Travel

 

by Robert McGarvey

A judge now has the backs – and backsides – of coach class passengers. That’s because Judge Patricia Millett, sitting on the US Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, has authored an opinion that slams the FAA for ignoring “basic physics” as it has allowed airlines to shrink seat sizes.

Millett, in the majority opinion, called it “the case of the incredible shrinking airline seat.”

The Circuit Court’s decision has gotten lots of press coverage – but the decision is more narrow than it might seem. There’s good news in it, for coach passengers, but it is not the revolution touted by many headline writers.

The root of the case is that, as you know, seats have in fact gotten smaller – while we as a people have gotten bigger.  Two in three adults in the US are overweight or obese. One is three are obese.  

According to FlyersRights.org, seats are an inch and a half smaller than they were 15 years ago. The space between you and the passenger behind you has also shrunk, to as small as 28”. 35” was the usual pitch some years ago.  

Enter a case filed by FlyersRights.org, et. al. vs the FAA.  The case focused on FlyersRights’ attempt to persuade the FAA “to promulgate rules governing size limitations for aircraft seats to ensure, among other things, that passengers can safely and quickly evacuate a plane in an emergency.”

In response, the FAA denied the link between seat size and passenger health and safety.

Here’s how Millett summed up the case: “To support that conclusion, the Administration pointed to (at best) off-point studies and undisclosed tests using unknown parameters. That type of vaporous record will not do—the Administrative Procedure Act requires reasoned decisionmaking grounded in actual evidence.”

Millett went on: “Flyers Rights expressed concern that the decrease in seat size, coupled with the increase in passenger size, imperiled passengers’ health and safety by slowing emergency egress and by causing deep vein thrombosis (a potentially fatal condition involving blood clots in the legs), as well as “soreness, stiffness, [and] other joint and muscle problems.”

Millett did not completely endorse the FlyersRights’ viewpoint. The opinion noted: “We agree with Flyers Rights that the Administration failed to provide a plausible evidentiary basis for concluding that decreased seat sizes combined with increased passenger sizes have no effect on emergency egress. But we disagree with Flyers Rights’ challenge to the Administration’s declination to regulate matters of physical comfort and routine health.”

She also noted: “The Administration’s rationale also blinks reality. As a matter of basic physics, at some point seat and passenger dimensions would become so squeezed as to impede the ability of passengers to extricate themselves from their seats and get over to an aisle. The question is not whether seat dimensions matter, but when.”

Millett added that some FAA research in fact corroborates the Flyers Rights viewpoint. “Indeed, an Administration study that addressed passenger size in a slightly different context actually corroborates Flyers Rights’ point. The study considered, among other things, the ability of wider passengers to pass through the emergency exit row and door. Importantly, this test found that increased passenger width had the greatest effect on exit speed of all the variables tested.”

Millett further noted: “The problems with the Administration’s position do not stop there. Even with respect to its unseen tests, the agency cannot say whether those tests accounted for increased passenger size, which is a critical component of the egress problem raised by Flyers Rights’ petition. When questioned at oral argument, counsel for the Administration was unaware whether such tests take into account larger passengers.”

Sort through the court’s thoughts and where the FAA dropped the ball was around the possible relationship between smaller seats and passenger safety.  

In places, Millett agreed with the FAA. For instance: “Specifically, with respect to the risk of deep vein thrombosis, the Administration cited evidence showing that it rarely occurs and, regardless, is not caused by seat size or spacing.”

Here too: “Flyers Rights also noted passenger problems with ‘soreness, stiffness, [and] other joint and muscle problems’ in its petition for rulemaking….Given that those conditions are commonplace, temporary, and non-life threatening discomforts, Flyers Rights’ petition failed to demonstrate that the Administration erred in declining to undertake immediate rulemaking.”

As for what the court ordered, here it is: “We grant Flyers Rights’ petition for review in part, and remand to the Administration for a properly reasoned disposition of the petition’s safety concerns about the adverse impact of decreased seat dimensions and increased passenger size on aircraft emergency egress.”

So the FAA is tasked with more research on the possible links between smaller seats and passenger safety.

Will we get bigger seats as an upshot?  More comfortable seats? That’s just not likely.  

But at least airlines – and the FAA – are on notice that seat dimensions can be considered by a court and, in the event there are health and safety impacts, the court is willing to order the FAA to exercise oversight.

Just don’t count on bigger, plusher seats in coach. That really isn’t a likely consequence of this order.

