Tag: Gulliver

UNITED AIRLINES has just had a great month. Of course, there was the odd hiccup. First, the video of a bloodied United passenger being dragged off an overbooked flight for the crime of wanting to stay in the seat he had paid for. Then there was the giant rabbit, en route from London to Chicago to compete for the title of world’s largest bunny, who died in United custody with lawyers alleging the airline put the live beast in a freezer for 16 hours. Then there was the airline’s apology to the Paris-bound passenger who ended up in San Francisco instead. And the flyer whose trip was cancelled after he taped an argument with a United employee.

Yet despite this month of PR…Continue reading

THE Trump administration is considering extending its ban on laptops and tablets to include flights from Europe, according to CBS news. Security officials originally banned electronic devices larger than a phone on routes from ten Middle Eastern airports in March, citing intelligence that suggested terrorists might be planning to smuggle a bomb on board flights in such gadgets. CBS says that a decision on whether to include flights from Europe, including Britain, will be made in the next few weeks. “Sources say Department of Homeland Security officials are weighing the advantages of expanding the ban against disruptions it could cause,” it reports.

This blog has argued that, where possible, security services should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to keeping flyers safe. But there is no doubt that the original…Continue reading

WHEN Gulliver’s fiancée was growing up in Jeffersonville, Indiana, her uncle came for a visit. But as his flight landed in Louisville, just across the Ohio River from Jeffersonville, he was fast asleep. And he remained in that state as the plane took off again. It was not until an hour later that he sheepishly called his relatives to inform them that he was 100 miles away in Cincinnati.

Was that the airline’s fault? Perhaps the flight attendants should have done a more forceful job of making sure every passenger, conscious or not, was aware of his arrival in Louisville. But one can hardly blame the airline more than one would a train conductor for a passenger’s missed stop.

Earlier this year, a Dutch teenager in search of adventure before starting college booked a flight to Sydney. On his layover in Toronto, he thought that the plane he was boarding seemed awfully small to take him 10,000 miles to Australia. But the flight was designated as Sydney-bound, so he got on board. It was only after takeoff,…Continue reading

PEOPLE tend to disagree on which adjective best describes Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s strategy chief, but most agree that he is canny. So in reporting that on May 2nd, a rabbi tweeted a selfie with Mr Bannon posing in front of a whiteboard in his office, and thus “inadvertently” revealed a list of possible policies, it feels appropriate to use quotation marks.  

The picture, uploaded to social media by Shmuley Boteach, who likes to describe himself as “the most famous rabbi in America”, seemingly runs through policies for changing travel to America, among other things. Some of these plans—dutifully ticked on the list—have already been attempted. These include the suspension of a programme to admit Syrian refugees. But the pledge (as yet unticked) that is of most concern to a travel blog was “Sunset our visa laws so that Congress is forced to revise and revisit them.”

The idea seems to be to cause chaos. Taken to its extreme, suspending visa laws would, as the Skift website Continue reading

WHEN politicians feel they must summon industry bosses and implore them to treat customers better, it is a sure sign that the market is not working as it should. On May 2nd, a Congressional committee pleaded with airline bosses to improve service or, by implication, face legislation to force them to be nicer. Flyers, said Bill Shuster, the Republican chairmen of the House transport committee, are “tired of being treated inappropriately and without courtesy. Something is broken, and the obvious divide between passengers and airlines needs to be addressed.” Fix it, he added, or “we are going to come and you’re not going to like it”.

Among the executives hairshirting it to Washington, DC were representatives from American Airlines, Delta, Southwest and Alaska Airlines, as well as Oscar Munoz (pictured), the boss of United, which has become the emblem of just how disdainful carriers have become towards their customers. In the face of repeated criticism from Congressmen, the airlines did their best to sound contrite. Mr Munoz again repeated his mantra that the recent controversy, when a doctor was dragged semi-conscious from the seat he had paid for to make way for airline staff, “is not who…Continue reading

BUSINESS travel accounts for about a third of total travel spending in America, according to the United States Travel Association, an industry group. But Airbnb, a private firm which is probably the world’s second most valuable hospitality provider after Marriott, gets less than 10% of its business from people travelling for work. As the San Francisco-based company continues to expand, it’s pretty clear whom it will be targeting.

