Secretary of Transportation Nominee Ray LaHood on Aviation
Obama has picked former Congressman Ray LaHood (R-IL) as his Secretary of Transportation. Will this be good for the airline industry?

When Twitter Gets Interesting
It’s rare that I find Twitter interesting, but one passenger’s use of it after his plane crashed this weekend caught my eye.

Airlines Should Monitor Google Trends
Google Trends offers an opportunity for airlines to see what people are searching. There was a great example this week on how airlines could serve customers better.

US Wants Fewer Operations at LaGuardia
American offered to kill off some flights awhile ago, but the feds wouldn’t retire the slots. Now that’s exactly what they want? Uh, ok.

Southwest Looks to Connect to WestJet in Nevada and Florida
Southwest has leaked its likely first connecting points to WestJet, and at least a couple of them are far from ideal.

Delta Postpones Raleigh/Durham to Paris Flight
Delta postponed their Paris flight from Raleigh almost as quickly as it started. What’s behind this move?

I know that many of you have been anxiously awaiting the Southwest-WestJet codeshare to get going, and yesterday the airlines took their first steps. Southwest put up a link to WestJet, and I have to say it is completely and totally lame.

Head on over to Southwest’s website and you’ll see that they’ve put a link up to WestJet anywhere you can make a Southwest reservation on the site. Just a link. No, really. So now when you go to book a flight, you’ll also see a link that says “Book Flights to Canada.” Once you’re on the old reservations pages, you’ll find they’ve even given Canada a separate tab. Please, I’m going to have to ask you to calm down. When you click it, it simply opens up the WestJet booking engine and you can book a WestJet flight as you would on the WestJet website.

You know who I feel bad for? The person who wrote the FAQ on this new WestJet link. It’s just says all of the things you can’t do. You can read the whole thing yourself, but here are some of my favorites:

• Do Southwest Airlines and WestJet offer connecting service?
  No. Currently, connecting service is not offered between the two carriers. If you wish to create your own itinerary using both airlines, you must book two separate reservations and are responsible for the checkin requirements of each carrier. Southwest Airlines and WestJet do not have ticketing or baggage agreements in place at this time and are not responsible for one another’s flight information, reaccommodations, special service requests, etc.




• Will my checked luggage be transferred from Southwest Airlines to WestJet or vice-versa?
  No. Southwest Airlines and WestJet do not currently have a baggage agreement. If you book two separate reservations that require a connection, you will be responsible for checking in with both airlines. Furthermore, you must claim your baggage at the connection point and re-check it with the airline providing transportation to your final destination. . . .




• Can I earn Rapid Rewards credit for WestJet flights?
  No, at this time you cannot earn Rapid Rewards credit for WestJet flights.




• Do WestJet flights count toward my A-List status?
  No, at this time flights completed on WestJet will not count toward a Rapid Reward Member’s A-List status.




• Can I apply my Southwest Airlines Ticketless Travel Funds to purchase travel on WestJet?
  No, Southwest Airlines Ticketless Travel Funds may only be applied to the purchase of flights operated by Southwest Airlines.

In other words, it’s just a friggin’ link. This is worthy of a press release? I suppose this is a tremendous benefit for that one person who is having trouble typing “westjet.com” into his browser. But for anyone else, this is no better than putting a link to someone else on your blogroll.

As far as I know, the codeshare is still on for late next year, but let’s hope they focus on the end goal and don’t bother with interim steps like this one again.

Those of you who live in Canada got a nice dose of gold star-worthy airline goodness yesterday when Air Canada announced it was rolling back some fees and other airlines followed with reductions of their own. Fuel prices are down, so it’s always nice to see an airline actually repeal something that it had previously said was put in place because of high fuel prices. Something tells me we won’t see that happening here in the US very often, if at all.

Let’s get a little more specific here. Air Canada announced that it would stop charging the $25 second bag fee that it put into place in May due to high fuel costs. It was also announced that the fuel surcharges would be rolled into the base fare going forward. Lastly, the airline said that excess bag fees would be simplified to be a flat $75 per piece for oversized or overweight (or both) and $100 per excess bag (which would not require additional payment if it was oversize or overweight). This is a reduction from the current $100 fee for each limit that is violated. (This is confusing. Get the details here.)

If that wasn’t enough to make the Canadians happy, WestJet (and Porter) decided to one-up Air Canada by eliminating their fuel surcharges altogether. WestJet said it best . . . “WestJet eliminates fuel surcharge – because we said we would.”

