Airline Industry Quirks
Food for thought for the seasoned or novice traveler
Put the airline industry under a microscope and you'll find many "Things that make you go hmm."
It’s summer! That means it’s time to pack up and hit the road, to visit friends and family, to study abroad, or to escape from the daily grind by taking that much-anticipated vacation. With many people traveling to their destinations by air, it seems like the perfect time to talk about some of the airline industry’s quirks. Here goes:
Ireland: Two-Stop Shopping
If you’re planning to travel to the Irish capital sometime in the future, you might be interested in learning about “The Shannon Stopover.” A provision in the bilateral air services agreement between the U.S. and Ireland states that carriers operating between these two countries must service the airports in both Dublin and Shannon.
In practice this means that, instead of flying directly from Dublin to Newark, for example, passengers are required to fly from Dublin to Shannon and then from Shannon to Newark.
The provision was established at a time when aircraft range was limited. Transatlantic carriers required a place to touch down and refuel. With that end in mind, the airport in Shannon was born. These days, range is no longer an issue and carriers flying from the U.S to Europe can get by without the refueling stop.
Nonetheless, the “Shannon Stopover” provision still stands, but not for long. The requirement will be abolished next spring when the US-EU Open Skies Agreement takes effect [2].
Open Skies and Access to Busy Airports
Speaking of the US-EU Open Skies Agreement, a deal that will liberalize the airways between the two continents, airlines on both sides of the Atlantic are eager to capitalize on increased access to airports like Heathrow and JFK, where landing slots are currently restricted by existing bilateral agreements.
Why are airlines breaking down the doors to enter airports like Heathrow, which are already stretched to their limits in terms of capacity? An article in the Dallas Morning News wrote that travelers value Heathrow Airport because of its “proximity to central London and because it offers a greater number of connections to international cities [around the globe]” [3].
Travelers value proximity and connections, yes, but they also value on-time departures and arrivals, when luggage shows up at their final destinations, and airports that are decongested enough to allow for a smooth transition to the next flight during a stopover. To date, all of my trips through Heathrow involved delays and resulted in lost luggage.
Seat Assignments: Oh No, not the Middle Seat!
These days many travelers book their flights through Internet sites like Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz. Each of these sites allows its customers to make seat assignments. Typically, a picture of the plane’s seat configuration pops up, with the seats still available highlighted in a bright color.
Passengers—you surely know the feeling of excitement that rushes over you when there’s one aisle seat left and it looks like it’s all yours! Wrong. When you check-in, the airline customer service rep hands you a ticket with a middle seat marked in bold print. You protest, but the rep explains that the middle seat is the only one left on the plane.
But you booked an aisle seat, right, so what happened? Time to read the fine print. Travelocity’s website says the following: “Note: Final seating assignments are controlled by the airline.” In other words, the seat assignment you made online was more of a “request.” Airlines may change an assigned seat after it’s been reserved for various reasons.
References:
[1] Shannon Stopover
[2] Shannon Stopover to be Abolished
[4] Seat Assignments
