Warming to a Winter Wanderland.

COVIDic Hodophobia ➬ Toward Traveler ReMotion (Premise). 

re: Digesting Travel’s Latest In-or-Out Burgers:

Rockin’ a Winter Wanderland.

(1/3/24)—Fast forward: welcome to the winter months. Autumn falling to the road side, we embark upon our winter of disconfinement—breaking free, breaking glad, warming to the idea of getting out there, be it to sleighs or rays, slopes or swells.

Are we departing like it’s 2022? Not hardly, as flights are running more closely to schedule of late (weather permitting, of course). TSA checkpoint stations are operating more smoothly. Surface transportation is better geared toward coping with diversions and disruptions on/over the road. At least when compared (by most mobility measures) to last year’s holiday season meltdown.

So zip up, strip down: layer on the Gor-Tex and polar wear, or shed the garb altogether, skate across the ice and snow or chill along the shore. Only we best not turn a cold shoulder to the pratfalls and haphazards that continue to prevail worldwide once we do…

Freeze Frame, Breeze Frame.

Crete to Cabo, Crans-Montana to Crested Butte—c(gl)amping in Tongass or Denali; vamping in Budapest or ‘Nawlins, tramping through the tropics as the summery Southern Hemisphere abounds. Winter is briskly upon us, however we frame it—whether we seek to warm our cockles or frost our bones.

Brrrr, either way, the ice jams cometh. For even with the change of seasons, some things don’t seem to change, if they’re not frozen in place. Granted, coming out of a stormy holiday week, it surely does appear domestic air travel has improved significantly over 2022, despite a record number of passengers and severely inclement weather conditions coast to coast. Even with Spirit Airlines’ misrouting a lone six-year-old Philadelphia boy—bound for Fort Myers, Florida—to Orlando instead.

Nevertheless an Airlines For America trade group pushes the US Department of Transportation to act upon the ‘precarious’ air traffic controller shortage (currently some 3k ATCs below target levels), and address/rebalance commercial vs. private aviation traffic, specifically as overcrowded skies trigger further carrier flight delays and cancelations.* This, from an airline industry that continues to slash capacity, shift schedules, and drop routes altogether with little or no notice amid soaring profiteering—big-five carriers faring better than lower cost/budget rivals overall.

* Case in point: The most recent (1/2) flaming crash landing of Japan Airlines’ Flt. 516 at Tokyo’s Haneda airport upon colliding with a smaller Japan Coast Guard plane on an earthquake aid mission—readying for takeoff on the same runway. All 367 passengers and 12 crew safely evacuated the A350-900’s burning wreckage further down 34 Right, escaping a smoke-filled cabin via inflatable slides (sans carry-on baggage) within 90 seconds, while five crew members aboard the exploded Bombardier Dash-8 perished; 14 were injured, including the coast-guard pilot. Issues: praise for JL516’s emergency procedures and the resilience of Airbus A350’s composite carbon fiber fuselage, the less combustable nature of its cabin furnishings. Concern for miscommunication between Haneda ATCs and Dash-8 crew, since the Japan Airlines jetliner was evidently cleared to land—not so the coast-guard plane. (mmtc…)

Cold Sores.

Moreover, inflight turbulence, engine failures and massive birdstrikes plague air travel no end, as will white-knuckle takeoffs and hard landings, not to mention the troubling increase in such taxi/runway ‘close call’ incursions. Throw in over-taxed pilots (despite hefty pay raises) and a cold front of crew/stew labor strife (e.g., raising the mandatory pilot retirement age from 65 to 67); airlines coping with ‘guilt-free’ emissions pressures and tardy cleaner jet deliveries), not to mention scouring for bad or fake aircraft replacement parts.

Hopefully some winter season modulation will serve to clear those cloudy holiday skies, defrosting the bitter flight delays and cancellations—which were recently exemplified by Delta Airlines billeting stranded Amsterdam-Detroit passengers in a Goose-Bay, Labrador military barracks because of Airbus 330 icing problems.

What’s more, beyond the FAA’s air traffic control tower shortfalls, TSA checkpoint improvements under holiday duress is a warmly welcome balm to the chilblains of chaotic terminal congestion. Regardless of an ever looming threat of US government shutdowns, more efficient security screening promises to further ease our gateways in weeks and months to come.

Terror Firma?

Speaking of security, a New Years Eve specter of locked-down crowd control zones—product of bomb threats and other terror assessments—may have fizzled some of the celebratory sizzle. Yet no significant nightmare incidents were reported in cities worldwide. Still, we should remain mindful of extremist wartime hazards as we go with the floe, not to mention the return of masking in the face of resurgent respiratory viruses like RSV and new COVID strains.

Icebreaker: So cold-brewed strategies are now in order, including scouting out cheaper airfares in the months ahead (however whack-a-mole fleeting), even booking early for as far out as summer, 2024, also exploiting the post-pandemic economic pressures on high and/or low fare carriers. Being wary of dodgy ‘all-you-can-fly deals, mileage reward roulette, shrinking frequent flyer miles, sticky hotel/lodging rates and such, not to mention airlines’ penchant for blitz-quick flight departure changes, or jettisoning flights and routes altogether with little or no notice. Nor will we wait idly by for Congress to act on predatory airfare spikes and crackdown on insidious junk fees.

Otherwise, this bracing winter season should help cool the holiday cabin fever in the skies, particularly soaring blow-ups in overstuffed airline seat rows—the overhead bin battles and territorial seat/tray skirmishes, much less the onboard food fights, stabbings, aisle scrums and pepper spray. Little wonder the FAA seeks more fines (up to $37k per incident/case) and criminal prosecution of passenger misbehavior (over 270 cases filed since late 2021)—on everything from lav smoking to physical/sexual assaults. Ahh, holiday vamateur hour, au revoir…whether we’re staying on a snowy course or stealing away for the rays.

Icebreaker: But pre-flight, we’re gonna continue working through, walking around stuffy, crowded airports, wary of creeping fees and the gouging gamut of retail/concession prices along interminable concourses, air ‘concierges’ notwithstanding. Moreover skirting the mayhem with due timing and patience—departure gates to baggage claim—even wheedling into luxury airline lounges, much like chaffering into luxe hotels when opportune. By the same token, tactics such as bag-fee angler vests and skiplagging warrant all due consideration.

On the technology front, computer snafus will still spark FAA tower/tarmac delays and aircraft ground stoppages, be it over software glitches or hardware malfunction, the EU and UK no less vulnerable to systemwide data/information breaches and crashes. New TSA scanners, lauded as more electronics and liquidity friendly, are still no match for crawling peak-period security lines, sluggish PreCheck, Clear of marginal help. Updated data processing and procedures have not yet pared visa and passport application/issuance backlogs—Global Entry expedient efforts notwithstanding—while feds are accused of trolling subjects’ social media activity in US visa cases. Yet as techies say, a cold wave of almighty AI alchemy/salvation is well on the way…

Icebreaker: So we’ll still be combing, comparing and contrasting airline, lodging and third-party ticket/reservation websites/mobile apps for deals and steals, for advantages and abuses—targeted to specific trips and itineraries—right down to paperless reservation/ticketing and baggage mishandling (Air Tags anyone?). Also having focusing down cold on high-tech snafus and hacks, as well as transcending the toxins and pitfalls of T/T social media. Tracked as well will be the corporate consolidation and hi-jinx of flight/fare O.T.A giants like Expedia and Orbitz, as well as ancillary fee ‘unbundling’ and pay-per-reviews on too many carrier proprietary and middlin’ third-party booking/ consolidator sites alike.

Wintry Tooling, Railing and Sailing.

Same time, different station: 2023 train travel set new US passenger records, as Eurail ridership gained steady, heady steam across a sweltering continent. Moreover, AMTRAK is undergoing a systemwide makeover, gaining from a $1.4bn Congressional outlay for rail upgrades and repairs. Sleeker railcars, better wifi: and that comes as higher speed rail advances, from Florida’s privatized BrightLine service to accelerated construction of a Las Vegas-to-Los Angeles leg, rail bed to station upgrades—eventually linking with California’s Central Valley HSR network.

Cruise lines enjoyed packed post-pandemic ships the world over, with bookings strong into the winter. This despite a destination backlash against bloated, floating city behemoths (e.g., limiting daily docking), reports of deck chair squatting, food/balcony straits, soused mateys overboarding guardrails into the deep, and coronavirus outbreaks revisited, not to mention a luxury MV Ocean Explorer ship stuck in Greenland mud. Still, some cruise industry heavyweights are floating new monster ‘utopian’ megaships and actually sailing toward private resort islands of their own.

Cold Fuels.

Despite soaring gas ppgs, roadways were clogged all year round—cars, wagons, SUVs, camper vans, RVs and motorcoaches taking to the highways in pre-pandemic numbers (even though bus lines like Greyhound are selling their venerable stations to realty vultures). But too often, it’s too many drivers to too few popular places: Traffic jams ruled the roads, no matter the inflated cost of buying and operating today’s techno-fiddly motor vehicles, much less motorcycles. For there are just too many more colorful winter joyrides to be so detoured or denied, and this promises to continue, despite snow stormy and black-icy conditions, particularly as gas prices keep trending downward.

Which nonetheless raises the matter of fossil fuel versus hybrid and electric power (with hydrogen fuel on the horizon). EV sales have increased dramatically, regardless of per-vehicle price tags, iffy driving range estimates, tech/software glitches, heavy battery fires—but mainly the equipment/deployment shortages of charging networks. Then come the issues of weighty vehicle traffic safety, let alone the prospect of more and more car shares and driverless vehicles—cabs, UberLyft, Amazon—on city streets, highways and byways. These concerns will soon be compounded with the takeoff of flying taxis (namely eVTOLs like Wisk Aero and Joby Aviation), WIG electric seagliders, shuttles, Google blimps and individual cars.

Icebreaker: So all modes and models will continue to be boarded, floated and/or taken for a spin with regard to comparative efficacy, service and safety…seeing to it we’re not derailed, waterlogged, backfiring or otherwise just plugging along as we go on our scenic winter drives.

Destination Desperation, Hot to Cold.

Clearly 2023’s post-pandemic ‘revenge’ tourism took its toll on destinations worldwide, overwhelming ‘hot spots’, domestic and international. Venice (struggling to fend off a total tourist takeover with entrance fees), red-light Amsterdam and other popular ‘iceburg’ or sea ‘scape destinations establish visitation quotas, mount restriction bollards and selfie shields. But tourists still come and congest customary hubs the world over—with crime, hazards and worse awaiting them, or not far behind. Yet other, less traveled places and possibilities still struggle to regain their pre-COVID footing, not least Lahaina, Maui’s rebuilding tensity.

Hotel chains and other lodging logged record bookings in kind, with attendant rate raises, tightened cancellation policies, invasive ‘smart’ room surveillance, increased service abuses and guest complaints. While online share services like Verbo and HomeAway can be a consumer crapshoot, AirBnB posting the lion’s share of horror stories—stark, raving orgies to peeping toms—even triggering a New York City clampdown.

Parklands, preserves and heritage sites were overrun in 2023 as well, despite fire/smoke and flood threats—litter, vandalism, trespassing and landmark/monument desecration following in too many cases. Stricter reservation/allocation measures result in US national parks, from the Adirondacks, Big Bend and Everglades to Yellowstone and Yosemite. In retrospect, last summer’s crowd muddle was perhaps best illustrated in Burning Man’s flash-flooded muck and mire across Nevada’s Black Rock Desert—a sea of Burners getting swamped and stalled in place for days. This, as Disney Corp. doubles down on pricing and expanding its plastic fantasyland in Orlando.

Icebreaker: So we’ll press on with exploring and fully experiencing winter trips, routes, settings, events and circumstances—little known local treasures to farther flung adventures; lesser travelled roads and beaten paths: insider secrets to whole other sides. Being mindful of potential crime and dangers therein. Shrewdly paring prices and skirting proscriptions when and where we may. Holding that Destination Dispersion, not hot-spot clotting is the better revenge, we will soon be toasting, sharing cold comfort food and Vamigré values via Club Vamaway…

More Cold Comforts.

All the same, topics of more personal nature are surely on the tray table. Flurrying into view are matters of traveler health and fitness, of reconciling work and travel, esp. remotely—as in carry-on bags versus checked luggage, what with the advent of more spacious Airspace L overhead bins. Or given everything, travel insurance: yea or nay? Add in affairs of spirituality and romance on the go—not to mention the spirits and substances that can help pave the way, as other issues snowfall in.

Now be VamoSure to keep eyes peeled for what’s to come—beyond the splendiferous festivals, tourneys, meets and carnivals—seasoning to make for more venturesome, sun-splashed or cold-comfy and colorful roving through this whole winter wanderland. That is, if you catch our drift. (MTC…)

Fallout Before the Frolics.

(10/20/23)—But first, where would we be without a frightful October surprise? This one comes in the form of a US State Department ‘Worldwide Caution’ travel alert, owing to unrest and worse amid the current Israel-Hamas War. The warning cites potential for violent demonstrations and terrorist attacks anywhere, anytime in the contentious days ahead. For more detailed information on the advisory, particularly regarding Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and broader Middle East, visit TripWire and travel.state.gov…(. 

Falling For Fests and Foilage.

(9/30/23)—Such fallacious thinking abounds: that (to paraphrase Senator Arthur Vandenberg/1947) travel stops at the summer’s edge. For high-season foibles, failures and frustrations have significantly fallen by the wayside, while autumn travel looks to be a comparatively fresh and welcome breeze in the wake of copious traveler outlays and soaring airline/industry profiteering.

What’s fading in the rearview mirror? Hopefully changing climate weather extremes—the searing global heat domes and flooding rain storms, a Morocco earthquake, Maui firestorms and choking smoke from vast mega-burning forests, Canada to Siberia. Add in TSA checkpoint snarls and FAA air traffic controller staffing shortages, heightened by the long looming threat of a US government shutdown. But on a wing and prayer, we turn the corner and seasonal page.

Autumn In The Air.

Now with so-called revenge travel surge easing, airline service/performance should improve over a summer of overheated flight delays and cancellations (CanDels), capped by American Airline’s record federal fine for flight delays. Still, carriers will continue slashing capacity, shifting schedules, dropping routes altogether with little or no notice. Inflight turbulence, engine failures and birdstrikes will plague air travel no end, as will white-knuckle takeoffs and hard landings, not to mention the troubling increase in taxi/runway ‘close call’ incursions.

Throw in over-taxed pilots (despite hefty pay raises) and crew/stew labor strife (e.g., raising the mandatory pilot retirement age from 65 to 67); airlines coping with emissions pressures and tardy cleaner jet deliveries), plus scouring for bad or fake aircraft replacement parts: Hopefully the summer traffic jam’s demise will serve to clear those cloudy skies.

FallOut: So fallback strategies are in order, including scouting out cheaper airfares in the months ahead (however whack-a-mole fleeting), even booking early for as far out as summer, 2024, while exploiting the postpandemic economic pressures on high and/or low fare carriers. Being mindful of dodgy ‘all-you-can-fly deals, mileage reward roulette, sticky hotel/lodging rates and such, not to mention airlines’ penchant for quick flight departure changes, or jettisoning flights and routes altogether with little or no notice. Nor will we wait idly by for Congress to act on predatory airfare spikes and crackdown on insidious junk fees.

Otherwise, this bracing fall season should help cool that summertime fever in the skies, particularly soaring blow-ups in overstuffed airline cabins—the overhead bin battles and territorial seat/tray skirmishes, much less the onboard food fights, stabbings, aisle scrums and pepper spray. Little wonder the FAA seeks more fines (up to $37k per incident/case) and criminal prosecution of passenger misbehavior (over 270 cases filed since late 2021)—on everything from lav smoking to physical/sexual assaults. Ahh, vamateur hour, au revoir…

FallOut: But pre-flight, we’re gonna be working through, walking around stuffy, crowded airports, wary of creeping fees and the gouging gamut of retail/concession prices along interminable concourses. Moreover skirting the mayhem—departure gates to baggage claim—while wheedling into luxury airline lounges, much like chaffering into luxe hotels when opportune. By the same token, tactics such as bag-fee angler vests and skiplagging warrant all due consideration.

On the technology front, computer snafus will still spark FAA tower/tarmac delays and aircraft ground stoppages, be it over software glitches or hardware malfunction, the EU and UK no less vulnerable to systemwide data/information breaches and crashes. New TSA scanners, lauded as more electronics and liquidity friendly, are still no match for crawling peak-period security lines, PreCheck, Clear of marginal help. Updated data processing and procedures have not yet pared visa and passport application/issuance backlogs—Global Entry expedient efforts notwithstanding—while feds are accused of trolling subjects’ social media activity in US visa cases. Yet as techies say, almighty AI alchemy/salvation is well on the way.

FallOut: So we’ll be ever combing, comparing and contrasting airline, lodging and third-party ticket/reservation websites/mobile apps for deals and steals, for advantages and abuses—targeted to specific trips and itineraries—right down to paperless reservation/ticketing and baggage mishandling (Air Tags anyone?). Also focusing on high-tech snafus and hacks, as well as transcending the toxins and pitfalls of T/T social media. Tracked as well will be the corporate consolidation of flight/fare giants like Expedia and Orbitz, as well as ancillary fee ‘unbundling’  and pay-per-reviews on too many carrier proprietary and third-party booking sites alike.

Tooling, Railing and Sailing.

Same time, different station: summer ’23 train travel set new US passenger records, as Eurail ridership gained steady, heady steam across a sweltering continent. Moreover, AMTRAK is undergoing a systemwide makeover, gaining from a $1.4bn Congressional outlay for rail upgrades and repairs. Sleeker railcars, better wifi: and that comes as higher speed rail advances, from Florida’s privatized BrightLine service to accelerated construction of a Las Vegas-to-Los Angeles leg, rail bed to station upgrades—eventually linking with California’s Central Valley HSR network.

Cruise lines enjoyed packed post-pandemic ships the world over, with bookings strong into the Fall. This despite a destination backlash against bloated, floating city behemoths (e.g., limiting daily docking), reports of deck chair squatting, food/balcony straits, soused mateys overboarding guardrails into the deep, and coronavirus outbreaks revisited, not to mention a luxury MV Ocean Explorer ship stuck in Greenland mud. Nevertheless, some cruise industry heavyweights are actually sailing toward private resort islands of their own.

Despite soaring gas ppgs, roadways were clogged all summer long—cars, wagons, SUVs, camper vans and motorcoaches taking to the highways in pre-pandemic numbers. Too often, too many drivers to too few popular places: Traffic jams ruled the roads, no matter the inflated cost of buying and operating today’s techno-fiddly motor vehicles, no to mention motorcycles. For there are just too many clearer, more colorful fall joyrides to be so detoured or denied.

Which in turn raises the matter of fossil fuel versus hybrid and electric power (with hydrogen fuel on the horizon). EV sales have increased dramatically, regardless of per-vehicle price tags, iffy driving range estimates, tech/software glitches, heavy battery fires—but mainly the equipment/deployment shortages of charging networks. Then come the issues of weighty vehicle traffic safety, let alone the prospect of more and more driverless vehicles—cabs, UberLyft, Amazon—on city streets, highways and byways. These concerns will soon be compounded with the takeoff of flying taxis (namely eVTOLs like Wisk Aero and Joby Aviation), WIG electric seagliders, shuttles and individual cars.

FallOut: So all modes and models will be boarded, floated and/or taken for a spin with regard to comparative efficacy, service and safety…seeing to it we’re not derailed, waterlogged, backfiring or otherwise just plugging along on our scenic autumn drives.

Destination Desperation.

Otherwise, the summer’s post-pandemic ‘revenge’ tourism has surely taken its toll on destinations and the environment worldwide, overwhelming ‘hot spots’, domestic and international. Venice (struggling to fend off a total tourist takeover), red-light Amsterdam and other popular destinations establish visitation quotas, mount restriction bollards and selfie shields, but still tourists still come and congest customary hubs the world over—with crime, hazards and worse awaiting them, or not far behind. Yet other, less traveled places and possibilities still struggle to regain their pre-COVID footing.

Hotel chains and other lodging logged record bookings in kind, with attendant rate raises, tightened cancellation policies, invasive ‘smart’ room surveillance, increased service abuses and guest complaints. While online share services like Verbo and HomeAway can be a consumer crapshoot, AirBnB posting the lion’s share of horror stories—stark, raving orgies to peeping toms—even triggering a New York City clampdown.

