“This problem is not going away any time soon. The current European-wide system to decide on airspace closures is not working. We welcome the operational refinements made by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in their theoretical model but we are still basically relying on one-dimensional information to make decisions on a four-dimensional problem. The result is the unnecessary closure of airspace. Safety is always our number one priority. But we must make decisions based on facts, not on uncorroborated theoretical models,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Bisignani noted some successful exceptions which provide examples to follow. “France has been able to safely keep its airspace open by enhancing the VAAC data with operational expertise to more precisely determine safe fly zones. Today, the UK Civil Aviation, working with the UK NATS (the air navigation service provider), announced another step forward by working with airlines and manufacturers to more accurately define tolerance levels while taking into account special operational procedures. Both are examples for other European governments to follow,” said Bisignani.

Bisignani called for (1) more robust data collection and analysis (2) a change in the decision making process and (3) urgency in addressing the issues.

Data Collection and Analysis
“Numbers show that the current system is flawed. Over 200,000 flights have operated in European airspace identified by the VAAC as having the potential presence of ash. Not one aircraft has reported significant ash presence and this is verified by post-flight aircraft and engine inspections. We must back the theory with facts gathered by aircraft to test ash concentration. France and the UK are showing that this is possible. If European civil aviation does not have the resources, it should look to borrow the test aircraft from other countries or military sources,” said Bisignani.

Changing the Decision-making Process
“We have lost confidence in the ability of Europe’s governments to make effective and consistent decisions. Using the same data, different countries have come to different conclusions on opening or closing airspace,” said Bisignani.

“Ultimately the industry needs a decision-making process for ash clouds similar to the one used for all other operational disruptions. Every day airlines make decisions whether to fly or not to fly in various weather conditions. Airlines collate the information available and make informed decisions placing safety first and with full access to all the latest weather reporting. Why should volcanic ash be any different?” said Bisignani.

In the US, which has a lot of experience with volcanic activity, the government identifies a no-fly zone where ash concentration is the highest. For all other areas, it is the responsibility of the airline to decide to fly or not based on the various data sources available. “The US has well-established, safe and effective procedures for tracking the hazards of volcanic ash. In recent years, the industry had no recorded safety incidents from volcanic activity in US airspace. Europe has a lot to learn,” said Bisignani.

Urgency
“Volcanic ash is a new challenge for European aviation. We can understand that systems need to be developed to cope. But what is absolutely inexcusable is the failure of Europe’s governments to act urgently and collectively to provide real leadership in a crisis. We have vast amounts of data from over 200,000 safe flights ready for analysis to support an urgent review of the current processes. The UK is finally moving in the right direction. But what about the other affected European governments? The next transport ministers meeting is scheduled for June 24. What kind of leadership waits more than a month to make crisis decisions? European businesses are dependant on air travel and passengers certainly cannot wait that long for initiatives like the UK’s to be implemented continent-wide,” said Bisignani.

To enhance the industry’s long-term ability to address volcanic ash issues, Bisignani is traveling to Montreal for urgent meetings with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). “IATA and ICAO have been working intensely on this issue since the crisis first struck in April. IATA is strongly supporting the ICAO task force which is reviewing ash tolerance thresholds with operators and manufacturers. The responsibility of manufacturers is critical in providing performance information to back decisions,” said Bisignani.

Tomorrow Bisignani will meet Roberto Kobeh-Gonzales, President of the ICAO Council and Raymond Benjamin, ICAO Secretary-General. “It is important that we act urgently and globally to better deal with this crisis and to lay a solid foundation for better decision making in future eruptions. Even as Europe stumbles with its fragmented approach, IATA is working with the global community through ICAO and by tapping into the experience of leading regulators like the US FAA to facilitate harmonized solutions,” said Bisignani.

Is this the right time to book flights for Christmas? Wrong! Absolutely wrong! Now, in November, is the right time to look for flights in the Easter vacations. Best time to book flights for this Christmas was in February, March or April!

