This week's TravelFaxx is brought to you by Omega World Travel and LAN Airlines.
OMEGA’S FEATURED PARTNER – LAN AIRLINES
LAN Airlines is one of the leading airlines in Latin America. 'LAN' makes reference to the consolidated entity that includes LAN Airlines, LAN Express, LAN Peru, LAN Ecuador, and LAN Argentina, as well as LAN Cargo and its affiliates. The LAN Alliance serves 15 destinations in Chile, 12 destinations in Peru, ten destinations in Argentina, two destinations in Ecuador, 15 destinations in other Latin American countries and the Caribbean, three destinations in the United States, two destinations in Europe and four destinations in the South Pacific, as well as 52 additional international destinations through its various code-share agreements. LAN Airlines is a member of oneworld (TM), the world's leading global airline alliance.
MAJOR RUNWAY CLOSING AT JFK
New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport isn’t known for on-time departures and things will likely get worse before they get better for travelers using the airport this spring. Starting Monday, JFK’s business runway will close for four months for reconstruction. The $376 million project for Runway 12-31 will widen it from 150 to 200 feet and add taxiways, all in an effort to ease traffic congestion at the airport. To combat the possible increase in departure delays, officials are reducing the number of arrivals and departures at the airport from about 1,300 a day to 1,050. (CNN.com, Mar. 2)
MIDWEST AIRLINES BRAND HEADED FOR RETIREMENT?
The Midwest Airlines name and logo may finally disappear altogether. This move is likely to cut costs and create a more focused marketing approach for Midwest’s new owner. Midwest’s new owner is parent company Republic, which bought both Midwest and Frontier airlines last year. It has since been flying the two carriers as stand-alone brands. However, Republic has since mixed some of the two airlines’ fleets, meaning that some Midwest-branded flights are actually operated on Frontier-branded aircraft and vice versa. Republic has announced that they are now headed towards a unified brand. It is unclear what this new brand would be called but it may not be either Frontier or Midwest. (USAToday.com, Mar. 2)
YOTEL BUILDS FIRST ‘POD’ HOTEL IN TIMES SQUARE
Yotel, an operator of “pod” hotels in international airports, is moving into city centers by opening a 669-room hotel in New York’s Times Square. Launched three years ago by Yo! Sushi founder Simon Woodroffe, Yotel offered hotel facilities in small capsules, typically charging £25 for a four-hour stay to business travelers needing a place to rest while in transit. Yotel built accommodations within Gatwick’s south terminal, Heathrow’s Terminal 4 and Amsterdam’s Schipol airport, part of a wave of hotel operators that brought the Japanese concept of micro-accommodations to Europe.
(Financial Times, Mar. 2)
THINGS LOOKING UP FOR U.S. AIRLINES
After more than a year of slumping demand and sinking revenue, the nation’s airline industry is beginning to show signs of a recovery, with modest increases in revenue and forecasts of growing demand this year. The indications of a recovery, documented in recent government and airlines reports, come after 14 straight months of declining revenue for the nation’s airlines and passenger traffic totals that have been dropping for almost two years. The news may be a mixed blessing for airline travelers. As demand increases, carriers are likely to gradually raise airfare rates. However, if demand remains strong, the airlines are expected to add more flights and new routes to meet the demand. (LATimes.com, March 2)
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