Business Travel Tips

Air Canada has expanded its flights to India. On Thursday February 28, it was launched a new service to Mumbai and Chennai operated in codeshare with Indian carrier Jet Airways.

This new partnership enables passengers to fly between Mumbai and London Heathrow on flights operated by Jet Airways continuing to/ from Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Edmonton on flights operated by Air Canada. The arrangement also includes flights operated in codeshare between the two carriers from Chennai to Toronto.

This new codeshare service offers Air Canada passengers convenient connection options, one-stop check-in and seamless baggage transfer to final destination, on a single ticket.

Air Canada now serves four destinations in India on a codeshare basis: Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.

Virgin Atlantic has launched a promotion to encourage passengers to check-in online.

Passengers who will check-in online will receive a discount voucher which offers £6 off for every £30 spent on Virgin’s in-flight Retail Therapy shopping service and discounts at a number of duty free retailers within Heathrow’s Terminal 3 and Gatwick’s South Terminal.

The promotion is valid for flights from London Heathrow, London Gatwick or Manchester for the period between August 1 and September 30.

Following the airlines’ trend to charge for bags that once were free, starting from May 5, US Airways will charge $25 for the second luggage.

Among the big traditional U.S. carriers, United Airlines’ had already decided to switch from two free checked bags to one. Both United and US Airways are members of the Star Alliance.

To know the fees airlines are charging for extra, overweight and oversized checked bags on U.S. domestic flights, click here.

American Airlines has announced it is moving all its London service to London Heathrow Airport this year. After the Open Skies treaty will take effect the airline will close all its operations in London Gatwick.
AA, which is flying to UK with two daily flights from Dallas/Fort Worth and a single flight from Raleigh-Durham, N.C., also said it is in the process of announcing new flights to Heathrow.

Open Skies treaty between the European Union and the United States will allow airlines to fly between any U.S. city and any European city removing limits on the number of flights, aircraft and routes. That of course will remove the limits of the number of competitors on U.S.-London routes allowing all EU and U.S. carriers into any London airport, although landing and takeoff slots are limited and very costly for any carrier that wants to serve the airport.

However American spokesman Tim Smith said American has secured the landing and takeoff slots it needs to move its remaining Gatwick flight to Heathrow. (source)

With fears of a recession in the U.S. mounting, many companies are starting to reduce their travel budgets.

Corporate travel managers are already faced with rising travel costs such as business class fares increased by 12.4 percent during the first half of February compared with last year (according to Sabre Travel Networks), airport rental-car rates jumped at least 20 percent each week this month compared with a year ago (according to Abrams Consulting Group), and hotel room rates jumped 5.9 percent in 2007 (according to Smith Travel Research). So they are taking a more active role in keeping on-the-road spending in check:
- Employees are increasingly being asked to provide an economic rationale for their trips.
- Rules that require employees to book the lowest fare or stay in pre-approved hotels
- Executives are pushing alternatives to face-to-face meetings, including phone- and Web-conferencing.

Despite airline bookings don’t typically fall until economic conditions have slowed noticeably, any reduced spending by corporate travelers — who typically pay more per ticket than leisure travelers — is bad news for airlines.
In the airline industry, a new recession could lead to further industry restructuring, including new partnerships, consolidation or even a return to bankruptcy for the weakest carriers. (source)