Those annoying airline credit card charges
June 13th, 2008 by Tim Uden
One thing that annoys me about low cost airlines is their deceptive pricing policies where prices are advertised exclusive of taxes, leaving you with no idea of how much your ticket will cost.
That’s one reason I am more likely to give preference to low-cost carriers that advertise all inclusive prices such as Flybe or Sky Europe over airlines like Ryanair that give away free flights and then rack up your credit card bill on taxes, fees, fuel levies, excess baggage fees and so on.
At least in Australia all domestic airlines quote all inclusive prices - they’re required to by law - although that still doesn’t stop them for charging for so called optional extras. Extras like credit card payment!
I think it is a bit cheeky to charge an extra $2 credit card fee when it is the only payment option, yet this is common practice. It would be understandable if there was the option of paying cash, direct debit or PayPal; but that’s just not the case, yet we are still charged a premium to pay using the only payment method accepted by the airlines.
At least Air Asia X, the long-haul offshoot of Malaysian cut price airline Air Asia, gives you the option to pay by PayPal. Air Asia X claims to be the first airline in the Asia Pacific region to accept PayPal. As a promotional offer they are crediting $50 on the first 4000 flights from Australia to Malaysia (Gold Coast and Perth to Kuala Lumpur) paid by Paypal before the end of the month.
I don’t think PayPal is the most convenient option for most travellers, in fact I would assume that credit card payment is more convenient for at least 90% of travellers, but it is nice that we get a choice so we can avoid another extra fee.
Life’s Cheap
May 8th, 2008 by Isak Ladegård
Skydiving is cheap in Argentina, and when I see our plane I realize why. The entire back wall of the tiny 2-man plane is duct-taped at place. Too late and too proud to run away, we hit the clouds and the big blue sky. The pilot cruises around and while he keeps silent Aljandro, the skydive master and company runner, asks if I’m ready.
“I’m ready.”
Then he turns to the fourth and last man in our plane. He’s a small and chubby Argentinean, my co-jumper, the guy who’s supposed to push me out of the plane with himself attached. (Basically he kills me – before he saves me again by unfolding the parachute)
“Are you ready?”, main man Alejandro asks my co-jumper.
“Si, si,” he responds. And from this point my Spanish skills fail in understanding the following phrases. But Alejandro’s serious eyes and explaining and gesticulating hands scares me. My co-jumpers madly nervous face scares me even more. It’s my first jump, ever, and I’m scared because here it’s obvious that my co-jumper, the man who’s supposed to save my life, he’s a rookie as well.
“OK my friend!” Says Alejandro, to me, and it’s time.
My life’s in his hands.
V Australia to start trans-Pacific flights
April 1st, 2008 by Tim Uden
V Australia, the latest offshot of Australian low cost carrier Virgin Blue, started selling tickets for its first route (Sydney-Los Angeles) yesterday. The first flights on the new airline will be in December 2008.
V Australia was set up by Virgin Blue to serve the Australia to USA market, which has long suffered from high prices due to very little competition. It was hoped that the introduction of a budget focused airline to this route would shake things up a bit and introduce a much needed price war. With just a handful of airlines flying between Australia and the United States, the relatively short 14 hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles often costs more than the much longer 24 hour Sydney-London flight. Unfortunately the introduction of V Australia does little to lower the price.
The first 1000 return tickets are selling for AUD $999. I did a test booking to work out what the regular fare on their Sydney-LA route will cost and came up with a return fare of AUD $1898.
I understand that there is little competition on the Sydney-LA route, even with the launch of V Australia, and that the new airline wants to be profitable as quickly as possible. But I expected much cheaper fares.
To put things into comparision, Sydney-LA is only a 14 hour flight in each direction and you can fly Sydney-London (not on an a LCC, but on a full service airline) for around the same price, which is a much longer 24 hour flight. In other words a return Sydney-LA flight on V Australia costs around the same as a return Sydney-London flight but you get around 20 hours less in the air.
Twenty fewer hours in your airline seat should account for much lower fares. The standard return fare between Australia and the California should be around AUD $1000, but instead V Australia want to charge you almost double.
We need a real low cost carrier on this route. Air Asia, Tiger, Jetstar, Ryanair, anyone?
