The Informertag:informer.truth.travel,2009-08-21:/172010-03-08T19:29:18ZTravel Strategies, Investigations, Special ReportsMovable Type Pro 4.3-enFlash Flood in Kenya Destroys Famed Elephant Camptag:informer.truth.travel,2010://17.14082010-03-05T17:06:24Z2010-03-08T19:29:18ZIn yet another climate-related disaster, the Save the Elephants research facility and its sister Elephant Watch Safari Camp, both located in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya, have been completely destroyed by unexpected flooding of the Ewaso Ng'iro River, along with seven other neighboring safari lodgesSusan Hack Photo: Susan Hack
In yet another climate-related disaster, the Save the Elephants research facility and its sister Elephant Watch Safari Camp, both located in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya, have been completely destroyed by unexpected flooding of the Ewaso Ng'iro River, along with seven other neighboring safari lodges.
On March 4, at approximately 5am, “a wall of water akin to a tsunami surged through Elephant Watch Camp, catching tourists and staff unawares and sweeping away tents and facilities,” STE said in a statement. “Camp owner Oria Douglas-Hamilton and guests managed to escape to safety by climbing to higher ground.” The same flood hit and decimated Save the Elephants’ research facility downriver. Researchers and staff there managed to drive to safety, salvaging some computers and cameras, but the flash flood washed away key research data, including more computers and GPS tracking collars, while beds, tents, and other camp infrastructure were submerged in water and mud.”
I happened to have spent a week in Samburu this past January on a reporting assignment, and I’m heartsick now to think of the setback, not just for STE and EWC staff but for elephants and tourism in Samburu.
]]>
Since then, STE has conducted research that has improved our
understanding of elephant behavior, which is influenced more than ever
by the rising human population and the loss of elephant habitat. GPS
collar tracking of elephants in Kenya, Mali, and other countries has
revealed that elephants, intelligent creatures with a lifespan similar
to own, understand the risks of crossing human inhabited areas. (They
run, don’t walk, at night through areas where elephants have been
poached for ivory or shot as crop raiders). What might seem like
minutiae has critical importance. For example recent studies show that
elephants naturally fear African honey bees, suggesting that the mere
addition of beehives to “elephant proof” fencing can make crops
protection more effective.
STE’s work was all the more relevant because CITES has revisited its
ban on ivory sales. In 2008, CITES permitted South Africa, Botswana,
Namibia and Botswana, whose elephant populations have been steadily
increasing, to sell stockpiled ivory (collected from natural deaths in
game parks) to Japan and China. Since then, poaching has increased
across much of the elephant’s northern range; the last six elephants in
all of Sierra Leone were shot late last year, and Senegal may also have
no elephants left. In its next meeting of signatories March 13-26 in
Doha, Qatar, CITES will consider a proposal from Tanzania and Zambia,
which also have healthy elephant populations, to sell their ivory
stockpiles. Kenya and 13 other range states, meanwhile are calling for
a blanket 20 year ivory sale moratorium, arguing that no elephant
population is really safe from the combination of rising ivory demand,
local corruption, and escalating black market prices.
For travelers, the loss of Elephant Watch Camp is equally devastating.
In 2001, Oria decided to create a camp a short drive along the river
from the STE camp. Her aim was two-fold: To be able to spend time
closer to Iain, and to offer guests (and potential STE donors) the
chance to learn about elephants from the local people who live with
them and study them.
The six-tented camp was one of the loveliest I've stayed at during two
decades of traveling across Africa. Apart from the tent canvas and
decorative Kenyan and Somali textiles, which Oria installed with an
artists' eye, everything was made from locally gathered material,
including the beds, chairs, and settees constructed from dead branches
along the river that elephants themselves had knocked down. The young
Samburu warriors, born in local manyattas and recruited and trained by
the Douglas Hamiltons as camp staff, researchers and safari guides,
were knowledgeable, enthusiastic, articulate, providing insights not
just into ecosystems, but the Samburu culture and its relation to
nature. Thanks to STE research, EWC guides not only described the
elephant life in general terms, but as an epic narrative, identifying
each member of a family group by name and life story. The loss of
employment in the flood is all the more tragic, as it follows northern
Kenya's worst drought in decades, which killed as many as 90 per cent
of Samburu goats and cattle.
