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Good deals abound for the traveler willing to take a Taipei pit stop. Not only will the usual $100 landing fee surcharge be lifted, but if you stay two nights you can get a $79/night deal at participating hotels. The "I Land Paradise" promotion (which applies to any Asia-bound China Airlines or EVA Airways flight departing from a U.S. airport) starts Oct. 1 and runs until June 30.
The main problem with the promotion is that there are no direct flights from Taipei to China's mainland except during the Lunar New Year. So if you're on your way to China and want to take advantage of the deal, you'll need to go through Hong Kong and then catch a flight to the mainland. I've stopped in Taipei several times en route to Southeast Asia, but I've never left the airport. The lifted surcharge could certainly convince me to lengthen my stay.
Attractions include the Shilin Night Market (see The Kozy Shack's photo) and the National Palace Museum. For more stuff to see and do, check out AOL's Taipei site.
Ryanair's chief Michael O'Leary is considering budget transatlantic flights, but says he would create a new airline to run them. Name options include "something sexy like O'Leary Air or Ego Air," he told a news conference to promote Ryanair's latest flight deals.
All he needs is a fleet of new longhaul aircraft, which he's going to hold off on purchasing. Aircraft prices are currently at a peak, but they can fall by as much as 30 - 40% in a typical cycle. And like other budget airlines, there will not be first class; about 80% of the seats would be economy with a service for business travellers at the front. Furthermore, the airline would serve secondary airports, as does Ryanair.
No talk of fare prices, but I'm certainly in for a cheap(er) transatlantic crossing. Now if I could only convince a budget airline to fly Anchorage - Shanghai.... Any takers?
Several of the major carriers are currently in a frequently flyer mile fare war among short hop tickets. As many of you know, a normal frequent flyer ticket costs 25k miles or more. But as many more of you know, most of us have far less than that in our accounts.
In this case, many tickets (depending on the carrier) are about 15k miles. I just booked a ticket from Detroit to New York for a grand total of five dollars in taxes.
If you know your plans well enough in advance, book early. American Airlines, for example, charges an extra $50 in fees if you book inside of a 21 day window prior to departure. You'll also want to check the market price for your ticket; since the price of mileage tickets has gone down, so have the cash tickets. It may be better worth spending the $130 on the airfare and earning the miles against blowing your load on a cheap mileage ticket.
But for those of you who earn miles at a snail's pace or have 15k stranded miles in a random frequent flyer account, take this opportunity to get away for the weekend and visit some friends in New York for dinner.
American's fare sale is here while other carriers have similar pages. Travel between September 1 and February 29th.
That's a lot of big names all together. And there's one more: Travelocity. How are all these companies linked, besides under the umbrella of travel?
Answer: Amex's new travel "sitelet" Local Color, which has destination-specific search capabilities using Lonely Planet, IgoUgo, and Travel & Leisure. Lonely Planet provides the destination guides, Travel & Leisure contributes articles about classic and up and coming destinations, and IgoUgo supplies travel reviews. If you want to book a flight, just click on the link and you're whisked to the Amex-powered Travelocity site.
The site also has currency converters, access to "travel specialists," and a travel support center. In fact, there are so many services that the site is practically overwhelming. But it's fun to play around in and certainly informative.
As our colleagues over at Engadget reported earlier this week, it looks like cell phones are going to stay in the off and stowed position in aircraft for at least the near future. Apparently, the several proposals that were on the table were shelved after a considerable ruckus was stirred among people who enjoy their quiet time up in the air.
And I totally agree. It's bad enough to be sitting next to some schlub in Panera talking about how many used cars he sold this week -- I don't need to listen to it in an enclosed aluminum tube 30,000 feet in the sky. Wireless might be a reasonable alternative, as Catherine, Neil and Justin pointed out earlier this year, but if I hear any of you guys Skyping at from three rows away I'm dumping my seven ounces of cranberry-apple juice on your lap.
Alas, the long awaited 787 Dreamliner has been delayed, citing "challenges" in assembling the first products. Earlier this year, Justin reported the rollout of the first complete prototype, but even that was rushed to look nice for the media. For example, small gaps remained in the fuselage that the company glossed over for the purpose of the initial media blitz.
For those of you unaware, Boeing's 787 is slated as the next generation of aircraft: lighter, faster, eco-friendly and more efficient than its 20th century counterparts. To date, its been the fastest selling widebody ever before its entry into service and expectations are high.
As we've learned from the Airbus A380 and its repeated delays, however, numerous suppliers, production issues and bureaucratic tomfoolery come into play when producing a new airplane. EADS has already been through numerous management changes due to scheduling tiffs while shareholders are screaming bloody murder.
