Tag: flight
Are Airlines Padding Flight Times?

Are Airlines Padding Flight Times?

By Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

About a decade ago, Joe Nolan, a semi-retired electrical engineer from Palm Desert, Calif., could expect to hop on a flight at Palm Springs International Airport and arrive in San Francisco 55 minutes later.

Now the flight is usually scheduled for about 90 minutes. Nolan suspects that airlines are allotting more time for each flight to make it easier to meet their arrival schedule.

“It tells me that the on-time statistics are worthless,” he said.

Nolan might have a point. A study by a British company that collects and analyzes travel data concluded that airlines around the globe have been padding their flight schedules for nearly 20 years.

In the U.S., on-time performance rates for commercial airlines have been on the rise and airline executives have boasted about the percentage of flights that arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled time.

The study by OAG Aviation Worldwide looked at several routes around the world to conclude that the “block” times set aside for many flights have been growing since 1996.

For example, OAG looked at more than 1,400 flights scheduled between Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport in 1996 and found that no flights took longer than 90 minutes, according to the study. By 2015, nearly half of the flights scheduled between the two airports allotted between 91 minutes and 110 minutes, the study said.

On average, the allotted time for flights between Los Angeles and San Francisco increased 8 percent from 1996 to 2015, the study found.

The OAG study suggested that airlines have added the extra travel time so they can post better on-time rates but also to help carriers deal with growing congestion on the airport tarmac.

“At airports which are congested, airlines need to keep schedules realistic so their timetables are reliable,” the study said.

A spokesman for an airline trade group rejected the idea that commercial carriers are increasing the time allotment for flights just to improve on-time performance.

“We have the same goals as our customers, which is to get them, their luggage and packages to their destination safely and on time,” said Vaughn Jennings, a spokesman for Airlines for America, the trade group for the country’s airlines.

MOST TRAVEL PLANS TO EUROPE UNCHANGED

Despite the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris, nearly three-quarters of travel managers for major U.S. corporations say their travel plans to Europe remain largely unchanged.

That is the finding of a survey of nearly 170 U.S.-based travel managers who were questioned by the Global Business Travel Association, a trade group for the business travel industry.

In fact, only 10 percent of the travel managers said they have temporarily suspended travel to Paris in the wake of the attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more. An additional 16 percent said they made only “slight reductions” in their travel plans to Europe, according to the survey.

The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel warning last week, urging U.S. citizens to be extra vigilant when traveling abroad, especially in public places, in large crowds and while using transportation. It was the third such “worldwide” warning in as many years.

“Extremists have targeted large sporting events, theatres, open markets and aviation services,” the warning says.

AMERICAN AIRLINES WORST FOR LOST BAGS

Among the nation’s biggest carriers, American Airlines has the worst record for losing and mishandling luggage.

In the first nine months of 2015, the Forth Worth-based carrier lost or mishandled 4.04 bags for every 1,000 passengers, compared with an average rate of 3.31 lost or mishandled bags for the country’s top 13 biggest airlines, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

But when American Airlines lost the luggage of Adrianne Haslet-Davis, it became big news. Haslet-Davis is a dancer who lost a leg during the Boston Marathon bombing. The misplaced luggage contained a prosthetic leg and other parts she uses to dance, valued at $250,000.

Haslet-Davis reported details of the mishap on Twitter. She didn’t give her travel itinerary but said the leg wouldn’t fit in her carry-on luggage.

When the bag was found last week, Haslet-Davis tweeted that her leg had taken an unexpected side trip:

“My leg really (loves) to travel! Just found out she took detour to Puerto Rico.”

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo:  REUTERS/Carlos Barria 

 

Travel Dilemmas: If Airfare Drops After You Buy A Ticket, Are You Entitled To A Refund?

Travel Dilemmas: If Airfare Drops After You Buy A Ticket, Are You Entitled To A Refund?

By Catharine Hamm, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Question: On Oct. 2, I bought a one-way ticket on Frontier Airlines and the fare with taxes was $59. Eight days later, I checked the website and the fare was $19. I asked Frontier for a charge back to my credit card; the agent said the airline doesn’t do that. I checked its contract of carriage, and there is nothing that prohibits a refund. Am I entitled to a refund?