Although it is too early to assess the cost of the damage, STE
Operations Manager Lucy King expects it will cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars to rebuild just the research facility. “Ominously,” she
says, “ Rain clouds hang over Samburu and more heavy rains are expected
as early as this evening at what is only the start of Kenya's rainy
season.“
]]>
Haiti Coverage on Truth.Travel tag:informer.truth.travel,2010://17.11112010-01-20T15:43:08Z2010-01-28T20:34:51ZCondé Nast Traveler's complete coverage of Haiti before and after the deadly earthquakeConde Nast Traveler Photo: Reuters
Over one week after a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, destroying the capital of Port au Prince and leaving tens of thousands dead or homeless, rescue and recovery work remains spotty. Here is Truth.Travel's coverage of post-earthquake Haiti as well as earlier features and blog posts from Condé Nast Traveler.
Miracle in Haiti: A Brother and Sister Rescued Video: An 8 year old boy and his 10 year old
sister are rescued by the Americans and brought to an Israeli Defense
Force Field Hospital. by Tim Peters
Haiti: Getting In, Getting Around "I want to go. I want to show solidarity with my Haitian friends. I want to observe the extent of the damage and see how people are behaving, with my own eyes." by Amy Wilentz Posted Wednesday, Jan. 20, 010
Voices from the Hell of Haiti Video: A family pleads for the rest of the world to not forget the Haitian people by Marc Asnin Posted Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
Eat Out to Help Haiti Restaurants nationwide are donating profits to organizations helping Haiti by Mollie Chen Posted Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
A Tale of Two Hotels in Haiti A writer recalls her stays in Port au Prince's Hotel Montana and Hotel Oloffson by Amy Wilentz Posted Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010
The Last People out Alive "We
have lost the moment when 'reading the wreck' could have had its
maximum opportunity." by Clive Irving Posted Friday, Jan. 15, 2010
Where are the Americans? "The Pentagon has already failed the President. And the people of Haiti." by Clive Irving Posted Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010
My Hope for Haiti "Maybe now we’ll realize just how close
to home Haiti really is, and how desperately it needs our help, and has
for a very long time." by Kevin Doyle Posted Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010
Helping Haiti A list of resources currently working on the ground in Haiti Posted Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010
Cruise Haiti? and Fiddling While Haiti Burns Two posts question Royal Caribbean's decision to make a port of call in Labadee, Haiti by Kevin Doyle and Dinda Elliott Posted Friday, Jan. 15, 2010
Earlier coverage on Condé Nast Traveler
Love and Haiti "This is a love song. It's a Haitian love song, played on three drums
and an electric slide guitar that never sounds quite on key. No
question, you can dance to it." by Amy Wilentz Condé Nast Traveler, September 2009
Haiti's Crippling Poverty and What's Being Done What the writer saw while visiting Haiti with representatives from Population Services International (PSI), a
nonprofit group fighting malaria, HIV, and
child mortality. Posted on cntraveler.com, Feb. 27, 2009
Anna Kournikova in Haiti, Day One The tennis star blogs about her outrearch work in Haiti by Anna Kournikova Posted on cntraveler.com, Feb. 27, 2009
]]>
Cruise Haiti?tag:informer.truth.travel,2010://17.10952010-01-15T16:39:44Z2010-01-21T16:09:40ZWe’re just putting the finishing touches on a story about the world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, for our March issue. The Oasis and several other Royal Caribbean ships call frequently at Labadee, a spit of...Kevin Doyle I was initially appalled yesterday to read in the Miami Herald that Royal Caribbean is prepared to resume port calls at Labadee as early as next week. How, I wondered, could it possibly take its passengers on a sun and fun excursion to a country suffering such devastation and loss of life? But, like most things, on closer examination it’s not really that simple. In his blog post yesterday, Royal Caribbean president Adam Goldstein reported that he was in New York meeting with President Clinton to discuss disaster response. Today, Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas will call on Labadee carrying relief supplies from Puerto Rico and other Royal Caribbean ships will begin delivering relief supplies (primarily food) on Monday and Tuesday to its Haitian partner Food for the Poor.
There’s no question that Haiti has benefited financially from its lease agreement with Royal Caribbean—the cruise line pays the government $6 for every passenger who visits, and hundreds of thousands visit each year (though it’s unlikely, in a country run by one of the most corrupt governments in the world, that much of that money actually makes its way to the Haitian people).
The people of Haiti will surely benefit from the relief supplies that Royal Caribbean ships will be off-loading in the coming weeks. But here’s the tricky part: Those ships will also be off-loading thousands of tourists to eat, swim, and sun on Haitian shores.
Would you be comfortable drinking a beer and working on your tan on a Haitian beach next week, even if the ship you arrived on was delivering relief supplies? I’d love to know what you think.
