Fuel ‘surcharge’ a fare increase with a fancy name – CNN.com Out of the Office
This week, it’s time to talk about fuel prices. They’re going higher and so are fares, but the two aren’t completely related.

In the Trenches: The Good and the Bad of Paypal – Intuit Small Business Blog
I’ve been using Paypal since the beginning for Cranky Concierge, but there is some good and some bad in that.

Approaching Gloom: Airlines Slow Growth, Fill Fewer Seats in February – BNET Headwinds
Things started to slow down in February and some airlines couldn’t even fill the seats they offered.

O’Hare, Airlines Both Win as Feds Waste Money on an Expensive Expansion Project – BNET Headwinds
O’Hare’s expansion is moving ahead thanks to another infusion of federal funds.

I’m changing the name of my usual Saturday “This Week on BNET” posts starting this week. Instead of just focusing on my BNET posts, I’m going to also post other places where I might have written or been mentioned during the week. That may or may not be a frequent thing, but I thought it was at least worth a name change. This week, I had a piece for the New York Times and more, as you’ll see below . . .

A Look at John Tague, New President of United Airlines – BNET
John Tague is now president of United, but will that mean any changes are on the way?

United Launches Intra-Europe Flight – BNET
United is going into the London to Brussels market. Why the heck are they doing that?

How Air Travel Can Be Made Less Annoying – New York Times (Room For Debate)
The title says it all. The asked four of us what could make air travel less annoying, and I wrote about setting expectations.

Kayak Asks Microsoft’s Bing Travel to Stop Being a Copycat – BNET
Kayak thinks Bing is copying it. Bing says no. Fun fight ensues.

Booking the Hot Seat on Airlines – Chicago Tribune RedEye
RedEye writes about those who don’t just look at price and schedule when they fly. I was happy to participate in this one.

Who Will Fill Delta’s Space at Chicago/O’Hare? – BNET
Delta is leaving its old gates at O’Hare to join Northwest in November. Who will take those over?

Why Does Southwest Want to Buy Frontier? – BNET
Southwest is bidding for Frontier, but why exactly do they want to do that?

Frequent Flyer Friday #2 – Musings of the Global Traveller
The Global Traveller interviews me about my flying habits.

Back at the Southwest Halloween contest last month, the planning group had us try to guess what the next Southwest city would be. Holly Hegeman of PlaneBusiness put down three letters – LGA. It appears that she was right. Southwest is trying to put together a deal that would secure slots at New York’s LaGuardia airport. Meanwhile, Virgin America is saying that it can’t get gates at O’Hare even though the airline already said it would be flying there. Sounds like one airline is far more determined to grow than the other.

Let’s start with Southwest. The airline has put a bid in to pay $7.5 million for ATA’s operating certificate. The only reason they appear to want this is for the LaGuardia slots to fill the giant hole in their route map. (I believe they lost their Washington/National slots long ago, so that shouldn’t be part of the package.) Now don’t freak out, Southwest employees. This isn’t yet another codeshare announcement. ATA is toast, and this is just an effort to buy the slots to be flown by Southwest airplanes.

Clearly this is a big deal, but this doesn’t mean Southwest will get in immediately. It’s always possible that someone else will put a bigger bid down for the assets, and then we could see a bidding war. (Grab some popcorn!) But even if they don’t win this round, they’re clearly stating that they plan on finally entering New York City. It’s going to happen at some point, and I’d put my bet down that Chicago/Midway will be one of the first markets. (Yep, those Delta flights on the same route would be gone in two minutes.)

They’re not going to take over New York with this initial move, but they will certainly cause a big headache for the other carriers. It’s bold, and it’s a smart move. Southwest needs to be in New York, especially if it wants to be a bigger player in the business world.

On the other side of the coin, we find Virgin America. The airline had announced plans to start flying to Chicago/O’Hare this fall, but then that was pushed back. Now a Chicago Tribune article says that Virgin America can’t find gates so it may decide soon not to go into the airport after all.

