Change? Not in my backyard!

Change is good, according to the old adage. In practice, we only believe it when it happens to someone else.

Over the last couple of months, it has become clear that several major airlines, notably American, are looking to alter the way they distribute their products to corporate travelers. Given that there has been no substantial change in the way they do that since 1976, you might think they were due.

But travel management companies and corporations like things the way they are, with all the airline content they need in one place: the GDS. Well, it’s not really all in one place – there are always a few airlines that don’t participate, or they don’t participate fully, or they have a deal or two that isn’t available through the GDS – but that’s generally brushed aside in the general homage paid to “full content.”

And TMCs and their customers aren’t really totally happy with the way things are. It’s getting more and more difficult to determine the full cost of a trip, given that so many elements of a fare – checked bags, meals, even the darned blankets – have been “unbundled.” They want more clarity on how much it’s costing their travelers to fly.

So the airlines and a few third-party technology companies, notably Farelogix, have tried to address these issues by building more modern connections between airlines and TMCs that can transmit richer information. They say this will enable airlines to offer truly customized packages of services to customers that won’t just offer old services with price tags slapped on (like checked bags) but will offer new services that customers will be happy to pay for (like inflight Wi-Fi). New front ends for TMCs would re-aggregate the revered “full content.”

Some people in the industry think this is a great idea. Others do not.

ASTA’s Paul Ruden, senior vice president, legal and industry affairs, and Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, held a press conference today in which they called for the airlines to “develop and deploy merchandising capabilities within the existing technology framework of your distribution system partners and corporate customers.” This had me scratching my head. What if those capabilities don’t fit into that framework? Should the airline product be limited to what works only within a GDS’s capabilities? Isn’t the GDS the mechanism that distributes the product, sort of like the company that distributes grocery products on delivery trucks? Do we really ask companies to tailor their products to suit the delivery mechanism? If something doesn’t fit neatly on a distributor’s truck, don’t you go out and find someone who has a different truck?

An ASTA-BTC document also says: “If airlines get GDS services for free, then economists will tell you that you have created a classic free-rider problem in which the user of the services has no incentive to do so efficiently or economically because someone else bears the freight. The concept is simple. Anyone who consumes a service that is paid for by someone else has the inherent incentive to over-indulge. Airlines themselves recognize this in their business model, which is why they assess a hefty service fee every time consumers using all but the highest priced tickets make a change.” Hello? For years, airlines have paid segment fees to GDSs, which then pay incentives to travel agencies for “productivity.” Isn’t that a “classic free-rider problem”? (Not to mention, the concept of “airlines getting GDS services for free” sort of came out of nowhere.)

One of the more mystifying items in document co-authored by Ruden and Mitchell was this: “We continue to be baffled by the incessant and near-trancelike incantation of XML by Jim Davidson of Farelogix and others.” I have seen Jim in action on a number of occasions. Passionate, yes. Animated, definitely. “Near-trancelike” is not how I would describe him. This struck me as a bit of a personal put-down, and frankly, it has me baffled.

I don’t know which side of this debate is the right one, and I certainly can’t predict the outcome, but I think the rhetoric is getting a little weird. We are talking about technology, not religion. During the press conference, I asked what would happen if the airlines forged ahead with plans for new distribution methods. Mitchell responded that “the market would decide.”

Bingo.

Coping with the BA strike

Talks between British Airways and Unite, the union that represents its cabin crew, have broken down, and the union says it will strike March 20-22 (that's starting at midnight tonight) and March 27-30.

The carrier has worked with Usablenet, a company that optimizes Web pages for mobile access, to develop a mobile change booking tool.

The tool can be accessed here.

A click. A life saved.

Sometimes the problems of the world seem overwhelm-ing: 2 million people die each year from AIDS, another million from malaria, 1.8 million from tuberculosis. Many more millions are living with these diseases. Newly infected people roughly equal the number of the dead. It’s all too much, we think. What can one person achieve?

A life. You can save a life.

Massive Good, an initiative facilitated by Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport, Mondial Assistance and the World Travel & Tourism Council, makes it easy.

Amadeus developed the technology that made it possible for a customer to click on a little box after booking a trip online. That click delivers a $2 micro-donation to Massive Good. Travel agents booking through the GDSs can ask customers whether they would like to donate. The process takes about 35 seconds.