 

 

Keep Saying No to the New 48 Hour Cancellation Policies

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

File this story under how to win.

We all know that Marriott and now Hilton are seeking to impose a 48 hour cancellation requirement. Fail to cancel earlier and you will be subject to a penalty of one night’s rate, say the big chains.

I have been vocal in opposing these policies, as has Joe Brancatelli, and most other business travel experts.

Marriott and Hilton are trying to tell us these cancellation policies are for our benefit, that they will help ensure that rooms are there when we need them.

As Brancatelli howled in a recent column: “Hilton is lying. Marriott is lying.”

Now Intercontinental Hotels has entered the fray with a new 24-hour cancellation policy.  Obviously that’s half as bad as the 48 hour rule – but, really now, who has made reservations at a Holiday Inn? I’ve stayed at many but not with a rez.

So that’s easy enough to ignore.

The reality is this: if we stand against these policies we will prevail.

Read this from Business Travel News: “It remains to be seen how the new cancellation policies will impact corporates. Even with the 24-hour policies that launched in 2014, buyers have been able to secure same-day cancellation contract terms and dissolve relationships with properties that wouldn’t accept same-day cancels.”

What that is suggesting is that the large corporate and government buyers will insist on striking the 48 hour clause and the hotel chains – no surprise – will cave.

The BTN story continued: “Goldspring Consulting partner Mark Williams said even with the size of Marriott and Hilton, he expects that the high fragmentation in the hotel space will keep the 48-hour cancellation policy from becoming a broad industry practice.”

Absolutely right.

Hotels in cities popular with business travelers would do well to build a flexible cancellation policy into their marketing plans.

Will that hurt them? BTN reports that 4.9% of corporate travelers cancel within 48 hours and that just isn’t that big of a deal.

Know you won’t sleep on a hard plastic airport seat if you choose to boycott Marriott and Hilton. It simply is very rare that even popular big cities – Manhattan, San Francisco – sell out.  New York has the nation’s highest occupancy rate and that is 85%.  Nationwide, occupancy is 65% – and that means on any given night one hotel room in three is vacant.

And most rooms still are at hotels without punitive cancellation policies.

Add in available Airbnb and Homeaway accommodations and the math is on our side.

Add in HotelTonight – which has always had rooms available whenever I’ve checked – and there is every reason for confidence.

I understand the hotelier envy that the big airlines have us whipped when it comes to cancellation fees – but on most routes I may have just two or three options.

Hoteliers just don’t have that degree of power.

In central Phoenix, I have probably 20 nearby hotels and about 75% are not in the Marriott or Hilton constellations.

I don’t recall staying at either on trips to New York.  I can live well without Marriott or Hilton. Or Intercontinental.

You like them? Fair enough. So be Machiavellian, book into a Hilton or Marriott for your next business trip and, at the 49 hour mark, if you have any doubt you will in fact go on the trip, cancel the rez. Without penalty.

Come up with two or three alternative places to bunk – just to keep your blood pressure down.  A glance at HotelTonight should provide that info.

But my guess is that on the day of travel, if you are still going, call that Marriott or Hilton and odds are very high they will have a room for you.

The math is on our side.

That’s what the hoteliers just aren’t getting.  The math – those high vacancy rates – says that if we change our booking habits and accept a tiny bit of uncertainty we can tell the big chains to shove it.

We can even have our cake and eat it too, by making same day reservations at the chains.  And if you do that, always ask for a discount.  If you don’t book it, that room likely will stay empty. Remind them of that reality.

The math definitely is on our side.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

The other day I realized I can sign into checking accounts at two different credit unions with a fingerprint.  I can also buy just about anything with Apple Pay on an iPhone and a fingerprint.

So why can’t I get on a plane and fly to anyplace based upon a biometric measure?

If you are enrolled in TSA Pre, the government already has your fingerprints on file.  That data is there.

Clear, meantime, has rolled out entry – via a fingerprint or eye print – at a number of airports.  That’s a private service that the company says will get you through security in five minutes – and I like the idea of not fumbling for a driver’s license. So I may enroll.

But I may not just because I am cranky that the government and airlines are both dragging feet about deploying biometrics which, to my eyes, are potentially a lot more secure than photo IDs such as driver’s licenses and passports.

So why aren’t biometrics in greater use in US airports?

That’s hard to answer.  

There are tiny signs of progress. Right now, JetBlue is experimenting with facial scans for boarding.

Homeland Security is saying it wants to use facial scans of all passengers who hold visas on international flights.  