—Rick Haynes, Palm Springs, Calif.

Answer: If you’re alive, probably not.

As consumers, we think that buying an airline ticket in advance is our hedge against airfare increases, and it very often is.

Except when it’s not.

“In the world of airfares, it’s critical to bear in mind the additional complexity of dynamic pricing,” said Andrew Jin, product manager for Flyr (www.getflyr.com), an airfare booking engine that tries to help buyers get the best deal.

That pricing, also known as yield management, “is there to accomplish one key goal: to ensure that each seat on the plane is sold to the highest bidder,” Jin said in an email.

“If the supply of seats sells out faster than expected, then prices are raised higher. After it goes up, the high price may deter customers, so the price is then lowered.”

Haynes apparently was one of those highest bidders.

He also was one of the majority of fliers who buys nonrefundable tickets. And on this point, Frontier is crystal clear: All Economy (its capitalization) fares are nonrefundable.

Frontier has a second, more lenient, fare category called Classic Plus (costs more), but there’s very little wiggle room with Economy except in the case of your death, in which case you can get your money back.

Refundability is key because generally you must rebook your ticket to get a lower fare (not just on Frontier but on almost every airline) and pay a change fee to do that. (Southwest does not charge change fees, by the way.)

For a domestic ticket, the change fee is $200, internationally it’s $300, but some change fees are as much as $850, said Rick Seaney, founder of FareCompare.

That often means that any difference you might realize is wiped out on a nonrefundable ticket.

Pretty nifty trick if you’re an airline.

Not so much if you’re a consumer.

But when you stop to think about it, should you be entitled to a refund if a price drops? If, for instance, you buy a cellphone just as it comes on the market and then, seven months later, when demand has cooled, the price drops, should you get a refund of the difference?

That may be a hypothetical with a cellphone, but that roll of the dice is a reality with airline tickets, whose prices do vary frequently.

You could spend your days watching and waiting to nab that price drop; you could use a service such as Yapta, which will keep an eye on airfare and hotel room prices and notify you if you’re eligible for a refund if you booked directly with the airline. (It does not handle Frontier tickets.)

“We are tracking (fares) 24/7,” said Jeff Pecor, a Yapta spokesman. “I think that’s incredibly valuable as (airline) revenue management becomes more and more sophisticated for consumers also to have a higher level of sophisticated (tools).”

Yapta does not charge for this service.

For a fee, you also can lock in fares on some booking engines (Flyr, among them) and with some airlines. And under Department of Transportation rules, you can book an airfare and cancel within 24 hours for a refund.

Booking an airfare isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes courage to put down your money, as Seaney points out, for something that’s immediately charged to your credit card and that you don’t use for several weeks — or, in some cases, ever.

“To travel is to live,” Hans Christian Andersen wrote in his autobiography “The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography.” To which I might add, “Yeah, to live right on the edge.”

(Have a travel dilemma? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry.)

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Chicago O’Hare International Airport (Michael Kappel via Flickr)

Algerian Airliner Missing Over Mali ‘Probably Crashed’

Algerian Airliner Missing Over Mali ‘Probably Crashed’

Algiers (AFP) — An Air Algerie plane missing since early Thursday over Mali with 116 passengers and crew, including 50 French nationals, on board probably crashed, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

“Despite intensive searches, no trace of the plane has been found as we speak,” he said in Paris.

“The plane has probably crashed. The searches are focusing at this stage on a vast strip of Malian territory around the region of Gao,” in the north of the west African nation, he said.

Flight AH5017, which originated in Ouagadougou and was bound for Algiers, went missing in the early morning amid reports of heavy storms, company sources and officials said.

“The plane disappeared at Gao, 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the Algerian border. Several nationalities are among the victims,” Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was earlier cited as saying by Algerian radio.

The airline said it had 50 French, 24 from Burkino Faso, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, six Spanish, five Canadians, four Germans and two Luxembourg nationals on board.

Fabius said there were 51 French on board.

Aviation sources told AFP the airliner was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 leased from Spanish company Swiftair.

Its six-member crew were all Spanish, said Spain’s airline pilots’ union Sepla, and Swiftair confirmed the aircraft had gone missing less than an hour after takeoff.

