Up in the Air
One last themed news chum as appetizer before we serve the stew. I’ll let you decide if this is suitable to spread on crackers.
- Another Nail in the Coffin of Third-Party Travel Agents. As I wrote in my aphorism post, travel websites make their money by steering you to hotels. Just as with travel agents of yore, they earn commissions and referral fees. The hotels, naturally, hate this - not because they want to save you money, but they want that commission profit for themselves. Just as we have seen elsewhere in other industries, they will be doing whatever they can do to up their profits. Here’s another example of that trend, this time in Las Vegas: As part of MGM’s profit growth plan, the company intends to realize further income by asking customers to help them put a boot on the neck of 3rd party travel retailers. The target? The 15% cut MGM pays to Expedia Inc. (Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Trivago, Travelocity, Orbitz etc), Priceline Group (Priceline.com, Kayak, Booking.com, Agoda, OpenTable) and even family-owned shops like Jadd Fong Travel in north east Albquerque, New Mexico. How are they going to do this? MGM Resorts International is going to begin penalizing guests who book via third parties, not by direct confrontation but by withholding services and adding fees. Forewarned is…
- Flying the 727. Those of us who are old enough will remember the Boeing 727. Here’s an interesting report on the refurbishment of an early 727, and what it was like to fly it.
- Speeding Up Boarding. Here’s an interesting report on a patent by Airbus: The plane, instead of being a single, contiguous hull, would have a huge hole in the middle where the passengers and luggage would normally be. Instead of boarding the plane directly, passengers and luggage would be loaded into a separate “cabin module.” Then, when the module is ready to go, it’s simply dropped into the airplane. You would take your seat in the module, from the comfort of the departure lounge… and then descend into the airplane when it’s ready to go. Interesting idea? Will it ever happen?
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