Tag: Gulliver

THE GUARDIAN today is running a big story on the woes airlines will face after Brexit. According to the paper, European carriers have been told in private meetings with European Union officials not to expect the aviation industry to be given special treatment in negotiations over Britain leaving the union. That would mean that Britain will probably fall out of the European single aviation market, the agreement that allows any airline in the region to fly whatever route it pleases. That deregulation has brought about nothing less than a revolution for European travellers, who can now fly to hundreds of destinations across the continent, often for peanuts.

Unless Britain can negotiate a comprehensive new air agreement, leaving the market will mean that airlines headquartered in Britain, such as easyJet, will have to set up a separate European arm if they want to continue to operate routes within the remaining 27 EU countries. Rules on foreign ownership, which state that to fly within the union airlines must be majority EU owned, will also affect firms that are not based…Continue reading

THREE months into his presidency, Donald Trump has engendered little but despair among among travel-industry types. Restrictions announced today on taking laptops and iPads aboard airlines originating from eight Middle Eastern countries are probably reasonable (see Gulliver). But an ill-considered attempt in January to ban travellers from seven mostly-Muslim countries seems to have affected visitor numbers. When that order was shot down by the courts, and a revised one proposed, it turned out that it might cause longer waits for foreigners leaving the country. Then last week in his budget blueprint, Mr Trump proposed big cuts to domestic spending to help fund the military. Several of the programmes on the chopping block have implications for business travellers.

One such is a call to privatise the country’s air traffic control system. The budget outline says privatisation would make air traffic control “more efficient and innovative while…Continue reading

PASSENGERS flying nonstop to America from anywhere in the Arab world are now banned from bringing large electronic devices on to planes in their carry-on luggage. The Associated Press, citing American government officials, says the restriction applies to eight countries: Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But the only other Middle Eastern or North African country with passenger flights to America is Israel (which is also the country in the region that American carriers fly to). Excluding Turkey, that makes the measure, in effect, an Arab ban. All devices larger than a mobile phone must be checked in under the new rules, including laptops, Kindles, cameras and portable DVD players.

The reason for the sweeping measure is not yet fully clear, but Reuters quoted officials as saying it relates to a terror threat uncovered several weeks ago. CNN has gone further, directly linking the ban to a US Special Forces raid targeting Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni wing of the Islamist terror group. Its master bomb-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, is believed to have orchestrated at least three plots to detonate explosives aboard…Continue reading

WILLIE WALSH has spent much of the past few years stripping the frills from British Airways planes, at least on short-haul routes. The boss of IAG, BA’s parent firm, seems keen to ape the success of Europe’s low-cost carriers, such as Ryanair. Hence, everything that once distinguished it as a “full-service” carrier—whether a complimentary sandwich, a free checked bag or to the right to choose your seat—has been deplaned. The strategy has proved a success. Despite the weak pound, British Airways posted an operating profit of £1.5bn in 2016—about 80% of IAG’s total.

When it comes to long-haul flights, however, Mr Walsh has had to contain his cost-cutting zeal. On such routes, BA must compete against carriers that boast sparkling amenities, particularly at the front of the plane, such as Emirates and Singapore Airlines. So although BA has managed to skimp a bit in the premium cabins (by, for example, reducing the food options and downsizing the washbag) it is also investing £400m to upgrade its posh Club World service.

On transatlantic flights, however, the full-service carriers are facing a new threat to their business: low-cost long-haul operators….Continue reading

BUSINESS travellers face several uncertainties after Brexit. Will travelling to the European Union in future require a visa? Given the state of the pound, will companies start to crack down on expenses? And what happens if you get ill abroad?

This last question has perhaps been farthest from the front of road warriors’ minds—until this week. On March 15th, David Davis, the minister in charge of Brexit, told a parliamentary committee that it was “probably right” that once Britain leaves the EU British travellers would lose access to free or subsidised health care within the European Economic Area (EEA). Currently, British travellers are entitled to be treated as if they were a national of the EEA country (plus Switzerland) they are visiting if they have a European Health Insurance Card, or EHIC. Some 200,000 Brits received medical aid through the scheme while travelling last year, according to ABTA, a travel agents’ association. The card covers those who get ill or have an accident while abroad, or have a serious pre-existing condition that needs…Continue reading

TRAVELLERS sometimes have to show their travel documents five times when catching a flight: at check-in, at security, then occasionally at outbound immigration, before another check when boarding. Finally there is passport control at the destination. Each is a potential queue. So regular flyers will be interested in anything that might speed up the process. 