Save a bundle with early flight reservation

Booking flights early can save you a bundle, and you can secure seats for yourself and your loved ones on the best connections.
And, if you choose the right airline, you can still maintain your flexibility. Some airlines allow you to keep a reservation without issuing a ticket for many weeks. Air France for example demands a ticket number and payment only three months before departure. Many Airlines from the Gulf region are even more liberal.
Using this system, you have nothing to lose. You buy the ticket as soon as you can make a firm commitment. The worst what can happen to you at ticketing time is, that you have cancel the old reservation and look again. Then you are in the same position as someone who looks at that time for a flight.

Most travel agents demand immediate ticketing and payment

You will ask me: “What are you telling me here? If I go to any website or travel agency to book a flight, they ask me for money right away, and I get a ticket on the spot.”
And you are right. Most travel agents keep quiet about these opportunities for several reasons:

1. The travel agent must manage those reservations without a ticket manually. Often it takes one or two days until the airline sends a note with the latest possible ticketing date. The agent must have an eye of these reservations and inform you of any messages of the airline. That is work and costs money.
2. The general rule is: The price is only guaranteed if a ticket is issued. If the fuel surcharge is going up, or if the airline decides to change the price or schedule, it’s up to you to change your plans. And no travel agent likes to pick the phone to tell you, that the flight he offered you, is no longer available, or costs now much more.
3. In most booking engines the whole process of looking for free seats, pricing, collecting the payment and issuing a ticket is fully automated. Everything else would be way too expensive for a travel agency competing solely on the price.
4. Last but not least: If you paid the flight and have the ticket, you cannot change your mind and buy somewhere else.

The bottom line is: Travel agencies ask for immediate ticketing and payment. For the customer this is a pity. Many people would be much better off paying a higher fee to the travel agent and have him do the work which can be the difference of paying 800 or 1500 Euro for a flight from Frankfurt to Nairobi or Douala in the holiday season.

Sweet spot for our customers

To take care of this problem, we have done something sweet for you. We put up a booking engine which just makes a reservation for you, without issuing a ticket. Our fees are obviously a bit higher that the fees the 100% automated discount agencies offer. But I think you will like the idea to spend 20 Euros to save 200 Euros. (This is a hypothetical example. It is not possible to calculate today, what you would pay for a flight if you had made a reservation in February. But not hypothetical is the fact, that almost any travel agent who has access to the Sabre(TM) or Amadeus(TM) reservation system, uses that technique for his own travel needs.)
The engine offers fares which are available for sale in Germany. But you can book flights starting and ending in almost every country.

This engine is hidden at

http://engine.bestprice.travel
As you can cancel any reservation from this engine before a ticket is issued without a fee, we have taken the complete risk on our side.

Yours
for a better travel experience

 

PS:
Paying € 20 to save € 200 sums up to a saving of 180 Euro.

To my surprise I found that US-Airways, American Airlines and others offer free train ticket from their gateway airports in Germany to any railway station of Deutsche Bahn, the German flag railway company.

These rail and fly offers have always been there for flights of international airlines like American Airlines, Emirates Airways, Quantas and others orginating from Germany Since no paper tickets are sold any more, the railway company had to come up with a solution compatible with electronic flight tickets. This allows now airlines (if they want) to extent rail and fly offers to customers living in other countries and visiting Europe.

Example with US-Airways:
Charlotte-Frankfurt September 15 to September 25
EUR 496 including tax and travel agent’s fee.
If you book it before the ticket is issued,
you can get with this ticket a free train ride
from Frankfurt to any German
railway station and back.

Another example with American Arlines:
Los Angeles-Frankfurt via Fort Worth
from September 15 to September 22
EUR 529 including Tax and Travel Agents fee.
If you ask for it before the ticket is issued,
you American Airlines also adds a train ticket for free,
from Frankfurt to any German railway station and back.

Both offers are based on fares and availabilities valid on May 26, 2009. Similiar offers are on the market for flights orginating in Canada and Mexico. This can save you just a bundle, because tickets for the German high speed railway links are not cheap.

I did not find these offers in booking engines. But your travel agent should be able to book it for you. Or you may request an offer here.

