Articles

How often do travelers find the clichés of the glossy ads, and the PR hype, redeemed by that elusive amalgam of true friendliness, service, recognition, and efficiency that I call ‘hospitality,’ whether in hotels, airlines or cruise ships?

It is hard to find that authentic welcome, a true home from home, to coin another cliché; it is palpable but at the same time elusive; it is hard to define, except in industry clichés, but seasoned travelers recognize it at once – typically in the first ten minutes of stepping into a hotel, or boarding a jet.

Travelers cherish recognition, whether they are traveling for business or pleasure, or both. Hotels that treat every guest as ‘mystery shoppers’ can reap dividends in goodwill and future business. 

Legend has it that Fats Waller, when asked for a definition of jazz, replied: ‘Lady if you have to ask, I can’t tell you.’  (It is a nice analogy when you think that jazz engages both the brain and the feet.)    

I call it the ‘boutique experience.’

It comes down to training and example which has to come down from the top through the organization. It has to be dyed deep in the culture and in the reward system of a company; and permeate through to every employee whether in direct or indirect contact with guests.

‘People are our most precious asset’ is a corporate mantra that has a hollow ring in many organizations, whether it applies to staff or customers.

‘Boutique’ is an overused word describing any small environment with ‘luxury’ facilities. But small is not necessarily beautiful; although there does seem to be an optimum size – and a staff/guest ratio of typically one to three. It is the ‘software’ – the soft-skills of the people who provide the service – that can make or break the experience.

Bea Tollman is founder-president of the Red Carnation Hotel Collection of fourteen boutique hotels in outstanding locations – five in London, two in Dorset, Guernsey, Geneva, Palm Beach, and three in South Africa. She inspires awe and affection among the staff.

‘The boutique experience for me is that people feel they are walking into a home where the welcome is warm, genuine and where they are recognized for whom they are. Every guest should be made to feel special; that is what we really aim to do. And we do this through training and leadership example – how you genuinely feel about people.  But to make a real boutique hotel you should have less than a hundred odd rooms; I think that’s the optimum number really.’

Guy Young, president of Uniworld, a self-styled ‘Boutique River Cruise Collection,’ based in Los Angeles, says. ‘What makes us unique as a river cruise operator is that the décor on our ships has a different look and feel… plush, intimate and warm; we’re not a cookie-cutter company. We average about 130 guests, with one staff member for every three guests. So they get to know the guests personally, and greet them by name when they come back on board after an excursion; it’s like a big family on board, and our staff work very hard to express that sincere, caring attitude. And there’s a lot of interaction between the guests.’

The Virgin Limited Edition of boutique properties includes the Necker Island resort in the British Virgin Islands, along with the Necker Belle, a 100-foot catamaran; Kasbah Tamadot in Morocco; a private game lodge in Ulusaba, South Africa; the Roof Gardens and the Babylon restaurant in London; and The Lodge in Verbier, Switzerland.

The Lodge, a large chalet style hotel, consists of two big communal floors and nine en suite guest rooms; and 14 staff.    

Hannah Allen, general manager of The Lodge, says, ‘It’s a very relaxed feel. With one staff member for every three guests, we can be up till four or five in the morning, until the last guest goes to bed. It’s a tailor-made environment. Richard [Branson], whether he is staying with us or on Necker Island, likes to come and relax; he likes a homely feeling and to share that with other people. We have groups of business people; family couples with friends; winter skiers; corporate clients… it’s a real mix.’

‘When you go into some of the larger hotels, it’s clear the staff have been taught certain things they have to say; it doesn’t come from the heart; and everybody you pass along a corridor or anywhere in the hotel they all say the same things; you just feel they’ve been taught to say that,’ Bea Tollman says. ‘I believe my staff genuinely feels pleased to see a guest – hopefully know their name – and feel that they mean what they say.

‘Training is everything; and the motivation; to motivate passion into your staff, for them to be proud of working in that hotel or that company,’ Tollman adds. ‘That’s the thing that makes their working life more interesting and they know there’s a chance to do better in a company where someone is watching over them, and encouraging them to grow.

‘It comes down to knowing the standards of the hotel and having a very critical eye; you should be watching everything,’ Bea Tollman says. Nothing should be left half done.  If you see something that’s not right, you should immediately do it, and be enthusiastic about doing it. You’ve got to learn and train your eye to notice these things; to put them right; and then to be genuine, be sincere; because hotel management is the same all over the world. Everybody is taught the same things; how to run a department; what you should look for…

‘What it amounts to really is the service; and looking for the detail, because it’s a detail business. Everybody’s got everything and doing the same things today; you read up what your competitors are doing, and you do it.  What really counts is your staff: and how you genuinely care about your guests.’

I believe it was the legendary Soichiro Honda who once said that Japanese and Western management was 95 percent the same, ‘but different in all important respects.’  He meant the software – personal skills that make the difference and provide the competitive edge – especially true in the service industry.  

On a recent visit to the Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, I was exploring an angle for a story:   how and why hotel managers can readily adapt to other management roles but seemingly not the other way round: Perhaps because hotel managers learn an eclectic range of skills having hands-on experience in so many diverse areas of expertise.

Red Carnation has what you might call ‘peer-performance’ reviews in the form of weekly or monthly meetings at each hotel when all the staff vote for the ‘best manager’ of each department.  They’ll also acquire experience of how other departments work by changing positions during the year and functions by changing positions for a time during the year. The doorman might end up as a receptionist; a manager will serve as a doorman; or work in the food and beverage department…

While there seems to be an optimum size for a boutique property, I asked Bea Tollman if there is an ‘optimum’ size for a personally managed family group such as Red Carnation.

‘One wants to be able to grow but not too much that you can’t keep up the standards with the input that the higher level of management has to give to the different hotels,’ she says. ‘You can only spread yourself that thin because you just get busier and busier; standards get higher in the hotels; the things we do take an awful lot of time and effort…   How can you keep that spirit up when you’ve got too many hotels? We’ve got fifteen operations now, and to look after all of those and to watch what’s going on, know what’s happening, and encourage them and do the right thing… it takes a tremendous amount of work.’       

Although I have always assumed that every silver lining has a cloud; I cling to the belief that every cloud has a silver lining. The events of 9/11 precipitated a crisis among world airlines, which went into free fall, with empty seats and canceled services, and large hotel chains suffered falls in occupancy levels, there was a boom in the charter market for business jets (even for trans-Atlantic travel) and ‘boutique,’ and boutique hotels reported business almost as normal at a time when fewer people were traveling.

It is easy to understand why. Jet charter (and the growth of scheduled business-only airlines that use business jets) addresses a need for security, discretion and confidentiality. Book a charter and you travel to your own schedule in an unmarked plane with private access at major hubs or convenient small airports, even taken by limo to the steps of the plane. During the flight, you can relax, work or have meetings. And speed by limo (motorcycle escort is optional!) to your office – or boutique hotel.             

Business jets (whether chartered or scheduled), along with boutique hotels are ‘private’ environments compared with the public arena of large hotels and even the premium cabins of conventional airlines. You might call it ‘closed circuit’ travel, segregated from the madding crowd, and cocooned in your own security blanket. What I would call a true boutique experience.

Back to basics, what makes a great hotel? This is a recurring theme that I am often asked to talk about. There is no ideal. People travel in different modes, different frames of mind, with different needs, motivations and prejudices, that can vary from trip to trip, depending on why we’re going and where we’re headed.

Are we traveling only for business or trying to combine that with a vacation? Do we need to use the room as a high-tech business center? Do we need a prestigious address with facilities to entertain, a high-tech ‘command center’ to work and keep in touch with the office, or simply a room for the night? How important is location? Are we looking for adventure, new experiences? What is our budget? How much do loyalty and frequent guest programs count? And who is picking up the tab?

Everybody expects a quiet room with high safety standards and service. Add to this your own pet foibles, predilections and prejudices, such as wall-to-wall Muzak, $50 club sandwiches from room service and egregious mini-bar prices.  Some people seek recognition, such as being greeted by name by the deputy assistant duty night manager. Others thrive on anonymity. Or ‘added value’ options, such as early check-in, late check-out, room upgrades, airport transfers, cocktails and canapés, exquisite bed linen, or a luxurious turn-down service with candles and chocolates on the pillow. Small things can make a big difference; a sincere handshake; a misplaced smile; or a gesture beyond the normal call of duty that can make or break the experience. (I once shocked a group of hotel managers by jokingly averring that one of my criteria for judging a hotel was by the quality of the removable wooden coat hangars that I might accidentally take home to add to my collection.)

Hotel experiences (good and bad) stick in the mind like burrs. There was the late night welcome at the Hotel Splendido in Porto Fino with prosciutto and ripe pear and a cold bottle of Chablis; the giant Edwardian bathtubs and lemon-scented soap at the old Hyde Park Hotel in London; the vital telephone call that I took when caught short in the bathroom of the Excelsior Gallia in Milan; and, in a hurry for the airport, losing, for forty fateful minutes, my sole pair of shoes that I had left outside my door to be cleaned at the Plaza Athenee in Paris. The warmth and sincerity of the welcome and goodbyes I receive at the Beau Rivage Palace in Lausanne is truly heartwarming, with calls beyond the call of duty. I shall never forget the time when Sylvie, the luminescent head concierge gave my sick wife care beyond the call of duty; and offered us a car to the airport. The Beau Rivage is a rare example of a traditional grand hotel with an authentic boutique feel.    

My wife and I once booked into the Westminster Hotel in Nice, a fine rococo building on the Promenade des Anglais.   I was on a hard-core business assignment, but we had made arrangements with British Airways’ frequent flier miles.  We got a lousy room and reception to match: I had to wield my vestigial management skills to change the room and rearrange the attitude.

Flashback to several years ago which shows that a truly grand hotel is still a class act:

I was on a magazine assignment in the south of France with a photographer from New York. We entered the Negresco Hotel in Nice, the grandest of the Belle Epoque palaces almost next door to the Westminster, in pursuit of a room for him - he had not made a reservation.

Nothing strange about that, except that photographers can sometimes look very strange. This one had red suspenders and a purple vest. And I looked strange in a black leather jacket, white pants, espadrilles, no socks, and a mane of windswept hair. But we were received with elaborate courtesy by a liveried voiturier, doorman and desk clerk.

There was none of the usual: “How will you be settling your bill, sir?” or, “Can I take an imprint of your credit card?”

I explained our mission to the manager, congratulating him on the charm and hospitality of his staff. He smiled, “Ah, yes, Monsieur C, you can never tell who you have in front of you these days!”

Years ago, I always stayed at the same small, somewhat decrepit, hotel in Paris, because of the charm and graciousness of Nicolas, the elderly and erudite White Russian night porter.   I will return to that tatty hotel with a big heart in Avignon, but never to the four-star palace hotel in Nice because of its rude and uncomprehending staff.   Cattle class on one airline can sometimes be a better experience than business class on another. You may have noticed how often two flights on the same airline is like flying with two different airlines.  Frequent fliers are able to detect a ‘bad’ crew from a ‘good’ crew the moment they board the plane. One hotelier says that he can tell a good hotel from a bad hotel in the first ten minutes.

Welf Eberling, former executive vice president and chief operating officer in New York of Leading Hotels of the World, says, “The perception of luxury today is not gilded moldings or a plasma flat-screen television, but a harmonious blend of product and service. There are certain givens. For example, we don’t measure the size of rooms, but how often does room service push in the trolley and there’s only one easy chair so the other person has to perch on the corner of the bed?

‘Rooms should have three phones with two lines: one by the bed, one on the desk, one in the bathroom. Turn-down service is always a great point of discussion. There’s more to it than folding back the top sheet and putting a chocolate on the pillow — it should be full room service, straightening out the bathroom, bringing in new towels. Then, there is the whole spectrum of food and beverage. We are not giving a Michelin star for food it’s the service that counts. How is the guest received in the restaurant? Is the waiter attentive, does he pre-empt some of your wishes? In a five-star hotel it should be an experience; like a restaurant.’

Trent Walsh, managing director of Leading Quality Assurance in London, says, “Leading Hotels’ members are inspected twice in a three-year cycle. Our inspectors stay anonymously for 48 hours and score each department against a total of 1,200 quantitative standards and a qualitative scoring — the fuzzy, touchy-feely aspect that is so important in the luxury sector.”

He adds: “Luxury five-star hotels must fulfill what you would expect: a good bathroom, separate shower, double sinks and quality linen. But only 35 percent of the assessment is based on product; the other 65 percent depends on service, which is much more important. You can have the most wonderful product in the world, but if you don’t couple it with a phenomenal service, you are not going to succeed in the luxury hotel market.”

This is why some smaller boutique hotels achieve good scores even if they don’t have all the amenities of larger properties. They make up with gains in service.           

Andy Thrasyvoulou, founder of myhotel bloomsbury, a four-star boutique hotel in London, claims to have found the right balance between high-tech rooms and comfort. The idea is that the hotel should work to the guest’s pace.

“We try to know as much as possible about the guest before he or she arrives,” Thrasyvoulou says. “Maybe you want to check in at the bar area with a coffee or drink, talk about London with one of our guest service people, or, if you’re in a hurry and we know about that, you can sign off quickly.

