Tag Archives: Air France

AIRLINES: Know your alliance, Part 2

Leave a reply

SECOND OF TWO PARTS

  • Star Alliance
    27 airlines, 4,000-plus aircraft, 1,160 destinations in 181 countries

  • SkyTeam
    14 airlines (plus 12 “member affiliate” and 13 “non-member affilate” airlines), approx. 3,500 aircraft, 960 destinations in 169 countries

  • oneworld
    12 airlines, 2,400-plus aircraft, 871 destinations 150 countries

At first blush, the airlines alliances may look like just a mechanism for the airlines to get around antitrust laws, a way of reducing their costs and artificially controlling ticket prices. But in a lot of ways, they help us out.

For one thing, they make it possible to use your frequent-flier miles from Airline A to book flights on Airline B, and rack up miles on one airline that you can apply to many others.

And there are some more subtle ways the alliances work in your favor. This from Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst for Forrester Research, an international market research firm in Cambridge, MA:

“Being able to check in once and get all your boarding passes, checking your baggage once an picking it up at the final destination, no matter how times to change planes or change airlines. Many of the alliance have antitrust immunity. That allows them to coordinate not only on prices, but also coordinate on schedules.

“Airlines in the same alliance will often try locating their flights close by to one another to make their connections easy.”

What’s more, the alliances have put together their own Web sites that allow you to book flights online. Feel intimidated trying to work out a potentially complex international routing? No worries. Star Alliance, SkyTeam and oneworld will gladly do it for you.

So how do you connect to these guys? There’s a good chance you already are, since there’s at least one major US-based airline in each alliance.

Which means that if you’re enrolled in United’s frequent flier program, you’re already a member of the Star Alliance. If you’re a frequent flier with Delta, you’re already connected to SkyTeam. And if you’re earning miles on American, you’re already hooked up with oneworld.

But that’s by default. How do you choose an alliance for yourself?

Unless, you’ve already hit the lottery, cost is an obvious first concern. But remember, airlines and alliances alike watch one another’s fares like the proverbial hawk, so don’t expect radical differences from one to another.

Other factors can vary a lot more. Here are some of them:

  1. The nature of your travel
    Where in the world do you do most of your international travel? Where do you anticipate doing a good amount of international travel in the future? Which alliances offers the best mix of airlines to the places you most want to go?

  2. Your flying experience
    Which alliance has the airlines you most prefer to fly? Which are the most convenient for you to use? Which are the most comfortable, offer the best service? Or to put it a another way, which ones make you the least miserable the most often?

  3. Safety
    Check out the safety records of the airlines in an alliance, especially the ones with which you are the least familiar. How many serious accidents have they had in the last year, the last five, the last ten? Is their fleet fairly new, modern, up-to-date — or are most of their planes significantly older than you are?

One alliance might be better for travel in and around Europe, another better for Asia or the Americas.

But remember, you’re not flying on an alliance. You’re still flying on an airline. And everyone has their likes and dislikes.

Take my own case. Star Alliance is by far the largest of the three, but because of my destinations up to now, I’ve done most of my fling on the smallest — oneworld.

But as my travels have broadened, the number of airlines I’ve flown on has grown. I now have a real fondness for Air France and KLM. Both are with SkyTeam.

The alliances may cover the Earth, but when it comes to Africa, the Mother Continent is largely out of the picture. Only three of the 53 airlines in the alliances are based there. Egyptair and South African Airways, are with Star Alliance, while Kenya Airways is hooked up with SkyTeam.

oneworld has no African airline members at all.

Slowly, that may be changing. Kenya Airways already is a member of SkyTeam, and Ethiopian Airlines may be a full partner in the Star Alliance by the end of September.

Further, Ethiopian already has its own reciprocal agreements with a dozen different airlines in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

But just because an alliance has few airlines or even none in Africa, that doesn’t mean they can’t get you there.

oneworld may be the smallest alliance, but one of their principal members, British Airways, has 16 African destinations on its route map. Air France, a major member of SkyTeam, has nearly 40. The Star Alliance weighs in with South African Airways and their 29.

Reaching most of those destinations will mean connecting through Europe. If you’re looking for direct flights from the United States, especially to sub-Saharan Africa, even the massive Star Alliance takes a back seat to SkyTeam.

The reason: Delta. They have more direct US-Africa flights than any other airline, period.

Bottom line: You know what you like. You know where you’re going. With those factors in mind, you choose your alliance the same way you choose your airlines.

Carefully.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
AIRLINES: Know your alliance, Part 1

WALT BARANGER: No Passage to India

1 Reply

Our wandering guest columnist experiences the bewildering logic of the Indian bureaucrat in the name of airport security. Pray for those still in the terminal.

©Walt Baranger photo

By WALTER BARANGER
DELHI — The new Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi has quickly earned a reputation for two things: Very long walks to the gates and a byzantine transfer process for transit passengers.

