Amadeus Retreating From Competing With Its Customers - Bye Bye Opodo?

Hot on the heels of a story I did last month on Sabre pulling out of non-core businesses and ending the practice of competing with its customers now comes word that Amadeus is doing something akin.

So either Amadeus is finally giving up on its poor orphan child that it inherited from its some times owners (big EU airlines) or its decided that Opodo needs a new home. At the least Amadeus might start to look more attractive to the big OTAs. It has recently beefed up its search offerings (Masterpricer et al).

Reports have been circulating for a few weeks of a "major OTA" on the block. Actually Opodo doesn't quite fit those shoes. Since the story is now out - I can comment on it.

Opodo has never quite lived up to its hype. It's books were made to look pretty good (ie that they were not losing money) in recent years - but it is not a business that will set the world on fire. Rather like its counterpart in Asia - Zuji that is a little more successful comparatively speaking.

The US based similar business - Orbitz - burst on the scene and became a monster success initially. It was hived off by the airlines (who started it under the code name of T2 after a popular Consulting firm of a similar name - or a movie that came out around that time with a then future Governor as its lead actor). It landed in the Blackstone stable of businesses. It seems to be getting a little more healthy under new CEO (and ex-Expedia man) Barney Harford.

Now that Amadeus has to submit to the discipline of the markets - it is taking a hard look at its stable of disparate businesses and clearly deciding that some of them belong elsewhere.

So probably time to put this dog out the door. Will Travelport now be looking to do the same on their side and dump their holding in Orbitz and some other products/services.

Hey this new found religion might actually be good for the market.

Cheers

Death By Personalization and Bad Cookies

For some unknown reason - I am now trapped in Spokane.

I have not been to GEG in many years - it is hope to Gonzaga University and is probably a nice place (except in the peak of winter).

But now I have been trying to test some new websites and many of them think I am in Spokane.

So to everyone who thinks I am in Spokane... I am not.

Thanks - you are now free to go about your business

Chill Out Everyone on Ryanair's FA/Pilot Idea...

OK so read on...

There is a huge hue and cry over the proposal from Mr O'Leary on replacing the second pilot in a 737.

So let's analyze the issue and be sure we all understand it.

Let's deal with the current regulations. Cockpit distraction is a problem. So there is indeed a regulation that covers this. In 1981 the FAA enacted FAR 121.542 and FAR 135.100 to help curb the number of accidents related to cockpit distraction or interference. Commonly known as the "sterile cockpit rule," these regulations specifically prohibit crew member performance of non-essential duties or activities while the aircraft is involved in taxi, takeoff, landing, and all other flight operations conducted below 10,000 feet MSL, except cruise flight. NASA has some interesting details on this.

The issue of cockpit distraction achieved a lot of attention after the two Northwest Pilots overflew their destination which chatting about non-flying issues. In the past few years other examples of distraction of a different sort has emerged with a video of 2 pilots on board a French Airliner interacting with a Stewardess. If you want to find it - go look at the Sun UK news paper.

The Ryanair's CEO perspective is that on short flights the need for the second pilot is not great and during the critical moments when a second pilot is required a flight attendant can perform that function.

In all hoopla people have not dealt with the issue which is that there is nothing to prevent this. IF.... the Flight Attendant is a fully qualified person to engage in cockpit activity and then is able to fulfill other functions - why not?

Of course it is a little silly as which pilot qualified and current rated person would ever want to be hired as a FA? However stranger things have happened, Just this past June such an incident happened when a pilot on board an AA flight became incapacitated. Just by chance a pilot trained (but not current) Flight Attendant was among the crew. 61 year old Patti De Luna assisted in the process of landing an AA 767 in Chicago O'Hare - not one of the easiest airports in the world.

The simplest an easiest way to view it - is that as long as safety is not compromised then there should be no commercial reason as to why this could not be the case.

But since that is neither practical nor commercially viable - the idea is not going anywhere. So people - just chill out!

Cheers

A Few Moments....The Worst Way To Fly?

I am going to start an occasional series on the Professor's blog. It will be entitled a Few Moments....

I will write about a number of things - mostly in a moment of whimsy.

I hope you will enjoy them. Feel free to contribute ideas for me to write on. Today's first one is about airline safety. As regular readers note I fly a lot. So this is a matter very close and dear to me.

According to data presented the worst case is if you fly on Aeroflot in August between the USA and Russia on a DC9. Since there has never been such a flight this makes the chances pretty remote. But what about survivability.


I love information. Data is also up there. I love looking for themes and trends in data sets.

I have been reading through some of the work of David McCandless.

So here is an interesting view of where the safest place is to sit on a plane based on survivor statistics.

Personally I always chose somewhere near the wingbox and hopefully where the fuselage is strongest. But if your time is up - its up!

I love this stuff....

Cheers



Here is the license terms location for the display of this image.

JetBlue to Slater - Later Dude....

Jetblue has confirmed that "Chute/Shoot" Slater is no longer employed with the airline. The "seperation" was completed last week, he had been taken off flying duty immediately after the incident and placed on what the Brits call "Gardening Leave".

Slater has pleaded not guilty to charges the charges filed so far of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief -- both felonies -- and criminal trespass. If convicted, he could face a maximum of seven years in prison. Slater has a court appearance scheduled for Tuesday.

He could still be charged with various offences under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security.

Search: Garbage In = Garbage Out Squared.

Do you ever wonder if the results you get from a Google Search or good or bad? I am probably very frustrated as a user and no different from others in that the way I get my results makes me have to work very hard to get to that nugget of data I am searching.

Anti "Gaming" the system for some is considered sport and a natural human behaviour, except it becomes necessary to do it to avoid getting junk results - or at the very least reducing the junk results to a manageable number. I long ago gave up trying to get great results. All of which takes up some of the most precious commodity I have available to me - namely time.

Since Google (and indeed others) who are engaged in search result delivery don't hold themselves up to a standard of providing the best possible results, we get what we pay for. IE we don't pay for it so we get garbage.

Google's results as well as the others - appear to be "good enough". For the billions of users.

However I come from a background of market research where you had to go and do a LOT of researching to get the right nugget of information. IE I am classically trained in research. This helps me get better results. What concerns me is that the newer users on the web have no such background. Probably can't use a classical reference book. Have no idea how to use a library etc etc.

And this is my point. Garbage in Garbage Squared out. Lord Help us if we have to use such a tool base for complex stuff like lowest fares.

Yuk..................

So How Do You Feel About Google Verizon Proposal?