This week Airbnb is rolling out a new tool specifically for business travellers to book home rentals. All listings deemed “Business Travel Ready” (BTR) feature free Wi-Fi, a desk, soap, shampoo, a hairdryer, an iron and check-in with a doorman (or a digital lock). In other words, all the basic amenities of a hotel. The tool also allows companies to track their spending, receive invoices directly, and manage employees’ itineraries.

Even if it is still principally for vacationers, Airbnb has seen a surge in…Continue reading

UNITED AIRLINES is making amends. After an unconscionable incident earlier this month, in which a passenger who refused to be bumped from a flight was forcibly dragged off the plane, on 27th April the airline announced 10 policy changes aimed at preventing such indignities in the future. Chief among them are increasing the maximum compensation offered to passengers who agree to be bumped to $10,000, and an end to the practice of forcing passengers on the plane to give up their seats against their will, unless they pose a safety risk.

Bravo, United? Not quite. The airline had little choice but to make big, public, rapid changes. In a survey following the incident at…Continue reading

WHEN employees of Alitalia were offered the chance on April 25th to vote for pay cuts and redundancies to save the troubled airline, they spurned the opportunity. In some ways it is difficult to blame them. After all, in the past they have been able to rely on the Italian government to come to the rescue of the country’s flag carrier. 

That may not happen this time. Alitalia has lost billions of euros over the past decade. (Indeed, over its 70-year history its accountants have barely had need for a black pen.) The firm had pinned its hopes on a €2bn ($2.2bn) capatilisation plan. But that had been dependent workers accepting cuts that were negotiated by the government and agreed with trade unions. With the workers’ no vote, that cash is now off the table.

Alitalia has been here many times before. In 2008 it was placed into bankruptcy after the government blocked plans for a sell-off. In 2014, with the airline on the verge of failing yet again, the government helped broker a deal with Etihad, a Middle Eastern superconnector, which took a 49% stake. A plan to make Alitalia Continue reading

PEOPLE often enter a public toilet with a sense of trepidation; after all, who knows what horror might await behind the cubicle door. Even so, a passenger on a service between Manchester, Britain, and New York got a nasty surprise. 

Earlier this month an American air marshal accidentally left her loaded gun in the loo of a Delta Air Lines plane bound for JFK. According to the New York Times, the weapon was found by a passenger, who handed it over the to the flight’s crew. The crew then returned it to the officer. The Times says that the air marshal did not report her oversight to authorities for several days, as is required, and had been assigned to other planes in the meantime. Using unimpeachable logic, one former air marshal explained to the paper: “You can’t have inept people leaving weapons in a lavatory. If someone with ill intent gets hold of that weapon on an aircraft, they are now armed.”

The idea of placing armed air marshals on commercial flights is a divisive one. We have discussed the issue on this blog…Continue reading

“AFTER entering a competition a lucky punter wins first prize: a week’s holiday in Skegness. Second prize is two weeks there.”

For some reason this most ancient of British jokes came to Gulliver’s mind when he read about Tom Stuker in the International Business Times. Mr Stuker, it is claimed, is the world’s most frequent flyer. He is about to clock up his 18-millionth mile on United Airlines. And as the Boarding Area blog points out, 18m miles with United means just that:

United calculates million miler status based on your “butt in seat” revenue miles flown on United. That’s right, we’re not talking about 10 million award miles, or even 10 million miles taking into account elite bonuses for flying first or business class.

Mr Stuker is president of a firm that trains sales staff at car dealerships around the world. He has flown to Australia over 300 times for business and pleasure; he travels to Hawaii “three…Continue reading