“One of my frustrations with hotels was that if I wanted something done, you’d have this endless directory of numbers. You ring one up and they say, sorry, it’s not us, it’s the concierge, or housekeeping. So what we’ve done is, you ring one number that goes to the guest service pool where they’ll have all the information about you. Even if they can’t help you immediately, they’ll go to talk to housekeeping or whoever and get back to you.”

Thrasyvoulou admits to being influenced by Stuart Scher and J.F. Hofmeyer at Taylor Nelson Sofres, a consultancy in London, who have examined the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty.

“There are three elements to customer loyalty and commitment,” Thrasyvoulou says: “First is reasonable satisfaction, the second is having a compelling reason to use your product or service, the third is being better than your competition.” At least 20 percent of satisfied customers do not stay loyal, he says. The reason may be that competitors have shown them an alternative, which could be as simple as air miles or hotel points.

Air France flight 795 from Copenhagen to Paris is full; and it’s been a long day. Martin Simon, European marketing director for the consumer products division of Mistral Laboratories, is wedged between a hirsute Swede and a disconcertingly attractive blonde. He balances a Scotch and Perrier on his open briefcase; and is in the familiar state of shifting mental gears between markets.

Martin’s thoughts right now are hovering somewhere between the pleasant meeting he has just left (after all Danish sales are on plan and the smoked eel was delicious) and the somewhat more combative session he expects to face tomorrow.  The French company has a sales problem and is recommending that they trim their TV schedule to protect their operating profit. Martin is opposed to this; feeling that they are already spending close to minimum viable ‘reach and frequency.’ And to risk losing share of advertising at this stage of the market development might be disastrous for the brand.

Martin knows that from an overall European point of view he can easily compensate for a French profit shortfall by moving notional funds from the German market without hurting that business. (He suspects that the Germans have quite a bit more money ‘sandbagged’ in their budget.) But of course he has local sensibilities to contend with; there are few general managers willing to forgo a good end of year result for their country profit centers in the interests of the European area – especially to the consumer products division for which Martin is responsible. It is only too easy to cut ‘discretionary’ marketing expenses to the detriment of future sales and profits.

Of course, Martin is no stranger to this kind of scene. During more than fifteen years of multi-national marketing he has mastered some of the diplomatic arts; how to get results unobtrusively by letting others think that his ideas originated with them; he knows how to get inside the thought processes of the local people – much more demanding than simply speaking the language; an ability to project oneself into the wiles and wherefores and mores of the society. Culture shock is an endemic hazard for the international man.

Martin must also judge which battles are critical for him to win, and those which can be gracefully conceded to local amour propre.  He has to know when and how to refer disputes to a higher court of appeal. In this case, he must judge whether the French really have a sound business case, or whether they are just ‘being difficult,’ interpreted as ‘siege mentality,’ or the ‘not invented here’ syndrome. He knows how crucial it is to be able to evaluate local recommendations in the light of other market priorities throughout Europe. Because, for Martin Simon, international marketing is not just marketing across frontiers; it means having an overview mentality – the ability to match resources with opportunities on a global scale. Local markets are competing all the time for funds, and for Martin’s limited time. He needs to judge the priority and the quality of plans that are submitted to him – to reconcile each country’s profit exigencies with those for the whole of Europe.

This is not easy. Mistral operates a ‘matrix organization’ in which Martin shares responsibility with the local general managers for his product division within their legal entities. Martin’s divisional marketing managers only report to him on a ‘functional’ or a dotted-line basis; but to the country general managers on a line basis. Martin report to the president, consumer products division; whereas each general manager reports to the president, international operations, both at the corporate Kremlin in Broken Springs, Colorado. It is a structure which exacerbates the inherent conflict between the European area and local management. ‘Kinetic equilibrium,’ is how Mistral’s chairman described it. (The doctrine was later enshrined in a Harvard Business School case study: Chameleon Corporation.)

Martin believes it is better off trying to persuade than to legislate. The knack is to know whether a problem or issue requires a ‘strategic’ decision taken by himself or can be left to a ‘routine’ decision by his local people. The key to an effective relationship is personal credibility and trust. Martin’s effectiveness derives in part from the dialectical tension between his role as a ‘supervisor’ and his role as ‘consultant.’ The reconciliation is particularly onerous in times of serious contention.

Striking the right balance will be the key to the French meeting. He will need to draw upon all his reserves of credibility.

The plane is on time at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle Airport, but the autoroute from Roissy is closed part of the way for one-lane traffic. It is half past eleven by the time Martin reaches his hotel – too late, perhaps, to call his wife in Brussels. He chats for a few minutes with Nicolas, the night porter; then takes a bottle of Perrier up to his room and goes through the French budgets once again. He knows that a conflict is inevitable.

Tomorrow morning he is on his own.

Roger Collis 1973 Werbung/Publicite

[Another ‘blast from the past;’ aan archive story from my forthcoming collection,  ‘Management Man.] www.rogercollis.co.uk      

‘Ho! Ho! Ho! Yes, I have to admit that my organization is outdated, especially for a big mail-order business. And we do have a problem in maintaining contact with our customers. But I think you’ll agree we still have a great deal of customer appeal! This is especially true among younger children coming into the market for the first time. Although we are losing business ‘off the top’ as it were as children reach the age of 10 or thereabouts. It’s the old 80-20 rule – you make 80 percent of sales among 20 percent of the population.

‘I don’t want to appear cynical, but our old-fashioned image is something we actively cultivate. Heritage is all the rage these days. Management by Nostalgia (MBN) is what our consultants call it. Which is one good reason for keeping the Ho! Ho! Ho! (although we have updated the logo) along with my traditional dress and the reindeer. Mind you, I have had to give up the white ermine linings to satisfy the conservation folk. Nylon is so much more practical anyway. And we have had some flak from the animal rights lobby. No, I don’t think reindeer pollute the upper atmosphere, do you? Well, not if they go before they leave. And anyway, the stuff is biodegradable, isn’t it? Not like greenhouse gases. (Sorry about that! Ho! Ho! Ho!)

‘You’re right, of course, that sleighs are not the most efficient method of transport for the millennium. But the new 24-reindeer extended range sleigh which we brought into the fleet in time for this Christmas enables us to fly nonstop to Australia, traveling above the weather and commercial traffic. The trouble is we don’t show up on radar screens, which makes it dangerous at low altitude with a full load. Nothing like as dangerous as dodging chimney pots in the old days mind you. I must say it’s worth seeing the looks on airline passengers’ faces as they flash past you on the way down.

‘Distribution is still a problem. We’re trying to improve it by bringing in toys by air freight direct from China and India to the regions. I’d say less than a third of toys are now made at our North Pole workshops. And we’ve extended our distribution points by appointing local Santas on a franchise arrangement. This has not only improved our cash flow but has broadened our equity base. This enables us to improve distribution in the under-privileged parts of the world. All part of the social audit as you can see from our Annual Report.

‘I get sick and tired of critics who say that because we only work one day a year we aren’t cost efficient. Well for one thing, it’s three days if you count the time zones. And for another, we’re kept pretty busy all year around. I mean talk about shop early for Christmas! We already have orders for next year. Then you have purchasing, manufacturing and management training. You won’t believe we sent a dozen senior elves to Harvard Business School this year. (Harvard had trouble believing it as well.) We lost half of them to headhunters. So if you come across any little men with pointed heads in your business you’ve got Santa to thank.

‘Of course we’ve been affected by the recession like everyone else. This has meant cost-cutting right across the board – except for the Board – on items like gift-wrapping, travel and entertainment expenses and company sleighs. We’ve also introduced a pay freeze, which can be pretty painful if you work at the North Pole.

‘I’m expecting a vast improvement in customer relations when we finally come on stream with our computerized present system (CPS). At the moment, about half of all letters we receive go unanswered (much to parents’ relief, I should say) and presents occasionally get mixed up. I remember a little girl in Ruislip got a Star Wars outfit while the little boy next door had to cope with a giant inflatable doll dressed in Tyrolean dirndl. It took one of our reps ages to sort out. Some kind of problem with the little boy’s father…
‘Boys will be boys! One of our worst problems came when a six-year-old hacked his way into our previous system and helped himself – and his mates – to hundreds of presents. He was only found out when he started running a ‘cash and carry’ business from his nursery school. I thought ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! We can use talent like this.’ So we got him to design our new inventory control software.

‘People are always asking how we can possibly run a successful global business from the North Pole. I have to admit it used to be very difficult when we had to rely on postmen finding their way in the snow. Letters sometimes took months to get here. Children these days usually e-mail their requests to www.santa.com. Quite a few of our staff now telecommute from as far away as Africa and Latin America. And we have regular management meetings on our virtual reality conferencing system.

‘Having an offshore headquarters has fiscal advantages as you’ll appreciate. Ho! Ho! Ho! Holdings is incorporated in Lapland as a charity and pays no tax on repatriated earnings. The Santa Claus Foundation is domiciled under Swiss law as you’re probably aware.

‘A secret of our success has been an ability to constantly redefine our core business in contemporary terms. Should we continue in the business of distributing presents on a seasonal basis or start a package tour operation? These are some of our current concerns.

‘Whether I exist or not is the great ongoing challenge. I can live with the credibility gap between my prime target children and their parents. The problem is that I’m finding it harder these days to believe in myself. But this is something all managers have to face.

‘Still, I’m confident that I’ll be around for quite a while yet. You may find my management style more durable than most people think.

‘A Happy Christmas everyone. Ho! Ho! Ho!’

British Airways bucks the trend…

Just as the credit-crunch is crunching, premium business travellers are dwindling, and airlines are viewing their yields with alarm, British Airways says it will not budge from its strategy of focusing on premium travel and reaffirms its year-old plans to launch business-class only flights between London’s City Airport and New York’s JFK Airport on September 29.  

            In July, premium traffic at BA had fallen for 10 straight months.  The drop led to a record £375 million loss in the year that ended March 31 prompting CEO Willie Walsh to risk a strike this summer as he seeks almost 4,000 job cuts. And BA says it might cut more than 25 percent of its premium seats on some long haul routes.

            Fewer business travellers will be flying premium and those who do will be paying less, Walsh says.

            The International Air Traffic Association reports that premium traffic has fallen every month for a year – a 19 percent drop in the first quarter of this year; although premium traffic on the major trans-Atlantic market was showing signs of ‘stabilisation but not revival.’ Premium passengers count for up to 30 percent of airline revenue while only 7-10 percent of total passengers. IATA estimated that revenue from premium traffic was down 45 percent in May compared to the same month last year.

            BA will use Airbus A318s for its London City-JFK service – the largest planes that are able to take off from City Airport’s 1,000 metre runway. They will be fitted with just 32 lie-flat seats. Passengers can check in 15 minutes before departure time. On the westward route the planes will have to refuel at Shannon in Ireland, where passengers will be able to pre-clear U.S. Immigration to ensure a quick exit from JFK. The eastward trip is non-stop.

            The lowest fares will be just shy of £2,000 for a round-trip (including taxes and charges). The restrictions are no refunds, no changes, the iniquitous Saturday-night stay, and a 42-day advance purchase. This compares to £1,897 for a business class ticket from Heathrow to JFK. 

            Meanwhile, OpenSkies, BA’s all business class airline, has suspended its flights between New York and Amsterdam and will ‘now re-focus’ on its remaining route, New York-Paris, with which it started operations in June 2008. 

            Dale Moss, managing director of OpenSkies, said back in June this year, said it would ‘persevere’ despite a drop of around 45 percent in business traffic. This was already amid gloomy forecasts for world airlines, high fuel costs and dwindling demand, and the collapse of premium class niche carriers, such as Silverjet, Maxjet and Eos. 

            Lufthansa pioneered business class only flights across the North  Atlantic back in June 2002 between Dusseldorf and New York Newark, with 48-seat Boeing Business Jet (737-800s with winglets) at normal business-class fares – which has since  been replaced by an Airbus A340 with a classical three-class service.

            But in July, 2007, Lufthansa started all-business flights from Frankfurt to Newark with 44-seat Boeing 737s;  followed by all business class service from Munich to Dubai (May 2008); and Frankfurt to Pune, India (July 2008), with 48-seat Airbus A319LR business jets, both at business-class prices.

            Today, only the Frankfurt-Pune service survives.

SWISS, however, still operates all-business-class flights between Zurich and New York (Newark) with a 56-seat Boeing Business Jet, at normal business-class fares; and KLM operates the same type plane with 44 seats from Amsterdam to Houston.

In August, 2008, less than three months after Singapore Airlines launched non-stop all-business class flights between Singapore and New York Newark, the carrier launched a similar service to Los Angeles.

Both services are operated by Airbus A345s, configured with just 100 of Singapore Airlines’ new flat-bed business-class seats arranged in private pods in 1-2-1 formation allowing every passenger direct access to the aisle. The seats are 76 centimeters wide – almost 50 percent wider than most competitive business class products.