Complete Haiti Coverage on Truth.Travel ]]>
My Hope for Haititag:informer.truth.travel,2010://17.10722010-01-13T18:17:57Z2010-01-21T16:10:59ZWith the world’s eyes focused on the island, maybe it will now receive the sort of attention and aid it so badly needs. Haiti is separated only by a mountain chain from the Dominican Republic, but in the minds of most Americans, it might as well be a galaxy awayKevin Doyle
I spent only two days in Haiti last year, to see the important work Population Services International is doing on the ground there to combat HIV and malaria, promote birth control, and prevent child mortality. Having heard and read much about rampant crime (billboards along the road discourage kidnapping), I’m embarrassed to say I arrived in Haiti guarded and defensive. But before I had even left the airport, a young man approached me to welcome me to his country. “I hope that you see what is special here, that you go home and tell your friends, and that you come back to visit us again.”
]]>
Like anyone with a beating heart, I am deeply saddened by the news of the death and destruction in Haiti.
But, inspired by the resiliency I witnessed there, I hold out hope that
some good may come from this terrible event. With the world’s eyes
focused on the island, maybe it will now receive the sort of attention
and aid it so badly needs. Haiti is separated only by a mountain chain
from the Dominican Republic, but in the minds of most Americans, it
might as well be a galaxy away. Maybe now we’ll realize just how close
to home Haiti really is, and how desperately it needs our help, and has
for a very long time.
For now PSI’s Kate Roberts tells me
that the organization is focused on partnering with UNICEF to get water
purification kits onto the island. You can learn more about its efforts
at psi.org.
Complete Haiti Coverage on Truth.Travel]]>
How Does Cabin Air Flow?tag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.9392009-12-21T17:12:18Z2009-12-21T17:50:23ZHere's how cabin air is circulated, filtered, and refreshed throughout most of today's aircraft.Barbara S. Peterson
Graphic: Haisam Hussein
Here's how cabin air is circulated, filtered, and refreshed throughout most of today's aircraft:
Fresh air continuously enters both engines at -65 degrees. Temperature and pressure are increased, then air is passed through a control valve and cooled by additional outside air.
HEPA filters remove 99.7 percent of particles; new technology could destroy 100 percent of all bacteria and viruses.
Filtered, recirculated cabin air and fresh air are combined.
The aircraft is divided into ventilation segments of three to seven rows; you share air only with passengers in your segment.
Outflow valve continuously releases cabin air and helps maintain constant pressurization of aircraft.
More good news: Airplanes are healthier than you think. ]]>
Airplane Air: Not as Bad as You Thinktag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.9382009-12-21T16:46:05Z2009-12-22T21:26:00ZWhile it’s true that the germs which cause colds and flu can be passed from person to person through coughs and sneezes, research indicates that you need to be sitting very close to a sick passenger—usually within two rows—and for longer than eight hours to significantly increase your chances of contracting an illness.Barbara S. Peterson
From the January 2010 issue of Condé Nast Traveler
Every winter, legions of healthy travelers board airplanes wondering if they’ll still be well when they walk off, after spending hours packed shoulder to shoulder with dozens—or even hundreds—of other passengers, some of whom are likely to be suffering from a cold or the flu. This year, the prospect of contracting swine flu has of course heightened the anxiety. But there’s good reason to take heart (and take to the skies): Several scientific studies show that, in terms of the spread of contagious bugs, airplanes are healthier environments than is commonly believed.
]]>
On
average, cabin air is completely refreshed 20 times per hour, compared
with just 12 times per hour in an office building. On most aircraft,
air is also circulated through hospital-grade HEPA filters, which
remove 99.97 percent of bacteria, as well as the airborne particles
that viruses use for transport (many regional jets lack these filters).
Additionally, cabins are divided into separate ventilation sections
about every seven rows of seats, which means that you share air only
with those in your immediate environment and not with the guy who’s
coughing up a lung ten rows back. When the plane is on the ground,
however, air circulation in the cabin can be greatly reduced.
The most common way to pick up a bug when flying, experts say, is from
a contaminated surface—tray tables, lavatory doors, and latches on
overhead bins are loaded with viruses and bacteria. “When I travel, I
become very compulsive and even wipe the tray table with an
alcohol-based hand sanitizer,” says Dr. Gendreau.
The achy, icky feeling many fliers get after spending hours in the air
usually has nothing to do with colds or flu and everything to do with
the bone-dry, oxygen-thin atmosphere of the cabin. But new developments
in aircraft manufacturing and air filtration promise to make flying
more comfortable and to reduce even further the chance that you’ll
catch something from a fellow passenger.
