Tag: Gulliver

IT IS a classic traveller’s dilemma: you are waiting in the boarding area for your flight, and an airline employee asks over the loudspeaker if anyone is willing to be bumped in exchange for a voucher. You like the idea of sacrificing the unimportant meeting you were scheduled to attend in return for a few hundred dollars of travel credit. Then again you do not fancy explaining this to your colleagues, or sitting about in an airport for three hours waiting for the next flight.

Now imagine that instead of having to make this decision just before you board, you could do it do it several days in advance, in the comfort of your home. Changes the equation a bit, does it not?

United Airlines is contemplating a new scheme along these lines, called the Flex-Schedule Program. If a flight is overbooked, or looking like it might be, United will contact passengers who have signed up to the scheme up to five days ahead of departure. They will be given the option of switching to a less popular flight on the same day between the same…Continue reading

PILOTS are taught that a too-hard landing is better than a too-soft one. A plane can absorb more shocks than one might think, but a runway is only so long. But when it comes to Brexit Britain’s government seems to differ. And as the deadline for Britain’s secession from the European Union approaches, the spectre of a hard Brexit has some airlines scrambling. For carriers with big operations in Britain, the terms of Brexit cannot be cushioned enough.

Of most concern is that a hard Brexit will involve Britain leaving the European Common Aviation Area. Europe’s open skies fall under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, whose yoke the country must be free from, insists Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister. That in turn would bring into question the right of British carriers to fly routes within the EU. The most pessimistic within the industry, including Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, say that unless a new bilateral agreement is agreed, there is a real prospect that flights between Britain and the continent…Continue reading

PILOTS are taught that a too-hard landing is better than a too-soft one. A plane can absorb more shocks than one might think, but a runway is only so long. But when it comes to Brexit Britain’s government seems to differ. And as the deadline for Britain’s secession from the European Union approaches, the spectre of a hard Brexit has some airlines scrambling. For carriers with big operations in Britain, the terms of Brexit cannot be cushioned enough.

Of most concern is that a hard Brexit will involve Britain leaving the European Common Aviation Area. Europe’s open skies fall under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, whose yoke the country must be free from, insists Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister. That in turn would bring into question the right of British carriers to fly routes within the EU. The most pessimistic within the industry, including Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, say that unless a new bilateral agreement is agreed, there is a real prospect that flights between Britain and the continent…Continue reading

CONGRESS is sick and tired of unfair competition to America’s airlines from the three big Gulf carriers, Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways. So on June 28th, 17 representatives from the state of Illinois wrote a letter to the secretaries of State, Transportation and Commerce complaining about the subsidies these airlines receive from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Illinois is home to one of the America’s biggest hubs, O’Hare International in Chicago. Nearly 25,000 people in the state are employed by American Airlines, United and Delta.

The letter followed similar ones from congressional…Continue reading

GULLIVER is rarely fazed by what happens below the line of his posts. Receiving the occasional shoeing from readers—sometimes insightful, sometimes not—goes with the job. And he has certainly found his views swayed by well-reasoned arguments he finds there.

But he was truly gobsmacked at the discussion that ensued from a piece last year about the sexualisation of flight attendants. The post noted a few of the seedier airline hiring practices, such as asking potential recruits, some just 15, to take part in a bikini competition, or carriers refusing to employ married women. It then concluded with what seemed to be an an uncontroversial suggestion: female cabin crew should be chosen for their abilities, not for their allure.

It turns out that such woolly liberal thinking is merely the product of the bubble he lives in, according to some readers. “A mixture of silly puritanism and pseudo-egalitarianism,” said one. “Boo hoo why do pretty…Continue reading

HOW do you best judge the success of an airline? One obvious way is to ask whether lots of people fly with it, and if it makes pots of money for shareholders. Judged on these metrics, few can quibble with the direction that British Airways is heading. Last year 42.1m people flew with the airline, nearly 10m more than in 2011. In 2012, IAG, the airline’s parent firm, posted a loss of €716m ($816m). In 2016 it made a profit of €1.9bn.  

Shareholders, then, have little to grumble about. One of the ways that the airline has prospered is by focusing on its costs. When Willie Walsh, himself an avowed cost-cutter, moved from the hot seat at BA to running IAG in 2011, he appointed Alex Cruz from Vueling to carry on his work. As befits the former head of a budget carrier, Mr Cruz has continued to strip many of the frills from the once full-service airline.

Passengers and staff are not so happy with the changes. The airline has suffered four computer failures over the past year. The last one, in May, knocked out many…Continue reading

TWO more airports have joined Abu Dhabi in having a laptop ban lifted. On July 5th passengers flying from Dubai or Istanbul to America were told that they will once more be allowed to take large electronic devices into plane cabins, rather than having to stow them in the hold, which they have been required to do since March. That will come as a relief to passengers of Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Etihad who have been forced to fly without their laptops and tablets. It follows a change of heart by John Kelly, America’s homeland security secretary. On July 28th, Mr Kelly’s department decided again to trust foreign airports with screening laptops for hidden explosives, so long as they upgraded security. Other airports affected by the ban are expected to pass muster in the coming days and weeks.

That is good news. But America would do well to get its own house in order as well. Fox 9 Continue reading

TWO not entirely unrelated pieces of aviation news have come out of the Gulf in the past few days. The first is that America has lifted its laptop restrictions on Etihad. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) imposed a ban on large electrical devices in the cabins of planes flying from ten Middle Eastern countries in March, including from Abu Dhabi, Etihad’s base. Officials, it seemed, had got wind of a specific terrorist threat, possibly similar to the attempted downing of a jet in Somalia in 2016. On that occasion a passenger detonated a small explosive concealed in a laptop that was placed flush against the cabin wall. (Disaster was probably only averted because the man detonated the device too soon after take-off. The terrorist, who was sucked to his death through the resulting hole, was the only casualty.)

After months of mixed messages (at one point John Kelly, the homeland security secretary, suggested that the laptop ban was “likely” to be extended worldwide) last week the DHS Continue reading

BUSINESS travellers, you can rest easy. Or, rather, you can forget about resting easy and continue to work through your flight. The anticipated expansion of a ban on laptops and other portable electronics devices in carry-on bags on flights to America is not coming to pass. Instead, you might be facing longer lines in airports around the world.

In March, citing security threats, the American and British governments banned electronic devices larger than cell phones in the cabins of flights from some Middle Eastern and North African countries. That wrought havoc on travellers and airlines alike. The Trump administration was considering introducing the restrictions worldwide. Indeed, John Kelly, the homeland security secretary, had said that an expansion of the laptop…Continue reading

TO THE many invasions of privacy that have become commonplace in air travel—the pat-downs, the hand swabs, the shoe removal, the endless rummaging through luggage by security agents—one more may soon need to be added: the examination of reading material.

Last month, America’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ran tests at airports in California and Missouri that required passengers to remove all books and magazines from their carry-on bags and put them in plastic bins to be x-rayed. John Kelly, the homeland security secretary, said that the agency “might and likely will” impose that requirement at all airports. “What we’re doing now is working out the tactics, techniques, and procedures, if you will, in a few airports, to find out exactly how to do that with the least amount of inconvenience to the traveller,” he said.

The agency’s concern is that dense papers can block x-ray scanners, or could potentially be used to conceal weapons. A TSA spokeswoman Continue reading