Travel Industry Archive

It looks like that whole “demand stabilization” thing we were hoping for isn’t quite there yet. May premium traffic numbers are out via IATA, and the news is not good. In May, passengers traveling on premium tickets dropped 23.6 percent year over year. Think about that. Nearly 1 in 4 tickets bought in premium cabins last year were not bought this year. That’s a...

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The airlines have been busy lately trying to hike fares on domestic routes, and so far it looks like they’ve been successful. Fare hikes, however, aren’t always as great for the bottom line as you might think. The latest increase attempt came last week. This is likely to succeed since Southwest has actually hopped on board. When Southwest goes along with it, others generally...

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Watergate Hotel to be auctioned — The Watergate Hotel, now empty since 2007, is on the block. The hotel, which had a role in the scandal which took down President Richard M. Nixon, will be auctioned Tuesday by the bank that holds its $40 million loan.  However, for whomever buys the 12-story hotel, they also need to be able to pay about $100 million in repairs to bring the building up...

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I wrote about TripAdvisor’s caveat that there could be fake reviews on their user-generated content Web site, something causing critics to question their credibility. Just so you know, TripAdvisor isn’t the first site that has had fake reviews. (And at least one cosmetic surgery company had to pay restitution because of faked positive reviews.) I think most people understand that...

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Continental CEO Larry Kellner decided to drop a bombshell yesterday when he announced that he would be leaving the airline at the end of the year. Current COO and President Jeff Smisek will take over Larry’s Chairman and CEO titles. Larry did not say he wanted to “spend more time with his family” so I’m guessing that he wasn’t asked to leave. And why would he be?...

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It’s earnings season, and if you’re a fan of the airline industry, you’ll probably want to pop some Prozac. Numbers are guaranteed to be really, really ugly. American kicked off the season yesterday with bad news, as expected. That sound you hear is the crashing of passenger demand. I’ve talked about it here over the last few months as demand has continued to weaken,...

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TripAdvisor warns of hotels writing fake reviews — TripAdvisor, the travel Web site that lets customers rate hotels online, posted disclaimers to warn its readers that hotels could be writing fake reviews to improve their rankings or hurt their competition. Bloggers and some industry experts say this shows that TripAdvisor’s user-submitted content has lost credibility. But...

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I bought a first-class ticket from San Francisco to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York with Virgin America. (No, I don’t like Richard Branson, but he does sell a well-priced, first-class ticket.) The only flight that worked out for me was the red eye that left around 11 p.m. and landed around 7:30 a.m. Towards the end of the flight, and as the sun began to light up the...

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Every month, Alaska puts out forward-looking guidance on capacity, revenues, and more. In this month’s update, they note that forward bookings for July and August have “significantly improved” as they get closer to the date of travel. I’m sure they’re happy to hear it. But they also disclosed some interesting gains and losses that I thought would be fun to look...

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I posted a few days ago about this item, where a prankster posing as a front desk clerk of the Hilton Garden Inn in Orlando, advised a guest to break the windows of their hotel room and throw out the mattress so they could jump to safety. The supposed reason? A gas leak. The cost $5,000 in damage, although the hotel is not seeking restitution from the couple involved. Other incidents include...

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