The next generation of planes will be built from composite
materials—plastics reinforced with carbon fiber—offering relief not
only from altitude sickness but also from the burning eyes and swollen
nasal passages many fliers experience. Both the Boeing 787 Dreamliner
and the Airbus A350, which will launch in a few years, will usher in a
new era of comfort with more humidity and less pressure than current
planes.
The latest development in cabin air quality is AirManager, a new
purification technology being tested by British aerospace giant BAE
Systems. It uses a patented technology known as “non-thermal plasma” to
eliminate not only germs and particles but also all the viruses,
impurities, and foul odors that HEPA filters cannot.
Next: How Does Cabin Air Flow? ]]>
A Tale of Two Emirates: Dubai v. Abu Dhabitag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.6312009-12-01T17:25:44Z2009-12-02T17:27:12Z Skyscrapers rising in Abu Dhabi. The emirate is in the middle of a 208 billion dollar makeover funded by oil production expected to last another century. Dubai's oil, by contrast, will run out by 2015.Susan Hack, Condé Nast Traveler's...Conde Nast Traveler
Skyscrapers rising in Abu Dhabi. The emirate is in the middle of a 208 billion dollar makeover funded by oil production expected to last another century. Dubai's oil, by contrast, will run out by 2015.
Susan Hack, Condé Nast Traveler's Cairo-based senior correspondent, guest blogs on Dubai's financial crisis
By Susan Hack
The world may be focused on the financial troubles of Dubai, but the United Arab Emirates has something to celebrate: Abu Dhabi has mounted the first art exhibit at its new cultural district on the once-barren Saadiyat Island, whose upcoming projects include the world’s largest Guggenheim Museum and a 1.3 billion dollar outpost of the Louvre. While Abu Dhabi’s bouquet of grand museums will not be ready before 2013, the government has just opened a 165,000 square foot exhibition space called Manarat Al Saadiyat, or the Lighthouse of Happiness, where rotating loan exhibits from the Paris Louvre and New York Guggenheim will go on display starting next April. ]]>
Disorientation II, The Rise and Fall of Arab Cities,” which will run
until February 20, seems particularly prescient and ironic, given the
news up the coast, where Dubai World, the Dubai government investment
arm, last week issued a terse plead for six months’ grace in repayments
of 59 billion dollars’ worth of debt on many of its signature projects,
including three artificial Palm-shaped archipelagos and a patchwork of
mainly unsold private islets dubbed The World. Dubai may not be
collapsing just yet, but it has a major cash-flow crisis. Financial
analysts worry about the global implications of a potential Dubai
default—on everything from the ability of Asian construction workers to
wire cash to their families, to companies such as Airbus, where Dubai
has 58 of its new super-jumbo A380 planes on order, to the costs of
insuring loans to other heavily leveraged nations such as Greece,
Ukraine and Ireland.
The Dubai World debacle underscored the
fundamental differences between the two most powerful members of the
seven United Arab Emirates.
Dubai has always been the most forward-looking, risk-taking, secular,
and commercially minded member of the federation. It’s over-the-top
investments such as the world’s largest shopping mall, tallest hotel,
and longest indoor ski slope proved tourism could work year round in
the harsh Arab Gulf climate, and that expatriate experts and laborers
could be enticed to build the infrastructure. Though it has
overextended itself on 180 billion dollars worth of mega projects,
including the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai, scheduled to
open this January, Dubai has already established itself as a political,
social, and religiously tolerant haven where Saudi citizens can drink
alcohol, Jewish residents can openly worship in synagogues, and where
Shiite Iranians feel at ease. The looming issue now is sustainability.
Real estate prices have tumbled by half in the last year, Dubai
companies have laid off expat staff, and Dubai rents have fallen so low
that residents of Abu Dhabi, where there is a housing shortage, are now
using Dubai as a commuter suburb, which is what the residents of Dubai
used to do to the emirate of Sharjah.
While Dubai’s oil will run out by the year 2015, Abu Dhabi sits on 90
percent of the UAE’s oil and controls nine percent of the entire
world’s hydrocarbon resources. It’s secretive sovereign wealth fund,
estimated at 500 to 900 billion dollars, is the world’s largest. To
save the country’s reputation as a financial hub between Europe and
Asia, the UAE Central Bank, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, has pledged to
back all the country’s local and foreign banks. Abu Dhabi itself may
eventually step forward, as it did last year with a 10 billion dollar
injection, to tide over its spendthrift neighbor.