The promise of the business-class-only model is to ride in the next best thing to a corporate jet; passengers enjoy a similar ambiance, discretion and comfort; a smaller cabin with fewer people allows exclusive hassle-free check-in and faster boarding and disembarking; lounges and limos, and lie-flat sleeper seats that business-class travelers expect, at fares comparable to those in conventional premium cabins.

Now that Barack Obama has lifted restrictions on Cuban Americans traveling to Cuba and relaxed controls on the transfer of money to their relatives on the island, the question arises: would Cuba survive the lifting of the 50-year trade embargo imposed on it by the United States, and its relentless hostility and propaganda war?

            Fidel Castro (universally known as ‘Fidel’) wisely delayed his qualified approval of Barack Obama until after the elections: ‘Without a doubt, Obama is more intelligent, cultured and level-headed than his Republican adversary,’ he wrote.

            Well, yes. While no-one seriously expects another forcible and foolhardy attempt by the United States to replace  the Castro government with U.S.-style ‘freedom and democracy,’ an  invasion of the island by millions of American tourists  (‘Every American  wants to come to Cuba,’ I was told) will no doubt transform the economy and the quality of the travel experience. Such Americans would join the three million or so tourists who came to Cuba last year; mainly British, Canadians, Germans Russians, Spanish and ‘illegal’ Americans.

            ‘Let’s enjoy the embargo while it lasts’ is the mantra of all who cherish the sights and sounds of this authentic time-capsule. Heaven forbid that Cuba should ever become like the proverbial secret  hideaway that becomes so popular nobody goes there any more.

            But tourist money is desperately needed to help restore the island’s crumbling infrastructure, perversely an essential part of its character and charm – perhaps, even its purity, its innocence.

            Despite – or perhaps because of – their many privations, Cubans are a fiercely proud and cheerful people, ready to break into spontaneous song at the first twang of a guitar and go dancing – especially after a couple of mojitos.

Havana is an intoxicating, enigmatic, city that needs to be explored slowly – and on foot.   There is a warm sense of colonial decay; and a pride and boundless perseverance in what seems to be a losing battle to maintain, and restore, magnificent public buildings and facades.

            Walking through the old city, I never once felt threatened or unsafe, even at night in the darkest streets around the market. Many people are poor, but there is nothing to compare with the abject poverty and despair of some cities in Latin America – not to mention parts of the USA, such as Louisiana.  And the fortitude and efficiency of the Cubans in dealing with their major hurricanes seems to provide an object lesson to the United States.

Locals approach the visitor in the street in hope of the odd hard currency note or tourist trinket.    But begging is frowned upon and fairly rare. Bars and restaurants abound and new ones are opening all the time. There are two types: state-owned versions, which account for most of those that look like restaurants, and then there are the paladares,  private houses turned into restaurants.  Leaving one of these, located in a crumbling, ill-lit building, after a memorable meal, I nearly fell two storeys when the banister I grasped on the grand stair-case, came away in my hand. This is not a place to rely on health and safety regulations.

            Memorable images abound. The Plaza de la Catedral on a Sunday morning; dozens of little tables with colorful parasols;  peering through the open doors of the cathedral into the dark, crowded nave, just at the moment of the Consecration, to witness the faithful rising to their feet and shuffling down the aisle…

Crocodiles of schoolchildren in their neat little uniforms, smiling and waving as they cross the street; then waving from a top floor of their school building. Bright yellow cocotaxis – small three-wheeled scooters that look like scooped-out oranges buzzing around like hornets; classic, beautifully maintained pre-1949 American cars, used as official tourist taxis. The colorful, lovingly restored pre-1959 American and European cars – beloved of the glossy travel magazines – are the only private cars allowed to be driven and traded in Cuba since the revolution. Imported cars are reserved for the 75 percent of people who work for the state in some way or other, such as doctors, tourist operators, or functionaries, who need a car for their job.   

Then there are the open trucks packed with rush-hour workers; and crowds of cheerfully optimistic hitchhikers waiting for a lift.  I am told that all ‘official’ cars with government number plates, driven by state employees, are required by law to pick up people if they have space; inspectors are around to ensure that this happens. People who are left by the side of the road are scooped up by available mini-buses or lorries. A wonderful example of improvisation in the face of inadequate public transport.

There is a massive ongoing project to refurbish Havana’s splendid deep-water harbor, wharfs  and quay-side buildings, moving the ‘dirty’ shipping 30kms west of Havana up the coast; anticipating the day when American ships and cruise liners once again visit Havana;  some may be based here – convenient with the airport only 20 minutes away. Cruise ships based in Miami travel overnight to their next destination; the only place they can get to at the moment is Freetown; not exactly the place you’d want to go to very often. Havana would be much more attractive.      

Fidel, now visibly frail, handed over power to his brother Raul in 2006, but helps to keep the revolution alive through his articles in Granma, the weekly party newspaper (and a surprisingly good read), published in Spanish, English, French and German. 

Raul has helped the revolution to evolve into a ‘third way,’ a pragmatic form of independent socialism – encouraging joint ventures with foreign companies, and limited private enterprise.  Indeed, as Fidel said in May 1959: ‘Our revolution is neither capitalist nor Communist… Capitalism sacrifices the human being.

Communism, with its totalitarian conceptions, sacrifices human rights.’ Accusations by Washington about the alleged violation by Cuba of ‘human rights’ have a hollow ring  with the somber specter of Guantanamo Bay, 1,000kms from Havana on the eastern edge of the island.

            But Fidel’s cherished campaign, the ‘Battle of Ideas’ is alive and well. The idea is to compensate for a lack of material goods, such as new cars and white goods, and still Spartan food allowances, with exemplary free healthcare at the point of need (modeled on Britain’s National Health Service); free education to high graduate standards; and subsidized culture.

The Ballet Nacional de Cuba, housed in the 1920s Opera House, near the Parque das flores Americano, is world famous. It is still run by Alicia Alonzo, now in her 80’s, and blind since her fifties, and has produced many famous dancers.

Ballet is both a way of life in Cuba, and a way to get a better life. Principal dancer Carlos Acosta, who performs at the Royal Ballet in London, and who has  been critical of Fidel and the Revolution, has always said that, but for Fidel, and free education, he could never have become a dancer. The Classical Guitar Festival attracts musicians from all over the world and the museums and art galleries are superbly stocked and staffed. Do not miss the Museo de la Revolucion in the former Presidential Palace; and the splendid Capitolio, with its vast Washingtonian dome, on the edge of La Habana Vieja – old Havana.

            One Cuban intellectual told me:  ‘There are many differences here about the shape of the government, and what our future should be.  But there is one thing on which we are all agreed – neither the Americans nor the Miami Mafia [the half-million Cuban-American exiles in Little Havana, Miami] are going to have any say over it.’

British historian Richard Gott describes Fidel Castro as a ‘Liberal utopian of the 19^th century rather than a 20^th century totalitarian – Garibaldi rather than Joseph Stalin… the heart of old Europe still beats in sympathy with Fidel. He remains a figure from all our yesterdays.  When he dies, there will be no change in Cuba. Few people have been looking, but the change has already taken place.’

Getting to Cuba         

            American tourists still face penalties (at least in theory) from the Treasury Department under the embargo if they travel to Cuba without official authorization. . Cuba had 2.5 million tourists in 2006 – including about 200,000 Americans – who typically travel via Cancun, Mexico, Toronto, or the Bahamas.  CubaJet.com, offers flights to Havana from Nassau, Toronto and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic with Cubana de Aviacion, the Cuban national airline.

            From Europe, there are direct flights to Havana from London, Madrid, Moscow, Milan, Paris and Rome.  But they tend to be infrequent.

            Virgin Atlantic has two non-stop flights (Wed. & Sun.) from London Gatwick to Havana. Cubana has one  non-stop flight from Gatwick on Saturdays.

‘You’ve checked in, and printed your boarding card with your seat assignment online; fantastic. You then need to check your bag with an agent; go through passport control; join the queue at security; then present the boarding card and an ID when you board the plane. Each of these processes is being done in self-service mode somewhere in the world. We are trying to corral these to deliver a program to speed the progress of passengers through the airport.’

This is how Paul Behan, program manager for fast travel, at the International Air Transport Association in Geneva, talks about his mission.

Baggage, for example: you first need to register that you intend to check one, two or more bags, either on the Web or a self-service kiosk at the airport. Then you ‘self-tag’ your bags.

‘That’s what is happening in Scandinavia, Germany and Canada; getting the bag to the point ready to go,’ Behan says. ‘You still need an agent for airline liability and security sides, but you can cut the process to about 20 seconds as opposed to the couple of minutes it takes now. However, some pilots are going on in Europe, such as Schiphol, for a totally unmanned baggage drop facility.’

If your bags don’t make it to the other end, instead of standing in line for an agent, you will fill in the data at a kiosk, or an Internet work station, in the baggage hall, print a receipt, and leave without seeing anyone.

The next stage to printing out the boarding card at home will be to check in with your cell phone, or use it as a postbox for a Web check-in. Check in the night before and send it to your mobile. According to Behan, ten airlines enable mobile phone check-in with IATA bar-coded boarding passes.

Cell phones can lessen the misery of hanging around the airport waiting for a delayed flight.

Imagine a snow storm over Chicago with a hundreds of delayed or canceled flights; standing in line at the desk for an agent to help you.

‘We’re looking at mobile technology to send a message to the passenger saying, don’t turn up at the airport at two o’clock but at four; and by the way, here’s your new boarding pass. This is a reality today,’ Behan says. ‘You’ll also be able to use your mobile device as a boarding pass; saves you having to print a bit of paper.’

‘The next step is boarding the plane. In Japan, Scandinavia and Germany, they’re implementing self-boarding gates,’ Behan adds. ‘Think of your metro station. You’ll present your boarding pass either as a piece of paper or mobile with a bar code. There are some challenges with passport checks at the gate; but we are working on that.’

Baggage is the number one reason why travelers do not use self-service options, according to a survey by SITA, a Geneva-based airline communications provider, conducted at six of the world’s busiest airports.

SITA Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service Survey examined the attitudes and habits of a representative sample of the 232 million passengers who use seven international airports: Hartsfield-Jackson, Atlanta; Mumbai International; Charles-de-Gaulle, Paris; Moscow Domodedovo; Sao Paulo Guarulhos and Johannesburg. Interviews with 2,143 travelers representing more than 60 nationalities flying on more than 100 airlines were made at the departure gates during April and May 2008.

The survey confirms that self-service is part of full-service expectations; and airlines are responding with technology giving travelers greater convenience, with power to control their airport experience. Only price (70.5 percent) and flight schedule (63.1 percent) rank above ‘ability to make your own arrangements on the Web’ (42.5 percent).

Overall, 57.6 percent of respondents booked their flight on line, while 36 percent checked in on the Web or at a self-service kiosk. ‘Ease of use’ (72 percent) and ‘time saved’ (60 percent) were the most popular reasons for online booking - plus the fact that the Web makes comparison of the various options easier (56 percent).

‘Baggage is the reason stated by almost half (48.4 percent) of people as the reason for not using self-service check ins when it is available,’ says Dominique El Bez, SITA director, portfolio marketing, ‘seriously detracting from the passenger experience, and limiting the savings and efficiencies made possible by self-service technology. Addressing the baggage dilemma is a key milestone towards achieving our target of 80 percent self-service check-in.’

According to the survey, 47.8 percent of travelers would be willing to use both remote check-in and bag-drop services in the future, and 42.2 percent of them would be willing to pay for them.

A majority of respondents (66.7 percent) would welcome more online functions such as the ability to modify reservations. The ability to use kiosks for flight transfers would be welcomed by 53.8 percent, and for reporting lost baggage claims by 41.8 percent.

The number of travelers willing to use airline Web sites to frequently book other travel components, such as hotels and car rental, is expected to ‘almost double in the coming years’ from the present 11.2 percent.

‘Automated border control and security processing’ would be acceptable to 48.7 percent, while a ‘weighted average’ of 40 percent of travelers would accept the idea of airlines or airports using ‘location sensing technology to guide them through the terminal.’

This is ‘Big Brother’ territory. Radio Frequency Identification Tags linked with a network of high resolution CCTV panoramic cameras around an airport can track the location of any passenger with an accuracy of one square meter, enabling authorities to keep an eye on suspicious individuals, find lost children, ensure that passengers arrive at the gate in time to board their planes, and help evacuate airports in an emergency.

RFID chips work by emitting a short radio message when interrogated by an electronic tag reader. Passengers might be given a wrist band or a boarding pass embedded with a unique ID, cross-referenced to information on the reservations system, such as name and flight number.

The highest acceptance of the idea among respondents was in Sao Paulo (69 percent); the lowest in Paris Charles-de-Gaulle (four percent).

What do airlines and banks have in common? Answer: They are likely to go bust overnight.    What are the airline equivalents of Lehman Bros. and Goldman Sachs?   Will governments bail out failing carriers in a similar way?    If not, what can I do if I have booked a ticket with an airline that collapses?

The prospect of airline failure looms large for many travelers. High  fuel costs and the credit crunch have already seen more than 20 airlines go bust this year. (Alitalia’s future had looked doubtful until a last-minute agreement appears to have rescued it from bankruptcy.) And, in the early hours of September 12, XL Leisure Group, the third largest UK tour operator collapsed, leaving 90,000 customers people stranded abroad, and 23,000 holding advance bookings.

