Mixed Bag: Six stats about airline performance in 2010

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Last year was a good one for the airline industry in the United States. In addition to posting record profits, carriers also showed some improvement in other areas, such as on-time arrivals. The latest data from the U.S. Department of Transportation shows a slight improvement in getting from Point A to Point B on time, edging from 79.5 percent in 2009 to 79.8 percent in 2010.

December was a pretty rough month for the airlines, as you’ll see below, but much of it may have been caused by the storms and nasty weather that hit parts of the country toward the end of the year. Overall, performance improved, even if passenger sentiment didn’t really reflect it.

Let’s take a look at six stats that define the airline industry in 2010:1. Tarmac Delays: DOWN
It looks like the decline in tarmac delays sure helped. Those lasting more than three hours fell from 34 in December 2009 to only three in December 2010. The prospect of stiff fines likely contributed to this substantial decline. In fact, from May 2010, when the new rules (and penalties) took effect through the end of the year, the DOTs Bureau of Transportation Statistics found only 15 tarmac delays lasting longer than three hours (based on the 18 airlines that file on-time performance data). For the same period in 2009, there were 584 tarmac delays lasting longer than three hours.

2. Chronic Delays: DOWN
The number of “chronically delayed” flights – those delayed more than 30 minutes more than 50 percent of the time– fell as well. At the end of December 2010, there was only one chronically delayed flight (for the three months prior), with six more that were chronically delayed for two consecutive months. None reached four or more months in a row.

3. Baggage Problems: DOWN
Meanwhile, the airlines are getting better with our bags. The number of mishandled bags reported fell from 5.27 per 1,000 passengers in December 2009 to 4.8 reports per 1,000 passengers in December 2010. But, the last month of last year still posted an increase from a rate of 2.93 in November 2010. For the entirety of 2010, there were 3.57 mishandled baggage reports per 1,000 passengers, down from 3.99 in 2009.

4. Bumped Passengers: DOWN
Last year, only 1.09 passengers per 10,000 were involuntarily denied boarding (also known as “bumping), a drop from 1.23 per 10,000 in 2009. For the last three months of 2010, the “bump rate” fell to a measly 0.79 per 10,000 passengers, down from 1.13 in the last quarter of 2009. If you were supposed to get on a flight and didn’t screw up, it seems, there was a pretty good chance you got on it.

5. Pet Incidents: UP
In December 2010, there were seven reported incidents involving pets that were lost, injured or dead, up from three in December 2009. Six were filed in November 2010. There were 57 incidents in all of 2010, up from 32 in 2009.

6. Service Complaints: UP
In December, there were 753 complaints about airline service, though much of this likely involved the awful weather at the end of the month. This is up from 692 in December 2009. For all of 2010, though, the DOT picked up 10,985 complaints, a 24.5 percent increase from 8,821 in 2009.

[photo by kla4067 via Flickr]

Valentine’s Day in the sky: find love on a plane

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Are you headed into Monday solo? If that’s the case, it might make sense to book a quick flight for the most romantic day of the year! Don’t spend Valentine’s Day on your couch despising Cupid for neglecting you. According to the latest from travel search site Skyscanner, “flyrting” may be your key to happiness.

According to Skyscanner, almost half of all passengers have confessed to flirting in flight … and thus making the friendly skies a little friendlier. In a survey of more than a thousand travelers, the company found that a substantial 45 percent make their intentions known, with a third of them resulting in a “rendez-vous” after the plane has landed. Eight percent of flyrtatious encounters have led to relationships!
Skyscanner’s Karin Noble, once a cabin crew member, says, “More and more people are now traveling by air so it’s no surprise that flights have become a place to flirt. After all, you are sitting next to someone for an hour or more, and the fact that you’re both traveling to the same place means you already have something in common.”

Need a little help? Noble continues that there are “lubricating” effects to the in-flight service, adding that “the heightened effect that alcohol can have at altitude and the more relaxed ‘holiday mood’ that many travelers feel, and it tends to give people the courage to flirt with a fellow passenger or even take things further, especially on overseas routes such as flights to France or the UK.”

So, how many people get lucky in flight? A separate Skyscanner survey found that 20 percent of passengers have joined the mile-high club, half of them with strangers they met on a plane. Meanwhile, 95 percent copped to a desire for membership!

Skip the chick flicks this Valentine’s Day, and get yourself an aisle seat instead … you never know where it will lead.