For more than a year, nasty rumors have been circulating that that Abu
Dhabi will bail out Dubai World a la Wall Street and General Motors in
exchange for harsh paybacks, possibly in terms of rewritten borders,
shares in Dubai’s profitable ports industry, or even its carrier
Emirates Airways. However, flush with oil revenue, and with no external
debt of its own, Abu Dhabi doesn’t really need Dubai’s headaches or
assets. Indeed, just days before Dubai’s embarrassing debacle, the Abu
Dhabi Tourism Development and Investment Company announced it was
seeking construction tenders for its own portfolio of cultural and
tourism projects, some designed by star architects such as Frank Gehry
and Zaha Hadid, and worth 33 billion dollars. “Now is a good time to be
building,” Felix Reinberg, the TDIC’s project manager Saadiyat Island,
told reporters with barely concealed smugness, adding that “the
financial crisis has been blessing in disguise” for Abu Dhabi, because
the slowdown elsewhere has forced construction companies to bid more
competitively here for contracts.
The biggest long term threat to Dubai may stem from the fact that Abu
Dhabi has its own ambitious 2030 master plan. As Abu Dhabi projects
start to come to stream—the emirate is building convention centers and
some striking new hotels, as well as cultural beacons—Dubai faces not
just a global financial crunch but stiff local competition. One of the
UAE capital’s new themed tourism developments is Yas Island, an
adrenaline-charged haven with a Formula One race circuit that is already
open along with a modish Gillette razor-shaped hotel straddling the
course. An ocean-facing 18 hole links course will debut in January, and
next summer families can go to a Ferrari World theme park (with the
world’s fastest roller coaster), a driving school, and a shopping
mall—an amenity built for the ladies, presumably, and anyone whose eyes
glaze over at the thought of watching high performance cars zip
endlessly around a track.
I myself am just back from Abu Dhabi’s newly-opened Qasr Al Sarab
Resort, which looks like a walled and turreted Arabian city amid the
towering sand dunes of the Empty Quarter in Liwa Oasis. It’s
muzzle-clad camels, Thai massage artists, and planned falcon and saluki
hunting demonstrations may have Wilfred Thesiger rolling in his grave,
but certain desert traditions are being maintained. When the widow of
the UAE’s first president arrived for a visit during my stay, huge
flower displays and trays of tea cakes suddenly materialized (shazzam!)
and all male guests and hotel staff were banned from the lobby until
she left. I, for one, appreciated the air conditioned Land Rover and
the South African nature guides who escorted me on a dawn walk to watch
the sun rise, then whisked me back to the resort for eggs benedict,
fresh squeezed carrot juice, camel milk, dates and cappuccino.]]>
Why Airline Vouchers are a Bad Deal: Fuller Planes in Q3tag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.4152009-11-03T13:22:49Z2009-11-05T18:38:08ZAs airlines report their Q3 results, the data reinforce an important rule oft repeated by Condé Nast Traveler Consumer News Editor Wendy Perrin: If the airline offers vouchers or cash to give up a confirmed seat on an oversold flight, don't take it.Alex Pasquariello
Minutes before you're to take off for [your favorite city] the gate attendant comes on the P.A. announcing that the flight is overbooked and the airline is offering vouchers, a seat on the next flight out, and a foot rub all the way to [your favorite city] if you voluntarily give up your assigned seat.
American Airlines: 83.9 Delta / Northwest: 85.8 Continental 85.8 United Airlines: 85.8 US Airways: 84.0 Southwest: 79.6 Source: The Houston Chronicle
Now, load factors have all sorts of implications for the airline industry—revenue, profits, ticket prices, and flight schedules—all of which we’ll leave to the financial folks to analyze. (And a high load factor certainly doesn't mean that an airline is in the black. Consider, that Southwest’s Q3 load factor was up 8 percentage points from that recorded in the same period 2008, but the airline still lost $16 million last quarter. Likewise, American Airlines load factor rose 1.8 percentage points to 83.9 percent from 82.2 percent in Q3 2008, but they still lost $359 million last quarter.)
But when it comes to load factor’s bottom line for us consumers, the equation is simple: Fewer planes are flying and they're flying fuller than ever, so if your flight is overbooked, chances are the next flight out is too.
]]>
Star Alliance and the Two Lost Pilotstag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.4222009-10-29T20:35:43Z2009-11-03T15:37:54ZTom Loftushttp://truth.travel
This post originally appeared in Truth.Travel's aviation blog, On the Fly.
