It’s back across the pond for a conference in France. Toulose is located near the Pyrenees mountains, somewhat close to the Spanish border. Every time I come here, it has been cloudy. We shall see about this time.
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I’m not really a frequent flier anymore, but I travel enough to believe the merger of Northwest and Delta will be the death of small-market air service.
My airport, in Sioux Falls, was always Northwest-dominated, feeding into the airline’s main hub in Minneapolis. Delta and United also served Sioux Falls, acting as quasi-competitors. But now that Northwest and Delta are one, there is barely any competition in Sioux Falls.
I just had my first real experience with this, trying to book a one-way fare to Norfolk, Virginia for a Saturday in October. I didn’t expect it would be difficult to find a decent price, since I am pretty flexible in my travel plans, and was booking for a weekend over a month away. I have been shopping all of the travel websites to see what I could find. I have kept track of the fares for a couple weeks, and have truly been shocked by what I have been seeing.
Here is what I found on Orbitz.com, and the other travel sites are very similar. The least expensive one-stop fare for a one-way ticket out of Sioux Falls on a Saturday is $737 plus taxes? Really? The only conclusion I can reach is that Northwest and Delta are gouging Sioux Falls. I prefer to fly from my home airport, and I am willing to pay a little extra to do so. But this is ridiculous.
I then researched fares for the same flight out of Omaha, a three hour drive from here. I know that Southwest Airlines (which is not included in Orbitz listings) has routes into Omaha, and have always heard its influence is profound. Judging by what I see, I totally agree.
I checked the Southwest website to confirm what I suspected. Southwest’s price for the same route on the same day is so low that Northwest/Delta matches it, seemingly for competitive reasons.
Actually, the final price is not the same. I need to check two pieces of luggage, a simple act that would cost me 40 dollars in fees from Northwest/Delta. Two pieces of luggage are free on Southwest, so you can guess which airline I booked, even though it means a three hour drive to Omaha just to get on a plane.
One would expect more and more travelers will make the pilgrimage down I-29 to use the Omaha airport instead of Sioux Falls. As a former Northwest silver elite frequent flier based in Sioux Falls, I am sad to see it happen. But the new, merged, more expensive airline is forcing travelers to do it.
Postscript: Rather than booking a one-way ticket, I found it is more “affordable” to buy a roundtrip ticket from Sioux Falls-Norfolk for $497. But the point stands – even that is three hundred dollars higher than driving to Omaha – and that’s before you factor in the checked luggage fees.
My weather colleague and friend Francis Wilson, of Sky News in London, defines English summer as “three fine days and a thunderstorm.” In my experience this description is accurate, including a recent layover at Heathrow airport. One fine August day – overcast and 63 degrees.
Heathrow Airport
I do enjoy flying British Airways. Their seats are leather, and have a width appropriate for the average adult body. BA also serves proper airline snacks – cookies with coffee, or proper sized bag of nuts, even on a short flight. That is much better than the mini-bags of pretzels we are subjected to in the US.
But even better than that was the midday fare on the KLM City Hopper from Geneva to Amsterdam.
Lunch on KLMWe had a cheese sandwich, a chicken salad sandwich, and a choice of beverage (wine or beer included). Keep in mind, Americans, it was only a one hour and fifteen minute flight – and I was in coach. There were only two flight attendants on board, and they had no trouble serving lunch and getting everything picked up before we landed.
Compare that to my one hour flight from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls on Northwest/Delta. When we took off, the two flight attendants announced that – due to the short duration of the flight – we would not have any beverage service in the “main cabin.”
Cheapskates.
Geneva is truly an international city. Important people from all over the world live here, and this might explain why.
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Geneva, Switzerland, is one of the world’s great cities. It is also a little expensive.
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This is the first in what will be a series of podcasts expected to originate in Europe. By way of introduction, we talk a bit about the drag of jet lag.
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