Sadly, for the uninitiated — and that’s most people — the transfers make the 15-minute hikes to the gates look easy. Think Soviet bread lines in the 1960s. Leave yourself at least four hours when transiting Delhi; six is safer.

On a recent stopover en route to Paris from Kabul, Afghanistan I queued at the entrance to the transfer area until a guard (and there are a lot of guards) determined that I indeed was a transfer passenger. I was able to show my printed travel agency itinerary, which is good enough.

Travelers who keep their itineraries on computers or iPads are out of luck and must wait in an ante room while someone goes to the airline’s offices to obtain a printed itinerary.

I had a choice of seemingly identical transfers desks; one had a sign listing airlines and the names of their transfer agents, but mysteriously Air France was not listed. So I waited at the desk for about 15 minutes until I happened to spot a woman walking by with an Air France name tag. She informed me that I was in the wrong line and that I needed to join the queue at the Jet Airways desk.

After another wait in line, the boarding pass was quickly printed and the agent embellished it with a “T” hand written with a ballpoint pen (about which more later). My checked luggage receipt issued in Kabul was taken from me with the promise that I would get a new receipt at the gate; I was sure I had seen the last of my favorite REI suitcase.

I was pointed to the security line that would allow me to enter the main terminal, so off I went to join a queue that was even longer than the ones I had just endured. After a suitably Indian delay of maybe 30 minutes, my turn came.

All Indian airports treat carry-on baggage in the same curious fashion: A normal airline address tag is attached to each bag, and after inspection, it is stamped in purple ink, often so fuzzy that the date can’t be read. The tag can be from any airline — I try to pick Kingfisher Airlines because they look cool — and it doesn’t need to be the kind that can’t be detached. Just a plain old paper airline tag hanging by elastic string is OK.

(I’ve often wondered what would stop anyone from simply moving the stamped tag to another bag. And woe be to the person whose tag goes missing: Guards at the boarding gates will refuse to pass any bag that lacks a stamped tag. The passenger must return to the inspection area and get another. Savvy Indian travelers keep a handful of blank tags on hand should none be available.)

After negotiating this final hurdle, I heard a commotion. A group of European college-age travelers were arguing with the soldiers at the X-ray machine. It seems that when they collected their boarding passes, they failed to notice that one lacked the hand-written “T.”

This meant that the unlucky holder had to go back to the transfer desk and start over.

The brouhaha triggered two things: The woman holding the defective boarding card repeatedly offered to simply write a T on it (absolutely not!), and several people in line who found that their boarding passes also lacked a “T” quickly pulled out their pens and did exactly that.

The poor victim was last seen trundling off to the transfer desk. Meanwhile, those with quick penmanship skills passed unhindered.

Tidy paperwork is king in India. Indian computers are mainly used to make tidy paperwork. At the gate, I did get my new baggage receipt, but alas, the Australian businessman ahead of me was apoplectic. His carry-on baggage tag with the all-important purple stamp was gone.

So was all hope.

©Walt Baranger photo

AIRFARE ALERT: Europe, cheap or easy

Leave a reply

Jumbo jet terminal, Paris CDG airport | © Greg Gross

Two airlines and two summer sales to Europe — one in Coach, the other in Business Class

We’ve been hearing since the end of spring about surprisingly cheap summer airfares to Europe. Here’s Exhibit A, courtesy of Air France.

Air France has put quite a few European destinations on sale at rates as low as $318 one-way.

Naturally, the fares are all from the West Coast will be higher.

Check out the Air France sale on their site here.

Exhibit B involves a step up in class on an airline you may not have heard of.

If the thought of spending six cramped, uncomfortable hours on a Coach flight to Europe has you thinking “staycation” instead, consider OpenSkies, a subsidiary of British Airways.

Not a big outfit: exactly four Boeing 757s, whose old-school layout of one aisle and three seats across usually make them among the most uncomfortable airliners in the air.

Not a huge route map, either: New York and Washington DC to London, Paris and Amsterdam.

So what is it about OpenSkies that should make you go “Hmmmmmm?” Two things.

The first is that OpenSkies is an all-Business Class airline, nose to tail.

That means enough legroom for LeBron James to stretch out. No feeling cramped like an astronaut in an old Mercury space capsule for six hours. And OpenSkies’ seats recline a mind-blowing 140 degrees, almost completely flat.

Above all, no miserable middle seat. Anywhere. Ever.

The other thing is OpenSkies’ summer sale: Paris from NYC or DC, $649 each way.

You’ll find the OpenSkies sale details on the Travelzoo site here.

With both the Air France and OpenSkies sales, the usual caveats apply. Their prices are based on a round-trip purchase only and don’t include the usual taxes and fees.

Furthermore, OpenSkies doesn’t even fly from the Left Coast. Even so, when you consider that summer is one of the year’s biggest high travel seasons, these deals may be worth a look.

As always, shop around to see if the competition is offering something just as good or even better.

AFRICA: The Delta Connection

Leave a reply

Delta Airlines flight landing at Lindbergh Field, San Diego | ©Greg Gross

How a US-based airline with no experience in Africa became America’s air bridge to the Mother Continent.

