Which airline wins the tweet wars for June 2011? Travel tech site Tnooz gives us a stellar infographic on the use of Twitter for major airlines in the month of June 2011. As you can see, Southwest drops to second place this month as industry giant Delta (21,000) mentions, leaps into first place. It’s interesting to note that this data is based on tweets and opinions in a category of interest, not number of followers. @SouthwestAir still wins that battle, with 1,142,579 followers vs. 206,201 for the main @Delta Twitter.
Travel + Leisure best in the world announced
Results of the Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards 2011 Readers’ Survey were announced this week, revealing the world’s top hotels, airlines, cruise lines, islands and more.
“It’s clear that remote and exotic destinations-places that convey a sense of authenticity and adventure-are ruling the day once again in Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards,” said Nancy Novogrod , editor in chief of Travel + Leisure.
Let’s take a look at the best of the best
World’s Best City- Bangkok
World’s Best Island- Santorini Greece
Worlds Best Large-Ship Cruise Line- Crystal Cruises
Worlds Best Small-Ship Cruise Line- Seabourn
World’s Best River Cruise Line- Tauck
World’s Best International Airline- Singapore Airlines
World’s Best Domestic Airline- Virgin America
World’s Best Tour- Micato Safari’s
World’s Best Car Rental Agency- Zipcar
World’s Best Destination Spa- Rancho La Puerta Fitness Resort & Spa Tecate, Mexico
World’s Best Hotel Spa- Sofitel Queenstown Hotel & Spa New Zealand
See all the winners at Travel + Leisure.
This year a digital edition for the iPad will be available for $1.99 on iTunes beginning July 11. This special iPad edition will include dozens of trip ideas, with itineraries created by T+L editors and insider information on World’s Best Award-winning destinations such as New York, Florence, Bali, the Great Barrier Reef, and beyond. Users can tap in to TravelandLeisure.com destination guides for the top cities and islands right from the digital version, with advice on where to stay, what to do, and how to create your own perfect trip. Plus, there are direct links to sites for the hotels, cruise lines, outfitters, and destinations for easy booking and users can share trip ideas via Facebook, Twitter, and email.
Like the Lufthansa baby, give her miles for life
Last year, a flight between Frankfurt and Denver was disrupted by a medical emergency. One of the passengers, Heather Randle, went into labor nearly two months early and despite the plane’s diversion into Canada the child was delivered onboard safely.
The delivery was broadly covered by the news media, and now that baby Trudance is turning 1 this year, Lufthansa is donating increments of miles to the child as a birthday present.
For every “like” that the airline gets on its customized Facebook page they’ll donate 100 miles to Trudance’s account — not very much, but when you add up a tidal wave of hits then the aggregate can be significant. Right now, the Lufthansa site has almost 223,000 likes (we’re not sure what percentage of those are dedicated to Baby Trudance), and if one in ten of those is dedicated to the birthday effort then that’s a total of over two million miles. For a girl that’s barely 12 months old, that’s a lot of frequent flyer miles.
Just be aware — every time you “like” another travel brand you’re signing up for low level Facebook marketing from the group, so make sure you’re ready to get Lufthansa news (or you have the mute button ready.)
You can send the birthday miles over at the Lufthansa Facebook Page.
UPDATE: According to the folks at Lufthansa, “the only way that Trudence will receive miles is if individuals actually write a birthday wish to her… we are not rewarding per ‘LIKE.'” — So, in addition to liking the page it looks like you also need to write a birthday wish as well.
[flickr image via wbaiv]
Carbon footprint study results we can do something with
Brighter Planet, the environmental group that recently teamed up with MasterCard to offer corporate customers carbon footprint reports, is always looking for a better way to track and impact carbon footprint accounting. After studying more than 9 billion airline passenger departures, Brighter Planet found huge energy efficiency variables on different flights on the same routes.
Brighter Planet’s carbon footprint study determined that “energy efficiency per passenger mile varies tenfold across the entire industry,” CEO Patti Prairie told BusinessTravelNews.com. The firm is proposing an advanced means for corporations to calculate the carbon footprint of air travel that includes much more information than their current standard.
Factoring aircraft fuel economy, passenger load factors, seat density, freight share and flight distances for more than 130 million flights between 2000 and 2010, Brighter Planet came up with some startling results.
Some flights are more energy efficient than others flying the same route.
“We found significant savings opportunities-the companies could reduce carbon emissions across the routes we analyzed by up to 40 percent if they switched from the least efficient to most efficient flights,” according to the report.
Often, switching to a lower carbon flight costs the same or less too. Right now, the trick is knowing which flight is best and offers the lower carbon choice. Soon, that will be easier to do.
Brighter Planet’s Careplane software plugin calculates carbon output from flight search results generated on travel sites Kayak, Orbitz and Hipmumk accessed using Google Chrome or Firefox with the Careplane add-on installed. Careplane inserts carbon footprints as we search offering the information for our consideration when making a buying decision.
Careplane.org sums it up nicely: “Choosing a greener flight doesn’t just reduce your footprint. As more people start factoring sustainability into travel decisions, it creates a powerful market signal that consumers take airline efficiency seriously.”
Flickr photo by heidielliott
Get free Delta miles by using their mobile app
As mobile applications take a larger and larger role in our daily travel lives, airlines are starting to respond with their own widgets and tools to make working with them easier. After all, the better that they can facilitate your transactions with them, the more likely that you’re going to return a happy customer.
To that end, Delta Air Lines just rolled its new iPhone/Android app out that should help streamline the whole mobile boarding pass process. Instead of clicking through an email or navigating to delta.com on your browser, the new tool lets you check in, download your boarding pass and keep it stored for future use — without dealing with any browsers or caches or non-Delta tools.
Big deal, right? Anyone can use a mobile boarding pass irrespective of the app, and you’re still constrained by battery life and the whims of the TSA and the equipment along the chain. Fact of the matter is, mobile boarding passes are still probably not worth your time.
Still, an engaged traveler is one that’s more likely going to return (and Delta knows this), so they’re offering a 1,000 mile bonus for any passenger willing to download and try out the app next them they go to the airport. All the passenger has to do is sign up, get to the airport and check in with the app to get the reward, which should be just about the easiest 1000 miles that anyone can earn.
You can sign up for the promotion here and download the app via your favorite app store. You’ve got until September 7th to redeem.