Tour Operators

This section combines information and news from popular tour operators and airlines.

By Joe Brancatelli

NEED TO KNOW

• Southwest Airlines has ended its no-pets policy & now permits small cats & dogs in the cabin for a one-way charge. The pets-welcome policy was effective on June 17.
• Separately, Southwest raised its third-bag fee to ; Southwest still permits travelers to check two bags free of charge.
• Bankrupt Frontier Airlines, which has been profitable for the past six months, is expanding again. It will resume regional-jet flights to Tulsa from its Denver hub on August 2. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joe Brancatelli

BIG-CITY BEAT

Southwest Airlines Decides It Can Make It in New York: It's the reverse of that song New York, New York: Having already made it anywhere, Southwest Airlines is hoping to make it "there," meaning New York. The 800-pound gorilla of discounters and the nation's only consistently profitable airline, Southwest adds New York's LaGuardia Airport to its route map on June 28. The initial schedule includes five nonstops a day to Chicago's Midway Airport and three nonstops to Baltimore/Washington. Although Southwest is trimming its total capacity this year, the LaGuardia launch is part of the carrier's push into big cities that it once shunned. In March, Southwest began flying from Minneapolis-St. Paul; it began with flights to Midway and adds three MSP-Denver flights on May 26. The carrier also launches flights at Boston's Logan Airport in the fall. About the only major metropolitan area still off the Southwest route map now is Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport.

COMFORT CHRONICLES

Air France Adds a Premium Economy Cabin: Air France is joining the ranks of carriers adding a fourth cabin, premium economy, on its long-haul flights. The so-called Premium Voyageur section launched April 1 on flights from Paris to New York's Kennedy Airport, Tokyo and Osaka. The cabin will feature a "fixed shell" seat that reclines in its own housing rather than into the space of the passenger in the row behind. The chair is 18.9 inches wide, reclines 123 degrees and offers 38 inches of legroom. In-flight service is a hybrid: Passengers in the new cabin receive a standard coach meal with some business-class perks such as an amenities kit. The chairs are equipped with 10-inch monitors and an on-demand audio-video system. Travelers who pay the premium economy fare, starting at an all-in price of about ,430 roundtrip between New York and Paris, can use dedicated check-in desks and receive priority boarding and larger checked-baggage allowance. By the way, the launch cities for the premium economy cabin are not kismet. Air France's competitors on the Japanese routes, Japan Airlines and All Nippon, already have premium economy service. And OpenSkies, the British Airlines boutique carrier that flies to Paris from Newark and Kennedy, sells advance-purchase business-class seats for about the same fare that Air France will charge for premium economy. Speaking of OpenSkies, it has finished absorbing L'Avion, the French all-business-class carrier. The airline has also renamed its premium economy class the "Biz Seat" to differentiate it from the beds in its more traditional business class, which is now called — wait for it — the "Biz Bed."

HOTEL HOT SHEET

The Worldwide Hotel Glut Continues to Grow:
You
have to wonder whether hotel owners wish they had a gigantic cork to
stick into the lodging-development pipeline, which continues to spew
forth new properties despite the global glut of rooms. Here's what's
new: a 110-room Hampton Inn & Suites in Providence, Rhode Island, located in the historic Old Colony Bank building; a 150-room Aloft hotel Washington National Harbor
mixed-use complex on the Maryland side of the Potomac River; a 336-room
Shangri-La in Tainan, Taiwan; and the ninth Marriott in Beijing, this
one a 321-room property in the Chaoyang district. Meanwhile, a 120-room
Hilton Garden Inn has opened on the site of the old Milford jai alai in Connecticut. And a joint Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites has opened in Hanover, Maryland, not far from Baltimore-Washington Airport.
The complex offers 250 rooms and suites, 151 of which are branded
Garden Inn and 99 of which are considered Homewood Suites. Marriott has
long offered multi-brand complexes in some markets. … Hyatt Place,
the impressive limited-service brand Hyatt is building from the old
AmeriSuites chain, continues to expand. It has added new or renovated
locations in Estero, West Palm Beach and Jacksonville, Florida;
Lexington, Kentucky; and Herndon, Virginia.

Related Orbitz resources:

• Business travel
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• Washington, D.C. hotels
• Minneapolis hotels
• Denver hotels
• Paris hotels

Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2009 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.

By Joe Brancatelli

LOVE FEST

American Airlines Drops Dallas/Love Service–Again: Business travelers have lost count of the number of times the bosses at Dallas/Fort Worth-based American Airlines have launched flights at Dallas/Love Field. Whenever a competitive threat appears at Love Field, American begins flying inexpensive, competitive service. And as soon as the threat disappears, so does American. But this time American ran into Love-based Southwest Airlines, a competitor it couldn’t push around.

After a change in the Wright Amendment permitted Southwest to fly to new cities from Love in 2006, American piled in, too, launching flights to Chicago/O’Hare, Kansas City and St. Louis. The St. Louis and Kansas City flights disappeared almost immediately. American has now announced that it’ll drop the O’Hare service on June 11. But don’t worry, American says it’ll be back at Love in 2013, when a new terminal is due for completion. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joe Brancatelli

AIRPORT REPORT

New Routes, New Clubs, New Troubles for Clear: Delta Air Lines is resuming some intra-Florida flights it dropped last year. Thanks to a .5 million subsidy from Florida taxpayers, Delta’s commuter operation will fly daily service from the state capital of Tallahassee to Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando. The nonstop routes, using 32-seat turboprops, resumed April 1. … The commuter operation of United Airlines is adding two new routes from Chicago/O’Hare. Beginning June 4, there will be daily flights from ORD to Bismarck, North Dakota, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. … Priority Pass, the membership plan that allows travelers to access 600 airport clubs worldwide, has added a slew of new lounges. Among the new facilities: the Relax Lounge at LAX; lounges in Toronto/Pearson, Gothenburg, Sweden, and Manchester, England; eight TAM Airlines clubs in Brazil; a lounge in Chennai, India; three lounges in Indonesia; two clubs in South Africa; and two clubs in Vietnam. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joe Brancatelli

Delta Will Draw Down Some International Service: From the moment it declared bankruptcy in 2005, Delta Air Lines began shifting massive amounts of capacity to international routes. It has launched dozens of logical routes and almost as many insane ones. Most recent entry in the insane ledger: three weekly flights between its Atlanta hub and Brasilia, Brazil, scheduled to begin on December 11. With its recent merger partner, Northwest Airlines, Delta’s operations are now 40 percent overseas. But the worsening economy is finally catching up with Delta’s international plans. Read the rest of this entry »