Parklands, preserves and heritage sites were overrun as well, despite megafire/smoke and flood threats—litter, vandalism, trespassing and landmark/monument desecration following in too many cases. Stricter reservation/allocation measures result in US national parks, from the Adirondacks and Everglades to Yellowstone and Yosemite. The summer’s crowd muddle was perhaps best illustrated in Burning Man’s flash-flooded muck and mire across Nevada’s Black Rock Desert—a sea of Burners getting swamped and stalled in place for days. This, as Disney Corp. doubles down on pricing and expanding its plastic fantasyland in Orlando.

FallOut: So we’ll be exploring and fully experiencing autumnal trips, routes, settings, events and circumstances—little known local treasures to farther flung adventures; lesser travelled roads and beaten paths: insider secrets to whole other sides. Being mindful of potential crime and dangers therein. Shrewdly paring prices and skirting proscriptions when and where we may. Holding that Destination Dispersion, not hot-spot clotting is the better revenge, we will soon be toasting and sharing Vamigre values via Club Vamaway…

Scrutiny On the Bounty.

Beyond that, topics of more personal nature are surely on the tray table. Falling into view are matters of traveler health and fitness, of reconciling work and travel, esp. remotely—as in carry-on bags versus checked luggage, what with the advent of more spacious Airspace L overhead bins. Or given everything, travel insurance: yea or nay? Add in affairs of spirituality and romance on the go—not to mention the spirits and substances that can help pave the way, as other issues fall in line.

Now be VamoSure to keep eyes peeled for what’s to come—beyond the splendiferous festivals and foilage—seasoning to make for more venturesome, comfy and colorful roving this whole Fall through. For who says that travel stops at summer’s edge? Indeed, fallacy is as vamateur tourist does… and if the ‘revenge’ crowds are not up to speed on autumn travel, we’ll be glad to take the Fall ourselves. (MMTC…)

Seeking Total Summersion, ‘23.

(6/21/23)—Splash: summer’s here and the time is right for hitting the fleets and streets…(much to follow shortly)…

MidSummery: Modes Teem, Pols Fiddle, Romes Burn…   

(7/23/23)—As the torrid summer season broils and overflows forward, travel ’23 would seem to afford somewhat better going, surface to air and sea, at least compared to the ‘jailbreak’ chaos and meltdowns of 2022. Namely rather smoother flying, railing, motoring and sailing despite the ravages of heat domes, flash flooding, ‘overtourism’ and/or rampant crime and oddball misbehavior. Then again, we’ve yet to reach summer’s apogee, and overall capacity is already strained, inflation or no.

Hell and High Water.

The latest signposts for a world in hot water come from the hell-fires of Greece’s Corfu and Rhodes Island, the floods of New England and Nova Scotia. Furious devacuations, dislocation and disruptions under scorching skies all around—from Rome, Georgia to Trevi Fountain: Such is the sunburned, firestormy summer of 2023 thus far.

Yet climate contortions and resulting weather extremes have not detoured a record number of peak season travelers worldwide, with hot mess crowd congestion and clotting to boot. US parks and places are being overrun coast to coast, even as the likes of Disneyworld slump. European destinations have become mob/mayhem magnets, to where cities from Amsterdam to Venice throw up ‘stay away’ signs and ban cruise ships amid the crush of selfie circuses, if not rowdy sex and drug tourism—again, with summer nowhere near its high-water mark.

Hot Air, Sweltering Skies.

Airlines are clearly feeling the heat—but they are basking more than baking as they rapidly recoup COVID pandemic period losses. Trimmer schedules, lower jet fuel prices, full flights, stubbornly high fares: most carriers are embracing this new abnormal. Delta ($15.6bn) and American ($14.6bn) report record Q2 revenue, with United Airlines shaking off earlier (late June-July 4^th) operational disfunction, blaming the FAA for ATC shortages. Yet UAL rebounds to post stellar numbers ($14.18bn), not least by paring its weather/ congestion-troubled Newark hub, while adding international flights to Europe and Asia, day by night, like other airlines.

As other carriers sport healthy Q2 revenue themselves (e.g., Southwest Air $6.99bn; Alaska Air $240m), JetBlue spurns its Northeast Alliance with American Air, (after a federal judge nixed the ‘anticompetitive’ partnership), to better concentrate on its dicey $3.8bn Spirit Airlines acquisition while commercial skies and prospects fly ever higher. The only dark cloud on that horizon is the prospect of strike actions by already overworked and stressed flight crews, some of whom are begging off first-chair promotions as not worth the work-life hassles/cockpit responsibilities. Little wonder major carriers are offering nearly 40% pay raises/incentives to lock in their pilots, captain and co—with flight attendants in turn rattling bev carts and queueing for redress.

‘CanDel’ update? Flight cancellations are down 14% from 2022, although weather-related disruptions (70%) cause a steep rise in ground stops/delays (25% of ’23 flights to date). Other recent hiccups include a bout of Allegiant Airlines’ near-miss and atmospheric turbulence, plus Delta’s Las Vegas tarmac stall, trapping dehydrated passengers for an hour in 110-degree heat, coupled with its regional jet lag in 5G altimeter retrofits, missing a firm DOT/FAA deadline.

Feds Weigh Way In.

Which is about where Congress circles in. For the House Transportation Committee has just passed an FAA reauthorization bill on a bipartisan vote, one that would fund the aviation agency for the next five years. The Congressional goal: ‘a safer, cleaner, greener and more accessible US aviation system’, addressing issues of pilot training standards, air traffic controller shortages amid growing ‘close call’ runway incursions—and crucially, consumer protections.

Pencilled out of the legislation were provisions to raise pilots’ mandatory retirement age from 65 to 67; increased simulator versus real-world flying time toward the conventional 1,500 hours of airline co-pilot training, as well as politico access to more long-distance flights from Ronald Reagan International Airport by expanding the D.C. slot perimeter.

Nevertheless, in a renewed FAA’s sights would likely be on mostly ‘upward yo-yoing’ air fares, onerous (‘junky’) fees and widespread ticket refund policies/abuses. Moreover, the Senate Commerce Committee will now have its say, looking to even further strengthen consumer protections against CanDels and ‘unreasonable or disproportionate’ checked bag and seat selection fees—clearly with Biden administration support. The Senate would also require airlines to compensate passengers bumped from oversold flights and fully refund baggage fees for luggage that has been lost.

Both bills must be reconciled by the current FAA authorization’s expiration date of September 30, or Congress would at least pass a stop-gap measure. But buckle up, for intense counter lobbying by the airline industry promises to make this a contentious legislative battle in the weeks ahead.

More Modes, Mals.

Meanwhile, train-wise, national systems (such as AMTRAK) enjoy record ridership. Cruise lines are over packed to the gills despite certain viral outbreaks at port and sea. With gasoline ppgs continued easing, vehicles—cars, SUVs, trucks to motorhomes—are storming, flooding the highways, as EVs ever expand their range and recharging station networks.

Even motorcoach operations are logging fuller miles well beyond the FlixBus/Greyhound dogs, (up some 70% through Memorial weekend over 2022, 60% through the July 4^th week). Particularly interesting are Vonlane ‘luxury’ buses—offering eye masks, neck pillows, extra blankets, and snacks on the half hour as they roll along: All of which will be explored more thoroughly, mode by mode, in due course…

By the same token, Vamigré will more keenly visit the bummer side of this summer’s travel and travails. Among prickly issues are terminal/inflight malbehavior, overrunning destinations, defacing historic sites in selfie psychosis; trashing popular parklands, goading jungle thrill junkies and desert heat tourists, fouling Venice canals or skinny dipping into the Seine. And that doesn’t begin to reckon with unchecked crime and mass shootings by the hundreds.

Ultimately, Summer ’23 demonstrates that travel remains ascendant these blazing, inflationary days, with international forays rapidly joining the party (up 22% from ’22)—Europe to the Americas and Asia, a three-month US passport process back-up or no. But with revenge tourism, raving hordes, local pushback, daily limits on the rise, saturated supply plainly meets overheated post-pandemic demand. At the same time, US travel begins to stabilize, while domestic and overseas bookings  extend well through the summer and fall—product of flexible work/home situations, early retirements and fit-as-a-fiddle bottom lines.

Still, there are too many faces in too few places: so Vamigré will continue to slog through this tourism quagmire (and dodgy ‘protection’ racket) with a goodly measure of travel and destination dispersion, without grossly overtipping our hand. Back in a nano—meantime, keep cool and carry-on. (MTC…)

Grecian Formula.

(7/16/23)—Already awash in immigrants, Greece was now drowning in tourist hordes. With temperatures cranking upwards of 118-degrees (over 40-degrees Celsius) and visitor lines snaking about High Hill Acropolis and its Parthenon temple, Greek authorities decided to close the world-renowned sites on and off through a heat-domed weekend for the ages—ostensibly to protect tourists from the scorching sun.

Without proper warning, over 11k withering visitors were left Acropper outside the gates of the country’s Golden Age treasures beginning Friday midday. Having climbed the hill’s rocky outcropping, many were overheated, dehydrated, and essentially having Parthenone of it: sobbing, steaming, if not screaming in their stymied selfies.

Nevertheless, Hellenic Red Cross volunteers did set up nearby shading/rescue stations, distributing over 30k water bottles to the hill-bent tourist lemmings who had made pilgrimage in record numbers to these 5th Century BC religious wonders, albeit to haphazard avail.

And this was only mid-July in sweltering Southern Europe—much less the wildfires outside Athens, then the blaze on Greece’s islands of Rhodes and Corfu/Kerkyra. More broadly, with a hellish August yet ahead, it remains to be seen what impact these ravages of climate change will have on such tourism dependent Mediterranean nations—i.e., cancel culture-wise. Meantime, more site and seasonal Dispersion anyone? (MTC as the summer sizzles on…)

Beyond Venturing Fourth.

(7/8/23)—4^th and Long. After what felt nigh on an interminable US Independence week’s joyful jetaways and other festive getaways (+ Canada Day), what are some of the takeaways? What’s been learned here?

Sizzles and Fizzles.

Swelter and domes, swarms and storms: From June 30 on, over 50.7m Americans took to traveling, over 2.1m more than in 2022. Transportation Security Agency (TSA) checkpoints screened over 2.5m air passengers per day through July 6, setting a record 2.8m on June 30 alone. All told, 4^th holiday transport was a bit more methodical than maddening, as it was last year.

Setting records as well was the oppressive June-into-July heat throughout the South and Southwest, while brutal storm systems crossed the country from The Rockies eastward, particularly punishing the Eastern Seaboard and New England—smoky skies, flood waters and tornadoes ravaging the land.

Naturally, major flight disruptions ensued, widespread warnings and storms prompting longer wait lines that cascaded into airports nationwide. While cancellations did moderate some over last year’s operational meltdowns, flights were nonetheless delayed by the thousands daily, especially in the Northeast. Holiday air travelers were afforded scant recourse—rerouting or refunds—with already overbooked flights leaving few forwarding/connection alternatives.

United Airlines was found notably wanting in terms of holiday preparedness and performance—to where, after blaming the FAA for “unprecedented” ‘CanDels’, CEO Scott Kirby stepped in it by being caught catching a private jet to ‘override’ UAL’s long, frustrating wait lines.

United wasn’t flying solo on the snafu route however, as Southwest Airlines posted its share of delays, Hawaiian Air hit some nasty turbulence over water, and a Delta jet landed on the nose in Charlotte, North Carolina, while a ramp worker was fatally sucked into its Airbus 319 jet engine in San Antonio, Texas.

Otherwise the usual air travel head scratchers and headaches pertained. Disturbingly, the FAA continues to struggle with those air traffic controller/staffing shortages, and the specter of mounting runway/taxiway ‘close call’ incursions. This, while Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s July 5G retrofit deadline leaves Delta’s small-jet conversions lagging.

Carriers continue their feeing frenzy, just as Congress debates hands-off legislation regarding their freedom to bump fares ever higher, fleecing passengers at will. Certain airlines persist in dropping flights, paring schedules with little or no notice. Paper vs. paperless booking/ticketing transitions are still implemented by fits and mis-starts; luggage misdirection and loss dramas carry on, gate to carousel. Unrulies and serious misbehavior increasingly plague airline cabins, posing tarmac/inflight threats to crews, stews and passengers—scrums in the aisles, blood on the seats over territorial trivialities, clouding flights far too often for comfort and safety.

Scratching the Surface?

Hardly, for with gasoline ppgs down to $3.50-$3.60 per on national average (from $4.80 a year ago), some 43.2m hit the roads at least 50 miles from home, 2.4m over 2022. Destinations and parks set visitor records coast to coast, inflation be damned. Adding to the driving surge was a sizable increase in hybrid/electric vehicles, and slow but sure expansion of charging station networks.

Travel by rail (SoCal AMTRAK derailment and Lakeland, Florida truck collision (7/14/23)  notwithstanding)—and  bus/motorcoach—also grew to 3.36m, 24% over 2022. Even cruise lines reported holding their water well toward pre-pandemic levels, leaving COVID outbreaks and quarantines far in their wake, save for the emergence of new neuroviral strains in some confined onboard environments, in port and at sea. Then again, there was the Alaska-bound Ruby Princess’s pier gash and gnash, sundowning the long holiday weekend with an unscheduled three-day shanghai in San Francisco.

Dazzlers and Duds.

Same time, modes, destinations and vendors promoted their treasures and pleasures vigorously as they seek to rebound from pandemic constraints and resulting business tailspins. And what’s not to like about all the luscious, picture-perfect cross-media advertising and vibrant video streaming?

Everybody loves America, after all—while Euro travel-tourism, Scandinavia to Sicily, is overwhelming, if not overwhelmed. Nearshoring to Canada and the Caribbean is nearer than ever; South America and Asian nations lure that much more. Clearly, summer ’23 is just getting going about now.

So the issue beyond where is how—specifically focusing sights and strategies to better set and stay the course. The sky may be the travel limit these days, but inflation and our budgetary considerations may bring it all back down to earth in any place, at any time.

Accordingly, do we book early enough or wait long enough to score last-minute deals? How do we factor in sweltering temperatures, extreme storms and smoky air? Are we sufficiently farsighted and flexible to avoid/ward off whack-a-mole air travel and destination disruptions—CanDels to ghosted flights, refunds to vouchers and other recompense? Further, how best to deal with travel/tourism ‘deals’ such as Frontier Airlines’ ‘All You Can Fly’ passes, and Caboesque ‘vacation club’ come-ons?

Can we successfully navigate and negotiate (i.e., ratehawk) volatile hotel/motel rates and conditions, or a thicket of AirBnB, etc. short-term rentals and shares, eyes peeled for dodgy set-ups and snooping? Not to mention the rental vehicle scarcity and squeeze.

To be sure, July 4^th is history and a greater summer ’23 unfurls ahead—high time to relish and conquer America and beyond with travel savvy and independence, Vamigré ever on your wing. Along the way, let’s remember to beware the mass shootings, sharks and storm fronts, clean up after ourselves; turn selfies into more ‘elsies’, refrain from tag/defacing sites or monuments, and behave ourselves once on concourses, at gates and aboard.

So much to cover, and uncover—to show and tell (and retell) in the days and weeks to come. Just be cool and stay cool as we venture forth the world over, going safe and strong all VamoSummer long. (MMTC…)

States of Independence.

(7/2/23)—Heading into the holiday weekend homestretch, what’s been shakin’ thus far?

More people are traveling than before the pandemic—be it for Independence or Canada Day celebrations and beyond. Economic conditions holding up, flex and remote gigs still working—slightly moderating gasoline prices and electric-powered vehicle proliferation all have more travelers taking to the roads.

Destinations are welcoming bumper visitors, parks are overbooked/overrun, swimming holes and shorelines alike are swamped with scorched heat dome refugees. So many done with COVID shackles, so many on the go: Travel industry prospects and share prices are climbing incrementally toward investment-grade territory as 2023’s peak summer season takes off.

Then there’s air travel, which is rebounding by fits and starts amid stronger demand for fewer and fewer available seats and flights. Once again, airports and TSA screeners (understaffed) struggle to keep pace—terminal waitlines longer and as frustrating as ever. Airlines claim that flight cancellations are down (really?), yet delays have cascaded and lengthened in duration.

Carriers cite blazing, raging storms and smoky skies…but mostly fault the Department of Transportation and the FAA—in particular the shortage of air traffic controllers vital to keeping planes coming and going. Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg counters that the ATC crunch accounts for “only 10% of flight delays”, nevertheless vowing to hire 1,500 new controllers by year’s end, 1,800 more in 2024. This, while an FAA five-year reauthorization is blowing in the Congressional winds.

In other words, same ol’ holiday same ol’, with our glorious July 4th parades, fireworks, grilling and corn cobs hanging in the flight board balance—let alone mass US shootings and Parisian riots.

The details and numbers are still mounting and on their way, however, as we celebrate and/or cavort toward the sparkling climax of a long holiday weak, er weekend. Count on that…and en-JOY. (MMTC…)

Deep Do-Done.

(6/29/23)—The summer season has kicked off with a carbon-fiber Cousteau who fancied himself the Elon Musk of deep-sea exploration, but ended up less Muskian than Holmsian—jobbing four thrill-seeking tourists down with him at upwards of $250k per cramped, low headroom floor seat.

Nonetheless, it seems the whole Titan mission was a perfect swell of depth, density, design and disfunction. OceanGate Expedition’s deep dive vessel, bound for a two-hour descent some 2.5 miles to the ghostly RMS Titanic debris field, itself imploded disastrously nearly 1:45 hours down. The submersible vessel, little larger than a minivan, was launched June 18th from a Polar Prince support ship in international waters about 900 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The goal? To explore the century-old shipwreck’s ‘grave site’ and conduct hours of scientific biodiversity research along the ocean floor via powerful external lights, before safely resurfacing on the North Atlantic, returning 380 miles to St. Johns, Newfoundland.

This ‘state-of-the-art’ Titan eschewed the steel spherical shape of more conventional deep-sea submersibles for a 22-foot cylindrical hull constructed of titanium and carbon composite—lighter, more buoyant and maneuverable with a depth range of 13,345 feet, and easier on OceanGate’s bottom line—(7/7/23) a company that has since ceased operation. The 23,000-pound vessel, mounted on skids, featured self propulsion engines, as well as a compartment with electric pressurization, heated walls, bright lighting, a curtained toilet and 20-inch domed viewport door through which the “mission specialists” could observe glowing sea life  outside their titanium end cap window. Cozy and comfy as all get out, even though they were sealed inside with exterior bolts.

Yet deep-sea exploration experts and former OceanGaters voiced serious concerns over Titan’s design and testing protocols, even after two earlier successfu launches in less challenging depth and conditions. Of particular worry was its carbon-fiber hull’s thickness and adhesion after repeated pressurizations—redundant safety systems or no. Then there were the experimental vessel’s other design materials, certain parts off the shelf from camping outfitter stores, let alone a navigation ‘helm’ fashioned from a video game controller. But the main rub was that Titan had never been officially certified (as to nautical safety, stability, performance, etc.), say by Lloyd’s Register, the American Bureau of Shipping or any other nautical regulatory body—this, a glaring red flag, deep-sea exploration industrywide.

The late Stockton Rush III, perished OceanGate CEO and Titan mission navigator, had long pledged the private company’s commitment to safety, and dedication to affording “…adventurers a chance to experience deep-sea travel.” Still, he was seen by some detractors as ‘an ambitious maverick from illustrious lineage who wanted to be Captain Kirk, and an alpha-dog innovator remembered for the rules one breaks.’

In any case, Titan’s debris field was soon located on the seabed barely 1,600 feet from the RMS Titanic’s bow. Absent a black box recorder, it currently appears a hull implosion may have occurred in milliseconds under water pressure of more than 4,340 lbs. per square inch, turning the ‘revolutionary’ carbon fiber composite into veritable potato chips. Little wonder Titan’s four ‘explorers’ had to sign waivers that spelled out the risk of death three times, listing eight different voyage scenarios onboard this vessel that could be fatal or physically disabling.

Nerve-wracking, claustrophobic: yet the buzz of deep diving through the leagues—the morbid curiosity and romantic lure of disaster tourism epitomized by the RMS Titanic steamship‘s deathbed—will likely continue bottom feeding into traveler bucket lists, as far as the eye can sea. We just have to be smarter about it all as we go, not least to hazardous places like Norway’s Horelen Mountain cliffs.

By the same token, would that sinking Mediterranean Sea migrants got such riveting wave-to-wave maritime and media regard the world over…but that’s another debris field entirely. (MTC…)

VamoScience, Tech…+ ‘Spaced Out’

Springing toward Summery Judgment.

