Category Archives: Airlines

September 29, 2013 · 4:03 pm

The “Southwest effect” in Des Moines – fares down but I still haven’t flown Southwest

A young man dancing, swiveling his hips. He has dark hair, short and slicked up a bit. He wears an unbuttoned band-collared jacket over a shirt with bold black-and-white horizontal stripes. Behind him, on either side, are a pair of barred frames, like prison doors.

So according to the DM Register there has indeed been a “Southwest effect” in Des Moines – i.e. fares have dropped about 6 percent since Southwest FINALLY decided to grace us with its presence. Southwest-effect-slashes-Des-Moines-prices. And that’s great! Oddly I’ve yet to fly Southwest. Up until yesterday Southwest only flew to Chicago from DSM  (twice daily). But  today it will begin flying to Las Vegas which should open up western routes to places like Tucson/Phoenix and L.A. where I need to fly. An Elvis impersonator and Vegas showgirls will be on board to kick off the new Vegas flight!

On the few occasions when someone from my family has opted to fly to Chicago (vs. drive or take the Megabus) they’ve opted for other airlines that have dropped their prices as a result of Southwest’s arrival – and as I recall they’re lower or more convenient times than Southwest. Still I would like to thank Southwest by flying the airline sometime – should it prove cost-efficient and convenient.

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June 19, 2013 · 11:04 pm

Paying to reserve a seat on an international British Airways flight. Really???

So now I understand why my return flight from Prague to London on British Airways doesn’t include a seat assignment. Apparently I can only get a “free” seat assignment (for a very costly flight, I might add) 24 hours in advance. If I want one before that, I have to pay – and the fee isn’t listed up front.  (I finally found it after searching for too long.  It costs about $12, talk about nickle and dime-ing. For details see: http://www.britishairways.com/travel/paid-seating-terms/public/en_us-  OR http://www.britishairways.com/travel/ba6.jsp/paid-seatingprime/public/en_us

That is really irritating!! I booked this flight via American Airlines – which I’m flying outbound from Chicago to London and on the return leg from London to Chicago (after I sit in a lousy seat I was assigned “for free” 24 hours in advance) apparently.  American kindly granted me reserved seats – who knew this is now a perk???

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April 30, 2013 · 11:09 pm

Sweat the details when contemplating flying RyanAir and EasyJet from London

Ryanair logo.svg
IATA
FR		 ICAO
RYR		 Callsign
RYANAIR
Founded 1985

So my trip to Poland (Gdansk, Krakow) and Prague this summer keeps growing – first I added Berlin. And then when I saw that I’d be flying home via London, I had to figure out a way to stop there too and see all my pals and the city where I used to live and will always love.

Then came a mad search to find those great cheap flights I’ve been hearing about from London to the continent – and I found several very reasonable flights from London to Berlin but the fares kept going up as I ruled out several airports to fly out of in London (no to Southend, which I’d never heard of – it’s in Essex – and which one English friend said would take as long to get to from central London as it takes to get from Des Moines to Heathrow; and no to Luton, which I did fly to Israel out of back in, um, 1982 and is also a schlep; yes to Gatwick and Stansted, which are reasonably easy to get to via public transport from central London) and as I ruled out very early flights (which would rule out getting to the airport via public transport.)

It looks like I’ll end up with a flight for about $98 – which isn’t the $40 I first thought it could be (although that hardly seemed possible) – but it’s not bad. That’s about what it costs these days to fly from Des Moines to Chicago one-way (thanks to Southwest Airway’s arrival in Des Moines.) I was tempted to take the train from London to Berlin but it stops in Paris where you have to switch trains and I don’t think I could bear to just pass through Paris.  So plane it is!

EasyJetlogo.SVG
IATA
U2		 ICAO
EZY		 Callsign
EASY
Founded 1995

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February 28, 2013 · 9:40 pm

flying American – between the merger and the sequester: who knows?

We are not flying American anytime soon (our next flight – to Phoenix on Saturday is on Delta) but between the pending merger with US Airways and the potential budget cuts if the sequester situation isn’t dealt with by Congress, it’s hard to know what to expect. A recent USA Today story about the effects of the merger (not the sequester) offered this info:

  • The merger will probably take months to finalize and to combine operations. So just keep buying American or US Airways tickets until you’re told to do otherwise. (Eventually there won’t be any US Airways. It will go the way of Northwest, Continental,  Republic, TWA…)
  • Your frequent flyer miles on either airline will be safe! It could take up to a year to consolidate the miles from both airlines into one American account.
  • One likely benefit of the merger is that the new American will increase the number of international flights offered.
  • One  likely downside: fares will likely rise on some routes although one study found that two recent mergers (United-Continental; Delta-Northwest) didn’t result in jacked up fares. Some say creating a third mega airline is better than having two mega airlines as far as fares go….
  • As for sequestration, if Washington doesn’t get its act together, there could be major delays in air travel starting in April at major hubs (chicago, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta) that will muck up travel for all of us.

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February 15, 2013 · 3:27 pm

Direct flights Des Moines-NYC coming back. Thank you Delta!!