They allow their customers for international flights:

• 1 piece of luggage weighting less than 50 pound (23 kg)

If you want to carry a second piece, they charge you 50 Dollars. This fee is payable directely to Delta at check in time.
For traffic inside the US Delta charges a fee for luggage for some time. That fee is 15 Dollars for the first piece, and 25 Dollar for a second piece of luggage.
This applies also for stopover flights for ongoing travel from the first stop in the US. Check the details of the new rules at Delta’s Website.

PS: If you are travelling a lot with Delta, you could use their SkyMiles program to avoid these extra charges.

In short:

• Pay Business Class
• Outgoing leg fly Business Class
• Incoming leg fly FIRST (or vice versa)
• Last day to purchase: May 31, 2009
• Last day to travel: Jule 31,2009
• Number of seats for this special may be limited.

If you ever wondered, what’s so special with FIRST,
this is your day.
Use this rare opportunity.

All price examples include already taxes and travel agents fees.
They show your total cost of the ticket

Frankfurt-Boston,February 25 to March 5. 410 Euro

Munich-Hong Kong March 15 to March 27 515 Euro

Please check for more prices and availabilities:

http://engine.bestprice.travel

You will find similiar offers from Germany to

• New York
• Boston
• Philadelphia
• Washington
• Miami
• Denver
• Houston
• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Seattle
   
• Bejing
• Shanghai
• Hongkong
• Tokyo
   
• Capetown
• Johannesburg
   
• Bangalore
• Chennai
• Delhi
• Hyderabad
• Mumbai

You may book these flights at

http://engine.bestprice.travel

The specials are valid for flights from Hamburg, Berlin, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich return flights in World Traveller (economy-class). Last date to issue a ticket is February 16. Last possible travel dated is June 30. Open jaw flights in China, South Africa, India or the US are possible.
]]> http://www.bestprice.travel/blog/13/remarkable-flight-specials/feed/ 1 http://www.bestprice.travel/blog/12/rail-and-fly-offers-with-electonic-air-tickets/ http://www.bestprice.travel/blog/12/rail-and-fly-offers-with-electonic-air-tickets/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:37:03 +0000 Johannes Stockburger http://www.bestprice.travel/home/2008/08/08/rail-and-fly-offers-with-electonic-air-tickets/ No more flight tickets on paper

It is now a little over 2 months, that IATA stopped issuing air tickets on paper. Now under IATA rules only electronic tickets are allowed.

Deutsche Bahn as feeder for long distance flights

In Germany the railway company Deutsche Bahn is an importent feeder for international aund intercontinental flights. Many airlines have cooperation agreements with Deutsche Bahn, the German railway companies and publish fares which include a railway feeder to the airport. For the passenger the rail and fly fares have the additional benefit that he receives a ticket which reaches as close as the next railway station to his home.

Incompatible reservation systems

Since the reservation system of Deutsche Bahn is not compatible, and will not be compatible with the global GDSes and the internal airline reservation systems, for these fares, combining rail and air segments, paper tickets were used. This is now no longer possible, at least not without considerable extra cost and cost and hassle.

There are three different types of rail and fly tickets:

Different solutions are coming up

1. Some airlines issue code share flight numbers for certain rail connections, espiaclly from from Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Cologne to Frankfurt. In this case, you receive a normal flight ticket for the train ride, which is valid only in one specified train relation, date and time. You can use your electronic flight ticket, but only in that very train, for which the ticket is issued.(Very much like the flight ticket is only valid for a specific flight, and you cannot show up with your ticket one day earlier and expect to fly.)
2. The classic rail and fly offer relates to a ticket, valid from any railway station in Germany to the airport, from which your flight starts. Here there is no way to specify a train you need to use, and thus it is not possible to rely on a document which can be printed by the consumer as many times as he wishes. Otherwise several people could get a copy and use it simultaneously, and there would be now way for the train company to know for whom the ticket was paid, and who is looking for a free ride.
   To allow anyway to combine electronic tickets with rail and fly segments we book now segments under the airline name ‘Access Rail’ into the flight schedule. As soon we include as such a segment into the schedule, Sabre generates a numerical code, which is transmitted as additional information with the flight reservation to the airline. As soon as an electronic flight ticket (showing the whole itinery including these ‘access rail’ segments, the airlines activates that numerical code in the reservation system of Deutsche Bahn. After that the passenger can obtain with that number conventional train tickets from any ticket sales maschine. This ticket, together with the electronic flight ticket, allows him to use almost all trains of Deutsche Bahn to the airport. Some special trains like ‘ICE Sprinter’ and night trains with sleeping facilities need an extra paid seat reservation and an supplemental payment.
3. Some airlines which do not use the global reservation systems made their private arrangements with the train companies. In this case you will receive special instruction how to use the train with the confirmation code of the airline or as part of the travel documents for your tour package.

