Business Travel Tips

Swiss International Air Lines announced it will add new non-stop service between San Francisco (SFO) and Zurich (ZRH), beginning June 2, 2010.

The carrier will fly one round-trip flight between San Francisco and Zurich six times a week. The route will be operated with an Airbus 340 complete with the Swiss First, Swiss Business, and Swiss economy cabins.

With the addition of San Francisco, Swiss provides links to eighth North American destination; the others seven include: Boston, Chicago, New York, Newark, Los Angeles, Miami and Montreal. Located at the heart of Europe, Zurich offers convenient connections throughout Europe.

Below’s the timetable for the new San Francisco - Zurich service.

Despite the January’s results showing a continued improvement of US hotel performance — began toward the end of 2009, the U.S. hotel industry posted declines in all three key performance measurements during January 2010 when compared with a year earlier.

In year-over-year measurements:
- Industry’s occupancy: - 0.4% (decrease to 45.1%) ;
- ADR: - 7.1% (decrease at US$ 93.93) ;
- RevPAR: - 7.4% (decrease at US$ 42.35).

Three of the seven Chain Scale segments reported occupancy increases: the Luxury segment (+9.4% to 57.2%); the Upper Upscale segment (+5.4% to 56.1%); and the Upscale segment (+4% to 53.1%).

Among the Top 25 Markets, Boston, Massachusetts, reported the largest occupancy increase as Houston, Texas, registered the largest occupancy decrease dropping 15.7% to finish the month at 49%
Top occupancy increase:
- Boston, Massachusetts, (+ 18.3% to 48.9%)
- Detroit, Michigan (+11.2% to 44.5%)
- Miami-Hialeah, Florida (+10.6% to 74.6%).

The report about the aviation safety performance for 2009 released by International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows that the year’s accident rate for Western-built jet aircraft as the second lowest in aviation history. 

The 2009 global accident rate (measured in hull losses per million flights of Western-built jet aircraft) was 0.71. That is equal to one accident for every 1.4 million flights. This is a significant improvement of the 0.81 rate recorded in 2008 (one accident for 1.2 million flights).  The 2009 rate was the second lowest in aviation history, just above the 2006 rate of 0.65. Compared to 10 years ago, the accident rate has been cut 36% from the rate recorded in 2000.

In absolute numbers, 2009 saw the following results:
- 2.3 billion people flew safely on 35 million flights (27 million jet, 8 million turboprop) ;
- 19 accidents involving western built jet aircraft compared to 22 in 2008;
- 90 accidents (all aircraft types, Eastern and Western built) compared to 109 in 2008;
- 18 fatal accidents (all aircraft types) compared to 23 in 2008;
- 685 fatalities compared to 502 in 2008

IATA member airlines outperformed the industry average with a Western-built jet hull accident rate of 0.62. That rate is equal to one accident for every 1.6 million flights.
“In 2009 IATA marked an important milestone in aviation safety. From 1 April, all IATA members were on the registry of the IATA Operational Safety Audit - a testimony to our commitment to the highest global standards for operational safety. IOSA is the global standard. Today 332 carriers are on the registry, including IATA’s 231 members,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

An analysis of the causes of the 2009 accidents focuses on three main areas:

- Runway excursions continue to be a challenge and accounted for 26% of all accidents in 2009. However, the total number of runway excursions dropped by 18% (23 vs 28 in 2008). IATA released its Runway Excursion Risk Reduction Toolkit in 2009, with an updated version to be produced later this year. The toolkit is incorporated with IATA’s broad ranging safety data tools in the IATA Global Safety Information Center (GSIC), a customizable website which will enable users to extract relevant safety information through a single application and enable them to perform performance benchmark and conduct trend analysis and risk management.

- Ground damage accounted for 10% of all accidents in 2009. To improve safety and reduce this US$4 billion annual industry cost, IATA introduced the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO). Built on similar principles to IOSA, ISAGO is the industry’s first global standard for the oversight and auditing of ground handling companies. The first audits took place in 2008. To date a total of 149 audits have been conducted.

-While runway excursions and ground damage were the main categories of accidents, pilot handling was noted as a contributing factor in 30% of all accidents.
(View complete report of 2009 Aviation Safety Performance)

American Airlines announced it will start three new international services from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).

The three new routes include: San Jose, Costa Rica; Madrid, Spain; and Manchester, UK.

The new San Jose service will begin on April 6 2010 and run every day except Friday and Sunday.
The new daily flights to Madrid will start on May 1st.
The Manchester flights will depart daily beginning May 13, 2010.

For these new routes American Airlines will utilize a Boeing 757 aircraft with 16 seats in Business Class and 166 seats in the Coach cabin.

According to the recently released J.D. Power and Associates 2010 North America Airport Satisfaction Study, the trend that sees the smaller airports score markedly higher than the medium or large airports has continued in 2009.

The study measures overall airport satisfaction in three distinct airport segments, based on passenger traffic: large (serve 30 million or more passengers per year), medium (serve 10 million to 30 million passengers per year) and small (fewer than 10 million passengers per year).

The six different factors examined to determine overall customer satisfaction include: airport accessibility; baggage claim; check-in/baggage check process; terminal facilities; security check; and food and retail services.

Detroit Metropolitan (DTW) won the award in the Large Airports segment, Kansas City International (MCI) ranked first in the Medium Airports segment, and Indianapolis International (IND) topped the ranking in the Small Airports segment. (View complete airport ratings)

The study also shows that the airport experience is the least pleasant segment when compared to hotel and rental car satisfaction. Overall, passenger satisfaction with the airport experience averages just 690 points (on a 1,000-point scale) — considerably lower than average satisfaction with hotels and rental cars (756 and 733, respectively).

The 2010 North America Airport Satisfaction Study is based on responses from more than 12,100 passengers who took a round-trip flight between January and December 2009. Passengers evaluated their departing and arriving airports, and the study includes a total of more than 24, 200 evaluations. The study was fielded between January and December 2009.