What we don't want to happen here is for Boeing to repeat these mistakes. More missteps and carriers will start dropping orders, more delays could occur and Boeing would take a hit on sales. And as one of the primary exporters in this country, our economy and the American people are counting on the 787 and Boeing's success. Cross your fingers.
If you happen to live in a city where the airline market is dominated by one carrier (Minneapolis: Northwest Airlines, Houston: Contintental Airlines, etc), you've probably been subjected to the semi-monopoly that they can impose. It irritates me how they can complain about rising fuel and air traffic control costs while they charge 350$ for a one way flight from Detroit to Columbus Ohio. Yes, that's 161 miles.
The thing to remember is that the price of tickets is dictated by the number of open seats and the demand for them; unfortunately demand is higher in hub cities where you have little choice of your carrier. But if you can get to a small feeder city where demand is lower, the price will often go down.
Take Detroit and Flint. The price for a DTW-SEAttle flight between October 15 and 22 is 716$. Plug in FNT-SEA though and you'll get 536$. Often times, the leg from FNT will connect in Detroit anyway and you'll get on the exact same flight that was 200$ more departing from Detroit. Sure, Flint is an extra 30 minutes away and you have to connect, but I'd do it for the extra money and frequent flyer miles in my pocket.
Another thing is, you don't have to fly all the way back on your return trip. If your flight is from CDG-MSP-STC (Saint Cloud, MN), you can just get off the plane in Minneapolis and have your buddy pick you up from there. Be careful though, bags will check through to your destination (domestically) and the airline will cancel the rest of your itinerary. Just be cautious, plan well and more of often than not you can work the system to your advantage. And you didn't hear that tip about skipping flights from me.
If you happen to be flying Northwest on or near a transatlantic (TATL) route in the near future, keep an eye out for the 757 with a UPS rudder. Looks like Northwest needed a replacement part and the only thing they could find was from a UPS jet. I guess if it comes to operating with a ridiculous looking plane for profit versus a broken plane with no profit you have to go with the money; but its also easy to see here how high of a priority aesthetics are.
A plane like this reminds of driving around in my hometown in West Michigan seeing the beat up junkers with off-color fenders and hoods. Heck, for a couple of years I even drove a '93 Ford Ranger that was tarp-blue with black quarter panels. And from my past experiences with these type of vehicles, well, it makes me kind of feel like this plane is kind of jerry-rigged.
But hey, it flies, right? Off the top of my head, the TATL 757 flies between Detroit, Hartford, Amsterdam and Dusseldorf, so if you're in those areas, stay alert. Here's another picture.
Believe it or not, there are other places to go on vacation besides Cabo San Lucas. Heresy! Heresy, I know, but give me time to redeem myself.
The three main factors in getting away for the weekend are budget, time and location. Sure you could get away for the weekend to Hoboken, but it really doesn't have the charm. And we'd all like to go to Fiji, but ticket prices aren't too competitive right now.
What Farecompare has done is created a tool that factors those two variables into one that displays the lowest price of tickets in a region against a Google map. It's called a Getaway Map; you know you want to get away at some point this fall, you know you've got three hundred bucks and you know you want to go somewhere in Central America. Plug in your hometown to the root Getaway Map page, click on the Central America page and you're set.
If you find yourself in New York any time over the next month, take some time to stop by the SKY360 Lounge that Delta opened up last week. Occupying an expensive piece of real estate on 57th street and 6th avenue, this new storefront is supposed to showcase the new changes happening at Delta over the coming months.
Among the cadre of activities for the public to experience within you'll find:
A (complimentary) coffee and soda bar, serving cocktails in the evening, with little pods in which to sit and enjoy them. Bring your laptop for free wifi as well.
Samplings of the new, exotic menu items inspired by Delta's celebrity chef. As dear Catherine and I pointed out last week, this is becoming the hip thing to do among airlines.
And my favorite, examples of the new leather coach and premium seats to be installed in the new 777 livery (pictured), integrated with the new Audio/Video On Demand (AVOD) system for your Sopranos fix.
Additionally, if you can manage to get your "friend in PR" to get you an invite, a variety of private events are happening in the evening, from an Esquire party to random hotties dropping in. I'm still trying to get there for a corporate event -- keep an eye out for me.
Recycled air, low humidity and close quarters -- all these factors make you 100 times more likely to catch a cold on a flight. So what can you do, save from wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves?
Ed Hewitt on Msnbc.com offers some fairly common sense suggestions. For example, Hewitt's first tip is to stay hydrated. I know this, yet all that free booze on international flights makes an 8-hour trip so much more enjoyable. Drinking lots of water might help you after the flight, but sometimes it's the here and now that counts. It's a touch choice.
