Another “blue ribbon” panel to fix the airline industry

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It’s been a tough month year decade for the airline industry. In the United States, it’s lost $58.5 billion and cut 158,000 jobs. There never seems to be an answer, and news of an industry in jeopardy has become routine. So, .

But, it will be different this time. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says it will not be “just another advisory committee.”

On his Department of Transportation blog, LaHood writes, “I am not commissioning some report to fill space on my bookshelf. This committee will make a difference.”

He continues:

“Look, without a financially strong aviation industry, we will be unable to compete in domestic and international commerce. We could also fall behind in addressing our own infrastructure needs. So we must begin this important conversation in order to ensure a viable, competitive U.S. aviation industry.”

But, he has his work cut out for him, as does the advisory committee. The estimated price tag to fix the most vexing problems the industry faces is $20 billion. And, many of the recommendations from the last two panels were never implemented.

A new air traffic control system, based on GPS technology, is at the top of the list, but it’s years away. It could save us $40 billion a year in lower fuel and labor costs, not to mention trimming a lot a time from the 740 million people who take to the skies. But, the $20 billion price tag is frightening, especially for airlines that are perpetually behind the financial 8-ball. The other possible wallet belongs to the taxpayer. Anyone want to pay more?

Oh, taxes could go up again if new environmental legislation is passed, so buckle up for more.

On the subject of taxes, the airline industry gripes that it gets hit worse than liquor and tobacco companies (well, except maybe rollers of loose cigarette tobacco). This gives them even fewer financial options to improve equipment and service. For airline shareholders, Jim May, top dog of the Air Transport Association, puts the lost value at around $24.5 billion. Yeah, I spelled it because there’d be a lot of zeroes otherwise. Local and state taxes have gone up, applying even more pressure. But, the other side of this is that taxes are a fact of life for any company, and the airlines should suck it up and move on. Let’s face it: with the U.S. economy in its current state, nobody’s getting tax cuts anytime soon.

Foreign money, the airlines say, would make it easier. Right now, foreign investors’ abilities to invest in U.S. airlines are limited because of national defense considerations. But, this is probably a dated risk, according to Carlos Bonilla, who advised former President Bush (the recent one) on transportation matters. The airlines would still be subject to U.S. regulation, regardless of who owns them.

On board the Oasis of the Seas: What’s it like?

by Jason Cochran on

Okay. You know it’s big. So let’s set aside that superlative, even though it’s absolutely true. The Oasis of the Seas is ginormous: the longest, the tallest, the widest.

More of interest is how it measures up as an experience. I’m writing this from the press lounge on Deck 4, which Royal Caribbean has set up for the journalists that it invited to test out its glorious new $1.4 billion mortgage-cum-cruise ship. When you’re talking about 17 decks and 2,700 staterooms, you need a lot of time to nose around and even more time to process.

So far, though, this ship is astounding, partly because Royal Caribbean threw some of the old strictures overboard. It’s no longer concerned about width restrictions — the Oasis is too fat to ever go through the Panama Canal — and once rules like those are jettisoned, new designs can sweep in.

The most obvious twist on this ship is its central atriums. Imagine a ship with the inside pretty much hollowed out from near the front all the way to to the stern, and then lined with interior cabins overlooking things like trees and a carnival-style carousel. That layout makes the Oasis entirely self-absorbed, like a floating mall or a resort on the waves. Almost nothing is geared toward drawing your attention to the water or to the ports you might pass, something that has already irked travel writers such as Arthur Frommer.

What’s more, the Oasis is so large, with so much going on, that many passengers simply won’t care about the ocean. It’s a mere set piece, a picturesque backdrop to a week-long marathon of tropical cocktails, pizza bars, and souvenir shopping. That may not a quantum leap for travel, but it’s definitely a leap for the cruise industry. Ports no longer matter. They’re merely a place where a ship stops to pick up ice cream and shrimp cocktails.

A few thoughts about the on board experience:

* She’s actually beautiful

How many times have we seen renderings of a ship that were nowhere as lovely as the reality? Somehow, in the telling, cruise ships tumble into tackiness. Somehow, the Oasis largely escapes that. Scalloped with swooping lines and theatrically lit with thousands of cobalt and scarlet lights, she’s very much the theatrical display she was foretold to be in those dopey architectural promises. Maybe it’s because she’s new.

