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From: info@airinfo.travel (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: rec.travel.air,rec.answers,news.answers
Subject: Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ
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Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 06:00:23 EDT
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY
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Summary: access to on-line airline info and travel agents (weekly)
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Archive-name: travel/air/online-info
Last-modified: 2024/08/04
No changes from last week.

Please look through this entire document, particularly the PLEASE NOTE at the
end, before e-mailing me a question or comment, since most of the questions I
get are already answered in it.

* What's in this document?

There's an enormous amount of information available on the Web about airlines
and aviation. This FAQ concentrates on two things: schedules, fares,
reservations, and tickets for commercial airlines, and on-line travel agents.
We list both airline-sponsored and independent information.

The first parts of this FAQ discuss on-line sources of airline schedules and
fares, of which there are several general-purpose services.

After that it lists airlines that have any of online schedules, fares,
reservations, ticket sales, and flight status.

Next comes a listing of on-line specials, sources of special fares and other
deals available over the net. Many airlines have short-notice specials which
are worth checking out.

The rest of the FAQ lists travel agents that offer service over the net and
have indicated that they'd like to be listed. I am not a travel agent (I
consult and write computer books which you can find out about in my web site
at https://www.johnlevine.com, and the agent listings are provided free to any
agent that asks and sends in a short description of what he or she offers.

* Where is this FAQ available?

It's on the Web at https://airinfo.travel or https://airinfo.aero. There are,
unfortunately, a certain number of out of date copies of this site floating
around the net; the only one that's up to date is the one at
https://airinfo.travel or https://airinfo.aero.

* How do on-line reservations work?

Four giant airline computer systems in the United States handle nearly all the
airline reservations in the country. (They're known as CRSs, for computer
reservations systems, or more often now GDS for global distribution systems.)
Although each airline has a ``home'' CRS, the systems are all interlinked so
that you can, with few exceptions, buy tickets for any airline from any CRS.
The dominant systems in the U.S. are Sabre (home to American and US Airways),
Galileo (home to United), Worldspan (home to Delta, Northwest), and Amadeus
(many European lines.) The company that owned Galileo and Orbitz recently
bought Worldspan, so the two GDS will presumably be merged. Many of the
low-price start-up airlines don't participate in any of these systems but have
their own Web sites where you can check flights and buy tickets. Southwest,
the largest and oldest of the low-price airlines, doesn't participate, either.
Southwest's web site gets car and hotel info from Galileo, but the info seems
not to flow the other way. Orbitz, one of the big three online travel
agencies, runs its own system which is "direct connect" linked directly to
many of the airlines.

In theory, all the systems show the same data; in practice, however, they get
a little out of sync with each other. If you're looking for seats on a
sold-out flight, an airline's home system is most likely to have that last,
elusive seat. If you're looking for the lowest fare to somewhere, check all
four systems because a fare that's marked as sold out on one system often
mysteriously reappears on another system. Some airlines have rules about
flight segments that are not supposed to be sold together even though they're
all available, and at least once I got a cheap US Airways ticket on Expedia,
which didn't know about all the US Airways rules even though I couldn't get it
on their own site or Travelocity which did know about them. On the other hand,
many airlines have available some special deals that are only on their own Web
sites and maybe a few of the online agencies. Confused? You should be. We are.

The confusion is even worse if you want to fly internationally. Official fares
to most countries are set via a treaty organization called the IATA, so most
computer systems list only IATA fares for international flights. It's easy to
find entirely legal ``consolidator'' tickets sold for considerably less than
the official price, however, so an online or offline agent is extremely useful
for getting the best price. The airlines also can have some impressive online
offers on their web sites.

Here's our distilled wisdom about buying tickets online:

* Check the online systems to see what flights are available and for an idea
of the price ranges. Check more than one CRS. For tickets within the U.S. and
Canada, the prices in the CRS are for the most part the real prices that
people are paying. See the Big Online Agencies later in this FAQ for some good
places to start.
* After you have found a likely airline, check that airline's site to see
whether it has any special Web-only deals. If a low-fare airline has the
route, be sure to check that one too, since most low-fare airlines don't
appear in CRS listings.
* If your schedule is flexible, check ticket bidding sites including Hotwire
(https://www.hotwire.com) and Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) and ticket
auctions such as SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/).
* You can also talk to travel agents, particularly if it's a route where you
aren't eligible for the lowest CRS fares, but remember that agents get no
commission on fares visible on the CRS, so you can expect an agent to charge
you for ticking them.
* For international tickets, do all the steps above in this list, and then
check both online and with your agent for consolidator tickets. This is
particularly important if you don't qualify for the lowest published fare. See
Edward Hasbrouck's Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ
(https://hasbrouck.org/faq) for much more detailed information on consolidator
tickets.

