Airplane Seats That Don’t Recline, Airlines That Don’t Want To Save Their Miles, Airlines Downgrading Passengers To A Low-Cost Carrier and a Husband Using Miles To Solve His Wife’s Issue. Things I Find Interesting On Saturday, May 31st, 2014
Here’s a quick peek at things I found of interest today in the world of travel:
Would you trade the ability to recline in your airline seat for a convenient place to mount your tablet for in-flight “self-supplied” entertainment? Monarch Airlines, a British low-cost carrier based at Luton airport, has installed a new seat that doesn’t recline but has a spot in the seat back in front of you to mount your tablet. HT: uggboy on Milepoint.
Is one major airline deciding there’s no money in selling miles to their customers? HT: One Mile At A Time
Scott from Hack My Trip details another good reason (well, several) to hold onto some miles. You never know when something is going to pop up. Scott details how his wife missed a flight she had scheduled and how he wasn’t able to get the “flat tire rule” applied. But, he had miles to burn which dried up the tears and made it a good day!
I think I’d be pretty ticked off if I purchased a ticket for a given type of flight and then got a notice that they were being downgraded to a discount carrier. Wandering Aramean compares Air Canada’s expansion of their discount carrier, Rouge, to folks like Delta and United (Song and TED, respectively) who failed miserably at the effort. Air Canada has switched a bunch of existing flights on their flagship carrier to low-cost Rouge service, while offering them a full refund and a discount to book the new routes at a discount. The problem with offering someone a full refund after they purchased a ticket is that they generally want to use the ticket they bought and fares are much more likely to have gone up since folks bought tickets. Maybe it’s a non-issue, but I think a voucher for future travel on Air Canada (as opposed to just a discount on the new routes) might be a better way to compensate folks.
What are the 10 best food apps for travelers?
What’s going on in your travel world today?
Awesome! The “recline” offered in economy isn’t enough to help with sleeping. And it IS enough to annoy the person behind it. It’s about time they removed it and eliminate weight and annoyance.
Vicente, I’d want to sit in the seat before I passed judgment. The “pre-reclined” seats I’ve seen advertised by a few manufacturers seemed like a good idea.
I often find that the upright position is uncomfortable for me so I recline just enough to get a comfortable position. But in 2007 I flew on a British Airways 777 that had great coach seats, the upright position was already reclined about as much as a normal seat in the reclined position.
Paul, I haven’t flown coach on a BA 777. I don’t mind the BA coach product on their intra-Europe Airbus planes. I generally only recline if I want to sleep or the legroom blows and I need to work on my laptop. I guess if I had to choose I’d go pre-reclined as opposed to straight up with no recline.
I think you’ve found the reason Qantas has found itself in so much trouble in Australia. Droves of people left after people kept booking Qantas and finding themselves on Qantas’ orange cancer (Jetstar). They even abandoned Australia’s 6th largest city (Gold Coast) to their LCC entirely at one point. Any airline looking at this route would do well to look what happened there (incidentally, Virgin – the other major Australian airline – also has a discount brand – Tiger – but has chosen to keep LCC and FS completely separate, and both have grown as a result at the expense of mixed QF/JQ).
JonW, I haven’t paid a ton of attention to why Qantas is failing, but your hypothesis certainly makes sense. There aren’t too many great examples of mainstream carriers making a successful run at starting a LCC. Air Canada and Qantas are just the latest in a line of carriers much more likely to fail at these ventures.