Two Years of 2B - Memphis Business Travel Guide

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But be warned: There are no overarching trends here. As is so often the case on the road, these last two years have been almost totally to insane swings in the price of fuel to the apparentluy endless cycleof boom-and-bust that dominates hotel development, and, of to the economic wave that has carried us from the relativelt giddy times of April 2007 to our well…to whatever it is we'r e living and working through. Southwest's Steadu Course Even the nation's one financially soundr U.S. carrier, Southwest Airlines, hasn't been able to escape the ravages ofthe nation's economic collapse.
Its traffic is down about in linewith industry-widr trends and it has taken the unprecedentex step of trimming its overall capacity by 4 percent this year. And the airline's vaunted fuel-hedging which saved the carrierabout $3.5 billiob in the last decade, cost it moneyu in the second half of 2008 as oil prices collapsed. But some thingas never change: Southwest is using the downturn to position itseld as an alternative tothe nation's mainline After decades of shunning some of the largest U.S.
it launched flights to Minneapolis last is scheduled to beginits first-ever flightws into New York (via LaGuardia Airport) in and will serve Boston's Logan Airport in the United's Inexorable Decline It's gone from worst to even worsew than that at United Airlines, the most troublefd of the nation's so-called "legacy" Once the nation's largest airline, United is hemorrhaging after a bungledx mega-bankruptcy and years of management missteps. About 40 percenft of what flies as United Airlines is subcontracted to regiona airlines and much of the remaining servicde isactually code-share operations with its internationakl partners in the Star Alliance.
Evergy one of its unioj contractsbecomes "amendable" next year (airline contractsx never technically expire). Compared with the othed legacy carriers, its cash reserves are smalkl and there are few unencumbered assets to And earlynext year, it will have to discusxs cash-draining "holdbacks" with JP Morgan its credit-card processor. there's no good news, either, since its once-profitable servicee to the Pacific Rim is deteriorating rapidly due to plungintg yields to Asia and fresh competition on its Australia Fate of the Fourthb Class The worldwide collapseof premium-class traffic since last fall has had the expected effect: Airlines have steppede up their discounting in business clasxs and more carriers are adding a fourth which is rather generically known as "premium The discounting trend is both structurally strategic—the airlines now offer a rangd of discounts from three to 60 days beforr departure—and tantalizingly tactical, with sale fares slashing as much as 75 percenr off the price of internationa l business class.
As for premiu economy, Air France added the new cabin on three premiedroutes (from Paris to New York, Tokyo, and But the fate of fourtu class is far from secure. Even as Air France was OpenSkies, British Airways' boutique carrier, was renaming its fourtn cabin asthe "biz seat." The reason? Premium economg still exists in a computer-coded limbo, which makex selling it via the airline industry's omnipresent global reservation services difficult.  The Banking Blueds and London RediscoveredIf I've been at all prescient in the last two it was the Run on the Bankersa column that posted shortly after Lehman Brothers tankesd last September.
Exactly in line with the meltdow n ofthe markets, bankers stopped and that has caused the calamitous decline in premium-classw airline revenue. It's been especially tough on British Airways, which is disproportionatelyy dependent on premium flyingh on theNyLon (New York-London) route. And there'as no doubt that BA (and London) are still sufferinf a year on from the disastrous opening weekds of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport inMarch 2008. The good news for thoser of us wholove London??
The British capital is cheap agai for upscale American visitors, thanks to massive airfarew and hotel discounts and the precipitoux decline of the value of the British Counterintuitive Currency Just before the world's economies the U.S. dollar was at an unaffordablelow ebb. But for reasonws known only to the masters ofthe universe, the U.S. dollat has gained strength against almost all ofthe world' currencies as the American economy weakened. If you've got any discretionargy income left, this will be a greaft summer to travel virtually anywhere in the The dollar is buying 20 to 50 percent more than last sprinvand summer.
The only exception: Japan, where the dollar continues to languish at or belowthe 100-yen A Fee By Any Other Name Still, it isn't all breadx and dollar-denominated chocolates Banks and other financial institutions continue to raisse the fees they charge when you use your ATM or credit card outside of the United States. The latesyt trick: Currency-exchange fees of 3 percent or more even if you use yourown bank'xs ATM card to make a withdrawal from your own account at an oversea s ATM owned and operated by said Even financial institutions that continur to advertise fee-free ATM usagr are adopting the currencgy gambit.
One example: Charles Schwa b Bank, whose print ads promise in big, bold type that theres are "No ATM fees—we rebate all ATM fees from any ATM. But as Schwab's fine print makes clear, "AT M free rebates do not include currency exchangwe fees orother fees." Some of the few truly fee-frees ports in the storm are the credit cards and ATM cardsz issued by Capital One. The Fine Print… Alloqw me to end this columjn where I began in April I still believe the single best investment you can make inyour on-the-road comfort and productivith is Priority Pass, the worldwide airport-lounge access program.
The fees haven'ft changed, but the lounge network has grown by 20 to more than 600 clubs in300 cities. Portfolio.cojm © 2009 Cond Nast Inc. All rightsreserved.