But there is no big push to speed up widespread biometrics adoption at airports, definitely not for domestic flights.

Is it because the technology isn’t there yet?

Nope. Financial services prove that biometrics are reliable. Big banks wouldn’t use them if they weren’t. Many, many organizations – including government agencies – also use biometrics for entry into certain buildings.  

Security – of our bank accounts and many companies and government agencies – rests on biometrics already.

The CIA – ironically perhaps – has been grumbling that increased use of biometrics , especially in foreign airports, may lead to blowing the covers of its spies.

This is technology that works – except when it’s not deployed.

Boil it down and there are two issues holding up adoption at US airports. For one there are grumbles about privacy lost – but personally if I had any privacy I lost it over the past 15 years.  Believing in privacy is as sensible as believing in the tooth fairy.

Reason two is that a kind of stinginess still prevails in airport security. The federal government does not want to pay for stepped up airport biometrics and neither, so far, do the airlines.

That might paint a pessimistic picture. But I am increasingly optimistic.

My hunch is that biometrics will come to airports sooner than many think, because they work and also because we the passengers will begin to demand them. Biometrics work and, in our everyday lives, we see that.  We trust them, we use them.

And the technology just seems to keep getting better.

Which should airports deploy?

I talked with the president of a large biometrics company and asked him a simple question: which biometric did he see gaining supremacy in the US?

Right now, in banking, there are many competing biometrics: fingerprints, face scans (selfies), voice prints, iris scans, retinal scans are all scrapping for attention.

Which will reign supreme?

He told me that was no longer the question. He claimed that more institutions are now offering multiple biometrics so individuals can choose the one that best suits them in the moment.  A case in point is the big bank USAA which now lets its customers choose among fingerprint, voice, or face.

The reality is that – probably – many of us will use all three, just at different times.  You might like a selfie, except when you are driving, for instance, in which moments voice might be the way to go.

At airports, to, it easy to see several biometrics put into place – maybe selfies without our active participation, possibly voice and/or fingerprint with our participation.

If the result is a surer identification of me – and I believe it would be – I am all in.

What about the people who are upset about privacy lost?  I hear that complaint but, honestly, since 9/11 there has been a steady erosion in our privacy. I do not applaud that but I acknowledge it and I am not going to pretend we have something we no longer do.

And remember the goal here is both more secure and faster movement at airports.

Biometrics will get us there.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

A new poll makes clear that we have become a nation of cheapskates when it comes to hotel housekeepers. The poll, via CredirCards.com, delivers the bad news.  31% of us never tip hotel housekeepers.

Never.

And that one in three of us is comfortable enough with the choice to reveal it to a pollster.

Just 27% of us always tip hotel housekeepers.

That leaves 42% who can go either way.

Pity the poor housekeeper.

In much of the country housekeepers earn minimum wage.  And that isn’t a living wage.  The federal minimum is $7.25 per hour. That’s $290 per week.  About $1200 per month.

Ouch.

In some, heavily unionized places – Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York – housekeepers earn upwards of $16 per hour.  Maybe over $20.  

For their wages, hotel housekeepers typically clean 12 to 14 rooms per day. There’s some variation depending upon the size of the room, the service level of the hotel, and whether housekeepers work in teams.

But at the end of the day, a housekeeper does a lot of work for little money.

I have always left a tip. I cannot recall ever not leaving a tip.  If I ever did it was pure forgetfulness.

Years ago, in Boston, I drove a taxi. I developed a healthy respect for tips and people who leave them.   Of course I always tip taxi drivers.

That said, I am all in with Danny Meyer and his campaign to rid fine dining of tips.  Many – including both diners and restaurant workers – say boo to Meyer.  But, personally, I’d rather the servers were better paid and that I didn’t have to tip, unless I want to, a practice that already prevails in much of Europe.  Of course I always leave a tip in Europe – old habits die hard – but generally single digits.

So why am I all in on tipping housekeepers? Because they are poorly paid – I know that – and also because, in my experience, the person most important to my satisfaction with a hotel stay is the housekeeper.  

When my bed is properly made, towels refreshed and the bathroom cleaned, coffee service refilled, trash emptied from the wastebasket, I’m happy.   I’m ready for another day.

And just about always all that stuff happens.  

Women incidentally are better tippers than men, regarding housekeepers, according to the poll.  47% of women always/mostly tip hotel housekeepers, compared to 33% of men.

Another curiosity when it comes to tipping in restaurants,men,  Republicans, northeasterners and credit/debit card users  to a media 20%.  Women, Democrats, southerners, and csh users tip 15%.

