Travel Blog: Air Travel
So Long, Airworld
by Rob Verger | 06.30.09 | 10:25 AM ET
Photo by Rob Verger It’s been a pleasure covering air travel for World Hum’s blog, and I’ll miss it.
Looking back, some of my favorite posts to write were the ones that celebrated the quirkier aspects of air travel: I loved writing about, for example, a strange scabies outbreak among TSA staff at Boston’s Logan Airport (though I did not, in fact, enjoy once getting scabies myself).
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Yahoo! BuzzRising Fuel Prices, the Paris Air Show and More
by Rob Verger | 06.16.09 | 3:12 PM ET
What’s the fuel bill to fly a 757-200 across the country, from New York to Los Angeles?
About $21,600.
That, at least, was the cost of the fuel burned on a recent transcontinental Delta flight I was on, according to the flight’s captain. Out of 7,500 gallons of fuel on board, we burned about 6,760 gallons.
Clearly, the price of fuel is hugely important for airlines. And rising prices aren’t helping.
24 Hours in Airworld: So Long, T5
by Rob Verger | 06.10.09 | 10:59 AM ET
Photo by Rob Verger I’ve seen the terminal go through nearly a 24-hour cycle now—from busy in the morning, afternoon, and evening, to the quiet of late night when the last flights are shipping out, back to the busy hum of the morning again.
24 Hours in Airworld: Morning in the Terminal
by Rob Verger | 06.10.09 | 8:14 AM ET
I slept, kind of, for a couple hours, my blue rain jacket pulled over my head. I had managed to get a good spot on one of the leather couches by Gate 14, and awoke early this morning as Flight 819 boarded for Santo Domingo in a loud rush of Spanish. (Did you know that, in keeping with airport superstition, there’s no Gate 13 here?)
Outside, the expanses of the Kennedy airfield I can see now are gray with fog. A tall cup of coffee (the Illy place has been open since 4:30 a.m.) is making this morning feel a little more manageable. But now I’ve been hanging out here for about 20 hours, and a lot of that time has been somewhat less-than-fun.
24 Hours in Airworld: An Empty Terminal
by Rob Verger | 06.10.09 | 2:21 AM ET
Photo by Rob Verger The terminal empties out for the night.
24 Hours in Airworld: Late Night Sports Fans
by Rob Verger | 06.10.09 | 12:12 AM ET
Photo by Rob Verger A few basketball fans linger as the terminal gets quieter.
24 Hours in Airworld: Mall or Airport?
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 11:21 PM ET
Photo by Rob Verger The beat goes on here at T5. Last I checked—at around 10:20 pm—JetBlue still had about 15 more flights to get out tonight (delays were frequent today with the bad weather), and then the first flight out tomorrow morning is the 5:45 to Puerto Rico.
While delays may be bad for the traveler, they’re good for the restaurants in the terminal, including Deep Blue, where I ate a quick dinner of tasty but too-spicy Pad Thai followed by a big cup of green tea. (Anything to warm me up in this hostile, freezing environment.) I enjoyed sitting in the white and blue bar space there, looking out at the rest of the terminal as things began to wind down. From the shopping area here, as I mentioned before, it’s hard to tell you’re in an airport. (Although the people walking by pulling suitcases are something of a giveaway.)
24 Hours in Airworld: The Airport Bar
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 8:20 PM ET
Photo by Rob Verger Airport terminals are, by their nature, transitory places. Nearly 12 million people flew through Kennedy airport on JetBlue (the largest carrier here, measured by passenger volume) between March 2008 and March 2009, according to numbers from the Port Authority. And so I’ve often wondered: Do airport restaurants and bars have regular customers? Do they have a rhythm to them, the way other places might?
I ate lunch today at a tapas place called Pequillo here in T5, and afterwards, went and sat at the place’s bar, which is set in a cave-like space where it’s easy to forget you’re in an airport. (It advertises itself as the first tapas restaurant in an American airport.) I talked to the gracious bartender there, Kenia, regarding my question about airport bars and regulars. She was born in Honduras, and now lives in Brooklyn, and says that regulars—maybe 20 or 30 different people—come in about twice a week. “If you remember their name, and whatever they drink, it makes them feel good, I guess,” she said.
24 Hours in Airworld: Terminal 5, Old and New
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 3:11 PM ET
It was raining this morning in New York City as I made my way to J.F.K. to spend 24 hours hanging out in JetBlue’s Terminal 5. Every time I come to this airport, I’m reminded how far away it is from Manhattan. I took the 1 Train to the 2 Train to the E Train to the AirTrain to get here—a trip longer than some short flights.