I posted the poll a few weeks ago and the results were as expected given my audience.

Most people 83% who responded to the poll said they were against the Google Verizon, only a small group said they had no clue…

People are clearly pretty upset about it. As no one voted for either "Benign" or "Haven't got a clue", as options.

Cheers

How Media Treats Mexico

I consume a lot of media each day - we all do.

So I have always been struck by the way Travel Media - particularly traditional based media outlets - treat news.

A case in point is to see how Mexico has been faring lately. The reality of the situation is that Mexico experienced one of the more severe of the impacts of the GFC. This has been compounded by the current war on drugs being waged between the cartels and the Federal Government. Yesterday listening to the BBC News about Calderon's crusading anti drug war on my local NPR station in Seattle it struck me that media is always focusing on the extremes.

So today I looked at contrasting stories about Mexico. I found two that more than anything illustrate my point.

From USA Today the focus on the bar killings in Cancun. (BTW I am going there next week for a conference). Yet there is a much more upbeat message on Travel Daily News about how things are really looking up in Mexico.

The fact that Mexicana its largest airline just stopped flying and the tourism numbers are abysmal - you have to question why they would put out a story like this?

I like Mexico. The people and the locale are wonderful. But is everything in the garden so rosy?

Probably not.

For Old Fogies Like Me...

Social Networking stats show we are SLOWLY catching up to those youngsters.

Social Media usage amongst seniors is climbing - it has now reached about 1/3rd of the Millenials and Gen Yers. For Boomers (that includes me) the penetration (ouch) of social media usage is now approaching 50%.

So now we are all connected - what are we going to do with ourselves.

This is from emarketer... probably written by a bunch of less than aged folks who don't use scooters.

Cheers

Users As Beta Guinea Pigs - Now SKYPE

Taking a leaf out of Google's (bad) books - Skype has a new version of its software.

I quote directly from their email notification:

So that everyone in the beta program can participate in group video calling, we will require all users to upgrade to Beta 2 by Friday, 10 September; if you don't want to wait, you can download it right now.

If this is a commercial service why do we have to "upgrade" to a Beta piece of code?

The arrogance of these people astounds me...

And I love Skype and use it every day.

Cheers


Thanks to Intuitive Business for the appropriate image.

Personalization Loses It!

I have a story I love to tell about how personalization based on user interaction can be a bust.

I have a friend who is an absolute nut about Bonzai Trees. He buys books on Amazon on the subject all the time. He is also divorced and has a teenage daughter. He let her use his account to buy a book she desperately wanted. It was a book fan book on one of the latest Movie Stars.

Net result - now 6 years after the fact he still gets books on Cooking with several movie stars.

Let me provide another example. I love internet radio. My favorites are Rdio (sorry dont want to pay the fee so its turned off) Pandora (limited to 40 hours per month so I use them up and then move on) and LastFM. However I recently started to get a bunch of polish rock music in my mix. I didn't ask for it and constantly forbid it - but it comes back all the time.

I tracked back to when it happened and I think its because I (hearted) a French band - AIR.

Now I cannot get rid of all the Czech and Polish music - fine though I am sure it is to someone who speaks that language.


Grrrr..................

with thanks to SocialWrite for the use of the image.

Another MOL Story - Is He On The Charm Offensive?

The irrascible CEO of Ryanair is at it again.

This time in Bloomberg.

To most in the world - the treatment of passengers as a commodity - Bovine Air - is the fact but the fiction of travel as a sexy experience persists.

The reality of the process is that the actual flying portion of the trip has become the least offensive part. In days of yore there were flights from places that were close in. Today - the airport entrance to the airport exit point has become so long and complicated not to mention cattle like that the degrading of the human spirit is an accepted form of treatment.

Bless him - Michael O'Leary calls a spade a spade.

How many of us/them can actually say that - at the same driving their company to now the second most valuable airline in the world?

Cheers

First Official Green Tax Approved

For the first time a major country has implemented a Green tax. Germany introduces “green” air passenger tax for all departures from German airports as of January 1. Passengers will be forced to pay between US$10-57 depending on length of flight.

There will be a lot of ink spilled on this one

Is There A Perfect "What Next" Site/App?

I went to Southern California to hang out with family last weekend. It was really good to catch up.

One of my fellow bloggers Mr Boot (ably assisted by Madam Boot) is also on the hunt for this and I think he has a better handle on this than me. But here are some ramblings from my aged viewpoint.

I had some spare time to do things that are fun to do. I used to live in LA for 8 years in the 1980s. I really liked it! But to see what is there now is a little daunting - so much information.

Who can I trust and where do I go that doesn't require me to sift through dumpsters of useless information?

I love Daily Candy. Its a fun site filled with interesting stuff - but it is not really that useful as an "on demand" service. So I am delisting myself from there. TimeOut used to be my favorite for London - but it too has lost a lot of its sparkle and spunk. In Seattle "The Stranger" is the best local guide. In LA -LA Weekly is pretty good - but newsprint is loosing its lustre.

One of my favorite sources of information is BeDynamic. I love the work the Anne and her crew have done. Really useful stuff. if you are not from here - its a good place to start.

My new favourite site though for simplicity and value is Goby. It was good for LA. Not sure if it will work in other places.

So if you have any suggestions for the cities on my jaunt - I will be most grateful

The Professor will be in the following places over the coming months:

In random order...
Chicago
Cancun
Cologne
Toulouse
Edinburgh
Frankfurt
Berlin
Istanbul
Sofia
Manchester
London
Los Angeles
Sydney
Brisbane
Melbourne
Singapore
Bangkok
Mumbai

Suggestions welcomed.

Cheers

Mummy Do I Need An App For That?

I had a chance to see several people's iPhones and iTouches this past weekend. It is quite interesting to see what people have as Apps.

There is clearly no shortage of apps for the iOS family of products. I was roving around the iTunes store and looked under the category of travel.

Actually the way I navigated was via Facebook - so many imprecise ways to navigate - its scary. The top apps in all categories can be viewed on Facebook easily.

I am at least gratified that iFart is no longer the number one application for iPhone.

What is interesting is that the iPad apps are now diverging from the iPhone apps. I would have expected a certain degree of this driven by the form factor. However I would have expected people to have loaded all their favorite apps from the iPhone onto their iPads (I believe but cannot find hard evidence that the iPad users are mostly former/current iPhone users as early adopters).

And I am really grateful that so far no one has come up with an App that addresses Thumb Sucking.