Back in 2006, someone on a trivia Web site asked: “Which US airline will be the first to serve Africa?”

The answer, at the end of that same year, turned out to be Delta.

They currently operate some 60 direct flights a week from the continental United States to:

  • Abuja, Nigeria (the national capital)
  • Accra, Ghana
  • Dakar, Senegal
  • Johannesburg, South Africa
  • Lagos, Nigeria
  • Monrovia, Liberia

By the end of 2010, Delta had flown 2 million passengers to and from the Mother Continent. This is the corporate equivalent of going from zero to 60 mph in about three seconds.

So why did Delta charge into a market the rest of the US airline industry was avoiding?

First, there’s the market itself, which we examined earlier.

According to Olivia Cullis, a Delta spokeswoman in London, African air traffic is expected to grow at more than 5 percent a year for the next the 16 years.

Even so, it took dire circumstances to force this move.

The airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the 9/11 terror attacks, but the real trigger was an obsolete business model.

For decades, Delta had been the airline of the Southeast, flying people around the region via their Atlanta hub. And as they got bigger, so did their jets, including the ill-starred Lockheed L-1011 TriStar.

When low-fare competitors like Southwest, Spirit and AirTran started showing up with smaller planes that were cheaper to operate, the proverbial handwriting was on the wall.

Only after 9/11 had pushed them to the brink of insolvency, however, did Delta grudgingly begin to read it.

Looking for markets without all those pesky little low-fare airlines, their eyes fell on international routes — and Africa was wide open.

A region with 12 percent of the world’s population but less than 1 percent of its air traffic? What would you call it?

Better still, they didn’t need to spend tons of cash for the wide-bodied jets needed for trans-Atlantic flights. They already had them.

Ms. Cullis describes what happened next:

“We started our service to African initially between Atlanta-Dakar-Johannesburg route. The route had performed extremely well for our codeshare partner at the time, South African Airways.”

It performed so well for Delta that they decided to go it alone.

“SAA was carrying thousands of Delta customers and it made good sense to add our own flight and provide our own long-term commitment between South Africa and Atlanta. The flight did extremely well and there started our Africa strategy, which has grown steadily ever since.”

You could say that:

  • 2007: Delta opens a route to Lagos.
  • 2008: Delta agrees to open service to Monrovia.
  • 2009: Delta begins exploring a possible partnership with an African airline, Nigerian Eagle.
  • 2010: Delta flies its 2 millionth African passenger
  • 2011: Delta agrees to operate scheduled flights between the US and Luanda, capital of Angola.

Meanwhile, Delta is out from under Chapter 11 and back in the game.

This story, however, is still being written. Sixty flights a week to a region the size of Africa is far better than zero, but still not that many.

Go on Delta’s own site and you’ll see that the bulk of its US-Africa flights are still code-shares with other airlines, mainly Air France and the Netherlands’ KLM.

That often means a layover, sometimes even a full day, in a place like Paris.

(Then again, there are worse things in life than being forced to spend a day in Paris…)

Currently, Delta isn’t adding new African routes. If this market is so great, you ask, why aren’t they expanding in it?

The short answer is, Africa is still Africa. Olivia Cullis again:

“Today, many of the age-old African political and infrastructure challenges remain. In terms of setting up new routes, there are still a number of political hurdles to overcome, and the bureaucracy involved is also very considerable.”

There’s also the T-word. You know, the whole terrorism thing? If the federal government isn’t happy with a country’s airport security, our friends at Homeland Security can veto a US airline’s plans to fly there.

Then there’s cost. While trans-Atlantic flights to Europe can be had for under $1,000 round-trip, Delta’s direct flights to Africa can top $2,000…in Coach.

If you want something more comfortable than Sardine Class, you may find yourself spending two or four times that amount.

And you may ask yourself, “How can I afford this?”

Still, for the US airline industry, it’s a beginning. They see the possibilities for bringing American travelers to Africa. And Delta is going for it.

These days, however, they’re no longer going for it alone.

And that’s next.

THE RISE AND FALL OF PAN AM
Prior to Delta, the only other US-based airline to fly a regular schedule anywhere in Africa was Pan American World Airways.

Between the 1930s and 1960s, Pan Am pretty much defined international air travel. The main reason we have jumbo jets today is because PanAm went to Boeing and said they needed one.

That’s how we got the Boeing 747.

Then came the 1973 fuel crisis, and more competition from US airlines. Other countries started subsidizing their own carriers while hitting Pan Am with exorbitant landing fees. The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 scared off passengers.

The company folded in 1991. US airlines would ignore Africa for the next two decades.

AIRLINES: Incursion

Leave a reply

When it comes to airline safety, you may face more dangers on the ground than in the air. But despite the rise in the number and size of airliners, the threat of ground collisions has actually dropped, by a lot.

It was bound to happen sometime.

