Welcome to the first airline-owned restaurant!

by George Hobica on

Airfarewatchdog visited recently a new restaurant in our neighborhood and boy were we surprised at what we saw on the menu.

That’s right, diners! This restaurant is under new management! At Trans Air Airlines, we sure weren’t making money flying people places, so we thought what the heck, why not try the fine dining business to earn some “ancillary revenue” as we like to call it. While you’re waiting for your server to take your order, please enjoy reading about this exciting new concept!

First of all, we’ll now be giving discounts if you buy your meal online in advance of your visit. If you must cancel your reservation, we will provide a refund, minus a $100 “service fee” ($250 for foreign-sounding menu items, such as Coq au Vin). If you have commenced your meal but cannot finish it for any reason, there are no refunds. This applies, for example, if you choke on a fishbone, turn blue, and collapse face first into the mashed sweet potatoes.

And although we aim for exemplary service (we are Trans Air, after all), please be advised that from time to time, due to circumstances beyond our control or any other Force Majeure event (that’s a French term meaning “anything we refuse to take responsibility for”), we reserve the right to cancel your meal without notice. Or we may substitute an entrée of our choosing, say, the Steak and Frites a la Nonstop ($17.95 plus meals tax, sales tax, Federal meals excise tax, city kitchen inspection fee, electricity surcharge, and whatever other fees we can dream up now or in the future) with the Connection Burger ($7.95) or any other meal of our choice. As per our policy, in the event of such substitution you will receive a refund for any price difference, minus a “service fee” (see above). Meal delivery times are also not guaranteed, although delays of more than six hours are uncommon. Unfortunately, we require that you remain at your table while waiting.
And please be aware that if your steak frites special is burnt to a crisp when it finally arrives (delivery times are subject to change and cannot be guaranteed), you can’t send it back to the kitchen for a redo. Instead, please email our customer service department. They might send you a $5 coupon valid for your next meal. Or they might not. And please don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology from our overworked, taciturn waiters if they screw up your order. Most of them are furloughed Trans Air flight attendants and are on food stamps.

And please do not converse with your fellow diners while you wait, otherwise you may discover that the person at the next table paid only half what you did for his steak frites special. Please visit our Web site for our full contract of dining.

Also, while you wait for your meal, please refrain from filling in the comment cards. We are aware that the seats are thin and uncomfortable (we’re trying to keep costs down in order to offer you the best possible prices) and we know the tables are so crammed together you have to crawl under them to reach your chair.

You may have also noticed that our menu prices change several times a day (best to check online before leaving home).

Now a word about our fees. In order to keep menu prices low, we have instituted the following extra charges:

  • Coat check: $5 first item, $10 second item, $20 third and additional items
  • Napkins (paper): $1 per person
  • Napkins (cloth): $5 per person
  • Ketchup and mustard: $5 per item per table
  • Booster seats: $10 per child
  • Water refill: $1
  • Second water refill: $2
  • Third and subsequent refills: $3

These fees are subject to change without notice and are non refundable, even if the waiter forgets to provide them.

We regret that we have eliminated placemats, crayons and coloring books for the kiddies, flowers, and those plastic cocktail stirrers (use your plastic spoon please).

And if you’re fed up waiting, next time please try our VIP section (over there, behind the velvet ropes). Here you’ll experience an even better level of service. You’ll note that menu prices are about 10 times higher than in our “economy” section. We realize that most people scoff at the idea of a $700 hamburger deluxe, but to each his own.

A final note: we will be closing off part of the restaurant next month, reducing our seating capacity by 50 percent, and subsequently will be increasing our menu prices. However, we will continue to provide the same level of service you have come to expect. Business has been terrible lately (we have no clue why), and we hope that by providing fewer tables, eliminating staff, and introducing new fees, things will turn around. Fingers and toes crossed!

By now, you’ve probably been waiting quite a while for one of our dedicated “meal attendants” to take your order. Please be advised that because our staff has “timed out” (that’s industry speak for working the maximum number of hours permitted each day) you’ll need to stay where you are until breakfast (see aforementioned contract of dining). We recommend the waffles, priced at $2.95, $3.50, $5.00, $7.60, $9.15, and $10.95 depending on advance purchase.

Thanks for your understanding. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy your night.