Hewitt also recommends washing your hands. I'm sort of appalled that he even needs to suggest this -- I'd like to think that most of us are washing our hands regularly. When I travel I also bring handi-wipes and hand sanitizer for convenience -- and no, I'm not a germaphobe. It's just easier to sanitize than wash, dry, use a paper towel to open the restroom door so you don't re-contaminate your hands, hold door with your leg while tossing the paper towel away, etc.
One unexpected tip is to use mouthwash to kill germs and add another layer of protection while also keeping your throat moist. Remember to carry nothing larger than a 3oz bottle.
In this week's creepy chapter of Big Brother Watching You, Google has just started supporting searches for airplanes. Not carriers websites or airplane photos, airplanes currently up in the sky.
I suppose the technology has been around for a while; flightaware has semi-accurate flight routes if you ever want to see how you got from point A to B. It's just that Google has now made checking the location of your boss over the Atlantic easier than checking your email.
All you have to do is search by the carrier and the number. In the above photo, I typed NW49 into Google and it gave me three options: Expedia, Travelocity and FBOweb as tracking agents. FBOweb supports tracking over Google Earth, which is pretty neat if you have it installed, but for the bulk of you who just want to know when you have to pick up your friend at the airport, the others should do just fine.
I used to enjoy flying, but lately it's become such a chore. Long lines, delays, and uncomfortable seats. Well, Aviation.com offers some help for the seat situation. These tips won't get you through airport security any quicker, but they might make a long wait on the tarmac a bit more bearable. Here are a few of the tips for scoring a more comfortable seat:
Fly JetBlue. JetBlue's has added extra legroom on its Airbus jets, with at least a 36-inch seat pitch in the first 11 rows of its Airbus 320 fleet and at least 34 inches in rows 12-25 (seat pitch is the distance between any one point on the seat and that same point in the row ahead or behind). Some airlines have 32 or even 31 inches between seats.
Pay for an exit row. Gadling blogger Iva is all for upgrading to an exit row -- while it may cost as much as $75 for all that luxurious legroom, it's worth the price on an international flight. Aviation.com lists some exit row seats going for as low as $5.
Look for "premium economy." On United, you can sometimes upgrade to "economy plus," which has 5 more inches of legroom than regular economy. Frequent United flyers might want to look into Economy Plus Access, which allows passengers to reserve economy plus for themselves and a guest for a year of travel, which at $349 a year isn't too expensive.
Use miles to upgrade to First Class. I still haven't flown in First, but one of these days I'm going to cash in my miles for a taste of the good life.
These are just a few of many tips offered; it's worth reading the full article at Msnbc.com.
What happens when flight attendants do their own traveling? That is some of what you'll see if you live in Australia and have access to the new documentary Going Places, a creative marketing tactic from the folks at budget carrier Jetstar. While it's not exactly an Aussie version of Flight Attendant School, the eight-program series (which premiered today on Channel Nine) will follow eight Jetstar cabin crew members during training maneuvers and travels to several Asian countries and Hawaii. (Of course, these are all destinations where the carrier flies.)
Promotional material for the series claims that Jetstar is going behind the scenes at it "moves into the highly competitive international market." As Neil noted earlier this year, the airline was named Best Low-Cost carrier by Skytrax. The Australian-based airline runs dozens of flights within OZ and to destinations throughout Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Cambodia, Malaysia and others. They also fly to Honolulu from Melbourne and Sydney. (I recently flew them round-trip on a short hop from Melbourne to Hobart and was satisfied with the service and budget price - US $170.)
You can view an intro and clips from episode one -- looks like your standard reality-TV without too much excess drama. Will it make you want to fly Jetstar on your next vacation or sign up to work for the young company?
Everyone, at least one time in their life, should fly around the world.
This may sound like a very expensive option, but it can be surprisingly affordable when you consider the distance that will be covered.
One of the cooler round-the-world websites I've seen recently, AirTreks.com, allows circumnavigators the ability to plan their trip by simply clicking on various cities on a world map. It's very easy. In just a few moments, I was able to put together my own dream trip: Los Angeles – Reykjavik – Moscow – Bangkok – Hawaii – Los Angeles. The site quickly determined the necessary stopovers I needed to make and then estimated tickets prices as $2533 to $3343. Another click would have sent my request off to an agent who would then fine tune the itinerary and get back to me.
Good deals abound for the traveler willing to take a Taipei pit stop. Not only will the usual $100 landing fee surcharge be lifted, but if you stay two nights you can get a $79/night deal at participating hotels. The "I Land Paradise" promotion (which applies to any Asia-bound China Airlines or EVA Airways flight departing from a U.S. airport) starts Oct. 1 and runs until June 30. 
In this week's creepy chapter of 
What happens when flight attendants do their own traveling? That is some of what you'll see if you live in .jpg)