Melbourne airport top five in the world…
February 29th, 2008 by Tiffany Miller
Melbourne Airport has recently been named as one of the world’s top five for passenger service. It came in behind Kuala Lumpur, San Diego, Zurich and Vancouver.
Funny, then, that I had two of my worst ever travel experiences there. When I flew in a couple of weeks ago from Brisbane, I was walking to the baggage claim when all of a sudden the entire airport (or at least the terminal I was in) lost power. It was a mere ten seconds before they came back on, but apparently it was enough to cause an hour-long delay for our baggage to come in. That was not fun, especially in light of the fact that I had two friends who I hadn’t seen in years waiting outside the terminal for me.
I went back a few days later to catch a flight to New Zealand. When I arrived at the counter without my onward ticket printed out (oops…) the woman told me to go over to the Hilton Hotel to print it. Not being able to leave my bag behind their little counter, I hauled about 30 kilos of stuff over to the hotel only to find that their computers were down. Back to the counter, directed to the (closed) Emirates offices, back to the counter, directed to (closed) internet cafe, finally found internet which I needed coins for and three different businesses in the vicinity would not give me change, emailed document to JetStar manager, ran to JetStar counter at other end of airport to pick it up, back to counter just in time to check in before closing. Phew…
So I get to the gate and hear the loudspeaker switch on. “Attention ladies and gentlemen, due to some technical difficulties there will be a departure delay for flight numbe……”
Top five, eh? In all fairness, it may have just been that few hours I was there. I have had the tendency toward bad travel luck in the past two weeks… But at the time, I probably would have rated it somewhere in the 3,000th-4,000th bracket, especially thinking back to the wonderful world of Vancouver and Zurich Airports, which offer quite a bit more than good duty-free shops and Starbucks.
How to survive a plane crash
January 9th, 2008 by Tim Uden
The BBC documentary Survivor’s Guide to Plane Crashes was on the telly last night.
Although flying is one of the safest forms of transport it was a good programme to watch and it has some great practical life-saving advice.
The show states that 90% of plane crashes are survivable, and knowing what to do dramatically enhances your chances of survival if you are involved in a crash.
These are the main points:
- Adopt the brace position. this makes a much bigger difference than you would ever imagine.
- Don’t inflate the life jacket until you get off the plane. If the plane fills with water, an inflated life jacket can make it impossible to swim to the exit.
- Be familiar with your selt belt. It sounds unbeliveable but many people die because they panic and can’t undo their seat belt. Remember it is the opposite to a car seat belt - you don’t push a button, you pull the latch instead.
- Plan how you will evacuate in an emergency and count the number of seat rows to the exit. Many people die because they can’t find the exit in a smoke-filled plane.
- If you are within seven seat rows of an exit, you have more than a 50% chance of surviving a crash.
- The safest place to sit on the plane is usually - but not always - above the wing. You are close to an emergency exit and it is structurally the strongest part of the plane. But it really depends how the crash impacts the plane.
- If you’re travelling with a group, don’t try and find your friends, just get off the plane. Trying to fine other people you are travelling with just blocks other people from getting off the plane.
In short, people who survive are those that pay attention to the flight attendants’ safety demonstration. They know about the brace position, they don’t inflate their life jacket until they leave the plane and they can get their seat belt undone and get to the exit.
Flying - an alternative to the Cook Strait ferry
December 11th, 2007 by Tim Uden
Every day hundreds of backpackers travel between New Zealand’s North and South Islands and the majority of them take the ferry. I understand that the ferry offers many benefits, but I’m puzzled that more travellers don’t think about flying. Sure a three-hour cruise is a nice way to travel but a flight offers great views and gets you across the Cook Strait in just 25 minutes.
It’s affordable too. The one-way airfare between Blenheim and Wellington is $56 with Air New Zealand or $89 with air2there and Sounds Air flys between Picton and Wellington for $79. Compare this to the cheapest Interislander ($52) or Bluebridge ($55) ferry fare; and the ferry can cost as much as $72 each way. You’re not going to save much (if anything) by flying, but at around the same price as the ferry it is worth considering.
In New Zealand rental car companies generally let you book a multi-island rental dropping off at the Wellington ferry terminal and picking up a new car when the ferry arrives in Picton; however most rental companies will also let you do a multi-island rental with drop-off and pick-up points at Wellington and Blenheim Airports so there’s plenty of reasons to consider flying between the North and South Islands.