An Airbus A380, the world’s largest airliner, had the aviation equivalent of a fender-bender Monday night with a parked commuter jet while taxiing at New York’s JFK airport. No one was hurt, but neither plane was fit to fly after that.

The jets flown by Comair, CRJ-700s from Bombardier, aren’t exactly little Cessnas. But when the massive Air France super jumbo snagged the Comair’s tail, the smaller airliner spun like a child’s toy.

The aviation industry calls this an “incursion.”

Watch the video above and imagine yourself on the smaller plane. This could’ve been really ugly.

DAVID v. GOLIATH
For purposes of comparison, the CRJ-700 is a little over 100 feet long, has a wingspan of about 76 feet and weighs in at about 39 tons fully loaded.

The A380 is almost 240 feet long, has a wingspan more than 20 feet wider than that, and weighs 630 tons.

David beat the odds in the Bible, but on the tarmac, put your money on Goliath.

Every time.

I once got nailed by a drunk driver in New Orleans, hard enough to spin a 4,000-pound Lincoln Town Car 400 degrees in less than five seconds. No one was hurt, but for about an hour thereafter, my brain and my body were reading from different scripts.

I’m guessing the folks aboard that little Comair jet felt something similar. A sick, terrifying moment, but far from the worst-case scenario — and sadly, we already knows what that looks like.

If there’s one word that can send a chill through any airline pilot, it’s this one: Tenerife.

It was March 27, 1977. A Boeing 747 from KLM was taking off as a Pan Am 747 was taxiing on the runway. Result: 583 people died. It remains the worst aviation disaster in history.

We’ve been hearing for years about how crowded and overtaxed the commercial air routes are across the United States. The situation on the ground isn’t much better.

The possibilities seem almost endless for collisions between:

  • jumbo jets and smaller airliners
  • airliners and light planes
  • aircraft on runways and those on taxiways
  • aircraft and ground equipment — baggage carts, fuel trucks, food trucks, tow trucks

Now into this chaotic mix, airports must cope with the A380, a plane far bigger than most airports were designed to handle.

For their part, A380 pilots don’t have it easy, either. Their jet may soar like a bird in the air, but on the ground, it’s a building with wings. Even a tiny miscalculation can have consequences like the one in that video — or at Tenerife.

And aviation authorities put a lot of effort into preventing that:

  • Old air traffic control towers being coverted for use in ground traffic control.
  • Ground-based radars tracking the movement of aircraft before they even leave the ground, and warn controllers when planes are getting too close to each other.
  • Moving cockpit maps showing airline crews the position of every aircraft on the ground, including their own.
  • Signal lights to control runways and taxiways.
  • Additional training for pilots on how to move safely between ground and sky.
  • Major airports are building end-round taxiways, a kind of ring road that lets planes get to and from the terminal without having to cross runways.

So far, it all looks to be paying off.

The number of serious runway incursions dropped from 67 in 2000 to 12 in 2009. That’s a drop of 82 percent.

In 2000, more than half those incursions, 34, involved commercial aircraft. By 2009, that was down to two. (SOURCE: Federal Aviation Administration)

But as that frightening video makes all too clear, even one is too many.

Imaginary Journey, Part 1 — Dakar to Banjul

1 Reply

What would it look like if you could take a high-speed train along the coast of West Africa from Dakar, Senegal to Lagos, Nigeria? Perhaps something like this. First of three parts.

The moment I’ve been waiting for is here, my first trip to West Africa. We’re joining a small band of friends for a two-weeks journey along the West African coast from Senegal to Nigeria — 11 countries in 14 days.

Two things make this trip possible. One is the visas we have that allow us to travel freely throughout the region.

Some members of our group have the ECOWAS tourist visa, which allows visitors staying fewer than 90 days to travel freely through any of the countries belonging to the Economic Community of West African States.

I have the diaspora visa, a special travel document allowing African-Americans (and Africans returning home) unrestricted travel for 90 days anywhere on the continent.

I have this one as much for reasons of pride as practicality. Even before we left home, it was one of my most cherished souvenirs of this trip.

The other thing that makes this journey feasible for us is the sleek and gleaming new high-speed train than run from the Senegalese capital of Dakar in the north to Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos. It’s a journey of just under 2,200 miles, not quite the width of the continental United States.

(If my brother, George, were with us, he might be tempted to jump on a dirt bike and join in the famed Dakar off-road rally. He got the daredevil genes in the family; I’ll stick with the train!)

Were we going directly from Dakar to Lagos, we’d take the overnight express train and take advantage of its sleeping compartments. Go to bed rolling out of Dakar, wake up rolling into Lagos. But that’s not the plan for this trip. We’re making stops.

Lots of stops.


CONVERGING ON DAKAR
I’m coming in to Dakar on one of South African Airways’ wide-body Airbus 340-300s. from Washington-Dulles (IAD). Others are arriving via Delta from Atlanta, and a third couple are landing on an Air France flight from Paris.

