A Civilized Flight Experience

July 7, 2010

Despite the aggravation of flying today, I always welcome my time in the air since it’s allows me quiet time to get work done.

Right now I’m flying from San Francisco to New York on Virgin America, a carrier I’ve been wanting to sample for some time.

After spending half my life in the air all over the world I’m pretty critical of some airlines. In this blog I’ve gone for the airline jugular more than just a few times, and was prepared to go for VA’s if they didn’t measure up to their self-promotional hype. But, to tell you the truth, I’m a bit amazed at what VA has done to the flight experience.

First off, the cabin is lit with blue and violet mood lighting which is relaxing. And the food is pretty good considering it’s an airline, not a flying pantry.

I just had a really good lemon and tarragon chicken salad “hand roll” with an orzo pasta salad ($9), better than many things I could buy on the ground. I could also have had a caprese turkey sandwich, roast beef sandwich with cambozola cheese and several other things.

The wine is Wente, a step above the drivel on other carriers in coach. Ditto for the beers (Gordon Biersch and Black Star). Also a selection of liquors.

But what makes the VA experience really different is that you don’t order anything from the cabin staff — you make all orders through the entertainment system at your seat. Order, swipe your card and it’s brought to you within minutes.

You can also buy a small variety of things (forgot your toiletries?), watch a movie, enjoy in-flight WiFi (unfortunately they charge $12.95 to do so), play games, listen to music, even try to pick up that cute brunette in 7C on seat-to-seat chat.

About six weeks before departure I could have snagged a seat for $150 one-way. Unfortunately I couldn’t book until three weeks out and wound up paying $192.

One thing I really like is VA’s live map — it has a zoom feature that zooms way in, letting you see the small towns and even the actual highways you’re over at any given moment, not just that map of half the continent with a huge plane on it.

Now if they’d just get rid of that WiFi charge…

Jim Ferri

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Make Someone Smile

June 30, 2010

It could have been called the “Sensodyne Smirk.” Or the “Crest Challenge.” Maybe the “Colgate Championship.”

Instead, though, the Orlando Convention & Visitors Bureau labeled it “Orlando Makes Me Smile.” That’s their worldwide marketing campaign to find 67 people with the best reasons why Orlando makes them smile. And if you want to enter, anything is fair game - either past memories or a dream for the future - submitted in writing or on video.

And the reason for choosing 67 people? According to the CVB that’s the number of days it takes to see all of Orlando’s 100 attractions. There’s no word whether they’ll let the 67 winners stay for 67 days which would mean they’d have to give away 4,489  hotel nights, a substantial chunk of moolah for any organization.

Speaking of moolah, the CVB also plans to raise $16,750 for the non-profit organization “Smile Train,” which will fund surgeries for 67 children with cleft lips and cleft palates. Now there’s a good reason to part with a little of your moolah.

Spearheading this tsunami of smiles are “Orlando Smile Ambassadors” Kyle Post and Stacey Doombos, best friends from New York City who won a contest last year to spend “67 days of smiles” in Orlando and then help find the other 67 people who we still don’t know will or will not be spending 67 days in Orlando. Hoteliers in Orlando are getting very confused at this point.

I ran into Kyle and Stacey a few weeks ago in Orlando as they pitched the contest to a group of conventioneers, most who were smiling, with a few looking as if they may have spent too much time smiling into the bottoms of their glasses the night before. That’s them in the video above, taken during their smile tour throughout North America, the UK and Europe.

You can find out more about this toothy and cheeky promotion, as well as pitch your own grin and submission, at VisitOrlando.com/smile.

Better yet, go to the site and donate a few bucks to the “Smile Train.” That’s certain to make a lot of kids smile.

Jim Ferri

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The Curmudgeon

June 21, 2010

Okay, so I’m a curmudgeon.

But I’m really annoyed, pissed, aggravated, perturbed and had enough of travel companies gouging me.

We all sat back and quietly watched as airlines piled on ancillary fees. $15 for checking a bag, $5 for this, $7 for that. According to DOT the pile grew to $7.8 billion in airline ancillary fees in 2009.

Then hotels joined the gouge-a-thon. The Wynn Las Vegas, among others, has instituted a $20 resort fee which covers “certain complimentary select hotel amenities.” But Wynn doesn’t specify what amenities it includes.

And now car rental companies have skidded into the act.

Today I tried to rent a car in Sacramento for late Friday night next week, and return it to San Francisco midday on Tuesday. I had gone online through my insurance company since it provides a discounted rate with Avis and Hertz.

I had only been online for two minutes when it became apparent that either 1) the computers at Avis and Hertz were under attack by hackers, or 2) the rates were being set by someone with the business acumen of Little Orphan Annie.

Just a few months ago I would have been charged a rate of about $53 per day with unlimited mileage. Today forget about unlimited anything.

Although Avis’ daily rate remains unchanged, they’ve now tacked on a charge of 25¢ per mile. Agh-h-h-h-h.

And, on top of that, I’m also required to pay an “Airport Concession Fee Recovery” ($33.76), a “Vehicle Licensing Cost Recovery” (a bargain at $1.60), a California Tourism Commission Assessment ($10.59) and a tax of $29.56 which brought my estimated bill to about $450.

According to USA Today Avis recently reported its ancillary revenues have grown 12% on a per-rental-day basis. Well, stupid me — I always thought those fees were just the normal cost of doing business.

But you know what? The tacked-on-fee ball is rolling and picking up speed. And pretty soon all travel businesses will be tacking on as many fees as they think they can get away with until we all start screaming “enough Annie!”

Just remember Hertz, Avis and the rest of you, I’m not Daddy Warbucks.

And the sun ain’t coming up tomorrow if you keep gouging all of us like this.

Jim Ferri

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