little things that can cost you a lot of money....
Airlines have made great play, over the last year or so, of how airfares have been reduced. They have made equal play of their return to profitablility (or emergence from Chapter 11) and how things seem to have generally improved all round.
How has this been achieved and who has paid for this miraculous recovery? One of the main sources of all this lovely money has been you, the business traveller. As leisure travel costs have reduced, the cost to the business traveller has been increased dramatically. Yet the business traveller is vital to the home economy - the leisure traveller to someone else's.
The cost increases, apart from blatant fare rises at the front end (and as the company is paying, do not get noticed quite so much - but should) have also come in the form of some very insidious changes to how air travel, in general, works.
This, of necessity, gets a bit technical. It is important for the business traveller to be aware of these changes, however. He or She may not be able to escape the huge fare increases but there is no need to get caught in the traps set for the unwary. The two principle areas, here, involve the subject of Minimum Connecting Times (MCT's) and Interlining. Any agent for business travel is well aware of these but if your corporate travel is all booked on the internet or with self booking tools, they may not be so apparent. Sometimes, even a firm's corporate travel policy can result in travel bookings falling foul of these pitfalls.
The MCT is defined as the shortest time interval needed to transfer from one flight to a connecting flight. The standard minimum connecting time for each airport, as far as is practical, is administered by IATA and then published. Many airlines have exceptions to these times though they are generally lower than the standard - in some cases, however, they may be higher. These times include, where appropriate, the time to allow to connect from one airport in a city to another in the same city (e.g. Paris Orly to Paris CDG). MCT's are administered by the Manager of Passenger Services Development, IATA, Geneva in accordance with IATA resolution 765.
The MCT is very important and a crucial factor in any multi stop itinerary. Without these MCT's multi stop travel would be effectively impossible. No-one would know how long it would take to get from flight A to flight B. Further, as long as you obey the MCT, if you miss the connecting flight you are the delivering airline's problem - it is not your problem. With the advent of "cheap" travel, these MCT's are begining to fall away, most notably if the journey involves a legacy airline (that is, one of the traditional ones) and a low cost airline (such as Easyjet or Southwest - though the latter does try) or, worse, a quasi-low cost airline such as Aer Lingus.
The subject of MCT's is very closely linked to the topic of interlining. Interlining is a very important feature of multi sector ticketing. This is where a journey consists of A to B on one airline and B to C on another and so on. Let us look at an example:
*A«
1.1BUSINESSMAN/A MR
1 CY 332Y 15MAR 4 LCALHR SS1 0335 0635 /DCCY /E
2 EI 151Y 15MAR 4 LHRDUB SS1 0750 0900 /DCEI /E
11DA.11DA*AMH 1718/18FEB07
Simple enough itineray. I want to travel from Larnaca, Cyprus (LCA) to Dublin (DUB). The flight goes via London (LHR) The price quoted, one way, is £509.14. In real life, this would be ticketed as two one way tickets, £90.70 Larnaca to London and £284.84 London to Dublin. Better still, book the London to Dublin bit on the Aer Lingus website and London Dublin becomes £60.14 (on the day I undertook this excercise).
Off we go to the airport. Our minumum connecting time at London, International to Domestic at Terminal One is 45 minutes - so everything should be just fine. No it isn't. Here, you have seperate - completely seperate - flights. You cannot "check through" at Larnaca. You have to fly to London, collect your bags, leave the terminal, walk around to departures and check in for the flight to Dublin. This cannot be achieved in 45 minutes. How long you would need to leave, time-wise, in London becomes anyone's guess. If you miss the Aer Lingus flight, the only option you would have is to buy another ticket at the prevailing rate.
1.1BUSINESSMAN/A MR
1 BA 67N 25APR 3 LHRPHL SS1 1145 1430 /DCBA /E
2 US3597L 25APR 3 PHLPIT SS1 1735 1847 /DCUS /E
OPERATED BY US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-AIR WISCONSIN
USAIRWAYS EXPRESS DEP/ARR PHL TERMINAL F
127 US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-AIR WISCONSIN
010 HP 3597 /LH 1446
3 US1027E 30APR 1 PITPHL SS1 1535 1644 /DCUS /E
4 BA 66N 30APR 1 PHLLHR SS1 1905 0705 01MAY 2 /DCBA /E
In this example, we are travelling from London to Pittsburgh (PIT) via Philadelphia. The change is from British Airways to US Airways. This itinerary works fine, until you come to the matter of the return flight. British Airways and US Airways interline - but not on E-Tickets. So the traveller here would have to careful that they had a paper ticket. If you had seperate E-Tickets, then you have seperate flights and there is no requirement for US Airways to check you through to London. They would say that, as you had no boarding pass for the London flight, you could only check in as far as PHL.
