Mobile phone usage coming to Ryanair

And they don’t have a profit center built around this new product.  According to the carrier’s head honcho Michael O’Leary mobile phone usage will be coming by the end of the month on an experimental basis, pending final regulatory approval.  Rates will be “normal” roaming rates, with O’Leary stating that “There’s no way that we can take a cut” of the revenue from the service.  I actually find that hard to believe since they have to carry the equipment to facilitate the service which will cost them money, but I guess we have to believe him since he’s made the claim and I can’t prove otherwise.

Particularly entertaining to me is the concerns people are sharing of the middle-of-the-night call somewhere over the Atlantic or other long-haul flights.  First-off, Emirates already allows some mobile usage on their longhaul flights and the crew can shut off the service on the night flights.  Second, Ryanair doesn’t fly longhaul flights.  And it isn’t clear based on the articles I’ve seen, but I’m willing to bet that they will be using a terrestrial service, not a satellite service for the connectivity, meaning it wouldn’t be available over the oceans even if the airline flew those routes.

I’ve made calls on planes before, back when Verizon owned the Airfone service in the USA and it wasn’t too expensive for their customers.  And I’d do it again in a similar situation, but it just isn’t worthwhile for random conversations.  Considering that folks are already cutting back on discretionary spending with respect to mobile phones (see Vodaphone’s earnings announcement from this quarter if you don’t believe me), I doubt that this is really as big an issue as people are making it out to be.

Bidding for bumps

Love it or hate it, overbooking of flights is a staple of the airline revenue management scheme.  And when the airline bets wrong and has too many folks for their flight, someone isn’t going to actually fly on their preferred flight.  If there are no volunteers the rules for compensation are actually pretty clear, as they are defined by the federal government (and recently the values all increased).

But when the airline goes looking for volunteers the rules are rather flexible.  The airline can offer anything they want, and if they get a taker, that’s what the price is.  For some folks it might be a meal voucher and an upgrade on the next flight out.  For others, a “free” ticket.  Still others go for a travel voucher as their preferred compensation (this is the only one I’ll take, for many reasons).  Northwest has recently taken the bump compensation process to another level, soliciting bids from passengers for how much it would take for them to not fly.  Passengers are reporting that they are being prompted during the check-in process if they are interested in a bump and how much it would cost for them to fly at a later time.  And instead of going with the first volunteers the airline can go with the cheapest option.  The reverse auction style approach is likely to save the carrier a few dollars over time, and every little bit helps these days.  It also means that it’ll be harder to fund travel habits with the “bump” game.

As an aside, my best sequence of bumps was one ticket that got me to Alaska, Ireland and half-way to India on a sequence of consecutive bumps.  Very nice for us.

There's a dent in my plane, Dear Liza

Dear Liza. There's a dent in my plane, Dear Liza, a dent.

And so here I sit at JFK, waiting to find out if the dent can be repaired or if the plane is no longer airworthy. The most annoying part is that apparently the cargo folks noticed it as soon as the plane landed but they didn't get around to trying to fix it until departure time. Not really sure what they were waiting for, but here I sit with 150 new friends, waiting to find out if we get to fly today or not.

On the plus side, the reservations agent I called was able to block a seat for me on the next flight out, so I'm pretty well set in that regard. But I really don't want to sit here another 3 hours to use that benefit.

Please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle

This includes not attempting to open any of the doors while the airplane is in flight.  While this seems like a pretty reasonable and logical approach to air travel, a couple guys managed to mess it up this week.  In both cases jailarilty ensued.

First up is a Brit on his way to frolic in sunny Cuba.  Apparently he got drunk and decided that he was no longer interested in remaining on the plane.  Sadly, he was still at 36,000 feet, meaning that he didn’t have much of a choice.  The flight diverted to Bermuda where it had to remain overnight because the crew timed out.  The flight continued on to Cuba the next day. (Link 1, Link 2)

Next on the blotter is another drunk (shocking!) on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles.  This guy decided that he wanted to fly naked.  That plan was derailed by the General Manager of the New England Revolution MLS team.  The guy put his clothes back on but decided that the clothing requirement of the flight was just too much so he decided to depart as well, again at altitude.  The flight diverted to Oklahoma City to drop the guy off with the FBI before continuing on to LA about an hour and a half late.  Of interest in this particular case is that the flight in question included the MLS team on their way to a match in California.  Well, that might be of interest to someone if they actually cared about MLS, I guess.  On the plus side, it should be easy to get this guy to the appropriate trial location since Oklahoma City is the home of the US Marshall’s service Con Air transport service, delivering 175,000 “passengers” a year safely to their destination.  Interestingly the TSA didn’t notice that this guy was a danger to our air travel network, presumably because his toothpaste tube was the appropriate size and that seems to be all that matters these days.

Finally, a note for anyone who is considering trying to open the door in-flight.  You can’t.  It actually just won’t work.  The pressure differential between the cabin and the air outside actually presses the door into place, preventing it from “popping out.” So even if you make it to the door and aren’t subdued and zip-tied back into your seat, you’re not getting it open. 