Outwardly, I’m trying to project the air of the cool veteran traveler as Flight 208 touches down at Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport. Inside, though, I’m as nervously excited as the 12-year-old boy making his first flight by himself — and I’m glad I can still feel that way.

Things have improved here since Patrick Smith described Dakar as “the world’s worst airport” in his Ask the Pilot column in Salon.com. We’re all due to arrive within an hour of each other, so I collect my rolling duffel and find a place to get a cold drink and brush up on my less-than-expert French. I know I’m going to need it here.

We all arrive within about an hour of each other, and pile into the waiting shuttle van for the ride to our hotel, relieved to be together. When we’d made our plane reservations, we failed to consider French labor relations. The Paris flight had taken off moments ahead of an airport workers strike at Orly.

After a nap and a shower, we meet for dinner. but we turn in early. A full day awaits us tomorrow.

The next day, we are all over Dakar, mostly by taxi. Negotiating fares with the drivers gets us in the spirit we’ll need for bartering in the markets later. We may be foreigners, but we’re not rich foreigners!

Place de l’Independence to me blends elements of Paris, Buenos Aires and Tijuana, with the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop.

It seems there is shopping all over the place in Dakar — artisan goods, fabrics, wood carvings, jewelry, fabrics. The only thing that saves me is a bit of my own advice, which I’ve given to friends making their first trips abroad:

“Whatever you buy, you have to pack. If you’re not careful, your suitcase will gain even more weight than you do!”

But I just have to pick up a CD here after learning that one of my favorite French rap artists, MC Solaar, hails from right here in Dakar!

If you’re not used to it, tropical humidity can make you feel incredibly hot, even when it really isn’t. Good excuse for me to sample some local drinks like ginger juice or bissap, made from hibiscus flowers. I’m curious to see how it compares with Mexico’s jamaica (pronounced ha-MAI-ka) made from the same thing.

Later, we’ll take a shot at one of Senegal’s national dishes, thiéboudienne.

FORGIVENESS
But we have a special appointment here with Goree Island, one of the many West African terminals for the slave trade. It’s a 20-minute ride from Dakar by ferry.

This place was the last sight of Africa for uncounted numbers of captives bound for a life of servitude and cruelty in the Americas and elsewhere. There’s a good chance one or more of my ancestors passed through here. Now, there’s a museum on the island dedicated to the memory of what went on here, la Maison des Esclaves, the House of Slaves.

Outwardly, I am quiet. Inside, I am a cyclone of emotions. Please, Greg, no tears. Not now. Not here.

We leave with me recalling something I’d once read about forgiveness:

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

But the highlight of my day, by far, is the drumming lesson. I’m learning how to play the djembe, a drum found throughout Africa and the Middle East. A few minutes of instructions and I am ripping on this thing. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but I’m having a wonderful time! My teacher is having a ball too — no doubt at my expense — but I don’t mind at all.

That afternoon, we check out of the hotel and head for the train station, located in the heart of Dakar. We have our rail passes for the entire journey, similar to the Eurail passes sold through train travel in Europe. Ten minutes before departure, we head for the platform. The sleek, new train is waiting. We walk down the platform until we find our car and climb aboard. Stack our bags in the vestibule,then find our seats.

Ten minutes later, the train glides smoothly out of the station. Au revoir, Dakar, et a bientot!

Our destination is Gambia, the smallest country on the Mother Continent. Its capital, Banjul, is just about 100 miles away.

We’ll be there in just about an hour.

NEXT: Banjul to Conakry

IBIT on The Cheap: AIRFARES, Part 2

Leave a reply
Kaua'i parrot

Kaua'i parrot | © Greg Gross

I feel sorry for anyone trying to search out a good airfare online these days. So many Web sites, so many options, so little candor. Not only are airlines pricing structures downright Byzantine, but airfares are so volatile, it’s insane.

During a 5-hour train trip once on the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner from Santa Barbara to San Diego, my wife and I considered a December flight from LAX to Paris.

We leave Santa Barbara at 7:01 a.m.

9:40 a.m.: I break out the laptop and start scanning airfares. The Air France round-trip coach fare for two is about $2,500. Too steep. I then check Expedia. Same airline, same flights: $2,300. Better, but not better enough.

10:12 a.m.: I check out Kayak, which simultaneously scans multiple airlines and even other reservation sites. Air Tahiti Nui has the same Paris flights for $2,100.

10:23 a.m.: I jump on the Air Tahiti Nui site (always check the airline site as well as the other reservation sites). Their Paris fare: $1,800. Nice. But a hunch leads me back to Expedia.

10:32 a.m.: On Expedia, I find the same Air Tahiti Nui flights, same days, same everything…$1,685. I don’t understand why this is, and I don’t care.

11:12 a.m.: We pull out the plastic and pull the trigger. We have our tickets, at a rate almost $900 less than Air France.

The train arrives at our station at 11:49 a.m. We’re home by 12:15 p.m. I jump on the Web and check Expedia again to admire the bargain price that we found.

The fare is now just over $2,400.

