Trouble Booking Post-Sandy Air Travel? Try Using Twitter

by Jessica Marati on

The other day, a friend spent 40 minutes on the phone trying to rebook a trip from Orange County to New York City, only to have his request denied. But when we tried reaching out to the airline on Twitter, it took only 10 minutes for a response. After a few 140-character direct messages back and forth, we successfully switched flights within the hour.

Twitter can be a fast, easy and efficient way to get airline customer service, particularly in the aftermath of disasters like Superstorm Sandy. But not all Tweets are created equal. Here are a few factors that can help your message get noticed.

Using hashtags

Hashtags allow Twitter users to participate in larger conversations on topics and events. For example, a search on the hashtag #Sandy will bring up all Tweets related to the storm. Other useful hashtags include: #frankenstorm, #travel, #airlines, cities like #nyc or #boston and airport codes like #jfk and #ewr. If you include a hashtag in your Tweet, chances are your message will surface beyond your immediate network – which can be harmful to airlines if the sentiment is negative.Mentioning other airlines

It sometimes helps to stir up a little healthy competition. In this particular situation, we mentioned American Airlines in our Tweet to JetBlue, stating that American’s change policy included flights on October 28, while JetBlue’s policy started on October 29. We concluded:

@jetblue first time I’ve ever wished I flew @americanair instead. No way to change flights w/ fee waiver for a 10/29 redeye? #frankenstorm

Within a few minutes, we received a response from JetBlue asking us to send the confirmation code by direct message so they could see if we qualified for a change fee waiver, which we did. To boot, American Airlines sent us a cheeky Tweet asking why we had “cheated on them” and wishing us well.

Your follower count

The higher your follower count, the wider the network your angry Twitter messages will reach. As a result, Twitter users with more followers may well have their messages bumped to the top of the customer service queue. The same goes for users with high scores on Klout, an engine that attempts to measure a person’s social media influence. Airlines already use Klout to issue perks like airport lounge stays and even free flights; it’s not out of the question that they use Klout scores in their social media customer service platforms too.

Perfecting your message

Set aside the impulse to be rude and aggressive, and feel free to shelve the emoticons while you’re at it. Twitter’s 140-character message limit forces you to pare down your request to the bare essentials, and it helps to be direct and concise about your needs. Try to avoid messages like this:

@airline i am so bummmmmmed that i can’t change my flight!!! ur customer service sux. :(

Instead try something like this:

@airline trying to change #LAX-#JFK fl 204 fr 10/31 to 11/3 bec #sandy. phone agent says no flights on 11/3 but i see flights online. help?

[Photo Credit: Flickr user Shawn Campbell]

Video Of The Day: Time Lapse Of Superstorm Sandy Hitting New York City

by Jessica Marati on

Richard Shepherd created this time lapse video of Superstorm Sandy hitting New York City by using images from the New York Times webcam, which has been positioned on the 51st floor of the Times building in midtown Manhattan since the start of the storm. The video shows the progression of Sandy from noon on October 29 until 9:30 a.m. on October 30. Keep your eye out for a shift at minute 0:42, when electricity went out and downtown Manhattan plunged into darkness.

Smartphone Room Key Just The Begining

by Chris Owen on

Smartphone technology has become an integral part of travel, bringing GEO tagging applications, instant photo uploading to share with the world, and more. Now, smartphones are set to allow hotel guests to bypass check-in and unlock their guest room door simply by touching the handle.

“We’re able to have the hotel guest download our app, put their username and password in, and then it links the reservation to their mobile devices,” said Ben Robertson, CEO of y!kes in a Hotel Management interview.

The process is simple. On the day of the reservation, connected guests will get a notification saying their room is ready. Step into the hotel’s lobby and the system checks them in. Upon arriving at their assigned hotel room, users simply touch the door handle, which recognizes them automatically and allows entrance.The mobile app works with most smartphones, but for guests with out one, the lock system can also work with a traditional key card. In the future, the Y!kes plans to add capabilities to control the temperature, room lighting and TV preferences.

“We’re making it so that the mobile device really makes things easy for that guest throughout their stay … We can service their needs according to their proximity throughout the hotel,” Robertson said.

[Photo Credit: Flickr user bimurch]

Hurricane Sandy Travelers Might Get Little Relief From Airlines

by Chris Owen on

Hurricane Sandy brought travel by air, land and sea to a halt in the Northeast Monday, grounding thousands of flights, diverting cruise ships and shutting down public transportation. The cascading effect of airline flight cancellations alone has disrupted travel plans around the world. But once the storm has passed, air travelers may have more problems than canceled flights to deal with.

Airlines canceled more than 8,900 flights Sunday and Monday, with 4,800 more set to cancel for Tuesday. Heavy cancellations were at some of the nation’s busiest airports with Philadelphia International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport hit especially hard.

That’s bad news for travelers. Worse news is that airlines may choose to not increase capacity to handle the surge of travelers once airport operations are back to normal.
“Empty seats are a rare commodity since the nation’s airlines began more than a year ago to cut many short-haul routes and eliminate less-profitable flights to increase revenue,” says a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Compounding the problem, some airlines have cut the amount of time passengers have to rebook canceled flights and still have change fees waived. While details vary by airline, most waive change fees and any difference in fares for a period of time after a major disruptive event. Previously giving up to a year to rebook, airlines have cut that time to as little as 14 days.

The combination of airline moves to cut capacity, flying full and profitable flights along with a shortened rebook period has travelers worried.

Call it “Frankenstorm,” the “storm of the century” or the “Superstorm,” in areas that received a direct hit, 60 million people could be affected. Stranded airline passengers are not likely to see relief for a number of days as airport operations are set back to normal.

[Photo Credit: Flickr user tanithk]

New York’s LaGuardia Airport Flooded

by Jeremy Kressmann on

New Yorkers and residents along the Eastern Seaboard are just beginning to emerge today from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy – millions remain without power, thousands of flights have been cancelled and transportation throughout the region has been severely disrupted.

If you need further evidence of what it looks like in New York here on the ground, just check out this shot posted this morning by a flight attendant at LaGuardia airport. The airport, which lies in a low-lying coastal area remains severely flooded this morning.

For those of you in transit this week, stay patient. It could be a few days before normal flight, train and bus service in and out of the New York area resumes normal activity.

UPDATE: A special thanks to tireless LaGuardia airport worker Francesco Giannola for your photo.

[Photo credit: Francesco Giannola]