Delta institutes fuel surcharges on award flights — who is next?

by Grant Martin on

One of the perks of having a frequent flyer number used to be earning enough miles for a free ticket. Free being a relative term, because we still had to pay some taxes. Domestically, this was about five dollars, while internationally this could be up to fifty or a hundred. No big deal, I always had a few empty cans to return.

Not any more on Delta. Citing fuel costs, the Atlanta-based airline is now going to charge a 25$ fuel surcharge for domestic award bookings and 50$ for international itineraries.

“But Grant,” you say, isn’t an award ticket supposed to be FREE?

Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

These sort of shenanigans are what we in the community call “devaluation of miles” and are indirectly a product of downsizing in the industry. Airlines want you to use fewer of miles, so they make them harder and more frustrating to spend. Fewer award tickets = more revenue tickets = more cash on hand.

Devaluation is another reason that many passengers in the Delta/Northwest merger are a little concerned. While both CEOs claim that our miles and status are secure, neither will profess to if they’re secure in value as well. Sure, you have 100,000 miles, but our new Deltwest airline charges 150,000 miles per award ticket. With a 200$ fuel surcharge.

Expect more of the same petty fees to show up across other carriers as they scramble to raise extra cash — my guess is that this will be picked up by the other legacies pretty quick.

Delta’s fuel surcharges go into effect August 15th, so book your award travel before then.

Continental Airlines to join Star Alliance

by Grant Martin on

Continental just issued a press release saying that they’re entering a cooperative agreement with United Airlines, saying the two airlines will “cooperate extensively, linking their networks and services worldwide to the benefit of customers, and creating revenue opportunities and cost savings and other efficiencies.” This means that Continental will also join United in the Star Alliance.

For those of you who follow airline alliances, this means that CO will be dropping Skyteam, whose partners include Delta, KLM and Northwest, and picking up partners such as Lufthansa and US Airways.

Basically, Continental Onepass members won’t be able to accrue or spend miles on Skyteam anymore (similarly, partner airlines can’t spend miles on CO), but they can on Star.

It does not, however, mean that the airlines are merging — only that they’ll be collaborating on many routes, codeshares and other logistics.

In the current airline industry, this change was almost inevitable. Carriers are looking at ways to collaborate on operations and cut costs, just like Northwest and Delta announced earlier this year. With the two airlines’ combined routes and networks, a stronger entity will now exist that can better compete with the soon to be uber Delta Airlines.

No word yet on when exactly the alliance changes will take place and a schedule for the official divorce from Skyteam airlines. But if you were thinking about booking a ticket with your Skyteam miles on CO, now might be a good time to do it.

Photo of the Day (06/19/08)

by Kent Wien on

St. Maarten is the greatest location in the world for aviation spotters, and we’ve featured a number of those pictures here. But this one from matt.hintsa stands out for me because of the timing of the crashing waves.

I’m dying to bring my camera to that beach someday. While I’ve been there a number of times, I’ve never left the airport, so my pictures were only from this perspective.

Well done, Matt!

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

Politico: Delta pilots = Class, Northwest pilots = Trash

by Grant Martin on

Ah, there’s nothing like a little classist profiling to get rival unions a little fired up.

Remember that Northwest – Delta merger that was announced earlier this year? Wondering why you haven’t heard much news from it lately? Well, the brass has got their noses to the grindstone working hard to get congress to approve of the merger before the new administration moves in. And the pilots, well, they’re still arguing too.

You might recall that the two carriers earlier put the merger on hold because the pilots couldn’t agree on seniority issues. In the end, they decided to merge anyway and let the pilots figure it out during the process.

As Politico most-gently points out though, there are deep rooted difference between the pilots and the unions. Pete Janhunen of the Air Line Pilots Association put it like this: “When you work with Delta guys, you tend to think of a Fortune 500 company… Northwest is a little more upper-Midwest, a little more working-class and less formal.”

Mind you, this isn’t the only thing that sets the unions apart. But it’s one more barrier that the unions have to overcome before they can handshake on their integration.

I for one, work with a Northwest pilot right now who is the most pleasant, friendly person I have ever met. Perhaps Politico was painting with a bit of a wide brush.

[Interesting sidenote: check out the comment on the Flickr photo from one of our favorite regular Gadling contributors. Thanks for the photo!]

Five reasons to be happy about the Delta / Northwest merger

by Grant Martin on

Most passengers I’ve talked to in the Northwest and Delta communities have been pretty gloomy about the merger of the two airlines. Many see it as an excuse to cut out the best aspects of either airline and merge all of the cost-saving and sloppy parts together, from the old aircraft to frequent flier benefits to business lounges in the airport.

What’s done is done however, and we now need to start looking forward to a new global airline with new marketing, strategies and attitudes towards customer service. With that in mind, Gadling has put together the The top five reasons to be happy about the Delta and Northwest Merger

  1. More routes: With the combined volume or routes between the two airlines it should be easier to get from point A to point B on one airline, check your luggage straight through and deal with one customer service line.
  2. Better award availability: For those of us who do invest in frequent flier mile programs, it will also be easier to cash in our miles on the larger volume of available routes — without changing carriers.
  3. In-flight entertainment: Many of Delta’s domestic aircraft are outfitted with in-seat LCD screens. For those of you without a laptop or book on the plane, this can be a lifesaver for longer flights. Hopefully they’ll start upgrading the NW fleet as well.
  4. Reciprocal upgrades: It used to be that elite members from one carrier carrier didn’t get upgrades into first class on the other. With all aircraft now flying under the same banner, NW passengers can expect upgrades out of Cincinnati and Atlanta while DL passengers can get the same out of Memphis, Detroit or Minneapolis.
  5. Northwest flight attendants will now get to wear nifty red hats!

Don’t get me wrong either — there’s plenty to complain about in the merger, especially as we all consider the future of our miles and investments in each airline. These pros are but a silver lining as the merger clouds begin to form. Get ready for a storm.