Also pleasing is the fact that it’s very easy to get around the decks. On many ships, not every staircase leads to where you want to go, and you may have to loop around to get somewhere. Here, though, everything seems to connect logically, and there are plenty of elevators to service the hordes. It’s a ship designed with passenger motion in mind, starting with the extraordinarily wide avenues. There’s even an antique car parked in the middle of the Royal Promenade (the 4th-deck shopping mall), and barely anyone pays it mind.

Another much-needed addition: touch-screen boards near the elevator banks that tell passengers what’s going on at every moment and give directions to their cabin from where they’re standing. I wonder how long they’re going to work properly.

One of the ship’s most eye-catching features is the Rising Tide cocktail bar that slowly levitates and falls between three decks in the middle of the Promenade (acting as a de facto elevator to the open-air Central Park above). Most of the time, it’s half-empty, not because it’s a dull experience but because there’s just so much else to see on board. When your levitating cocktail bar doesn’t get much play, that’s saying something.

* This time, the atriums aren’t the ghetto

On other Royal Caribbean ships, the interior, atrium-facing staterooms are a mere novelty, or at best a consolation for not being able to afford an oceanview stateroom. Here, though, atrium rooms are so numerous that the old class system instantly grows less relevant. In fact, it’s the repetitive honeycomb of countless atrium rooms, almost all of which have balconies overlooking the spectacle, that makes the atriums so astounding.

Gadling’s cabin overlooks Central Park, an open-air atrium stocked with plants, trees, and adultish nightspots. It’s quiet, but hardly isolated. (If you’re thinking of booking an atrium cabin, in Central Park the airflow is a little stiff, while the Boardwalk has more glimpses of the sea, but it’s noisy. Both areas are open to the natural sky.)

* Crowds will be an issue

This press sailing is only half full, which surely contributes to the general elation on this floating kingdom of amphitheatres and glassy man-made caverns. But when she takes on her full complement of 5,400 passengers, prepare for battle. Royal Caribbean is already warning guests to make advance reservations for everything they want to do, be it a show, a specialty restaurant, a comedy act, boogie boarding on one of the two FlowRider sheet-wave machines, or zip-lining high above the Boardwalk section at the stern.

I’ve already seen the effect on this half-full cruise. The churlish young ladies running the FlowRider kiosk, for example, allowed long sign-up lines to build before notifying the waiting group that there were no more slots available. Likewise, wait time for Johnny Rockets shot from zero minutes to 45 minutes between 11:30 and 11:40am. The mini-franchise has been such a success on other Royal Caribbean ships that you’d think the company would double the space given to it, but it didn’t.

The atrium layout also means there’s no top deck spanning the ship. Instead, there are two parallel areas over the cavern, and it’s on those slivers of real estate the mail pools have been installed. The steel drum-type bands have to perform on a sky bridge linking the two areas. There seem to be plenty of deck chairs, but when things get busy on board, I wonder if there will be a scrum for pool access, especially since the quieter Serenity pool area, under a conservatory in the prow, can be oppressively hot when the sun shines

If you’ve even been on vacation to Disneyland, you’re used to queuing up for every thrill. Cruise fans, though, may find that crowd overload runs counter to their aspirations for a relaxing time away from home.

* She’s not quite finished

There’s scaffolding along the jogging track that loops around Deck 5. Some of the hot tubs, including one that juts dramatically over the ocean, are still dry. And two of the ship’s signature productions, a pared-down version of Hairspray and the water-themed show at the after outdoor Aqua amphitheatre, aren’t ready to be unveiled. If the ship’s fantastic ice skating spectacular is any indication, though, Royal Caribbean hasn’t cut corners to meet the note on this expensive vessel.

Now, I’m no cynic, but I do know when I’m out of my element. I was on the Carnival Dream last weekend, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was what a New Jersey Housewife would look like if she were to become a ship: all shiny gold and bangles and cigarettes and beery midnights. Many journalists are the first to puncture holes in the latest hyped product, perhaps because they see it as a service to their readers.

But I have to say that I’m really loving this ship. The size of it, which enables many of its innovations, may ironically be its biggest drawback, and depending on how it absorbs a full house, its Achilles Heel. Still, if I were thinking of bringing my family on a cruise, having seen this wedding cake of a seagoing resort, as a safe place to take everyone off the leash and forget about reality, I’d look here first.