One answer could be facial-recognition technology. In the past few weeks, a number of airports have begun to introduce a system that will scan faces, match them with electronic passport photos, and allow those passengers it recognises to skip lines. 

In Tokyo, the government has been trialling facial-recognition technology in two airports since 2014. It hopes to introduce the system in full in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In France, Groupe ADP, which operates Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, began testing similar software in February. Queues at the airport have doubled since new security measures were introduced after terrorist attacks in 2015; this, thinks ADP, might be one way to ease the pain. In Canada, meanwhile, plans are in place to start rolling out facial-recognition kiosks this…Continue reading

THE licensed-taxi system can be a racket. Many cities suppress the number of permits they hand out, guaranteeing that the system favours drivers, not their poor passengers. For proof that demand can be deliberately kept well short of supply, consider New York City. In 2014, the badges that are required to operate a yellow taxi there were selling for over $1m each. Anyone trying in vain to find a taxi on a rainy morning in Manhattan could easily tell you the market was loaded against the customer.

In much of the world, that model has been disrupted. New firms such as Uber are successful because they are determinedly on the side of the customer. Hailing a car on a ride-sharing app is cheap, convenient and reliable. Which is why taxi drivers hate it.

Big cities across the world, from London to Hong Kong, have witnessed protests by cabbies, often backed by their powerful unions, trying to protect their cosy cartel. Luckily for passengers they have mostly failed. Since Uber has made inroads in cities like New York, the premium on taxi badges has plummeted (as has…Continue reading

LAST April, Etihad Airways, the flag-carrier of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, claimed that 2015 had been its fifth consecutive year in the black, with net profits of $103m. James Hogan, the firm’s chief executive, hailed the result as proof that Etihad is a “sustainably profitable airline”. Yet less than one year on, both Mr Hogan and his chief financial officer, James Rigney, have been eased out amid a “company-wide strategic review” to “improve cost efficiency, productivity and revenue”; reforms ill-befitting a healthy business. Just across the sand, Emirates, the flag-carrier of Dubai, has deferred orders for 12 double-decker Airbus A380s in response to a 75% drop in profits. Qatar Airways, the region’s other super-connector airline, has abandoned plans for a subsidiary in Saudi Arabia. After years of uninterrupted and speedy growth, the Gulf carriers are hitting turbulence.

Taken in isolation, falling profits and waning sales should be of no great concern to these industry goliaths. Low oil prices and jitters about terrorism may have sapped demand for business and leisure travel—particularly in their neighbourhood—but overall the global economy is holding up…Continue reading

AMONG the trove of American intelligence agency documents released by Wikileaks this week is one that instructs the country’s spies on protocols to follow while travelling abroad. Some of these are quite specific to the CIA’s needs. (“Talk to CCIE/Engineering about your planned TDY timeline,” the document begins, adding such tidbits as “Breeze through German Customs because you have your cover-for-action story down pat.”) But others are just good common-sense business travel tips—for spies and corporate sales managers alike.

The first universal advice in the document, which appears to be designed for spooks visiting an operations base in Frankfurt, is this: “If you are using a personal credit card, be sure to call your credit card company and notify them of your travel to Germany.” That seems like sound guidance. Even better is the pithy advice on which airline to fly with:

Flying Lufthansa: Booze is free so enjoy (within reason)!

Flying United: My condolences, but at least you are earning a United leg towards a status increase.

Hardly…Continue reading

IF YOU are an Iraqi, or a Syrian refugee, President Donald Trump’s new travel ban will seem like an improvement over the old one. But a little-noticed clause in the measure could make travelling to America a much greater hassle, even for people carrying passports that spare them the toughest restrictions, such as Europe and Asia.

The major provisions of the updated executive order, which Mr Trump signed on March 6th, have been well publicised. The decree will once again face swift legal challenges but, if it survives, citizens of six majority-Muslim countries will still be barred from entering America for the next three months. Iraqis, though, will now be exempt from the ban and the indefinite exclusion on Syrian refugees has also been lifted, once a 120-day period has expired.

However, the Daily Beast spotted a provision on the collection of biometric data. The issue is not actually new. After the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed a law mandating the collection of such things as fingerprints and photos from…Continue reading