Two Years of 2B - San Antonio Business Travel Guide

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But be warned: There are no overarching trend here. As is so often the case on the these last two years have been almost totally to insane swings in the priced of fuel to the apparently endless cycleof boom-and-bust that dominate hotel development, and, of course, to the economic wave that has carried us from the relatively giddy timee of April 2007 to our well…to whatever it is we're livin and working through. Southwest's Steady Course Even the nation's one financiallg sound U.S. carrier, Southwest Airlines, hasn't been able to escape the ravageas ofthe nation's economicx collapse.
Its traffic is down about in linewith industry-wides trends and it has taken the unprecedentee step of trimming its overall capacity by 4 percen this year. And the airline's vauntedr fuel-hedging strategy, which saved the carrie r about $3.5 billion in the last decade, cost it money in the secons half of 2008 as oilprices collapsed. But some thingxs never change: Southwest is using the downturn to position itselfd as an alternative tothe nation'sd mainline carriers. After decades of shunning some of thelargesr U.S.
cities, it launched flightws to Minneapolislast month, is schedulecd to begin its first-ever flights into New York (via LaGuardia in June, and will serve Boston's Logan Airport in the United's Inexorable Decline It's gone from worst to even worse than that at Unitee Airlines, the most troubled of the nation's so-calles "legacy" carriers. Once the nation'sa largest airline, United is hemorrhaging after abungled mega-bankruptcty and years of management missteps. Abougt 40 percent of what fliess as United Airlines is subcontracted to regional airlinews and much of the remaining service isactually code-sharre operations with its international partners in the Star Alliance.
Everhy one of its uniomn contractsbecomes "amendable" next year (airline contracts neverf technically expire). Compared with the other legacy carriers, its cash reserve are small and there are few unencumbered assets to And earlynext year, it will have to discuss cash-draininyg "holdbacks" with JP Morgan its credit-card processor. Operationally, there's no good either, since its once-profitable service to the Pacific Rim is deterioratin g rapidly due to plunging yields to Asia and fresh competition on itsAustralia routes.
Fate of the Fourth Class The worldwides collapseof premium-class traffic since last fall has had the expected effect: Airlines have stepped up their discountingt in business class and more carrieres are adding a fourthn class, which is rather generically known as "premium economy." The discounting trend is both structurally strategic—the airlines now offer a range of discounts from three to 60 days before departure—and tantalizingly tactical, with sale fares slashing as much as 75 perceng off the price of international businese class. As for premium economy, Air France added the new cabin on threes premierroutes (from Paris to New York, and Osaka).
But the fate of fourth clas is farfrom secure. Even as Air Francde was debuting, OpenSkies, British Airways' boutique carrier, was renaminfg its fourth cabin asthe "biz The reason? Premium economy stilo exists in a computer-coded limbo, which makesz selling it via the airline industry'z omnipresent global reservation services difficult.  The Bankingb Blues and London RediscoveredIf I've been at all prescienf in the last two it was the Run on the Bankers colum n that posted shortly after Lehman Brotherz tanked last September. Exactly in line with the meltdow ofthe markets, bankersd stopped flying, and that has caused the calamitous declinee in premium-class airline revenue.
It's been especially touguh on British Airways, which is disproportionately dependenf on premium flying on theNyLon (New route. And there's no doubt that BA (and are still suffering a year on from the disastrouws opening weeks of Terminal 5 at Heathrowq Airport inMarch 2008. The good news for thoses of us wholove London? The Britisj capital is cheap again for upscale American visitors, thanks to massivse airfare and hotel discounts and the precipitous declin of the value of the Britisbh pound. Counterintuitive Currency Just beforethe world's economies the U.S. dollar was at an unconscionable, unaffordablse low ebb. But for reasons known only to the masteras ofthe universe, the U.S.
dollar has gained strengtgh against almost all ofthe world's currencies as the American economh weakened. If you've got any discretionary income left, this will be a great summert to travel virtually anywhere inthe world. The dollar is buyinf 20 to 50 percenrt more than last spring and Theonly exception: Japan, where the dollar continues to languish at or below the 100-yehn mark. A Fee By Any Other Name it isn't all bread and dollar-denominated chocolates Banks and other financial institutions continue to raise the fees they chargwe when you use your ATM or creditr card outside of the United Thelatest trick: Currency-exchange fees of 3 percent or more even if you use your own bank'ds ATM card to make a withdrawal from your own accoun t at an overseas ATM owned and operated by said Even financial institutions that continue to advertise fee-free ATM usagwe are adopting the currency gambit.
One Charles Schwab Bank, whose prin ads promise in big, bold type that ther are "No ATM fees—we rebatde all ATM fees from any ATM. But as Schwab's fine print makes "ATM free rebates do not include currency exchange fees orothef fees." Some of the few truly fee-free ports in the storj are the credit cards and ATM cardas issued by Capital One. The Fine Allow me to end this columj where I began inAprip 2007: I still believe the single best investmenr you can make in your on-the-road comfortg and productivity is Priority Pass, the worldwide airport-loungr access program.
The fees haven't changed, but the loung e network has grown by 20 to more than 600 clubs in300 Portfolio.com © 2009 Cond Nast Inc. All