Archive for April, 2010

Corporate spending is up again

Apr 28

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Corporate spending is up again

There was a time during the recession when corporate spending had to be curtailed. Most companies went in for severe and long standing diktats as well as strictures that limited and put a lid on the amount and quantum of Corporate spending that was allowed to business executives as well as employees. People shifted from business to economy class, foreign trips were rolled back and Corporate spending on entrainment and gifting was severely limited. Now it seems the situation is changing fast as Corporate spending is back in flavor. The increase in corporate spending has ensured that companies like AmEx which depend on credit card usage for solvency and business profits have got back into the black. This is one company that has seen its sales go up to $4.3 billion up from $3.4 billion a year back.

The CFO of AmEx is singing paeans of praise for the corporate spending rebound that seems obvious around the globe. Consumer and corporate travel has risen at a fast clip and also people are traveling business rather than economy class once again. People are also traveling farther, all of which means greater consumer and corporate spending that has buoyed the group’s credit card business earnings substantially.

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New rule on tarmac delays

Apr 27

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There is a new rule on tarmac delays that seems to be troubling airlines no end. This is a rule by the US authorities that if airlines leave their passengers sitting in  a plane on the tarmac for more than three hours they will have to pay big in terms of the fines they have to cough up. The fines are extremely steep and could be as high as $27,500 per passenger which is why the airlines are not at all pleased with the prospect. But there have been many cases where the duration of the tarmac waits had become nightmarishly wrong. The matter had reached such shrill proportions that these rules had to be taken into account to ensure that these concerns were well taken care of and addressed too.

There is no clarity or surety that the new rules and the regulations would actually work in favor of passengers and stop airlines from these delays. The fact of the matter is that $27,500 is quite a huge amount and can seriously dent even the largest airlines’ profitability. There is the possibility that if weather is bad, airlines will start to cancel their flights en masse instead of running the risk of earning the wrath of airlines.

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Working for food

Apr 26

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Talk about marketing and you could come up with some really ingenious plans and schemes to attract visitors and patrons. One novel way that the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers has come up with is to offer its guests money in return for the guests exercising on a couple for exercise bike which are linked to power generators. The idea is that this eco friendly hotel would reward guests with as much as $36 per 10 watt hours to the hotel for food. This seems to be a great idea because on one hand it promotes fitness and on the other hand it is able to ensure that guests are also rewarded for their efforts. In addition to this, the hotel is also able to generate electricity.

But this is obviously a marketing stunt and a gimmick as it is much cheaper to pay for electricity than to pay so much for the bicycle generates power. However as marketing campaigns go, this is a novel and never heard before idea that will be able to ensure that it gets a lot of mileage and also arouses the interest of so many people who may be interested in participating and also earning money for their food while they are at it.

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Airlines bending rules on the go

Apr 25

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There have been instances in the past when volcanic ash has come in the way of effective flying of planes. This is one of the reasons why so many flights had to be cancelled and so many people had to get stranded along their trips across Europe. It was initially expected that the problem would last for just a couple of days and would clear up after that. At that time the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had set limits of no tolerance in terms of the volcanic ash that could be endured by planes.  It was possible that planes would ascend into the air and when the ash would ether the engines, they might stall and start descending at an alarming rate, instances of which had happened earlier.

The problem was that the airlines were losing as much as $200 million per day and the total cumulative losses stood at as much as $1.7 billion in the last week. This is what forced the scientists as well as the engineers to go into a huddle as well as do a rethink. Now the planes will be allowed to fly where the proportion of ash is up to 0.002 g per cubic meter of air. This has allowed many airports in Britain to open up and get passengers out of the morass they found themselves in.

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Being in the no fly zone

Apr 24

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Being in the no fly zone due to the volcanic ash situation is something that you wouldn’t like to wish on your worst enemies.  All of European air transport has been thrown seriously out of gear and it is beginning to show across the continent. At Munich, there was such a rush at the train stations as people wanted to get back across Europe by train and maybe across the Channel back to England. English airports are shut down with no clear indications that airlines would start flights in the next few days. There is desperation all around as passengers try to figure out ways and means to travel out of the No fly zone.

Some of the options being taken are trains, buses and also ferries in some cases. This means that people are traveling for more than 30-40 hours apiece to get back home and this can be quite a back breaking process. When you are traveling alone, it is quite manageable if you are willing to rough it out. But those with kids will certainly have major problems as continent crossing by bus or train is not the easiest f things especially when the backlog is huge and the number of folks who want to get a foothold is indeed quite large.