Just as two flaked-out flyboys were getting their licenses yanked by
the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this week, an unusual
confab was taking place in a hangar at Newark Airport: the chief
executives of 25 of the world’s top airlines were lining up to welcome
Continental Airlines into their fold, the Star Alliance.
These two seemingly disparate events have more in common than you might think.
A weeklong mystery about why two pilots blew past their destination and ignored numerous attempts to raise them was apparently resolved when the pilots explained that they got distracted
figuring out a new scheduling program from Delta Air Lines. Delta is
their new employer by dint of a merger with Northwest, where both have
worked for years...
Read the full post on Fly.Truth.Travel. ]]>
Everybody Hates Amtraktag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.3922009-10-29T15:10:17Z2009-10-30T17:46:48ZA new analysis of Amtrak’s books may spell the end of the great American cross-country train trip—like the one Jim Robbins took on Amtrak’s Empire Builder for our August 2008 story, “Back on Track?”Alex Pasquariello A new age for railroads? Or just more pipe dreams? Image: The White House blog
A new analysis of Amtrak’s books may spell the end of the great American cross-country train trip—like the one Jim Robbins took on Amtrak’s Empire Builder for our August 2008 story, “Back on Track?”
Despite its grand title—and grander scenery—Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle lost $97.38 per passenger in 2008, according to a new report by Subsidyscope, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Read their report and find out how much your favorite train loses with their handy interactive map.
The biggest loser? The New Orleans to Los Angeles Sunset Limited, which carried almost 72,000 passengers at a loss of $462.11 per passenger in 2008.
Amtrak haters have grabbed a hold of the mean, which shows an across the board $32 loss per passenger—four times more than Amtrak's own estimates of $8 lost per passenger. The Amtrak-less Las Vegas Review-Journal, for one, feels railroaded. "Runaway train", cries the New York Post. ]]>
Acela
Express carried nearly 3.5 million passengers at a profit of $40.50
per. And the funny thing is, it’s turning them into haters too.
When
our Jim Robbins asked Amtrak chief Alex Kummant about these
long-distance trains in 2008, he vowed to keep the routes, calling them
a treasure akin to the national parks. "Once they're gone, they'll be
tough to get back," he told Robbins.
But the Obama administration has a vision for high-speed rail (see map above), and it includes $8 billion in funding but leaves a gigantic void in the American West.
Even
the heartiest of train enthusiasts couldn’t blame the administration
for not wanting to go within a country mile of the train routes
crossing the West. The Subsidyscope study shows that those four
crossing trains are huge losers. In addition to the losses taken by
Empire Builder and Sunset Limited, the California Zephyr
(Chicago—Denver—San Francisco) lost $192.77 per passenger and the
Southwest Chief (Chicago—Albuquerque—Los Angeles) lost $162.90 per
passenger.
High-speed rail technology is best applied
regionally in a country with great expanses and a strong air-transport
system; we can’t expect it to cross the country. But without a
high-speed corridor to piggyback on (a Denver hub?), the romance of the rails might not be alluring enough to keep these cross-country trains.
At
same time, Obama’s high-speed plan offers some tantalizing new
itineraries for us travelers. Linking up Vancouver, B.C.; Seattle; and
Portland would make for a great trip. San Diego, to Los Angeles, to San
Francisco is an obvious choice. New York City to Pittsburgh would be on
my list, as would New York City to Montreal via Boston.
Are
these long-distance train routes a hurdle in the way of an efficient
high-speed rail system, or are they gems that deserve to be revered—and
funded—as a national park?]]>
Have Gun Will Travel (on Amtrak)tag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.3662009-10-27T15:33:09Z2009-10-29T18:33:31ZAn amendment to the $68.8 billion Senate transportation and housing and urban development spending bill will withhold $1.5 billion in Amtrak funding if the government-owned train company doesn’t let passengers check firearms with their baggage. Alex Pasquariello
An amendment tacked on to crucial Congressional legislation threatens to shut down Amtrak service nation-wide if the company doesn’t accommodate passengers traveling with guns.
Is this sound Constitutional policy, or are we being stuck-up by the gun lobby?
The amendment to the $68.8 billion Senate transportation, housing and urban development spending bill will withhold $1.5 billion in Amtrak funding if the government-owned train company doesn’t let passengers check firearms with their baggage, reports The Hill.
That’s Amtrak’s entire funding request for 2010. Gone. If they can’t figure out how to install a gun-check system akin to those available to domestic airline passengers by March.
If the legislation passes as-is and Amtrak fails to meet the deadline, we can expect a “cessation of train service nationwide,” Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper told legislators last month, reports The Hill.