XL customers who had booked a package holiday  (flight  plus accommodation) were protected under Britain’s Air Travel Organizers’ Licensing scheme for tour operators, which is overseen by the Civil Aviation Authority;  those abroad were repatriated;  those  who had not yet traveled got their money back.

But people who had simply bought tickets direct with XL Airways were not covered by ATOL, or an alternative bonded scheme, and had to pay their own way home.

Whether or not you can get reimbursement from an airline which has gone bust depends on where you buy your ticket, how  you pay for it – and the small print of your travel insurance. Trip cancellation terms of most travel insurance policies do not cover scheduled airline failure.

Credit cards offer the best protection, whether you pay for tickets direct with the airline, or through a travel agent.   Should the airline be grounded, you can claim the money back from the card company, or bank, if you were due to travel.  If you are left stranded abroad, the card company should refund the cost of the flight home.

Debit and charge card transactions are not protected in the  same way, and you are most likely to lose your money; although  Visa debit card holders are covered by a ‘chargeback’ procedure  on the basis that goods or services have not been delivered, or are not as they were described.   According to Visa Europe, in such cases the chargeback rules allow its card issuing banks to recover money paid on all Visa debit and credit cards from the retailer’s bank.    Visa chargeback claims must be made within 120 days of the purchase or from the date the goods or services were due to be delivered.  

If you book flights through a travel agency, whether online or terrestrial, make sure that it is a member of the International Air Transport Association (400 airlines and 6,000 travel agents around the world) and participates in its ‘billing and settlement plan’ –  through which agents remit money from ticket sales to airlines. The BSP facilitates the cash flow between passengers, agents and airlines, and processing refunds.

‘When Alitalia appointed an administrator, we, according to the rules of the system, secured a deposit allowing the airline to continue participation in the BSP,’ says Lorne Riley at IATA in Geneva. ‘This minimizes the risk to participants, the airlines, the travel agents, and by extension their customers.’

So is it better to buy tickets through a travel agent  rather than an airline?  ‘You could make that speculation,’ Riley says. ‘I wouldn’t.’

Some travel agents now offer ‘Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance,’ either free of charge or for about $10 for a business class round-trip flight.   Two big providers of SAFI are brokers Marcus Hearn in London (www.scheduledairlinefailure.co.uk), who sell only to agents; and International Passenger Protection, a company that offers insurance directly to travelers through its Web site – www.protectmyholiday.com.

The long-haul travel specialists Trailfinders.com in London, guarantees ‘that clients will not lose any money paid to us for travel in the event of a collapse of an airline, tour operator, or any other provider.’

‘This pledge has been honored since our foundation over 38 years ago,’ says Nikki Davies, PR & marketing manager of Trailfinders in London. ‘It makes no difference at all how they pay; we put client’s money into a trust fund; if an airline goes bust, we’ll give them a full refund, or sort them out on the next best alternative, whichever they prefer.   They will not lose any money.’

Monica Beaupre, a manager for public affairs at American Express in New York, says, ‘The best travel companion you can take along is travel insurance. We offer a wide variety of travel insurance benefits here in the U.S.  Global Travel Shield is for card members and non members; Travel Assure is a package of protection just for card members.’

Both policies provide cover ‘if a covered trip is cancelled or interrupted due to… financial default or bankruptcy of a tour operator, hotel, resort, rental car company, other travel supplier or Common Carrier Conveyance.’

I would argue that this covered ‘scheduled airline failure;’ But if I were buying the policy, I would like it to be spelled out, in a ‘what if?’ scenario.

The devil, after all, is in the small print.

Statistically they say we are more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than die in a plane crash. But with three air crashes and an emergency landing, during one harrowing week this August, frequent fliers, like myself, must be wondering when the law of averages will finally catch up with them.

First the fatal Spanair accident in Madrid on August 20 in which 154 people died; then four days later, 65 passengers died when an Itek Air Boeing 737 crashed after taking off at Bishtek in Kyrgyzstan; on August 25, an Air Dolomiti plane caught fire at Munich Airport, causing several passengers to jump to safety; and that evening, a Ryanair flight from Bristol to Barcelona made an emergency landing at Limoges when it plunged 8,000 meters in five minutes after a sudden loss of cabin pressure and oxygen masks dropped down. Sixteen passengers were taken to hospital with earache.

In December 2007, a United Airlines’ flight from Japan hit severe turbulence and fell 300 meters: one passenger died and 102 were injured. A month later, on January 18, 2008, everyone on board a British Airways’ Boeing 777 miraculously escaped a fiery crash-landing at Heathrow.

We are reminded that air accidents (although not in-flight incidents) always hit the headlines simply because they are such rare occurrences.

Which is not much comfort when you wake in the night to the pinging of the seat-belt sign and a terse voice from the flight deck as the plane lurches and yaws in heavy turbulence.

Ah, the promises I’ve made at such times! - reordering of life’s priorities - forgotten as soon as the wheels touch down in the morning.

We all have our white-knuckle anecdotes. There was the time when the Air France Concorde lost a hydraulics system in mid-Atlantic, lost height alarmingly, and limped back to Paris; landing, after two attempts, at Hong Kong airport in hurricane conditions; returning to Geneva, after a long day in Stockholm, with a Bise, the cold north-easterly wind, was blowing in from the mountains; flying in a Beechcraft over Lake Michigan in a snow storm…

While I do not normally suffer from fear of flying, I have followed over the years a sine curve ranging from acute anxiety to insouciance (how fateful is a last minute business trip or just missing or making the flight?) - a pattern, a psychologist friend explains, which is linked to general levels of stress and anxiety in my daily life.

According to Richard Conway, a founder and co-director of Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Flying Without Fear’ courses, there are 10 core reasons behind fear of flying. They are (not necessarily in any order): (1) Lack of Control; (2) Fear of Enclosed Spaces; (3) Turbulence; (4) Air pockets; (5) Crashing; (6) Strange Noises; (7) Engine Failure; (8) Terrorist Threat; (9) Falling Out of The Sky; (10) Panic Attacks.

Flying Without Fear courses (www.flyingwithoutfear.info) last one day, and run throughout the year at Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham airports. Participants talk through their personal fears and hang-ups with a psychotherapist, airline captains, cabin crew, specialist staff, and among themselves. At the end they get a 45-minute flight, and a Virgin relaxation tape to take home.

‘It’s all very relaxed; we ask people what they want from the day, answer all their questions, such as “what if something happens?” show them breathing and relaxation techniques and explain the reasons for everything, and address their particular fears,’ Conway says. ‘For example, we explain that air pockets don’t exist, they are an illusion that our ears create because we can’t see movement of air outside; that lightning has no effect on aircraft, and that turbulence is not dangerous.’

I am glad to be disabused of several concerns: the wings cannot fall off because, ‘the aircraft is built on to the wing spa, not bolted on afterwards;’ planes cannot fall out of the sky ‘as they could glide quite comfortably about three miles for every 1,000 feet of altitude, and land without engines;’ planes are not soft targets for terrorists because, ‘bags are screened three times, some flights have sky marshals, flight decks are sealed with bullet-proof doors and a coded entry system; even if the cabin crew were held hostage and revealed the code, the flight crew would not open the doors.’ And no danger of bird strikes because ‘the engines are tested at manufacture by firing frozen chickens at them.’

All I have to worry about now is a panic attack.

It seems obvious really: When you are traveling you always call home. But apparently, having the ‘space’ to think about loved ones when away on business, can actually enhance relationships, promote domestic harmony, allowing couples to reflect on what brought them together in the first place.

This is the conclusion of an online survey of 740 business travelers based in the UK conducted by Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts. Three quarters of travelers said ‘I love you’ more often when away from home; and 40 percent admitted to sending text messages to their partner during business meetings. Distance is an important factor, with 60 percent of travelers saying that the farther away they are from their loved ones, the more likely they are to call them.

Over half the respondents said they would ‘check in’ with their loved ones at least once a day, with two thirds waiting until the evening to call from their hotel room so that they could catch up properly - and privately. And over 55 percent said that when away, they learn more about their partner’s day through phone conversations than they would normally; that catching up on the phone allows them to move away from the mundane and instead have a more meaningful and focused conversation.

People may even have more direct contact when apart than at home, where, on a typical evening, a third prefer to unwind in front of the TV than talk to their partner, with over a quarter admitting that eating dinner may be the only time spent together in the same room all evening.

‘Psychologically, two things are going on here’ says Susan Quilliam, a relationship psychologist in Cambridge, ‘the first is when we are with our partners, we can get habituated, take them for granted. Distance helps you look at things in a new light you suddenly start to appreciate them more, miss them more because you don’t have the touch-down time - for men in particular, for whom physical contact - I’m not talking sex here - is important.

‘The second is that for business travelers, the experience of being away can be quite an alienating one; you’re in a foreign town, an anonymous hotel, the challenge of meeting new clients, so the need to go back to your roots, and contact with the people you love is much greater.’

The survey shows a that women are more likely than men to be better focused on the job, more dedicated, less emotionally tied and far less easily distracted when they are away; with men calling home more often than women, especially on longer trips and the farther they go: 28 percent of men call home once, twice or three times a day compared to only 25 percent of women; 17 percent of women are likely to call their partner only once every other day. Three quarters of men, but only 68 percent of women said they sent text messages to their partner during an important business meeting and with men more likely than women to send something romantic.

‘Gender differences are not overwhelming,’ Quilliam says. ‘But there are contradictions. While there’s a slight tendency for women to be more focused when they’re away from home, they also feel guiltier than men about traveling on business.’

I can understand that one can become more homesick, and have a greater need for reassurance, the longer one is away. But why should distance alone make such a difference to a tendency to call more often?

‘This is because subconsciously you know it’s going to be more difficult to get back, in the sense you couldn’t get back, so the farther you are away, the more likely you are to check in to see that everything is all right, and to make strong statements of love,’ Quilliam says. ‘If there’s a huge distance it makes contact more important and probably more emotional; we all need more bonding contact, even in long-term relationships. Men are more emotional in many ways; they will have fewer intimate friends. Women will have a big network; and men are far more likely to be dependent on one significant other.’

I suppose, ‘I love you,’ is really saying, ‘do you love me?’

‘That would be a lovely way of putting it,’ Quilliam says. ‘It’s almost entirely down to your need for reassurance; because you are the one who’s out of the information loop; at home they are stable, secure; they don’t have this alienation thing.’

Canadian media guru Marshall McLuhan said that radio is a ‘hot’ medium, whereas television is a ‘cool’ medium, meaning that radio, like the telephone, forces you to focus entirely on the voice, the spoken word, making them much more intimate. You can acquire more information in listening to what people are saying and how they’re saying it, than searching for visual clues - especially with loved ones. There’s a sense in which the phone is as confessional as the psychoanalyst’s couch; which is why it might be easier to deal with intimate or difficult subjects. Phone conversations force people to actually listen to what the other is saying, their tone of voice, whether they are sounding upset, and the particular words they use.

It is possible that some relationships survive in spite of or because of frequent or prolonged absence. So what is the secret to a healthy long-distance partnership?

‘Do exactly as the survey describes,’ Quilliam says. ‘Keep in regular contact in private time; and also take the opportunity of being separated to remember what’s good, the things that at the beginning of the relationship just overwhelmed you; regain that sense of appreciation, not as something you resent. And see separation as an opportunity, not a problem.’

‘Yes, the timing! If I knew 16 months ago what we know now, I would have found other ways to make money than the airline business. But we’re in for the longer play; many people doing the trans-Atlantic journey are looking for better value, a better product; and we can deliver that. Demonstrating the difference is easier to do when everyone else is hunkering down. We’re a low cost-base company. This is our time.’

So says Dale Moss, managing director of British Airways’ OpenSkies, a new all-premium class carrier, which launches its second trans-Atlantic service from Amsterdam to New York on October 15, amid gloomy forecasts for world airlines, high fuel costs and dwindling demand, and the collapse of premium class niche carriers, such as Silverjet, Maxjet and Eos.

OpenSkies launched daily flights between New York JFK and Paris Orly Sud Airport on to Brussels and Paris on June 19, 2008, taking advantage of the ‘open skies’ pact that allows any

American or European airline to fly between any European city and any U.S. city.

OpenSkies flies narrow-body Boeing 757s, with winglets for greater fuel efficiency and range.

With its acquisition of French all premium class start-up carrier L’Avion in July, OpenSkies has reconfigured its planes for 64 passengers with 2 by 2 seating in two classes that allow everybody direct access to the aisle: Premium Plus, with a 52-inch pitch reclining seat; and Business, with fully lie-flat beds.

‘We’ve had a terrific response from both products,’ Moss says. ‘There’s the same intimate feel on board as corporate jets, but no hunching over when you climb in. The 2 by 2 seating is fantastic. I just got an e-mail: I enjoyed this so much. Please do not change anything.’

Moss’s ambition is to become a pan-European long-haul ‘niche cult brand’ - ‘like in 1970 what BMW did in the States. They only had one car, the old 2002; no ads, just a terrific car; and they let the word get out; a form of early viral marketing.’

