3 Links I Love: Vacation Time, Canada’s New Rules, Indigo, LaGuardia’s Pain

Links I Love

This week’s featured link:

Travellers could get up to $2,400 if they are bumped from an overbooked flight under Canada’s new air passenger protection rulesOttawa Citizen
Reader Allan sent me a link to this article highlighting changes in Canada’s passenger rights rules. If you get bumped involuntarily, if your luggage is lost, or if (coming soon) you get delayed due to a reason within the airline’s control, you could be getting big money.

Image of the Week: Two summers ago, I spent a week staring at this while I relaxed in Hawai’i. This summer, I’m going to be in Hawai’i for an entire month trying to do the same thing. I actually left yesterday. I’m working part of the time… but I’m trying to lay lower than usual. So, this is the last “3 Links I Love” post until I return.

Two for the road:

Analysis: The battle for control at IndigoBangalore Aviation
Indigo has been India’s most stable and successful airline for the last several years as others have gone out of business or gotten into trouble. But there is a brawl at the top and it is over the direction of the airline.

Endless Traffic, Mass Confusion, Ride-Share Price Gouging Creating Chaos At LaGuardia Airport – WCBS New York
Well this is going swimmingly. I’ve heard plenty of nightmare stories as LaGuardia tries to improve itself while still operating. JetBlue must be thrilled. Not only is it at the easy-to-reach Marine Air Terminal but those JFK flights may start looking even better.

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17 comments on “3 Links I Love: Vacation Time, Canada’s New Rules, Indigo, LaGuardia’s Pain

  1. My sense is that the article about Laguardia is significantly exaggerated. I have been through there many times since the construction began and found that while the airport looks like a mess, it is actually functioning very well. A few points:
    — It’s not just Jetblue, over at the marine air terminal, that have avoided the worst of things. Delta (the airport’s largest carrier), Frontier, and Spirit, at terminal C and D, have as well. In particular, taxis and car services can still come right up to the curb at those terminals.
    — Even at terminal B, where taxis and car services have been moved into an adjacent parking garage, they are not especially far away and there are well marked signs to guide people
    — Fake taxi drivers offering there services have long been a problem at Laguardia. No New Yorker would fall for such a thing, and out oft owners shouldn’t either. These people tend to have “sketchy” written all over them.

    1. I’ve had one departure in the past two months that fell into the category of “nightmare” and know another person who had the same experience. This person literally could not get to the terminal in time. Left Manhattan with plenty of time, but there were just backups getting into the airport itself.

      For my part, same thing but I got to the terminal with very little time before my flight and a TSA line that was just horrendous. In desperation I signed up for Clear – it was the only way to make it happen.

      So, based on my experience, and that of my associate, I believe the story. Your mileage may vary,

    2. I fly LGA every week on Delta. Departures isn’t horrible — it is slower, there are times where they route you to arrivals and have to go up the stairs, but overall, it isn’t too bad.

      Arrivals suck. Horror weeks aside, to take a yellow taxi, you get on a bus on a very long roundabout route to get to a temporary stand past terminal B.

      To take an Uber/Lyft, there is a new lot between C/D. The lot itself is ok, but drivers can take 15-20 minutes to get to you while the apps say they are 5 minutes away. I have had many drivers cancel on me after 10 minutes, starting the process over again, particularly on busy Thursdays. Better off trying to get picked up at Departures if you are in C/D and request ride before you get off the plane.

      Terminal B just got a new ride share pickup in the parking garage, but haven’t used it
      Terminal A I think is smooth these days

      the fake drivers – I never understood how Port Authority ambassadors and police just stand around as those guys prey on older travelers trying to get them to use “uber”

    3. Completely agree. I fly out of LGA regularly, granted only on Delta so I’m exclusively in C and D. There’s traffic, but there’s always traffic. It’s New York. The lot for Uber is great. It does take drivers a few extra minutes to get there, but it prevents the log jams outside of the terminal doors while giving the drivers a place to actually stop and load without causing a traffic jam. I still always choose LGA over JFK, and in a few more years we’re going to have a great airport.

    4. I’m only a 2 or 3 times a year LGA traveler, always on WN. A few years ago, I switched from taxis to a car service (not ride-sharing) mostly for fare certainty and car cleanliness. The walk to the pickup area in the garage is maybe two minutes longer than to the old taxi stand at the west end of the central terminal – and unlike the taxi stand, there’s no waiting in line.

      The illegal ride services are not unique to LGA. I see them all the time at MDW and ORD, and even once encountered them at DAL. It’s really difficult to police those in a crowded driveway without creating nasty traffic backups.

    1. Doug – Almost entirely on O’ahu. We’re doing a couple nights on Lana’i, but we are spending most of the time on the North Shore in a house. And it’s glorious.

  2. What’s the deal with these “crazy” government mandated payments to airline passengers when things go wrong? The level of payments seems wildly disproportionate to the harm in most cases. Like during the recent AA mechanics dispute, I was kind of rooting for my flight departing Europe to be late so that my family could collect a zillion dollars in damages (of course, actually collecting the money from AA might have been challenging). To me, this would be like the gov’t mandating I get paid 20 bucks if I show up at a supermarket to buy a sale item that is out of stock. Sure, it’s annoying, but I wouldn’t deserve the 20 bucks. How do the legislatures come up with these crazy compensation levels, and how do the airlines afford them?

    1. The “deal with” compensation is, you know, to compensate travelers. If a flight is severely delayed or cancelled, travelers often have significant expenses that in the US are often not covered by anyone (e.g., loss of wages).

      And it encourages airlines to reduce the likelihood of problems by making it more costly to run a bad operation.

      I was beneficiary of two EU 261/2004 cases so far. In one case it was a significant delay that cost me time at my destination. The other time it was a downgrade from (paid) business class to economy due to a last minute aircraft swap.

      By the way, the FTC actually has rules that require grocery stores to have advertised sale products in stock during the sale period.

      https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/retail-food-store-advertising-marketing

      You wouldn’t be entitled to $20, but a rain check for the product.

      1. I, too, have been the beneficiary of two EU 261/2004 cases and it was awesome. An 8 hour delay on LOT in Business Class resulted in compensation far exceeding what I paid for the ticket. Candidly, it’s nice to see a government trying to instill accountability.

        1. But that’s the problem with these compensation levels. They’re way too high. As the previous poster noted, if a store doesn’t have a sale item, you get a raincheck. That sounds reasonable. If a flight is 4 hours delayed, it seems like you should get a meal voucher and, perhaps, something like 100 bucks. Instead, on a transatlantic flight from the EU, you get 600 euros! That’s crazy money. It’s like winning the lottery. If you’re travelling with a family and don’t have a very pressing schedule, you really, really want your flight delayed! This is gov’t regulation at its most absurd.

          1. Consider it built-in punitive damages. Presumably you are a US resident and familiar with civil courts awarding these. :)

    2. By running an operation that avoids bumping folks/heavy delays/cancellations/lost luggage, it would seem. If operational screwups are expensive enough due to fines, there’s more incentive to avoid them. Or try to get passengers to settle for compensation doled out by the airline that isn’t a fine, e.g. the large credits Delta does now for VDBs to avoid paying out for IDBs.

  3. LGA is my last resort airport to NYC. I prefer JFK, followed by EWR. My hometown (AUS) has no nonstop flight to LGA, because AUS is over the perimeter limit. That means making a connection to get to LGA which adds at least 90 minutes to the travel time. Whereas I can fly nonstop to JFK and EWR. JFK and EWR have rail access to Manhattan. Even before the construction, I found LGA to be congested with long lines.

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