Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for February 2004.

Not what you want to hear from your pilot…

An American Airlines pilot, in making remarks to the cabin before taking off from Los Angeles and heading for New York’s Kennedy Airport, asked passengers to identify themselves if they were Christian and suggested that those who weren’t were crazy.Passengers complained, and obviously felt a bit scared of a pilot making religious pronouncements. The pilot then apologized to the crew for putting them in the difficult position of having to respond to complaints.The flight landed safely. (Link via the Volokh Conspiracy.)

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Slot restrictions and air traffic control

Lynne Kiesling over at The Knowledge Problem relates a tale of woe returning from Washingon’s National airport to Chicago’s O’Hare, and offers some constructive suggestions for pricing takeoff and landing slots to alleviate congestion in addition to noting that pink shoes will be in this spring. Lynne suggests: *Treat the time slot as a property right to a scarce resource, for which airlines must pay. This would enable pricing of 5 PM, 6 PM, etc. time slots to reflect their true value to customers and, through them, to the airline. *If those time slots are really that valuable, then customers would be willing to pay more for flights that land in those hours. Otherwise, they’ll shift to earlier or later flights. This is the most effective mechanism (and yes, it deserves the word) for reducing…

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For New Readers, All About this Site

Since this website is brought to you in the form of a blog — daily commentary offered with the most recent items first — older items quickly fall off the page. I only display the most recent week’s worth of content at any one time. I like to think, though, that some of the entries retain their value even after the week has passed. And you can still read them — just click on the Archives link or pick one of the entries labeled “Greatest Hits” at the right (under my picture).Don’t want to miss a single deal or offer? Just be sure to enter your email address under Subscribe for Updates and each night you’ll receive an email with the day’s content. And I will never use your email for any other purpose. For…

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Links are wonderful things

United’s “48 Hour Sale” has been extended for select members. You can click here to be a select member. 🙂You can also click here for 5% off your United flights at United.com. When United’s phone lines are overloaded they offer a 5% discount for folks to use the web instead. The link they use changes each time. But fortunately there’s a permalink.

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Notice of changes in frequent flyer programs

Last month I noted that Korean airlines were being forced to give their frequent flyers at least a year’s notice when making changes to their programs which are detrimental to consumers.It seems that Korea’s Fair Trade Commission will actually be looking for two years’ notice on program changes.Somehow that seems a bit extreme, though I’ve long been an advocate for advance notice on program changes. Waiting until the end of December to announce the terms of a program beginning in January — as is industry standard practice in North America — has always seemed unfair. Travelers spend all year earning benefits for the following year. Their purchasing in one year is predicated on an expectation of benefits for the following year. Once the spending is done, the benefits change. This is common practice. A year’s…

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