Summer travel: Watch out for amateurs – CNN Out of the Office
This was a fun one to write. Just a few tips for those road warriors who have to navigate family travel during the busy summer. I love kids, but flying in a tube for many hours with them isn’t ideal for anyone.
In the Trenches: Building a Corporate Culture over Email – Intuit Small Business Blog
It’s not easy to build a culture when everyone is remote.
San Bernardino airport nearing commercial service, officials say – Redlands Daily Facts
I commented that I don’t see much of a near term future for San Bernardino Airports in its quest for commercial service . . . not unless they want to start paying.
13 comments on “Cranky on the Web (July 5 – 8)”
re: CNN article
Tip #1 should’ve been “Remember you were a child once.”
How quickly people become irritated by the generation that can’t control themselves yet, without realizing that they were once the crying baby or antsy toddler in a plane.
…And if your kids have grown up – remember how much effort it used to be trying to keep them under control, and how embarrasing it could be when they couldnt stop crying no matter how hard you tried
San Bernardino will take time to become know and used, except for airlines like RyanAir who people to the ‘big’ cities and land them 100 miles away.
Are you saying that we should give up the ability to recline our seat, just to avoid the small chance that a child will kick the seat? What are the odds that a child will sit behind you, anyway? And while parents might not be able to keep their kids from crying, any parent should be able to stop their kid from kicking, and if they can’t, or won’t, then call a flight attendant.
Why on earth toddlers should be allowed to annoy an entire flight is beyond me – if airlines really wanted to show they cared they could allocate a seperate class and comparmtnent for “scream class” where parents can all enjoy the antics of thier little darlings.
San Bernardino International Airport…
…as soon as the airport completes its U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, a requirement for international flights…
Don’t you kind of need US CBP in order to be an “International Airport”. Heck SNA only *just* got CBP, and then only for Canadian pre-cleared flights.
You don’t need CBP for pre-cleared flights.
Actually, I believe you still need CBP on call, just in case a pre-cleared passenger requires additional screening.
Possibly unrelated, but
do you have any comments on
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/business/european-airfares-look-inviting-next-to-us-prices.html?_r=1
It seems European airlines, much more regulated than US ones (tarmac delay rules, much more stringent passenger rights bill, compensation even for weather-caused delays and cancellations and so on) manage to charge much lower prices than in the US.
The reason for this is that low cost airlines in Europe are different than most in the US. Most low cost airline flights in the US have been on airlines that provide more than traditional airlines, like Southwest or JetBlue. (At least, they provide more than traditional airlines provide today.) In Europe, they went to the bottom of the barrel very quickly with the likes of Ryanair and easyJet. You’re now seeing more of this in the US with Spirit and Allegiant leading the way.
I am not sure I agree:
Spirit actually has “worse facilities” than Ryanair (Ryanair does not charge for carryons), and the prices are considerably higher.
Moreover, the airline market in the US liberalized earlier, and, as I wrote earlier, laws are considerably friendlier to airlines in the US.
I think it boils down to how fierce the competition is, and how easy is it for startups to challenge the big players.
And I’ll have to disagree with you on Spirit vs Ryanair. Ryanair may not charge for a carry on, but it does have smaller the usual dimensions so that allows the airline to force people to check their carry-ons. They probably make more money off that than they would with a carry-on fee. Ryanair also charges you to use a credit card and the airline has now added an EU 261 fee which is meant to compensate for the governmental legislation on how to deal with delayed passengers.
I do think one thing that Europe has going for it is the ease of transport. So airlines like Ryanair can fly to these out of the way airports and people will use them. That’s a much more difficult sell here in the US, and in fact there are plenty of cheap airports on the outskirts that have failed to take off in any meaningful way. (New York’s Stewart, Gary and Rockford outside Chicago, San Bernardino outside LA, etc.)
I’m not sure why it matters which industry was liberalized earlier. In fact, I’d say that gave an advantage to Europe because as time has gone on, people have become more receptive to the idea of fees and charges. Had Southwest tried that when it first started flying, it would have failed miserably.
I think the main reason is the higher population density in Europe. The cities are larger and closer together, therefore it’s more economical to fly people around. It would be interesting to compare different regions of the US, but my guess is that the cost per passenger-mile (to the airline, not necessarily to the passenger) is higher in the midwest and west than in the northeast or California or Texas. Also, Europe has a good train network, applying downward pressure on prices.