Skybus’s bankruptcy affects honeymoon plans 35 years in the making

by Jamie Rhein on

Skybus is still making front page of Columbus’s newspaper. We’re still having the tail end of Skybus drama at my house. Two nights ago, my friend called telling me that he had received the e-mail from Skybus telling him his flight in May was no more and that there weren’t any refunds. My friend is out $300, I would guess, because he paid for the ticket back in September and rebooked it in October. Too bad he doesn’t have the $300 for a flight to Columbus on another airlines because those flights can be found. My husband was able to cancel the charge on our credit card for the cost of the ticket he booked for this August. Our problems are nothing compared to the folks who are out of a job without warning.

There is another Skybus story that really pulls on the old heartstrings. A Columbus couple who had been dating for 35 years and finally got married had planned to fly to California for their honeymoon. The couple are in their 70s. They haven’t flown in years because of the cost, but family bought them the Skybus tickets for a wedding present. This is a couple who decided to get married so he wouldn’t have to drive home at night. The wedding was the day after Skybus’ last flight so their honeymoon bit the dust until the groom’s sister sprung for the flight on United Airlines. The couple is now heading to San Diego next week. I hope they have good weather and a good flight.

The groom’s sister just happens to live in San Diego so they are staying with her. If United Airlines wanted to capitalize on this story, I’d think they could come up with something catchy. At least on a United Airlines flight they can get something to drink and a snack without paying extra–at least not yet.

What strange things have been found on planes?


Read more wedding horror stories from AisleDash:

An analysis of the Airline Quality Report

by Grant Martin on

The annual Airline Quality Report (AQR) was published today by Dr. Dean Headley out of Wichita State University. Big deal, you say, airlines continue to suck. You’ve got that right. Distill the 60 page document down to its roots and you’ll find that the industry scored its worst ranks of all time in the history of the twenty year study.

Overall quality of an airline was taken as a weighted average across factors of the airline being:

  • On Time
  • Denied Boardings (overbookings)
  • Mishandled Baggage and
  • Customer Complaints

The lower a carrier scores, the worse its performance. Let’s take a look at the data:

  • Southwest Airlines had the best on-time performance with 82.4% of flights on time, while Atlantic Southeast, Comair, American and American Eagle had the worst records at 66.9%, 67.3% and 67.4% (tied) respectively.
  • Atlantic Southeast, Comair and Skywest had the most denied boardings at 5.43, 3.32 and 2.73 passengers bumped per 10,000 respectively, while jetBlue, Airtran and United had the best at 0.04, 0.21 and 0.40.
  • Skywest, and American Eagle lost the most bags, at 17.95 and 17.38 bags lost per 1,000 passengers each. Conversely, AirTran and Northwest lost only 3.63 and 5.26 bags per.
  • 2.07 out of 1000 passengers complained about United Airlines, while only 0.19 in 1000 complained about Mesa.
  • Balanced, AirTran had the best performance, while Atlantic Southeast had the worst.

Ranked, the airlines stacked up as follows

  1. Airtran
  2. jetBlue
  3. Southwest
  4. Northwest
  5. Frontier
  6. Continental
  7. Alaska
  8. United
  9. American
  10. Delta
  11. US Airways
  12. Mesa
  13. SkyWest
  14. Comair
  15. American Eagle
  16. Atlantic Southeast

Other interesting things to consider

  • The top three airlines are all Low Cost Carriers (LCCs). The best legacy carriers were Northwest, Continental and Alaska.
  • Airtran, American Eagle, Atlantic Southeast and Mesa actually improved from 2006 to 2007. It’s just that the other airlines did so poorly that it dragged the average down. Atlantic Southeast, for example, was already poorly ranked, it was just less poorly ranked this year.
  • It’s important to consider weather and hubs into the equation. Hawaiian Airlines, for example, received excellent results last year, but that’s partially because they fly in near-perfect weather and everyone is always happy when they are on vacation in Hawaii (so they won’t complain). Compare that to American and American Eagle, both of whom have hubs in Chicago. On-time rankings were considerably worse for New York based carriers
  • 17.95 bags per 1000 may seem bad, but that’s really only 1.795%

So what does this tell us overall? Well, as we concluded earlier, not much. You have to consider that there is some noise in the data that comes from increased media coverage and oversight on the airline industry. Now that you know that there is a survey, you’re going to have a higher chance of complaining on your next flight, right?