(With special thanks to the Daily Telegraph for this fascinating subject). I am sure that before too long the clinic will have its own App.

Cheers

Are We Headed For Travel Industry Megalomania?

OK so we all know the Travel Industry has a few egos here and there. But are we headed for a lustful grab for power in many sectors?

It seems we may be headed for a major adjustment of the status quo. Let's look at the facts.

The airlines are coalescing around 3 global alliances. The US market has seen 2 major mergers in 3 years - DL+NW and CO+UA. In Europe LH is gobbling everyone up who wasn't AF, KL or BA, IB. In Australia the big players came down to 2. In Europe already dominated in leisure by TUI and Thos Cook. There are now only 3 major legacy international GDSs. There are really only 4 major global travel industry networks. There are four major online players....

I think you get my point.

The pyramid that used to be nice and flat is now getting pretty pointy looking

Cheers

Rabid IPad Owners

So no new news for iPads in Apples fun day today.

However buried deep inside was a bit of new news... iOS4.2. This should have the fixes you have all been waiting for - but wait a little longer it will be November before it sees the light of day(glo).

So what have you little iPad users been doing with your machines, what is your usage profile and well how sad are you really?

I did a little digging and found some research on the subject.

Firstly let's be real clear. Like the iPhone before it - an iPad is best used as a consumption device. it is better as a creation device than its smaller siblings but it follows Apple's very clear philosophy. Consumption devices and Creation devices are mostly separated. The MAC was always seen as a good content creation device. It became its role in life. As 1:Many content creation has become more important so to has the Mac's growth and adoption mirror'd the trend. This contrasts with Microsoft's philosophy of a 1:1 communication device with content consumption via the web browser. Apple made their hardware devices optimized for one or the other NOT BOTH. So thus the iPad is indeed a very cool consumption device.

This somewhat goes against the grain of an "all in one" device. But who knows. It comes down in my opinion to not form over function but a unique mix of both. For that Apple needs a good pat on the back.

And of all the failings that Microsoft has - this is perhaps their clearest one. They didn't understand that personal consumption is individual. The parallels in how Apple got this right and Microsoft got it wrong becomes so obvious with hindsight.

Another observation is that Apple understood - or its just happened that way - that the iPad is not really a device for toting around. It is just ideal as the device for the home. Because people don't like creating stuff at home - they like consuming.

The iPad in my view is personal TV. Its form factor really does a great job in that score. Again Apple got this right and everyone else got it wrong.

What is interesting is that this actually may be the saviour of general media. With the demand for short form content exceeding that of long form but not having to make the choice - traditional media should feel happy.

But this is not just my view. A study by cooper murphy webb shows how the device gets used. It shows a usage preference that mirrors print. But remember the audience who was asked... early adopters. In my view this will give some significant usage pointers for the future use of the device.



So maybe you are not so sad at all....

Does this mean the Professor will breakdown and get an iPad... not just yet... but maybe when they refresh the device.

Cheers

Er Excuse Me ... But Americans Are Really Stupid...

I guess that got your attention didn't it!

But it seems I am right. On this US Labor Day weekend when the country celebrates its workers - I thought I would have a look at what the rest of the world does.

First let's talk De Jure - by Law. Americans are just sad people. They don't get any holiday. The only OECD country to so be.
And no that is not a misprint the US has ZERO.

So what about in practice?

Americans get an average of 13 vacation days per year. This is comprised of 10-11 full actual "vacation" days and 2-3 days of "flex time".

However the AVERAGE American leaves 3 of these total days unused every year.

There is even an organization formed to help you (and presumably to selling books on the subject).

But have no fear... you are not the least or worst off.

According to Financial Calendar the worst off is in order:

Bosnia has only 2.8 days. Probably an aberration. But Cuba, Serbia, Mongolia and Uzbekistan are all around 6 days.

Clearly a workers paradise.

But for now I think I am heading to Nepal where you get on average 24 days.

For a good report - head over the the Harvard Law Review and check out their full report.

Cheers and TAKE THE DAY OFF... I am going to Bumbershoot in Seattle. Should be fun

Cheers

For Apple Lovers - This Is Your Day

So sorry pilgrims of the Black Turtle Necked one.

Today will see some fun things - a real refresh of the Nano - I think we can bank on that one.

But of the others... probably nothing on the iPad other than more features in the OSv4. So from today or the near future you might be actual able to get an iPhone that works. Even a white one! I was in the AT&T store yesterday and they said that now iPhones are available but still on "special" order. IE you have to formally order them and then they arrive and are handed out on a first come first served basis.

So if you have a Mac and Safari - then head on over to the Apple Website at about 1245 PST.

For the rest of us plebs - we can read about it later.

Cheers

Still Flying Bovine Air?

Like almost everyone else on the planet - I cannot afford first class fares nor private jet travel.

Occasionally the droppings from the airline table allow me to fly in a "premium" class. But its rare. On long haul I try to fly business class - the best deal is still the Round The World fares. Right now with the dollar reasonably strong the best place to buy them is in the UK. The best deal I find is the joint BA/QF fare. Its pretty cool if you can get it. It requires a lot of planning and being adaptive. But I can get from UK to Oz to Singapore, India and then Europe. if you pay a regular RTW then this adds 40% to the cost. But you get a heck of a lot of extra flexibility.

But what about the service?

Well in general despite my FF status - the flights on long haul biz class have declined in recent years.

Apparently though not for everyone. Here is a little piece from CNN you might find amusing

Dream on...

I wonder if Bristol Palin flies like this?

Cheers

Shameless Self Promotion

Normally I would not do this - so regard this as a plea request.

I am soliciting nomination for the following awards:

UK Travel Press Awards

if you could vote for the Professor in Categories 4 and 11 that would be great.

Now whether I qualify as a "Journalist" or whether the Professor's Blog is able to be categorized as a "Publication" would seem to be a moot point in this day and age.

Cheers

Sabre Retreating From Competing With Agents Or Could It Be Incentives Reach New Heights? Nexion 'Sale' to Tzell.

At one stage Sabre had two separate travel agent networks. Well it has just offloaded one of them. Nexion the netowrk focussed on larger agents with a more corporate focus has gone to New York Agent TZell. "Terms were not disclosed" caught my eye. So being a little curious I checked....

Interesting that this should occur now - Tzell's contract with Sabre is up next year so this could be that the sale makes several people happy. So if you are a large agency - it seems the incentives to stay with your GDS in the USA is getting pretty lucrative.

