What's up with the airlines

Got this latest mailer from my friend Anne Chan of Delta Air-Cebu and was kicking myself for buying my NYC ticket a couple of week earlier at almost US$2,000.00. Delta Airlines had a Grand Summer Sale with May 23 – 31 as purchase period for tickets to the U.S., for immediate use until July 31/September 1 – 30, 2011. Return flights from the US are within four to six months of outbound flights. (Inbound from U.S. embargo dates December 11 – 22).

Brace yourselves! Ex-Manila flights to Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), Seattle (SEA-new route), Portland (PDX-new) or Salt Lake City (SLC-new) = US$663.00 gross fare with return flight!

The flight to New York (NYC at JFK, EWR, LGA) = US$930.00 gross fare with return flight! My consolation is that my US ticket is ex-Cebu, a premium I seriously consider. Manila’s international airport arrival, especially at night, is most inconvenient. Especially if you are a lone traveler, like me, who will have to take a taxi.

Of course, those amounts do NOT include fuel surcharge and international travel taxes. And if you change your flight date, there is a $150.00 penalty charge with possible additional collection. You must buy the ticket within 72 hours after reservation. No upgrades allowed but you can accumulate miles. Any unavoidable rerouting will be done only on Delta (DL) flights.

DL is investing US$2 billion in product upgrades. Twenty-five percent of their international flights will have full flatbed seats, as well as all seats in the Business Elite class by 2013. A few front rows in the Economy class will have additional 4 inches legroom and 50% more recline than the standard. Getting these seats will allow passengers early boarding.

More than any airline in the industry, DL has the most First Class seats with its addition of 2,000 seats. The airline is also opening 4 more executive lounges (Sky Club) in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Seattle & Atlanta (Concourse A & D); renovated the lounges in La Guardua (NY), LAX, Minneapolis/St. Paul (Minnesota) and Atlanta (Concourse B). Delta’s new terminal in New York’s JFK will open in 2013, while the one at M.H.Jackson,Jr International Terminal in Atlanta will be by 2012.

DL is proud of its 24-hour online customer service @Delta Assist via Twitter and its more intuitive delta.com that won Best of the Web Award for performance and reliability, given by Compuware Gomez.

 Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific is celebrating its Centenary Year by giving away 1,800 free tickets to the Hong Kong public with a campaign that kicked off last March 4 called “Connecting Your World.” Aside from this generous gesture, which they have undertaken with Dragon Air, CX also gives out profit sharing to its staff. “It’s been a record year for Cathay Pacific in more ways than one,” Chairman Chris Pratt disclosed during the 2010 annual results general meeting and press conference. Indeed CX posted a record 33.7% year on year in increased revenues for passenger and cargo patronage. However, management is cautious of the increasing fuel costs that may affect future profitability if they will not maintain business prominence or else, they may have to increase fuel surcharges or come up with higher fares.

The Centenary Year also marks a changing of the guards: CEO Tony Tyler (CX veteran since 1978) bade goodbye in March, to move on to be a top honcho of International Air Trasport Association (IATA) based in Geneva, Switzerland. Tyler is replaced by former COO John Slosar; incoming COO is Ivan Chu. The soft-spoken Slosar, who I saw during the international press conference in Hong Kong for the new business class late last year, reassured that no drastic changes will take place in his administration. “Maybe there will be a few changes, but certainly nothing radical and no change for change’s sake. We’ve already seen some bumps on the road – a very big bump being the oil price,” he pointed out. “Of course, a second bump is what’s happening now in Japan…we all feel on the side with the Japanese people in supporting their rebuilding efforts and getting our business there back on track.” But Slosar is pretty much optimistic overall, with the China market still not quite affected with the global economic downturn.(CX World, April 2011, Issue 181)