Cranky on the Web (November 13 – 18)

Airports, Government Regulation, United

Should I feel guilty about flying out of Buffalo instead of Toronto?The Globe and Mail
I was asked why Canadian airports are more expensive. So many reasons, but they only took one.

Wi-Fi coming to international flightsCNN Out of the Office
More talk about what’s happening with United’s decision to put wifi on its international fleet.

First Fine for Tarmac Delays May Not Actually Help YouConde Nast Daily Traveler
I didn’t write about the tarmac delay fine here, but over on Conde Nast I talked about how it’s not necessarily good news. (Regular readers here won’t be surprised by my stance.)

In the Trenches: Recovering From a CrashIntuit Small Business Blog
Our web host crashed last week, and that meant we had to revert to a back up plane to keep our clients happy.

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6 comments on “Cranky on the Web (November 13 – 18)

  1. “””””Our web host crashed last week, and that meant we had to revert to a back up plane to keep our clients happy. “””””

    Brett you must have been think of plane crashes to have a back up plane and not a back up plan….lol.

    —–

    Do airlines keep fares low near the Canadian border to entice people to cross or are the Canada side fares so high that any American fare looks good?

    1. I think my fingers are not capable of typing plan without putting an “e” on the end.

      For Canada, a lot of the problem is the high taxes. So it’s not even that fares are that high but rather that the ultimate price paid is high by the customer.

    2. I think also because Canadian airports are unsubsidized/not as subsidized by their federal government so the charges are higher to make up for that.

      Although to be fair, Air Canada has a done a good job maintaining competitive fares to Europe from regional US destinations such as RIC and IND. AC works WITH the Canadian government to make international transfers EASY (not having to recollect baggage, very limited passport check). One other thing in favor for the airlines is that there isn’t much competition internationally (see EK vs Canada).

  2. Wow, so BlueHost crashed? Last week I had my site suspended for a couple of hours without even the ability to reach the admin panel. BluHost said they blocked the site because it caused problems for 2000 other clients of theirs (I am not on a dedicated server). I had to delete a couple of perfectly working plugins, and when they were told that that was all I could do (especially not being a programmer) they unblocked the site. So, now I keep frantically checking CPU throttling reports on BlueHost admin not even sure what to do if it happens again.

  3. Over the past decade + a common route for me has been MSP/YYC. From roughly 2002-2005 I could get a R/T ticket for roughly $200-300 with 2 week advance purchase on NW. Then the price jumped to about $500. Then $700…$800…and today it’s not uncommon to see the fare around $1000. Meanwhile the route has gone from mainline metal to regional aircraft.

    Now, I know Canadian airports have extra fees/taxes that US counterparts do not have. I also know that fuel prices are up since a decade ago. That said, a more than 300% increase in the typical fare is more than just an expensive airport. With the lower capacity on the route the planes are always full as well.

    I don’t find fault with the airlines, they are probably profitable on that route as there is little competition. There’s the issue, little to no competition from CAD airports to/from the US.

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