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الاثنين، 28 ديسمبر 2009

IATA Projecting Improvements In Air Traffic


The International Air Transport Association reports international traffic for October shows improving conditions, although the industry is still on target for an $11 billion net loss for 2009.

IATA reports:
Passenger demand was up 0.5% compared to October 2008. Demand for international cargo rose to 0.5% below previous year levels. This is significantly better than the 5.4% decline recorded in September. Load factors for passenger and cargo continue at pre-recession levels of 78.0% and 54.1% respectively.

The improvement that started since passenger traffic hit bottom in March is similar to the pace of growth in 2006 and 2007. Without an exaggerated rebound from pent-up demand, there will be no rapid catch-up to the growth trend established in the 2005 to early-2008 period. “The crisis has cost the industry two years of growth. Adjusting costs and capacity to meet that reality will be challenging,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

The improvement in load factors to pre-recession levels is largely the result of careful capacity management. Compared to October 2008, overall passenger capacity on offer was down 3.3%. Stripping out seasonal fluctuations, passenger capacity has been essentially flat throughout 2009. Responding to the precipitous fall in cargo demand, October cargo capacity was 7.4% below the previous year’s levels.

Cargo capacity adjustments have come with many freighters being put into storage or retired, resulting in a fleet reduction of 4.9%. In contrast, the passenger fleet continues to expand by 1.8% as new deliveries more than offset those being stored or retired. Aircraft utilization for both wide and narrow-body aircraft is now 6% below early 2008 levels. This low asset utilization is increasing operating costs.

Yields remain under severe pressure. Although there has been a modest rise in air fares since mid-year, it remains around 20% less expensive to fly in real terms today than it was a year ago.

International Scheduled Passenger Demand:
  • Passenger demand is now 6% better than the low point reached in March 2009, but 5% below the peak recorded in early 2008.
  • Compared to September, seasonally adjusted passenger volumes rose by 0.8%. Carriers in all regions except the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and North America saw improved demand in October compared to September.
  • Asia-Pacific carriers saw demand grow 0.9%, lower than the 2.1% recorded in September. The carriers in this region, together with the European carriers, have seen demand rise the most from their low points.
  • While European carriers saw a demand decline of 3% in October, it is an improvement from the -4.2% in September. European carriers demand is still below the levels from last year due to weakness across the Atlantic and within Europe.
  • North American carriers saw significant growth in international traffic through the middle of 2009. Very significant capacity cuts across both the Atlantic and Pacific have reduced traffic carried in October to -2.6% below 2008 levels.
  • Middle Eastern carriers saw demand grow 14.3% (compared to 18.2% in September), the highest among the regions. The region’s carriers continue to add capacity, increasing 15.3% in October and outpacing the growth in demand.
  • Latin American carriers saw significant increases in the demand for air travel, growing 9% compared to 3.4% in September. The region’s carriers continue to add capacity, growing 3.7% compared to 2008


مرسلة بواسطة Blog في 10:33 ص 0 التعليقات

Looking Ahead to Travel in 2010: New Rules and Regs


The unofficial guide to traveling in 2010

Three new rules and regulations that will affect your trips in the new year

Steph Ulyett’s airline ticket should have said “Stephanie” of course, but she’s always gone by Steph, so that’s the name her partner typed into Expedia when he reserved their flights to Chicago.

Unfortunately, a commonly misunderstood Transportation Security Administration initiative called Secure Flight, almost made her miss her plane. At least that’s what she thought. A new government rule says the name you use when buying your ticket must match your ID — which Ulyett’s did not.

There’s good news for travelers like her in 2010. Several new laws and policies are scheduled to take effect next year that might upgrade the quality of your trip. Among them are Secure Flight, with its lofty promise to “improve the travel experience for all passengers,” a new credit card bill and stricter disability rules for airlines.

But back to Ulyett. The Derbyshire, England-based factory manager, whose partner had made her reservation on the Expedia.uk Web site, was told she couldn’t fix the name on her ticket. “The only alternative is to cancel your original booking and rebook your flights in the correct name,” Expedia told her in an e-mail. “In this case, I regret to advise you that your ticket is completely non-refundable, including taxes.”

That’s nonsense. Under Secure Flight, she might have been allowed to board her flight — TSA says it’s built “some flexibility” into the program (and hopefully, a little common sense) that would have allowed her to travel without any trouble. More to the point, United routinely makes notations on ticket records to clarify typographical errors or nicknames that inadvertently ended up in reservations.

United agreed. I helped Ulyett get in touch with a manager at the airline, and after explaining her situation, United let her change her ticket at no extra charge.

Which new rules and regulations will affect your trip in 2010?

Credit card bill (February 2010)
Remember the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act signed into law last May? The full rules takes effect late this winter. Already, credit card companies are required to improve disclosure of changes in terms and conditions and they must also give customers a minimum of 21 days to make a payment. But in February, a few new rules kick in



What does any of this have to do with travel? Plenty. One of the provisions of the law is that Congress will have better credit card industry oversight. Most travel purchases are made by credit card. On a related note, my colleague Bob Sullivan recently reported on the emergence of a new consumer protection agency that could also help credit card customers.

This law can’t happen soon enough. Credit card companies are raising rates in advance of February, and they’ve been imposing ridiculous fees, including ones for purchases made with overseas companies (even if the transactions take place in the United States, and in dollars). That’s what happened to Dickerson Moreno when he charged a hotel room in Atlanta to his credit card. His credit card, Citibank, added a 31 cent foreign transaction fee, “because the money that I paid in dollars was later exchanged to some foreign frequency, which is tantamount to a foreign transaction,” he says. “I was never made aware of this.”

