Travel Industry Archive

This year was a bad one with regards to holiday travel weather, and the airlines were faced with big customer service problems as a result. After all the weather cancellations, there were too few seats for the number of passengers that needed to get home for the holidays. WestJet came up with a unique solution. Usually, airlines will just do their best to get people to their destination as...

More...

Boulder hits Amtrak train near Reno, Nev. — A boulder struck an Amtrak train traveling near Reno, Nev. late Friday afternoon, causing damage to a train car and a three-hour delay. The boulder struck around 5:30 p.m., hitting the train’s lounge car, but none of the 161 passengers on board were injured. The train’s damaged car was removed before service could resume about 8:30...

More...

Maui airport shut down because of runway short circuit — A short circuit cut the runway lights at Maui’s Kahului Airport, causing five flights to be redirected to Honolulu and others delayed. The lights were back on at 11:20 p.m Wednesday after being out for approximately eight hours. Hundreds of passengers were stranded at the airport on Christmas Day. The 7,000-foot runway was...

More...

Raleigh-Durham International Airport announced earlier this week that Delta would be postponing its Raleigh/Durham to Paris/Charles de Gaulle flight by one year from summer 2009 to summer 2010. According to Delta, it’s because of the economic climate, but something doesn’t smell right here. It was less than two months ago, November 6 to be exact, that Delta announced it would...

More...

The nation’s unpredictable weather and hundreds of cancelled flights led to airports looking like mini-Hoovervilles with passengers waiting hours, sometimes days, to catch a flight to see loved ones. Late last week, airlines like Continental Airlines and United began to offer free one-time rebooking through Dec. 26 for those stranded mostly in the Pacific Northwest. Southwest gave...

More...

Nice catch by Terry Maxon over at Airline Biz when he combed through the DOT filing in which Southwest and WestJet announced they signed a codesharing agreement. The airlines have hinted where the first connections will happen, and I’m not so convinced how well this will work. According to the filing, first connection points are likely to be Las Vegas, Orlando and Tampa. Las Vegas I...

More...

At a time when companies are tightening their belts, many are losing their sumptuous holiday parties. Some companies are choosing to host parties on their own grounds, spend the money on a charity or even cancelling the party. Either way, their choices aren’t helping local hotels and conference centers. In Manchester, N.H., the Radisson Hotel will host the same number of parties, but...

More...

Las Vegas Sands Cuts 500 workers at Venetian Macao — Las Vegas Sands Corp. cut 500 workers at its Venetian Macao Resort Hotel and said it would take away hours and tips from another 1,000 workers. About 100 of the jobs cut belonged to management. The 500 jobs make up only about 2 percent of the Macao workforce and the company reported that most laid off were offered jobs at its new...

More...

Now that New York airport slot auctions have been put on hold, the feds are trying to get airlines to voluntarily reduce their schedules at LaGuardia. Um, didn’t they have this opportunity before? American announced in June that it would be cutting its LaGuardia operation significantly, and it recommended to the feds that they permanently retire those slots to reduce congestion. It...

More...

When the 2008 commercial airliner year-end sales totals are announced sometime early in January, look for headlines reporting that Airbus has out-sold Boeing once again. The Euro jet-builders went into December with a commanding lead in the annual orders race, having booked 878 new deals for the year, well beyond the year-to-date total of 661 Boeing was reporting as of mid-December. You can...

More...