in the air

The Seychellois flag that is.

We mentioned a few weeks ago that, following the demise of Globespan, the Ministry of Defense was forced to make some urgent arrangements on the charter market to keep the regular flights from Brize Norton in operation. This resulted in an eclectic mix of airlines temporarily flying the route, including Air Tahiti.

Now the service has been offered out to tender and has been awarded to the cheapest most suitable airline – Air Seychelles.

We understand the need for economy but it does seem unfortunate that, after the huge struggle to secure the British colony, the Ministry of Defence cannot get a British, or at least European, carrier to handle the route.

Over the last fifteen years, airlines have been fighting a non-stop battle to provide their passengers with the “biggest and best” range of video and audio entertainment. As far as Economy is concerned, they might have made cuts in catering, numbers of cabin staff and even squeezed an extra few seats in but they have all spent money installing the latest entertainment systems.

Some might question whether this investment was really necessary anyway. If you look around a longhaul aircraft cabin, you will certainly see a few people glued to the entertainment system but many, if not the majority, use it only for a short period, if at all. The systems are not cheap to install or maintain and they do suffer from quite frequent breakdowns.

Air Asia X, the longhaul budget airline based in Malaysia, is now considering ordering a new aircraft without even a basic entertainment system. Obviously this will save them money but, they suggest, it is not just a question of cost. According to them, in-flight entertainment has now moved on – people have their own i-pods, dvd players and pc’s for use on-board. They do not want to be restricted to the airline’s choice – however many channels the airline claims to offer. In other words, the real music or film junkie who would not have stepped on to an aircraft that did not have the latest video system a few years ago, is now travelling with his own, more sophisticated and personalised system.

We can’t see the airlines giving up on in-flight entertainment yet but Air Asia X’s argument is persuasive. It could well be that the battle to have the “biggest and best” entertainment system is over.

Though it is literally last month’s news, Japan Airlines‘ bankruptcy is still causing ripples of surprise and consternation. How could matters have come to this? A sober airline run sensibly was the impression it gave the world. However, a fascinating article in the Vancouver Sun gives some insight into what really went wrong.

“JAL’s ills are much more deep-rooted than the vagaries of the business cycle.

Since its founding in 1951, JAL has set the standard for gracious cabin service and technical safety that other airlines have tried to follow.

But the JAL story is also part of the familiar Japanese tale of constituency patronage with politicians demanding that Ministry of Transport officials cook the figures to justify building regional airports in their districts … There are many similar stories and other variations on how political interference has sunk not only JAL, but distorted Japan’s transportation system.”

Read the rest of it here.

Here’s a round-up of January’s route news and announcements.

British Isles: South-east Airports

Aer Lingus is cutting many of its Gatwick services, less than a year after opening a new base at the airport. From the end of March, only Malaga, Dublin, Knock and Cork will be served. Routes to Knock, Faro, Nice, Malaga, Zurich, Vienna, Munich, Bucharest, Eindhoven, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Warsaw and Vilnius will cease.

Air Seychelles launches a weekly service to Gatwick from Mahe on 19th April. The airline will continue to serve Heathrow twice weekly.

Bmi is reducing its Heathrow–Dublin frequency from seven services a day to four from 28th March. On that day it will be launching a twice-daily Heathrow–Vienna service, one of which will be replacing one previously operated by fellow Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines.

China Eastern plans to resume its four-times weekly Shanghai–Heathrow service on 28th March.

Easyjet has announced four new services from Stansted, to Dalaman, Bodrum, Split and Dubrovnik, all to be launched this May.

Emirates has announced a new start date of 1st July for a second daily Airbus A380 service between Heathrow and Dubai.

British Isles: Other Airports

AirBaltic is launching services from Vilnius to Dublin and Manchester this summer.  From the end of March, Dublin will be served four times weekly, and Manchester twice.

CSA Czech Airlines is resuming its Prague–Manchester service six times a week from 28th March.