L’Avion has given OpenSkies a foothold and customer base at Orly Sud; and ‘the chance for us to look East; Paris to the Middle East, even further,’ Moss says. ‘We’re looking at how to connect New York with other continental European cities.’

Meanwhile, British Airways has released more details of its twice-daily all-business class service between London City Airport and New York (either JFK or Newark) scheduled for the Autumn of 2009.

Flights will be operated by Airbus A318s (the largest plane that can take off and land at London City’s 1,199 meter runway) fitted with 32 flat-bed business seats.

Virgin Atlantic has no plans to launch an all-business class product, according to Paul Charles, director of corporate affairs.

‘The jury is still out on whether premium-only airlines can survive; we do keep an eye on it, but it is certainly not a priority for the next two years,’ Charles says. ‘The market is contracting right now, and airlines are cutting capacity; so it seems odd that OpenSkies could survive in this climate.’

Lufthansa pioneered business class only flights across the North Atlantic back in June 2002 between Dusseldorf and New York Newark, with 48-seat Boeing Business Jet (737-800s with winglets) at normal business-class fares - which has since been replaced by an Airbus A340 with a classical three-class service.

But in July, 2007, Lufthansa started all-business flights from Frankfurt to Newark with 44-seat Boeing 737s; followed by all business class service from Munich to Dubai (May 2008); and Frankfurt to Pune, India (July 2008), with 48-seat Airbus A319LR business jets, both at business-class prices. The planes are leased from PrivatAir, a Geneva-based air charter company.

According to Gudrun Gorner, a Lufthansa spokeswoman, business only flights are a qualified success. ‘The fact that we introduced two new routes this year speaks for itself,’ she says.

SWISS operates all-business-class flights between Zurich and New York (Newark) with a 56-seat Boeing Business Jet, at normal business-class fares; KLM operates the same type plane with 44 seats from Amsterdam to Houston.

In August, less than three months after Singapore Airlines launched non-stop all-business class flights between Singapore and New York Newark, the carrier launched a similar service to Los Angeles.

Both services are operated by Airbus A340s, reconfigured with just 100 of Singapore Airlines’ new flat-bed business-class seats arranged in private pods in 1-2-1 formation allowing every passenger direct access to the aisle. The seats are 76 centimeters wide - almost 50 percent wider than most competitive business class products.

The promise of the business-class-only model is to ride in the next best thing to a corporate jet; passengers enjoy a similar ambiance, discretion and comfort; a smaller cabin with fewer people allows exclusive hassle-free check-in and faster boarding and disembarking; lounges and limos, and lie-flat sleeper seats that business-class travelers now expect, at fares comparable to those in conventional premium cabins.

A tougher act to follow is brand loyalty, the growing role of airline alliances, especially code-sharing, shared facilities at airports and ability to earn and redeem frequent flier miles with partner carriers. This is probably why ‘legacy’ carriers, such as Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, KLM and British Airways, have had more success with this business model than the clutch of ill-fated start-up niche carriers.

We have all been there: Stuck in a windowless meeting room, fighting to keep awake, surreptitiously checking our e-mails, letting the imagination roam behind half-closed eyes and lips tightly pursed to judiciously steepled hands, or even thinking about lunch, or plans for the evening, or making mental lists.

So I was intrigued to read the other day that two in five bored business travelers spend meetings daydreaming about holidays; one third fall asleep during ‘especially dreary meetings,’ with 35 percent often ‘catching themselves on the brink of dropping off;’ while 83 percent treat meetings ‘like a long telephone call with a relative — only paying attention for the first half, when they can expect to hear ‘all the bits worth knowing.’

These are the ’shocking’ conclusions of a poll of 1,207 British business travelers by Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts.

Tactics for staying awake include doodling (59 percent) and ‘fiddling’ (52 percent); and ‘playing with a pen when the mind wanders off the topic’ (33 percent). More than half the respondents said that ‘looking out of window is their biggest distraction;’ 73 percent admitted ‘they’ll pay no attention if a person conducting the meeting has a monotonous voice.’

Crowne Plaza promises an end to boring meetings with the ‘Think Box’ designed by Roger von Oech, a California-based ‘creativity consultant,’ known for his book, ‘A Whack on the Side of the Head.’

The Think Box (of brushed aluminum about 18 inches by 14 inches by 8 inches) is the latest gimmick in Crowne Plaza’s ‘Think Tank’ campaign to stimulate business guests with tools and tips from ‘innovators and visionary thinkers.’ Boxes will be distributed in hotels across Europe and Middle East.

Think Boxes contain three items designed to overcome three key hurdles that Von Oech claims beset meetings. They are: Loss of focus; lack of creativity; and achieving meeting goals.

-The Inspire Boards use brain teasers to help get people focused at the start of meetings and stimulate creative energy. activity.

-The Ball of Whacks, a rhombic triacontahedron puzzle made up of 30 detachable magnetic blocks, is a ‘tactile tool to release nervous energy, prevent distraction and to reinvigorate creativity during a meeting.’

‘The Ball can be taken apart and manipulated into a lot of different shapes,’ von Oech says. ‘Using your hands and eyes together stimulates the brain.’ (Squeezing the Ball in your hand and showering your neighbors with magnetic shards is certainly a great way to break the ice!)

-The Think Cards contain 32 of von Oech’s strategies for creative thinking and to get a new perspective on an issue. One card says, ‘Avoid arrogance;’ others say, ‘Laugh at it;’ ‘Drop an assumption;’ ‘Slay a sacred cow.’ ‘Picking cards at random can get you off thinking in other directions,’ von Oech says. What you might call, thinking outside the box.

‘Meeting planners typically look at the technical needs for the meeting, such as space, catering and audiovisual needs,’ von Oech says. ‘But not enough attention has been given to how you energize the thinking of people in the meeting, and to spark their creativity.’

The Think Box might be great for brainstorming; but I can think of meetings where using it would be unthinkable. Surely it depends on the type of meeting?

‘Absolutely not,’ Von Oech says. ‘There are three or four different types of meeting; some where you’re just disseminating information; others where you trying to come to a consensus; making a decision; then some where you’re trying to come up with ideas — to the extreme of a brainstorming session. Some of the products can be used for a stepping-off point, or as ice-breaker. People are more engaged, participatory, rather than being lectured at, or power-pointed to death.’

As mileage junkies know, there is no such thing as a free flight. It is easier to earn miles than find ways to redeem them; thanks to blackout dates, and no seats available for award travel on the days you want to travel.

Look out now for fuel surcharges on award tickets — from $50 to $100 or more, depending on class or how long the flight. Charges can depend on whether you are redeeming miles on the airline to whose program you belong, or a partner carrier.

With effect from August 15, 2008, Delta Air Lines will ‘in response to unprecedented fuel costs’ add a fuel surcharge on its SkyMiles award tickets of $25 between the continental United States and Canada; and $50 between the United States/Canada and all international destinations, including the Caribbean, Latin America, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

Two-thirds of business travelers have eavesdropped on someone else’s confidential conversations; over a third have caught sight of sensitive documents or information on laptops — and over ten percent admit that they have been used this information for their own business purposes, according to a survey of 1,000 frequent travelers in the United States and the UK.

The survey, commissioned by the Regus Group, a provider of serviced offices and business lounges for travelers around the world, is an ominous reminder of World War 2 posters — ‘Walls Have Ears: Careless Talk Costs Lives!’

In these intrusive times, we are involuntary eavesdroppers on fellow travelers ranting on cell-phones; and who can resist an inquisitive glance at someone’s open briefcase or laptop screen?

(’A guy in the next row was saying that Tom is leaving the company!’ ‘Wow, I wonder if Tom knows.’)

The survey found that 67 percent of British travelers have eavesdropped on someone else business conversation, versus 59 percent of Americans — and 35 percent of British (34 percent of Americans) have caught sight of sensitive company documents; 13 percent of British (19 percent of Americans) have been able to use the information they have overheard in public.

More traveling women (71 percent) listen to conversations than men (67 percent); but more men (39 percent) pry at private documents than women (29 percent).

David Porter, head of security and risk at Detica, specialist business consultants (www.detica.com), said, ‘The survey points to significant vulnerability in corporate security. I’ve overheard sensitive conversations in trains, bars, and restaurants — whether lawyers discussing client details or salespeople revealing key contacts. People seem to slip into a very casual security mindset when using laptops and PDAs. They naively think other people will not be interested or aware of what they are doing; in reality this could not be further from the truth.’

Kurt Mroncz, vice president, global sales at Regus,’ said, ‘Many companies don’t realize the staggering problems people face on the road, and the lengths they go to find a place to work or to have a private conversation. The survey shows that half of business travelers resort resorted to working in washrooms, bars and crowded restaurants, even park benches.’

Regus’ Business World program offers members access to over 950 business lounges around the world, to work in comfort and privacy. Gold membership (#199 a year) allows one to drop in to any lounge, connect your laptop to the Internet and take or make calls.

Security specialist Will Geddes, managing director of ICP Group (www.icpgroup.ltd.uk), offers the following security tips:

-Always have a password and pin number on your phone, so that it will automatically stop after a few minutes of non use; ‘absolutely critical, otherwise it’s like leaving your address book open, with all your passwords and phone numbers.’

-Avoid discussing confidential matters over the phone in a public place — and use code-names for projects and people.

-Make sure that your memory stick is password protected as well. You can now get biometric memory sticks with thumb print protection.

-Make sure the screen saver on your laptop goes into lock mode after 5 to 10 minutes, requiring you to enter the password for it to work again.

-Always delete text messages or e-mails on your phone or Blackberry, or get software to forward them to your e-mail back at the office. ‘There’s a lot of private information there; transfer it on.’

-Don’t take unnecessary things in your briefcase; only the stuff you really need for that trip; leave all personal things out. And keep documents in covered, unlabeled folders.

-Traveling without a laptop, you can access your office files by logging on to a service such as GoToMyPC (www.gotomypc.com) from any Internet-connected device — even a dumb terminal in a hotel lobby — and pick up work where you left off. The connection is secure, and it feels as though you are sitting in front of your own PC. But you must keep your home computer on, at least in ’sleep mode,’ while you are away.

‘I go into a VPN — virtual private network — to my office server remotely,’ Geddes says. ‘A lot of people in the financial services sector do this. It means I’m not holding anything locally, which is a potential risk, if I lose or break the laptop.’

-Consider having a separate laptop (and memory stick) that you use only for trips; and save documents on a memory stick rather than on the hard-drive.

-Don’t put your laptop or documents in the overhead bin above you, but one diagonal to you, so that when someone rummages in the locker, you can see what he or she is doing. People have had laptops stolen from overhead in business-class cabins.

Safeguarding private data from Big Brother is rather more daunting. Our telephone conversations and e-mails are routinely ’swept’ for certain key words or phrases, which may activate a closer surveillance. Reports that the U.S. government has plans to make random border searches of laptops, cell phones, PDAs and Blackberrys and copy or seize data has sent a chill through businesses and civil rights groups. Whether password protection could prevail is a moot point.

You surely know by now that I am a huge fan of high-speed trains; often the fastest way to travel between city centers in Europe, beating airlines on journeys of up to 550 kilometers (three to four hours) by train. Eurostar, linking London (St. Pancras International Station) and Paris (Gare du Nord) in 2 hours, 15 minutes, and Brussels in 1 hour, 51 minutes, has captured more than 70 percent of the market from airlines.

But when it comes to booking tickets, the train can be a pain. Things we now take for granted at airline sites — such as being offered options for flights either side of the date, or time, we wish to travel; multi-sector connections, often with several carriers; electronic tickets and the ability to print out your own boarding card are light years ahead of rail. Yes, you can book rail tickets online, but don’t expect to be offered seat selection, and tickets are sent to you by snail mail!

Booking cross-border rail travel is especially frustrating because the national rail operators’ timetables do not match up, so you might have to wait for an hour or more to catch the next train. And standards of seating and service vary from operator to operator.

I was brought down to earth the other day when Madame was grounded with deep vein thrombosis, which meant that we had to cancel our EasyJet flight to Switzerland, and go by train: Eurostar from St. Pancras to Paris, a transfer from the Gare du Nord to the Gare de Lyon then the TGV to Lausanne, a journey time of less than 8 hours, with time for lunch in Paris.

Madame, a nimble navigator in cyberspace, reported that Eurostar (www.eurostar.com) could only book us tickets as far as Paris; and, after futile attempts to book the onward TGV, at Swiss Federal Railways (www.sbb,ch), ‘lost confidence when confirming and paying,’ and finally called a local travel agent.

Eurostar provides through bookings to about 68 cities in France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany; and from several British regional cities to the Continent. One can book online or at the Eurostar call center, 44-8705 186 186.