Tiger’s celebrates innaugural flight with $19.95 airfares
November 23rd, 2007 by Tim Uden
Tiger Airways inaugural domestic Australian flight from Melbourne to the Gold Coast took off from Melbourne at 7am this morning.
Tiger celebrated its first Australian domestic flight by offering 75,000 flights for only $19.95 (including taxes and charges) on flights between Melbourne and Adelaide, Alice Springs, Canberra, Gold Coast, Hobart, Mackay, Newcastle and Rockhampton.
I tried to get a bargain but the cheap fares weren’t available on the dates I wanted to fly, but Jetstar released a batch of $19.95 flights to response to Tiger’s promotion so I snapped a couple of those up instead. Isn’t competition great?
It is a 24 hour sale but will probably continue until all the $20 flights are sold.
First commercial Airbus A380 flight
October 24th, 2007 by Tim Uden
Today a Singapore Airlines Airlines A380 made its inaugural Singapore-Sydney flight, which is the first ever commercial flight for the Airbus A380. Previously the Airbus A380 had only made test flights and demonstration flights at airshows and for the media. Most tickets for this flight were sold on eBay, raising SGD$1.9 million (AUD$1.45m, EUR€.91m , GBP£.64m, USD$1.3m) for charity.
Singapore Airlines will begin regular Singapore-Sydney flights using the A380 from 28 October and early next year they plan on introducing the A380 to the Singapore-London route.
Singapore Airlines fly in a three-class configuration so this aircraft seating 471 passengers. Singapore Airlines have also introduced another first on this flight with suites where you get your own private room complete with separate chair and bed. Needless to say, this is definitely beyond the average backpackers’ budget.
The next airlines to introduce the Airbus A380 will be Qantas, Emirates and Air France.
This super-jumbo can hold up to 853 passengers in a full economy configuration and it could become a very popular aircraft for airlines that want to transport large numbers of passengers on busy long-haul routes such as the main trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific and Europe-Asia-Australia routes.
In the coming years it is likely that Airbus A380 will be an integral part of the backpackers’ travel experience.
A tour of Nouméa’s buffets
October 23rd, 2007 by Tim Uden
Well after about two hours wandering around the confines of Nouméa La Tontouta Airport I am told that my flight is being delayed a further five hours! But fortunately Aircalin will provide a bus to a nearby restaurant and lay on a buffet. Lazing around the swimming pool at the Rivland Resort in Paita eating complimentary creme puffs, after a nice buffet lunch sure beats hanging around the airport café.
After around three hours at the Rivland Resort we are told that the flight will now be delayed until 3.50am the next day. Apparently our plane is in Wallis and Aircalin have arranged for Qantas to send a new plane across from Sydney, but Qantas won’t have a plane available till around midnight.
This further delay means the evening at Le Surf hotel in Anse Vata (which actually isn’t as nice as its stars would suggest) along with another buffet. The hotel may not be that great, but the buffet is very nice and would have cost me 4900F (AUD $65, EUR €41, GBP £29, USD $59) if I were to pay for it. Oh, and Aircalin paid for drinks as well.
This delay also gave me the opportunity for another Cointreau sorbet at La Sorbeterie in Baie des Citrons (about a five minute walk from the hotel the airline put us up in); well it would have if I hadn’t spent the last of my francs at the airport.
Small airports vs big airports
October 23rd, 2007 by Tim Uden
I usually love small airports. Customs and immigration queues are shorter and virtually everything takes less time. In a small airport like London City you can checked on to your flight in less than the time it takes to get out of the tube station at Heathrow.
The downside with small airports becomes more apparent when your flight is delayed. A two-hour delay at Nouméa’s La Toutouta airport is no fun. After spending an hour or so in the café munching on a bacon panini and drinking Orangina, one tends to get bored and restless. What else is there to do? Well there is a small souvenir shop/newsagent where you can flick through French magazines and if you get really bored you can check that your hand luggage fits in cabin baggage gauges for Air France, Aircalin and Air New Zealand. After that it’s time for a walk around the carpark to look at those cute French cars that they have over here.
A delay at a big airport isn’t such a big problem - it’s just like spending an extra couple of hours at a shopping mall. You sometimes even get to kill time by taking a monorail between the different terminals.