Amtrak stopped allowing guns on its trains after the September 11 terrorist attacks and tightened the policy after the 2004 Madrid train bombings, in part because they didn't have the infrastructure and procedures in place to keep tabs on checked firearms. Domestic airline passengers may still transport firearms and ammunition in secure, checked baggage when declared during the check-in process.
So look forward to loosely monitored guns on trains or the complete shutdown of the American rail system April 1, 2010.
The amendment comes courtesy of Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, who is worried hunters won't be able to travel on Amtrak. Anyway, he told Fox News, it's inappropriate for Amtrak to draw the line at this proposal since the system doesn't do much screening of passengers anyway.
"There is no screening now as there is at airports," he said. "Someone wishing to do ill could bring a firearm on a train right now."
Does the right to bear arms exist on Amtrak? Or are American rail riders innocent bystanders in a gun-lobby stick up? And are sneaky amendments to must-past legislation really the way we want to decide gun policy? ]]>
United Airlines Joins the Fee-of-the-Week Crazetag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.3492009-10-22T22:24:33Z2009-10-23T15:26:56ZIf it sticks, United Airlines' new premier baggage plan could lead to whole new onslaught of creative fees upon fees. And if you think the current system is maddeningly complex, watch out.Barbara S. Peterson
This post originally appeared in Truth.Travel's aviation blog, On the Fly.
The airline fee-for-all is getting stranger: Witness United Airlines' new “premier baggage plan”
which, for an annual fee of $249, lets you check up to two bags free of
charge every time you fly for a year. If this one sticks—so far, no one
else has copied it—it could lead to whole new onslaught of creative
fees upon fees...and if you think the current system is maddeningly
complex, watch out.
Technically, the United plan is not a new fee as much as an attempt to
convince you that you’re getting a deal on checking bags--something you
didn’t even have to pay not too long ago.
But it’s gotten some more positive—or less scathing—reactions than usual, perhaps because of the rare use of the word “free” in connection with an airline service.
It’s not free, naturally, if you don’t travel that often or if you
travel light enough to avoid checking bags. But United charges $20 for
the first bag and $30 for the second, so it can add up. And this
service isn’t aimed at business travelers, apparently: The most telling
detail is that the ‘free bag’ deal covers up to eight people traveling
together on one confirmation number. So, if you travel several times a
year with your entire family, this could save you money. ]]>
Sully”). I had booked the flight at the
last minute, so I got stuck with a middle seat in the back, which I was
told by my travel agent was the last one available. When I went to
check in online the night before departure, I was offered a chance to
upgrade to a “choice” seat—an aisle spot upfront—for $10. Choice seats
are held back until the day before the flight. Did I bite? You bet I
did.
So why isn’t this one so objectionable? It used to be that
people booking earliest got to pick seats the first—and many times
these were the people paying the lowest advance purchase fares. So by
the time last-minute travelers got around to making plans, the fares
were higher and the better seats were often taken. In that light,
Southwest, which famously still doesn’t’ assign actual seat numbers, has
come up with the right idea with its priority boarding line. Those
who pay a bit more can get a better spot on the plane. There’s a
certain logic there that’s hard to dispute.
Both of these deals are, essentially, ways of giving normal fliers a
chance to buy a perk that's automatically extended to elite fliers for
no charge.
Still, many of us have a problem with the airlines fee-of-the-week
craze, not only because it’s hard to track (see Smarter Travel’s fee
chart for a good one that illustrates the complexity of following
this), but also because some of the charges have no connection to cost
of providing the ‘service.’
One of the more offensive ones is the
ever-rising cost of changing a non-refundable ticket. It started out
around $50—now it’s $150 per ticket on the major ‘legacy’ airlines like
American and United, and up to $250 on international flights, a charge
that can be particularly painful if you’re traveling with your family.
Southwest, by contrast, doesn’t charge at all to change a ticket. Which
is about right, considering that the true cost to the airline of your
flight change isn’t much.