Something here doesn’t smell right. I have no doubt that they can get gates if they want them. They could always fly out of the mostly (but not entirely) international Terminal 5 since those gates are controlled by the city. Or I imagine some airline would be willing to sell them a gate or at least partial use of one. It says they’ve only spoken with United, American, and Delta. What about US Airways? I’m pretty sure those guys would sell their mothers if they could make enough money on the deal. Or what about one of the many other carriers that fly to the airport?

It sounds to me like they may want gates, but they don’t want them THAT much. Unless the Tribune article is inaccurate, it just doesn’t sound like they’re really exhausting all options here. Definitely an interesting contrast between two airlines’ efforts to get into crowded airports. One is willing to go a lot further to make it happen.

It’s time once again for the completely irregular segment I like to call random bits of info. There have been a bunch of little airline stories the last few days, so I’m just going to rattle them off here now.

• Hooray for the Brazilian courts! – It was ruled that the two American pilots being held in the Gol accident investigation cannot be held any longer. After some more interrogation and a promise to return when needed, the pilots will be free to go home. At least someone realized the gross injustice going on down there.
• Virgin Blows . . . – At least, that was the gist of the press release announcing the airline’s return to the Windy City (that’s Chicago). A daily flight between London/Heathrow and Chicago/O’Hare begins April 23, 2007. The airline used to fly from Chicago but pulled out afternoon Sept 11, 2001. I’m surprised that they’re going back, because it’s a very competitive market. American, United, and BA all fly it multiple times a day.
• . . . So Does LAWA – In the news of the lame, LA World Airports (LAWA) has announced it will rename Ontario Intl Airport to LA/Ontario Intl Airport and Palmdale to LA/Palmdale Regional Airport. Since apparently nobody knows where Ontario is (Canada?), this is the right thing to do. Actually, the Ontario renaming doesn’t bother me nearly as much as Palmdale. I mean, Palmdale doesn’t even have any flights! Do you think that airlines will start flying there just because of its new name? Lame-o.
• Lufthansa to Kick Airbus in the Nuts – Rumors abound today that Lufthansa is set to be the first major customer for Boeing’s new 747-8 with more range and more seats. This is Boeing’s competitor to the A380, and if a German airline which has traditionally ordered Airbus chooses Boeing here, it’s very bad news for Airbus.
• Does God Hate El Al? – That’s definitely a question being asked these days. Due to a general strike, El Al opted to fly on the Sabbath in order to get people home. Well, the flight to New York had rudder problems and had to return to Tel Aviv, prompting those onboard to say it was the “finger of God” punishing them for flying during the holy day. Um, ok. Now there’s a huge boycott in the works by the ultra-orthodox community, and the airline will probably be forced to sign a document saying they won’t do it again. My question is this . . . if they boycott El Al, who are they going to fly? Everybody else flies on the Sabbath. Good luck with that one.

JetBlue has been trying to fly to Chicago for a long time, but their inability to get gate space and slots at O’Hare meant they weren’t able to start flying unless they settled for another area airport (Midway, Gary). Clearly they were unwilling to do so, and they really stepped up the fight recently.

In this post, I talked about how they were given approval to start 4 daily flights out of the airport, most likely all to New York/JFK. Well, yesterday, they announced their plans and they were surprising.

In yesterday’s announcement, they said they’d start five daily flights to New York/JFK and two daily flights to Long Beach (California) on January 4. Where did these three extra slots come from? According to the Chicago Tribune (subscription required):

The additional slots were obtained under the FAA’s recent decision to allow airlines at O’Hare to “trade, swap, buy or sell” slots, according to JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin. He declined to say exactly how JetBlue negotiated the additional slots or from whom it had obtained them.

Interesting, so that’s why they reduced their initial request from 8 slots to 4. They knew they could get the others on their own. They’ll start flying out of Third World Terminal 2, most likely from the old America West gate that the airline gave back after its merger with US Airways.

One other thing to note. They have an amazing $36 fare sale for the first 36 hours (you probably have half that time left), but good luck finding any seats. Spot checks show almost no availability when you’d want to go, especially on the Long Beach route which interests me the most.

Now the question is what two flights are they dropping out of Long Beach? They’re operating at maximum capacity there right now, so two flights will have to go to make room for these. I’ll do some research and see if I can find out.