(6/1/23)—Mementos, momentos, lamentos—Memorial Day (MD3) is but a memory by now, but the initial test run for summer travel ’23 went relatively well this past three-day holiday weekend, at least compared to 2022 (i.e., 45k cancellations last summertime alone).

By the latest numbers: Some 42m US travelers overall lit out a minimum of 50 miles from home on the unofficial kickoff of the summer travel season—soaring, spinning and/or sailing about, surging 7% over 2022, well past pre-pandemic levels.

As for air travel, 3.4m passengers took off, 11% over ’22. US airports processed more flyers over MD3 (+ Thursday) than before the COVID shutdown—e.g., the TSA screened 9.8m passengers Thursday through Monday, 300k more than on MD3 2019.

Nevertheless, flight cancellations reportedly decreased to roughly 1% over the weekend: 82 scratches nationwide through Monday, with 3,771 delays of three hours plus—CanDels far below the widespread chaos and airline disfunction of 2022. All this as robust flight demand continues unabated, despite tighter carrier schedules and sky-high fares (up 2.7% from ’22), boosting airline stocks, but offering less-for-more squeezing to travelers like us.

Otherwise, some 81% of US MD3 travelers (7.7% over ’22) took to the roads bound for destinations coast to coast and everywhere in between, gas prices having recently dropped an average of $1 per gallon nationally, although are likely on the rise again through June. Meanwhile, upwards of 2m more travelers boarded trains, buses and cruise ships.

Getaways, Wet and Wild.

No denying it’s sunny side up by 2022 comparison thus far. Still, MD3 ’23 logged its share of mishaps and miscreants. A sampling from among them:

• Belated news of the latest ‘close call‘, this at San Francisco’s SFO airport May 19, where United Airlines Flight 277, then Alaska Air Flight 533 jetliners had to abort their cleared landing approaches and ‘go around’ when a Southwest Airlines (Flt. 1179) plane, taxiing to a San Diego takeoff, dawdled crossing the hold-short lines of their intended runways 28L then 28R dead ahead.

• A Red River rumble, with rival bikers trading live fire in a New Mexico mountain town, innocent holiday visitors caught in the middle, sent screaming for cover.

• A Hollywood shoot ’em up on a Florida boardwalk injuring nine fleeing beachgoers, topping off 17 mass shootings over MD3 nationwide.

• Offshore, a Carnival cruise ship returning to Charleston from the Bahamas was swamped on stormy seas along the South Carolina coast. Decks and hallways were flooded as ocean waves battered the ‘Sunshine”, passengers being emergency evacuated, if not left helplessly onboard. This, as the rebounding cruise industry is suddenly packing ’em in like canned sardines, overbooking and bumping scuppered passengers at will.

• Farther out, Asiana Airlines passengers struggled for their lives to remain seated as yet another inflight maniac, ‘feeling suffocated’, stormed and opened the jetliner’s emergency door at some 850′ altitude on landing approach. The Airbus A321-200 landed safely anyhow, with no major injuries to the 194 windblown passengers. The perp’s open door pathology will likely net the 30-something South Korean ten years in stir if he’s lucky. Only to be followed by a miscreant who had to be subdued twice on a Paris-Detroit Delta Flight DL0097 with 261 passengers (6/1), which emergency diverted to Stephenville, Newfoundland.

No fatalities nor major injuries have been reported with respect to any of these incidents. But we still have much to cover over the brimming high-travel months ahead, beginning with a few timely tips and tales on the way—all the makings for one momentous VamoSummer season, 2023. (MMTC…)

Protection Racket?

(5/21/23)—What’s with all the noise about protecting passengers these days?

As the busy travel season is on final approach, no less than the Biden Administration’s Department of Transportation has floated its intent to establish new compensation rules for air travelers stalled by flight cancellations and/or significant delays (‘CanDels’).

With a thematic threat of “holding airlines accountable”, the President and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg seek to strong-arm carriers into covering passenger expenses beyond ticket refunds when CanDels are caused by factors they can control. Biden’s “travelers deserve better” policy comes in the wake of massive travel disruptions and meltdowns over this past holiday season, with perhaps even heavier airport traffic (some 3.4m air travelers) projected for Memorial Day weekend ’23.

Paid to Stay?

The new, more muscular rules would require airlines to fully compensate scuttled passengers for meal, hotel and rebooking expenses when the carriers are to blame. ‘Route causes’ can be crew/aircraft shortfalls, scheduling tangles and mechanical problems, along with any cleaning, fueling and loading snafus.

Airlines contend that they already offer travel credits and vouchers, some volunteering comp meals and hotel stays for delays of more than three hours as ‘discretionary relief ‘. But the new rules would make monetary coverage mandatory for all US-based carriers—bringing CanDel compensation more in line with EU/UK airlines (up to $660 cash per afflicted passenger).

Industry trade group Airlines for America balks, arguing that post-pandemic extreme weather and air traffic control factors largely contribute to flight cancellation and delays, and are well beyond their operational management. Noting that carriers are working to improve ‘reliability’ as it is, AfA also seeks further clarification on what constitutes a ‘significant delay’ to begin with.

In any case, DOT plans to implement these beefier comp rules later this year, after a standard public comment period. The pro-consumer effort would augment its online dashboard, launched last summer, which tracks ticket prices, fees, CanDel compensation (credits/vouchers), frequent flier mileage and overall customer service per carrier—with colored can-do and don’t checkmarks—as far as that goes so far.

Still, some industry observers warn that additional compensation pressures (e.g., inconvenience payments), would make travel more confounding and expensive for everybody. Others say airlines will inevitably find a way to raise sky-high fares (peaking upwards of 45% over 2021 last fall) even higher.

But for all the current hubbub on compensation issues, implementation of these rules is months and another record travel season away, flying into a stormy election year, if at all.

Meantime, we’ll see what shakesdown and comes of this DOT arm-twisting: true traveler relief—or just some blustery protection racket twisting in the wind. (MTC…) 

Shuffling Onward: Sounding Boards to Springboards.

(5/20/23)—It isn’t just SWA:☟ In a season of chatbot prompt engineering, the airlines aren’t exactly displaying advanced intelligence these days—natural or artificial. And signs are primetime leisure travel is taxiing for takeoff writ large, at least by most industry accounts–just when shorthanded, overworked American Airlines pilots are rattling yokes for an ALPA-authorized strike, seeking pay levels the equal of rival Delta’s recent pact.

Collusion Course?

The cards are on the table, all right. In AI terms, carrier promptness seems more or less a degenerative hallucination. For transportation data show that US airlines continue to struggle with their on-time (down to 76.7%), on-schedule and onboard performance. Carriers such as JetBlue, Spirit and Allegiant score lowest in recent surveys, but many domestic and international lines fare little or no better.

January through November 2022 numbers reveal that customer/passenger complaints quadrupled from pre-pandemic stats—60,732, vastly worsting the 15,342 travelers filed in 2019. In this case, more is painfully more, as upwards of 800m passengers flew commercially in 2022, well over the 322m during COVID. But beyond cancellation/delay (CanDel) inflation—let alone misplaced or rifled luggage carousels, and ticket refund heel dragging—consumer grievances center on third-party booking sites, travel agents, terminal gate-gates and other industry ‘feed’ bumps.

And although airlines claim they are adding 5% more pilots and 1% more flight attendants to meet anticipate 2023 demand, the more ominous figure is that they plan to do so with 10-17% fewer flights overall. In other words, the aggregate demand/supply profit squeeze remains their optimal S.O.P. flying forward. Meaning more of us will be chasing fewer and fuller flights, with airlines hiking ticket prices, relishing their capacity and more-with-less strategies, which enrich them at our ever-rising expense. Thus book early and book often, because such capacity cuts without carriers having to surrender precious gate slots—purportedly to ‘ease congestion’—have the FAA’s wink and nod.

Collision Course?

Intersecting these S/D market imbalances, with the resulting ‘fareflation’ and ‘feeflation’, is a jet stream of ominous sign markers, and the hand they are likely to deal us.

For instance, the FAA and NTSB plod through investigations of recent taxi/runway incursions at airports (both hub and spoke-size) in 2023 thus far—struggling to ‘keep airplanes from swapping paint’—contending with carrier and air traffic control staffing shortages on up, to little avail to date.

Moreover, while a US House Transportation Committee conducts a hearing to grill these very aviation safety agencies over the alarming increase in such ‘close-calls’, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation stonewalls on confirming Phillip A. Washington as FAA head, noting his lack of aviation experience, to where the Biden administration nominee has withdrawn from consideration. This Congressional ‘collision’ leaves the agency in acting mode at an exceedingly troublesome time—particularly now that Acting Admin Billy Nolan announced (4/23/23) he will be leaving his post this summer.

Contention Course.

It appears partisan politics also enters in elsewhere, case in point: the Sunshine State. As the Walt Disney Company grapples with job cuts by the thousands in its centennial year, Disney World-Orlando battles the governor and Florida legislators in Tallahassee, the friction over jurisdiction centering on government services, taxation privileges and LGBTQ issues regarding the 50 square-mile park site (as in Reedy Creek Improvement District vs.  Central Florida Tourism Oversight District), Disney since beginning to cut Florida ties. Further south, Miami Beach seeks to break from its party town image, shedding the springtime excesses, rebranding as a healthier, better-traveled center of arts and culture. The effort pits locals against high-rolling ‘yokels’, this civic drive spreading to Panama City and Ft. Lauderdale. It remains to be seen who ultimately drinks to that.

More broadly, Germany and Great Britain wrestle with transport strikes, main rail to public transit, which also disrupt flight airport operations and flight schedules. Europe, especially Southern Euro countries are projecting record visitor growth this year—to where one Austrian Village, Hallstatt, has constructed wooden ‘selfie shields’ before its vista points and celluloid storied peaks to ward off raving hoards of star-struck shutter bugs, so as to foster ‘quality tourism this year’.

Railwise, a fatal Netherlands derailment, so closely trailing the Greece crash, smacks as well of the numerous freight line mishaps lately plaguing US tracks and roadbeds.

Among various other sign posts to foresee and be seen:

• Venice continues sinking as seas rise and its canals stagnate, what with the cherished floating city’s leaders engineering expansive tidal barriers to ward off further disastrous flooding.

• Besides setting stringent visitor caps, the Dutch capital is Amsterdamning ‘nuisance tourist’ types to unwelcome status via stay-away campaigns and increased policing that extends to the city’s potted bars and red-light district.

• Parisians have just overwhelmingly (89%) voted to ban self-service rental scooters by September ’23. The non-binding ‘public consultation’ seeks to prohibit the use of electric scooters on City of Lights’ streets and walkways to “save people from death and injury.”

• Closer to US borders, the latest murders in Cancun graphically underscore the perils of traveling to Mexico amid unending, unbridled drug cartel violence (while noting the 190+ mass shootings in the US so far this year). Nevertheless particularly vulnerable are so-called medical tourists who may also be subjected to tainted medicines, not least meds laced with fentanyl.

But not that any of this need deter us, hence…

Course Correction: Some Springboards…

Because, hassle/hazards or no, Vernal ’23 promises to be a powerful bridge to one hot-to-trot summer.

• So VamoScouts advise to steer clear of the strikes, dodge the strife—as we travelers, shrewdly, safely make our way in this chippy world these turbulent days. That journey may well begin with canny, flexible planning to counter the sucker punches of booking glitches and boarding backups, through online savvy and invasive/evasive terminal moves—curbside through gate lag to jetway on aboard.

• In essence we apply our VamoSense and forethought to the rights travelers have in the face of airline flight delays and scheduling changes. As in moving to a different flight without extra charges; holding fast for refunds, even on nonrefundable tickets—otherwise pinning carriers down on their ever-shifting CanDel policies, mindful of trending airline seat upgrade auctions.

• Should an overborder/overseas jaunt be in sight to help jettison our pandemic era shackles regardless of the stress, strikes and strife worldwide—it’s better to get ahead of the ramp and/or road rush while the gettin’s still good. That means hitting the US passport queues ASAP to initially apply or renew, processing which can routinely take anywhere from 10 to 13 weeks at present, as the State Department receives some 500k applications per day. In fact, the sorely understaffed agency and its on-again/off-again website handled upwards of 22m cases in 2022 alone, with even more expected this year.

Expediting that process down to seven-nine weeks costs an extra $60-$160, depending upon whether we’re first timers or back seeking renewals. Curiously, immediate (emergency) cases can be processed within 14 days in some instances by booking an in-person appointment at the nearest passport office. But all the good luck in the world with that, as in winning a Mega-Millions Lotto jackpot.

• Nonetheless, those fortunate enough to head abroad might check out the State Department’s website for safety alerts by destination (+ local news sources), or sign up with its Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). Moreover, MedJet type membership may be a good prescription for ‘medivac’ relief/rescue from particularly dangerous circumstances. For the US government is apparently not obliged to evacuate citizen travelers who have been duly warned. Travel insurance could also payoff in delay/disruptive situations, depending upon the policy’s coverage and cancellation limitations.

• Tech-wise, an eSIM card could be money saver on cell phone service for the length of an international trip, provided its signal bars are reliably strong, be it on a by-the-day or week plan. Rates can begin at $7-$10 (e.g., Nomad, Hola, Flexiroam, etc.); best to safeguard personal information, say by opting out of carrier tracking schemes.

And so on…among the many things to consider as we prepare to shuffle off—with more wild cards on the way…

r tracking schemes.

And so on…among the many things to consider as we prepare to shuffle off—with more wild cards on the way…

Once Aboard…

TSA screened, concourse ‘comfort’ fed up, boarding passes in hand: It’s time to carry on and buckle up. Now stay tuned and trackin’ for more, including Vamigre’s Ten Vamandments to go… (MMTC…)

SWA: Umpteenth NeSome two thousand flights were delayed systemwide Tuesday, as Southwest Airlines suffered its latest technical meltdown.

The FAA ordered a ground stop over safety concerns once the Dallas-based carrier discovered a computer malfunction affecting more than half its flights.

The massive IT failure centered on a (third-party) software firewall glitch, which disrupted key connections throughout SWA’s network, some operational data reportedly lost. The morning breakdown lasted roughly an hour, but the airline’s flight/service operations remained tangled and off course for much of the day.

With chilling winter calamities still echoing, and Southwest pilots continuing to cold press publicly for system modification, SWA honchos must be anxiously screening/scanning their ever-lovin’ skies for more operational stability by now.

Alas, when will Southwest’s winter woes finally melt away to a springtime thaw? (MTC…)

Southwest Air: Winter Weathered?

(3/17/23)—After incurring an estimated $1.2bn pre-tax hit from its December debacle (counting aggregate costs and lost revenue), then seeing its January and February bookings pared away be poaching rival carriers, Southwest Airlines is Marching in with a plan.

Concluding that its cold, hard holiday week meltdown, wherein the carrier had cancelled nearly 2/3rds of its total schedule—16,700 flights—by December 26 to reset its operation, CEO Bob Jordan copped to its lack of extreme winter weather preparedness. So SWA is going on a buying and redeploying spree.

Jordan’s post-Christmas shopping list includes improved technology, the likes of enhanced software functionality to better assign/reassign crew allocations throughout its system amid extreme climate disruptions. Add in that tech tools to calculate the safest takeoff time window once deicing Glycol is sprayed on aircraft wings and flaps, using app sensors to measure current temperature, wind and snow’s liquid content: As in, no more seat-of-the-pants guesstimating by operations control.

Further, ground crew ranks will increase and be supplemented with better deicing pads and greater fluid stores at major airports (not least Denver, and Chicago’s Midway), more deicing trucks, engine covers and heating devices. Southwest expects to fully implement such measures by this coming October, in time to weather the next chilling winter siege.

Meantime, SWA sees bookings beginning a healthy rebound in March thus far, with a robust spring and summer on its planning screens, vindicating its point-to-point (over hub) strategy after all. Now we’ll see if this, and the carrier’s continued accountability for its ‘Holy hell’ of December, will lower the heat from critical customers, labor and lawmakers alike. (MTC…) ☟

SWA: From Grinch to Goldilocks?  

(1/3/23) + Updates—Now will it be ‘Sure, we’re accountable’ or ‘Sorry, won’t allow’? Post New Year’s, that is the multi-million dollar question Southwest Airlines must answer nearly a million times.

Surely, in the contrails of a hellish Holy week, we can all replay the horrific coast to coast storms, the snowed-in or flooded airports, massive flight cancellations/delays (CanDels) searing departure/arrival boards, tarmac torture and vast, claim area minefields of mistakenly distributed luggage.

But perhaps most emblematic of the holiday air travel shambles was the sudden operational collapse of esteemed SWA—grounding or displacing upwards of 1m angry, disappointed passengers, with little or no customer service, much less viable recourse.

Chaos on Cascade.

Initially, Southwest laid blame on foul weather, as the carrier began cancelling 60-70% of its flights nationwide. From December 22 on, SWA was scrapping some 2,500 flights per day, delaying thousands more, numbering upwards of 17k by week’s end, customers and luggage overflowing throughout air terminals far and wide.

Before long however—with rival airlines rather more smoothly adjusting to the mounting chaos—CEO Bob Jordan copped to SWA’s shortfalls: that the carrier’s unique operating system was creating more problems than it was SkySolving. Aircraft were being misrouted or misplaced. Pilots and flight attendants were off assigned and spinning wheels all over its network for want of rescheduling.

✈️ Little wonder SWA pilots are now threatening a May day strike, especially since Delta pilots just signed a  long-term contract, with a 34% pay bump). Passengers themselves were backing up in airports nationwide over the holidays, blinded less by the snowstorms than Southwest’s staffing shortages and drifting customer service information, many being delayed and waiting on hold for hours and days.

Clearly, holiday week weather conditions were forbidding: planes, ground equipment, jetways frozen or flooded in place. Most other leading carriers continued rebooting post haste, while ground bound Southwest remained snowed under well toward New Year’s weekend.

A folksy, fun-flying airline that had just boasted of its Thanksgiving readiness, had announced a healthy dividend ($428m total) to shareholders as the largest player in 23 of the 25 major US markets, was flummoxed and failing non-stop. Beyond wicked winter weather conditions, a systemic culprit soon emerged: Southwest’s overall point-to-point routing model, more specifically the long creaky ‘1990s era’ technology relied upon to wing it methodically along.

That is, foremost carriers are built on the hub-and-spoke platform upon which their planes feed from medium to smaller cities into hub airports for forwarding to connecting flights. But Dallas-based SWA flies directly from city to city—a model it has employed from being a feisty start-up to national/international low-fare giant—intending to better serve its midsize and modest destinations. Yet P-to-P left little or no wiggle room once storms and seething passengers overwhelmed its system, MIA to SEA.

Southwest aircraft (mostly 737s) idled, bathed in Glycol de-icing, flight crews deadheaded about, terminals became refuge shelters, swamped customer service reps froze out desperately distraught passengers, baggage claim carousels degenerated into inundated disaster zones. Lacking costly reciprocal partnership agreements with other carriers, SWA could not help customers re-book outside its network. Rivals, from UAL and Delta to Spirit, proceeded to cap certain big-city airfares to mitigate predatory rebook/ ticket scalping (e.g.,  last-minute $1,500 one-way walk-ups).

After the Flood and Thud.

Got so US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg finally declared that Southwest’s “system failure had crossed the line…(to) unacceptable”, expecting the carrier to reimburse customers for alternative travel arrangements and offer timely refunds. “…To follow the law…and provide a prompt update on its efforts to do right by the customers it has wronged.” The DOT head then jawboned hotel stay vouchers for overnight strandees, reminding Southwest of the vital federal COVID relief funds (via Payroll Support/ Protection Programs) bestowed upon the airline, warning of significant fines, vowing a DOT investigation of the entire holiday period debacle (which has already begun): namely SWA’s actions and customer service policies.

After struggling to reboot by throttling down to more manageable one-third scheduling, a chastened  Jordan announced that Southwest’s system would largely be ‘restored to normal’ by Friday, 12/31—orderly matching flight crews to displaced aircraft again, ramping up to refill/relaunch the preponderance of its flights (roger that). The 10-month newbie CEO also promised a wholesale retooling of its operational technology—hewing to aviation industry rules, manuals and parameters of law—deep in ’technical debt’ as the airline’s outdated logistical/scheduling hardware and software evidently was. Moreover, he offered to honor and ply “reasonable” claims/ requests for refunds and or restitution, given receipts are presented.

So where does that leave us now, what with more monster winter storms clouding new-year skies?