But Curtis Arnold, author of the book “How You Can Profit from Credit Cards: Using Credit to Improve Your Financial Life and Bottom Line”, warns that credit cards may raise these transaction charges in the near-term. “Many of these fees now are currently in the three percent range, but are likely to go higher as credit card issuers search for additional sources of revenue in the months to come,” he told me. Arnold recommends checking with your card company before an overseas trip, just to make sure you won’t get socked.

Secure Flight (March 2010)
The stated goal of this government program is to “shift” pre-departure watch list matching responsibilities from individual aircraft operators to the TSA. But by far the biggest effect on passengers is that the names on their airline ticket and government ID now have to match. Secure Flight also requires airlines and agents to collect a passenger’s full name, date of birth and gender. Domestic airlines are expected to introduce Secure Flight through this spring. By then it will expect travel agents like Expedia to begin collecting the necessary data, according to the TSA.

Having a uniform — and uniformly-enforced — policy in place by next spring could be a positive development for airline passengers, who are mostly just confused at this point. But TSA-watchers like Edward Hasbrouck have their doubts. He’s unsure of the March deadline, for starters. “The actual deadlines will be contained in secret security directives from TSA to airlines,” he says. And even if the early 2010 deadline is met, reservation data can be made up to 11 months in advance, meaning that the program won’t be fully implemented until almost a year after the last airline starts collecting Secure Flight data. Hasbrouck has a more complete assessment of the program on a privacy blog.

Air Carrier Access Act (May 2010)
Another important rule that promises to make air travel easier for those with disabilities will take effect in late spring, making flights accessible, even if they’re on foreign carriers. (Many of the provisions of this rule were put in place this year, but extend to international airlines in 2010.) You can read the full rule here (PDF). The Air Carrier Access Act would allow passengers to carry FAA-approved portable oxygen concentrators aboard, as well as other medical devices, according to Candy Harrington, the editor of the magazine Emerging Horizons. “Basically because it will open up air travel to a lot more people, depending of course on their disability,” she says.

These rules are a long time coming. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard from passengers who wanted to carry oxygen onboard, but couldn’t. Hopefully, this will bring much-needed change to the system, not just for domestic air travelers, but also international travelers with disabilities.

Of course, we can have a revised Air Carrier Access Act, Secure Flight and a credit card bill, but what good are any of them without enforcement? In the next year, travelers are likely to learn the answer to that question.

Can a new regulatory agency stop credit cards from bilking us with foreign exchange fees? Can the TSA pull off Secure Flight without compromising our privacy — or, God forbid, forcing us to buy new airline tickets? And what happens when Grandma tries to bring her medical oxygen on board, and is denied?

I hope travel companies will do the right thing. But I’ve been around long enough to know otherwise.
مرسلة بواسطة Blog في 10:21 ص 0 التعليقات

Holiday Shopping Earns Frequent Flyer Miles





Did you know ….

I didn’t, but thanks to airfarewatchdog.com I am now a wizened internet shopper. No longer will I leave thousands of unearned frequent flyer miles on the seat back tray. I will go forth and shop my very fav shops and stores via links at the airlines’ Web sites.

I will upgrade to first class or fly to Paris with my airline flyer miles earned from my holiday shopping because, I am now a savvy consumer!

Let’s say I plan to buy a $3,000 iMac from Apple.com. Think twice, I tell myself. If I go to Continental Airline’s shopping site, I can earn four OnePass miles for each dollar spent at Apple.com (make that five miles if I charge the purchase using a frequent flyer credit card). That would mean I just earned 15,000 miles or a half a free round-trip domestic flight. A $5,000 purchase might get you enough miles for a free flight.

Hundreds of online merchants participate in these mileage offers. Here are some current deals from various merchants and airlines from airfarewatchdog.com. Just remember these offerings are subject to change so check the individual airline websites.

Delta Airlines
• 2 miles/$1 at Crate and Barrel
• 2 miles/$1 at the Container Store
• 3 miles/$1 at Starbucksstore.com
• 2 miles/$1 at iTunes.com
• 7 miles/$1 at Drugstore.com plus new customers get $10 off their first purchase of $50 or more
• 4 miles/$1 at Overstock.com
• 100 miles for a Costco membership

United Airlines
• 9 miles/$2 at Nordstrom
• 7 miles/$2 at Sephora
• 3 miles/$2 at Apple
• 4 miles/$1 at Avon
• 3 miles/$1 at Circuit City
• 9 miles/$2 at Brookstone

American Airlines
• 4 miles/$1 at Old Navy
• 2 miles/$1 at Walmart
• 10 miles/$1 at 800Flowers.com or 11 at FTD
• 5 miles/$1 at Drugstore.com

Continental Airlines
• 4 miles/$1 at Apple.com
• 8 miles/$1 at Target
• 20 miles/$1 at Godiva
• 6 miles/$1 at Gap
• 30 miles/$1 at Magazines.com
Everyday purchases, not just holiday gifts , qualify for miles, too. Do you regularly buy your contacts from 1800Contacts.com? Why not get 10 miles for every dollar spent? Are you a frequent buyer at Drugstore.com? If you buy via their site directly, you get no miles; get there via an airline shopping mall page and you might get as many as 10 miles per $1 spent. Same thing with purchases at Petco.com. And keep in mind that airline mall shopping is a painless way to keep your frequent flyer miles from going stale, since each purchase, even a 99-cent song at iTunes.com, extends your miles’ expiration date. MSNBC
I love this stuff! Now for a little shopping for this frequent flyer …
مرسلة بواسطة Blog في 10:10 ص 0 التعليقات
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