There’s no comparable breakdown for hotel housekeepers.

But if you are in the don’t usually tip them category, give it another thought.  They slog through our messes and, sadly, many are also subjected to sexual abuses by guests and for this they earn minimum wage.

How much to tip?  Some guests tell me they tip $5/day, more when they make special requests.  

TripAdvisor, in its tipping tips, suggests $2 to $5 per night.  That makes sense to me.

Should you tip more if your stay is a big room at a swank hotel, rather than snug quarters at a Motel 6? That’s a point of argument.  Some claim the housekeeper at the posh hotel is typically better paid and will clean fewer rooms. Others say precisely because they clean fewer rooms, they need more generous tips. Both sides have their points.  Make your own choice.

Should you tip daily?  Many urge this.  That way, the tip goes to the person who cleans the room that day.  The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) – which suggests tipping $1 to $5 daly – – recommends leaving the money in a clearly marked envelope daily.

That’s good advice.  If there’s $2 in change on an end table, how’s the housekeeper to know it’s a tip?  Make it explicit.

Just do it.

You want a clean room, we all do, and, sure, I’ll agree that housekeepers should be better paid and in that event the need to tip will vanish.

But until that happens, I say tip.

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

Etihad is about to find out if we are ready to pay to keep the seat next to us empty.  Will you pay?

According to CNN, starting July 3, passengers will be able to bid at the time of booking on keeping up to three neighboring seats vacant.

The carrier also has opened up its business class lounges to economy passengers, granting access for up to $250 in its hub in Abu Dhabi and $75 in Europe and the US.

As for the club, you know my opinion. Some genuinely suck, but when there’s a Centurion Lounge nearby I am all in

I also have praise for the lounges I have been in in Europe – so maybe I’d splurge on the Etihad access offer.

But it’s the empty seats that got my attention. Partly it’s an appealing idea.  Indeed.

I am old enough that I remember pretty much never having a passenger next to me when I was stuck in economy. Never as in it just did not happen.

So color me interested in the Etihad deal – and know that if it catches on – other carriers, always on the hunt for new revenue streams, will pile on.

There is a kind of genius to Etihad’s plan. Take a non performing asset – a seat that will be unsold – and monetize it anyway.  It’s the kind of gambit that airline beancounters will applaud, if enough of us take the plunge.

Three issues occur to me.

Will other passengers honor the empty seats – or will they snag them and then what happens? Etihad believes that a special wrapper will in fact be sufficient to keep the seats empty and maybe that is so in the Middle East.  

Color me skeptical that it would work on flights out of Newark NJ. Is it worth a scene to evict a seat snatcher?

Will flight attendants help out?

We’ll find out as the Etihad bidding rolls out – but I have real concern about how this would play in the US with passengers already inclined to be unruly.

The second concern is that bidding on a seat to stay empty is hard to handicap – what’s a rational bid?  Understand: the seat is empty when the bid is placed.  Etihad is not going to dislodge a fare paying passenger just because you want an empty seat next to you – unless of course you were to bid more than the passenger’s fare in which event you might as well save money and simply pay the fare to grab an empty seat.  

Buying a seat with the intent of keeping it empty doesn’t always work – here’s a recent case where it failed on Spirit – but most of the time it will.

But Etihad is letting you bid less than the fare  How much less? You don’t know and pretty much certainly you are bidding against other passengers and the highest bids will prevail.

What’s a rational bid? You don’t know.  Something less than the typical fare but who knows how much less?

How would you know if you are overbidding?

The math is more than a little maddening.

My third concern is this: will businesses reimburse these phantom fares for their travelers?  There’s just no knowing.

I’m no accountant but I believe the phantom fare would pass the IRS’s screening – that is, it looks like a legit tax deduction to me.

But that doesn’t mean a company will reimburse it – and many companies  have bars against whole classes of reimbursement.  Some refuse to pick up minibar charges.  Some won’t reimburse inroom movies.  Some won’t pick up bar bills.  A company pretty much can make its own rules about what it will reimburse and I believe most would be flummoxed about the cost of a phantom seat.

So they might not reimburse.

If I had an Etihad flight coming up – I don’t – I’d probably take a flyer and put in a nonsense bid, maybe $10 to keep the seat next to me empty.

Would Etihad take it?  Logically it should if it has empty seats, because $10 in hand is better than $0.

Would it?

