Could Technology End Airline Delays?
Are you a fed up air traveler? You’re not alone. Delays and cancellations seem to have become the rule this year, but there is a better way. Technology and free markets could vastly improve air travel, if politicians will allow them to work.
It’s become popular to blame air travel woes on deregulation, just as California pundits and politicos are blaming a freer energy market for rising electric bills. In both cases, competition and free markets are unjustly taking the fall in public commentary. California eliminated some restrictions on the sale of electricity. But state government and the Feds continue to regulate energy production, while environmental groups block the creation of new power plants, which makes it difficult and costly to generate electricity. If it costs a lot to generate power, you can only squeeze so much savings out of new marketing rules.
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2009 Airline IT Trends Survey: Technology developments
Passengers using their mobile phones to check-in may be fairly thin on the ground today, but airlines are forecasting that people using this service will increase fivefold in the next three years and are gearing up to rapidly accelerate the availability of a whole range of mobile facilities, including check-in, to help their customers self-process their journey.
The growth and popularity of web and mobile services look set to overshadow kiosks as a check-in channel – indeed airlines in some regions that have yet to implement kiosks may simply leapfrog this evolutionary stage. However there is plenty of life left in the kiosk as a self-service channel, with an increasing number of airlines looking to evolve it further to provide other self-processing tools.
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Pondering American and jetBlue: Most Interesting
Coming on the heels of last week’s post about Southwest and being jilted by Delta and US Airways in their reworked slot exchange, this morning we get an announcement that American and jetBlue are entering into a new commercial arrangement at key east coast cities. I will probably write later on the topic but wanted to jot a few things down before I leave for meetings.
* Each SkyTeam and STAR have enhanced their positions in the New York metro market in recent months. Given the importance of New York and the key east coast cities of New York and Boston, American enhances its presence as well as that of oneworld with this announcement.
* jetBlue has a relationship with Aer Lingus. Lufthansa invested in jetBlue. Now jetBlue enters into a commercial relationship with American whereby customers of each airline can enjoy interline capabilities with the other at each Boston Logan and New York JFK on non-overlapping routes.
* Is jetBlue becoming the Alaska Airlines of the east coast? Keeping itself most relevant in its home market by code sharing with many airlines?
* American intends to transfer eight slot pairs at Ronald Reagan National Airport and one slot pair at White Plains N.Y. to jetBlue. Three more than jetBlue would receive in the DL-US proposed transaction. So for jetBlue, will it be 5, 8 or 13 slot pairs at Ronald Reagan National Airport?
* jetBlue intends to transfer 12 slot pairs at JFK to American.
* This slot transfer business is getting very interesting.
* It has been a bad week for Southwest. Between their cry of being “left out” of the US – DL slot swap; talk of being jilted by WestJet; and now American teaming with jetBlue …….
I wonder what Southwest must be thinking?