George Hobica is the founder of Airfarewatchdog™, the most inclusive source of airfare deals that have been researched and verified by experts. Airfarewatchdog compares fares from all airlines and includes the increasing number of airline-site-only and promo code fares

The Flat Tire rule: can you still fly if you show up late?

by Grant Martin on

Back in the good ‘ol days when airlines used to give a damn about passengers, it used to be that there was a fair amount of wiggle room in your itinerary. If a disaster (say, a flat tire) occurred on the way to the airport, you could show up late, reason with the ticket agent and if there was room, they would just stick you on another flight.

These days, many airlines are so overregulated that ticket agents either can’t or don’t want to rebook you without a significant fiscal or time investment. “The Flat Tire rule” that formally outlined this ability, however, is still sort of around.

Our friend George Hobica over at AirfareWatchdog just took a good look at the rule with respect to airline. They offer some good advice for when you get into a bind, but their prevailing theme is pretty simple: you’re largely at the mercy of the ticket agent. Irrespective of whether the airline has a rule in place or not, many employees don’t know about it (or will deny they know about it,) so you have to be patient, polite, flexible and reasonable to help find a solution. After all, they have no legal obligation to rebook you.

You can read more about each airlines’ rules on rebooking over at the AirfareWatchBlog.

At Least One Country is Getting Tough on Hidden Airline Fees

by Josh Lew on

Hidden fees are ta reality of air travel. Fuel surcharges have finally dropped, but not gone away. then there are airport taxes, insurance charges and administrative costs. The small nation of Singapore is trying to crack down on undisclosed costs by forcing advertising to include a full disclosure of costs and fees. Eleanor Wong, chairwoman of the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS), said that a “media advisory” announced last year did not lead to the kind of full price disclosure that she had hoped. So more stringent measures had to be taken.

“The idea is that these are non-negotiable add-ons and should be treated as an integral part of the fare. With the practice of adding fuel and other surcharges becoming prevalent, we thought it would be useful to issue a specific clarification that would apply to the general principles of fair advertising specifically to the travel industry.”

To enforce this new law, ads that do not fully disclose prices will be suspended. For once, Singapore’s authoritarian bureaucracy might have actually done something useful.

[Via TTG Asia]

Airfare watchdog’s survey of how much would you pay to fly without kids?

by Jamie Rhein on

In her New York Times travel column “Motherlode,” Lisa Belkin recently wrote about flying with children. She titled it, “The Less-Than-Friendly-Skies.”

As a person who once traveled with babies and young kids (according to her bio, her children are now teenagers) Belkin has sympathy for people who travel with children and mentions those who have problems with children on planes as “crotchety.”

It’s not that she isn’t sympathetic to the plight of those who don’t have kids with them who are on an airplane with folks who have brought their kids along, but she tends to feel more for the parents who have the kids–and the kids. She recalls the days back when airlines gave kids pilot wings and flight attendants had the time and energy to treat kids like special passengers instead of more work.

Belkin cites a survey at airfarewatchdog.com where people vote according to their travel preference when it comes to money and kids. How much money would you pay extra for a flight that doesn’t allow kids on board?

At this point, only 38% would not pay more for a ticket. The higher the dollar amount, the lower the percentage would pay the extra cash. 20% would pay $10 more, but only 9% would pay more than $40. (For survey, click here.)

And who would those people be? Belkin thinks it’s parents with young kids who would like to take a flight where they could actually have time to read a magazine.

A definitive look at the airlines’ rule 240

by Grant Martin on

Our good friend over at Airfare Watchdog, George Hobica, rolled up his sleeves this past week and dug deep into the muck of rule 240, the near-mythical term dictating how an airline needs to treat you in the case of a cancellation or misconnection. It’s kind of a tricky rule to wrap your head around, so I’ll let George explain it for you here:

“Rule 240 originally stated that in the event of a cancellation or flight misconnection, the airline would have to put you on their next flight out, or, if that wasn’t “acceptable,” on the next flight out of a competing airline if that flight would get you to your destination sooner, all at no additional cost to you. If only first class was available on the other airline, then they had to upgrade you. This only applied in circumstances under the airlines’ control, such as crew failing to show up, or mechanical problems.”

Back in the day each airline had one of these rule 240’s, but since deregulation in the industry many have stricken this rule from their operations. Each carrier, however, now has some derivative, which is where Airfarewatchdog came in and compared the differences.

It’s a handy guide if you ever get marooned by the airlines on the road and need to leverage a trip back. But a word of warning from a frequent traveler if you want to invoke rule 240 or some manifestation thereof: make sure you do your homework, know your airline, its rules and how they can apply them – you need to stay on the offensive if you’re going to get what the carriers have promised you.

Grab a scotch, take a deep breath and start reading the rules per airline over at Airfarewatchdog.com here.