___________________________________

Weather or Whether?

(1/5/23)—Chin deep into the siege, CEO Jordan announced that Southwest “will honor requests and reimbursements directly related to the travel disruption, (all which) would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.” He specified that customers who sustained cancellations and “significant delays” between December 24 and January 2 can submit receipts, mainly by following instructions on the airline’s website, Southwest.com. He added that augmenting its standard customer service component, this SWA team’s ‘reparation process’ would gradually be automated—likely by the same outdated, well-toiled IT system/machinery that failed the carrier in the first place—noting that the undertaking may take a number of weeks to get it ‘just (Goldilocks) right’.

A Munificent Plying Machine?

Indeed, SWA’s focus would be to “…take care of our customers because we’ve inconvenienced them significantly in many cases.” Hundreds of thousands, at that—yet soon came the chisel words, the carve-outs and caveats. Southwest was not responsible for weather driven conditions or other ‘acts of God’. Any passenger claims must be timely and “reasonable” within guidelines stipulated in SWA’s policies and contracts of carriage. Flight cancellations and delays (CanDels) have to result from circumstances “under the carrier’s control”; delays need drag on three hours or more.

For its part, the Department of Transportation ‘Dashboard’ (DOTdash) posts that with cancellations due to factors under the airline’s control (crew problems, cleaning/fueling/baggage handling snafus, etc.), the carrier is required to issue ticket refunds fully and promptly should passengers decide not to rebook/reboard later SWA flights at all. As for the 3+ hour delays, SWA must rebook them on another of its flights at no further cost—but, again, its passengers are hamstrung by the carrier’s lack of reciprocal agreements for transferring to legacy rivals sans added fares.

Vaminutiae: The Deal Is In the Details.

Southwest pins these rules down further by establishing that a stalled customer’s reservation scratch must be submitted a minimum of ten-minutes prior to the ticketed flight’s scheduled departure with “appropriate information”—in person, by phone (1-800-435-9792), email or its app. Refunds for unused SWA transportation (+ fees?) will be issued in the original form of cash payment (no later than 20 business days from the request date), credited to charge accounts (within seven business days) or as Rapid Rewards points.

This apparently applies to ‘non-refundables’ as well, although holders of “Wanna Get Away” tickets may be subject to a cloudy area of convertible credits on future flights and credit forfeiture for 10-minute minimum notice ‘violators’. Best to contact Southwest directly here.

As to delays, DOTdash specifies that waits of 3+ hours or other ‘significant changes’ induced and/or controllable by an airline warrant prompt monetary refunds (regardless of reason)—including for non-refundable tickets—if passengers elect not to accept alternative offers, such as rebooking on a new flight. Rebooking on the same airline accrues no additional cost; for overnight stays, strandees should receive complimentary hotel, meal/meal cash vouchers and to/from ground transportation to the airport. Southwest speaks in terms of  frequent-flyer points and LUV vouchers, as if signaling a sticky, stormy delay repay gap ahead. 

Which loop-de-loopholes into the “reasonables.” DOTdash goes on to addresses issues of hotel accommodations, meals and alternative transportation here, stating that customers suffering carrier controllable flight cancellations or 3 hr+ delays merit similar comps. And in certain cases reimbursement pertains for fallback surface modes like Amtrak and buses.

Further, with regard to the loss and cost of passenger baggage, DOT assesses a maximum fine of $3,800 per lost bag domestically, $1,800 per loss on international flights, with airlines on the hook for free delivery of delayed bags directly to a customer’s address of choice.

While Southwest’s baggage policy includes two free checked bags and one free carry-on bag (stored in overhead bins) and personal item (placed under seats), per size/weight limitations, and a $75 per bag fee for additional, larger checked/carry-on items. The carrier’s website features a customer baggage report claim form for misrouted and/or misplaced bags, taking home location/contact, plus flight and bag size/description information to trigger the baggage reunification safari.

Then comes the thicket and squall of reimbursement for the passengers’ precious visit and vacation time lost due to Southwest’s meltdown during the holidays, not least the ancillary last-minute inconvenience and out-of-pocket/plastic expenses they may have incurred—often totaling into the thousands of dollars. Best to check with its customer service and website…but good luck with all that. 

Nevertheless, SWA reserves the right to determine the ‘reasonable’ validity of any and all of these ‘properly submitted and substantiated’ claims, much less how (and how much) it is willing to cover same. Therein looms the chisel and wriggle room, on a ‘customary’ case-by-case basis. Not to mention the PR and brand image/reputation baggage Southwest may end up shlepping should it under or overstep its recompensatory goodwill and obligations. Concerning, that—if only because so many travelers need a good and healthy Southwest Airlines.

Waity, Weighty Countermeasures.

Accordingly, Secy. Buttigieg continues to insist on holding SWA”accountable”, warning that DOT will be more aggressive in extending consumer protections and defending passenger rights in imminent agency regulations and Senate review. Consumer groups rail over Southwest’s ‘flightmare’, particularly with reports of waylaid passengers being scuttled with those unexpected costs—standees and strandees harassed, if not threatened arrest by certain air terminal authorities. Indeed, that DOT investigation has begun, with the agency focusing on whether SWA ‘unfairly and deceptively offered a holiday flight schedule it hadn’t the capacity to provide.

Meanwhile SWA slogs through system recovery and passenger redress, the widely beloved (+ consistently profitable) carrier posts a $220m Q4 loss in ticket sales and reimbursements, vowing to earn customer loyalty once again. Even as the first of possibly many class-action consumer lawsuits has already been filed, in New Orleans federal court. Capdeville v  Southwest Airlines Co. claims “…affected passengers cannot use their airline tickets through no fault of their own and are not getting the benefit of their bargain with defendant…”—as in, tool up people or be tooled. 

Conversely, (deeper) pockets of commercial airline interests decry this and further governmental ‘meddling’ in their business/ operations—likening that to Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) trammels prior to overall industry deregulation in 1978. While SWA shareholders have since filed their class-action lawsuit in Houston, accusing the carrier of “…fraudulently concealing” its operational problems and shortcomings in regulatory filings, costing investors $2bn of shareholder value.

✈️ At any rate, we will wait and keep a keen eye on our inboxes in coming weeks, curious to See What Arrives. Update: As of 2/10, SWA claims (to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation) that it has issued $300 travel credits to two million affected customers, and processed and paid out over 96% of nearly 285m ‘eligible’ reimbursement requests thus far. (MMTC…) 

’23 Skiddoo…

(12/29/22)—Whether taking off on December holidays, taking them off for a ski spree—or basking in the tropical sun, here are some draggin’s to sleigh as we go. Because just as we’ve savored images of Santa, sugar plums, sacred-to-secular symbolism and pine-scented candlelight, we still face the usual, and more unusual vexpectations:

Call it Thanksgiving in 6G HD mode, but we’re looking at even more than T-Day/week’s 4.5 Americans on the move this month, and for longer stays. So again, the Vamantra is book early, book often (BE-BO 2.0), if we haven’t already nailed them down. In any case, the search for bargain air fares and deals has become more challenging in 2022 into ’23, as carriers tighten the screws on flight schedules and capacity, some majors even abandoning some regional cities and airports altogether in  months to come.

Long and Short of It.

Same old, same old: Airlines continue to blame climate extremes, pilot and staffing shortages, labor strife, jet fuel costs and fleet delivery/servicing delays for stifling their surge recovery. On that score, there is no denying Airbus’s missed production targets on its leading A320/1 neo models, crimping carrier readiness. As for Boeing, the Chicago-based planemaker couldn’t seem to lobby its way out of FAA concern over the safety of cockpit alerting systems in new shorter 737 MAX 7’s and longer MAX 10’s. Yet Congress and the aviation agency blinked on a deadline for ‘costly, time consuming’ Boeing upgrades to help pilots handle operational emergencies. So lobbying pressure did prevail. Meanwhile, we’re left to wish upon a timely, trusted holiday star.

The aerospace giant contended that its current 737 series systems are sufficient, threatening job losses, if not halting production of both new models, if the FAA/Congress didn’t grant it a deadline exclusion or at least an extension: thus that DOT/FAA exclusion ruled the day. But some pilot groups and politicos oppose any such reprieve on safety grounds, while carriers impatiently rattle their multibillion-dollar order contracts; too many Boeing engineers are bailing over pension issues, and the company jettisons its storied 747s of sunnier days. So safety comes at a price these days? Apparently, inconveniently so…

High Road or Low?

Thus we travelers are left to haggle and hassle over all manner of air travel turbulence—beyond foul weather to whether we can board when, where, much less how we desire. Whether we’ll be facing the usual holiday delay and/or cancellation (‘CanDels’) rue-lette wheel; if we can land well fit tushability that affords less crippling legroom and safer evacuation from the (thinner?) seats where we live—say, by scoring the free drinks and added leg space of emergency row seating. Otherwise, will the screened media suck or will wifi be available/workable at all?  This, while the EU moves to liberate inflight cellphone usage across the Continent.

Indeed, whether we’ll encounter the myriad onboard nutjobs who cram overheads, swap or sprawl across extra seating, pitch knee-crushing seatbacks, wrestle over armrests, harangue flight attendants and neighbors alike or threaten to bring the whole plane down in flames. Will we stall at TSA checkpoints as officers scan carryons for secreted contraband, weaponry or live animals? Would ours be among the 1.4m+ pieces of checked baggage lost in 2022 to date—particularly those snappy wheelies—a harrowing claim carousel sight for our jetlagged eyes. Verdict being: carry-on smaller, pack tighter and lighter to avoid baggage fees that can double up basic airfares on most budget/low-cost carriers like Frontier, Spirit, Allegiant, et al—if not (now dividending) Southwest Air. 

Headed South By Southwest.

This, while SWA suffers a massive holiday meltdown, nearly 80-90% of its flights cancelled (nearly 20k since 12/22), thousands more delayed—ostensibly due to bad weather, staffing/pilot shortages and aircraft allocation snafus in its outdated point-to-point system. Not to mention a cloud looming over Southwest Air’s alleged pallsy relationship with the FAA’s Dallas office and resulting palsy in oversight of the carrier’s inspection/repair documentation and take-off/landing luggage weight data.

Mired in mounting cancellations and delays, a minefield of misplaced bags, its passengers dizzy with despair around its carousels and curling up on terminal floors, Southwest has “crossed the line of acceptability”, according to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg—with relief/rescheduling still days away. Thus the carrier now faces millions of dollars in ticket refunds, restitution, if not DOT fines for its protracted holiday collapse (2,500+ cancellations per day, 15,700 since 12/22). Rivals United and American claim they are even setting fare price caps ‘in select cities’ as though to mitigate opportunistic gouging—the likes of $1k last-minute, walk-up ‘courtesy’ ream jobs. (mmtc...)

On the upside, there are still airfare bargains to be found, only it will take ever more VamoScrutiny to suss the teaser/flash sales and strategies to spurn the onerous fees amid a glut of tix/resv websites, since fares jumped 43% in September alone. Take Frontier Airlines’ recent ‘Go Wild’ flight pass campaign for scanty starters, and middle seat lottery promotions like Virgin Australia’s ($145k prize). While new low-cost carriers are taking off all the time. Then again, we might take to the romance of the rails, if not cushy cruise control.

Moreover a business travel rebound still lags, which means greater space and better service for leisure classy/classmates like us. The potential pitfalls of a Real ID-compliant card rollout have been delayed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until May 2025 at the soonest. And if all else fails aloft, US gasoline prices have been driven down by weaker demand (much like sinking theme park attendance) should we choose instead to hit the roads.

Eight days, twelve days, New Year’s Day—skyway or highway, arriving earlier, leaving later: Whatever gets us bookin’ for this holiday season, whatever coats our boats, Vamigré will keep bringin’ it, Yulegising clear into the New Year. So here’s to breakin’ way free in 2023.  And by all means, make that a ’23 Skiddoo. (MMTC…)

Winging Away From T-Day.

(11/26/22)—Had enough or still hot to trot? Flying high into Thanksgiving holiday weekend travel, truly some 55m US travelers faced much the same crowded skies as over the summer months—only with fewer airline capacity/choices and continually soaring fares. Meanwhile, further driving gridlocked highway headaches are high-octane/ppg petrol and a paucity of electric recharging stations: call it creeping traflation. Other than that, it was off to the glories and gluttony of Thanksgiving USA. Only this time it wasn’t about the journey, but the jams and yams.  So let’s talk turkey over what we found out there…

Flight Accompli?

Our Vamantra remains book early, book often through the holidays, even extending trip/visit durations if need be to lock in comparatively lower, lighter ‘off-day’ fares fore and aft. Because it looks like last-minute bargains may be a goner for now. Indeed, international travel may be a better bet this US season, given lesser demand, Europe’s shorter, comparatively cheaper hops and a strong American dollar—albeit staying mindful of yet another EU terrorist bombing tragedy, this one in Istanbul, Turkey far, far away.

For 2022’s summertime travel boom is clearly carrying into this fall, airlines adjusting accordingly ☟—with travelers not blinking at the spiraling ‘traflation’ to date. The US Consumer Price Index pegs September air fares as up 43% over 9/21, more broadly 20% higher than 2021, 28% over 2019. Now airline industry analysts say higher fares aren’t going away anytime soon, what with demand overflying supply for two years at least—over 14.5m US travelers flying over the Thanksgiving holiday alone.

Carriers see this market imbalance as a post-pandemic blessing, shedding flights, trimming schedules to ride the capacity squeeze straight to their bottom lines. They cite increased labor costs and an 80% hike in jet fuel prices to justify the climbing fares (up some 14% from 2019 in Europe as well), attributing scheduling cuts to pilot scarcity and service problems to staffing ‘challenges’. Restive pilots and their unions blame the airlines for disputes over pay, hours and working conditions—voting down 14-17% raise proposals, picketing outside terminals, even threatening widespread work stoppages, with flight attendants remonstrating much the same: Not exactly a safety vote of confidence across the board: What with industry cries for a one-person cockpit—just as the pilot of an American Eagle flight with 77 passengers collapsed in the captain’s seat, soon dying of heart failure in a Chicago hospital after his co-pilot emergency landed the plane.

Air traffic controller shortages and airport infrastructure limitations also make airline critical lists, as does the slow delivery of new planes due to production backlogs, supply chain bottlenecks and regulatory purgatory. Namely, Boeing has its own squalls to weather ($3.3bn Q3 loss), financial to MAX 9/10 factory floors; and Airbus struggles with meeting its fat A320 series orderbook challenges. Which means air carriers may not be repleting their fleet capacities until mid-2023 at the earliest.

Slow Rolling On…

Nevertheless, as airlines report strong Q3 demand and earnings, the US Department of Transportation levies $7.5m in fines on six carriers that “…extremely delayed in providing refunds to travelers” for flight cancellations or changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. D.O.T. claims the carriers, mainly international (AeroMexico, Air India, Avianca, El Al, TAP Air Portugal) effectively fudged rules that determine when refunds are to be issued, therefore owe $600m to hundreds of thousands of passengers. But the only US airline facing slow-refund fines is Frontier ($2.2m), for having retroactively tightened its refund policies without notifying passengers.

This latest D.O.T. Consumer Protection Program crackdown raises its total 2022 assessed fines to a record $8.1m in civil penalties. Moreover, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg holds that the carriers likely would have stiffed passengers tens of thousands of dollars in refunds altogether had D.O.T. not intervened. He adds that the department received 7,243 consumer complaints in August alone—one in five involving refunds.

Buttigieg also warns that D.O.T. will “ratchet up” such penalties until airline refund processes shape up—and more enforcement investigations and actions are under way as the holiday season approaches, emphasizing refunds over fines. So much qualitative easing and quantitative squeezing: Vamigré will track the DOT Dashboard on all that…

Gobble, Squabble.

Otherwise, we faced the usual airport chaos and misconnections over the Thanksgiving holiday week+, along with health/safety/comfort issues of whack-a-fee roulette, middle seat lotteries, seat pitch reduction, legroom yoga, carry-on bag/backpack weaponizing and inflight media/wifi transgressions. Then there was the maniac turkey with a death wish: as in one who recently snuck two box cutters onto a Cincinnati-Tampa Frontier flight, threatening cabin mayhem before being tackled by fellow passengers. The plane was diverted to Atlanta, where a question immediately arose: Exactly how did those blades pass through a TSA checkpoint, Charley? ☟

Turkey or Chicken Stuffing?

However what didn’t get past TSA scanners in Florida’s Ft. Lauderdale airport was an overstuffed bird packing serious heat. Concealed inside the raw fowl was an intact handgun—suggestive of the adage, ‘a chicken in every plot’. The Transportation Security Administration reports that its officers have plucked a record number of passengers’ firearms prior to boarding—upwards of 85% of them loaded. Nevertheless, soon slithering through a New York checkpoint was a window seat passenger who threatened the middle seat woman next to him with a razor blade to her neck on a JetBlue flight to Salt Lake City. High time for the TSA to upgrade its checkpoint X-ray technology to first class, alright… 

VamoScope: Giblets.

Moving on, Vamigré will be variously following and further addressing travel trendlines such as these throughout the Thanksgiving holiday period:

Nearer the ground, hotel/motor inn/ resort bookings are back up substantially all around, as are home lodging/rental arrangements (e.g.,VRBO, HomeAway, with searches up 10-30%)—somewhat owing to an increase in flexible hybrid remote workers and a broadening array of retirees. And don’t sleep on the surging popularity of more restorative ‘sleep-tourism’ for wellness and longevity. Just so long as sector-leading Airbnb becomes more forthcoming regarding its pricing and tack-on fees, clearing out safety problems like carbon-monoxide poisoning in its Mexico listings, let alone profile scams or myriad other misrepresentations. Still, the digital home-sharing service has just posted it first $1bn quarterly profit.

Vehicle rentals power ahead as well, despite detouring and diverting travelers’ plans due to fleet shortages and gas ppg-blamed rate gouging–overall motor vehicle scarcity is inflamed by Ford’s recall of 500k 2020-2023 Broncos and Explorers due to cracked, leaky fuel injectors. Meanwhile the rideshare battle between Uber Technologies and Lyft appears to be steering a diversifying Uber’s way.

Still, the drag of spiking gasoline prices (up some 30% over 2019, but dropping) heightens a fossil-fuel vs. electric powered vehicle debate. Namely, has time come to more fully plug into the EV future? Clean, climate friendly energy, quiet operation, more aerodynamic designs are enticing: Still, factor in current EV affordability/availability, driving range and recharging limitations (new DC-America/Tritium network or no)—battery size, output, (flood/fire) safety distractions, and these electrifying birds may not take widespread wing over internal combustion transport quite yet. Would that  Twittering distractions hadn’t driven Teslas the way of Kaiser-Frazers/Henry Js before they do.

In any case, a future of voice-system talking cars, airborne electric taxis and everywhere e-bikes (battery fires notwithstanding), let alone electric transonic truss or blended-wing airliners, is likely little over a holiday season away. And so on...(MMTC…)

Feast Accompli.

Meantime, we embarked on a joyful Thanksgiving pilgrimage to grandma’s and beyond, flush with hope and heartfelt travel promise, leaving the transitory headaches and teeming tourism fatigue, the whole clottage industry behind, duly chronicling/recording our vibrant, spirited moments and the cherished memories to come.

When turkeys fly, crow cynical, thankless birdbrains—go ahead, ask Les Nessman.  Just the same, we’ll take the high road to bluer, turbuless skies, safe, hazard-free driving and happy, homey trails throughout this holiday season… Vamble On!

Vambling Well Is the Best Devenge...

But First: Tripping Point—The Horror of the Crowd.

(11/2/22)—Perhaps the most recent cause for ‘Destination Dispersion’ (D/D) consideration stems from the tragic Seoul Sacrifices of October 29. A Halloween party to celebrate the end of COVID mask/distancing restrictions, undoubtably gone viral via social media crowd sourcery, turned into fatal chaos as the witching hour approached. Over 100k partygoers, teens up to 20/40-somethings, crammed into the South Korean capital’s Itaewon nightclub district, compressed along narrow streets and alleyways—one downhill sloping lane, being 150-feet long, but 10-feet wide—with effectively no avenues of escape.

Pushing, shoving fore and aft as the night wore on, this largely costumed throng, some packed in too tightly to move or breathe, commenced stumbling, falling, then the domino stampede ensued. Panicked, crowd-forced celebrants were literally being trampled to death in the bedlam, leaving virtually no room for emergency units and ambulances to penetrate the scene. The toll: 156 dead, 172 more injured, primarily South Koreans, with others from some 15 different countries, as far away as Austria, Norway and Australia—including two US students from Kentucky.