Passengers who  bid – successfully or unsuccessfully – are  invited to use the comment form to relate their outcomes.  That’s how we will all learn how to bid smart.

And – as I said – if this Etihad gambit catches on, you know other carriers will follow. So just maybe the gamble is coming to a plane near us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Robert McGarvey

 

You read it here first. Last week, Joe Brancatelli dropped the bomb that Marriott (and Starwood) were switching to what appears o be a chainwide 48 hour cancellation policy.  Cancel after that deadline and you pay a penalty of one night’s rate.

In a statement, Marriott said: “Guests will now be required to cancel their room reservation by midnight 48 hours prior to arrival in order to avoid a fee.”

Marriott explained it was making the change because of more lax current policies -generally allowing cancellations up to 24 hours before – there have been “a significant number of unsold rooms.”

I admit, I started business travel when free same day cancellations were the norm. Usually up to 6 p.m. the day of arrival.  Some homes  might have nudged it up to 4 p.m.  Either way, hotels – at least the ones that catered to business travelers – understood that plans change, often at the last minute, and we need flexibility in our hotel bookings.

Airlines of course in effect sell flexibility. Tickets that don’t allow for changes are much cheaper.  But I have long believed that I should fly with tickets I can change, easily and at no cost, and that’s my policy unless a client wants the cheaper fare and accepts the consequences.

For years, resorts have imposed onerous cancellation policies. I have seen some that require a week’s advance notice.  But, arguably, vacations are planned farther in advance and usually won’t be changed at the last minute.

Regular rooms at regular hotels booked by business travelers are a different matter.  With many clients, a Heraclitean flux is the norm. Hotels generally understood that.  Until recently.

It was back in 2014 that Marriott instituted the 24 hour cancellation policy.

Now it is upping the ante.  It got away with the switch to 24 hours, now it is banking on acceptance of 48 hours.

Watch other hotel operators do likewise.

But you don’t have to take it.

I won’t.

Understand this: in a number of key business travel cities, hotel occupancies are running high. The most recent figures I saw for Manhattan pegged average occupancy at78%.  Numbers are similar for Boston and Washington DC.

In San Francisco occupancy averages over 80%.

On some nights just about every month at least some hotels will sell out.

That’s why you are seeing hotel trade magazine articles like “How to Walk Guests” – and, by the way, what that means is that you may have a reservation you cannot cancel without penalty but the hotel may still not have a room for you.

Know that there are services – Johnny Jet in a recent piece fingered Roomer and Cancelon as such services — that, for a fee, will help you unload hotel reservations you cannot use. That’s an option for some.

Personally, what I plan to do is to not make reservations until the last minute.

The math is on our side.  Yes, there are those rare sell out nights but mainly we will have lots of choice.  When it comes to flying from Phoenix to Atlanta I have a handful of palatable choices so the power is with the airlines.

Not so with hotels.  The numbers favor us.

I am looking at Hotel Tonight and in Phoenix tonight I can book the FOUND:RE ($123), the Hyatt Regency ($149), or the Kimpton Palomar ($172).  There are many more hotels with availability.

Maybe Phoenix is an unfair example. It will be 116F today and 120F tomorrow and, yes, the city is empty.

In San Francisco tonight, I can sleep at my standby, the Hotel Carlton, for $149. Or I could try the Petite Auberge for $155 on Nob Hill. There are at least six more acceptable options in Hotel Tonight.

In Manhattan, the picking are slimmer but I would not sleep on a plastic chair in Port Authority.  I’d book into 6 Columbus for $155 or maybe Yotel, where I have planned to stay for some years but never quite have, for $119.  The options are acceptable.

In Washington D,C, four Kimptons have availability in Hotel Tonight. Stay in the neighborhood you prefer.  Dupont Circle, downtown, and more.

In Boston, Hotel Tonight splashes many choices on my screen. Personally I’d go for The Verb at $184. How can I resist an active part of speech?

Yes, I understand that for some trips we want to be in a specific hotel.  In those cases, if the reasons are good enough, I will suck it up and reserve in advance. Usually that’s for a meeting or for proximity to a specific executive.

But in most of my travel usually I only am looking for a specific neighborhood – and judging by what I see on Hotel Tonight I will do fine with same day booking.

What if – shudder – everything is sold out and I need a room in Manhattan? I’d book in Jersey City or Brooklyn.

Bottomline: we don’t have to be pushed around by aggressive hotel cancellation policies. We can resist.

I know what I will do.