Flybe has announced plans to increase the frequency of its Southampton–Dublin service to four per day on Friday and three per day on Sundays from 14th May. It also plans to launch a three-times weekly summer service between Birmingham and Perpignan.

Emirates will be offering first class on its Dubai–Manchester service from September, with the introduction of the Airbus A380 on the route.

Pakistan International has terminated its Lahore–Glasgow service.

Rest-of-World Developments

Air China launches a twice-weekly Shanghai–Chengdu–Bangalore service at the end of February.

Austrian is cancelling its Vienna–Ekaterinburg and Vienna–Odessa services on 28th March. Odessa, however, will still be available as a codeshare service operated by Ukraine International.

Hainan Airlines launches a thrice-weekly Shanghai–Brussels  service on 28th May.

KLM launches a thrice weekly Amsterdam–Hangzhou service on 8th May.

Royal Air Maroc launches new services from Casablanca to Bangui and Pointe Noire on 28th March.

Qatar Airways launches a four-times weekly Doha–Copenhagen service on 30th March.

Yakutia is launching a four-times weekly summer service between Omsk and Hanover on 12th June.

Or so the headline says in a press release which seems to have found its way into a number of travel trade publications. The results of the survey by Ethos Consultancy were:

Emirates 92.3%

Etihad 91.5%

Swiss Air 86.6%

British Airways 84.3%

Virgin 79.8%

Air France 72.3%

Qatar 71.5%

Those publications that have printed the story have done so without comment but, if the survey is to have any credibility at all, it might be worth pointing out the following:

1/ The report refers to an airline called “Swiss Air”. If they do not even know the proper name of one of the airlines they are supposed to be measuring, one wonders just how comprehensive the survey has been or, indeed, how much the consultants know about the airline business.

2/ The survey is based on just “fourteen flight experiences”. We don’t claim to be experts in measuring customer satisfaction but this looks an incredibly small number.

3/ There is no information about who commissioned and paid for this report.

4/ It is interesting to note that Ethos Consultancy is based in Dubai. No doubt it is just a coincidence that their top-rated airline is based in Dubai and the second-best (by a waver-thin margin) is based in Dubai’s friendly neighbour, Abu Dhabi.

5/ Many other surveys show Qatar as one of the best-performing airlines in the world, frequently edging out Emirates and Etihad. Qatar is clearly a major threat to both airlines. In this survey it comes bottom.

Press agencies pick up small stories in one country, write a short paragraph and flash it round the world so an item of small significance gets worldwide coverage. Other agencies that scour the world’s press for daily headline briefings add to the problem because they pick up the same story from countless sources and create the impression there is a major story. If you checked the daily worldwide aviation press headlines the other day you would have seen the following headline in many newspapers, “British Airways in World Cup Price-Fixing Claim”. Well, it looked a good story…

The “British Airways” in the headline is actually BA’s South African franchisee, Comair. A South African newspaper was accusing Comair, and other South African domestic airlines, of increasing their regional fares for the World Cup period. It is hardly a surprise that domestic fares increase when there is an influx of foreign visitors and massive demand for tickets. A simple case of supply and demand, not a scandal and not limited to Comair.

Yet the damage was done.

BA gets enough bad press of its own without having to be embarrassed around the world by this non-story that does not even have anything to do with them.

Willie Walsh is said to hate the whole idea of franchises. The airline might get a reasonable income from renting its name but risks a great deal of reputational damage if things go wrong.

Ironically, Comair is very well regarded in South Africa and is frequently praised as the best domestic airline, ahead of SAA. But the praise always seems to be for “Comair, a franchisee of British Airways”. When someone wants to go on the attack and sensationalise a story, the airline becomes “British Airways”.

You can’t win!

A few days ago, the pilot of an Air France 777 had to abort take-off at the last moment from Lagos because of a lack of power. Fortunately, the aircraft was able to stop in time and passengers disembarked without using the chutes. There was no great mystery about what had caused the problem – it seems both pilots simply forgot to arm the auto-thrust selector. Boeing have accepted that their instructions might need improving because there have been seven other reported incidents of this happening. Nonetheless, forgetting a fairly obvious part of the pre-departure procedure is, to say the least, unfortunate. Nor is this the first time it has happened with Air France – a 747 crew made the same mistake with an aircraft in Tahiti.