Grim scenes of desperate CPR measures being applied to crushed, unconscious, even heart attacked victims amid colorful Itaewon street backdrops were live streamed on TikTok, Twitter and other social ‘madia’—in many cases where/how this tech-fed lemming tragedy gained mortal momentum to begin with. Investigations have since focused on delayed, if not negligent emergency response times. Point being, there’s nothing acceptably sociable about that. So the Vamoral: Better to screen for discriminating D/D merit than getting unbearably crowded out en masse—wiser to spread the welcomes,  weather the swarms. Which is precisely why… ☟

Vambling Well Is The Best Devenge…

(10/12/22)—There’s something to be said for revenge travel…

That it’s an unartful, misguided (travel) spin at best. Revenge travel, really? As in vengeful, full of venge, with a vengeance? Thus went a glib media misnomer spread about all summer, one ugly term nonetheless. When what we rather need is to de-venge travel altogether, Vambling onto higher, more gratifying ground.

Sure, there had been surging pent-up desire to travel, to bust out after some 2½ years of pandemic lockdowns. By 2021, coronavirus infection rates had dropped, vaccination numbers had risen to where all those testing, masking, iso-quarantine restrictions could be relatively eased.

Travel being so essential to human existence, a sense of urgency and impatience to go emerged—whether to favorite places or family gatherings—once again. Then again, to explore new places, meet new people after all the grim COVID-19 frustrations and sacrifices; to book a trip at long last, reconnect with humanity and nature, seeking experiences which make us feel alive again.

Hence that maddening itch to travel near and far, storm the terminals and interstates, making up for time lost sheltered in place, manifested worldwide. And the media dubbed this mass mobilization ‘revenge travel’—against COVID, stifling restrictions, (inter)personal pressures and whatever other pandemic shackles. But revenge? Seriously, in no way do the vibrancy and values of genuine travel warrant such a facile, buzzwordy tagline.

Beyond the Petty Pith and Pathogens.

So Vamigré says high time to jettison the draggy revenge baggage, to de-venge as we further de-veg ourselves this autumn, and steer onto smarter, saner apres-venge, revamped travel pathways: For what the world needs now is less teeming delirium and desperation, more singular savvy and savoir faire.

Granted, this summer’s escape routes were rutted and pot-holed, with far too many stalls, wind shears and speed bumps along the way. Take the airlines’s ‘Can/Del’ rushing roulette, snarling traffic bottlenecks, rapacious gasoline ppgs, hellacious fires, flashing floodwaters, closed parklands, cantankerous crowds, inflation raring at every tap, tab or term: it’s all been fairly chronicled in previous site entries below ☟.

Add to that the peremptory restrictions of omicron and other COVID variants—varying from countries and regions, gone to strictly enforced—global residue from coronavirus surges far from over, no matter what President Joe Biden may say.

New Normal: Spreading More Wings.

So, where to go, what to do now? Fixed workers, remoters and retirees alike increasingly view Fall ’22 as another ‘open season’ travel-wise. From taking brief ‘workations’ to blending hybrid work and plugged-in mobility to freely scattering to the autumn winds, prospects for leisure travel are actually brighter than for ordinary business trips in the inflationary months ahead. Indeed, the ‘Big/Hot Air’ carriers and T/T industry analysts foresee no ’countercyclical’ leisure demand let-up through the Thanksgiving and Christmas/Hanukkah holidays, with plenty of extended ‘flex’ weekends booked in, concluding that ‘pandemic pent-up people still want to get out there’—solo or with friends, sprees to sabbaticals—yes, even if it means leaving the kids behind.

For their part, the airlines claim they are playing catch up, struggling to ground their summers-long performance downdrafts, particularly on the cancellation/delay (Can/Del) front. Most do so by drastically cutting flight schedules (upwards of 10%) amid rising revenues, some circling for partnering and consolidation (as in American/ JetBlue NEA➬ Spirit—being challenged by the US Justice Department on anti-trust grounds—and Delta/AirFrance/KLM➬ ITA Airline).

Yet most carriers are up against some stiff headwinds, namely soaring labor costs, sky high fuel prices, mounting fleet maintenance/delivery delays and dragging corporate debt—not to mention an acute pilot shortage that even has some feeder airlines, their cockpits poached by the majors, seeking to shortcut co-pilot training flight hours from 1,500 to 750 (nixed by FAA regulators). Little wonder they are counting more than ever on strong, steady air travel demand to fill their flights. Accordingly, here come the package lures (as in two-fers) and fare sales, the no-frills ticket refund restriction and fee cuts (change, select seating, baggage, and the like), even the dropping of certain travel-credit expiration dates well into the autumn season, and perhaps beyond. So as traveler ‘cleverage’ increases, the fetching question of choice is: better to book sooner…or later, every step of the way?

ReVamping On the Fly…

At the same time, air travel turbulence and tribulations contrail on, vexing as bird strikes, no matter how much Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the D.O.T. push for industry improvements regarding passenger rights and services—dictums, enforcement, interactive comparative ‘dashboards’ and all. So let’s ditch the whole revenge trip, for we have much reVamping to do on our own…

Firstly, let’s ‘lean in’ anew on the federal government’s latest gripes: Summer travelers faced thousands of airline cancellations/delays (Can/Dels), some 24% of all flights were delayed, with scores scratched altogether, primarily due to staffing and equipment shortages and/or misallocation. Calling such travel disruption “unacceptable”, the D.O.T. threatens 10 of the largest US carriers with new rules to help delayed or stranded passengers going forward.

Among government measures to expand the rights and recourse of frustrated air travelers: timely refunds on over three-hour delays (six on international) when the passenger no longer cares to fly. Moreover, airlines must adopt guaranteed customer service and support—that means issuing meal vouchers should a flight be delayed for three+ hours, and providing lodging for passengers waylaid overnight for an alternate flight. Carriers would also be required to make it easier for customers to understand, negotiate their rights, and the D.O.T. would post comparative summaries on the agency’s dashboard regarding such disruptive issues within each airline’s control. Now whether these enforcement actions/measures will takeoff in a divisive election year remains to be seen.

In any event, Vamigré begs to datadive in a bit more acutely. That is, to better determine/track whether, once aboard, air travelers are actually getting the trip we book with any airline—legacy to budget startup—whether it be larger (drop-down) overhead bins and easier carry-on stowage, or fee-based cushier seating and added legroom. How about the feedbags and in-cabin service; what’s the deal on seatback screening and wifi? Can flight attendants ably steer navigate the shoals of inflight behavior, or fall physically and mentally victim to the chaos and acted-out tantrums, if not weaponized carry-ons; assist us with everything from airborne anxiety and alcoholic stupors to motion sickness and EMT worse?

Not least, where are the bargain fares and bounteous fare to be had, domestic and international? Moreover, with global travel solidly on the rebound, when and how are overseas reservations best/ shrewdly made, and in what currency, exchange rate-wise?

As for airports themselves, newer, ever more expansive terminals may foster stress and strain beyond TSA checkpoint shakedowns, teeming departure/arrival gates and rushing baggage claim roulette. Nothing like fitness and mindfulness centers to work out and work up for a mini-marathon dash to the boarding gate. If only such airport facilities weren’t so few and far between: we’ll see to that in due time.

Just for starters, mind you—but it doesn’t even begin to address the penchant and pitfalls of traveling by rail and motor coach at this particular juncture, (e.g., rail travel’s efforts to peel away passengers from airlines’ shorter-haul flights, not least ‘flight-shaming’ enviro activists). Let alone ships cruisin‘ for more bunching and  bruisin’. (MTC here…)

Driving Into the Green Beyond.

With endless summer traffic jams in the rearview mirror (Hurricane Ian excepted of course), travelers’ roving eyes are now riveted to our screens and windshields, and the road ahead.

As gasoline prices yo-yo at the pump (upwards of $8 ppg)—yet more freeway robbery due to everything from tight OPEC spigoting to refinery chicanery to onerous taxation—the power switch from fossil fueled to hybrid/electric vehicles has clearly been turned on. With Ian having ravaged the Caribbean, slamming Florida and its airports then up the East Coast; with worsening heat domes, flash flooding and smoky firestorms worldwide, truly vengeful climate change is dramatically top of travel/transportation mind.

Flaring carbon emissions and combustion engine-driven pollution have forced California and New York to declare that all new sold vehicles must be ‘zero-emit’ by 2035. Ever more travelers opt for a broadening array of hybrid/electric models, while demand for more expansive charging-station networks builds exponentially—supply lag notwithstanding—despite concerns over driving range, reliability, technical (e.g., fire, autopilot) safety and data-tracking privacy.

Nevertheless, this electrifying power transition extends to a variety of other mobile modes, including more elaborate ATVs, scooters and e-bikes. Would that the EVolution rapidly ‘migrates’ to greener sustainability, if not yet all-electric or hydrogen aircraft, to help ease the eco-public blowback from fossil jet-fueled aviation.

Vambling In a World of Hurt.

But whatever the conveyance, we are venturing into an autumnal world gone sideways in so many other ways. There’s the obscenely costly Russo-Ukraine War of attrition—Putin’s putrid folly and fantasy Greater Russian dream turned European nightmare—which is saddling the EU/Continent with nuclear fears, economic/energy anxiety and dislocated refugees/casualties no end while setting the greater world on razor’s edge.

If state-sponsored and jihadi-style air terrorism appears to have waned some since 9/11 and Malaysia flight 370, lone wolves, profile-cracking nutjobs copycats are still plotting to slip aboard crowded commercial aircraft and detonate/trigger their way into headline news infamy. In the US alone, Transportation Security Administration officers ) are catching stowed, otherwise concealed guns and other weaponry at a record rate in airport checkpoints (including ‘Clear’ lanes) across the land. This, as criminal/gang gun and drug trafficking superabounds like fentanyl candy; senseless attacks loom from Vegas to Singapore.

Taking into account further airborne coronavirus and other disease transmission, not to mention airline, cruise or tourism industry failings/misbehavior, escalating destination crime rates and lone-wolf terrorism: little wonder travel-insurance claims and premiums have skyrocketed the world over.

Hung Up on a Technicality.

Point taken, but that does serve to point us in the GO direction—turning red flag negatives positively green. Indeed, as digital developer apparatchists would have it, they have hacked into all of travel/ tourism’s bugs and glitches, cleanly re-coding for super smooth hightailin’, railing and sailing.

Indeed, airlines and other modes do have their proprietary apps and websites for schedule information, alerts, reservations and (paperless) tix/checkin/boarding passes. A surfeit of third-party booking sites/apps like Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, Kayak and lesser platforms lurk and lure with loyalty programs, gimmickry and flash sales They leech their cuts where/however they can via iffier, overplayed (travel agency-rooted) corporate revenue models—desperately chasing brand stickiness through price warfare and a fantasyland of glossy advertising.

Their algorithms tracking, churning and spitting forth, Google Travel or Apple maps can help price and guide the way; TripIt strives to plot your itinerary; SeatGuru efforts to right properly sit you down, FlightAware and Flightradar24 show you where your plane is at any given moment; weather apps clear the air. Moreover, JoinSherpa serves to collect and collate transit/health/medical requirements and documentation, while Tile, Apple’s Air Tags (+ carriers themselves) track and find misplaced baggage.

Lodging and vacation homes? Beyond AirBnB, Vrbo and HomeAway, hotel and the major booking site/apps (incl. Expedia’s One Key) put a roof over your head and AirCover guarantee policies cover your ass on CanDels. Hotwire and Travel search engine Skyscanner is among the sites/apps that focus on wrenching vehicle rentals—increasingly the greener and cleaner EVs—just app/add in the PCs and pets for goodly measure.

Hence analytically, algorithmically—data-driving everything from yearn to yarns is the answer, right? Then why does the air travel experience continue to be so doggedly fraught, why do we feel so terminally hamstrung, benumbed by the numbers? Has all that digital celerity and convenience hopelessly melted down into an ever fragmented, unfathomable, contentious miasma of information on planning, booking, pricing, consumer recourse—with cyber Russians even hacking US airport websites from JFK to LAX?

The US Transportation Department must think so, having just beefed up its Aviation Consumer Protection site, complete with that aforementioned interactive dashboard. Included therein is the pledge to post more complete details on a given flight’s fares, fees, seating, baggage: “The full cost of your ticket when you’re comparison shopping,” according to President Biden. Secretary Buttigieg notes that such information currently varies from airline to airline, app to site, with regard to timeliness and ease of discovery, but theirs will be the site/app for that.

Trouble is, such stricter D.O.T. disclosure rules have flamed out before, as in 2014, under withering airline industry opposition (scuttled by the Trump administration by 2017). In fact, the Airlines for America trade group is now taking aim on the aviation agency’s 60-day public comment period, and any 6-month window for carrier policy changes and D.O.T. enforcement (the latter likely years and several White and House elections away).

ReVamping, and Vambling Above It All.

Meantime, to the point: Travel technology is all well and good, but what is it without canny/crafty context and technique? In other words, there’s Tech, and then there’s 2Tech.

Because it would appear those smart little screens only get us so far. Really, where have the booking sites and apps actually gotten us? Mainly to a chaotic and maddeningly complex travel marketplace, conflicting data/click-driven (mis) information overload, health/safety fearmongering, and aimless touristas overclogging a handful of tourist meccas and parks amid contrived, cyclical clots of demand–as fares/fees/prices soar despite it all.

In the tech-tethered booking/tracking process corporate, highly commercial marketing interests are increasingly carving out a load factored, demographically tiered tourism environment hardly reflective of, or responsive to true traveler interests—more predatory, profiteering and adversarial than hail and hospitable. And it still doesn’t appear to be working in travelers’ favor.

Therefore a key Vamsition is in order. That is, the migration from revenge to devenge, from bloated tourism and 2Tech-led manipulation to a more independent, trustworthy voice mediating between travelers and that minefield of a global T/T marketplace, actively asserting our rights of passage.

Hewing to Vamigré values and vision—restless, relevant and real-worldly—based upon an insurgent triad of Inspiration/Imagination, Innovation and Implementation. Geared to venturesome, value-minded contemporary travelers, -somethings to Silvers, domestic and worldwide. Where travel > tech, not the other way around.

Vambling techniques will encompass uniquely iconic consumer-strong travel indices, product/service reviews and cost comparisons, building upon where we now editorially stand—getting granular, siftin’ and griftin’ by wits, study and grit as to true Vamability. Signpost levels will evolve as (but not be limited to) Novice, Journey and Seasoned; Local, Regional, National and International. Goal being to rightfully outfit and equip Vamigré travelers: providing semaphores of tailored information and strategies, fostering shrewd consumer ‘cleverage’ over brain-dead, ‘2tech’ corporate tourism.

Beyond helping to set pace and direction, these levels will carry-on and over to our Vamigre traveler-sourced takes and tales. Never too near or far, trivial or monumental—rather conveying and retelling our singular travel experiences, shedding blinders and biases, recounting inspiring, unforgettable people, places, events and times. Think curated first and third-person accounts with vivid voice and visuals: passing them along for all of us travelers to share.

Call it Vamospirited, propelling, participatory travel journalism—all the smarts and setbacks, serenity and sadness, rowdiness and romance, humor and horror, sometimes serious, sometimes mic-drop sardonic—that informs ‘Selective Serendipity’ and ‘Destination Dispersion’. It means being enlightened with safety, fitness of body and mind toward fulfilling travel, not settling for mere mechanized movement.

Vambling (sometimes outright Vampaging) along the way, we will cull autonomy from techocracy via relentless advocacy, elevating proprietary search to aggregation and assembly. This, while keeping modes and means honest, chillin’ the overheated hotspots, diggin’ the so-called ‘travel season’ all year long.

So we’ll be scammin’ and jammin’ in autumn’s breezeways—championing travel with an edge, travel with the edge, riding a strong US dollar, balancing data and drama, backgrounds and breakthroughs—in service of a defining Vamigré credo: ‘The Greatest Measure of Travel Fulfillment for Time, Energy and Money Expended’.  Ahh, for devenge has never been so sweet—and well on the way… (MMTC…) 

Summer Schooled: Travel Lessons Learned…and Liberties Earned.

☟ (9/22/22)+—Foregoing board shorts as summer Double-Deuce ebbs, we travelers continue getting kneecapped by domey heatwaves, Biblical rainstorms, sky high inflation and the usual terminal herding.

So what have we gleaned by now? COVID resurges, runways buckle, rails strike, gas spikes, Euros sink, rivers shrink, parks flood or flame, sharks rule, baggage disappears—and the airline ‘del/cans’ just keep on coming, no matter what D.O.T.ing Pete has to say about it all…

A/L Breakdowns Abound.

We, the people gave them billions in financial aid/assistance during the pandemic and what do we get? Traveling headaches and heartburn, by the meter and mile.

Desperate to regain revenue, “…we stretched ourselves to…grab and secure as much of the revenue pile as we could,” admits one major US airline executive. “We did get caught off guard as I think everyone did to some degree”—we’ll say, to the nth degree.

Carriers still attribute their performance problems to an unanticipated demand surge and widespread staffing shortages, upwards of 30% off 2019 operational levels. Beginning with a serious pilot deficit—to the point where larger airlines are poaching underwings from regional carriers and essentially scrambling to simulator train utter newbies on the fly—they overwork cockpit crews that they do have. Flight attendants are similarly harried and in short supply—said to be overstretched, seesaw schedule stressed—as are security, reservation and gate agents.

But increasingly problematic is the scarcity of ramp rats, namely ground workers and baggage handlers who ordinarily keep planes and luggage moving smoothly as scheduled. Airlines claim that such workers are nowhere to be found, and take weeks or more to securely clear and train, even if they are; while American even offers pilots triple pay to keep its planes airborne, Delta shelling out some $700m in overtime pay. And if not that, carrier honchos blame aircraft parts shortages (particularly engines), foul weather patterns nationwide, and a paucity of air traffic controllers for further throwing them off rebound course—however the FAA may deny the latter.

Hence the delays and cancellations (‘can/dels’) continue to mount, terminal lines lengthen no end coast to coast, while TSA checkpoints struggle to cope with the overflow (up 17% over 2021). Accordingly, the US Transportation Department, already swimming in consumer complaints, has just proposed stricter pro-traveler rules, whereby full ticket refunds will apply if the ‘del/can’ is over 3+ hours for domestic flights, (6+ hours for international flights), should the passenger no longer care to fly, or the airline itself makes schedule changes. Moreover, non-expiring vouchers must be issued if a passenger decides against flying due to public-health concerns or mask restrictions, stay-home orders and border closures. These and other proposed stipulations will be up for public comment/discussion at an Aviation Consumer Protection Advisory Committee meeting later in August.  (+ see following pieces☟)

But even if we are fortunate enough to actually board a flight that is remotely within our desired/intended timeframe, buckle up for grinding tarmac stalls fore and aft. Then comes a baggage safari for our checked luggage and other valuables (pets?!). In essence, we’re suffering severe bag lag upon arrival, as if we shan’t dare take it with us when we go…

Major Squeeze.

Beyond Delta’s notorious stranded baggage flight, airlines bemoan resulting labor/overtime outlays and the cost of scaring up such staffing—along with soaring jet fuel costs—as reasons why they will keep paring capacity and scheduling (5-10%) in the months ahead, despite no ‘quantitative easing’ of demand. While crying poor, they ride the supply/demand mismatch express non-stop with ever escalating fares for fewer and fewer available seats—and fares rising 16% over 2019. Having posted a $735m Q2 profit, Delta foresees clear sailing and blue sky profits through fall and winter; a trimming United earned a $329m profit (also sans federal aid) in the quarter. American tallied a record high Q2 profit, squeezing max revenue out of leaner capacity as well—as it announces a 16% (31,000) flight cut systemwide for the month of November.

So, what to do about it? Taking liberties: Think: Trot, don’t clot... (MTC…)

At the End of Europe?

International travel was faring scarcely better this summer, even as pandemic restrictions are generally relaxed. The spectre of inconsistent VAXing, testing, and isolation/quarantine barriers lifting, overseas travelers still face a torrid, troubled world, coupled with the complexities of border security, documentation checks, disease transmission and customs stripdowns. Across European air terminals, for example, chaos reigns amid a massive travel surge, ‘del/can’ lines lengthen, and daily traffic caps are being widely imposed.