 

 

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

Twice in recent weeks I’ve been asked a question unlike any other I have heard from business travelers in the decades I’ve been involved in the field: Can my boss make me stay at a Trump hotel?

In both cases the company had scheduled a mid-sized meeting in a Trump property and, as is the norm, attendees were booked into the hotel too.

Room bookings of course figure into the price a meeting organizer pays for the meeting space.   When attendees go off property it can impact the cost of the meeting room.

Industry data show that some 34% of booking for events in the US are “outside the block,” to use the industry jargon.  

The usual reasons for booking outside the block are finding a lower rate elsewhere – which may result in a booking in the same hotel, incidentally – and also, as has happened to me many times in Las Vegas, the host hotel block has sold out. That latter reason is why I have attended many events at the Aria, but always stayed across the way at Vdara, not counted in any block.

But now we have the Trump factor and for various reasons – no need to itemize them – some people tell me they just aren’t comfortable staying in a Trump hotel.

How widespread is this? Hard to say.  The Telegraph has reported – citing data released by Democrats – that the Trump Washington DC hotel is awash in red ink.  

A Toronto Trump hotel apparently also is in a financial mess.  

In Azerbaijan, a Trump hotel project apparently has sputtered out, according to New Yorker reporting.

But what about the other US Trump hotels?

In the LA Times, reporter Hugo Martin – who noted it was unknown what impacts the Trump presidency had had on occupancy – said in a February story that third party booking sites are under increasing attacks by Trump critics who want the hotels with his name purged from the databases.

To my knowledge, no site has done so.

But – frankly – we just don’t know how the hotels in the US are doing and we aren’t likely to find out.  Trump’s company of course is private and it generally doesn’t own the hotels anyway, it manages them for a fee.  So it would not typically divulge how an individual hotel is faring.

But back to the question at hand.

There are Trump supporters of course and also those who want to  soak up a little of the Trump glitter and, for them, a stay in a Trump branded property is a quick path to showing support and experiencing Trumpness.

Can your boss make you stay there?

I am not a lawyer, nor am I an HR expert, but what I am told is that – yes – a boss can insist that you stay at a Trump hotel.

Just as companies have insisted for some time that their employees stay at hotel chain XYZ (usually due to negotiated corporate rates).  

You still don’t want to?

My advice is quietly and calmly ask your boss.  Find a nearby hotel – preferably at a lower rate – and make your case.  

Even if he/she says okay, you will still have to attend the meeting. Just sayin’.

You still don’t want to go?

There is no literature on the impacts of refusing Trump related travel. But, for most employees in most states, refusing business travel requests is an offense that can lead to firing with little opportunity for the employee to successfully challenge.

By all means if you don’t want to go, consult an employment lawyer. At least ask HR in your company.  

But don’t expect cheery news.

Just by the way,  the Washington Plaza Hotel – a personal favorite when in DC – is 1.1 miles from the Trump hotel in the District. I know where I would stay if attending a meeting in DC at Trump’s hotel. Even if I paid for the modestly priced Washington Plaza out of pocket. 

I would do likewise if I were sent to Washington DC on a business trip and booked by my client into the Trump.

Choices abound.

 

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

The number of fliers who say they are satisfied with airport security procedures jumped off the page at me.  That’s because 67.7% of us told the Travel Leaders Group we are “satisfied” with airport security.

Just 14.9% said they were “unsatisfied.”

At first I thought the numbers had to be wrong – but as I thought about I decided that indeed I too am generally satisfied and I also hear a lot less grumbling among friends than I used to.

Why?

Are the processes better or has a kind of Stockholm Syndrome kicked in?

Mind you, we are not entirely thrilled with airport procedures.  27.3% grumbled about taking off shoes.  19.2 beefed about restrictions on liquids in carry-ons.

But a stunning 20.8% said they did not want to end any security procedure.

The numbers point to important changes in our mindsets.

Partly, I think, the satisfaction is because more of us benefit from TSA Pre-Check.  Four million of us now are enrolled and, per TSA, 97% of enrollees spend five minutes or less in security lines.

I usually wait longer for a latte at an airport Starbucks in the morning.

Pre- check also ends the need to remove shoes – the number one grumble –

Laptops and liquids remain in your bag. Go ahead, wear your belt.

Travel even once a month and TSA Pre is worth the money ($85 for five years; refunded to cardholders by American Express Platinum and various other premium cards).  

TSA Pre enrollees alone have to count for a lot of generally satisfied votes.

Meantime, too, at a glance TSA itself seems to be working better, more smoothly.  I just don’t hear the loud complaints about it that I used to hear.  

