American Airlines passes first reservations test: next one comes today
Last Saturday, October 17th, I was flying with American Airlines on formerly-US Airways flights from Washington, DC, to London. All went well, though I was expecting long lines and problems at the airports. It looks like management at US Airways and American Airlines did what has been impossible for any other merger. Now, we are waiting for the first big business-travel day, today.
American passed the first test of its post-merger reservations system cutover on Saturday, switching US Airways to the Sabre system with no apparent problems.
Throughout the morning at Charlotte Douglas International Airport — until Saturday the biggest hub for US Airways — lines at the ticket counter were short.
American “ambassadors,” some of them workers from other departments in Dallas who had agreed to help out over the critical weekend, approached even those passengers who seemed like they might have a question, guiding some to the short lines and some to kiosks. The kiosks worked.
Basically, American flooded the zone in Charlotte, and it succeeded, perhaps more than in any similar merger, in avoiding a breakdown.
A second level test will come Monday morning, typically a heavy travel period given an abundance of business travelers who begin the work week by flying.
Uber, Lyft have surpassed taxis, now spell trouble for the rental car business
Business is going strong for ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft. For the first time, an organization that tracks corporate travel expenses, shows that these services are surpassing traditional taxi cabs and limos when it comes to service.
“Business travelers now prefer ride sharing services to taxis across the U.S.,” reads Certify’s sharing economy report for the third quarter of 2015. “Trends also reveal how ride sharing providers like Uber and Lyft are beginning to gain ground on rental cars.”
“Over the past 7 quarters, ride sharing has steadily increased as a percentage of overall ground transportation, while taxi and rental car [sic] have declined,” the report says. In San Francisco, Certify found that some 82 percent of hired car rides by its customers were in ride shares, versus a mere 12 percent for rental cars and a minuscule 6 percent for taxis. In Boston, the difference was 45 percent for ride shares versus 23 percent for rental cars, though taxis maintained a higher market share of 32 percent.
PGA Tour’s Will Wilcox has bad luck with rental cars
Some days, travel hassles end up creating problems even for the tops in their field. One of the top PGA golfers had a double whammy of problems associated with his rental car. Fortunately, all ended (somewhat) well.
“On Monday morning of this week, I slammed my right knee into the dash of my rental car, which was set up much differently than my car, while getting in to drive to a fundraiser golf event outside of Atlanta,” Wilcox wrote on his web site.
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Will received a call on Wednesday morning from the front office of the hotel he was staying at. The hotel informed him that his Mercedes-Benz rental for the Frys.com Open had been involved in a break-in.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.