This would pose the big question - Would you have enough time to arrive at PHL, collect your bags, leave the arrivals hall, walk to departures and check in for the flight home? The MCT is 1 hour 30 mins. The connection should work, but not in practice. The only option here is to perform an on-line check-in for the BA flight, print a boarding pass and hope that the nice people at US Airways will do the honourable thing - but hardly a professional way to run an itinerary. (US AIR and BA do now interline, but there are still examples around! - comment added Jan 2008)
"Through check-in is available to customers with flight itineraries booked on a single ticket and means that any baggage is labelled through to your onward destination and your boarding card is issued for your next flight.
Previously customers arriving at bmi check-in with separate tickets for connecting journeys were allowed to through check-in to their onward flight, providing the airport minimum connection criteria were met.
This service has always been provided on a courtesy basis. Greater availability of low fares to book online has resulted in more customers using separate tickets for interline journeys and the demand for through check-in has increased. In the majority of cases, the fare paid does not cover the costs of the transfer facilities and the liability costs that can arise.
If you have booked connecting journeys using separate tickets, we no longer offer the facility of through check-in or through tagging of baggage. Only passengers with flight itineraries issued on a single ticket with one booking reference will qualify for the through check-in service, subject to minimum connection times. This policy applies to all connecting flights (bmi to bmi, bmi to other carriers and all codeshare flights). Passengers choosing to purchase separate tickets should allow sufficient time to collect any baggage and check-in again for onward flights."
Finally, on this aspect of interlining and MCT's I would like you to consider the following (little advertised) statement by British Midland and taken from their website. Here, they make no pretence of trying to get rid of the age old (and money saving) practice of interlining - as noted under IATA resolution 765. Apart from the stunning and wholly fatuous remark about through check-ins being on a "courtesy basis" if adopted by airlines globally, interconnecting air travel could easily become wholly unworkable.
The changes in the ability to interline and the quiet move away from the traditional concepts can also have a marked affect on the cost of any given air ticket. Interlining is also a mechanism that allows fares to be worked out on a more sophisticated basis than just paying for A to B, then B to C and so on. Airlines have, to a greater or less degree, neatly managed to sidestep interline agreements at great cost to the businessman. Whereas they could not choose (effectively) who they would appear on a paper ticket with, it is a wholly different story when it comes to E Tickets.
Interlining and Ticket Costs
The IATA interline system worked almost like a bank clearing house, where airlines met and exchanged their bits of money for various sectors taken on a single ticket. For years, this has worked remarkably well.
Let us look at an example of interlining in action:
*A«
1.1BUSINESSWOMAN/A MS
1 IB4183Y 19FEB 1 LHRBCN SS1 0620 0920 /DCIB /E
2 AF1949C 19FEB 1 BCNCDG SS1 1815 2010 /DCAF /E
3 AF1042C 20FEB 2 CDGGVA SS1 1830 1940 /DCAF /E
*ATTN*VISA NECESSARY FOR NON SCHENGEN PAX TRANSITING IN PAR
4 LH3663C 21FEB 3 GVAFRA SS1 1105 1230 /DCLH /E
NON-SMOKING FLIGHT
5 LH4724C 22FEB 4 FRALHR SS1 0825 0905 /DCLH /E
NON-SMOKING FLIGHT
11DA.11DA*AMH 1839/18FEB07
WP«
BASE FARE TAXES TOTAL
1- GBP1305.00 125.50XT GBP1430.50ADT
XT 20.00GB 13.00UB 2.90JD 1.00QV
8.40FR 8.50QX 5.30CH 7.90RA
58.50YQ
1305.00 125.50 1430.50TTL
ADT-01 Y CRT1 CRT
LON IB BCN868.46Y AF X/PAR AF GVA760.68CRT1 LH X/FRA LH LON25M
941.56CRT NUC2570.70END ROE0.507796
Our marketing head has a busy week and needs to attend meetings in Europe. We are visiting Barcelona (BCN), Paris (CDG), Geneva (GVA) and Frankfurt (FRA) before returing home. Here, fares are combined and both the Air France and Lufthansa sections are counted as through fares. In other words, we are not going from Barcelona to Paris and then Paris to Geneva, we are going from Barcelona to Geneva, with a stop in Paris on the way. The neat part is the return from Geneva to London, again, allowing a stop in Frankfurt. The only issue here, is we cannot interline eticket this itinerary, it would need to be a paper ticket. The sum of the parts, is not the same as the whole. If taken seperately, in order to use etickets, the total for these flights would be £1637.20 - £206.70 more! (File note: for a business travel agent, who knew what they were doing, the actual final price would be a lot less - well under half price - but that's a good example of what you pay the agent for!)
Even more insidiuosly, and costing even more money for the business traveller, is the quiet tendency to make more and more of the cheaper fares non-combinable, so business suffers the "double whammy" of losing both interline tickets AND the ability to interline the cheaper fares. Whilst people worry about how many bags they take on an aeroplane, the really important issues are being (very) quietly washed under the carpet - with terrific cost implications for business.
In the example given above, the only fares that can be used for interline purposes are the business class - type fares. This leads neatly to another way business is paying too much for air travel.