Air and rail segments need to be booked together

In all these three cases the rail and fly segments must be ordered together with the flight tickets. After the air ticket is issued, it is mostly impossible, or at least expensive, to add a railway connection to the airport.

For all flights which you booked with us, we can provide an add on ticket for German railways from anywhere in Germany to your airport. These tickets are only valid in connection of a flight ticket, and the price is roughly 59 Euro for one way, or 110 Euro for a round trip.

If you are looking for a travel arrangement combining air segments with rail segments, we are happy to help you.

People talk to one another

The airline sends a note to both travel agencies and asks them to remove the dupe reservation. In this case you should receive two phone calls and you can decide, which reservation to keep.

But some airlines try to resolve the problem with technical tools:

This means, if they receive a dupe reservation, they do not create in their system a second reservation. Instead they create the second reservation as a link to the orignial one. The travel agent creating the second reservation is not aware of that, and the travel agent with the first reservation is not aware that somebody else is linked to his reservation.

Reservation becomes a link to nowhere

Travel agent number one cancelles your reservation in his system as he becomes aware that you are not going to buy the ticket through him. The reservation of travel agent number two, which was in reality a link to a reservation, is now a link to nowhere. But the travel agent number two is not aware of any problem, and his system shows him still an ok behind your seats.
If the plane is not full, you won’t note anything, because the airline or the travel agent will just restore the reservation, and you get your tickets. But if the plane is full, or the actual price for a seat on the plane is in the meantime much higher than it was before, you will get tickets only for the new price. The difference can be quite big.
The airline and the travel agent will just point to their terms of service, which include the standard clause:

A fare is only guaranteed after a ticket is issued

• the standard reservation systems for charter airlines are not really suitable for internet bookings
• many offers for Condor flights are not available in Sabre, our preferred reservation system for scheduled flights
• the prices offered on Condors Website are sometimes considerably lower then the prices found in the reservation systems for travel agents.

There are several aspects which determine the fares charged on the respective booking platforms for Condor flights.
On the airline web sites reservation and ticketing can automated almost fully, including the payment with a credit card. The automation is here even higher than at a self service filling station for car fuel.
With the global distribution systems – the traditional systems for scheduled flights – the same degree of automation is possible. The global distribution systems (GDS) charge a flat fee for all Condor flights booked with the help of their tools. And especially for cheap fare this can be a substantial amount. The advantage of booking through GDS is that the travel agent is able to add some service, like advance reservation without immediate ticketing, round trips with several stops etc. But he has to charge for this service his own fee.
The third system, which makes Condor flights available, are conceived for selling leisure travel packages. In these systems, both, automation and flexibility are low. Here it can be already difficult to buy an open jaw flight. And with the reservation itself carries immediately high cancellation or change fees.

Just about the time when I dropped leisure travel system from our websites I talked to Condor. I don’t even remember for what reason. But they made me an offer I could not decline:

They told me I can offer Condor flights through their fully automated system at the prices identical with their website – in fact the booking engine is a clone of the engine at their website – and they would pay me for supporting the customers in matters like sports equipment, seat reservations, flights with babies etc.

The basic deal is: You book your Condor flight through BestPrice.Travel Lounge. You pay the same price as available on the Condor website and you get our personal support as needed to get the flight perfectly organized. You won’t pay for that extra service around your Condor flights , because the airline will pay for it.

To take advantage of this offer, go to
http://lounge.bestprice.travel/bookcondor.php

If you need an open jaw flight and lack the time or patience to play with the booking engines the trial and error game, we are happy to create your flight shedule. Just send us a request for your free TailorMade TravelPlan