So Expedia will get Travelocity when it re-ups with Sabre for its primary US GDS!!!!
If you are a large Travelport agency - perhaps you can ask for Orbitz or GTA.

The possibilities are endless! Now there is a thought....

Cheers

Oz Returns to the Duopoly Market Structure

The formal and expected announcement from the Australian Competition authorities (more correctly the ACCC) has approved the merger of Stella and Jetset/QBT. Thus creating in effect a duopoly in the market of Flight Centre and Stella Group.

With the airlines now coalesced around Qantas (including Jetstar) and Virgin Blue - the old Australian model of two of everything seems to have returned

Cheers

is AA in Plan?

AMR stock is bouncing around and there are a lot of call options out there. The initial (denied) rumour was that EK was buying them. EK has no alliance partnership so this could fill a huge hole.

Now there are many other scenarios. BA is back in the frame fresh with Spanish Money and of course Sabre's Good Friend TPG is out there.

However AMR needs restructuring. It has a lot of junk in its financial house that needs to be cleaned up.

Whoever takes them on will need to clean out the stables. But the fundementals of the business are pretty good.

Right time - Right Place?

Cheers

Google Voice - Blink And You May Miss This.

As part of the continuing public service from the friends of the Party, Mr Winston Smith has asked me to point out to the readers that they must not miss the automatic opt in screen they will be seeing if they access Google Mail (including Gmail) via a web browser.

He went to great pains to point out that this screen is actually visible on all browsers that support Gmail.

Normal Service is now resumed in the happy places we all live in .....

Michael O'Leary On The Record

This is great....

A good view.

Listen to the man himself telling it like it is. this is from a BBC interview recently

Too bad he was not quite as explicit about the long haul "amenities" as he is on Youtube. In case you missed it here it is again.

WARNING SOME PEOPLE MAY BE OFFENDED BY MOL'S IRISH USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Cheers

Google Voice - Did You Read The Fine Print?

Good Day fellow travellers on the planet Googlesphere.

Today we are looking at the new tool given to us from the munificence of the Party.

Wow Free Calls!

This is really cool. BB has really outdone himself this time. I immediately put a sell notice on all my telecom stocks and cancelled my order for Skype Stock for their impending IPO.

I tried using the service. Its pretty darn good.

But... after reading Mr Winston Smith's legal terms and conditions - I might just have a little concern about how I use it. (I am just not sure if this is before or after his little conversations with the party).

I draw your attention to several sections of the agreement that you must agree to before you can add the service. For example:

Google's Proprietary Rights

As between the parties, Google shall retain all right, title and interest to the telephone numbers used in connection with or provided as part of the Services.

I could be wrong but that did not specify which end of the conversation so you are granting to Google all rights to any call you make.

Google has the right to restrict calls or connections to any telephone numbers in its sole discretion. These may include, but are not limited to certain geographic locations, special services numbers, satellite telephony services, and other call forwarding services.

Now last time I checked the laws of the country and their instrument usually called a government has the sole right to restrict who I can speak to. In the USA there is this thing called Freedom of Speech. Quite a few people actually gave up their lives for this right.

This is in stark contrast to no such restriction by Google in who I can reach via their other forms of communication tool - one is called Google Chrome and its a web browser. I don't think Chrome can restrict which sites I can browse. The other is Gmail - I don't think Google has determined who I can and cannot send email to.... but wait they already know that so there is no worry there BB Eric is watching all of us - keystrokes and our actual private conversations.

The longest section of the terms and conditions for this "free" service is covered by the billing statement:

Bill Payment

Depending on the Google Voice service you sign up to, you may be required to pay fees in connection with the Services, as stated by Google. There may be additional fees if you request a change in any Services. Depending upon the level of Services selected by you, there may be charges for calls to or from certain locations, including without limitation payphones and areas within extended calling zones. There may also be applicable charges for any special or enhanced services you use.

Users may purchase prepaid credits to be used for Google Voice services. Google will be under no obligation to offer any refunds or reimbursements for the purchase price of such prepayments. Usage of minutes is billed in one minute increments. Prepaid credits are billed at the time of purchase.

Unless prohibited by law, any outbound calling credit that you have purchased will expire six (6) months from the most recent date of use, and may not be transferred.


... but perhaps I am just being a bit too paranoid today. But I think I am going to check the underside of my car........

Cheers

Social Media - Be Careful What You Wish For

For those of you who are not familiar with the rather repugnant voyeurism that people get up to on ChatRoulette... here is a brilliant piece of marketing on YouTube.

At the moment ChatRoulette is down. But I suspect it will return.

This is one of the more seedy side of the web. But who am I to judge?

With a tip of the hat to my nephew Professor St. John for the Facebook post on the subject.

Cheers

Etihad and Virgin Oz - Best Mates!

Two Old Boys of Aussie aviation have come together to create a somewhat interesting pact.

With an Aussie CEO at the helm of Etihad - James Hogan, EY has been looking to crack some of the stranglehold Emirates has on the lower Kangeroo market. With a significant amount of lift between DXB and across Australia the EK Southern Hemisphere network includes a lot of local and one stop traffic. This has been siphoning traffic away from BA/QF steadily for years.

The radical re-shaping of Virgin Blue and other members of the Virgin Oz family is now underway. EY and V Australia will become new long haul players fed by the Virgin Blue network. In effect this creates a third force in the market driven by players who are hungry and willing to do battle.

This could become very interesting and stimulate some real traffic across the domestic market as well as the long haul network.

With its new CEO (ex QF man) John Borghetti’s plans now become clearer - there could be an interesting casualty in all of this. BA and QF's Kangeroo Route dominance.

Cheers


Photo from Airliner.net: http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/middle/9/2/6/1214629.jpg

Delta Still Struggling with New Site

Seems like things are still not quite right with the "new" new Delta Website

This is the welcome screen

Keep pushing guys...

Wotif Confirms Robustness of Ozzie Market

They may not have a gvoernment but Australia is indicating a healthy travel economy - at least in most sectors.

While Virgin Blue and Jetset are struggling, Wotif, Jetstar, Qantas and Flight Centre are doing quite nicely thank you.

With nearly 300,000 bookings a month going through the Wotif sites - the company is now responsible for about 10% of the Australian accommodation market.

That is a big number is anyone's book.

So while other markets like the UK and the USA are suffering things seem to be ok down under.

Cheers

Are Travel Agents Being Weeded Out, Again?

I have been thinking that we may be seeing something I don't want to witness. A new wave of travel intermediary reductions.

