Vegas airfare news

Cheap, last-minute trips to Vegas might be a thing of the past if you need to fly.

According to various reports, fuel prices will be causing cuts in flights to vacation spots. Delta will be cutting 45 percent of their flights to Orlando. Five carriers will be cutting a quarter of their flights to Hawaii.

Even Vegas won't get spared. US Air, Delta, and Northwest will cut their flights to Vegas by 25 percent.

A summary from USA Today:

Meanwhile, Las Vegas, the nation's casino capital and a magnet for low-fare carriers, is also drawing major reductions in service. US Airways (LCC), the No. 2 Las Vegas carrier after Southwest (LUV), will have about a quarter less flying capacity out of the city this October, more than 120,000 fewer seats. Delta (DAL) and Northwest (NWA) will be down about as much in percentage terms.

One reason is that the average airfare per mile flown on Las Vegas flights is among the lowest of any airport, according to consulting company Sabre Airline Solutions. In May, it was about 10 cents, compared with 16 cents a mile on flights from Minneapolis, for example.

US Airways' downsizing in Las Vegas includes eliminating its cheap "red-eye" flights that took off late and flew through the night to the East Coast.

"If there are plenty of seats to go during the day, most people would rather fly during the day than make a red-eye flight, so those seats are going first," says Andrew Nocella, US Airways' chief planner.

Bottom Line: ALWAYS be on the lookout for deals to Vegas (even though they might be few and far between). When you see a deal, be ready to grab it.

Baggage Fees and Airfire increases

First, you might have heard about American charging for even one piece of luggage. $15 for the first bag, $25 for the second bag, $100 for bags 3-5, and $200 for 6 or more. By the way, that's per way. So double that for a round-trip. (Source: NYT)

Yes, they have to find some way to make money (not that they will). But I see nothing but disaster in two ways. 1: People won't check bags and will take bags on the plane which means even longer security lines and jammed overhead compartments; 2: People will flee American Airlines (the fact that they are cutting the number of flights might make that decision even easier.

If I were in my old job running PR, I would tell the airline look seriously into announcing the fact that we are not charging for 1st or 2nd bags as a counter promotion. That would be smart. However, there is a reason why airlines are going bankrupt. The people in charge are idiots.

Like the Idiot of the Day: United Airlines.

So in the Dallas Morning News, United responded to this baggage charge with bits of news of their own.

United Airlines overnight has raised fares by as much as $60 for round-trip tickets, Bestfares.com CEO Tom Parsons said Friday. If this airfare hike is matched by the other major carriers, it would be the 12th successful increase out of 17 attempts since December 20, 2007. Travelers flying over 1,500 air miles one-way between markets without a low-cost carrier have seen their airfares jump by $340 roundtrip in the past five months

So who will be affected?

Bestfares.com said that United hiked fares $20 round trip for flights up to 400 miles, $40 for 401-750 miles and $60 for flights over 750 miles. "Many of these airfare increases only affect cities not served by a low-cost airline such as Southwest, Virgin America, JetBlue, Spirit or Frontier," Bestfares.com said.

Translation: We are going to punish people who aren't served by a low-cost airline. But don't worry. They will find a way to make it for all routes by the end of year (my prediction).

But the second bit of news from the DMN article.

The Associated Press quoted United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski as saying United was "seriously considering" charging passengers on domestic trips for their first piece of checked luggage.

Translation: If people accept American doing this, we will do it by August 1.

MSNBC has some predictions about flight cost in the near future.

• This luggage fee is a step too far. AA will eventually have to back off of the fee.
• Problems with controlling carry-on luggage will increase exponentially.
• Delays at TSA checkpoints will increase as more passengers bring more baggage through the inspection points.
• Delays at the boarding gates dealing with luggage arguments will further delay AA flights to less than a 50 percent on-time rating.
• Other airlines will adopt a wait-and-see approach to this dramatic fee increase, forcing AA to rethink their fee structure.
• The Transportation Department will force airlines to disclose these fees in their advertisements. This will allow other airlines to simply raise airfares without raising the total advertised cost of the trip. AA will eventually (perhaps before June 15) roll this fee into their airfares.

More Airline Trouble

Need help knowing if your American flight has been canceled. You can set it up to send a SMS through this page on AA.com

A quick search of the blogs tell me that people are not having mixed responses when calling the rebooking toll-free number (I would post it here, but if you are stuck in an airport, I have read they have them posted all over American's terminals). Midday: You might get disconnected. At night: better chance of getting a booking.

But there are worse places to be stranded than in Vegas. Out of the "goodness of our hearts", I won't rip American Airlines. :)

Here is the latest story from ABC News:

Thousands of passengers were stranded again today after American Airlines canceled nearly half of its domestic flights.