Internet Fares - "Be reasonable, Do it my way"
In the desire to cut costs, distribution has featured high on the list of costs targeted by airlines. The introduction, many years ago, of the GDS (or Global Distribution System) was the single greatest advance in travel technology. Indeed, even today, nothing comes even close to this incredible piece of technology. When one considers that it has been reliably been moving people from one point on the globe to another point on the globe for 20 years and upwards, irrespective of airline, cabin class or country it appears even more ridiculous that such a piece of technology can no longer be found to "fit the business model". Indeed, if the Railway networks of the world used this same technology and all was interlinked (which could have been done many, many years ago with comparative ease) the world would have the single most powerful booking technology - ever.
So, we are told, it is easier to set up and maintain (at an unmentioned cost) an individual airline website rather than pay $1 or $2 for each sector sold. The internet, for an airline (and we are here discussing airline websites, rather than travel agents) means that they have a greater chance of keeping the client within their own site - it is too much fuss to move from site to site. As few clients bother to try and understand the fare rules (or even read them), many find themselves caught with "cheap" tickets that, although cheap are a long way from representing "best value". There is a major difference. Look at these two fares for the same itinerary:
1.1BUSINESSMAN/AMR
1 LH4900Y 20FEB 2 FRABHX SS1 0805 0840 /DCLH /E
NON-SMOKING FLIGHT
2 LH4905Y 20FEB 2 BHXFRA SS1 1810 2050 /DCLH /E
NON-SMOKING FLIGHT
WP«
BASE FARE EQUIV AMT TAXES TOTAL
1- EUR825.00 GBP550.00 63.80XT GBP613.80ADT
XT 10.00GB 11.10UB 4.50DE 11.60RA
26.60YQ
825.00 550.00 63.80 613.80TTL
ADT-01 YKOMBI2
FRA LH BHX548.57YKOMBI2 LH FRA548.57YKOMBI2 NUC1097.14
END ROE0.751949
NONREF/NONREF/SPEX/CHANGES OF RES RESTRICTED-/VALID LH ONLY -
WPNC‡XA«
BASE FARE EQUIV AMT TAXES TOTAL
1- EUR865.00 GBP577.00 63.80XT GBP640.80ADT
XT 10.00GB 11.10UB 4.50DE 11.60RA
26.60YQ
865.00 577.00 63.80 640.80TTL
ADT-01 YFLEX1
FRA LH BHX575.17YFLEX1 LH FRA575.17YFLEX1 NUC1150.34
END ROE0.751949
When I made this same booking at the same time for the same flights, on the Lufthansa website, the only fare offered was the £613.80 fare. No mention was made of the fare in the lower half of the box on the left. He who seeks only the cheapest would probably wish to book this £613 fare. An agent would recommend the higher fare. Why? Look at the conditions attached to the £613.80 fare - no refunds, pay to change etc., etc. Now look at the £640.80 fare - You can do what you like, when you like, as you like! This is an expensive ticket but the extra £27 on £613 means that if you then had to cancel, you would get all your money back rather than none, save for the tax! Change the £613 fare once and you pay more than a fully flexible ticket, without the benefits.
Of course, where complex tickets are involved, the services of a travel agent are an absolute must. In the (massive) ACTUAL (I have just changed the name) itineray below, ticketing the wrong way will result in cost of £4,805 rather than £2,784
1.1BUSINESSMAN/A MR
1 CA 938D 01MAY 2 LHRPEK HK1 2025 1315 02MAY
2 SQ 811Y 09MAY 3 PEKSIN HK1 0845 1505 /DCSQ*
3 QF 356B 09MAY 3 SINDRW HK1 2215 0430 10MAY 4
OPERATED BY JETSTAR AIRWAYS
4 TL 500Y 10MAY 4 DRWDIL HK1 0700 0815 /DCTL
OPERATED BY REGIONALLINK-AIRNORTH
5 TL 501Y 12MAY 6 DILDRW HK1 0900 1115 /DCTL
OPERATED BY REGIONALLINK-AIRNORTH
6 QF 825B 12MAY 6 DRWBNE HK1 1325 1735 /DCQF/E
7 NZ 766Y 13MAY 7 BNEWLG HK1 1840 0010 14MAY 1
/DCNZ
OPERATED BY ZEAL320 LTD/ FULL AIRNZ SERVICE
8 NZ 743Y 17MAY 4 WLGSYD HK1 1540 1720 /DCNZ/E
OPERATED BY ZEAL320 LTD/ FULL AIRNZ SERVICE
Needless to say, I could not book the itinerary (on the right) on the internet at all, not even with the first international airline (China Airways), though with respect to them, they tried very hard.
With the headlong rush to internet booking sites, it has been forgotten that no website or self booking tool can imitate the functionality of the 20 year old GDS technology - or even get close. All the energies directed towards promoting these websites is resulting directly in hidden, substantial increased cost for the business traveller. Many of the changes made by airlines as to how fares - and "the system" works - are seldom spotted and seldom is full weight given to the implications of some of these changes.
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