In five hours, the fare for the same trip had gone down nearly $900 and back up almost the same amount. In the four months between the time we booked and the day of departure, it will oscillate up and down, but never again fall below $2,000.

This is not a tout for Expedia. We just as easily might’ve found that fare on Travelocity, Orbitz, Vayama or any of a thousand other sites. The point is, when we found it, we moved on it.

MORAL: Search carefully, search thoroughly, but when you find a fare that’s comfortable, don’t second-guess yourself. He who hesitates can lose a ton of money.

That’s one tip. Here’s another: Don’t think airline. Think alliance.

Nowadays, brand loyalty to a single airline may be overrated.

A few years ago, American Airlines made a big deal out of removing seats from their planes to create more legroom in Coach. Being 6’3,” I couldn’t wait to enroll in their frequent-flier program. I figured I’d found my airline for life.

A few years later, they put them all back in, but I still didn’t have enough miles to go anywhere. I was stuck. In the end, though, it’s all worked out. Why?

Many of the world’s major airlines have banded together in operational marriages-of-convenience called alliances. They divvy up routes, reservation systems, even passengers, among themselves. It’s called code-sharing.

They also accept one another’s frequent-flier miles — and that’s a good thing.

What does all this airlinespeak mean to you? It means that if you book a flight from Chicago to London on United, you may find yourself on a Lufthansa jet instead.

The three biggest alliances, in order, are Star Alliance, SkyTeam and Oneworld.

My principal alliance is Oneworld. Among its 11 members are the airlines I either know best or fly to my most desired destinations — American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Air Lines and LAN. They’ll be joined in two years by Air Berlin, a fairly new airline that looks really promising for decent airfares into the heart of Europe.

Check out the alliance sites. Not only will they tell you who their individual member airlines are, but you can even plan itineraries and book flight through the alliance sites.

Find an alliance you can stick with. Enroll in the frequent-flier mileage program of the airline in that alliance that you use most often. But just to cover yourself, sign up for frequent-flier mikes with an airline in the other major alliances, as well!

Another thing about frequent-flier miles: They’re good for more than just flights. You also might be able to use them to buy access into those cushy airline lounges, the ones reserved for First and Business Class passengers. Not just one, but any lounge in the alliance. Comfortable chairs. Free food and drinks. A little peace and serenity before that 11-hour killer over the ocean.

Just sayin’.


NEXT TIME: When it comes to travel costs, what is real — and how to find out!

TRIP LOG: Europe

Leave a reply

6:08 pm PDT
Air France 065
Boeing 777-300
Airborne just under three hours. Somewhere over Nebraska, I think.

The flight left LAX 3:38 pm, long enough to see Spain win its first-ever World Cup title, a just 1-0 over the Netherlands. The Dutch fought hard — maybe a bit too hard, judging by the number of yellow cards issued to Dutch players. Which partly explains the near-simultaneous roar that went up from every restaurant, bar and lounge in the international terminal the moment Spain won.

So far, it’s been sparkling water, a Tawny Port, an appetizer of cold Maine lobster and a petite filet mignon for dinner, accompanied by the most incredible Bordeaux. A mango sorbet for dessert. There may be some sort of cheese next, followed by Calvados. Is this an airplane or Michelin-starred resto? Air France, I do love it so.

For now, back to the movie: Avatar.

Later, watch a TV5Monde science program that features a young British astrophysicist who uses ordinary household items to demonstrate clearly in layman’s terms how global warming works. Her name is Maggie Aderin-Pocock…and she’s a black woman. Inspiring.

11:00 am Paris time
Roissy CDG airport
The flight actually arrives 20 minutes early. Security is heavy; the airport is crawling with French soldiers.

Immigration is a breeze and my bag is one of the first on the carousel. Right then, I should’ve been suspicious. Sure enough, the Paris shuttle driver never shows up. Caught in bad traffic behind an accident and simply bagged it. Ended up taking a taxi for the one-hour slog into Paris. No good deed, even by an airline, goes unpunished.

The taxi is driven by a shaven-headed North African immigrant who tried to muffle his truly impressive singing voice. Too bad; he’d get bigger tips. And he could use them. Was pleasantly surprised to actually fit into the back seat. First car I’ve ever seen with airline-style tray tables mounted on the seat in front of you. Even so, the seatbelts are inside-out and the door panels look like somebody’s been pounding them with a slegdehammer.

I wonder how you say hooptie in French…?

Classics Hotel Paris Bastille
11th arr.
Paris
This is a small — make that very small — 3-star hotel in a working-class neighborhood in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. (Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements, which start in the center of the city near the Notre Dame cathedral and wind outward like a snail’s shell.)

The “A/C” here is spelled “f-a-n,” one of those vertical column fans that pivots on its base and puts out an indifferent stream of air that probably wouldn’t trouble a gnat. The shower is roughly the size of a phone booth from back it he day when everyone didn’t have a telephone in their own pocket. Turn more than one inch and you accidentally shut off the water.But the people running the place are mellow, friendly and patient with foreign visitors.