Railteam (www.railteam.eu) is an alliance of Europe’s seven high-speed rail operators, Eurostar (UK, France & Belgium), Deutsche Bahn (Germany), SNCF (France), NS Hispeed (Netherlands), OBB (Austria),SBB (Switzerland), and SNCB (Belgium), and Thalys (a partnership between French, German and Dutch railways), and TGV Lyria (connecting France and Switzerland). It aims to offer seamless high-speed train travel across international borders, with improved synchronization of timetables, better connection times, and more consistent pricing. Should you miss a connection because of a late-running train, Railteam will ensure a seat on the next train, irrespective of the type of ticket you hold. Travelers should be able to book tickets online across all seven high-speed networks by the end of 2009.

Meanwhile, travelers can book high-speed trains and other rail journeys at national rail sites or at Rail Europe (a subsidiary of French Railways (www.sncf-voyages.com).

‘We can book 99 percent of rail travel, including Eurostar and overnight trains, like Elipsos between Barcelona, Paris, and Milan and Madrid; and Artesia from Paris to Milan and Turin,’ says Jo Wilcox, marketing manager, Rail Europe. ‘Enter your departure city and destination on our site, and we will give you prices for each segment of the journey, allowing you to mix and match classes and fares with different carriers.’

Rail Europe operates more than 20 booking sites, serving most countries, including www.raileurope.com (United States); www.raileurope.ca (Canada); www.raileurope.co.uk (Britain); and www.tgv-europe.com (Continental Europe). Rail Europe has call centers in the United States, (1-800) 462 2577; Canada, (1-800) 361 7245; UK, 0844 848 5848.

‘The Man in Seat 61: A guide to taking the train through Europe’ (Bantam Press, #12.99) from railway enthusiast Mark Smith is an invaluable guide to planning train journeys from

London to 39 countries — from Albania to Ukraine. Although the book is aimed at the British traveler, it is packed with practical tips on inter-city travel within Europe, advice on routes, timetables and connections; best ways to buy tickets online, or by phone, for a particular journey; finding the best deals; rail passes; and crucially, how to change trains in cities like Brussels and Paris! Chapters are packed with useful Web site addresses and phone numbers for travel advice and booking.

For instance, German Railways (Deutsche Bahn) at http://bahn.hafas.de offers ‘the simplest, fastest and most comprehensive online European timetable for travel between any two European railway stations you care to name.’

There are sections on traveling overnight in sleeping cars or couchettes (’A second class sleeper is far better than a first class couchette; and a second class couchette is streets ahead of a first class seat’) for journeys of up to 800 miles; and scenic routes, such as the Glacier Express from Zermatt to St Moritz in Switzerland; the classic Rhine Valley route through Koblenz; or from Athens to Larissa and Thessaloniki.

From: Elizabeth Block, Philadelphia, PA, USA:

‘I had two experiences booking inter-country train travel on the Eurostar web-site in which your readers might be interested. The first involved travel from Amsterdam to Paris through Brussels. The outward journey was without incident, but on the return the Thalys train staff refused to accept the ticket issued by Eurostar, claiming that it was a ‘youth’ fare - the ticket indeed was marked ‘jeune’, although I had booked a senior fare, as the internet confirmation clearly stated. Several officials descended on me and demanded a surcharge of 44 Euros on the spot. No one at either the Eurostar or the Thalys office in Brussels could issue a refund of this absurd charge, and I had to negotiate for weeks with the Eurostar office in London, via email (it is impossible to reach them by phone) before I finally got the refund. Incidently, I was told that this refund could only be issued through a bank card, not to the credit card with which I had paid, or with a check. Fortunately, we have a Dutch account, otherwise I am not sure how the refund could have been made.

The second (bad) experience with the Eurostar web-site occurred when I booked a journey from Amsterdam to London. I happened to be in Switzerland when I booked this, and I used an American credit card. In Switzerland the web-site did not show the fares in Euros, but only in Swiss francs or dollars. When I got home to Amsterdam, I checked the exact trip and found that if I had booked in the Netherlands and used our bank card (Euros) the journey would have cost $70 less per ticket. In correspondence with Eurostar, they admitted that I had booked the lowest fare, and that fare was still available, and also that they ‘adjust’ the fares to reflect ‘the standard of living’ in the country of the currency. The fact that the dollar had fallen against the Euro had not yet been taken into account - I think they were still, monetarily, in the 1980’s. No amount of argument about this over-charge ($140 for two tickets) could budge Eurostar.
Are third-party web-sites this dysfunctional? I would be curious to know.’

From: Grant B. Taplin, Paris:

‘Here is one for your collection of “absurdities.”

I refer to the Eurostar website (www.eurostar.com/dynamic/index.jsp). You can use an English version of the website if you are Belgium based but not if you are France based.

Many thanks, and congratulations again on a very readable and informative column.’

A small glitch as glitches go: Stuck in the departure lounge at Gatwick Airport for a frustrating 40 minutes waiting to board our Easyjet flight while the air bridge to the door of the plane was repaired. EasyJet apologized for the delay; but it was the airport’s fault. Had we missed our take-off slot, no doubt we would have blamed the airline.

When things go wrong at airports, everybody is quick to blame everybody else. Airlines blame airport authorities or air traffic congestion, along with civil aviation policy; airport management blames customs, immigration, and security staff, over whom they have little or no control; travelers are as likely to blame an airline as an airport, or both, or everyone in range, when things go awry.

Jean-Claude Baumgarten, president of the World Travel & Tourism Council, said, ‘Airlines would love to be able to control the whole customer experience but they can’t. Whoever runs the airport has the responsibility but not the overall control. That is the problem that needs thinking about.’

This sentiment is echoed by James Cherry, president and CEO of Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, which is at the forefront of self-service technology, such as check-in kiosks, self-boarding gates, fast-track options for pre-screened travelers, self-tagging of baggage, and mobile-phone check-in.

‘The real frustration, the real challenge we have is trying to serve our customers without having complete control and influence over all aspects of service,’ Cherry says.

‘Check-in, for example. We give airlines all the facilities they need, but sometimes they don’t staff the counters properly, and people have to wait in line; the same thing with customs. We have a very large customs hall with 26 posts, but sometimes they are only half staffed, although they know the schedules, arrival patterns, what loads are coming. If they don’t meet the staffing, the airport looks bad. I’ve been blamed for things you wouldn’t imagine. You have to count on the support of other people. We get crucified sometimes because waiting time in customs is 45 minutes, when our target is 20 minutes at peak time.’

Montreal-Trudeau’s fast-track program called NEXUS, based upon iris and fingerprint recognition, allows pre-approved Canadian residents or citizens, and U.S. citizens, to clear customs and immigration in about 30 seconds, if they just have hand baggage.

‘Fast-track programs are seen in other parts of the world,’ Cherry says. ‘Business passengers can check in on their PDAs, like Blackberries, and get their boarding passes; so we’re quite innovative in things like that. We had long lines at security like everybody else, but we’ve dedicated ample space to search points, and lines actually quite manageable. We focus not on the average wait time, but on wait times at peak periods. Some government agencies confound the issue by saying, our average wait time is very good. But it doesn’t matter how long it takes to go through at 10 in the morning; what matters is the time you go through at the rush hour.’

Cherry interviews 1,800 customers every quarter, tracking their impressions of the airport, and how well they think it is doing, based on 75 variables that they believe are important.

‘And we are doing better all the time,’ Cherry says.’ The most important things are security, a sense of safety; signs and communications have to be clear, which way to walk; the availability and presence of staff; people being treated with respect; and fluidity of movement through the airport. And that’s a big deal when you think about having to park your car, bringing your bags in to the counter agent; going to different check-points; there’s a lot of ways where the system can go off the rails. It’s not one single thing; it’s a combination of things.

Cherry is active in the Airports Council International, a trade organization that he says is focusing increasingly on customer service - giving awards to airports that do a good job. He has been ‘impressed and inspired by things I’ve seen in other airports,’ such as Vancouver; Copenhagen; Munich (’terrific);’ Zurich (’reasonably good in serving the customers’); Kuala Lumpur; Inchon in Korea (’these guys are going out of their way to improve services, the customer experience’).

Unlike some airports, where shareholders’ profit motive interest is arguably inimical to the public interest in what is often a local monopoly, Montreal-Trudeau Airport is an unusual form of ‘privately-held not-for-profit organization.’ It is run by a board of 15 directors, which comprise representatives from the Federal and Quebec governments, and local municipalities, and business people.

‘The Canadian model, when we were privatized in 1992, was to lease the airport to not-for-profit organizations,’ Cherry says. ‘We are independent financially, pay rent to the government and make our own investments; any surplus has to be reinvested in the airport itself - there are no shareholders to benefit.’

‘If we wanted to have best customer service in the world, we’d have to pour more money in,’ Cherry adds. ‘But if we wanted to have the best financial result, the easiest way would be to cut back on customer service. We are constantly trying to find the optimum balance between making enough money to make ends meet, and reinvest, and making it a good deal for the airlines that operate here; maximizing the quality of service, and being very respectful of the environment. I believe that being not-for-profit gives us that balance. We can’t let one or the other of those get out of whack, while letting the others suffer.’

‘Credit-crunch’ is now vying with ‘war on terror’ as the mantra of the decade; but the impact on travelers is likely to be far less onerous. The post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ has contributed much to the delays, indignities and the misery of air travel - harassment by over-zealous immigration and security officials and baggage restrictions. But the ‘credit-crunch’ and the concomitant soaring price of oil, which is sending world airlines into a tail-spin, may perversely turn out to be good news for travelers; in spite of the daily diet of doom served up by the Jeremiahs - with 24 airlines going bust so far this year and airlines facing a collective loss of $2.3 billion this year, having previously forecast a profit of $4.5 billion.

We have faced Armageddon before when 9/11 exquisitely coincided with the cusp of a recession, and sent travel into free fall, precipitating a crisis among world airlines. Some went bust; others reinvented themselves with new strategies, learning from the success of then emergent no-frills carriers. And, of course, travelers gradually returned to the skies.

Let the bad times roll! You don’t have to be a professional cynic to believe that what is bad for the travel trade is good for the traveler; depending on the fine balance between supply and demand - the difference between a buyers’ and sellers’ market.

The late author, Anthony Samson, once said that there are only two types of planes, empty planes and full planes. And the challenge for the traveler is to find a flight with plenty of empty seats.

Matching capacity with demand is the ongoing challenge for airlines. Many carriers are cutting capacity - dropping some routes and reducing frequencies, grounding parts of their fleets, scaling back expansion plans, raising fares, and fuel surcharges, and charging for checked baggage, in the effort to reduce costs, to stem the tide of losses. But it’s hard to keep capacity in sync with demand in an industry in which aircraft ordered during the boom are delivered during the slowdown. The era of very cheap air travel may finally be over, but many business travelers will welcome respite from the crowds on the ground and in the air.

Passenger numbers are set to fall this summer, according to the Air Transport Association of America, which represents leading U.S. airlines, and the Airports Council International, as a result of soaring oil prices which threaten to hit $170 a barrel. The ATA forecasts a dip of 1.3 percent, or nearly three million passengers this summer - with ‘planes approaching 85 percent full.’

The International Air Transport Association records year-on-year international passenger growth of three percent in April, capacity growth of five percent (10 percent on the trans-Atlantic routes), and aircraft load factors falling from 77 percent to 75.4 percent.

Airline capacity cuts may not necessarily be bad news for travelers. For instance, while American Airlines intends to scrap 75 planes and reduce the number of seats on domestic routes by 11 percent to 12 percent this year, these are mainly regional jets, which burn more fuel than larger planes; trans-Atlantic services are unlikely to be significantly trimmed, with capacity falling at most by 0.5 percent. Although American has cut its New York-London Stansted service, it has introduced non-stop flights from Chicago to Moscow.

And here comes Delta Air Lines with new flight from New York JFK to Cape Town; and Finnair announcing a new service from Helsinki to Seoul.

British Airways has raised its passenger fuel surcharge for the 11th time - from #26 to #32 on a round-trip short-haul flight and from #158 to #218 on long-haul flights. Virgin Atlantic has raised surcharges on all tickets, but less steeply for those in the back of the plane, to reflect the fact that more fuel is burned per passenger in business class and premium economy.

With characteristic chutzpah, Ryanair responded to fuel surcharge increases across the industry by releasing 500,000 seats for #10, including taxes and charges. Chief executive Michael O’Leary said, ‘No airline is better placed in Europe than Ryanair to trade through this downturn. We will continue to grow, by lowering fares, taking market share from competitors, and expanding in markets where competitors either withdraw capacity or go bust.’

Nevertheless, Ryanair will cut costs by grounding up to 20 aircraft this coming winter.

Crises focus the mind. ‘Do I really need to make this trip?’ ‘How can we attract people to fly with us?’

American Airlines’ decision to charge a fee for checking baggage ($15 for the first bag, $25 for the second, $100 each for the third, fourth and fifth bags) is likely to be followed by every airline. Airlines have been moving toward pay-for-all-the-extras pricing for some time, adding charges for everything from meals to window seats - following the budget carriers’ lead.

A la carte pricing may become the magic bullet. Why pay for what you don’t need?

Deep frustration among air travelers in the United States led to them avoiding an estimated 41 million trips over the past 12 months at a cost of more than $26 billion to the U.S. economy, according to a survey published in May by the Travel Industry Association of 1,003 air travelers who had taken at least one round-trip by air in the last 12 months. Travelers express little optimism for positive change; nearly 50 percent saying the air travel system is bad, getting worse, and unlikely to improve in the near future.

