From Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post: There was something about the combination of rudeness and incompetence, something about the haughtiness of the half-dozen people I encountered at the other end of telephone lines, something about the failure to apologize for bureaucratic error, something that reminded me — if ever so faintly — of the Soviet Union. … The point is not that the airline industry is the evil empire but that all these problems — from the bureaucratic inflexibility of airline employees to the overwrought complexity of the system — are typical of heavily subsidized, uncompetitive companies operating in a centrally planned economy. Which is no surprise, as most airlines nowadays are heavily subsidized, uncompetitive companies, operating in what is, in effect, a centrally planned economy. Read the whole thing.
Good news makes me smile
i>USA Today reports on good news at the high end and at the low end of airline travel.Full service airlines are re-engaging the arms race over premium passengers by outfitting their business class cabins with more and better amenities. Fully flat beds are more widespread, as are souped-up entertainment systems. Meanwhile, America West is turning a profit — having converted itself into a low fare carrier with a better handle on its costs.
Fact checking
Chris Elliott’s Travel Troubleshooter column helps frustrated travelers get their due from travel industry bureaucracies. But the current column gets a little bit wrong: Here’s the scoop: Your original ticket was issued with several “fare basis,” or category of fares. Your outbound travel was booked in what United refers to as “W-class” of service and the return in “H-class” of service. Translation: On some flights you were in economy class; in others you were sitting in business class. An airline fare basis is a set of letters and numbers that identify the particular fare, rules and all, that the traveler has booked. That fare is usually referred to by its first letter — in this case W and H. Most fares beginning with the same letter have alot in common, so it makes sense to…
Flyertalk Advisory Board
Elections are running this month for the Flyertalk.com advisory board. If you’re registered at Flyertalk, go vote. If you’re not registered, or if you haven’t been to Flyertalk lately, you should. Oh, I’m currently a candidate for TalkBoard. My name there is ‘gleff‘.
Don’t say you don’t have a bomb
The Boston Globe reports that a teenager was arrested for putting a note in his luggage that said he didn’t have a bomb. He was charged with making a bomb threat. Ann E. Davis, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said the note was discovered by a baggage screener at about 6:20 a.m. when the bag was chosen for a random search. No bomb was found. Socha was arrested by State Police and his mother, father, and sister, were ordered off United Airlines Flight 171 to Honolulu via San Francisco, which was set to depart at 7:07 a.m. According to the police report, the note, which was placed on top of clothes in a black gym bag read: ”[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive] sucker. Have you found a…
And you don’t trust AIRLINE food?
The DC Department of Health shut down the main cafeteria of the USDA — the agency charged with protecting our nation’s food supply — for health code violations. There were several citations, according to the inspection report, including: “water leaking excessively” in the ceiling, employees not wearing hair restraints, and inadequate cleaning of the inside of ice machines, cabinets, surfaces and equipment. The biggest problem, however, seemed to be mouse droppings found everywhere — in the dry storage room, by the salad bar, behind the ovens, near the serving line, behind the soda machines. There were dead mice in one trap. The rodents can cause some serious diseases. (Link via the Volokh Conspiracy.)
Even Flyers Need to Understand Economics
Tyler Cowen, a highly regarded economics professor (whose specialty is economics of the arts — but whose interests are wide and varied) has a series of posts over at the Volokh Conspiracy outlining the basic ideas of economics in a short, accessible way that non-specialists can understand. So far he has posted: Money and Monetary Policy Money and Monetary Policy: Responses to Questions from ReadersBusiness Cycles Fiscal Policy More parts are apparently coming this week. Much worth reading.
Do air marshalls make you feel safe?
Via Instapundit comes this news: A federal air marshal was fired and faces a felony assault charge after a June 8 incident in which police say he pulled his service weapon on two civilians during a parking space dispute at JFK International Airport in New York. The incident comes amid reports that more than 100 marshals have either left their jobs or been pulled from flight status and placed on paid administrative leave due to problems with the background investigations needed for their top secret security clearances. And yet the TSA laughably responded, “every air marshal understands how important it is that the traveling public have absolute confidence in their ability to defend the skies in a split second at 30,000 feet without backup. That is why marshals are held to the highest possible standard…
Gambling on our Future and our Security
Given our nation’s catastrophic intelligence failures of the past few years such as the failure to detect and stop the 9/11 hijackers and our false beliefs about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I was excited to learn that there was a new federal program that might do a bit better at predicting threats to the U.S. Unfortunately I learned about the program in an article about its cancellation amidst loud denunciation by both Democratic and Republican politicians. “Defies common sense.” “Absurd.”“I think you ought to end the careers of whoever it was thought that up.”“A sick idea.” When that many politicians gather so quickly to condemn something, I start to think there might be something good in it.And it turns out, maybe there is.DARPA, the Defense Research Projects Agency (the folks who started experimenting with…
Redux: Don’t get too excited about those airline profits
USAirways, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, posted a “profit” last quarter. It’s $13 million in the black included $214 million from the federal government, so this news doesn’t say too much about the airline’s business effectiveness. So call me skeptical when the company’s president says “We have made great strides in executing the key elements of our restructuring plan related to increasing revenue, reducing costs and improving liquidity, all against the backdrop of a challenging industry environment” Continental, Northwest, and Delta are all in the same boat.