True the numbers look pretty rose for travel agency numbers in terms of transactions and turnover but what of the number of agencies.

In two markets I think we are seeing a downsizing in the number of outlets. Both the UK and the US are noticing this.

it seems that Travel Weekly USA also noticed it. Here is an exert from August 23rd 2010 edition

Travel Counsellors, a U.K.-based group that had launched networks of home-based agents in several countries, quietly phased out its U.S. venture last month.

Earlier this month, the IT Group network, which claimed a membership of 800 agents, decided to switch gears, shut down and offer its members a new opportunity to affiliate with Vacation.com.

And this week we report eTravCo is shutting down and liquidating, advising its creditors and member agencies that it lacks the funds to cover its unsecured debts.

I am going to keep looking at this...

Cheers

Please Vote on Google's Net Neutrality Proposal

I am trying to gauge the sentiment of the Professor's readers to the issue of the Google and Verizon proposal on net neutrality.

I am personally against it as I have written before but I would like to know how people who read this blog feel about the topic.

NOTE the poll is anonymous so please feel free to vote as you see fit.

Thanks

Understanding Data - TED.com

This is well worth the time... click on this link and if you are a data junkie this is really for you.

Since we are all respond to visual stimulus then it is a critical part of what we do. So in this talk from Ted.com - which I highly recommend for brain food you go to frequently - the author David McCandless explains how he turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut -- and it may just change the way we see the world.

Its all about perspective and context. What I like about it - is that it helps us to deal with the masses amounts of data we are exposed to which in turn we can convert into something useful. I like the idea of using this for knowledge compression when we are drinking from the firehoses every day.

Anyway - ENJOY!

Cheers


information visualization

RIP Horizon Air 2011

Alaska Airlines is going to shutter branded flying for its Horizon Air wholly owned subsidiary in 2011.

This is according to Air Transport World.

I guess we will still fly Horizon Air planes (once they dump the Canadair CRJ-700s it will be an all DHC8-Q400 fleet) but the rationale for keeping the brand going as a separate entity must be waning.

Interestingly the 2 letter code is QX which is also the tax code for PFC... some accounting people will be happy

Cheers

Social Network a US Phenomenon? Guess Again

In the USA it has become pretty standard stuff to assume that Social Media was a homegrown thing. Everyone speaks of Facebook as the gold standard - and let's face it - it just is.

But its not the only game in town.

There are some significant other players who have decent presence in their respective markets.

Here is a list of some of the other non-US Social Networking sites you might want to consider and their respective penetration as of the end of 2009.

CHINA: Qzone (also known as QQ) – 200 m users as of 31.01.09 , reportedly 300m as Dec 2009 , Main land China- more that 150 m monthly active users. Also Xioni and 51 are social networking services.

Friendster - 115 m users – 61m unique users per month and 19 billion pages views per month predominantly SE Asia Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India

Google/Orkut - *100 m users – 48 languages – 51.09 m user Brazil , 20.02m users in India , 17.28m user in US.

hi5 - 80m users – 50 languages, main demographics 18 – 34 ( 67% of users ) *15m Mexico, *10.5m Thailand, *7m Peru, *7m Portugal, India, Latam , big interest in developing social games and entertainment content

RUSSIA: Vkontakte - 61 m users- Russian (cyrillic ) speaking world inc. Eastern Europe ,

S. KOREA: Cyworld - *16.2 m users – 33% of total population of Sth Korea , 90% of Sth Koreans in their 20’s are members of Cyworld.

EUROPE: Bebo - 40 m users – languages English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Polish, also Netlog (Italy) and Tuenti (Spain)

GCC: Maktoob- 36 m users, Middle East, bought by Yahoo , Aug 2009 combining 16m Maktoob users with 20m Yahoo users, originally an email service that has extended into social network and news content

NL: Hyves – 9m users ,53% of total population of The Netherlands are registered users

HUNGARY: iWiW – 4m users, 40% of total population of Hungary are registered user through invite only


Facebook itself now claims 500 million users and also has developers in 180 countries worldwide. And don't forget MySpace still hanging in there.

For a good snapshot of Facebook go here.

Brazil - Predicted To Grow Significantly

When the rest of the world was wringing its hands last year - one country that seemed to have moved into a strong position has been Brazil.

Low debt both macro and consumer has freed them from many of the endemic problems of the debt crisis (aka the GFC) last year.

For the Travel category - Brazil has continued to power an increasing number of northbound traffic to the USA. They LOVE Disney and its a right of passage to take a trip to the shrine of Mickey.

Recent studies by OTTI are indicating the US needs to get on its bike and start pitching heavily to Brazilians. South America has the highest U.S. inbound growth rate of any region and is projected to increase by 11 percent in 2010, generating more than 4.3 million visitors by 2014. Brazil, the largest South American source market, is expected to increase 22 percent in 2010 and produce a record 1.09 million visitors. By 2014 the U.S. may host 1.9 million Brazilian visitors, a 113% increase over 2009.

Those are good numbers.

Cheers

Who Says You Can't Make Money As A Brick and Mortar Agency?

Flight Centre the Brisbane based agency chain that tends to eschew the online world has reported record profits. A sustained improvement in trading conditions has seen the company record a net profit after tax of AU$139.8 million in the 12 months to June 30.

The result was an increase of 266.5% on the previous corresponding period, albeit off a lower base due to the downturn. Total transactional value fell 2% to AU$11bn, due to lower air yields. Net profit before tax rose 391.5% to AU$198m.

This contrasts pretty dramatically with the US and European traditional agency groups. However it should be noted that FC has operations in most English Speaking countries. So perhaps they do have some secret sauce. Of course that nice deal with Travelport that I wrote about last December might have a little to do with it.


Hey ho - I guess another busy day at the office!

TUI Travel Blames Small Agencies + Dynamic Packaging For Its Woes

The bigger travel companies in the UK are trying to play the blame game according to a recent report in TTG/UK.

After the recent collapses in the UK - there is plenty of bad blood floating around in the market.

Tui’s chief financial officer Paul Bowtell said: “The later booking curve plays into the hands of smaller operators who can pick up relatively cheap distressed airline stock which can they can package up.

“These operators are able to get that stock to market very quickly – they feed on distressed stock and that has an impact on margins at the lower end of the market.” He is not alone other players like Sunvil's Noel Josephides said that the main problem was dynamic packaging agencies who picked up distressed stock at the last minute.