London’s Heathrow Airport has become the poster airport for all this UK/Continental disruption, with Amsterdam’s Schiphol and Germany’s Frankfurt no less overwhelmed. Heathrow’s hub has knuckled under time and again, what with swarming terminals, terror threats and baggage conveyor breakdowns (much like Toronto’s Pearson Airport’s bag drag). The 2^nd busiest airport worldwide, Heathrow now limits passenger entry to 100k per day through October—shaving its ‘can/del’ rates, but further crimping our flight choices—Schiphol having already done much the same.

Misdirected, if not lost checked bags have exacerbated Heathrow’s havoc, raising temperatures amid an already record heatwave on both sides of the Channel—baking cities, melting runways, boiling fountains and precipitating a deadly glacier collapse in Italy’s Dolomite mountains. While British Airways cuts well over 10k summer flights, Scandinavian Airline SAS has barely avoided Chapter 11 refuge by finally settling with its striking pilots after days of cancelled flights and lost revenue ($12.3m per). Equally hard-hit carriers such as Deutsche Lufthansa AG (130k stranded in one fell cut upon labor woes); Air France-KLM and easyJet are axing schedules and capacity in kind.

Still, Americans ride a flying carpet of lofty dollars to the UK and Europe in search of the Euro treasures, tempting treats and priceless finds of earlier, pre-annexation war days across a (now energy and inflation rattled) Continent. Greenback exchange-rate parity with the euro, ploys like value-added tax refunds and a broadly more welcoming EU help salve the bubbly cost of hotel rooms and motor vehicle rentals—just pack lightly and hold the phone tightly like nobody’s pluckin’ business.

So, what to make of it?  Think: Wander, don’t squander… (MTC…)

Some Eartherealities:

To Wit: VAX, Masks, Runny Hacks.

As COVID resurges into an omicron/BA.5 subvariant, pandemic restrictions that have incrementally eased over past months are once again re-entering the VAXing public health conversation. This means vaccinations/boosters will become heated re-issues, testing will intensify, masking may return from advisory to enforcement status—and self-isolation could even beget quarantines and lockdowns all over again—given the CDC is mandating back into cautionary mode.

With this extremely transmissive virus comes suspicious hacking and other symptoms, wildfire spreading and renewed debates/clashes over the coronavirus threat itself. Likely not a 2020 redux, still mid-pandemic dramas could very well heighten anew in terminals, stations, at gates, onboard and inflight—locally and globally—going forward as BA.5 runs its course (not to mention  rapidly spreading Monkeypox).

So how to proceed?  Think: Jab, don’t crab. (MTC…)

Helter Swelter.

Heat domes and flash floods here and there, with tornados and tropical storms spiralling in: Yep, the climes, they are a changin’ globally. Ice caps be melting, seas and rivers be rising, shorelines and valleys be washing away. Head south into sticky tornado alley, east toward seaboard /nor’easter inundation; look westward for widespread drought conditions that expose lakebed corpses and dwarf the big messy broiler oven known as ‘Lone Star’ Texas.

Eminent parks suffer key summertime displacement: Yellowstone being historically flooded, along with flash flooded New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns and California’s Death Valley. Yosemite is threatened by Sierra Nevada’s massive Oak Fire—national treasures consequently limiting high-season visitorship thus far. So Yellowstone traffic is down a nearby tourism-crushing 40%.

Beyond US borders, countries and regions the world over wilt under the ravages of extreme weather this summer, brimming over or burning up, with precious little of Mutha Nature’s relief on the Doppler horizon.

And no grand podium proclamations by the airline industry to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will peel the enviro-activist target off air carriers’ tailwings. Reality is, as major (esp. legacy) carriers boost yearly jet fuel usage again, today’s uber efficient aircraft engines still reduce fuel burn but a paltry 1% per annum on average. For their part, planemakers’ CO2 emissions solutions range from Boeing’s call for more sustainable aviation fuel to Airbus’s notion of pulling carbon dioxide from the air and pumping it underground deep in the heart of West Texas. No overnight enviro cures here…

So who’s got our backs?  Think: Rove, don’t drove… (MTC…)

Driveby Dilemma: Fuelin’ Our Toolin’.

Then again, aviation generally releases but 1/6^th of the carbon dioxide emitted by motor vehicles—cars to SUVs to trucks, let alone RV/motor homes. Same time, soaring gasoline prices (now averaging incrementally downward from $4.5 to $5 per gallon into the $3s) have not been deterring motorists from hitting the roads, albeit to destinations a skosh closer to home.

Gastric Distress.

Still, recent ppg spikes have significantly strained traveler budgets, with our peak-season pique aimed at the usual culprits: OPEC, Big Oil, refineries, driller/pipelines, gasoline taxes and the corner quick-stop dealers—all dutifully addressed elsewhere. And while cheap-gas survey apps may shave a penny or two off your ppg, these crowd-sourced ‘buddy’ search services, spawns of Trilby Lundberg, can be voraciously buggy when it comes to pumping out your personal demo/driving data into the broker/advertising marketplace.

Otherwise we can wait for mid-summer prices to trickle down come fall, but who has the patience to sit tight until then, right? Pencil in the unnervingly massive motorvehicle recalls ordered by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) over brake, engine failure, or under-the-hood fires (certain Ford models in particular)—and Detroit, we have a serious gastritic problem.

Electromagnetism?

So is it high time to electrify? First off, plug-in/hybrids aren’t without their own mishaps, witness Toyota’s recall of its new BZ4X electric SUVs because their wheels could spin off. Nevertheless, EVs present a quieter, far cleaner alternative to internal combustion powered vehicles over the long haul, and automakers domestic and imported continue rolling out more mainstream models to challenge front-running Tesla/Prius prototypes. Among cross-current considerations are initial cost, tax-credit incentives, resale value, high-tech complexities, but mostly charging speed/convenience and driving range (anxiety)—at least until an extensive network of charging ‘tank up’ stations emerges nationwide.

Meantime, environmentally friendly electric modes comprise cars, SUVs, vans, trucks, cycles and yikes, even e-bikes—with eVTOL autonomous aircraft, from battery-powered Lift and Joby to Hexa and Wisk, preparing to takeoff vertically (w/150 mile range at some 200 mph) before long.

So how to plug into it all, and on which roads to roll?  Think: Pedal to the Mettle… (MTC…)

Toward Destination Dispersion.

Taken together, lessons learned: Surf’s still up, the sky’s the limit, the road’s best travelled, scorning any notion that there ain’t no cure for the summer snafus. Because there are liberties to be taken, and travelers have surely earned beaucoup latitude given the turmoil/disruptions, terminations, speed traps and myriad other indignities we’ve suffered through and schlepped around all summer long.

Call it Vambling: From Double-Deuce summer onward, we’ll travel boldly and untrammeled, shrewdly unearthing new spots, avoiding the came old knots. This means embracing the either or other, as we seek out parks and beaches off the glutted tourist track—fresh, feisty and fulfilling destinations a bit further down the road. Call it Dispersion toward mid-to-smaller places—especially cooler, quirkier, perhaps quieter haunts and happenings—munificently spreading the health, wealth and VamoSpirited vibes.

Beyond showing, sharing how and where to go—near and far, high and low, the long and short of it all—we’ll explore, evaluate often testier issues we may encounter out there, and what to carry along. Which includes processing, scoring seams and schisms regarding a particular destination/region’s health, safety, and crime statistics; as well as gun, drug policies, law enforcement practices, personal privacy/ freedoms and terror threats (as in DFW’s recent Love Field terminal shooter).

So as steamer trunkloads of untold ‘earthly despites’ pile ever higher, we will address and confront these midsummer day/night’s screams with more rigorous, uwavering travel coverage.

Meantime, let’s VamScray, prepping wisely, packing tightly, treading lightly, keying on what we’ve learned this summer ’22—and all the liberties we still have coming our Vamigré way: Being ever mindful that the world doesn’t necessarily stop because ‘del/cans’ or roadblocks loom, or ‘the kids happen to be watching.’

VamoStep one?  Think: Scatter, don’t swarm… (MMTC…)

☟Trimming the Wedgies? 

7/14/22—Nearly halfway out the door, what does summer ’22 travel, this high season of disruption, still have in store ‘wedge issue’-wise? The July 4^th holiday saw the TSA screening 2m passengers per day, US travelers facing 1,400 flight cancellations, 2,600 delays through the Independence Day weekend. Clearly the air travel boom was expanding all the more, while the airlines struggled to meet that demand, Delta even allowing free flight changes through July 4. (we need more ‘feelapses’ like these, now don’t we).

Carriers cited inclement weather, pilot and staffing/ground service employee shortages, air traffic control limitations and FAA air traffic management policies. Add to this drivers facing gas prices averaging $4.37 ppg nationally—47% over 2019 pump rates. Massive regional waves, a Florida space launch—gun violence and shark attacks coast to coast: taken together, one firecracker of a holiday scenario, or a ban of same in many communities, as we travelers continue taking it in the proverbial shorts.

No less than the Department of Transportation is pressing airlines to staff up, and fast. Secretary Pete Buttigieg has called for better overall performance from carriers that received tens of billions of dollars in federal payroll support during the pandemic downturn, and pledges to more aggressively enforce travel consumer protection measures—this, after being cancelled off his own flight, driving the rest of his trip. Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind. Vt) proposes fining airlines for the ‘can/dels’, and scheduling more flights than they can deliver.

So carriers are on an uphill hiring spree, cockpit crews and flight attendants on down to customer-facing staffers and ramp/tarmac ground service personnel—American Air even offering triple pay to entice pilots. But pay/scheduling/working conditions are no easy sale to potential workers, and those who do hire on are relatively less efficient than employees they are replacing. Airlines claim that remaining competitive fare-wise impacts their ability to boost pay scales. The current in-demand, inflation-facing labor force isn’t buying it, however. While pilots unions demand higher pay and benefits, flight attendants seek the same, as well as improved working, scheduling/overtime and quality-of-life conditions.

Suffering From Bag Lag.

Hence continuation of the unclear air turbulence over the coming months, with traces of a fall season travel slowdown beginning to cloud the horizon. Meantime, the airline ‘can/del’ scourge and cost cutting will afflict us travelers, lately worsened by a rash of misplaced to utterly lost luggage –what with Delta filling an entire Airbus A320-200 (Heathrow-to-Detroit) with 1,000 pieces of misrouted baggage (mtc on that).  Still, a lot of travel’s wedge issues do appear to be easing, however slightly, albeit as an inapt result of carriers’ cutting and misrunning.

Now with travel consumer complaints up 300% from 2019 levels, the US Transportation Department has at long last announced a clampdown on airlines’ refund denials and extra fees for preferred (family seating)–moreover heralding a Disabled Passengers Bill of Rights (once again, a highly touted BofR?)

Alas, just more mayhem and maladies to monitor in Vamigré travelers’ best interest—all in the service of safe, reliable and gratifying, satisfying journeys—no disrupting or disputing that—with all questions diligently asked. (MTC…)

 Go Time, or Woe/Whoa Time?

6/11/22—Bustin’ out, fully packtivated—catching up on two lost pandemic years. Rattle our cages, shed the COVID-19 shackles, break the cabin fever and restrictive chains—slip the shadows, make for the exits, blow some doors off and stage a rightful escape, right?

Yep, hit the bricks: gas up, charge up, pedal to the metal—fly the coop, ride the rails, shoot some rapids, rock the kasbah and sail off into the sunset with a tequila sunrise. Get all geared up to scuttle some buts, stake some claims, play some cards, swing some deals, hang some balances, cut some checks, ping the scanners, split the differences, bend some rules as we take on a rebounding, resetting world.

For now’s the time, right? If not now, when? Little wonder US travel spending is projected to reach levels unseen in over three years, despite rising fares, ppg’s and overall costs—domestically and abroad. Really, COVID vaccines/Paxlovid pills are up, horror stories and restrictions are down, mask mandates are in legal limbo. Testing and quarantine protocols are in flux, imposed then lifted worldwide,CDC, EU travel alerts/advisories change by the day. All of which raises the current, costly risk of being positive COVID tested and stranded abroad, if not barred from US re-entry—even though the Biden administration is lifting such testing requirements for US-bound travelers upon CDC recommendation (as of now anyhow). Still, mox nix, whatever–are we hot to trot or aren’t we?

Ready or Not?

Well, not so fast, since a majority of AP polled Americans still support mask requirements (56%-24%, 20% either way) despite that Florida judge’s mandate strikedown (under Biden administration appeal). EU mask mandates have also been lifted for the moment—all this uncertainty amid BA.2+ and BA.4/.5 COVID variants surging (in 45+ states) like economic inflation about the globe. This latest viral subvariant is clouding some travel plans before they actually take off (March-to-April bookings said to be off 17%)—with mask mandates back on the horizon in NYC and elsewhere—and monkeypox now on the CDC’s Level-2 travel alert/advisory screens.

Gun-shy, Negated and Gassed? 

If Memorial Day weekend was any indication, we best be geared up for another teeming, steaming summer. Beyond the tragic bursts of gun violence across the US, over 2,800 commercial airline flights were cancelled between Thursday and Monday, amounting to 2%+ of carrier schedules, while TSA checkpoints screened over 11m passengers through the five-day period. Citing bad weather, staffing shortages/sickouts and ‘air traffic control actions’, airlines served up the usual long ‘lobby shock’ gate waitlines and customer service MIAs, along with rapidly rising fares. Delta, for one—having dropped 800 weekend flights—still posted record MD holiday profits, pegging overall Q2 revenue at $12.5bn, despite running at but 83% of 2019 flight capacity. So we travelers are being crammed through the wringer—Delta reportedly even bribing lower fare passengers (as much as $10k) to give up their seats so the carrier can re-sell at inflated prices!

Europe fared little better over the long weekend, airports struggling with similar delays/cancellations, security bottlenecks and lengthy terminal ques waiting hours on end for short- and long-haul flights, given capacity and staffing levels stretched to the max. Yet even more egregious than the ‘Let Mona Lisa eat cake’ Louvre smear were the two ITA (formerly Alitalia) pilots who apparently were both caught dozing at the yokes of flight AZ609 from New York’s JFK to Rome. According to radio control, contact with the Airbus 320, carrying 250 passengers, was lost for a full ten minutes. The flight’s captain, who claimed he was on a rest break, reportedly lied about his ‘snooze-control’ nap at first, let alone that of his co-pilot, and has since been summarily grounded.

(In other words, it’s summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime—with $4.75 avg. ppg!☟)

Nevertheless, the question remains: are the travel/tourism industry and destinations near and far really ready to meet our pent-up, trip-starved demand (approaching 70% to 90% of pre-pandemic levels)? Especially now that even international travel is on the rise again in Western Europe (up over 225%) and Asia/Pacific (some 300%+) and climbing.

Surely not an aviation sector, decimated upwards of 98% by the pandemic, that is now struggling to straighten back up and fly right. As the Easter/Passover/Ramadan holidays demonstrated, flight delays and cancellations remain travel kryptonite (900 in the US, 2,400 globally over the holy weekend)—along with airport congestion, TSA security bottlenecks, boarding gate mayhem and baggage carousel morass. While the UK and most of Ukraine-rattled Europe hardly doing any better.

Airlines are essentially caught off guard by the springtime rush of passenger traffic. They blame foul weather, jet fuel costs, fleet unavailability, pilot/crew scarcity and staffing shortages, not to mention pandemic restrictions, for the relentless capacity downsizing, snaking waitlines, baggage pile-ups and soaring flight delays/cancellations—let alone whack-a-mole tech/IT glitches and spotty wifi.

Thus: VamoSundry ‘TripTip’ rules of thumb:

“Things are too great, too fast,” bemoan the likes of Delta Airlines, which posted March, 2022 as its best sales month in company history while offering 10% fewer seats (and is cancelling 100 flights more or less per day between now and August 7—“to increase efficiency and relieve operational pressures”?!). Same time, American and United are cautiously bullish after swallowing record losses; Frontier and Spirit seek to double downsize; the likes of JetBlue, Alaska, Ryanair and EasyJet pare schedules. Fewer scheduled flights mean tighter capacity, thus sardined cabins and spiking fares: less is more to the bottom line—with airlines too often weighing revenue over customer service in their re-booking/rescheduling algorithms. This while some carriers ply employees laid off during the COVID siege with return job offers at lower pay under even dicier conditions.

Current consumer research studies (2022 North American Airline Satisfaction: jdpower.com) already evince further declining post-pandemic airline passenger satisfaction in the face of rising delays/cancellations and soaring fares: down some 20% points from 2021. Be it ticket/reservations (fares up 18% from April, 34% over 2019; 2.5% Int’l), fees/bag snags, checking/security, crew/staff friction, food/beverage cut-offs, ever more crowded flights—even the planes themselves, air travelers are taking it in the shorts again—like it’s 2019 on downers, with fares rising 24%+ over last year.

Little wonder demand mincemeats supply here, with a projected ‘summer of chaos’ circling to land…and we are left lividly holding our baggage claim checks in teeming terminals worldwide. And no amount of inked up or dolled up flight attendants and staffers are likely to ‘hot-pants smile’ that reality away.

More ‘TripTip’ rules of thumb:

Driven to Desperation:

But getting there is only half the fun—try finding an affordable vehicle upon arrival. Car rental rates have skyrocketed of late, particularly in such US travel/tourist ‘hotspots’ from South Florida to LA and Hawaii. Think unthinkable price spikes like $3k to $3200 per week for a spin around Maui, much less Waikiki, with fuel prices through the ragtop as well—up nearly 50% per gallon/litre over 2021, averaging over $5.00 ppg.

Blame it on pandemic disruption or Putin’s twisted revenge, what with Russian energy bans and global market concerns tied to crude oil price spikes and the usual summer refinery snafus. In any event, the global shipping and supply chain issues that wrought ‘Carmageddon’ of 2021 persist, causing shortages of everything automotive, dashboard console computer chips to titanium lug nuts. The result: Rent-a-car scarcity of climate change proportions, and operator price gouging to match (up about 14% from last year). Agencies from Avis to Zest are being accused by industry watchers of trying harder to stoke the ongoing demand/supply gap by tapping the brakes on restocking their fleets, for fear of yet another COVID surge lockdown leaving them hanging by their fanbelts.

So they’d rather leave travelers hanging by our thumbs. Which may make it ever more Vamable to head out in our own vehicle powered road + trailer (?) trips (costly petrol and all)—not to mention suitable van operations and bus lines. Little wonder we see a frantic scramble for hybrid/electric alternatives.

More ‘TripTip’ rules of thumb:

Flow Time or Throw Time?

These of course are but the opening salvos in our campaign to regain and retain the travel high ground as we shape/muscle up for the peaks, plains and valleys of a Double-Deuce summer without coming to blows and/or no-shows.

On the way in short order we will be training eyes on rail travel, (not least on the EU and expanding AMTRAK’s chronic head-on with freight carriers over right-of-way sharing and priority). A promising semaphore train-wise may be Germany’s new 9-Euro ($9.50) ‘TravelTix’ per month pass allowing unlimited transport on Deutschland’s public local and regional routes (buses, trams too) for June, July and August. Although not applicable to IC, EU or ICE long distance trains, Germany’s €9 local/feeder ‘TravelTix’ (aiming to ease inflation pains for nationals and visitors alike) may warrant AMTRAK’s consideration across the US as well.

Although board Bavarian Alpine local trains with caution, if you will, given the recent midday Deutsch-Bahn derailment near the Garmisch-Partenkirchen ski resort area—so popular with hikers and bikers on summer holiday. Several double-deck carriages of the Munich-bound train overturned on a sweeping mountain curve not that far from the Austrian border, plunging partially down an embankment, tangling into tree branches, killing at least five of its 140 passengers, injuring some 44 more. Sadly, the ‘incomprehensible’ crash came two days into the country’s ‘TravelTix’ pass program, let alone as its G-P region prepares to host the G7 Leaders’ summit later this month. German Transport Ministry and Bavarian State transport authorities are investigating the fatal accident, as to cause. (MTC…)

VamoStays Lodging looksees (with rates already up 30% over 2021) will include AirBnB abuses/party bedlam and the hazards of offshore resort stays, such as the three recent ‘mysterious’ convulsive deaths at Sandals Emerald Bay Resort on Bahamas’ Great Exuma Island, making basic ho/motel options tenable once more. Then there are the continuing COVID outbreaks on re-packed cruise ships the world over.

Because whether its modes, destinations or equipage/supplies, we travelers are intent on taking off en masse over the months ahead, no matter what roadblocks, cancellations or other chaos the ‘t/t industrial complex’ and scattershot social media toss in our way. Peregrinating to the four corners without throwing up our hands in crushing confusion, or just plain throwin’ hands.