To its credit, Air France has already accepted that its safety record is not as good as it should be and has employed Delta to perform a full audit on the airline. Of course, the actual record of an airline only shows incidents where aircraft have been badly damaged or people injured. Incidents such as the two above, lurk under the statistics and often go unreported – even though they could very nearly have been very serious accidents.

The Air France pilots’ union was furious with the company last year when they suggested that the pilots should pay more attention to in-house operational instructions.  This incident is yet further indication that the airline might have a point.

It is time that Air France buried the “Air Chance” nick-name and it seems that the pilots might have to climb off their collective high horse if the airline’s reputation is to be improved.

There was a big scandal in the US last year when the government-supported insurance giant, AIG, planned a huge meeting for sales staff at The St Regis Beach Resort in California. The idea that the government was subsidising a holiday at a “beach resort” for staff at the disgraced company was too much for the public to accept. In the end, AIG cancelled the event and the hotel ended up going bankrupt having lost a major chunk of business. Other companies did not dare make bookings there for fear of the bad publicity sticking.

Since then, other hotels have decided to be rather more careful in their choice of names:

The Ballantyne Hotel and Resort in Charlotte is now The Ballantyne Hotel and Lodge.

The Westin Stonebrier Hotel and Resort is now the Westin Stonebrier Hotel

The Renaissance Orlando Seaworld Resort in Orlando is now the Renaissance Orlando at Seaworld.

Loews Lake Las Vegas estimate that dropping the “Resort” from their name has gained them 10% in revenue – “All it takes is a couple of pharmaceutical companies to feel happier arranging meetings here without the “resort tag” to give us an upswing.”

So, if you arrange conferences, avoid any hotel that has “resort”, “golf”, “spa” or “beach” in its name and you should be safe. Either that, or hold the conference in Oldham…

Wales’ one and only domestic air route is under threat. Highland Airways‘ twice weekday service between Cardiff and Anglesey has a question mark hanging over it because its operator is facing “difficult trading” conditions. Online booking is currently suspended, according to the BBC. The Beeb also reports that the Welsh Assembly has been supporting the service to the tune of £800,000 per year – that’s over £44 for for every seat available, sold or otherwise, on the 18-seat Jetstream that flies the route. Daft or what? One doesn’t have to wear woad or have hippy parents to sympathise with Welsh Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams when she says “[i]t is now time to end this costly debacle before even more public money is poured into a service that is both economically and environmentally unsustainable.”

Fake websites used to be a serious problem for travel companies. Dishonest companies registered names like www.airfarnce.com or www.luffthansa.com aiming to steal visitors who made a small typing error.

Most of these fake sites were pretty amateurish and many have disappeared with the threat of legal action from the owners of the real site. Unfortunately, the practice is not quite dead and one example we have seen is much more sophisticated than most.

Travel Republic is a well-known British agent and their website is www.travelrepublic.co.uk but if you make an error and type in www.travel-republic.co.uk you will end up at the UK site of Expedia.

If you look carefully, you will see there appears to be an affiliate code which suggests someone (obviously not Expedia themselves) has deliberately set this up to skim commission from people intending to visit Travel Republic.

The old fake sites were really pretty obvious – you could probably guess that Lufthansa’s real website does not have links to car hire, cruises and erectile dysfunction cures. Unfortunately, this attempt is much more professional.

It is always an idea to check that the site you intended to visit is the one you actually land at – especially if you are going to spend money on-line.

Note:

We see that the owner of the www.travel-republic.co.uk is a Swiss company. We asked Travel Republic for their comment and they said, “We are not currently in dispute with the owner of this domain name but that is not to say we won’t be in the near future given that Travel Republic is a protected Trademark.”