You feel comfortable in this neighborhood of native Parisians and immigrants from North and West Africa, as well as Vietnam. The corner cafes look like great places to hang out in this summer heat and humidity.

The Pere Lachaise cemetery is near here. It’s the final resting pace of the famous, ranging from Chopin to Edith Piaf to Jim Morrison, along with dancers, artists, sculptors, writers, philosophers, generals. Richard Wright is buried here. But after 10 hours on an airplane, I don’t have the energy to wander through there.

Especially not today. Paris is a sauna.

Dinner is a little cafe next-door to the hotel, run by North African couple, who trot out the most pleasant little vin rouge, Cuvee de President — from, of all places, Algeria.

Time to fall on my nose. Tomorrow, off to Brussels.

FLY THE FLAGS, Part 1—

4 Replies

Sometimes the national-flag air carriers of your vacation destination might offer not only a better airfare, but a better flying experience.

When traveling outside the United States for the first time, you may reflexively jump on the first U.S.-based airline flying there.

Hold up.

Many countries have their own national-flag airlines that fly from U.S. airports. They’re not necessarily government-owned; they just “represent.” And even in this era of mergers, buyouts and code-sharing alliances, not only do their fares often compare with those of U.S. airlines, but they may offer a much better travel experience, making them a better value for the money.

As a college student, I started hearing from friends who’d flown on JAL, Japan Air Lines, and marveled at the experience. Back then, there was no Travelocity or Priceline, and thus little talk of bargains. But they raved over the service.

Several years later, on my first trip to Asia, I flew on one of JAL’s shiny new Boeing 747s, and everything was exactly as advertised. I felt I’d experienced the pinnacle of air travel.

In reality, I had no idea.

CATHY WHO?
Part of this trip called for a five-hour flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong, and I couldn’t wait to get back on board that JAL 747. No such luck. The flight would be made aboard an old Boeing 707, with some outfit called Cathay Pacific, based in Hong Kong.

Cathy who? Never heard of ‘em. I knew that plane, though. One narrow aisle, six cramped seats across. Misery, here we come.

The surprises begin the moment we board. I knew being a stewardess was hard work, but these women are running up and down the aisle. I overhear someone say the stewardesses have to speak the languages of all the countries the airline serves, which is half of Asia. Pretty impressive.

A few minutes after takeoff from Tokyo Haneda, a steward is dispensing drinks from a cart — mainly Foster’s Lager from Australia and San Miguel beer from the Philippines.

“Complimentary,” he says. That wouldn’t happen on a U.S. airline.

Pretty cool, and this Foster’s not bad, either. When he comes back offering refills, I reach for my wallet. If the first beer was on the house, most likely they want cash for the second, right?

THE MAGIC WORD
“No, no, sir, it’s complimentary.”

Suddenly, I am liking this airline.

Dinner is up next. They give us…a menu? Your choice of entrees, appetizers, desserts? Linen napkins? Silver silverware?

All this, in Sardine Class.

I’m now liking this airline a lot.

Here comes steward again, and he’s packing — a bottle of Australian red wine in one hand, white in the other. Your choice. I didn’t even know Australia made wine.

“Complimentary,” he says. And so are the refills. Had the red wine last time? Care to try the white?

Good God, who are these guys?

A PARTY SEVEN MILES UP
And the food? Before long, perfect strangers are swapping entrees with one another, and marveling over all of it.

When the steward spots a trio of convivial seatmates, he leaves them a bottle of wine, or two. It’s a party, y’all…at 37,000 feet!

And yes, it’s complimentary.

By now, I’m convinced there’s something seriously wrong with the airplane and they’re hoping we won’t notice. But we’re spinning wildly out of control and—

No…wait…that’s just my head.

Everybody’s loosening their seatbelts, waiting for the cabin crew to clear away our trays so we can comfortably settle back into what is now a very contented flight.

Only steward isn’t done with us yet. He’s bringing the after-dinner cognac.

Do I even have to say it now?

I’m now convinced that the wings have fallen off the aircraft and we are plunging at warp speed toward the Pacific—and I really don’t care!

We make a brief refueling stop in Taipei, then take off for the second leg of the flight to Hong Kong. And that whole sequence described above — drinks, dinner, wines, cognac — starts all over again!

AWARD WINNERS
We are a very mellow planeload of tourists when we stroll, roll and occasionally stagger out of Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong and onto the buses taking us all to our hotel.

When the tour guide asks if anybody’s hungry, we look at her like she’s lost her mind!

Poor girl, wasn’t her fault. She’d never flown Cathay Pacific.

All national-flag airlines are not created equal. JAL no longer has the sterling reputation it did back in the 1970s. They recently even had to get bailout help from American Airlines. Talk about a reversal of fortune!

Cathay Pacific, however, has been named Airline of the Year by the British airline research group Skytrax five out of the last ten years. Their other top-rated airlines have names like Singapore Airlines, Asiana, Qatar, Etihad, Thai Airways, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines and Qantas — not just last year, but consistently.

