Posted on: Sunday, September 28, 2003
Wi-Fi, expansion by discount airlines among travel trends
By Chris Woodyard
USA Today
Summer is over, but new travel experiences lie ahead. Here are four things that travelers can look forward to this fall and winter:
• Low-fare airlines stretch out. More discount carriers will show they can go the distance this fall. Long distances, that is. Low-fare airlines that established themselves flying shorter trips are taking aim at nonstop transcontinental service, long the domain of major carriers. The invasion will lead to a certain result: lower fares on all airlines serving the routes.
Major airlines have cut meals, legroom and enough other amenities in coach that many passengers can't see the difference compared with no-frills carriers.
Where fares will fall next:
• America West. Nonstops between Los Angeles and both Boston Logan and New York JFK begin Oct. 26. New York JFK-San Francisco flights start Dec. 19. New Boston-San Francisco service will begin March 1. In the past, America West's transcontinental flights always stopped at either its Las Vegas or Phoenix hubs. • JetBlue. It recently began flights from Atlanta to Oakland. In the past, all of its transcontinental flights began or ended in New York JFK. • AirTran. Service between Atlanta and San Francisco starts Nov. 12. During the summer, AirTran started flying from Atlanta to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. • Southwest. The largest discount airline, which flies several nonstop transcontinental routes, starts Las Vegas-Raleigh/Durham flights on Oct. 5.
• Song. Delta Air Lines' low-fare carrier began flights between Los Angeles and both Tampa and Orlando this month. It will add Los Angeles-Fort Lauderdale and Boston-Las Vegas service Wednes-day. A day later, New York JFK-Las Vegas flights start. "It's going to be great for me because my daughter goes to school in Florida," says Mike Walker of South Pasadena, Calif., who took a Song flight from Los Angeles to Tampa recently. He estimates he'll save up to $200 for a round trip.
• Book holiday flights now. Think you can wait a couple of months, grab a cheap airfare and fly off to see grandma at Thanksgiving? Think again.
Cutbacks in airline flights are making holiday trips more expensive this year.
If flights aren't sold out, "they are seeing big increases in fares" to the most popular destinations, says Glenn Vias, owner of the Travel Haus travel agency in Castle Rock, a Denver suburb. "Certain flights are selling out, no doubt about it."
Especially difficult or expensive: warm-weather destinations such as Mexico or the Caribbean.
"You have to beg, borrow or steal or pay a refinance-your-home airfare" for resort destinations, says Tom Parsons, publisher of Bestfares.com. Elsewhere, he says fliers can still luck out if they act fast. Christmas and New Year's Day both fall on Thursdays this year. The midweek holidays make for more flexible options that could mean lower fares rather than limiting travel days to weekends, Parson says.
The holiday rush is worse because airlines have cut back flights — 9 percent in July compared with July 2002, the Air Transport Association reports. But more people want to fly, so airliners are bulging — most were more than 80 percent full over the summer at many major airlines.
"We're running at record load factors," says Terry Trippler of CheapSeats.com. "Get out and book now."
• Hotels hook guests with Wi-Fi. Thousands more hotels will say they do by this time next year. It's the next must-have amenity, allowing guests to use their laptop computers without having to plug into the phone system. And it promises to be as popular as those little bars of hotel soap.
About 9,000 hotels in the United States and Canada are expected to offer wireless Internet service in lobbies or other public areas by next year, says Gartner, a technology research firm.
That's up from about 4,000 this year and 1,000 last year.
It's not just a techie thing. Hotels in all locations and price ranges are going wireless and sometimes offering the service at no charge, from the $99-a-night Holiday Inn Express in Brown Deer, Wis., to the $269-and-up Willard InterContinental in Washington.
"I walked by a guy who was completely into his laptop, and I asked him if he was enjoying hot-spot Wi-Fi. He just looked at me with a big smile," says Willard spokeswoman Barbara Bahny.
• China tourism to rebound. Not even the Great Wall will be enough to stop the next invasion of China — by tourists. The spring scare over severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has faded. Big travel discounts are expected to result in a stampede to visit Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Some say it's already starting.
"Hong Kong is coming back with a vengeance," says Joel Chusid, managing director of sales for China Eastern Airlines. "China is not coming back as fast."