In the meantime, stay nimble and strong, Vamigrés, and stay well tuned…(MMTC…)

A FLAwed Demaskulation?

4/20/22—Has the mask mandate reached its expiration date? That’s what a federal judge in central Florida has just ruled, striking down the CDC directive for all mandatory masking in airplanes, trains and on all public transport—which had been extended to May 3. So enter the mask marauders…

In Health Freedom Fund v. the Joseph Biden Administration, US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle determined in her 59-page opinion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “unlawfully exceeded its statutory authority”, that its implementation of the mask mandates “violated administrative law.” The HFF is an Idaho-based non-profit that counters laws/regs which it says forces people to submit to medical products and procedures against their will; it was joined in the case by two Floridian women.

The Biden administration was “obviously disappointed”, saying that it intends to study the nationally applicable ruling before deciding upon any further legal action, (Update: the CDC and Justice Department have since filed a formal appeal, CDC and Justice Department have since filed a formal appeal, on grounds that Mizelle’s verdict poses a threat to the advancement of public health). Still, the CDC has announced its masking order is “not in effect at this time”. The Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Agency (TSA) will not enforce any masking requirements at checkpoints pending appella extension as key time to assess the COVID-19 threat posed by the latest BA.2/.2.1 and BA.212.1 Omicron subvariants, currently spreading rapidly across Europe and the US—particularly with regard to their impact on travel-related situations. But Judge Mizelle ‘Trumped’ the CDC argument by declaring “…our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends”, thereby vacating the entire mandate on it merits.

She went on to present the notion that masks fail to meet the CDC regulatory statute to promote cleanliness/sanitation in its goal of maintaining public health and stemming communicative diseases and welfare—disregarding the original (1944) CDC legislation’s foresighted provision for ‘other (protective) measures’. In her honor’s opinion, face masks don’t actually ‘clean’ anything, and may instead trap or harbor harmful droplets and pathogens. Here it apparently depends on her definition of what sanitize is, head of a pin and all that.

Further, Mizelle contends that forcibly removing mask-resistant passengers from seats and cabins amounts to unlawful “detention and quarantine”, the CDC’s “power to conditionally release and detain is ordinarily limited to individuals (e.g., found to be disease infected) entering the United States from a foreign country.”

Liberty vs. Latency.

Be that as it may, the Biden administration says it wasn’t seeking to provoke passenger uncertainty by not offering a response to the ruling, yet did recommend that airline travelers mask on and stay tuned for official updates. It should be noted that no US court, District, Appeals or Supreme has yet to rule for such mask mandate injunctions thus far—in Florida or otherwise—perhaps being wiser to the divisive cultures and politics (i.e., individual liberty vs. responsibility) polarization involved here.

Meantime, betwixt airline flight attendants can only caution “…calm and consistency in the airports and on planes”—threatened frontline conciliators that they are. Most major US carriers have since made mask wearing optional: mainly the Big Four plus Alaska, Allegiant, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue and Spirit on domestic flights. Incidentally, cabin air ‘HEPA-filtered recirculation/purification’ systems are said by environmental authorities to be primarily effective when the aircraft is in motion with engines fully operative, drawing in fresh air, not necessarily while idling at gates and on tarmacs, much less in jetways—for what that’s worth.

Similarly, AMTRAK and many public transit systems across the country have also removed their mask mandates, minus, say, San Francisco and NYC, as buses prove to be transmission riskier. Otherwise, confusion and conflict are sure to reign in the mask-free days ahead and questions remain: Are there actionable, poorly reasoned FLAws in Judge Mizelle’s finding?  How can basically one party be so determinative in a public health issue affecting so many? Is the CDC being shackled if not neutered, Biden administration rolling over? Have COVID-19 masks (e.g., cloth to one-way, N-95/KN95/KF94 respirator grade) been an ineffective, nay placebic inconvenience all along, as the judge essentially claims?

When, where and how can we mask up (or down) safely and securely, without hassles and disruption (a recent AP poll found 56% of respondents still favoring masks on board)? Who is and isn’t vaxxed and boosted in the seat/row beside us? What about that cougher in 15B?

Hopefully, this all will be made clearer by the hour, but one thing is certain: When it comes to pandemic/endemic precautions: peoples’ choice rules the day, and we Vamigrés are well on our own. (MMTC…)

Cancel Crapshoot.

2/3/22—New year, new flight cancellations—in this case triggered by one hellacious 2,000 mile-long weather front, wreaking winter havoc from Mexico to Maine. Whiteout blizzards to the north, crippling ice storms further south, have caused over 5,000 groundings nationwide, Texas to Nor’easter buried New England, and most snow/ice bound airports in between.

This, in the wake of another nightmarish high season meltdown: Well over 14,000 US flights were cancelled during Christmas week and New Years (1,000-3,000 per day), thousands more delayed by airlines domestic and worldwide—turning the glad tidings of holiday air travel into a grim game of chance, with no end in sight.

United Airlines has been dropping upwards of 9% of its entire schedule by the day; Delta Airlines routinely scrapping over 100 flights, JetBlue 50, 5% of is fleet. Such draconian grounding numbers have been surpassed by carriers across the EU and Asia—up to 4,731 flights globally every day.

Ostensibly, the causative factor, yet another number is B.1.1.529. Since Thanksgiving, omicron has been spreading from a COVID-19 ‘variant of concern’ to a veritable tsunami of infections, joining the delta strain to deliver a one-two punch to a pandemic siege seemingly on the anti-viral ropes at the time.

Thus re-tightening were travel bans and borders, revisited were vaccination and N95/KN95 mask requirements (snug and layered even more)—along with the latest Rapid Antigen and/or PCR tests (which detect noxious spike, nucleocapsid (inner N2) and outer (envelope) shell genes).

Given the super spreading of the highly transmissible, vaccine resistant omicron—even among the fully VAXxed—the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended fully jabbed and masked entry into indoor settings, along with an array of health and safety protocols. While omicron goes viral worldwide, indeed in all 50 states by now, millions of people are testing positive, getting symptoms then sick with the rapacious bug, taxing already red-lining hospital capacity all the more.

This comes at a time when we are traveling at levels unseen since 2019—over 100m shedding pandemic restrictions and cabin fever overall during Christ week, some 30m+ by air alone. When the TSA has been screening well more than 2m passengers daily, something had to give, and it has to a high-grade degree.

Cancel Vultures?

For their part, air carriers blame this week of flight cancellations on foul weather, but more so on crew/staffing shortages due to delta/omicron viral contagion. In addition to actual positive test isolation (now down to five days+negative test) or quarantines, airlines note that many of their ‘essential workers’ have been calling in sick for fear of being omicron infected on the job. That the carriers are exhausting all measure of rerouting and crew/operational staff substitution—some offering pilots triple-pay incentives to fly extra hours—but how thoroughly are fatigue and safety issues factoring in?

Further, airlines claim they are endeavoring to quickly rebook waiting passengers already milling at the terminals/gates, and advise affected customers not to come to airports in the first place—too often at higher cost in terms of alternate/adjusted fares/fees and layover comfort and time.

Risk/Reboard?

Yet still we go—by the millions upon millions—increasingly sidelined, scuppered, if not outright stranded at the gate. So do we embark fully VAXxed and masked up amid a raging omicrisis? Should we risk infection, testing positive and landing in iso/quarantine purgatory or at least shortening the stint? Do we expose ourselves to this cancellation crapola at all? Or do we huddle up and strive to actively even out the air travel seesaw—to stabilize these supply/demand elevator flaps, if you please?

These are among the questions and quandaries we will be unpacking as this cancel crapshoot of a holiday season continues to unfold. (MMTC…)

In Comes Omicron.

12/19/21—Given the arrival of this latest COVID-19 variant in San Francisco— then Minnesota, Colorado, New York to LA and by now into 37 states (some 60 countries)—we are now entering new uncharted US terrain, with heavy coronavirus baggage already in hand. The SFO passenger, who arrived on a flight from South Africa on November 22 (vaccinated but not boostered), soon tested positive for B.1.1.529, and immediately self-isolated with mild symptoms.

Already named Omicron, this ‘most significant’ viral strain has been determined to be highly transmittable (Delta pathogen+?), with powerful molecular characteristics such as multiple mutations on its spike proteins—so now we have the worst of both. South African researchers revealed this variant to the World Health Organization by November 24, spotted there and in other Southern Africa countries, and spreading rapidly.

Infection cases surfaced internationally in Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel shortly thereafter, although it turns out that an Omicron-positive patient was discovered in the Netherlands several days prior to the WHO announcement. At any rate, thirteen like-infected passengers soon arrived in Amsterdam, said to be on a KLM flight from South Africa. In response, the EU and other countries (Israel, Japan, Kenya, Singapore) blamed lax vaccination and mask policies, re-instituting travel restrictions by November 26, basically banning flights from eight Southern Africa nations (rescinded 12/31/21).

Germany has now locked down the unVAXxed within, as well—with the United Kingdom set to require negative PCR or lateral flow test results from no more than two days prior to passengers’ arrival. Soon after, the CDC added seven nations to its Level Four hi-risk rankings: including European stalwarts such as France, Liechtenstein and Portugal. Not surprisingly, Trans-Atlantic and/or EU air travel has free-fallen some 47%-55% in recent weeks.

The WHO issued a travel advisory on November 29, recommending than individuals over 60 and/or immunocompromised delay foreign travel—stating than outright blanket bans may do more harm than good overall. Meantime, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention broadened COVID bio-surveillance through an XpresCheck testing service at JFK, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta and SFO airports.

T-Bans: Indispensable or Out of Bounds?

The CDC then announced that effective November 30, airlines and aircraft operators had to provide contact information on all passengers from the eight Southern African nations (covering 14 days prior to a particular flight)—with post-arrival follow-up and contact tracing—under the CDC’s Contact Information Collection Order “to prevent the importation and spread of a communicable disease.” Moved to the agency’s Level Four are such countries as Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

The Biden administration has since affirmed those eight-nation US entry restrictions, also reducing the pre-flight COVID testing results window for international passengers from three days to one day prior to boarding and lengthening the federal mask mandates on transportation modes until mid-March, 2022. Nevertheless, Delta Airlines says it will continue its Atlanta-Johannesburg flights, and United will maintain its Newark-Johannesburg route, adding flights to Capetown: no muddle there…and so much for global solidarity.

But on the outs, Omicron-wise are passengers being stranded midtrip at either end—drowning in chaos and confusion, frenzied, panicked—as travel bans and policies are being posted and lifted by the hour, day by day. Meanwhile the worldwide travel/tourism industry, already projecting a loss of $1.6Tn in 2021, is gobsmacked by yet more pandemic storm clouds as traveler planning and bookings are further disrupted.

For its part, South Africa’s government is balking at these ‘onerous’ restrictions, claiming it and the other African countries are being unfairly discriminating against by dozens upon dozens of nations globally, despite having been responsibly forthcoming by promptly sharing their Omicron findings with the world in the first place.

Now pressure is building for similar restrictions/testing on domestic US flights, yet another government pandemic tool easier to impose than dispose of in due time. So it looks like the COVID hits just keep on coming (e.g., that Omicron breakout on the Norwegian Breakaway cruise ship sequestered in New Orleans). And Vamigré will surely continue tracing these traveler strains as we go. (MTC…)

The Ins and Outs of the Ins or Outs.

11/20/21—Recent joyful, heart-tugging images of international travelers pouring over suddenly opened US borders (11/8) belie the continued confusion over who really can go where any more.

For instance, just follow the Centers for Disease Control’s weekly ranking of travel risks worldwide. Four CDC levels assess COVID-19 transmission rates, along with precautions required and followed (i.e. vaccinations and/or negative testing within three days of departure) in a given destination. What are we planning to see and do upon arrival: outdoors vs. indoor bars and such—would we be actively social or lie on a beach all day with minimal interaction? Will we be fully VAXxed or face daily testing, if not quarantines—factors, variables like that.

So while we may now pass VAXxed and negative tested through Niagara and San Ysidro, the CDC’s Level Four currently posts other global barriers altogether. This Very High Risk level signifies more than 500 cases per 100k residents in the past 28 days—in concert with World Health Organization (WHO) rankings, which cite the raging pace of transmission and resistance in European Region countries. Namely, as hot as prospects have been of late for a summer ’22 renaissance of European odysseys/journeys, Germany again grapples with a COVID-19 Delta spike in infection rates—Austria (65% jabbed, now VAX mandated) locking back down, much of the Benelux as well. The UK (‘severe’ terror warned), Switzerland and Greece fare little better, the continent broadly suffering through a pandemic ‘surge of the unvaccinated’. Beyond that, L4 listings include the likes of Hungary/Czech, Iceland, Turkey, Singapore, Barbados and the US Virgin Islands.

On CDC’s Level Three, slightly less threatening (100-500 cases per 100k) are Thailand, Iran and the Republic of Congo. Level Two, more moderately risky (50-99 cases per 100k), lists Nepal and the United Arab Emirates; Level One is flush with lower COVID risk nations (fewer than 50 cases per) ranging from Malawi and Guinea-Bissau to the Ivory Coast.

Point being, even the fully VAXxed must contend with getting and spreading COVID-19 when it comes to international travel well beyond the newly opened US borders. So best to keep a looksee on the CDC.

Carriers: Comply or Complain?

But even before we navigate these pandemic seas, our eyes must focus on COVID in the skies: namely
the vaccine/mask mandates debate. While US airlines such as American, JetBlue, Alaska and United have declared that they are onboard with federal VAX/masking/regular testing requirements for all employees beginning next month, a significant number of their workers will either quit in defiance or miss work due to positive testing and quarantining. UAL is pledging 100% compliance, assuring the carrier will not “…upend passengers with COVID safety protocol (resistance) among its ranks or service shortfalls owing to employees’ positive test results.”

Southwest and Delta have yet to sign on officially to the Biden Administration mandates (at least publicly), apparently more preoccupied with system/staffing concerns. It’s not entirely clear at the moment which other airlines are in or out on the mandates, much less what bearing respective compliance status will have on federal service contracts.

In Delta’s case, despite posting its first quarterly profit (Q3) since the pandemic began (after having received billions in government support), the company projects it will lose money in Q4 because of rising jet fuel prices—an airline’s second largest expense after employee pay/benefits. Paying $1.94 per gallon in Q3, Delta looks to be spending $2.25-$2.40 per through the rest of 2021. Thus the Atlanta-based carrier plans to trim its total flights, particularly less profitable routes—covering higher fuel costs by limiting consumption.

Greener=Leaner and Meaner?

Delta further notes—mid pandemic and post Glasgow’s COP26—that with ‘fly less” environmental critics holding aviation responsible for 2.5% of carbon emissions, tackling climate change will make flying ever more costly. The airline claims “it has been carbon neutral since March 2020, and will spend $1Bn over the (coming) decade to ‘net zero’ out emissions it creates” via more fuel-efficient aircraft, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) and removing carbon from the atmosphere on the fly. But Delta warns it will take a 10-20% fare increase to cover the costs of doing so.

SWA is similarly setting the terms of its ‘retrenchment to responsibility’ by stating it must focus on trimming flight schedules to regroup its operations, in effect cutting supply in response to increased demand, while hiking fares—that is, making more by offering less. Case in point: air fares for upcoming Thanksgiving travel have already risen some 23%.

This, as carriers have been running at nearly 90% of available seat capacity since mid-summer: the highest seat-mile rates since pre-pandemic 2019—despite record flight delays/cancellations and crew/staff shortages. Which portends a Q4 downdraft of service as fares climb higher and higher through the upcoming holidays—wonting and weary travelers queuing up and/or camping out in backjammed terminals from the eastern seaboard to San Diego and beyond.

Moreover, according to the FAA, 85% of flight attendants have wrestled with tensions onboard in 2020 thus far, 17% reporting physical fights (with facial injuries: black eyes to broken teeth and noses)—some 72% over VAXxing and masking—even with increased security enforcement. Add in boozy seat scuffles and bull rushing cockpit doors, to where unruly passenger reports number over 5,100 in 2021, with over 970 follow-up investigations, and stiffening fines to date.

Given these conditions, it’s hard to imagine that the ensuing high holiday skies will be any less turbulent, in or outside of airliner cabins—what with 45m passengers expected to board over the Thanksgiving holiday period. COVID worries and rules, increased delayed and cancelled flights: It’s getting so flight attendants are undergoing self-defense training, asking air-rage incident witnesses to say so, but otherwise stay out of the fray. Further enforcement measures include squeezing unruly perps tighter to pay up their fines, while law enforcement authorities in some destinations are offering to pay an onboard witness’s expenses to come testify at any resulting criminal proceedings.

Now toss in the gun case at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport over the weekend, as a concealed gat “accidentally discharged” during a bag search near the main TSA checkpoint. Confusion ensued as the gun-toting passenger apparently fled the terminal, but no injuries were reported. The chaotic incident came at a time when airline passengers are packing heat into airports in record numbers. The TSA has confiscated more than 4,600 firearms in 2021 so far, more than all of 2019 (4,432)—with the swelling, if not sheer maddening crowds of a holiday season on the way (some 20m air travelers are expected during this Thanksgiving week alone, up 80% over last year’s level).

Vamigré will be chewing on it all as we go; meantime, swallow hard, buckle up and…wait, curbside to gate. Or maybe plug in some backups before it’s too late—if not topping off at $4-5 per gallon…(MTC…)

Flowin’ With the Go/NoGo Mumbojumbo.

10/25/21—Open, Says He… President Joe Biden has just signed off on opening US borders to foreign visitors beginning November 8, provided they fully vaccinated (children under 18 exempted) and/or can document a negative COVID test within one day of departure—Americans included. Airlines must ascertain that the visitors’ jabs were administered no more than two weeks before boarding departing aircraft, proof coming from an “official source”, such as official health regulators.

The new White House rules ease flight restrictions imposed since the pandemic’s emergence in early 2020. A broad US travel ban currently includes most of Schengen Europe, along with the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, Iran and China.

“It is in the interest of the United States to move away from country-by-country restrictions previously applied during the COVID-19 pandemic,” states Biden’s proclamation, “and to adopt an air travel policy that relies primarily on vaccination to advance the safe presumption of international air travel to the United States.”

Travel into the US from Canada and Mexico has been banned since March, 2020 for leisure and essential travelers alike, despite the fact that Canada has been opened for the vaccinated/negative tested on August 9. The T/T industry has been increasingly asking the Biden Administration to lift its blanket ban of late, at a time when even ultra-cautious Hawaii will similarly re-extend the lei of its lands to visitors, domestic and international, come 11/8.

More VAX facts (11/1/21):

—The UK has just opened to the COVID VAXxed and negative tested from most all nations (not red-listed), and can take lateral flow test results (from private providers), rather than the more costly and time consuming PCR tests. Those not fully VAXxed (over 18) still must isolate for 10 days upon arrival.

—Scotland itself, currently host to the United Nations’ COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, has apparently begun enforcing vaccine passports via a smartphone app (which were introduced October 1).

—Thailand and much of Australia are also opening to the VAXxed and negative tested.

—Meanwhile, American Airlines, Southwest Air, JetBlue, UAL and Alaska Air will likely mandate employee COVID vaccinations by early December.

So okay everybody, now open wide…(MTC…)

Update: (9/7/21)—Herd Immunity vs. Herd Impunity?  Somewhere between total protection and abject rejection lies a sweet spot pandemic-wise, and more than 40m US travelers were in search of our happy places over the long Labor Day weekend.

Off we went, via plane, rail and personal vehicle, uncertain as to who was truly jabbed or unjabbed, CDC VAX card carrying or counterfeiting, masked, half-masked or truculently unmasked, peaceful or pissed, in any sense lubed or lit. Setting aside COVIDelta fears and frustrations, the social distancing and hand sanitizing for a late-summer holiday away: Their joyful abandon was evident in parks, festivals, stadiums, along beaches and popular trails—shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe—no stopping the summery pandemic-weary release.

So, what now? Splurge and surge: Will this impunity lead to yet another wave of infirmary cases? Will the Labor weekend spark yet another surge of Delta, Mu or other “Variant of Interest” nationwide, at a time when hospitals and healthcare workers are already strained to the max?  Could these millions of travelers find their vaccinations are waning before booster shots can be FDA approved—that is if they’ve been VAXxed at all? Or will they all blithely skate infection free, holiday sated, COVID in their rearview mirror?