Roger Dow, president & CEO of the TIA in Washington, said, ‘The air travel crisis has hit a tipping point - with more than 100,000 each day voting with their wallets by choosing to avoid trips. This landmark research should be a wake-up call to America’s policy leaders that the time for meaningful air system reform is now.’

According to the survey, more than 60 percent of travelers believe the air travel system is deteriorating; 48 percent of frequent travelers (5 plus trips a year) are dissatisfied with the system; 51 percent feel their time is not respected in the process.

Inefficient security screening and flight cancellations and delays are air travelers’ top frustrations.

‘With rising fuel prices already weighing heavily, we need to find ways to encourage Americans to continue their business and leisure travel,’ Dow said. ‘Unfortunately, just the opposite is happening.’

Does the travel trade really understand the travel market? This is my somewhat bemused reaction to a survey released this month by Sabre Airline Solutions, a services provider to the airline and travel industry. The global survey of 540 airlines concludes that out of 123 self-styled low-cost carriers, 52 percent have evolved into a new breed of ‘hybrid’ carriers, which blend low cost traits with those of traditional, or so-called full-service, carriers, in the pursuit of business travelers; while 7 percent have become fully-fledged full service airlines. More passengers travel on hybrid carriers than on low-cost

Murray Smyth, a vice president of Sabre Airline Solutions in London, says, ‘Many low-cost carriers, such as EasyJet, BMI Baby, Germanwings, Southwest Airlines, Jet Blue, Air Asia and Virgin Blue, have evolved into a hybrid carrier in order to make a play for the highly lucrative business traveler, who has entirely different needs from the leisure traveler, by adopting full-service characteristics such as code-sharing, interline agreements, use of Global Distribution Systems, and multiple classes of service and fares.’

Smyth added that only 41 percent of airlines in the survey have retained true low-cost characteristics, selling point-to-point routes on one-class travel, with distribution through the Internet. In 2007, ‘hybrid’ carriers carried 64 percent of all passengers ‘in the broader LCC segment.’

I would argue, to the contrary, that it is traditional network carriers that are shedding their full-service character by adopting the low-cost pricing model on short-haul routes, to compete with the low-cost, or no-frills, upstarts. It is hard to tell the difference in price, or quality of service, between, say British Airways, and EasyJet, on European routes.

But we are seeing segmentation within the no-frills sector in Europe. While Ryanair remains brutally basic with minimal comfort and service, EasyJet offers optional frills, such as ’speedy’ boarding, and use of airport lounges; while remaining true to the no-frills philosophy.

No-frills carriers, modeled on the phenomenally successful Southwest Airlines in the United States, are characterized by low distribution costs point-to-point services, high utilization of aircraft, low distribution costs through on-line booking, one-way pricing, and charging for food and drinks. The crucial challenge they have posed to full service, or network carriers, has not been so much their low fares, but their low one-way fares, that allow travelers almost total flexibility - therefore attracting business as well as leisure travelers.

Traditional carriers responded to the no-frills challenge on European routes by abandoning their old pricing convention that low fares must come with onerous conditions (remember the old Saturday-night stay nonsense?) deliberately designed to frustrate their use by ‘must-fly’ business travelers, and matching no-frills fares, especially for late booking. Web sites such as BA.com and Airfrance.fr, now show a range of one-way fares, depending on the date and time of day and time, allowing you to compose a trip by combining the best fare out with the best fare back. Both no-frills and traditional carriers offer on-line booking and ability to print your own boarding passes; and both typically charge for checking luggage.

Once one is in the air, there is not much to choose between EasyJet and cattle class in BA, with similar legroom in the same type of plane. BA provides only Spartan snacks and beverages; ‘Sorry, only beer or wine, no, we can’t sell you a Scotch.’ While EasyJet has a good choice of drinks and sandwiches on sale. So much for full-service ‘frills.’

With all carriers offering similarly low fares and standards of comfort and service in the air, competition tends to be driven by the airport experience. No-frills airlines often fly from small, and arguably more user-friendly, airports such as London Luton or Stansted, rather than the dreaded Heathrow.

Moreover, the term, ‘hybrid’ carrier, begs the question of what you might call, ‘hybrid’ traveler. The travel trade is wrong to assume that ‘business’ and ‘leisure’ travelers have a different set of needs and behavior. As I have often pointed out, neither category is monolithic; people travel in raft of different ‘modes,’ different frames of mind, with different needs, motivations, priorities and prejudices, depending on why we’re going and where we are headed. Business travelers may range from ‘hard-core’ (clinching a deal) to ’soft-core’ (attending a conference; combining business with pleasure). Corporate travelers have deeper pockets than others; individual and small-business travelers, for whom travel expenses are their bottom line, may share budget priorities with back-packers and package tourists.

And there is no shortage of ‘high-end’ leisure travelers among the denizens of the first-class cabins.

The International Air Transport Association has launched a new Travel Centre at www.iatatravelcentre.com. For an annual subscription of $25, travelers have access to personalized advice on passport, visa, and health advice, based on their itinerary, and details, such as nationality, documents held, and expiry dates, as well as airport taxes payable at departure or arrival, customs and currency regulations. According to IATA, an estimated 35,000 travelers are turned back at their destination or transfer points by immigration authorities every year due to wrong documentation. Countless more are refused boarding when airlines discover that their documents are not in order.

Frequent fliers can create and store their personal profiles, and be advised by e-mail when regulations change which might affect their travel plans. IATA updates its data base with about 14,000 changes a year.

Resolving a key glitch of the electronic era

In the beginning were paper tickets, books of flight coupons that you exchanged at the airline check-in desks for a paper boarding pass (green for economy, red for first class); heaven help you if you lost them; each coupon carried a serial number like currency bills. In 2000, 285 million paper tickets were security-shipped to 53,000 travel agency locations worldwide - at a cost of over $20 million.

Back in 1996 I opined that the benefits of the new-fangled electronic tickets would be for airlines, through lower costs and productivity gains. But what was in it for the traveler? You still had to show up at a desk, show your passport, check your bags, get a boarding card and walk to the gate. Ticketless travel might be fine for point-to-point travel, but surely not for complex trips with connecting flights on different airlines. Try arguing with a blank computer screen in Mogadishu - or the dreaded Heathrow for that matter - with a fugitive electronic itinerary. Give me the reassurance of a paper ticket any day, I said.

Ten years later we take for granted the convenience of on-line check-in, printing our own boarding cards on our own PCs, dropping off our bags at a self-service kiosk, and going straight to the gate. Although I’d still feel a tad uneasy embarking on a round-the-world trip, or a multi-sector itinerary without a paper ticket, especially if I might need to change flight times en route.

According to Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association, the paper airline ticket is set to be ‘put in a museum’ when, on June 1, IATA hopes to achieve its target date for 100 percent electronic ticketing across the world. Back in June 2004, only 18 percent of tickets issued were e-tickets; by the end of March this had risen to 94 percent.

‘We are entering a new age for air travel,’ Bisignani says. ‘Travelers love the convenience of e-ticketing and now want to combine it with self-service options to have more control over their journey. Online and kiosk check-in are at an all time high; mobile phone check-in is rapidly gaining popularity.’

IATA is campaigning for even more self-service options, such as self-tagging of baggage, baggage drop-off points and collections; machines for registering baggage mishandling; and self-boarding gates, and a self-service option for the processing of passports and ID cards.

‘It is an incredible industry success story,’ Bisignani says. ‘When we began over 28 million paper tickets were issued each month; we have reduced the number to less than 3 million. The airline industry will save over $3 billion a year by offering the passenger a better service.’

Well, yes. But several readers have reported cases where the IATA ‘interline’ system has broken down when a carrier to which they are connecting on a ‘through ticket’ refuses to check their baggage through to their final destination.

I have always warned that if you buy two separate round-trip tickets with the aim of saving money, do not expect to have your baggage transferred, nor to expect quarter should you miss your onward connecting flight.

The time-honored interline system dates back to 1930, the year the 1929 Warsaw Convention (replaced by the Montreal Convention of 1999) came into force.

‘Interlining is simply a contractual obligation between two carriers for providing end-to-end service for passengers,’ says Bryan Wilson, ET project director and chief information officer at IATA in Geneva. ‘If an airline is late in arriving, the second airline doesn’t say, “I’m sorry, you’ve missed your flight,” but will rebook you on another flight to get you to your destination; your bags are transferred automatically, that’s the commitment. With interline tickets one set of baggage rules predominates, so that if a passenger makes a trans-continental flight, connecting to a domestic or a continental flight, the superior baggage offer will apply right the way through.’

Wilson adds, ‘Competition doesn’t come into it. Airline alliances with varying degrees of anti-trust immunity have filed lower-cost through fares that are not generally possible for other carriers. Interline agreements go far beyond the boundaries of alliances and partnerships. You could start a trip with an airline belonging to one alliance and make an interline connection with an airline from another. A very large number of passengers do that every day.’

In the new world of e-ticketing, airlines must re-establish the current interline agreements by building up new ‘electronic interline ticketing agreements’ with one another.

‘This is more than simply filing a piece of paper,’ Wilson says, ‘airlines need to feel confident they can offer an electronic ticketing product with another airline; it’s making sure messages flow and are received through airline accounting systems. Right now 3,400 interline electronic ticketing agreements have been built up between airlines; by the end of May there will be pretty close to 4,000 in place. This will enable 90 percent of previous interlining journeys to be ticketed.’

What happens to the other 10 percent?

‘Airlines are prioritizing, working down the scale; at some point they say, we’ve got such small volume on this route, we’re not going through this additional effort,’ Wilson says. ‘There are a number of solutions. First, a travel agent will look at routing a passenger in different ways and issue an electronic ticket, or, if they cannot find that, they can issue a prepayment advice and send the passenger to an airline; and although, on June 1, IATA will not support travel agents having paper tickets, airlines will still have their own private paper tickets, for the one percent of itineraries that cannot be issued by electronic tickets. In which cases travel agents can make the booking and take the payment; passengers will need to pick up the ticket from the airline desk.’

Jeff Reiman, a reader in Menton, France, sums it up succinctly: ‘Why on earth would airlines allow passengers to use their cell phones during flights? Are they trying to ruin the experience of air travel completely? Consider how loud many people are when they talk on their cell phones, and that one ringing phone could wake up a hundred sleeping passengers. What makes this seem like a good idea? I’d love to hear your thoughts.’

Welcome to TAVCIF (Travelers Against Voice Calls in Flight).

Flying is an experience to be endured rather than enjoyed at the best of times. Now imagine a cacophony of ringing tones throughout the cabin; everybody around you yakking away into their mobile. It only takes one mobile phone user to turn a long-distance flight into a journey to Purgatory. Ambient cabin noise will encourage phone addicts to shout even louder than they do on the ground, rendering the most taciturn travelers around them candidates for air-rage. In-flight voice calls call to mind Zilch’s Law: Just because technology makes it possible, doesn’t make it desirable.

Reiman is one of several readers reacting to media reports that Europe has cleared the way to allowing mobile phone calls on planes flying in European airspace - allocating space on the radio spectrum, and harmonizing ‘air-worthiness’ standards for mobile phone base systems on aircraft called ‘pico’ cells. Calls are routed to terrestrial networks via satellite links. Approval is still needed by the European Aviation Safety Agency. Telecom regulators in 20 EU countries have already given their approval.

Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, has warned operators and airlines to keep the cost of calls to a ‘reasonable level;’ and ensure that people who use in-flight communication services ‘do not disturb other passengers.’ Captains will be able to switch off voice calls during ‘quiet periods’ on long flights.

Airlines have a choice of two similar systems: OnAir (a joint venture between Airbus and SITA (a Geneva-based airline communications provider), and AeroMobile, a joint-venture between ARINC (a U.S.-based provider of transport systems and communications) and Telenor, a Norwegian mobile phone company.

Emirates claims to have been the first airline in the world to allow passengers to make voice calls during a flight between Dubai and Casablanca on March 20. The carrier plans to extend the service to the rest of its fleet later this year. Cabin staff will encourage passengers to switch their phones to ’silent’/'vibrate’ mode when used in the aircraft.

As I have reported, Air France began a six-month trial last December on an Airbus 318 flying within Europe and North Africa for passengers to use mobile phones in flight. During the first three months, they were only allowed to send and receive SMS and e-mails with a Blackberry or other device. Starting on April 2, passengers have been allowed to make voice calls. The findings from the trial, finishing at the end of July, will help Air France decide which option passengers want: data only or voice and data.

There is a world of difference in attitudes towards in-flight data and voice calls.

Back in November 2005, I quoted from a global Skytrax survey (www.airlinequality.com) of 682,456 passengers in 76 countries that found that ‘over 89 percent of airline passengers opposed to the idea of allowing mobile phone usage on board flights - whether long- or short-haul - for anything other than silent procedures like e-mailing or text messaging.’

A poll by the International Airline Passengers Association of 1,162 members around the world found that only half would find it useful to make and receive calls during flights. And that the practice might spark air rage.