Singapore in particular has built a reputation for efficiency and service that spans decades.

You’ll notice there’s not a single U.S.-based airline in that list. Even European giants like British Airways, Air France, KLM and Lufthansa don’t make the cut.

Surprised?

Not all national-flag carriers measure up to the standards of these airlines, but a common thread runs through all those who do: It’s not just about the money. National pride is involved.

The people who work for these airlines see themselves as ambassadors for their countries, they know how much tourism means to their national economies, and they want to “represent” the best way they can.

So when you’re researching a trip to abroad, look into some of the national-flag airlines of that country. The experience might almost make flying fun again.

In the next segment, we’ll talk about airline safety, including how to check out an airline’s safety record and the red flags that make an airline one to avoid.

He who hesitates

3 Replies

Think it’s too late to book a vacation at a decent price this holiday season? Maybe not.

The Louvre, Paris. I.M Pei's signature glass pyramid serves as the canopy from an underground arcade that includes retail, restaurants, and two Metro stops, not to mention the entrance to the Louvre itself!

Labor Day came, and you waited. Halloween passed, but you waited. Thanksgiving came and went, and still you waited. Now Christmas at hand and you figure it’s too late to book a holiday trip for less than extortionary rates, right? Not necessarily.

Under most circumstances, your best bet is to book sooner rather than later. Sometimes, though, it pays to wait, right up to the last possible moment.

Last-minute travel is a gamble. The stakes are your vacation. Play your cards right and you can come away with a great trip at a great savings.

The key is flexibility, and I mean total flexibility.

VACATION or “STAYCATION?”
Can you leave on short notice? Can you leave and/or return in the middle of the week? Are you willing to use a smaller airport a little farther from home? Can you go a couple of days earlier or later than your original plans called for? Willing to go a long way for a short stay?

If the answer to those questions is yes, you could be in line for some jaw-dropping bargains. On the other hand, if things don’t fall exactly your way, your vacation just became a “staycation.”

That’s the risk you take, and clearly, a gamble of this size is not for everyone.

Many of us are tied to work or class schedules that leave no wiggle room when it comes to travel. The airlines, hotel chains and resorts are fully aware of that, which explains why they jack their rates sky-high during the holiday periods.

Still, when it comes to holiday travel, airlines, hotels and the like aren’t much different from your family during Christmas dinner: Everybody wants to be full. And to get that nice, satisfied “full” feeling, many of them are willing to drop prices on remaining seats, rooms or trip packages.

WEEKEND IN PARIS
This is one of the reasons why you can have three people sitting in the same row in the same class on the same plane on the same day — and no two of them paid the same price for their seat.

Here’s an example from one site, lastminute.com. Leaving from Los Angeles (LAX), a weekend in Paris…this weekend…air, hotel, taxes, everything. When I first clicked on it, it was $996. In the time it took me to click on a different window on my computer and come back to it second later, it had dropped to $956. It could go up again just as fast — and two hours later, it did, to $967 — but that’s not really the point.

So what is the point?

Go to Air France and book an LAX-Paris (CDG) flight for those same days — no hotel, only the flight — and you’ll be paying $4,041. That presumes you’re lucky enough to score the last remaining seats on the cheapest available return flight. If you’re not, the price goes up to $4,606.

CRUISING FOR STEALS
And yes, that’s in Coach. I’d tell you what the Business or First Class fares are for those same days, but I can’t give you CPR through the computer.

Last-minute booking also can yield you a bargain just as big or even bigger on cruises, especially if you live in or close to a port like Miami, New York, New Orleans or Long Beach. If you don’t, there’s a monumental catch that can undo the whole thing.

If you have to fly somewhere to meet your ship, and there are no cheap last-minute airfares left to that destination, any savings on your last-minute cruise booking could be wiped out by the cost of the flights.

The same can hold true with land-based resorts in sun-friendly winter locales like the Caribbean and the Pacific islands. If the last-minute bargain rates doesn’t include airfare, odds are it won’t be a bargain at all.

LOOK AROUND…FAST!
So how do you find the last-minute deals? Same way you find anything else in travel: Shop around. You just may have to do it a little faster this time.

There are Web sites that specialize in this form of vacationing, and their very names will tell you pretty much which ones they are. You’ll find some of them listed on the Cool Travel Sites page.

In addition, airlines, cruise lines, hotels and resorts may offer their own last-minute fare sales, as well as reservation sites that don’t necessarily specialize in last-minute bargains.

As always, ask plenty of questions and know exactly where you stand before you put your money down. One of the disadvantages of last-minute travel is that you’ve got virtually zero time to do damage control if something goes wrong with your reservations, so it’s imperative that you get everything right the first time.

Now that you know some of what to look for, why not prowl the Web a little bit and see what kind of last-minute travel deals you can track down, just for the experience, the practice, the fun? So what if you can’t actually go this time?

Paris — and the rest of the world’s great destinations — will still be there next weekend.