And all us – TSA Pre enrollees and others – seem better adjusted to the airport security queues.  Every trip a decade ago, I used to see travelers in a world of confusion when dealing with TSAs – liquids posed continuing challenges – but now I am seeing much less friction.  

Add it up and, yes, airport security seems much less draconian and hostile and time consuming than it did perhaps a decade ago.  

Lately there have been more complaints about TSA’s “enhanced pat downs” – perhaps because this appears to be new policy.

Probably we will get used to it and TSA will do it in a less annoying fashion. Give it time.

I also applaud security because – obviously – we need it.  

But a different poll result still baffles me, even after I have thought hard about it.

What I am puzzle by is our climbing satisfaction with airplanes themselves, per the recent J. D. Power North America Airline Satisfaction Survey.  That report put our satisfaction rating at 756 out of a possible 1000 points, up 30 points over the 2016 results.

Really?

Color me  a curmudgeon because airplane trips just have become unpleasant in my scoring.  Hostile staff. Hostile passengers. Too many of the latter, squeezed into too small spaces.  I see no real light at the end of this tunnel.

Or, rather, I see no light for those who don’t fly in the front of the plane.

For those of us in coach there seems no end to the miseries that await us because, plainly, the airlines are not listening and won’t as long as the ringing of their cash register drowns out our complaints.

Drive instead of flying, Or take the bus. Or Amtrak. And the carriers might get the message.

Right now they don’t take any of these alternatives as a serious business threat and why should they?

J.D. Power, incidentally, did acknowledge it had surveyed passengers before the Dr. Dao incident on United – and the extensive press coverage of similar mishaps that has followed. There’s no saying how this would have impacted the Power satisfaction survey.

One takeaway for me – because I live in Phoenix – is that I need to be flying Southwest more. It scored highest in the Power survey. United, which I fly a lot, scored much lower.  

How dumb am I?

But at least I do know how to fix this.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

The New York Times headline momentarily made me wonder what century I was in: “Drink Up Business Travelers, the Minibar Is On The Way Out.”

I ask you: when was the last time you used a minibar?

I honestly cannot recall.  I know it was not in this century.

I also know many businesses do not reimburse for minibar purchases, at least of alcoholic beverages (and what else has anyone ever bought from a minibar?).  Hippy Hampshire College for instance specifically notes among its non reimbursable expenses “Mini-bar alcoholic refreshments.”

Lots of other universities and many, many businesses say likewise: forget claiming minibar expenses.

That’s not why I stopped buying from them by the way.  I stopped because the markups made me gasp.  A $1 beer might cost $10 and, yes, I know hoteliers tell us they lose money on minibars ad maybe they do but if I bought from them I’d be losing my own money and I can’t abide that.

But this also means that as hotels yank out minibars I won’t object.

In fact I hope they also clear away the for-sale clutter that increasingly shows up on table tops in rooms, everything from sunscreen to local nuts.  Some hotel rooms look to me like a Canal Street vendor made a hasty exit and just dumped a suitcase full of junk inside my room.

Take that junk, too, please.

Incidentally, although minibars are vanishing, hotels are putting in place mini-fridges – they are becoming “the coin of the realm,” said Joe Brancatelli, who indicated that the availability of same has shaped some of his decisions about where to stay.

That’s smart on the part of hoteliers. Many travelers now have prescription drugs they want to refrigerate. Others want a place to stash a Diet Coke and a sandwich.

Hoteliers may in fact be listening. Rooms, the NYTimes tells us, are undergoing a big redesign, said to be driven by generational changes in who travels, but it’s as much a function too of how long our trips are (they now are much shorter, a couple nights instead of maybe four).

So hotels are also getting rid of closets, in favor of hanging racks.  Okay by me.  I happen to use closets but wouldn’t mind if the stuff was in the room instead.

Where you will hear my objection is in the push to save room space by eliminating the desk.  I use a desk on every trip, often as much as four or five hours a day, handing email, writing, maybe doing a little news reading.  I don’t demand much of the desk – drawers are unnecessary and probably undesirable because I might forget something I put inside — just a flat top and a decent desk chair.

But I definitely want a desk.

And lots of wall outlets.  Lots.  Most hotels are still failing on that score.  I can’t recall the last time I did not wind up unplugging something the hotel owned to make room for my stuff.  In 2017 I should no longer have to do that. What does a power bar cost anyway?  A few dollars.