“This is the bane of our lives,” he said. “Whenever you have distressed stock this will happen as the dynamic packagers will move in and undercut us.

Clearly ignoring the fundementals that I laid out yesterday in my post on the state of the UK Market, he said: " I’m looking forward to when all the dynamic packagers have to have an ATOL and we can stabilise the market.”

Given the need for a new scheme in the market following the Loss by the UK CAA of its court battle on the subject, this is not going to happen any time soon. But for the biggest operator to put the blame on the small guys is seems to indicate that TUI Travel is having a harder time of making its scale/size work to its favour.

On the other hand arch rival Thomas Cook UK boss Ian Derbyshire said these smaller operators had not had any “noticeable” effect on its business this summer. He added that the “softer” prices in the early part of the summer were due to weak consumer demand caused by the good UK weather and emergency budget.



... er that and a changing market anyway...

Oh well!

Cheers

Travel and the Gulf Disaster

an interesting email from the US Travel today.

http://www.magnetmail.net/actions/email_web_version.cfm?recipient_id=559619357&message_id=1090027&user_id=USTRAVEL&group_id=491816

I will let you decide to read or not... but its worth a look

Cheers

Shhhh ....Does Sir Stelios Know?

Sir Stelios now ex-board member of the airline he founded, has blown another gasket on the long running battle of the to expand or not to expand. In the London Based Sunday Times yesterday easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is objecting to the airline’s use of outside aircraft. Earlier this month, easyJet chartered a Titan Airways Boeing to cover one of its own aircraft that had a technical fault. Sir Stelios has written to easyJet claiming its use of aircraft not carrying the easyJet name and livery breaches its brand agreement.

But Shhhhhhhhhhhh there are actually two of them - both 757s leased in from other airlines.

So Sir Stelios if you would like to look at them - in glorious colour - here is where you can see both of them:

Titan Airways comes without winglets.
Air Finland also has one painted in Easyjet colours.

This is not really a case of a technical fault - it was that they just ran out of capacity and it was clearly planned since it was covered in the professor's blog on June 11th.

Cheers

UK Travel Market Still Not Well Or Is It?

There is an unwritten rule in British Travel - that large failures usually go in twos. With the failure of both GoldTrail and Kiss, this should have removed a lot of inventory from the UK market. Not good for the suppliers but better for the Tour Wholesalers.

However there is a more disturbing problem. The UK market is down and its decline is increasing from last year. Unlike most of the other markets in the rest of the world - the UK is having a hard time restoring itself. However this does assume that the markets return in the same form as before.

Actually if you look at the stats they are pretty scary.

Let's look at the last two years (taking mid year 12 month average).
In the 12-month period from July 2008 to June 2009, the number of visits abroad by UK residents, not seasonally adjusted, decreased by 10 per cent when compared with the 12 months to June 2008, from 70.9 to 63.5 million a drop of 7.4%.
In the 12-month period to June 2010, the number of visits abroad by UK residents decreased by 12 per cent when compared with the 12 months to June 2009, from 63.3 to 56.0 million – a drop of 7.3 million.

Now let's look at a comparable statistic - just for scale purposes - lets look at Ryanair. total passengers holding in their stomachs and putting up with all the terrible things that can happen to a customer.

Jul 08 - Jun 09
Total 60.2m

Jun 09 - Jun 10
Total 69.2M

Yes dear readers - you read right. This shows that Ryanair alone now carries more passengers than UK residents who travel abroad. Well while they are not happy about how they travel - the prices are just too good to pass up and away they go to consume that wonderful 50P flights I wrote about earlier.

From this we can show that there is a fundamental shift going on in the market away from the traditional VTO/Charter market. This is not new but the impact of a down economy coupled with the rise of the LCC lift by Ryanair and of course its now many bretheren has been devastating to the traditional players. Time to wake and smell the coffee everyone. Life did change.

Cheers

US Travel Stats

I have been looking at the recent numbers from different statistical perspectives. Using US Government Figures for Air Travel and sales numbers from ARC, we can see some interesting views of what is happening in the recent 12 months.

ARC's July numbers showed a nice kick in revenue growth Y/Y while down from the peaks in the early months of 2010 – that can be attributed more to the dramatic downturn the previous year. The annus horribillis 2009. Even nicer news for the government – tax revenues are also holding up. So those nasty ancillary revenues are not actually stealing money from the government’s coffers. (And remember that there are multiple forms of taxation now in the US based tickets). Actually the airlines have finally happened on a financial model that seems to be - er - sustainable.

So if it feels a little cramped on your flight - you are right - load factors are at near record highs with those old planes flying a lot longer. Interestingly enough the total number of planes in the US Fleet has returned to about the same number in 1996 - 7500.

This must be good news for the airlines that the yields are holding up - indeed this summer is going to be a bumper one in terms of revenues and profits. Airlines will be paying dividends again and Transportation may actually be a sexy category again.

Everybody should be happy right?

Actually we might want to hold off celebrating too soon. At the very time when the market should be showing growth in real traffic - we are seeing actually a slowing of growth back to levels that existed in the early part of this decade. That means that while the rest of the world is engaging in real growth the US market may indeed be looking at low growth numbers.

On the positive side that means that the market is probably right sized in terms of equipment lift and resourcing.

It also means that the march towards self-service is really paying off. Remember this has seen staffing numbers fall to record lows in total employment and in particular resulting in very high numbers of passengers per employee. Will this mean more incidents like "Chute" Slater? I hope not - and no we should not be pointing to the extra hard work that has to be done - but we can see that the salaries of the airline front staff have indeed fallen. But the numbers where the cuts have occurred have been in customer service staff and middle management. The real employment of staff engaged by the US airlines the numbers have fallen from more than 620,000 in mid 1996 to now to a tad more than 550,000. The Peak was nearly three quarters of a billion staffers. Yet traffic as measured by number of passengers and flights have increased by approx 25%. in this time period to an annual run rate of more than 700 Million US based passengers.

In the same time period we have seen other things happening. I will write more on this in a future blog entry

Cheers

CheapFlights. Only 50P plus Taxes and... ...More on Ancillaries plus a little humour!

Charlie Leocha in his newsletter today has a survey. He calls it "The Annoying Fee Survey."

I am sorry that Charlie has taken this position because I think he is doing a disservice to the cause of those who want transparency in fees. Of course fees are annoying to a consumer - DUH!

But ask a different question - would you accept fees to be able to choose what you want when you want it - then - hell yes - I would be happy with that. Transparency of pricing IS a good thing. If we can get the right level of detail and a way to display that would be great.