If anything, airlines will be hitting us with more fees. Airlines can’t see to raise their base ticket prices enough to get out
of the red, yet during the second second quarter of this year alone, they raked in $670 million in fees on baggage, ticket changes and other ancillary charges. Ka-Ching! ]]>
Cruise Ship Reform Catches a Wave with New Pollution Billtag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.3362009-10-21T21:25:25Z2009-10-22T17:22:03ZA new bill introduced in Congress today calls for stricter dumping restrictions for cruise ships sailing through U.S. waters. The Clean Cruise Ship Act, submitted by California congressman Sam Farr and Illinois Senator Durbin, is the latest attempt to ban...Deborah Dunn
Clean Cruise Ship Act, submitted by California congressman Sam Farr and Illinois Senator Durbin, is the latest attempt to ban cruise lines from dumping raw sewage within 12 nautical miles of the U.S. coastline (current laws only ban the practice within 3 miles). We reported on a similar cruise pollution bill back in 2004 (Cruise Ships Come Clean; August 2004) but it never made much headway.
But now that there's a new administration in Washington, cruise reform may finally be able to catch a wave. Add to that the fact that the cruise lines themselves are seeming more open to the idea of being federally regulated—according to the staff at the Friends of the Earth nonprofit in D.C., whom I met with earlier this week—and this bill may actually stand a chance.
In the meantime, environmental standards vary wildly from cruise line to cruise line. Just take a look at the Friends of the Earth's Cruise Ship Environmental Report Card, Published last month, it grades ten major lines on their green practices. The upshot? Several of the lines (including Holland America, Norwegian, and Princess) have gone to great lengths to minimize their environmental impact. But as Marcie Keever, FOE's Clean Vessels Campaign Director told me, many cruise lines still aren't doing enough. ]]>
Inflight Cell Phone Calls: You Got a Problem With That?tag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.3042009-10-16T15:26:34Z2009-10-19T15:27:35ZBarbara S. Peterson
You can do it on Emirates. You can do it on British Air (well one plane, anyway). And as we learned this week you’ll be able to do it on all Lufthansa’s long-distance flights. The ‘it’ is use your phone-and increasingly, the taboo against cell calls aloft is coming down-at least overseas.
Here in the U.S., though, it’s a different story. Even suggest that it might be nice to able to call home from the confines of an airplane, and you will you get tons of responses-mostly angry, if not unprintable. When the Federal Communications Commission called for comments on the idea a few years back they got 8,000 responses, virtually all of them negative. Much of this was orchestrated by the flight attendants’ union fearing that that their members would have to mediate disputes between the pro and con camps aloft.
Having been trapped on many a Metro-North train in a car full of insensitive dolts shrieking into their mobiles, I’m sympathetic to the naysayers-to a point. But knowing the vitriol this will provoke, I still want to throw out a challenge: would it be so terrible to give it a try here?]]>
Delay Nationtag:informer.truth.travel,2009://17.2522009-10-09T14:00:23Z2009-10-13T19:52:25ZLengthy airline delays are twice as common now as in 1990 and will get worse as the economy recovers, according to a Brookings Institution report released Thursday. But hey, flying has rarely been cheaper.Alex Pasquariello
Photo: shanafin / CC BY-SA 2.0
Lengthy airline delays are twice as common now as in 1990 and will get worse as the economy recovers, according to a Brookings Institution report released Thursday. As the economy rebounds more people will travel by plane, further reducing on-time performance of the airlines.
The report, "Expect Delays: An Analysis of Air Travel Trends in the United States," goes on to list the percentage of flights arriving on time in the country’s 100 largest metro areas. Everybody loves a list, and this is the peg on which most news outlets hung their stories. USA Today has the full list, but as anybody who has had to sleep in JFK can tell you, it's not necessarily news that New York City leads the country in delays.
What’s more interesting, though, is not the on-time performance list, but the factors that are stressing the system and causing delays. In many ways, it’s us.
]]>
Source: Brookings Institute
Why
are we all flying so much more? The report points out that a major
reason for this is the fall in real prices for airline tickets.
Prices
based on 1995 dollar values show the average domestic fare has dropped
from $296.95 in 1995 to $249.58 in 2008, according to Bureau of
Transportation statistics cited in the report. Data from the Air
Transport Association cited shows that when you go back to 1978, the
price to fly one mile was 8.29 cents. In 2008 the price to fly one mile
was 4.17 cents.
Brookings isn't blaming us for flying, and it
throws out a slew of ideas for fixing the system, including improved
high-speed rail lines linking popular short routes (L.A.—San Francisco,
Boston—New York City, Washington DC—New York City), directing federal
stimulus funds to the busiest airports, and accelerating deployment of
new flight-management technologies like NextGen. One suggested solution might be the most effective, but it remains contentious: letting busy airports charge fees on rush-hour
flights.
So
does this data showing a decrease in airfare make it a little easier to
stomach what we're paying for holiday tickets? What about all those new
fees for checking bags, or flying during peak hours? How much should it
cost to fly?]]>