This latest pandemic ‘benchmark’ should become much clearer in the coming days and weeks. In any event, Vamigré will be taking the temperature, tracking the ‘new normal’ trends, tests and various surge rates as they emerge. (MTC…)

Update: 9/4/21—Hunker or go? Head there or no? Halfway through one of the hottest summers on record, we travelers are facing some cold, hard hitches and speed bumps. Moving targets, mixed messages,

Mother Nature on a climatological tear: This supposedly dreamy, carefree post-pandemic high season is stacking up to be more of a midsummer night’s scream. 

Jabbed or Jobbed?

As COVID-19 resurges from the Alpha to Delta variant, disparities and dissension are cleaving nations worldwide. Mounting infection and mortality rates impact travel/tourism destinations country by country, state by state, city by city, region by region, regime by regime—color them red or blue.

Divisions center on COVID vaccinations versus anti-VAXxers, face mask guidance versus maskless resistance, distancing indoors and out. Conflicts and demonstrations flare from Paris, Texas to Paris, France; COVID clampdowns are imposed in US cities coast to coast—Italy to China and Japan. While California VAXxes and sets mandates, states like jab-lagging, anti-masking Florida, Missouri and Louisiana—with  their hotspots, unVAXxers and vaccine-shed fringes—lead the US in COVID cases and hospitalizations. Infections super spread through mass music concerts and teeming holiday throngs have intensified, mainly due to the Delta variant’s heightened transmissibility and viral load. 

Shot to Trot?

Further muddying the late summer waters are inconsistent, contradictory messaging from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local government agencies, as the coronavirus mutates and shifts epidemiological course, not to mention distorted information and disinformation spewed across mainstream and social media. Still, moving COVID targets notwithstanding, the CDC must provide clearer, timelier, more consistent guidance.

Instead, the agency advises that only VAXxed people should travel over the long Labor Day weekend, fully masking nose and mouth inflight, indoors and on public transportation—testing recommended, close contact only with fully vaccinated people you know. Drivers, keep those trips short and contact free as you go (good luck with all that). Traveling VAXless and internationally without constant nasal swabbing and quarantining: don’t even think about it, says the CDC.

Meanwhile the Biden administration shoots for a September 22 deadline to begin widespread booster shots for those vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna somewhere between six and eight months ago (?: no confusion there). Dr. Anthony Fauci also calls for the booster doses, noting that Israel has been grappling with increased breakthrough cases hitting its citizens Pfizer-jabbed earlier this year.

Nevertheless, the CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have recently warned against Biden’s 9/22 booster target, citing the need for further review, due to a lack of data and information on the timing and efficacy of a third mRNA inoculation. Ever more uncertainty and contradictions rule as the vast unVAXxed and devious Delta Variant surge on and on. (MTC…)

Borderline Madness. 

Doing the cross-border shuffle: Currently slow to roll, the US has yet to ease border restrictions on non-essential travel—mainly emplaced by the Trump administration in March, 2020.  This, as Canada intends to open its borders to fully vaccinated and tested travelers (a maximum of 14 days prior to entry) beginning August 9; VAX/ testing Documentation can be via an ArriveCAN app, other digital or hard copy. The Biden administration says the US may reciprocate beginning August 21.

Conversely, the United Kingdom has opened to authoritatively VAXxed American and EU visitors who pass a pre-departure COVID test and undergo a PCR test two days after arrival—cruise passengers included, children under 12 exempted. Curiously, travelers from France must continue to isolate (10 days) upon arrival to the UK—likely due to that country’s amber list ranking and stricter quarantine measures—although the quarantining of VAXxed UKers returning from visits to France is ending. Meanwhile, French officials themselves are aiming toward vaccine passports. The same for Belgium’s  and Italy’s travelers—the latter having now adopted QR-code ‘green passes’, despite the EU’s easing of UK/US restrictions in June (since rescinded by the EU for non-essential travel due to the current US COVIDelta surge).

Meanwhile some Britons are vaccine traveling to the US for their gratis jabs; still, further plans for a US-UK travel corridor have been back burnered for the pandemic’s duration.

But of course all these rules are ever subject to coronavirus change, border continue opening and closing. Therefore they should be simplified somehow, settled into stable, sensible border policies. The goal being clarity and consistency over such chaos worldwide.

Summertime/Autumn Climes: Red Hot Deluge or the Delta Blues.

If it isn’t wildfires and smoky skies along the drought stricken Mediterranean coastline and western US, it’s tornado alley in the American heartland, or flash flooding in the Deep South on up the Eastern Seaboard, across the pond to West Germany. In any case, the resulting flames and smoke are decimating local T/T destinations, particularly in Greece, Turkey, California and the Pacific Northwest. All this meteorological mayhem is capped by sweltering, record shattering heat domes as we face the extremes of climate change the world over. So we endeavor to keep our cool any shrewd way we can until Mother Nature sees fit to chill out a bit, seeking answers blowing in the recurring rain, fire and windstorms.

Cancel Crapture.

As for airlines, it’s SOS all over again: that is, ‘Same ol’ Same ol’, these perpetual pandemic days. Propped back up via $ billions in government largess, US carriers grounded through 2020 are now flying comparatively high once more. Southwest, for example has already posted a $348m profit for Q2 2021, American Air some $20m. Delta Airlines reports a $652m Q2 gain amid the Delta surge (no irony there); Alaska Air $397m, when federal CARES Act payroll aid is factored in. Even though Southwest Air is already planning to cut its fall schedule upwards of 4.5% through to November—squeezing capacity while cutting costs. Nevertheless, although these numbers remain far below pre-pandemic standards, such turnarounds are projected to boost their stock market valuations significantly before long.

Alas the benefits of this nascent airline industry recovery, driven largely by a strong rebound in leisure/vacation traffic, is not quite redounding to us travelers. Citing severe weather, system outages, as well as crew, fleet and other staffing (even fuel) shortages, carriers—legacy and budget alike—have been nosediving when it comes to meeting, much less well serving this summer’s soaring consumer demand. Same time, United and Delta Air are now requiring COVID vaccinations and/or current negative test results for all, employees included.

Beyond the 2019-style terminal backups, schedule delays, dodgy maintenance, slapdash service and skyrocketing fares/fees, today’s misfiring airlines are outright canceling flights altogether, trapping if not stranding us passengers, crapping on our plans all too frequently without notice or timely fare/fee recompense. American Air alone has scratched/stalled between 400-700 flights per recent days. Same time, Spirit Airlines has canceled more than 11k flights over the past four days, 40% of its schedule, up to 71% in delays and cancellations in one day alone, more than 2,000 travelers jilted for the week. Spirit is asking for patience by its long lines of stiffed passengers, promising full refunds and/or vouchers, claiming it needs time to “reset its operations” while we scramble to scare up a room, much less the scarce rental vehicle.

In other words, 2019’s flight wrangles and headaches are back in our future with a viral vengeance (initial to breakthrough), along with continued unruly onboard mask and booze battles (not to mention the occasional exploding smartphone). Over 4,000 cases and counting have been filed, with over 920 FAA investigations and $1m+ in proposed fines. Flight attendants claim one in five are physical incidents, anti-mask punchers to stabbers, including that drunk duct-taped to his seat and sucker puncher on American Air between New York and LA. The FAA says “unruly behavior doesn’t fly”, with some attendants beginning to hit back. And no current DOT/FAA wheedling nor faded 2017-era ‘Traveler Bill of Rights’ are likely to reverse this downward trajectory, any more than has the airline industry’s 2020 free-fall, thus far.

So in all, we’ve plenty of reasons enough to hunker down for the summer, right? No, rather there are reasons aplenty for us to effectively right these wrongs, as we cunningly, Vamoshrewdly overcome them and go forward. (MMTC…)

Update: 8/7/21—Stay With the Bummers, or Breakaway: Howzit going? Bummed enough already? Still grounded by the moving targets, mixed signals, mis-directives—doom, gloom and Zoom? Drive-by desecration, Road to Ruination, flyers beware: best to not go anywhere, huh? Tourists as malignancy; travelers as Typhoid Marty/Mary: No denying there’s been a whole lot of travel bashing afloat all over the place for a long pandemic time.

Just about makes a person want to roll up like a fetal ground hog, and stay furtively homeward bound. But wait, does it really? Should we remain meekly hunkered down? Therein lie the contradictions:

VAX and Go, Safe or No...

For while more and more Americans are receiving COVID-19 vaccinations, some 25% have yet to get jabbed with either Pfizer, Moderna or J&J vaccines, many of whom remain hesitant or adherently anti-VAX. The reasons for their resistance range from scarce rural access to political and/or religious beliefs—but increasingly suspicion or fear of the vaccines’ safety and side effects. This, as the US is reopening stage by stage, state by state, at a farrago of paces and preferences, with unheard of immunity way on the horizon. In any case, the mass unVAXxed are out there, commingling in modes, events and destinations we ‘protected’ may wish to go; albeit with no certainty as to how long that VAX protection will last, whether booster shots will be necessary somewhere down the road.’

Possibly making such inoculation follow-up necessary is the spread of coronavirus variants and ‘breakthrough infections’ worldwide, particularly in the UK and across Western Europe—let alone nations like India and Brazil, which have been gravely lagging in vaccination distribution. Little wonder the US State Department has issued a ‘Reconsider’ or ‘Do Not Travel’ alert for 80% of international destinations, with ‘increased caution’ or ‘greater risk’ assignations (its Levels 3 and 4) to but a few choice countries about the globe.

Some cloudy skies, all right—not that any of that need stop travelers who are fully prepared and propelled. Moreover, increased VAXxing and the adoption of credible, universally recognized vaccine passes or ‘VAXports’ may help cut through and clear the squall, despite the specter of certificate fraud. As will destinations cities’—no less than the Big Apple and the Galapagos Islands—offering walk-up COVID vaccinations.

Flying COVID Air.

In the meantime, however, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that air travel remains hazardous due to onboard transmission of SARS-COV-2 viruses, given near passenger proximity and viral respiratory droplets floating throughout the cabin. Yet a Harvard research study concludes that the risk of catching COVID-19 on a properly air filtrated jetliner is rare, so long as crews and passengers adhere to masking rules.

The CDC also asserts that COVID pandemic contagion is especially problematic on longer domestic or international flights—to where inflight jet cabins pose an actual ‘super spreader’ threat. It cautiously recommends leaner, shorter flights with minimal layovers and connections, avoiding close contact in crowded airport terminals, boarding gates and security lines whenever, wherever safely possible to do so—if that remains practicable at all. Really, why not set aside certain unVAXxed flights while they’re at it, like smoker cars on the rail trains of old?

But industry analysts maintain that larger commercial airliners are actually safer, what with new HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filtering systems to remove 99.97% of most airborne particles for better cleansing and recirculating in-cabin air (every 2-3 minutes), mixed with freshly cooled ‘bleed in’ air several time per hour. They add that smaller regional jets (which carry over 40% of the flying public per year, being the sole passenger service at 63% of US airports), are often older turbo prop, piston engine-powered ‘puddle jumpers’ lacking comparable ventilation, potentially trapping viral particles and too much CO2 onboard. The Regional Airlines Association counters that a goodly number of its carriers’ planes—such as EMB 135 and 145s, certain Dash-8s—have in fact been upgraded/retrofitted with HEPA filtering, and other, later models don’t require HEPAs because they use ‘refreshed’ external air rather than recirculated cabin air systems. As for United, UAL has ordered some 100 small 19-seat ES-19 electric jets from Sweden’s Heart Aerospace—for short-range regional flights of up to 250 miles—to be delivered by decade’s end.

So there we are…seeking resolution, though not holding our breaths…

Emaskculation or De-maskulation?

Then again, as vexing as that anti-VAX movement has been, the current face-off over masking is even breathtakingly rawer. So who needs any of it, right? Just ask Chris Christie or hard-nosed rocker, Ted ‘Gunner’ Nugent.

Since the pandemic’s earliest days, epidemiologists from the CDC to Johns-Hopkins Medical have held that face masks constitute one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of the virus. The tighter and stronger the better: to where optimal face coverings appear to block 95% of infectious particles by doubling up. Disease specialists suggest wearing a disposable N-95 surgical mask fit snugly beneath a two-ply, 100% cotton weave mask, complete with a clamping nose wire to seal the deal.

Such ‘best-case’ exhortations and responsible, often patriotic appeals—along with endless hand washing and social distancing campaigns—have grated at many ‘personal freedom’ detractors from the get-go, regardless of how efficacious COVID protocols have proven to be. Still, no US national mask mandates have been instituted to date (although the DOT has extended mandatory onboard airliner crew/passenger masking into September 2021). Instead, face covering rules have been left to varying state and local governments, some with ideologically resistant officials (e.g., Texas, Mississippi and 13 other states have no specific masking requirements)—often reflected in spiraling infection rates.

Anti-mask defiance has ranged from protest kerchiefs and gaiters to crowd-sourced burnings to physical altercations between wearers and militant naywayers. Airline flight attendants admit that enforcing inflight mask rules has become the hardest part of their jobs, but equate masking to prevent disease infection with the need to don oxygen masks in the event of a cabin pressure drop.

Accordingly, the FAA has levied heavy five-figure fines ($70,000 en total) on two disorderly clowns who physically confronted flight attendants on Jet Blue and Delta Airlines irrespectively—from pinching and scratching to striking with carry-on bags to punching out a stew’s front teeth—over masking and other safety disputes. The agency has received nearly 3,600 unruly passenger reports since January (2,200 mask disputes, with some 1,900 potential enforcement actions, versus 142 in all of 2019—1 in 5 involving physical contact), precipitating fines of upwards of $30,000 for each infraction.

Mainly accused of masking resistance/refusal, the balky passengers have 30 days to appeal. The more outrageously disruptive among them—say, that panicked crazoid decked by fellow passengers for storming the Delta cockpit door, or the off-duty moron on Delta LAX-ATL Flight 1730 who assaulted two fellow stews, vowing to “take the plane down” before being subdued by other flyers—face being permanently banned from the airline they’ve imperiled.  Not surprisingly, SWA and American Air have already banned alcohol service/consumption on their flights through September—A/Air now through January 2022.

Further, Alaska Air has banned an Alaska state senator from its flights after she refused to properly position a mask over her nose and mouth onboard, thereby disregarding carrier policy. The dejected legislator proceeded far righteously to rail against a ‘mask tyranny’ fomented by ‘mask bullies run amok’. Then there was the Minneapolis woman who paced the center aisle right after takeoff, demanding to leave the plane. Would that some VamoSaviors might speak up to help calm such onboard turbulence.

Mask-no mask incidents have also been plaguing destinations worldwide—belligerent maskless types (80% of them tourists?) ignoring local rules and policies with impunity, facing minor fines and penalties (e.g., doing push-ups in Bali) if at all. Reasons why they truculently do so center on petty selfishness, macho posturing, confusing public messaging, or copping ‘we don’t have to mask up back home’ attitudes. In any event, efforts to enforce mask rules and punish detractors face added pushback from local businesses and services that fear further damage to the already reeling tourism sector.

Now whether the CDC’s most recent relaxing of masking rules may assuage pandemic tensions and fatigue remains to be seen, although the agency continues to argue that travel is much safer when we are all masked. Specifically in the US, those fully VAXxed and two weeks past their second or single (J&J) injections can walk, jog, bike and/or gather (in some cases dine) outdoors mask free with other VAXees and unVAXxed pods. Rule bending and other permutations are likely to follow, as masking still applies in indoor settings, due to their 24-fold increased risk of COVID transmission over the greater outdoors.

Mask shaming, mask blaming, mask maiming: Given this CDC easing, it looks like a whole new set of confusing problems and cross-pressures will be unveiled—especially as the pandemic and its viral variants surge and re-surge in the US and worldwide.

5/29/21—Case in point: the Idaho ‘maskapades’, in which Republican Governor Brad Little rushed back to Boise to repeal an executive order issued by Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin while he was traveling out of state. In dispute? Her edict banned mask mandates by state entities, effectively defying Little’s official masking policies. The incensed Governor called McGeachin’s action “irresponsible…a self-serving political stunt on a highly politicized, polarizing issue without conferring with local jurisdictions (and) legislators…simply put, an abuse of power…amounting to tyranny.” The lieutenant herself, his just-announced Republican rival for the governorship, had long blasted the ‘tyranny’ of Little’s “executive overreach” during the pandemic: essentially thumbing him blow for tyrannical blow.

So Vamigré will be nosing around, keeping tabs on all such masking/unmasking intrigues as they reveal themselves here and there…

Greengineering the Travel Experience?

Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution…which of course means staycate, vegetate in place. That’s the Greener ticket: just don’t travel anywhere, because Mother Earth simply can’t bear the climatological risk these polluted, overpopulated, mid-pandemic days. Forego the guilty pleasures of exploring our fragile world; it’s the righteous, enlightened, enviro-sensitive, world citizentric way to be. So proclaims the global ecotariat, most assuredly with all the best of pro-planet intentions.

But if you must travel, make it count: tour responsibly, tout sustainability—put the Earth first, they declare, wherever, however you may go. These ardent greenies espouse a mindshift to ‘elevated tourism’, considering not just what one’s personal experience may hold, but the impact of that experience on a destination’s natural environment and local community—sharing, exchanging with its hosts, not merely executing consumer transactions. So stay in one place longer, say they, hire local guides and other services, ask permission before snapping denizens’ photographs and be on other best behaviors. That is, keep your social distance and memento filching, despoiling hands to yourselves.

Moreover, green activists preach doing homework before the legwork: diligently scouring, researching tourism websites for their commitment to sustainability, inquiring about any waste and abuse. Have these tourism businesses and services joined the Tourism Declares Initiative, published a climate action plan to cut their carbon emissions? Do they faithfully check the sustainability boxes of some 180 different (third-party) green certification labeling ‘enforcers’? Or have these hotels, BnBs restaurants, clubs, events, etc. just feigned ‘greenwashing’ without even knowing what ‘sustainable tourism’ actually means or involves, from foundational ethics to public health? For there are smoke and mirror shenanigans throughout the tourist biz these days to fervidly ‘greengineer’ away. All well and good, right?

Plane Scorning…and Stalking.

So once duly informed and prepared, we are advised to travel greenly at off-peak times, avoiding overcrowded destinations, spending locally in tourism concerns that earn green checkmarks. And travel by cleaner, climate-friendly modes, instead of ‘super polluters’ like commercial airliners.

This, even as struggling air carriers swiftly strive to retire older aircraft in favor of new, more fuel-efficient and emissions-cutting models like 787s and A-350s. Further, major airlines are dataflying toward digital technologies that utilize sensors and circuitry to track a plane’s efficiency, emissions levels and general physical trim. As they adopt navigation services (algorithmic, AI) to better manage air and airport traffic flow, not to mention the move toward cleaner, lower carbon fuels and battery power.

Jettisoning the Go/No-Go Baggage.

Nevertheless too many joyless noflakes are also directing us to calculate, calibrate, screen everything we see. To do our due diligence and duty like good little greenie gobots, freewheeling serendipity be damned. It’s as if the enviro-commandos would righteously squeeze the very jazz and spice out of the traveling life, giving a whole new meaning to aerial conflict and roadkill—even as the US and EU begin to safely open their borders and doors again. To that, the EU Commission has just announced a plan to open member countries for non-essential travel, via an approved vaccination at least two weeks before hand. The pending proposal includes the eventual issuing of digital certificates of VAXxing, recent negative test results or COVID recovery, as well as an ’emergency brake’ for nations to close back down in the case of (re)-surging variants or worsening health conditions in non-EU countries—reviewable every two weeks.

On the other hand, we see the dirtywork of far too many defiant no-nothings and militant COVID/ climate deniers who are hellbent on burying, burning everything down in pursuit of a bloody good time.

All in all, these issues have gotten to be a bit much now haven’t they? Reason enough why Vamigré will shrewdly navigate toward VamoSweetSpots between the VAXxed and unVAXxed, the masked and unmasked; through pandemic and economic considerations, above the goniacs and noniacs, the purists and impurists—beyond the politics and chaos of undue travel bans.

En route, we will be deftly exploring, exploiting such tensions; ditching all the bummers, clearing the air whenever, wherever needed: finding, knowing and showing a smarter, better way. Particularly now that Memorial Day weekend traffic nearly reached 2019 levels, more than 37+ million road travelers (over seven million flyers screened by TSA; two million last Sunday alone), with wary airlines restricting fleet capacity and hiking fares full throttle. Nonetheless, roll out and buckle up, let’s keep getting on getting on with it, shall we? (MMTC…)

<<< Travel v. COVIDation: Tonic or Toxic?