it just a matter of time?

We’ve already scene the toll that rising fuel costs and struggling economies can have on business class travel. All-business class carriers MAXJet and eos have already vanished from the commerical air travel scene, and now Silverjet is facing the same problems that grounded those two airlines.

Joe Sharkey posted a copy of a Silverjet release today stating “Silverjet has requested, and the London Stock Exchange has confirmed, an immediate suspension in the trading of the ordinary shares of the Company on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.”

Silverjet will continue service, but the question becomes, for how long? Are promised investments going to come through, and will they be enough to keep the airline aloft? That remains to be seen.

Please visit our First Class Travel blog for the complete story on Silverjet’s latest announcement.

Marriott International’s profits declined by 34% the first quarter of this year, according to a Bloomberg report.

The “why” is a no-brainer: the U.S. economy is slowing down.

According to Bloomberg, “higher gasoline prices and dropping home values led consumers to cut back on vacations and companies to curb travel.”

Silver lining dept.: international guests are helping Marriott’s bottom line, by taking advantage of the falling dollar; for example, this translates into bargain hotel rates in New York for the Euro-set.

Meet the “Happy Traveler”: he’s Terry Buchen, a world-renowned expert on golf agronomy (in other words, Terry is the guy who keeps the greens green; one of his latest projects is the new Tiger Woods golf course in Dubai).

Needless to say, Terry gets around: he flies about 200,000 miles a year — and a lot of that’s in First Class.

But a good chunk of those miles are flown on Southwest. You heard right. As the New York Times first reported, Terry loves Southwest.

Why Southwest? Attitude, personality, peanuts and pilots and more…

Put me down as a fan of this idea: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has got two “experiments” going to try and ease long security lines.

And cut down on air travel frustration.

The TSA is trying something akin to the way ski trails are marked (makes sense: the experiments are being conducted in Salt Lake and Denver).

It’s a simple idea: 3-different security lanes, for 3-different kinds of travelers.

Keep reading, I think you’ll like this.

Is travel security working for us? Or, against us? Read this, and tell me what YOU think.

According to this story on CNN, a U.S. citizen and business traveler named Amir Khan has had federal agents search his computers 5-times in the past 5-years.

He says, at times U.S. Customs and Border agents have “forced him to give them access to password-protected, confidential information from his company and his banking records.”

Are we going too far? Please, keep reading.

What do you call an airline spawned by the new “Open Skies” agreement to ease transatlantic travel? How about…Open Skies? Yes, that’s the name of a new airline being launched by British Airways this summer.

And so the “invasion” of America has begun…or is it a British invasion of France? Turns out, BA’s new airline is taking on Air France: starting in June, Open Skies will offer flights from Paris (and Brussels) to New York.

The UK’s TimesOnline reports Open Skies will offer 24-”flat-bed” seats in business class, as well as “premium economy” and regular economy seats.

(I love the term “premium economy”… so much better than “steerage”.)

It appears that the trend for “all business class” airlines is on the way out.

The year-old Maxjet filed for bankruptcy on Christmas Eve; and now the UK’s TimesOnLine is reporting that “Virgin has quietly dropped a plan to launch an exclusive transatlantic service for businessmen. BA’s rival project is understood to have stalled.”

Maxjet is blaming “economic turmoil” which includes high jet fuel prices. Meantime, the airline is scrambling to help get their passengers on Eos, which is a “First Class only” airline.

Now that JetBlue announced it’s offering free WiFi access, American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines (according to the Boston Globe) have said that they will offer Internet access this coming year.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that overseas carriers Emirates and Virgin Atlantic already offer in-flight e-mail and instant messaging services-but, the U.S. is getting there.

Wonder how long this will take to get on the zillions of regional jets that we are now all flying (care to start an office pool on that date …)?

Business Traveler Magazine readers have named Continental as the “Best Airline for North American Travel.” Continental execs think they know why (as quoted in a Reuters story published Continental press release): “Unlike our competitors, Continental Airlines has maintained cabin comforts and continues to provide complimentary meals at mealtimes.“

He goes on to say, that Continental, the world’s fifth largest airline is also modernizing their fleet and updating their aircraft.But I suspect, one of the things that does come to mind when you think of Continental is that they do still serve meals, and it is considered a plus. It wasn’t so long ago, though, that airline food was considered little more than a joke.

What do business travelers need to know for 2008? Prices are rising, passenger numbers are growing, and things could start to get really expensive.

There is hope though, as more airlines are turning their attention to courting both domestic and international Road Warriors.