The donation is less than what you would pay for a single espresso in steamed 2% milk, lightly topped with foam. The money goes to Unitaid, administered by the World Health Organization. But there are lots of other organizations lending support: the Millennium Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William J. Clinton Foundation. President Bill Clinton touted the program in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

American Express Business Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Voyageurs du Monde and the Global Business Coalition on HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria also are participating, and since the launch, Travelocity, Accor, the American Society of Travel Agents, the Travel Corp. and BCD Travel have pledged their support.

What can a click do?

One click buys treatment for two children with malaria. Five clicks will buy a sleeping net that not only keeps mosquitoes out, it is treated with a substance that kills them. A dozen clicks will cure one adult, perhaps someone’s Mom or Dad, of TB, while 25 clicks will treat a child with AIDS for a year.

This is a fantastic opportunity for people to make a difference while they are doing something they love: buying travel.

Kay Urban, chief executive officer of Amadeus Americas, is passionate about Massive Good (that's Kay in the photo, making her first donation). She believes this is a chance for the travel industry to come together and show its stuff. To join the effort, visit www.massivegood.org.

Some travelers see only the “sights;” others see the world, in all its glory and all its pain. Massive Good is using technology in the best way possible: to make it easy to save lives. And when it’s this easy, how can you not?

Yes, I want one

I am not an early adopter of much of anything. I bought cassette tapes until they stopped making them. I got a CD player just when everyone started getting MP3 players. I was the last person in America to buy a telephone answering machine and the second-to-last to buy a cell phone.

But I want an iPad, and I want it now.

I’m in desperate need of a new laptop. Every time I fire mine up, it growls, “Leave me alone.” But I have been wallowing in indecision about what should replace it. I need more than a way to check e-mail and connect to the Web. I do actual work while I’m on the road, and I need a keyboard that I can see without a magnifying glass.

So when the Apple guys announced that they would be selling “iWork for the iPad” for $30, I got really interested. When I saw the cute little keyboard/dock charger, I got all warm and glowy. When I learned that the iPad will fit in my handbag and weighs less than 2 pounds, I was in love.

Fortunately, I have friends with cooler heads. “Wait for Version 2,” they say. And I will. New tech toys always have their glitches, and what’s up with the non-removable battery? That’s a feature that is begging for problems.

While I wait for the Second Coming of the iPad (and hope my grumpy laptop holds up for the duration), I ponder how travel marketers will use it. TravelTainment has done fun things for travel agencies with Microsoft Surface, and travel apps for the iPhone are proliferating like mad. Will iPad inspire similar creativity?

It's all in the interests of our safety

Just in case you needed more evidence that this nation has lost its collective mind:

A 22-year-old University of Michigan student going through a security checkpoint at Philadelphia Airport was stopped by a TSA employee, who reached into her computer case and pulled out a small plastic bag of powder -- the sort of bag used to carry earrings, or drugs. He demanded to know where she had got it. And told her she'd better tell the truth.

As tears began rolling down her cheeks, the TSA employee said he was kidding, and “you should have seen the look on your face.”

http://tinyurl.com/yl9wc8b

Isn't this hilarious? Read on.

A US Airways Express flight en route from New York LaGuardia to Louisville, Ky., was diverted to Philadelphia because a flight attendant told the pilot that a passenger was behaving suspiciously and had something that might be a bomb. The TSA released a statement saying the diversion was due to a “disruptive passenger.”

The perp turned out to be a Jewish teenager who decided to use his time on the plane by praying. As is the custom of Orthodox Jewish men and boys, he strapped on tefillin – small leather boxes containing verses from scripture – to his arms and head. When he was taken off the plane, he and his 13-year-old sister were placed in handcuffs.

http://tinyurl.com/ylpn9kr

The TSA employee who terrorized the student apparently either resigned or was fired – “as of today, the employee is no longer with TSA,” Blogger Bob said on the TSA’s blog (which, by the way, offers hours of family entertainment) – but his identity cannot be released because his privacy must be respected.

OK, I have a few questions.