At least some hotels – finally – are addressing the inroom shortage of outlets, per a a USA Today story. So some progress is getting made.

Incidentally, the Times story does report that Marriott, the chain that had led in eliminating desks, has backtracked, mainly because their guests spoke up. More progress of a sort.

Hotel rooms, too, are shrinking.  That’s mainly because trips are shorter, but also because it’s believed that Millennial travelers will prefer to hang out in communal spaces – the lobby – than in a room.  So shrink the room is a hotelier mantra of now.

They also are getting rid of business centers because usage is way down. I know I haven’t used one in five years and really don’t trust them from a cybersecurity perspective. So I’m unlikely to change my mind..  

I also am no fan of hotel gyms and, lately, many hoteliers too are looking at ways to shrink or eliminate them.  

Add this up and it sounds like a lot of what we know about hotel rooms – especially those for business travelers – may be in flux.

And probably the most interesting point in the Times piece is that hotels, right now, are confused and undecided about exactly what to put in a room – which means that it’s up to us to speak up loudly and often about what we want and what we don’t care about.

My preferences may not be yours and that’s fine.  What matters is that we make our wants known.

Hoteliers say they are listening. Let’s see if they really are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Robert McGarvey

 

My first reaction – possibly yours too – to the talk that Homeland Security is about to ban most electronics in flights from Europe to the US was horror. How dare they!

But as the possibility sorts out in my mind, my indifference rises.  Part of me actually thinks this may be to the good.

For our safety, maybe also our relaxation.

Keep in mind, too, that the present ban involves 10 airports in the Middle East and Africa.  The scope of the new ban – if it is enacted – seems limited to Europe. All? Just some airports? We don’t know.

The idea may in fact now be “off the table” according to the latest reporting.  If so – and if the security intel supports it – that’s fine by me.

If it still comes down though – and in a Trump universe predictability is not the norm – that too is okay by me.

Here’s the deal: the vast bulk of my personal travel for business is domestic.  The last time I took an overseas business trip was maybe five years ago.

Of course it’s selfish to say I am not impacted, so why should I care?  But there is more to my thinking.

For some years, there’s been a requirement – admittedly not often enforced – that any electronic device carried by a passenger has to be able to power on.  TSA can ask to see the device light up.  I have never been asked but I did stop bringing one elderly laptop that ran fine with a cord but the battery had passed on some time before.  It just didn’t seem worth the expense to buy a new battery so I forgot about it – until the power on requirement kicked in.

The logic behind the requirement is compelling. There’s a lot of space in the battery compartment. If there’s no battery in place that space could be put to nefarious purposes.  No argument with that thinking.

And so I supported the power on requirement and now I see why it just might make good sense to ban laptops – possibly also other bigger electronics- because we apparently don’t believe many airports have the technology and systems in place to ensure that there are no hidden explosives.

I put safety of all passengers ahead of my personal entertainment convenience.

Besides, a cellphone can entertain and inform me plenty.

Shouldn’t passengers be required to power off and on a cellphone before carrying it on? Probably.

Now, as for my dismay, my initial worry was: what will I do to fill eight to twelve hours on a European flight? And then I remembered I had done quite a few trips in the pre electronics era and had no difficulty filling time.

Just bring a book, maybe some newspapers and magazines.

Also, on phablet type cellphones – I own a Nexus 6 for instance – reading Kindle books is not uncomfortable.  I have in fact done it on quite a few flights already.

I also can handle email on the Nexus 6. No, I won’t write lengthy email but I rarely write long email anyway and at least I can still use flight time to work through (erase) a backlog.

I won’t watch movies on it, or do much web surfing, but I generally don’t do that inflight when I bring a laptop or iPad.  So no big loss to me.

I just might end up being more relaxed – working less – on long flights if I travel without a laptop in hand.

When I do the assessment I see this: there are possible risks involved in allowing electronics on board.  And if most types are banned, I can still fill my time usefully and enjoyably.

Would I be so sanguine if phones too are banned?

Initially I’d howl – but, honestly, this just takes u back to air travel circa 1980.  And in many ways it was considerably more pleasant in that era. I’ll grant that the absence of electronics had nothing to do with the higher quality of the travel.

But it was more fun to fly in 1980 and I had no gear with me.

If need be, we can go back to that era. And I personally will fly comfortably.

How about you?

FWIW, in a recent poll, four of five UK travelers said a laptop ban would not impact their willingness to fly to the US.

 

And reports have surfaced that Australia, too, is mulling a laptop ban.