[photo by moonlightbulb via Flickr]

Embraer’s private jet allows for toilet take offs and landings

by Grant Martin on

Two hours into a Tarmac delay, have you ever wondered why passengers aren’t allowed to be in the lav during taxi and takeoff? It’s actually got to do with the FAA rules for protecting a passenger during a potential crash — there have to be enough restraints in place to provide ample protection, and without a seatbelt and surrounding support a toilet-bound passenger could be in serious trouble in an emergency.

Seems like a reasonable restriction for commercial passengers, but what about high paying private passengers? Brazillian airframe manufacturer Embraer has your solution: seatbelts on toilet seats. The Phenom 100, Embraer’s very light business jet is just about to get approval from the FAA for toilet assisted take-offs and landings, meaning that luxury passengers wont have to move from their comfortable spot before leaving the Tarmac.

According to SeattlePi, current Phenom 100 owners will be able to upgrade their equipment later this year.

Breaking: Boeing plans new aiplane — 797?

by Grant Martin on

Jon Ostrower over at Flight Blogger has some interesting gossip for us from the airplane world: Boeing‘s CEO Jim McNerney was quoted earlier this week as saying that the manufacturer is looking into new airframes above and beyond the 787.

From Ostrower’s blog, McNerney says [bolding by Ostrower]:

“We’re gonna do a new airplane. We’re not done evaluating this whole situation yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine, is to move to an all-new airplane at the end of the decade, beginning of the next decade.

“It’s our judgment that our customers will wait for us, rather than move to an airplane that will obsolete itself when [Airbus does] a new airplane. I understand why they’re doing it, we haven’t seen the need for it yet. I feel pretty comfortable we can defend our customer base both because they’re not going ahead of us, they’re catching up to us and because we’re going to be doing a new airplane that will go beyond the capability of what the neo can do. I feel very good about our position there.”

Reached for comment, Bernard Choi from Boeing Corporate communications shed further light:

We continue to evaluate and are actively working with our customers and industry partners to identify the best solution to dramatically reduce fuel burn and carbon emissions and to lower overall operating costs. We continue to evaluate the potential of a new airplane design in terms of fuel burn, operating costs, carbon footprint, reliability and passenger comfort. Of course technology availability will be a critical issue and an area of focus during 2011, but we expect to have more clarity by mid-year. Based upon what our customers want, we maintain the ability to select from several choices, including a new engine or an all-new airplane.

Could this be the long rumored 797 that frequently crops up on myth sites? Probably not to the effect of those legends, but it does say that Boeing is seriously thinking about new airframes in an active, agressive manner.

US Airways increases baggage fees

by Chris Owen on

Here we go again. On the heels of greatly improved profits, US Airways has announced an increase of up to 80% on the charge for overweight bags.

In addition to the base price for checked bags of $25 for the first bag and $35 for the second, the additional fees for overweight bags are increasing. Overweight bags that weigh between 50 and 70 pounds will see the price increase from $50 to $90. Supersized bags that weigh more than 70 pounds will go from $100 to a whopping $175.

Will other airlines follow US Air’s lead? Probably. In January 2010, Continental matched Delta’s baggage fee increase and American matched United’s fees signaling a green light for others to follow.

At the time, travel expert Arthur Frommer noted “Any hope that the big airlines might move more gently in adopting such fees has been lost”. Looks like he was right.

Increases in baggage fees might not be all air travelers have to worry about on luggage either. The FAA, burdened by reduced demand for air travel since 9-11 expects an estimated $25 billion decline in revenue over the next six years according to a government report released last week.MarketWatch.com reports “Revenues declined early in the decade because of a series of largely unforeseen events, including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, that reduced the demand for air travel, resulting in a steep decline in airline industry revenue,” wrote Gerald Dillingham, the director of civil aviation studies at the GAO.

The new US Air fees go into effect, and it says this on their website, “if you bought a ticket on or after February 1 for travel on or after March 1, 2011. They may want to take another look at that policy and/or ask cruise lines about the wisdom of making a retroactive service fee.

Six cruise lines ended up having to refund $40 million in fuel surcharge fees charged to cruise passengers after they had booked their cruises. I’m not offering legal advice here but anyone who booked between February 1st and 9th might have a case.

Regardless, it’s probably time to take another good long look at packing light.

Flickr photo by Deanster1983