The data will crawl around from good to bad to worse all over the place and we can analyze it until we turn blue. What’s important to take from this data is that there aren’t any large anomalies. Contrary to what you’ve been thinking, Delta employees haven’t completely given up on us and complaints have not skyrocketed. jetBlue did not lose an outrageous number of bags last summer for no reason.

At the very least, we can thus find solace in this normalcy.

In Soviet Russia, American Airlines ticket buys you!

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Maybe it’s all this talk of Olympic boycotts, or maybe Rocky IV was just on cable again. Whatever the reason, the folks over at American Airlines are in stuck in Cold War mode, as evidenced by their “Airport Lookup” menu. According to the Ph.D.’s in the Geography department at American, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is still kickin’– and even better, you can fly there!

Yugoslavia also finds its way onto the list, but surprisingly Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were left off.

The list of “countries” also features about a dozen places I’ve literally never heard of, like Guernsey, Jersey, Mayotte, and something called the Wallis and Futuna Islands. Apologies to all of our readers in those territories, but your existence is news to me.

[via Wonkette]

European Union regulators approve in-flight mobile phone use

by Grant Martin on

It is officially starting to happen — this morning, EU authorities approved the use of cell phone calls in flight, thus opening the floodgates for widespread mobile phone service and development on all European carriers.

You may recall that last month Emirates, the Dubai based luxury carrier boasted the first cruising-altitude mobile service on their aircraft and that several carriers in the United States are tinkering with the same technology. The difference in these cases is that by and large these services are limited to particular flights and routes.

These new rules applied in the EU essentially let any carrier develop and implement any technology to their liking. So you can expect several carriers to come up with several different means of communicating over the course of the year. It also means, however, that the airlines will have authority over the service. Your mobile signal will come from the aircraft, so the crew will have the ability to restrict or remove service at their discretion. And they will also have the ability to charge for it.

But at what rates? Will standard minute and roaming fees apply? Will the airlines charge extra for the privilege of crackberrying at 30,000 ft? There’s no official word on service and rates yet, but considering airlines are now charging to be nice to you, I wouldn’t doubt if we had to pay.

Either way, don’t expect your KLM flight to turn into a chatterbox immediately. Carriers need to integrate service at cruising altitude (ground towers usually don’t reach to 30,000 feet at 600MPH, especially if you’re over water) and unroll their own rules and regulations. Enjoy your silence while you have it.

Depressed in Ohio about Skybus and Jet Blue deprived

by Jamie Rhein on

I found out about Skybus’s demise from Grant when I checked e-mail last night. Grant had found out the news from a comment sent to us from a reader a few hours earlier. While Grant was busy typing up the Skybus calls it quits post, I was out having a drink with a friend, unaware that my summer plans were mucked up,–and my birthday–AND a visit from another friend.

Yesterday afternoon I decided we should fly to New York on Skybus instead of drive after seeing how cheap flights still were in August. Luckily, I hadn’t booked the tickets yet. I wonder how many people booked flights yesterday totally unaware that they’d be contacting their credit card company less than a day later?

My husband just told me an hour ago that he had bought a ticket for my best friend in Massachusetts to come to Columbus for my birthday the end of August. That’s out. The bill has not been paid yet–we haven’t even received it, so I think we may be in luck and not have to pay. Who would come get us to make us pay?

I also just remembered that a friend of mine in Los Angeles was to come to visit in May. He bought his ticket back in September. How does that work since that credit card bill has long been paid? I’m sure there are many many stories like this one all over Columbus. I heard two of them today in a writers group I go to.

Here’s my beef. Jet Blue pulled out of Columbus this year because of Skybus. Even though Jet Blue is offering cheap seats for folks stranded by Skybus, because that airline doesn’t come to Ohio that doesn’t help us in the Buckeye state. The non-stop flight to L.A. on Delta that I took in September isn’t available anymore either. For Ohio, whose economy is a bit in the tank, Skybus was something to feel special about. We were the city with those $10 airfare. People were coming to Columbus as a result. That’s over. I know for sure my friend in L.A. won’t be coming in May. My other friend may still come for my birthday, but with the price of airfare now, I might want to come up with something else.

I sure hope Jet Blue comes back. Please. Pretty please?