File:Delta plane and Atlanta skyline.jpg

It’s been tried before – and it’s being tried again: Direct flights between Des Moines and New York City. This is excellent news for those of us who travel to New York frequently – now we just have to wait and see if the flights will be affordable. Delta will start offering daily nonstop service to LaGuardia on June 10.

The times are okay – flights will leave Des Moines at 7 a.m. (at least it’s not 6 a.m.) and landing at 10:45 a.m.; The return is a little less okay – flights leaving NYC at 8:59 p.m. and getting to Des Moines at 11:16 p.m.  This gives people another full day in NYC but sometimes evening flights are vulnerable to delays or cancellation, in my experience. And 11:16 p.m. DSM time is 12:16 a.m. NYC time – so that will be a long day. Oh well. It’s a start!

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February 14, 2013 · 4:55 pm

Will the American U.S. Air Merger be good for us little folks?

I’m not sure what to make of the proposed American Airlines – U.S.Air merger – from what I gather it will further consolidate the airlines, leaving fewer options for travelers and the potential for higher prices. Then again, perhaps this is what both airlines needed in order to stay in business and I guess we consumers want that. Despite all the concerns about American of late, I’ve flown them recently and had no problems. (We’re flying American again next month from Des Moines to Phoenix.) I do have a bunch of free miles on American so will be looking to see if/how those are affected by the merger. And I do remember some initial operational glitches when United merged with Continental.

File:Aa.b777-200er.n781an.arp.jpg

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January 26, 2013 · 6:34 pm

Sen. Grassley tweets about Delta Sky Magazine’s Iowa package.

Finally – the big time! Iowa’s famous tweeting senator,  Chuck Grassley, tweeted about a story I wrote – or a package in Delta Sky magazine that includes a story I wrote. Too Funny. My 21-year-old son, an avid Grassley follower on Twitter, spotted it and passed it along! It’s a keeper….

ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley)
1/26/13 7:58 AM
Iowans don’t brag(our sin)So we lucky DeltaAir does. Read Delta”Sky”:”The Iowa Advantage” Find out how great Iowa is. Pass it on BRAG/PROUD

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October 14, 2012 · 5:11 pm

cc’s community coffee, central grocery, couchon, Tulane! Hotel provincial

We moved to better digs (and no surprise, more expensive digs) at the hotel provincial on Chartes Street. But even here, we were awakened at 2’am or so by a drunken cackle. Seems unavoidable in the french quarter. Room 515 was in an old building that used to be a warehouse. It reminded us  of a room we stayed at in Florence – high ceiling, huge, old world furnishings, elegant and a little odd. We liked it. our friends ended up in even stranger digs. they had their own two story condo that is normally someone’s home. again, odd.
We had coffee at CC’s Community coffee on Royal then popped into the central grocery but skipped getting the mufaletta because it wasn’t lunch time. We visited a very good new contemporary art gallery called M Gallery not far from our  hotel, then took the st. Charles streetcar (which was a bus ride initially) to Tulane to see our nephew, a happy sophomore there. Ate at cafe ferete. Cute place, so so food. After a swim in the refreshingly cool water of the charming courtyard pool at our hotel, we ate at trendy couchon restaurant – oysters, porkcheek, short ribs,pulled pork with crackling and turnips and pickled peaches. Definitely different. Now taking our chances with frontier airlines. We appear to be leaving. So maybe this flight won’t be cancelled.

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October 6, 2012 · 1:08 am

Easiest way to buy a plane tix in Peru – IN Peru

Visa Inc. logo.svgMy son quickly solved our flight dilemma – where we could not buy a ticket online with a credit card for a Star Peru flight from Lima to Cusco – by going to the Star Peru office in Lima and buying the ticket with his debit card. Of course this option isn’t available to those of us who aren’t in Lima but it was nice to know that he could actually get the dang thing. Meanwhile we’re contemplating getting a Visa card since we’re hearing that Visa is more widely used in Peru than Master Card. I don’t know why. For example, I cannot use my Master Card to buy tickets online to Machu Picchu. After finally figuring out how to use the government website I discovered during the third or fourth click that they only take Visa.

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September 25, 2012 · 2:06 am

Taking the bus to Laguardia – and nabbing an earlier flight home in Minneapolis

I paid $2.25 (the price of a bus ride) to get to Laguardia airport this afternoon which is much better than a $40 cab ride – not as fast of course, but not as long as I feared. It took me an hour – from the time I picked up the M60 bus at 106th and Broadway to my arrival at Laguardia’s Terminal C – and frankly seemed faster than the express bus I rode into the city (for $12.50).

I had a three hour layover in Minneapolis so of course my arrival and departing gates were minutes away from each other (as opposed to my outbound flight when I had 37 minutes to get from one end of the airport to the other.) Noticing that there was an earlier flight to Des Moines (at 7:15 vs. 9:30 p.m.) I went to the gate for the earlier flight to see if I could get on. There was room but Delta wanted to charge me $50 (which United wasn’t going to do when I tried to do the same thing a week ago in Boston). So I said no thanks but then the Delta person saw that my 9:30 flight was overbooked so she waived the $50 fee. So here I am home – although my bag won’t arrive until 11 p.m. So I guess it pays to ask and stand your ground….at least sometimes!

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