American canceled more than 1,000 of its 2,300 daily flights today to re-inspect wiring, just as it did two weeks ago. The carrier canceled 460 flights Tuesday.

Passengers at Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago's O'Hare airports were hardest hit today by the reinspections. Travelers in St. Louis, Austin and at New York's LaGuardia airport were also affected.

American officials said the situation remains fluid and they cannot yet rule out more cancellations today and Thursday.

"American will do whatever it takes to assist those affected by these flight changes and our employees are working hard to ensure that we remain their choice for air travel," said Gerard Arpey, chairman and CEO of American Airlines. "This includes compensating those inconvenienced customers who stayed overnight in a location away from their final destination."

The airline is again reinspecting wire bundles on its MD-80 aircraft, which caused the carrier trouble in late March. At that time, the airline explained that it is required to secure wiring at every inch, and the aircraft were reinspected because they may have had the bundles secured every 1¼ or 1½ inches.

The inspections are not a safety issue but rather a matter of precise technical compliance, according to the airline.

American Airlines operates 300 MD-80 airplanes, all of which were grounded Tuesday evening. About 30 of those planes were back in service as of 7 a.m. today. More are expected to be returned to service throughout the day.

Today's news comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill prepare to hear horror stories this afternoon about passengers stuck for hours in airports and on the tarmac. A House panel will examine aviation delays and consumer complaints during its fourth hearing in a series focused on airline consumer protection.

ATA closure affects Vegas

Hawaiians love to travel to Vegas. I regularly see them when I visit the downtown area. They are so personable and very cool to hang out with overall. The latest news about airline closures affects how they get to Vegas. From the Las Vegas Sun

The announcement today that ATA Airlines has shut down after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection severs another conduit for passengers between Las Vegas and Honolulu.

The Indianapolis-based airline – a code-share partner with Southwest Airlines, the busiest carrier at McCarran International Airport – had only one daily flight to and from Las Vegas.

But that flight was one of three daily nonstop round trips between Las Vegas and Hawaii’s largest city and capital, Honolulu.

Southwest’s code-share agreement enabled customers to book travel on Southwest to several ATA destinations. McCarran was one of four airports Southwest used to transfer customers and baggage through an agreement the airlines had since February 2005.

When booking flights with smaller carriers, check to see if they had a code-share agreement: a larger airline who will back them if something happens. Without an agreement, this happens (from Yahoo, bolding by me):

Airlines have a new attitude toward customers of failed carriers: It's your loss, not ours. With more airlines folding these days, the impact on consumers can be severe.

Passenger carriers are no longer required to honor tickets of failed competitors because Congress let a government protection for travelers expire in 2006. So when Aloha Airgroup Inc., ATA Airlines Inc. and Skybus Airlines Inc. all shut down last week, some airlines, including the nation's two biggest, refused to accept stranded ticket-holders.

That is a big change for consumers. They used to be able to buy tickets on struggling airlines with reasonable expectations that either the airline would keep flying if it went bankrupt, or other airlines would honor tickets for a small fee. Now, consumers need to be far more careful in picking airlines, especially for tickets bought months in advance.

Aloha Airlines also went Chapter 11, but will keep flying. They have a one-stop flight between Vegas and Hawaii.

No codeshare means you might have to pay an ungodly amount of money to get back home if you are stranded far from home. Back to the Yahoo article:

The carriers said they did offer tickets at discounted prices rather than full-fare, last-minute purchase prices. United said it offered a one-way fare of $275 from Honolulu or Maui to Los Angeles with no advance-purchase requirements, for example, and $475 from Honolulu to Chicago. American said it waived advance-purchase requirements so Aloha, ATA and Skybus ticket-holders could get discounted inventory if available.

But the reality is that at least some customers paid very steep prices. The Maui News reported several customers at Maui's airport said they had to pay $900 each for one-way tickets from Maui to Los Angeles on American. A spokesman for American, , says it is possible there was no advance-purchase inventory left when those customers called.

The kicker comes in the Yahoo article:

"We didn't have a code-share relationship of any kind with any of these airlines, so anything we do to offer people a discount is basically out of the 'goodness of our hearts,'" Mr. Wagner said. "Any discount we give is revenue lost, and we won't be getting anything out of their bankruptcies. So in a $100-a-barrel oil environment, anything that any airline does is generous."

Un-Be-lieve-able. Bad service, lost luggage, late flights, risk of being stranded, cramped seats, etc. Acting out of the goodness of their hearts might start improving their PR image around the country.

Increasingly, flying is becoming buyer beware.

(Disclosure: I flew to Savannah this weekend and the worse part was flying there and back. More on that later)