BUT - let's just consider another product category. Cars. In car advertising what is or is not included?

Do you know the off - the showroom price? Never.
Are taxes and destination charges included? Never.
Are all the options displayed in each ad? Never.

So here is a very amusing look at airlines. I am grateful to Professor Eric in BKK for sending me this link.

I will not give anything away except, you can guess which airline is actually the one causing these fine ladies all the grief. And yes they still fly the route - except the airport is not called Tralee but Kerry.

Cheers

Where Do You Get Your Social Media Information?

Most of us are pretty harried and very busy people. We are drinking from a large number of fire hoses. Just staying current in our dedicated fields is challenging enough. But what happens when we get lots of new stuff coming down these pipes?

Well we rely on friends and those we respect to help us out. We read - a LOT. Authoritative publications and websites are what we are used to. Humans are creatures of habit and we actually don't really like change all that much.

But something has happened. Our traditional sources of trust for knowledge are slowly eroding. They are disappearing from the landscape. Newspapers are a prime example. But also trade journals have moved away from standard paper to more on-line medium. Great for the forests but not so good for our brain cells I believe.

So who do we trust and where do we go to get our information about social media. Surprisingly most of us eschew actually gaining the experience from well Social Media itself. The very people who used to be the determinators of our adoption of all media seem to find Social Media "Challenging". So says a study by the Creative Group. But actually it gets worse. They dont even go to these tools to learn about them. Regular readers know I am not a huge fan of Twitter. I am also not a FBA (Facebook Addict). I recognize the value of these tools but I am also realistic in my consumption and usage.

Advertising and marketing executives were asked, "How challenging is it for you to stay current on social media trends?" Their responses:
Very challenging 9%
Somewhat challenging 56%
Not challenging 35%

The same group of executives also were asked, "What do you consider the single best resource for staying current on social media trends?" Their top responses included:

Conferences or seminars 23%
Networking events or industry association meetings 18%
Webinars or online training 17%
Trade publications 15%
Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn posts 14%
Blogs 7%

So by just reading the Professor's rantings - you become members of an elite group.

In my day job - I have been asking people I work with and interact with where they get their information on. One group of bloggers are - not - surprisingly ALL OVER Social Media. But in the main most people (barstool research) have really little direct interaction with Social Media.

This is dangerous. Everyone needs to know what is exactly going on. Even if a lot of the material being pumped our can be absolute drivel.

And then of course their are the addicts... How did they end up that way?

Same way all the usual suspects did

Cheers

Who Is Fooling Who?

This post is going to be a bit self serving - but I have been waiting for a long time for someone to ask this question. Since no one seems to be doing the honours - looks like I will have to ask it myself.

The question is directed specifically to the legacy GDSs. Each of them has a new product that promises to connect to the other GDSs.

Amadeus One
Sabre Red
Travelport Universal Desktop

(I am not showing favoritism - this is purely in alphabetical order by vendor and by product name).

The promise of multi access content by a GDS based tool complete with access to third party content INCLUDING other GDSs is quite interesting. Surely it is not a technical restriction. Even going back to the good old days of ALC this has been possible with ALC boards from companies like Lanyon, IBM, Emulex etc etc. So it's a commercial issue or is just bloody mindedness? Perhaps something even more sinister?

So far I have yet to see a single announcement of these new tools actually coming to a commercial agreement where the user is free to access third party content on these new agency desktop tools.

GDS contracts now (frequently) contain specific exclusion clauses that expressly forbid the use of a GDS provided tool from accessing third party content of any sort without the specific permission of said legacy GDS.

For those of us old enough to remember when GDSs used to provide agency automation. There was the ludicrous situation of the provider trying to prevent a user from not accessing the web via the terminal to access another GDSs content. Being the sort of person I am - I used to sneak onto stands at Tradeshows and call up a web screen and have a different GDS screens displayed. It would drive people nuts. A Sabre Screen on an Amadeus Stand, A Worldspan screen on a Galileo PC (before the shotgun marriage). I almost felt like a graffiti artist!

Many of my clients have been actually accessing multiple systems for years. it was to enable them to be commercially competitive. If you take Europe where the largest (by passenger) international airline is Ryanair - there is no possible way to prevent a good travel agency from accessing non-GDS content. But there are GDS specific contract clauses which either expressly forbid it or place punitive terms for engaging in that behavior. In the view of what my clients provide as solutions on the technical side - they provide open access tools that enable access to any content through common interfaces for B2C or B2B applications.

So let's cut the rhetoric shall we and call a spade a spade. GDS open access is a marketing ploy and a nonstarter in any form of reality.

But let's see if anyone tries to do it. I have actually seen demos of all 3 tools with access to other GDS content. Too bad the commercial nature of the legacy GDSs which is to restrict the access to having them be the gatekeepers (complete with ever rising toll charges).

But let me make a prediction.

This is going to be swept away. The control of the access to content by anyone - will make that player go the way of - well let's say AOL.

Predicting when it will happen is somewhat hard - but happen it will.

Just as the Fool on the Hill.

Cheers

How Stupid Are You?

Yes YOU!

The Frequent Flyer Geek.

Actually probably all of at some time have succumbed to a proposition we know is really bad but it just sounds good enough.

Sadly there seems to be a lot of suckers out there who are willing to buy Frequent Flyer Miles.

Scott McCartney this week has done an excellent piece on FF miles and how valuable they really are.

Check it out - and then if this really is you - enjoy your guilt - I am not telling anyone, well almost no one other than the lot of you who read this blog.

Cheers

Can An Airline Do This?

I consulted one of my learned colleagues who is also a Professor and asked him whether the following statement is legally allowed, desirable or even lawful:

QUOTE:
"This email is intended solely for the addressee(s) and the information it contains is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, (a) please delete this email and inform the sender as soon as possible, and (b) any copying distribution or other action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance upon it is prohibited and may be unlawful."
UNQUOTE:

She described the statement as useless gobbledygook. In particular the last phrase is incomprehensible.

For obvious reasons I am not going to embarrass the airline concerned with naming them - but they know who they are.
And by the way the email arrived as part of a solicitation for me to fill out a customer survey.

This is how the email started:

Dear Professor

Thank you for being a loyal XXXX Club member. Because your opinion matters to us, we would like to invite you to take this short five-minute survey that will help us enhance our future marketing programs.

etc etc

This is not girls gone wild - its Lawyers gone off their trolleys.

Another candidate for the Queen of Hearts favourite epithet....

