Category: Blog

May 27, 2015: Wait a minute — standards are getting too darn relaxed around here!

May 26, 2015: Travel Curmudgeon’s coffee claim confirmed from 30,000 feet and the last row of coach class seating: Still not great, but at least it’s hot … and free.

May 25, 2015: It’s hard to be a curmudgeon with this view (but coach class seating helps).

May 23, 2015: For Business Class travelers on US airlines—both domestic and international services—look forward to big interior cabin changes with Delta, American Airlines, United Airlines and Alaska Airlines. Movie streaming, better internet, enhanced food and beverage selections, bigger better more comfortable seats, maybe even improved inflight service attitude? Sorry coach travelers, but look for smaller seats and more of them.

May 22, 2015: Frequent Flyer Mile Tickets: look to your award airlines partners for easier use of mileage awards when booking tickets. Might be some fees involved – with American Airlines much easier to book on their OneWorld Partner, British Airways – usually much better service as well as more direct flights to your destinations.

May 21, 2015: Beware when you book a flight on Frontier Airlines – although they’re adding more routes, especially from the west coast, this Denver based airline has embraced the low cost super budget model followed by Spirit Airlines in the U.S. and Europe’s easyJet and Ryanair—super low price for a ticket then a rash of up charges for booking a seat, checking a bag, bag carry on, printing a boarding pass if you show up without one, early boarding and charges for any food or beverages you want on board—as much as $3.00 for a bottle of water! Still no charge for bringing your own food and beverages onboard – but give them time on that opportunity!

May 20, 2015: Alaska Airlines and their child, Horizon Air, receive the Travel Curmudgeon’s “Atta Way To Go” award this month! Not only is their service good and their planes clean, they’re also bringing back complimentary food and snacks—and a selection of inflight entertainment and Internet. When you travel on Horizon you still receive free wine or a craft beer—and can ship a case of wine for free—FREE!—now that’s a word you don’t usually associate with an airline. And Alaska has just announced new service to two cities in Costa Rica—wow they must know something about what a neat undiscovered travel destination that is.

May 19, 2015: Our pals at Southwest Airlines—who used to be a low cost airline but not so anymore—are making a big deal these days boasting they have the largest seats of any carrier. Somehow they’ve determined that the skinny armrest (by the way most carriers are reducing arm rest size to add more seats) counts as part of the individual seat size. With American travelers getting bigger and wider (more girth as a friend says) count on your travel experience being even more uncomfortable and skinny!

May 18, 2015: United Airlines is making a big deal lately on how they are redesigning their airport gate area to improve passenger service and the gate area environment. You really think so? Why not just take the millions of dollars allocated for this project and hire a few more gate agents to help with the check in and boarding process? This misappropriation of funds gets the Travel Curmudgeon’s “How wasteful can you be?” award for May.

May 17, 2015: U.S. air carriers are churning out record profits these days. Aviation fuel, like petrol for your car, has dropped in price but airfares haven’t—never do when the airlines save hundreds of millions of dollars each month—not that they shouldn’t make a profit (on their mostly over managed business model with top heavy executive management). But come on now, give us travelers a break and reduce or eliminate those fuel surcharges you added on to the price of tickets the past couple of years? Bet none of your top executive management took a pay or bonus reduction?