Ah, Thanksgiving. It’s easily my favorite holiday of the year. I’ve been stuffing myself over the last few days to keep myself in top shape for the big meal today.

But for the traveler, there is another reason to love Thanksgiving. Since 1998, my friend Robert Stack has issued his annual letter of joy for all to read. Now, in all its unedited glory, I offer you the true meaning of Thanksgiving for 2006.

Dear traveler,

The windows are opening and the air-con has finally earned a good long rest
for the long, chilly winter that will warrant the occasional sweater. And
with the change of season it is now time to reflect upon the True Meaning of
Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not a time to give thanks.

Thanksgiving is a time to get bumped.

Nothing is ever easy for the airlines. While people rush to fill
seats like never before, the airlines are not yet basking in the glow of big fat
profits. What the economy giveth, fuel prices taketh away, and so we wait,
patiently and eternally, for the glory days of air travel to resume. And
this year brings yet a new fear: the fear of quart sized baggies
overflowing with liquids, creams, gels, and goos of all kinds, gumming up the
security checks and grinding down the patience of travelers and airline
employees everywhere. No, it will not be a beautiful travel dance this
year, since all beauty must fit inside teeny 3 ounce bottles, or be checked away
to airline bag heaven (known by many as “Philly”).

But for the dedicated bumpee, there is a great silver lining to this story.
Big fat profits mean nothing–and more people filling fewer seats means
everything. Bumping is up! Freebies flow forth furiously! All
hopes are pinned on a banner year for the devotee of the bump. While dark
spots persist–the little, er, not so little airline from New York still clings
to its quaint vision of one person, one seat; the desert laborers toil on to
bounce the phantom bookers–the trend is hopeful. For those at Indy have
been punished for their ancient ways; they are now a mere bump in the airline
history books, to be judged harshly for their myopic vision.

As for me, I am poorly qualified to lead the way for this joyous season
with so much potential. I will try my hand on Black Sunday, with a
perfectly jam packed midday flight home. But I am no role model, for I am
flying out on Thanksgiving Day, wimping out on the great potential of Black
Wednesday. And I am not flying on the airline with the big eyes, eating
bigger and bigger airlines at every meal. I may well be be punished with
empty hands and a deep sadness once the airport din subsides. But there is
always next year, and with any luck, the liquids, creams, gels, and goos spilled
over this momentous holiday will have finally been cleaned up by then.

With hopes for blisters on our fingers from signing so many vouchers,

..robert
–
Links to The True Meaning of Thanksgiving, years past:
http://www.rstack.com/thanksgiving/thanksgiving.html

Happy Thanksgiving to all. I’ll be back posting on Monday.

Hey, remember that whole anti-trust post yesterday? Yeah, well, it may have just gotten a little easier for US Airways.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Southwest has told Delta and US Airways that they would be more than happy to buy any assets that they would sell them as part of their anti-trust review. If this is true, US Airways should take advantage of this to the fullest.

It’s actually funny that these two airlines could help each other. The old America West management has battled Southwest for over 20 years, especially in its hometown of Phoenix and in Las Vegas. During that time, there have been some nasty spats, but America West certainly found a way to coexist with Southwest and be successful, something that has carried over to the new US Airways. That is no easy feat.

But now, they want to buy Delta, and there could be anti-trust concerns, rational or not. This gives US Airways the opportunity to appease the government regulators by offering to sell off assets to the largest and most well-respected LCC around, Southwest. Assuming US Airways and Southwest could agree on a price and the government doesn’t demand they sell too much, I can’t see how the government could shoot this deal down.

What assets would this involve? Well Southwest really is interested in the east coast, so you can bet Washington/National and New York/La Guardia are on their list. They would love to get their hands on enough slots to making flying there frequently workable. I bet they could also be convinced to take some Charlotte flying if necessary as well.

If US Airways sells slots at these congested airports to Southwest, it opens up low fare competition tremendously, and the government might be willing to overlook some of the smaller airport issues since the benefit to masses of consumers would be so great in this instance.

I’m beginning to think this could actually happen.

Now that it’s been a few days since the merger was announced, I thought I’d back up and take a look at the most questionable part of the deal – whether or not it would pass anti-trust review.

If you assume that the shareholders are motivated by how they can squeeze the most money out of a bad situation, then US Airways should be able to succeed on that front. Then it goes to anti-trust review, an issue which US Airways actually addresses directly in their investor presentation which you can find here.

In their argument (page 23), both the rise of low cost carriers (LCCs) and synergies of the merger should be enough to push this through governmental review. First, they say that the increased presence of LCCs around the country means that there is enough competition to keep fares low. They also say that the synergies occuring from the merger are how they plan on improving the bottom line, not by raising fares, even in markets where there is no competition.

Well, we could choose to believe that if we want, but why not dig in further? How much of an effect would it really have on competition? Are Delta and US Airways really competing hard right now and would this even make a difference? It’s tough to say for sure, of course, but I think US Airways does have a good argument here.

The first thing to look at is which markets are really affected. In my opinion, the South is really the area likely to be the hardest hit because that’s where you’re most likely to find flights by both US Airways and Delta but nobody else. Let’s look a small example here using the North Carolina cities of Jacksonville and New Bern. Both cities see eight daily flights to Charlotte on a mix of US Airways Express turboprops and regional jets. That is the only service into New Bern, but Delta Connection also flies a couple of regional jets per day into Jacksonville. Raleigh/Durham is the closest big metro area to both cities – 98 miles from Jacksonville and only 15 miles further to New Bern, so the impact of having lower fares at a nearby airport should be the same for both.

If there really is a fare benefit of competition, we should see it here. Thanks to FareCompare.com, I can look up fares in these cities. Below I’ve displayed the lowest fares offered for travel in February of 2007, after the holidays and before any Spring Break traffic would be traveling.

You might expect New Bern to have higher fares since there is no competition for US Airways there, but in fact that’s not true. Jacksonville, which has Delta flights, is either the same or slightly higher priced than New Bern.

I would expect that if US Airways bought Delta, they would probably reduce the number of flights from the combined ten per day to at least eight a day, but as you can see in New Bern, that wouldn’t necessarily impact pricing.

To be honest, markets like this are few and far between. There aren’t many cities around that are only served by Delta and US Airways these days, and those that are really aren’t very far from an alternate big city airport with more flight options and specifically, LCC options. In my opinion, the anti-trust concerns shouldn’t stop this deal.

Sadly, I don’t make the decisions, and my insight into the current climate in Washington isn’t that great. It’s entirely possible that the decision won’t fit with common sense, but I certainly hope that it does.

Saturday Night Live fans will get the title reference, but this story is actually no laughing matter.

Near-misses are a big problem at many airports around the country, and it’s an area we can expect to hear more about as new technology becomes available to help prevent the problem. Let’s just hope we can address it before a major accident occurs.

Yeah, it’s a crude drawing, but I think you get the point. It’s time for iPod + airplane.

Apple announced that they will be partnering with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to let customers use their iPod with existing inflight entertainment systems. Customers will be able to plug their iPods in and charge them during flight. At the same time, they can watch videos through the personal seatback screens.

United confirmed they will be installing this, though it will have to be a very limited installation. There are only personal seatback screens on international 767s and 777s, so on other planes it’s not worth much. It’s unclear if you will be able to charge your iPod on other aircraft in the fleet even though there is no seatback screen.

In a very strange turn, Air France and KLM are saying that they have not agreed to install the system yet. They say only informal talks have taken place.