Every ski resort in the U.S. on one list

by Kraig Becker on

Winter is still officially a month away, but the snow has already started to fly, and ski season is underway in a variety of locations across the U.S. With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, many skiers and snowboarders will hit the slopes for the first time this week, and many of them will be wondering where the best snow can be found. Fortunately, for them, The Adventure Life has compiled a complete list of all of the ski resorts in the U.S., offering suggestions on where to go from Alabama to Wyoming, and just about everywhere in between.

All told, there are 481 resorts on the list, ranging in size from a few snow covered hills with a rope tow, to massive mountain resorts with multiple runs and chair lifts up to places where the air is thin. The Adventure Life offers links to the website for nearly everyone of those resorts, and when ever possible, a second link to the latest snow reports from the hill as well. So, if you want to know what the current conditions are at Snowbird, in Utah, for instance, you could go to this site to find out that they currently have 17″ of powder, with more expected in the days ahead.

For ski bums across the country, this is an invaluable list, with suggestions on where to ski no matter where they are. But for some industrious soul, it will no doubt be seen as a challenge as well. How long before someone sets out to ski every one of these 481 resorts?

Photo essay of Blue Highways and what’s changed over the years

by Jamie Rhein on

Haunting, thought provoking and gorgeous are some of the adjectives that come to mind when looking through the photographs of Ed Alior at CNNTravel. Alior has retraced the route that William Least Heat-Moon made famous when he traveled along the back roads of the U.S. and wrote about it in his book “Blue Highways.” Alior’s photographs attest to how things can change over the years and what has remained the same.

Along with presenting ten of Alior’s lush photographs of back-road scenery, CNN’s feature, “Back-road adventurer on America’s ‘Blue Highways'” includes an interview with Heat-Moon.

In the interview, Heat-Moon talks about how he has seen the U.S. back-roads’ landscape change over the years, both for the good and the bad. There’s a tone of melancholy for what has changed–most noticeably the Mom and Pop establishments that have given way to hard times or the competition of chain restaurants.

Heat-Moon has also noticed the sprawl of cities into suburbia and on out into rural areas. As he puts it, a “‘quarter of a century ago, towns that still had limits — discernible edges — now can look like they’re getting swallowed by an inoperable cancer. . .'”

The repercussions, he feels, have altered the genuineness of place and that we haven’t done much as a country to see what all this sprawl has cost us. On the other hand, he does point out positive change. It’s change that is heart-warming.

As Heat-Moon traveled in the last ten years, he’s noticed that there’s more racial harmony and the racial slurs he used to hear pepper conversations are not being said.

Read the rest of the interview here. I was particularly interested in his take on how travel has been altered. One thing Heat-Moon has found, if you’re looking for a cheap place to stay off the beaten path these days, lots of luck.

Thanks to Jaunted for pointing me in the direction of this read.

Flight attendants fake strike to make point

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Contract negotiations between American Airlines and its flight attendants have stalled. So, the flight attendants kicked off a fake strike on Wednesday. At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, they picketed, handed out leaflets and wore red badges, showing flights they feel couldn’t run without them. So, just think of how strong a real strike would have been! Similar protests were held at 12 other airports, as well.

Because of federal laws that intentionally make it difficult for airline industry employees to strike, the fake alternative was the best that could be summoned, at least on short notice. USA Today reports that gauging public support for a flight attendant strike is difficult, but union officials seem unwilling to roll the dice by disrupting flights, especially with the holiday season coming. Smart move: if fliers have demonstrated anything this year, it’s that they don’t give a shit about the airlines. They just want to get from Point A to Point B for as low a fare as possible.

And, public sentiment aside, it’s hard to draw blood from a stone. In less than two years, American’s parent company, AMR, has lost $3.2 billion, and revenue has taken a dive. So, what’s left for the flight attendants to demand?

The union and the airline have been trying to hash out a new contract since June 2008. The airline’s last pay cut came in 2003, at 33 percent. Since then, the flight attendants have picked up 1.5 percent annual pay raises — except in 2009, where compensation was stalled because the contract hasn’t moved.

American says they two sides have come to an agreement on around 75 percent of the items on the plate, but the union says the airline hasn’t put up a comp number yet. The flight attendants are pissed that they had to take a pay cut six years ago, while the airlines management continues to get sweetheart bonus deals.