Technology: Planes, Trains, and User-Generated Content The 1987 film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" tells the story of Neal Page (Steve Martin), an uptight advertising exec whose hour and 45-minute flight home to Chicago for Thanksgiving turns into an epic misadventure.
Posted Wed Dec 2, 2009
Technology: Soon We'll Have Forgotten What Travel Was Like, Pre-Smartphone I haven’t found anyone who doesn't love their Apple iPhone. If you're a chronic traveler like me, what's so appealing, apart from the incomparable ease of use and Web surfing integration is the content. With 100,000 Apple App Store apps — many of which are downloadable for free — there are just so many ingenious new travel applications that I'm sure many travelers are getting hooked. I already am.
Posted Wed Nov 18, 2009
Technology: Mobile Apps Are Where It's At Travel is changing even as travel has slowed. But actually that is typical for economic downturns — recessions are times when the pressure to innovate becomes most critical. Some of our greatest technological strides were made during the Great Depression, so the current flurry of new applications for smartphones and other mobile devices is not at all that surprising. Still, the speed of the change is breathtaking.
Posted Mon Nov 9, 2009
Technology: Mobile Boarding Passes: Convenience, or Technology for Technology's Sake? When new software is introduced, such as whiz-bang applications for mobile devices, technology reviewers tend to focus whether it is the latest, greatest, or coolest thing to hit the market. Less often do you see reviewers take a step back and ask the forest-for-the-trees question, i.e., Do we even need this technology? What's driving it? Is it fixing something that is not broken? The big one for me is, Is it going to be more trouble than it is worth?
Posted Wed Sep 2, 2009
Technology: Transparency in Pricing Means Technology in Practice
Fliers increasingly are warming up to the concept of choice, aka à la carte, meaning paying only for those services you want in the airport or on the plane. But going à la carte comprehensively, that is, across hundreds of airlines around the world, is not as easy as it seems. New real-time booking technology is required to make that a reality.
Posted Sat Jun 13, 2009
Technology: The Wild Green Yonder
In January, Continental Airlines became the first U.S. airline to test biofuel in a jet engine. The Boeing 737 used a B50 blend of jet-A, jatropha, and algae - so it was 50 percent conventional jet fuel and 50 percent bio-oil.
Posted Thu Jun 4, 2009
Technology: Alliances Make Economic Sense for Airlines and Fliers Taking his cue from Don Quixote, James Oberstar (D-Minn.) is tilting at basic economic reality in seeking to roll back airline alliances. Evidently without analyzing whether alliances are good or bad for the airlines and their passengers, Oberstar is proceeding from the assumption that alliances strangle competition and thus must be bad for customers.
Posted Fri Apr 24, 2009
Technology: When Is a Cola Not a Cola?
This month, Northwest Airlines' identity is merging with that of Delta Air Lines, starting with abandonment of the old Northwest uniforms. FoxBusiness.com reports that baggage counters, gates, and luggage claim areas are all being redone in Delta's flagship hues of red, white, and blue. But it will take until the end of next year to repaint all of Northwest's planes.
Posted Wed Apr 8, 2009
Technology: A380 Encounters Turbulence
Is the Airbus A380 a plane in search of a mission?
According to a report in The Straits Times, if not for the recession, traffic controllers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) might have to turn away the A380 because it presents so many problems for the airport.
Qantas currently is the only airline flying A380s into LAX.
Posted Wed Mar 25, 2009
Technology: Destination Moon
Travel technology is taking one small leap for mankind in this moon walk anniversary year. It is, after all, forty years this July 20 that the Armstrong and Aldrin set down on the moon. It is also the year that the private suborbital space tourism industry, highlighted by start-ups like Virgin Galactic, really ramps up.
Posted Fri Mar 6, 2009
Technology: Mobile Tech Advances Will Soon Let Travelers Leave the Laptop Behind
Travel may be in the doldrums but travel technology is still advancing by leaps and bounds, ensuring greater connectivity and productivity all 'round.
One of the most noticeable benefits for travelers in the improvement of mobile technology — such as the iPhone, iTouch, BlackBerry, and other “smart device” options — is that the traditional laptop will become obsolete. Mobile technology is moving so fast that soon you'll be able to do on a PDA much of what you do on a laptop, including full Internet browser access.
Posted Sat Feb 14, 2009
Technology: Social Networking Meets Your Travel Itinerary
If you'd like some good news about travel, mine is that technology is evolving in ways which helps travelers organize their trips to a "t."
Posted Mon Dec 22, 2008
Technology: Get the Best Airline Deals. Getting the best airline deals is an important way to save your company money. But the Internet is a crowded and complex place. If you're hoping to find one website where all of the lowest prices live, forget it.
Finding the lowest airline prices takes legwork.
Finding the best airline deals takes even more legwork. But first you've got to define what "best" means to you.
Here is my advice for getting the best airline deals:
Posted Wed Dec 10, 2008
Technology: Other Challenges to Carriers in 2009 Fuel prices and future fuel hedging strategies will continue to heavily influence the financial performance of airlines in the coming year.
Posted Thu Dec 4, 2008
Technology: Come One, Come All? The a la carte model seems to be the topic du jour these days in the world of air travel. The airlines' move to an unbundled, or a la carte, strategy is forecast by many to be one of the biggest evolutions in airline retailing since carriers started selling tickets.
Posted Fri Nov 28, 2008
Consumers Dislike Fees, But Are Willing To Pay For Choice No one ever before asked consumers in a survey what they thought of à la carte airline pricing, so Amadeus decided to. Passengers were polled about the new fees for everything from bags and food/beverages to pillows and seat assignments.
Posted Wed Nov 19, 2008
Technology: The Upside of À La Carte Air Travel The aviation market is under tremendous cost pressure, with not only high fuel prices but a softening economy impacting air travel and causing carriers to slash capacity. And these factors are pushing carriers to become quite dynamic in their day-to-day operations.
Posted Wed Nov 12, 2008
Travel in the Credit Crunch It's no surprise that Americans are traveling less during the credit crunch era. One of the pillars that had been supporting domestic carriers in the downturn, however -- international travel -- is now also showing signs of slowing. What started out as a tough year for air travel has become a very difficult one, with operating costs still high, and capacity reductions tied to those high costs.
Posted Thu Nov 6, 2008
Technology: The Future of Air Travel As I gaze into what the future holds for air travel, I see that it is undergoing such a vast change that everything will be different in two years and everything will be unrecognizable in five years.
Posted Wed Oct 29, 2008
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