Well, how’s that for a round of good news? I have to say that it’s rare we see several airlines actually keep their word here. I know that some airlines institute these baggage fees because they want to change their business model to a more a la carte-style. That’s fine, and I wouldn’t expect those to change. But for those airlines that make changes while blaming high fuel prices, they really should act responsibly and reduce those fees when oil prices come back down. Unfortunately, most of them won’t, but kudos are certainly due to the Canadians.

Once again, it appears that those north of the border have figured out a better way to raise money . . . charge for new services instead of ones that are currently free. The latest comes from WestJet, which has announced it will begin offering seat assignments for a fee.

WestJet currently uses a model we don’t see much of here in the US. You can’t reserve a seat at the time of booking on WestJet. But, when you check-in, you can pick your seat. This is different from Southwest which doesn’t ever assign a seat and just has you pick when you get onboard. Of course, check-in behavior for both airlines is the same. People try to check in as early as possible so they can get the best seats.

Now on WestJet, you will be able to reserve a seat any time prior to after booking for $10 (I assume that’s US or Canadian money.) For $15, you can reserve an exit row seat. Not a bad deal, huh? It’s funny how perspective changes how you view a fee.

If an airline currently offers me a seat assignment for free (or a first bag, or really anything), it makes it a lot more annoying when they take that away. It’s a reduction in value, and that doesn’t go over well. On the other hand, when an airline offers me something that previously wasn’t available, I think it’s great.

Legacy carriers in the US have a problem in that a lot more stuff used to be included in the fare than is the case with someone like WestJet. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Air Canada has done a great job of adding value by charging for things that previously weren’t available. Yes, they’ve charged for things that were free as well, but at least they’ve tried to add value.

So, is there anything bad about this? Well, I had one reader say that if you buy a sale fare, you can’t pay to reserve a seat. That doesn’t make sense. Charge more for sale fares if you’d like, but why turn away money? I’m not sure what the full story is there.

Other than that, if I fly WestJet, I’m probably happy about this, because I’d rather be able to select my seat ahead of time for that nominal fee. If someone doesn’t want to pay the fee, however, that person is probably not so happy because now all those people that pay the fee will take away seats that could have previously been had by checking in early. Still, it’s a net positive for the airline’s customers, and it’s a net positive for the income statement as well.

I’d like to welcome those of you who are visiting me for the first time thanks to my summer travel tips posted today on Nuts About Southwest. Take a look around, and if you like what you see, you can subscribe via RSS or email. Please jump in and join the conversation in the comments section while you’re here!

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After being ditched by ATA for that slutty bankruptcy court (I mean, who hasn’t been with her?), it looks like Southwest has found its next dance partner. The airline announced yesterday that it would begin codesharing with Canada’s WestJet next year. This is good news, but it’s more interesting as a symbol of what’s to come than anything else.

In short, nothing was really announced yesterday except for the intent to partner. In fact, it won’t happen for a long time. The release says that the “airlines plan to announce codeshare flight schedules and additional features regarding the partnership by late 2009.” So it’s a long way off.

When it does happen, you can probably expect a similar partnership as to what we saw with ATA back in the day. Interline baggage, frequent flier integration, and codesharing will all be part of this deal. What’s different?

Well, there is an interesting little bit noting that “southwest.com will soon become a distribution channel for WestJet’s existing Canadian and transborder flights, providing Customers the opportunity to purchase WestJet’s existing flights via southwest.com.” That IS interesting. So you’ll be able to book WestJet flights through Southwest’s website even if no Southwest flight is involved.

Not even the AirTran/Frontier partnership allows that. They still send you to the other airline’s site for booking. I suppose this seems closest to the Northwest/KLM arrangement. There is no KLM website in the US and there is no Northwest website in Europe. Then again, I doubt that WestJet will ditch their US site entirely.

This clearly seems like a win-win to me. For WestJet, it offers their flights on the most popular airline site in the US. I’m sure Southwest is getting a sweet commission deal out of this, so it’s good news for them as well. Nice little attempt at ancillary revenue, even if it is a pretty small opportunity. (Yeah Canada, I’m talking aboot you.)

So why is this so important? Well, as they mentioned in their blog post, Southwest’s exec team has spoken for years about how they wanted to be able to fly internationally. Though Canada barely counts, this indicates that Southwest now has (or will soon have) the booking capabilities set up to allow for international travel. I’d expect to see codesharing south of the border come up as well. Caribbean? Mexico? It’s coming. Europe? Maybe someday.

And that’s the really big news here. Southwest is no longer caged in the US. The airline is roaming free and is on the prowl.