Travel Industry Archive

Las Vegas tourism and hotel occupancy down — According to August data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, visitor volume dropped 4.3 percent and hotel occupancy was down 2.4 percent from August of last year. Year-to-date numbers were also negative, showing visitors down 1.5 and occupancy 2.5 percent respectively. Gambling wins were also down. [Source: GlobeSt]  Family...

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It would be easy to equate the financial crisis with a down time for the airline industry. An economic slowdown always means less demand for air travel, but this time, that might not plunge the industry into absolute chaos as has happened before. In fact, I would argue that the industry may be relatively well positioned to weather a downturn for the first time since deregulation. How is this...

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Branson adds money to Virgin America — Richard Branson, founder and part owner of Virgin America, announced he will add more capital to the fledgling U.S. service to help it “break even” during peak fuel prices. The British billionaire didn’t say how much he would be helping out, only that he wouldn’t be violating any U.S. laws barring foreign ownership of...

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From a customer perspective, the last couple of years of “nickel and diming” has been painful. It is a difficult experience for customers to have to take out their wallets multiple times to check a bag or buy some food. But airlines love the extra revenue they can generate from fees, so there has to be a way to keep revenues up while improving the customer experience. Air Canada...

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Air France pulls Heathrow-LAX flights – Citing poor economic conditions, Air France announced it will no longer fly between Los Angeles and London Heathrow starting Nov. 6, canceling a route it introduced only six months ago. Critics say too few passengers and stiff competition from five other established carriers on the same route doomed the service. The company will reassign the...

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It’s just about done. It appears that Chicago/Midway is going to be privatized. A consortium will lease the airport from the City of Chicago for 99 years for $2.5 billion. Once all the debt is paid off, the City of Chicago will walk away with a cool $1 billion, but what will this mean for airlines? Well, for those already flying to Midway, it shouldn’t mean much in direct costs....

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British Airways-Iberian merger stalls – British Airways said today that its merger with Spanish carrier Iberian is on hold, citing an economic slowdown in the U.S. and U.K. The two sides, however, are apparently still negotiating terms of the deal, which have been complicated by BA’s estimated $2.7 billion pension deficit. [Source: Reuters, The Australian] Starwood CEO prepares for...

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I’m once again back in action after a fantastic wedding week. Hopefully you enjoyed some of the posts I put up while I was gone, but now I’m back to more timely pieces. There’s definitely a backlog of things to talk about, but today I thought I’d start with an interesting tidbit in the Honolulu Advertiser about Republic looking to enter the Hawaiian interisland...

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Sun Country Airlines files Chapter 11 – Sun Country Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection this week, citing “adverse effects” from “recent events” at its parent, Petters Group Worldwide Inc. The move is reportedly to separate the business from majority stockholder Tom Petters, who was arrested by federal agents on suspicion of defrauding investors of $3...

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It’s common for people to think that stripping paint off the plane will save money. Why? Well, paint clearly weighs something, and weight means that more fuel has to be burned to fly it around. But there’s more to the story here, and the answer to which is best may be changing. Yes, having no paint saves weight, and yes that saves money, but it’s not that simple. Paint may...

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