1. If a passenger makes a joke about terrorism, or just about anything, he or she is arrested. The passenger’s name would be splashed across the media. Why does a government employee get both a get-out-of-jail-free card and privacy protection?
2. The TSA guy apparently was involved in training screeners to look for “contraband.” Hello? I thought they were supposed to look for bombs and such. Yes, powder can be used in explosives, but what the TSA guy had was more in keeping with a package of drugs. Is the TSA once again engaging in mission creep?
3. Despite the fact that the terrorized passenger reported the incident on the spot, it took about two weeks for the TSA guy to become disemployed. And only after it became a news story. In fact, he wasn’t even taken off the floor after his “joke” was reported. What do you have to do to get fired from the TSA (besides ending up in the news)?
4. OK, maybe I should cut the ignorant US Airways flight attendant some slack, even though her job takes her to New York, which is probably home to more tefillin than any other place on earth. We can’t all know everything about every religion. But why was the praying teenager described as “disruptive”?
5. And why was his 13-year-old sister placed in handcuffs?

They brought it on themselves

The Transportation Department has ordered airlines to allow passengers to deplane after a tarmac delay of three hours.
This will be hailed as a victory by groups that have lobbied for such a rule. Over the last decade, there has been no dearth of gruesome tales of passengers trapped for eight or more hours on planes with no food, water or working toilets.
The straw that broke the camel's back was overnight captivity of passengers on a Minneapolis-bound regional jet that was diverted to Rochester, Minn., in August.
In reality, the rule probably won't prevent many of the more horrifying events, at least not initially. If a major snowstorm cripples operations at an airport and there are no gates to be had, there's little that can be done. You can't allow passengers to deplane on air stairs in the middle of a blizzard. Nor can you allow ground crews to move equipment around during a lightning storm. The pilot of the Continental Express flight in the Rochester incident wanted to deplane her passengers, but the Mesaba Airlines employee who was manning the station wouldn’t allow it.
But this is a wakeup call for commercial airlines, which have appeared to ignore the rights of human cargo to be treated as human beings.
Behind the scenes, several airlines have taken steps to reduce the number of horror stories. Some, like American, have worked on technologies that track trouble spots so that aircraft sitting on tarmacs aren't forgotten. Southwest has made a point of avoiding such situations and has procedures for dealing with them when they do.
Publicly, most airlines have claimed that they are at the mercy of events over which they have no control. They point out that the horrible incidents represent a small fraction of airline operations, overlooking the fact that they represent thousands of hours of human suffering. The same people who accept no deviation from absolute safety in the air have appeared clueless when it comes to caring for passengers on the ground.
Now they are going to have to pay attention. The good news: History shows us that when airlines pay attention to problem areas – on-time performance is a good example – things get better.

US despAIRWAYS

It’s been a long time since I’ve flown US Airways. I flew it last week, and I think it will be another long time before it happens again.
I ended up on a US Airways flight to Amsterdam because Continental, the airline on which I had piles of miles ripe for redemption, joined the Star Alliance. One day, it was offering SaverPass seats in BusinessFirst; the next day, the only thing available for the outbound flight was US Airways’ economy cabin.
This was a very sad experience. The itinerary was gruesome, with an eight-hour layover at Philadelphia. The airline would not check my bag through to Amsterdam because the layover was too long, so I had to claim it, drag it to the international terminal and recheck it. I guess they thought I might need something to do.
The flight was on a 757 – a terrible aircraft for transatlantic flights – and this one was showing its age. The bathrooms looked completely beaten up.
US Airways has taken the ancillary revenue concept to heart. Flight attendants marched up and down the aisles hawking movie headsets for $5 – this despite having only overhead monitors and no choice of film. They sold beer for $7. Budweiser. Seriously.
Saddest of all was the little “breakfast,” which confirmed for me that this airline has lost its pride. It didn’t even come with a plate.
My return flight was on Continental. I watched a couple of movies of my choice on the seatback monitor (no charge), had a gin and tonic for $5, was given actual utensils with which to eat and flew in relative comfort.
The old aphorism, “You are judged by the company you keep,” applies to airlines as well as people. If my loyalty to one airline is rewarded by a flight on a carrier with a far lower standard of service, I’m going to have to rethink where I buy my future flights.