On the elevated walkway from the AirTrain to T5, I was able to look out on the old Eero Saarinen TWA terminal—JetBlue’s new terminal sits in front of the beautiful, soaring old building, which is currently closed for renovations and is under the management of the Port Authority. Once it opens, JetBlue will have two self-service kiosks in there, and there’s a rumor that the building could one day become a museum—or a pod hotel. Today the building sat there closed, under gray skies, a landmark from another era, connected to the new building through the old tubes.
JetBlue’s New T5: A Nice Place to Live?
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 10:54 AM ET
JetBlue’s terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport sparkles. At a cost of $743 million, the 635,000-square-foot terminal known as T5 opened in October 2008. I’ve passed through it twice and was impressed with how bright and scrubbed clean it felt. And it offers what every terminal needs: free Wi-Fi.
This last detail makes it perfect to work from—perhaps even, for a very short period of time, to live in.
So starting today, with the permission of the good folks at JetBlue, I’ll be living in T5 for 24 hours and blogging about it as I go. I’m not flying anywhere. I’m headed to the airport just for fun and will spend a full day and night writing about the pulse of the place and anything else that comes up.
Welcome, JetAmerica and flydubai
by Rob Verger | 06.03.09 | 10:07 AM ET
The list of lost-cost carriers now has two new names: JetAmerica and flydubai.
JetAmerica, a charter company with a home base in Toledo, Ohio, will fly to five cities. They are advertising $9 fares, with a “convenience fee” of $5, thus selling some seats (before taxes and fees) for $14.
Over at The Cranky Flier, Brett Snyder isn’t optimistic. “I honestly couldn’t make this sound any worse if I tried,” Snyder writes. “The CEO is John Weikle, one of the original founders of Skybus.”
Meanwhile, in the U.A.E., flydubai has been born, with initial routes beginning this week between Dubai and Beirut and Amman. They plan to expand from there. “You’ll soon be able to flydubai to other cities in the Middle East, GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] and India,” their website states. “And eventually, the network will extend to Iran, Eastern Europe and North & East Africa.”
Why Should You Follow Airlines on Twitter?
by Rob Verger | 06.01.09 | 1:54 PM ET
Lately, I’ve been enjoying receiving tweets from airlines, and there are a few reasons why.
First up, airlines frequently announce fare sales and other news on Twitter. United has been offering what they call “twares,” which are very brief sales broadcast on Twitter, and Southwest recently tweeted about their new pets policy—you can bring dogs and cats on board now—while Virgin America tweeted to announce that their entire fleet had Wi-Fi.
Cheap Tickets to Hawaii, Costa Rica and More
by Rob Verger | 05.26.09 | 4:27 PM ET
Every few weeks here, I round up some of the best air travel deals I can find.
Want to visit the Pacific? Alaska Airlines has an insanely good deal to Hawaii. They are advertising $169 one-way fares from Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon. You need to buy your tickets before June 3, and you must travel between July 3 and September 30. If you play your cards right, you can fly to Hawaii and back for a total of about $360 after taxes and fees, round trip.
Also, Air Tahiti Nui is advertising round-trip fares, after taxes and fees, of about $731 between Los Angeles and Tahiti, but it’s for a maximum stay of four days only.
New Travel Book: ‘The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel’
by Rob Verger | 05.22.09 | 10:09 AM ET
Most of us who fly are curious: we want to know how the system that is transporting us from our homes to a new destination works, and there may be no system more opaque than air travel. For those of us who want to not only understand the system, but also figure out how to get the best deals, I highly recommend Scott McCartney’s latest book, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel. (You can read my interview with McCartney, the Journal’s Middle Seat columnist, here.)
At first glance, a book advertising “power travel” may seem not to appeal to someone who, in the spirit of World Hum, is probably less interested in “powering” through a travel experience than trying to enjoy every moment of the journey. But we all have a desire to get through the air travel segment as efficiently and cheaply as possible, and I love the way this book explains the complicated world of air travel.
Interview With Scott McCartney: Author of ‘The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel’
by Rob Verger | 05.21.09 | 11:30 AM ET
Scott McCartney, who writes the popular Middle Seat column for The Wall Street Journal, has a new book out with an enticing subtitle: The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel: How to Arrive With Your Dignity, Sanity, and Wallet Intact.
The book, which provides a look inside almost all aspects of the airline industry, is full of great advice on how to navigate air travel today. I’ll have my review of the book in a forthcoming item here, but in the meantime, I caught up with McCartney, who is also a licensed private pilot, via email to ask him a few questions.
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