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Ash related flight disruptions continue in Europe

Apr 23

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Flight disruptions are all over Europe. What started off in England and Holland has spread as far as Germany as well as southern France. So if you can afford to stay at home, it is better to stay at home. And if you cannot escape from traveling, you were better off if you took the train. The ash that emanates from Iceland has engulfed large swathes of the sky above Europe which means that almost 16,000 of the daily 22,000 scheduled flights were summarily cancelled. The flight disruptions are said to continue well into the next week, throwing life as we know it out of gear. There are fears that if the situation continues there will be huge chaos and at the same time it may lead to huge losses for all the airlines.

There was an incident in 1989 when an airplane ran into volcanic ash that was generated by Mount Redoubt in Alaska. The plane suddenly lost use of all its 4 engines and descended from 25,000 to as low as 13,000 feet. The pilot had to struggle to get the engines started again and then get up. That was an area where there are peaks that can be as high as 11,000 feet which means that it was a close shave for the plane.

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Improvement in airlines

Apr 20

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Sometimes a recession can have strange but salutary spin off effects as is evident in the case of some American airlines. It is obvious now that a lot of American airline have shown a steady improvement in service and efficiency in operations since the time the passengers thinned out and companies had to actively compete and pitch for business on the platform of efficiency and quality of service. Competition is a great leveler and can ensure that you do not have to worry much about quality, as a customer. The number of flights flying on time has gone up and the number of baggage being misplaced has gone appreciably down, which means that the recession has everyone scared for their job.

People are pitching in with all they can to improve service so that their job is not on the line due to poor business demand. It is also true that airline performance perks up when it is not stressed out. When there are less planes up in the sky and fewer passengers, service invariably and understandably perks up. It is just that this time, the lower loads and fewer passengers has been caused by an unprecedented recession which has meant that fewer people are flying and taking trips.

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UK Airports and Volcanic Ash

Apr 17

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There has been utter chaos in UK Airports which is due to the volcanic ash that has been spewed into the air from Iceland. The ash is not allowing pope visibility which has thrown all airports out of gear and cancelled so many flights, leading to a situation where many passengers have got stranded. The cancellation of flights means that visitors to UK and those who want a spring getaway out of the UK have had their plans being totally upset and ruined by the unexpected turn of events. The kind of chaos is almost as bad as the one which was present in the Second World War, the only difference being that it is just caused by natural reasons and not by any manmade devices.

It is not like UK Airports are the only ones which are affected. This is affecting even other airports with even the French airports being affected and having to close down.  There is no letting up in the volcano, which means that the air traffic impasse is likely to continue for some time. It seems ironical though, that the Iceland airports have been unaffected, which is because of the fact that the winds have been blowing the dust and the smoke away from Iceland and not towards it.

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Charge to carry-on luggage?

Apr 16

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There was a recent attempt by Spirit Airlines t charge passengers for carry-on luggage. While this may have been done in a spirit of profit making by the airlines, the US senate has not taken this move in quite the correct or sporting spirit. The Senate has been roused to action at this proposal by Spirit Airlines because it is felt that such a move will open the floodgates to similar moves by other airlines.  This is something that the lawmakers do not want to encourage or allow. This is because of the move by Spirit Airlines that wants to charge passengers as much as $30 to bring a bag on board the aircraft and this is of it has been booked earlier. If not, they would have to pay up as much as $45 if they bring the carry-on luggage at the gate.

This is strange because what Spirit Airlines is doing is its commercial choice or call, and if it charges more, its effects could be felt at the market place. This is something that the Senators should not be bothering too much about or interfering with. It almost amounts to an infringement of the airline’s right to run its business quite the way it wants to, on its own.

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Falling asleep in a plane

Apr 15

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There are some folks who try hard to sleep on planes and yet they fail. There is something about the plane cabin, or perhaps the cramped space that just does not allow them to fall asleep. On the other end of the scale you have some people who sleep all too well on planes. For such people falling asleep on a plane is absolutely no hassle as they just get into their seats and fall asleep immediately. One of such people given to falling asleep on a plane was Kris Lines, who is a law professor from Britain. Kris did not sleep on the flight from London to Calgary, which was quite long. But when the flight took off for Vancouver from Calgary he took a bit of a catnap, where he fell fast asleep and suddenly found that the plane had landed 90 minutes earlier and that he was now in the hangar.

It seems the flight attendants had been helping the disabled and no one had seen or checked for Kris. Kris was given a 20% discount on his next Air Canada flight and an e-mailed apology, saying that the airline would take care that such an incident did not recur. And it should not also, in the best interests of airline security.

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