The U.S. airline industry is chronically in dreadful shape, with Aloha, ATA,
Skybus, Eos, Silverjet, Maxjet, and now Zoom having shut down. Midwest merged
into Frontier. American went bankrupt and the corpse merged into US Airways,
although the surviving company is still called American. Sun Country went
bankrupt but is still flying, Frontier went bankrupt but seems to be surviving
as part of regional carrier Republic, and most of the remaining airlines are
hanging on with a combination of somewhat higher fares (much higer for
trans-Atlantic) and very full planes. The weak economy has kept them from
raising fares as much as they want, but they're not passing on the recent
lower fuel prices. Southwest and Airtran, two relatively healthy low-fare
carriers have merged, with the surviving airline Southwest with more east
coast and international routes.

Lufthansa has bought and probably will absorb bmi, which will give them a
substantial Heathrow hub, and French all-business carrier l'Avion was absorbed
into British Airways' Openskies subsidiary, which is looking kind of iffy
itself.

Airlines cut back schedules as the recession hits their customers, so there
are fewer seats on more crowded planes. In some cases small several regional
jet flights have been replaced by one larger jet, but the overall trend is
down.

Airlines are scrambling for revenue anywhere they can find it. Fuel surcharges
are now common across the industry, and can be several hundred dollars on
overseas flights. Most US lines other than Southwest charge for all checked
bags on domestic flights. Many now charge for picking your own seat, and
charge more if you pick a decent seat by an exit row or bulkhead. (The kindest
way to think of it is that the prices have increased, but you get a discount
if you're willing to fly with no checked bag, sit in a lousy seat, and bring
your own lunch.) Nobody includes meals on domestic flights any more, although
I have to say that the $7 salads and sandwiches are often a lot better than
the former free gray-green glop.

The airlines that aren't bankrupt have shrunk themselves and tried to raise
fares but and are sporadically profitable, largely depending on fuel prices.
Beyond the ones that have shut down, Sun Country's options to emerge from
bankruptcy are not promising.

A major effect of all of the bankruptcies and downsizing is that airlines are
much more thinly staffed than they used to be. That means that problems tend
to have worse effects and last longer than they used to be.

Low-cost Canadian airline JetsGo turned out to be so low cost that it ran out
of cash and died, Canjet retreated back to charters, and surviving low cost
competitor Westjet and Air Canada aren't competing very hard, so Canadian
airfare prices are not low other than on Air Transat's vacation routes.

Passengers are subject to much more extensive screening than in the past,
including screening of checked baggage at check-in time, and, according to
news reports pat downs that approach groping. Airlines recommend arriving at
least an hour earlier than before. In my experience the extra delay is rarely
more than 15 minutes, even with the extra baggage screening, although I
usually fly out of smaller airports, not big hubs where you can get the killer
two hour lines. The TSA has handed back screening at a surprising number of
airports to private contractors, all of whom wear outfits intended to look
like TSA uniforms. There is remarkable inconsistency in procedures from one
airport to another, particularly with respect to your shoes, is worse than
ever. Don't put your shoes in a bin, do put your shoes in a bin, and they all
insist very loudly that whatever their rule is has always been the rule
everywhere. A variety of extra cost "trusted traveller" plans may allow people
to get through the screening faster, or may just involve waiting in a
different line. The TSA makes no promises. If you don't want to go through the
X-ray machines, whose safety is nowhere near as clear as the TSA would like
you to believe, you can get a light body massage instead. They have a web site
with estimated wait times (https://waittime.tsa.dhs.gov) based on averages in
previous months, not real time numbers.

Anyone who flies very often should join TSA Pre-Check
(https://www.tsa.gov/tsa-precheck), which returns the security process to what
it was before 9/11, fast and relatively painless. It's included with the
various international low-risk traveler programs such as Global Entry and
NEXUS, or you can apply directly on the TSA web site.

Other changes include: some airports have stopped curb-side baggage check,
anything vaguely resembling a knife or lighter may or may not be confiscated
(although lighters suddenly stopped being dangerous a year ago), you're
sometimes only allowed one carry-on plus a purse, briefcase, diaper bag or the
like, non-passengers aren't allowed past security, all passengers must have a
document that looks like a boarding pass at most airports to get past
security, you may have to put your toothpaste and shampoo in a baggie that may
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