Cheers

Hipmunk - Too Hip Can't Go...Yet

A bit of buzz around Hipmunk today because of a post in Techcrunch. I personally refuse to be drawn into TC's drive to become the arbiter of cool in web stuff. So I don't read it everyday. I try only to read things that are pertinent to me... we are of course all drowning in way too much information.

However - this is travel and so I spent a little time with the new site. I did however like the idea that there are other forms of interface - and particularly the simplicity angle. I think many of the Professor's regular readers know that I believe there is an evolution to natural search coming - and coming quickly. It happened before Google and ITA started dancing. But a pretty interface is not natural search. There are some nice features and its a work in progress so I will defer holding judgement on this part of it.

This is a worthy attempt. From what I can see they are using ITA's usual service and just representing the data. I don't think the information can be manipulated once its presented in this form so the information is - just static and therefore of little upgrade value. Some of the filters are weird. Why would I want to sort on agony value - at least not as the first choice. (Perhaps I am being too critical since I read right to left).

I don't like the way they handle code shares. Its plain dumb.
One feature I REALLY like is the Live Help - this is something that is exceptional value to a user - too bad they just ignored my request for help.

And for the name? I still have somewhere a SIGNED copy of a Chipmunks red vinyl signed. David Saville is spinning in his grave.

Cheers

And Another One Down - KISS

After a lot of hullabaloo around KISS - the airline in a box - it went belly up today.

Sadly this has again grounded thousands of passengers around Europe. Kiss started as a business to replace the seat only flights of the collapsed XL Airways and Fly Globespan. It was founded by Michael Smith and Paul Moss, who had previously worked at failed tour operator XL Airways which also went into administration in September 2008

Through an intermediary they had their aircraft provided by Viking Airways who put a note on their website today to show they are healthy - despite having a portion of their fleet devoted to Flight Options (the actual company that was KISS).

So this marks yet another major collapse in the UK travel market this year.

It doesn't seem to be so clear why the regulatory bodies are not doing more to protect the consumers.

The ATOL bond pool is going to be pretty empty by the end of the year.

Delta Air lines Makes Upgrades Even Nicer - Not Necessarily Easier

Fresh off their new website upgrade - Delta is upping the value of the Medallion Program.

There are two major enhancements on the books and in effect immediately.

1. Upgrades on award tickets. I guess this makes higher value award ticket prices theoretically redundant.
2. Upgrades on companion tickets even down to the lowest U,L and T classes.

Delta has done a pretty good job in making its medallion program better and better particularly for the Silver and Gold levels. At the same time they have made the differences for the Platinum and Diamond members a little less special.

Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And here is where the rubber and the road meet.

In the case of the Senior classes - Platinum and Diamond - this will mean that flying Delta will be less special. The changes mean that every domestic flight will be full in the front no matter what.

If I can make one suggestion to Delta - make the international upgrades JUST a little bit easier for the higher grades. The change for the 2010 year resulted in a loss of value for the Platinum members - 4 upgrades down from 6. The system wide upgrades are now of little value except in the case when a full fare passenger can use it for International travel. Its highly convoluted and almost impossible to use.

All in all the Skymiles program is one of the best in the business. What will the other guys do?

We shall see

Cheers

LATAM 2 - Keep Updated

The new airline LATAM has launched a dedicated website:

http://www.latamairlines.com/index.php

Check it out!

Cheers

Real Flying

They call us Kerosene junkies. We love flying and airplanes. Most of us are frustrated pilots - absent the mentality and skills to be come one. Other lesser forms exist like Anoraks - you can't miss them they hang around at the end of a runway.

When I was in college I tried really hard to become a pilot. I took all the right courses and then failed consecutively in the following places:

The RAF
The Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm
The Army Aviation
BOAC/BEA intake at Hamble in Southampton.

At least in the latter one they agreed to interview me. Must have been a slow week. So I traveled along with other potential cadets. As we took the bus to the dorm room for the night my heart sank.

"Yeah I have my IR (Instrument rating) last year - had my PPL for 2 years already." said one clean faced chap who looked like he was 12. "It's such a bore - I love flying but Balliol and rowing are such a rush..." said a Sean Connery look alike with slick back hair. Most of the others had already done things like being in the Air Cadets. My claim to fame was a piece I had written largely modeled on a PR package from Boeing in Paris.

I managed to hold my own during the day - the old Link Trainer was cool. The written tests were very straight forward. I think I did the interview OK. So the last test of the day as the sun had already gone down was the hand eye coordination test.

In this you have two maps of circles connected by lines. You have a pen in each hand (Biro!) and you have to listen as clicks and snaps are in your ear and a sound that indicates to change direction on the paper. Well that didn't last long before I lost it. So too did almost everyone else. Except some of the guys were extremely calm and just started again. After less than a minute I ripped off the headphones and gave up in disgust.

I still had one more attempt, I tried to join as a Steward (that's flight attendant to you and me - a la Chute Slater). I think I failed because I told the interview lady - a rather stern spinster with graying hair but immaculately turned out like she had just come off the set of Mad Money - that I wanted to get into management and how this was just a stepping stone for me. Two of my friends who went with me got the job and actually flew as Stews for a number of years.

And the point of this story? Well this week's New Yorker has two great pieces on it. One by David Sedaris - who is a VERY funny guy is not visible online. If you ever get a chance to hear him on NPR or in person - go - he is just funny. The other is a story about a New York based photographer who likes to literally fly free form. I tried this once. What a rush... jumping off into the air - in my case onto a bed of snow - was one of the coolest things I ever did as a 20 something. For some reason never did it again but I have a strange poloroid of me literally flying.

And you know... Flying is cool. Really Cool.

Cheers

MakeMyTrip Pops a Big One - Travel Is Hot Again

Ah yeah baby...

Travel is HOT HOT HOT.

The 89% first day pop on Indian OTA Make My Trip should give a lot of people confidence that travel is back and back big time. In what the Motley Fool called one of the hottest in years... there is a lot for the industry to smile about.

So let's see - is this just the consumer market or is there good stuff that can occur elsewhere in Travel Technology?

In my view this should give the Gnomes of Langley and Atlanta some comfort as they struggle to find ways to put a little lipstick on the porcine Travelport. For Sabre this will undoubtedly revive the debate as to whether they go wholly out as an entity or if they go down the Blackstone path and push Travelocity out separately. While Travelocity is a great property - it has lost its luster like any of the big four with the notable exception of Priceline.

Cheers