Air Algerie said the passenger manifest also included one person each from Belgium, Cameroon, Egypt, Mali, Nigeria, Romania, Switzerland and Ukraine as well as “three nationalities yet to be determined”.

– Poor visibility –

“Search operations have begun and are currently continuing in the area concerned,” the carrier said at 2:00 p.m.

In France, two emergency cells had been set up, at the country’s civil aviation authority DGAC and at the foreign ministry, DGAC said, in addition to another two at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris and at Marseille airport.

DGAC said that many passengers had been due to catch onward connecting flights to Paris and Marseille.

Contact between air traffic control and the aircraft was lost over restive northern Mali as it flew towards the border with Algeria, a source within the airline told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In Mali, the prime minister’s office also said contact was lost around Gao.

“The plane was not far from the Algerian frontier when the crew was asked to make a detour because of poor visibility and to prevent the risk of collision with another aircraft on the Algiers-Bamako route,” an airline source said.

“Contact was lost after the change of course.”

A controller in Mali, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the area was rocked by “strong storms” overnight.

Northern Mali was seized by jihadist groups for several months in 2012 and the region has remained unstable despite the Islamists being driven out in a French-led offensive.

Despite international military intervention still under way, the situation there remains unstable.

On July 17, the Bamako government and armed groups from northern Mali began talks in Algiers aimed at securing an elusive peace deal.

– ‘Emergency plan’ –

Two French Mirage 2000 warplanes based in the Chadian capital N’Djamena were taking part in the search for the plane, the French military said.

Air Algerie, in a statement carried by national news agency APS, said it had initiated an “emergency plan” in the search for AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.

“Air traffic control had their last contact with AH5017 on the Ouagadougou-Algiers route today, July 24, at 0155 GMT, 50 minutes after takeoff,” an airline statement said.

The search for the missing flight comes less than six months after one of Algeria’s worst air disasters.

In February this year, a C-130 military aircraft carrying 78 people crashed in poor weather in the mountainous northeast, killing more than 70 people.

The plane had been flying from the desert garrison town of Tamanrasset in Algeria’s deep south to Constantine, 320 kilometres (200 miles) east of Algiers.

Tamanrasset was the site of the country’s worst-ever civilian air disaster, in March 2003.

In that accident, all but one of the 103 people on board were killed when an Air Algerie Boeing 737-200 crashed on takeoff after one of its engines caught fire.

The sole survivor, a young Algerian soldier, was critically injured.

AFP Photo/Fayez Nureldine

Interested in world news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

European Flight Safety Agency Warns Pilots To Avoid Crimean Airspace

European Flight Safety Agency Warns Pilots To Avoid Crimean Airspace

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

The European Aviation Safety Agency on Thursday warned pilots to avoid entering airspace over Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea region “due to the unsafe situation” of two national air traffic control services claiming to direct aircraft in the area.

In a safety bulletin issued by the agency’s headquarters in Cologne, Germany, the European Union-initiated flight safety oversight authority said it was reacting to Russian government notices to aviators that Moscow’s air traffic control system was taking over responsibility for flight management in the region.

“Due to the unsafe situation where more than one ATS (air traffic services) provider may be controlling flights within the same airspace … consideration should be given to measures to avoid the airspace and circumnavigate the Simferopol FIR (flight information region) over Crimea,” the European agency advised.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine’s strategic Crimean Peninsula in late February, seizing control of local government operations in the name of protecting the region’s majority Russian population and Russia’s Black Sea fleet base on leased territory in the port of Sevastopol. After a hastily organized referendum on March 16 in which about 97 percent of those who voted backed secession from Ukraine and annexation to Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty on March 18 declaring the territory part of his country.

The European flight safety agency noted that responsibility for air traffic control over Crimea falls under Ukraine’s jurisdiction and pointed out that Russia’s overlapping claim to direct air traffic constitutes “the possible existence of serious risks to the safety of international civil flights.”

Crimea’s Black Sea resorts are served by an international airport in the regional capital, Simferopol, and most vacationers arrive by air due to the area’s remote location and poor roads leading to the peninsula.

©afp.com / Viktor Drachev