According to Charlie Pryor, a spokesman for OnAir in London, British Midland BMI and TAP Air Portugal will soon begin trials, similar to that of Air France; Ryanair will roll out the technology with 25 planes in June, without a trial. Oman Air, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Jazeera Airways, and Air Asia, plan to install in-flight voice and data services. And Chinese low-cost carrier Shenzen plans to install OnAir equipment ‘in time for the Olympics.’

Lufthansa has decided not to offer in-flight voice calls - after travelers had expressed their distaste, especially at being disturbed during night flights. Qantas announced it will allow passengers to send and receive e-mail and text messages from their own phones on domestic services, but not to allow voice calls.

Most airlines I spoke to seem to have adopted a cautious wait-and-see position.

Samantha Day, spokeswoman at EasyJet, says: ‘It’s early days; it’s quite a contentious issue.’

Richard Hodges, director, corporate communications for Europe, Middle-East, Pacific, for American Airlines, says, ‘We have no current plans, except a trial on domestic routes for data-only service.’

Michael Johnson, British Airways spokesman in London, says, ‘We would have to think very carefully about allowing passengers to use their phones aboard aircraft; it could devalue the whole customer experience of flying with us. But we’ll be led by customer feedback; we’re in the early stages of research.’

Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman, Charlotte Tidball, says, ‘I’m with you on the air rage issue; allowing people to make voice calls on their mobile phones would certainly annoy me as well. At the moment, evidence suggests that passengers would prefer data-only calls. But we’re studying the technology to see what’s available in the future. Passengers can already send and receive e-mails, and make outgoing phone calls, using our in-flight entertainment system.’

In the United States, both the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission, are staunchly opposed to the use of personal cell phones during flight. The FCC cites safety and security reasons and the risk of cell phone signals interfering with navigation systems; and notes that the idea of in-flight voice calls seems to be unpopular with passengers. According to a report, ‘the avalanche of comments logged from airline travelers have been nothing short of visceral.’

According to SITA, ‘the U.S. authorities’ decision to ban the use of mobile phones on flights will not have an impact on what is happening here in Europe.’ But it will certainly affect in-flight voice calls on trans-Atlantic services.

Back on earth, Gareth Headon, spokesman for Eurostar in London, says that for business travelers, ‘the ability to use their laptops and mobile phones during the journey is a key aspect of the passenger experience; it extends their working day. We have no plans for introducing quiet carriages.’

In contrast, passengers on France’s TGV high speed trains have an option of booking a seat in a ‘quiet carriage,’ hopefully free from the intrusive tyranny of mobile phones.

It is hard to imagine that the airport experience - especially at London’s dreaded Heathrow - could get any worse. But the opening of Terminal Five on March 27 - described by Queen Elizabeth as ‘a 21st century gateway to Britain’ - was a fiasco of epic proportions. British Airways, sole occupiers of the ’state-of-the-art’ terminal, canceled hundreds of flights; some 20,000 bags were parted from their owners; many of them are still lost in the system. Welcome to the third world.

Despite reassurances from the airline that things will get better soon, travelers would be wise to avoid T5 over the next few weeks. Fortunately, there are options for short- and long-haul travel with BA and other airlines at Terminals 1, 2, 3 or 4. Ten percent of BA’s flights from the airport are not moving to T5; some short-haul flights are at T1, and flights to Singapore, Australia and Bangkok continue to fly from T4 for the present time. (You can find a full list of flights by clicking on ‘Which Terminal?’ at BA.com; some BA flights operate from Gatwick North Terminal.) Thanks to the Open Skies agreement, several new carriers now operate from Heathrow Terminals 3 and 4 to U.S. destinations. You can view flight schedules for all airlines at Heathrow, at Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted Airports, at the airports operator’s Web site, BAA.com.

Heathrow can be avoided altogether, especially for short-haul travel between London and Europe.

Traveling between London and Europe, it is easy to avoid Heathrow altogether. Gatwick (28 miles to the south of London) offers a wide range of flights to Europe, North America, Middle East and Asia. Stansted (34 miles north-east) is mainly a budget airline hub; but New York JFK is served by American Airlines the all-business-class carrier Eos with daily flights. Luton (32 miles north) serves more than 30 destinations in Europe, Middle East and North Africa, plus New York Newark, served daily by Silverjet’s all-business flights from its private terminal. London City Airport (six miles from Canary Wharf), the exemplary hub for short-haul flights, promises all-business-class flights to New York with British Airways in 2009.

Traveling between North America, Middle East, Asia, and Europe, it’s easy to avoid London by transiting, when necessary, at a hub such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Paris. (The opening of a new Air France-KLM Terminal 2E at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle Airport on March 30 promises to make departures and transfers simpler and smoother.)

The Official Airline Guide (www.oagflights.com) is the most authoritative source of global flight information, showing flight schedules, updated daily, for 1,000 airlines serving 3,000 airports around the world; well worth the annual subscription of

139 Euros.

Travelers are now hit with a double whammy: restrictions on the size and weight of carry-on baggage forces them to check more bags. For airlines this is an opportunity to impose punitive charges for excess baggage; many airlines are doing away with free baggage allowances, and charging for each item of checked luggage.

Traveling light can be heavy going these days. The official carry-on allowance is one standard-sized bag - with a maximum size of 56×45x25cm (22×17.5×9.85in) including wheels, pockets and handles) - plus one laptop-sized bag, handbag, or briefcase. You may get away with a third bag in the premium cabins. Most airlines impose a maximum bag weight of 23kilograms (51 lbs). And you are supposed to be able to heft the bag unaided into the overhead locker. Remember Schlep’s Law: ‘The weight of your hand baggage increases exponentially with the walking distance to the gate.’

Traveling for up to a week, I can get away with a jacket, a pair of trousers, two or three striped shirts (never white), two of my less vulnerable ties, change of underwear and socks and my most comfortable pair of all-occasion shoes. My washing gear is an airline amenity kit and weapons-grade deodorant spray. I take a raincoat (with detachable lining), with poacher’s pockets.

But however light you travel, there is no sure-fire way to avoid a hassle with carry-ons, especially as rules can change in transit. One solution is to stuff everything into a suitcase with detachable briefcase/laptop bag and wheels, fitted with blades, like Boadicea’s chariot, for close combat in the concourse.

Sometimes, taking a lot of stuff with you is unavoidable; especially when it comes to sports equipment, like skis and golf clubs, and other outsize items.

Rather than risk the hassle and nightmare of mishandled or lost bags, consider shipping your bags with a specialized courier service.

BA recommends First Luggage (www.firstluggage.com) who pick up and deliver baggage by FedEx all over the world. The cost for one-way shipping of a suitcase of 66 pounds from Milan to Brussels is about #89 ($177); or from Britain to the United States, #129). BA passengers who book online receive a five percent discount.

Excess Baggage (www.excessbaggage.com) ships bags from offices and homes in 300 countries, charging from $4 to $10 per kilogram for most destinations. Excess Baggage has a network of agents that include Contour USA (www.contour-usa.com) for shipments from the United States. It is also worth checking out the luggage courier services of www.Skycapinternational.com and www.Virtualbellhop.com, both based in the United States.

Luggage Express (www.usxpluggageexpress.com) has a similar door-to-door courier service across the United States and is extending now to cities in South and Central America, parts of the Caribbean and Europe. Prices start at $85 for a 35- to 40-pound suitcase between U.S. cities to $325, with duties and tax, from New York to London.

Luggage Forward (www.luggageforward.com) is a United States-based baggage and sports delivery service. Price is based on size (not weight), distance and level of service.

XS Baggage (www.xsbaggage.com), based in Washington D.C, has a South Pacific office in Auckland, New Zealand.

When Mariana Field Hoppin, a New York businesswoman, and her daughter Ashley treated themselves to round-trip tickets in first class with British Airways from London to Delhi, they had expected first-class treatment all the way. Instead, waiting for the return flight at Delhi-Indira Gandhi International Airport, they were treated to a first-class nightmare.

“We were not pleased to discover that not only is there no first-class lounge in Delhi, there is no BA lounge at all,” Hoppin writes. “When we reached the upstairs lounge (with no elevator) at 2 a.m. for a 3:30 a.m. flight to London, the place was jammed. Ashley, who had been very ill for a few days, needed to sit, so I asked a kind gent, who gave us seats. The final blow was to find no ladies’ lavatory in a lounge with well over 100 people.”

The moral is: Whatever class you are traveling, it’s wise to check out the lounge facilities at all stops along the route, and be aware that while airlines hype the flagship lounges at their home hubs, they share (often more modest) lounge facilities with other carriers, or use generic lounges provided by airport operators, at the far-flung reaches of their routes.

According to Amanda Allan, a spokeswoman with British Airways in London, first and business-class passengers have the run of the Maurya Sheraton lounge in the international departure wing at Delhi - an outpost of the five-star Sheraton Hotel, in the city. I cannot believe that this is the same “lounge” that Hoppin describes. (Air India’s Maharaja Lounge would have been a safe bet.) In Sydney, BA’s first-class passengers get to use the Qantas lounge, and in Singapore, Singapore Airlines’ renowned first-class lounge. At Heathrow’s new Terminal 5, there are six lounges: the Concorde lounge, exclusively for first-class passengers; the First Lounge, for first and gold card frequent-flier members; three business-class lounges, for long-haul, short-haul and gold and silver members; and the Arrivals Lounge, for first-and business-class, and gold card members off long-haul flights.

Having the run of an airport lounge takes some of the pain from flight delays, cancellations and long connecting times. But as many front-cabin travelers have found to their chagrin, some airport lounges are much more equal than others. The best lounges are “airside,” a short walk to the doors of the plane, and offer space and quiet, as well as the use of PCs, Wi-Fi, washrooms and showers, a workout room, massage, beauty and health treatments, restaurant-style eating and a wide choice of beverages. The worst lounges are often shared between several airlines, are “landside” (before immigration and security), and often more of a zoo than the main concourse.

The next best thing to a “Good Lounge Guide” are reviews of airline lounges at Skytrax Research (www.airlinequality.com) which help you figure out the best, and worst, around the world.

Star performers in the Skytrax 2007 Best Airline Lounges Survey were Thai Airways’ first-class lounge in Bangkok, Qatar Airways’ first-class lounge in Doha, Lufthansa’s first-class lounge in Frankfurt and Cathay Pacific’s first-class lounge in Hong Kong. Predictably, Virgin Atlantic scored top in business-class lounges for its Club House at Heathrow (arguably the best of any lounge in the world), followed by Cathay, Qatar and Qantas. Look for the new BA lounges in the next survey.

Having the run of an airport lounge is a perk that is worth the money whether in the price of a premium-class ticket, or joining a lounge program, like prioritypass.com (which has 500 lounges in 275 cities), or loungepass.com (123 lounges at 100 airports). Priority Pass has a three-tier membership plan ranging from annual dues of #69, or $135, and #15 per visit, to dues of #259 and free lounge visits. Lounge Pass charges a minimum #13.50 per visit - expensive, but what price do you put on a port in a storm?

American Airlines’ Admirals Club, Delta Air Lines’ Crown Room Club and United Airlines’ Red Carpet Club are all worth joining if you are flying their way.

In-flight mobile phone service

Air France claims to be the first airline in the world to offer an in-flight mobile phone service with the start, on Dec. 17, of a long-awaited six-month trial on an Airbus A318 aircraft, with technology developed by OnAir (a joint venture between Airbus and SITA, an airline communications provider).

For the first three months of the trial passengers are allowed only to send and receive SMS (text) and MMS (multimedia) messages using their own cellphones, or devices like Treo or Blackberry, with Internet access. During the second half of the trial, passengers will be allowed to make and receive voice calls once the system has been activated at 10,000 feet, or 3,048 meters. Mobile OnAir technology, certified by the European Aviation Security Authority, does not interfere with the aircraft’s navigation and avionics. Phones are used just as on the ground and calls are routed via satellite to your own mobile network provider. Cost of calls is comparable to normal international roaming charges.

Passengers on the trial aircraft will be invited to fill out a 20-question survey, which will help Air France decide whether to roll out the service on all flights.

Most of the surveys I have seen are ambivalent, to say the least. While most travelers would welcome being able to send and receive text messages during a flight, many are vehemently opposed to the prospect of sitting in a crowded cabin with the chiming of mobiles, or someone sitting next to them yakking on the phone. Most airlines are adopting a cautious wait-and-see policy. But expect to see growing use of personal cellphones in the air, at least for e-mail, text-messaging and Internet access, during 2008.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are in the race to provide passengers with on-board broadband connectivity on flights within the United States.

American claims it will be the first carrier to offer Internet connectivity at usual broadband speeds with tests later this year on 15 Boeing 767-200 aircraft on trans-Continental flights. The Aircell system connects with 92 cellular towers throughout the country. It will include “virtual private network access” - which provides entry to corporate intranets, and e-mail capability with all Wi-Fi enabled devices. Southwest plans to test its “satellite-delivered broadband” in partnership with California-based Row 44 on four aircraft this summer, offering Wi-Fi-enabled devices “high-speed Internet access.”