Cranky on the Web (January 3-7)

Baggage, Continental, Labor Relations, Southwest, Technology, United

Expedia Drops American Airlines — Right After Orbitz BattleBNET Headwinds
Expedia has now joined the fight against American, which seems ironic since it just gained an advantage after AA pulled out of Orbitz. This is much bigger than that, however.

Continental-United Merger: How the Airline Emboldened Its PilotsBNET Headwinds
United lost its bid to put a Continental code on 70 seat jets in Continental hubs. That’s good news for pilots.

Southwest’s Muddled Attack on Change Fees May BackfireBNET Headwinds
Southwest has released its new change fee ads, and the message isn’t nearly as clear as “Bags Fly Free.” In fact, this could backfire.

In the Trenches: Learning in the AftermathIntuit Small Business Blog
Now that the big winter storms during the holidays have passed, it’s time to revisit what worked and what didn’t. We do need to make some changes.

As Sabre Enters War Over Flight Bookings, American Has to Find New StrategiesBNET Headwinds
The distribution war that American started is reaching a boiling point, and now the question is whether American will be able to find a way to survive without the GDSes.

Sabre Makes the Wrong Choice By Removing American AirlinesBNET Headwinds
Now looking at it from the other side, Sabre is not making the right choice here.

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3 comments on “Cranky on the Web (January 3-7)

  1. I don’t know. I think it’s fairly intuitive that one should expect to pay the fare difference, if you change your travel plans.

    It’s not as if people get a store credit of $50 from Walmart, and then expect to get $1000 worth of goods with that credit.

    Southwest has eliminated (or never had, rather) the equivalent of the restocking fee. I think people will get that.

    1. It’s also fairly intuitive that airplanes can’t fly when there is a lot of snow and ice on the ground. Yet people still complain and act like everything is within the airline’s control.

      Having worked for an airline my entire career thus far, I’ve come to learn that you can’t expect passengers to understand much even when you spell it out in front of their face. It’s not a jilt towards their intelligence…it’s just that the majority of passengers choose not to inform themselves and then also choose to jump to conclusions and get upset even though the rules are spelled out clearly. A good number of people are going to assume that Southwest is saying you don’t pay anything to change a flight…and when they get charged the fare difference, they’re going to be angry even after the agent shows them the fine print. It’s still a lose lose situation.

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