New York Summer Streets

New York City is a great place for bicycling, as long as you don’t actually want to be on the streets.  Whether it is a quick ride across the Brooklyn Bridge, a loop around Central or Prospect Parks or even a ride out to Coney Island along Ocean Parkway, there are some great rides.  Riding on the actual streets, however is a risky move, requiring nerves of steel and a rather aggressive outlook.  Also, a helmet is a good idea for when you bounce off the fender of a car (twice, in my case) or fly over your handlebars trying to avoid a pedestrian crossing against the light (only once for me).

Fortunately, folks looking for a calmer ride on the city streets will get a great opportunity this August, when the City shuts down vehicular traffic on a route from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park on three consecutive Sundays in a program they are calling Summer Streets.

"We anticipate that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and visitors will take advantage of streets temporarily opened for recreation," said Mayor Bloomberg. "We hope the Summer Streets experiment will become as much a part of the New York experience as strolling the Coney Island boardwalk, participating in the 5-borough bike tour, or listening to the Philharmonic in the park."

"In Bogotá, they call it Ciclovia, or bikeway. In Paris, it's the Plage, or beach. Here in New York, Summer Streets will literally turn the streets of our city into a pedestrian park," said Commissioner Sadik-Khan. "The streets themselves are among the most valuable public space that the City has to offer, and finding the room within our existing street space for those on two feet or two wheels is a true application of our goals for a sustainable future under the Mayor's PlaNYC initiatives and the DOT's strategic plan."

I can’t wait for this to happen.  I’m looking forward to getting my bike out and riding the length of the path.

Also, as a bit of a public service announcement, if you are considering taking advantage of the 5-borough bike tour as an opportunity to say DON”T DO IT.  The crowds are ridiculous, and while riding on the BQE is fun, the overall experience is not one I can recommend.

Fees rise at Continental

With all the airlines announcing new or increased fees in the past couple months in an effort to generate a bit of incremental revenue it is not much of a surprise that Continental pre-announced some new fees today that will go in to effect on August 17th.

The most significant change in the fees is that for changing or canceling a reward ticket.  This used to cost $35-50 and in a month that fee will jump up to $150.  It will still be free for Platinum Elite members, which I’ll do my best to take advantage of while I still have that status.

Fees are also increasing for the issuing of reward tickets within 3 weeks of travel (formerly 2 weeks).  I’m a bit torn on this one as it will still likely be less expensive than buying the tickets outright, but it doesn’t actually cost the airline any additional money to issue the ticket today or in three months, and generally availability starts to open up again closer to the date of travel if seats aren’t selling, so this cuts both ways a bit.

If you like to buy a coach ticket and use miles to upgrade to BusinessFirst the cost will be increasing there as well, between $50 and $100 each direction.  I actually think that this increase is completely fair, but I also never use this benefit (once, 4 or 5 years ago), so I’m probably not a good bellwether for it.  Overall it seems that the costs would be about $2000-2500 (including the value of the miles) for the cash+miles ticket, which seems reasonable.  It was better when it was only $1700-2200, but it happens.

Continental is also now removing the ability to hold tickets.  All tickets will need to be purchased at the time of making the reservation.  The good news is that here will be a 24-hour window for free changes/cancellations, but the no hold rule is a bit tough, especially if you’re trying to put together a round-trip itinerary and only one direction is available.  If you don’t have enough miles they’ll give you 3 days to get them, which is good.  And if you want to pay via Western Union you’ll still have the opportunity to hold the ticket until you can get to the Western Union facility or change your mind and pay with a credit card (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

And finally, in a separate announcement Continental indicated that the in-cabin fee will be increasing from $100 to $125 effective this past Tuesday.  This fee used to be $95 only a few weeks ago, so the increase is pretty significant.  Even worse, the payment of the fee doesn’t actually get the passenger or the pet any particularly great benefits.  They actually have to substitute the pet for their carry-on bag, and pay $125 for the luxury of doing so.  They also cannot sit in a bulkhead or exit row or in the BusinessFirst cabin on any planes.  And Continental charges them a lot of money for that luxury.  Not good, though I don’t have a pet so again not directly affected.

On the plus side, Continental is getting newer life vests that are lighter and more durable to help reduce weight on the planes, so that should help mitigate future fee increases, or something like that.

Even the discount carriers are cutting

And it isn’t like they can really cut any of their services, as that would basically mean no more seats or no more flights. 

In this case Ryanair has chosen to reduce the number of flights they are offering over the winter and also shifting their market to warmer destinations where they expect to see more traffic.  The carrier will be grounding 15 planes at London’s Stansted over the winter as well as four planes in Dublin.  They will likely be reducing frequencies on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturday mornings – traditional slow travel periods – and also shuttering 7 destinations from early November to mid-December, opening them back up in time for the holiday season.  The locations that are closing up are Basel, Budapest, Krakow, Palma, Rzeszow, Salzburg and Valencia. At the same time beach routes will be added to Ibiza, Tenerife and Malaga.