Search Results for Category: Airline Travel

As of late, the private jets of the auto makers have been in the news and presented in not such a good light. Perhaps there is good reason: when you come begging for money from the government, items that stand out as luxuries should be reviewed. Whatever you think about the particular companies involved, there must have been some business justification for the initial purchase of these planes. Are private aircraft really business tools? Can you really justify them? The answer is a yes, but qualified. Are they a good fit for a small business – that just depends.

Since September, 11 2001 the experience of airline travel has gone from mildly unpleasant to downright bad. This horrible tragedy forced onerous security requirements upon the traveling public, decreasing the utility while increasing the hassle factor and time required to travel. Then, with rising fuel costs airlines have made a desperate attempt to remain profitable by cutting service and schedules, increasing fairs, and charging extra for baggage.

When I earned my pilots license in 2002, I was planning on using small planes for personal travel. However, it became apparent quickly what incredible business tool this type of travel can be. How you ask? Simple, I have three clients in three different cities: Shreveport, Oklahoma City, and Little Rock. I am located central to all of them in a northern suburb of Dallas. In order to drive to see all of them, it would take me about 14 hours and 30 minutes to drive the round trip, not counting meetings and meals – impossible to do in one day. Want to take the airlines? Well, you will make the first meeting Oklahoma City at 11:00am, but you won’t reach Little Rock until 4:40pm, and then your arrival in Shreveport is at 10:10pm. You cannot get a flight back to Dallas that late, but of course that doesn’t matter since you aren’t likely to get a client meeting at 10:30pm anyway! With my 4 seat Piper, I can leave my house at 6:30am, spend an hour with each of my three clients, and be home in time to have dinner with my family at 6:00pm. Talk about a business enabler! Yes, a 12 hour day is long, but with no hotels, no security checks, and no waiting for baggage the experience is much lower stress.

How about cost? Everyone has seen the multimillion dollar jets, but I managed to accomplish the above trip with a $55,000 airplane – not much more than a nice SUV. If your company is willing to spend more, trips like the sample one will be quicker and longer trips will become feasible. Of course, acquisition price is only part of the equation – my aircraft has a fully loaded cost of $60 per hour to operate based on 100 hours per year total (the more you fly, the lower the per hour cost). So the example trip would cost me $405 regardless of whether I planned it 1 day advance or a month in advance. The same trip on the airlines with 1 day notice will set you back $1,427 plus 3 rental cars, and a hotel room.

Is this mode of travel right for you? That’s a question only you can answer, but instead of dismissing the idea out of hand, the scenario above should make you really think about it. Major corporations own business jets because they are a valid tool in certain situations. There are tens of thousands of private aircraft being flown daily for business, maybe your company would benefit by being there too

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Business air travel broadly refers to charter airlines that operate aircraft on a charter basis. Business air travel is not a part of commercial air travel and is treated as a separate entity by the FRA, which even has a separate part to handle Chartered flights. In essence, chartered flights are outside normal schedules, by a hiring arrangement with a particular customer. Most scheduled airline companies also operate charter flights but are not considered or classified as charter airlines.

In context of Business air travel, charter flights have acquired a more specific role with the sole function being to transport executives, sports teams, and anyone whose schedule does not coincide with the schedule in which commercial aircrafts operate.

Air charter travel started becoming popular in the late 1990s, when chartered aircrafts moved into mainstream corporate aviation for a number of factors:

The popularity of very light jets and executive jets popularized the concept of business air travel. These small jets operate with lower inventory and downtime, which add up to bring down the cost of flight substantially. Cessna, Eclipse, Adam Aircraft, and Embraer are the forerunners in executive jet manufacturing. These jets are small, and are retrofitted to operate like an office.

Communication: The 9/11 incident has forced the FAA to impose a number of restrictions on commercial airline travel. For example, use of laptop computers and telephones are completely banned on commercial aircrafts. However, charter flights are regulated by a different part of the FRA, where rules are not so stringent. This flexibility is an added bonus to the corporate world, who now have got the liberty to stay in constant contact even when on the air.

Flexibility: Most commercial airlines operate of preset routes and revenue earning destinations. Hence anyone who has to reach a destination that is not revenue earning would have a tough time arranging for breaks journey. Air charter aircrafts has solved these problems.

Business air travel is expected to increase ten fold over the next two decades and private charter companies are preparing well for the bang. As more and more companies are entering this arena, rates are becoming more competitive and affordable.

We had only been back a few days from our trip to 8. Europe when Louise said she thought we might go to New Zealand next Christmas. It was then I knew the travel bug had bitten. All we needed was a golden egg-laying goose and we’d be right. Fortunately for us one came along and I know it’s like finding a needle in a haystack for people with disabilities to be tripping over such a windfall, however we were lucky. But enough of multiple metaphors; New Zealand was great! Before we went, we asked people who had been where we should go. Nearly all replied, “Everywhere’s good”. Not much help, we thought. Now we know they were right!

There are many reasons why an Australian disabled tourist should go to New Zealand. For a start, they speak English (well sort of. I had almost perfected my Kiwi accent, but the rest of the family forbade me ‘prectising’ in the car). This makes communication and understanding of our needs so much easier.
New Zealand is so close to Australia, only 3 hours on the plane, and so much cheaper than Europe. Even in their High Season car hire, accommodation and tourist attractions were much cheaper than Europe in the middle of Winter. Although food and petrol were dearer than Australia, they were still quite a bit cheaper than Europe too.

Like Tasmania here there’s lots to see and do in a small area. Unlike the rest of Australia, you don’t have to drive for hundreds of kilometers between big ‘tourist spots’ (in New Zealand everywhere’s a tourist spot!) And it really is true that most New Zealanders are tremendously friendly and helpful.

Things for me seemed a bit harder than Europe in some ways; but that was because with chronic progressive MS things get worse and it was a year later. Louise was right though; it’s a good idea to try these things while you still can.
Before You Go It’s important for anyone to get organized for a trip overseas, but when you’ve got a disability it’s essential!

Here’s some tips:

1. Make sure you take plenty of any medication you may need. Never try to buy it overseas. It will be enormously expensive, or may not be available. Get a covering letter from your doctor and make sure the airline is aware. Needles are OK in the hold, but if you need to take them as cabin luggage, you’ll need to make special arrangements.

2. If you suffer from incontinence, for men I’d strongly recommend wearing a leg bag as it takes away a lot of the pressure of trying to find a toilet in time.
3. You also need to choose a good airline and inform them of your special needs. We’ve tried some cut-price airlines and a few wobbly luggage hoists and tarmac steps later I can tell you it ain’t worth it! Contact the airline well ahead to arrange seating. We found the best place was up the very back, right near the toilets.

4. Almost all airlines will take your wheelchair for free (that includes electric ones). You’ll need to arrive at check-in a bit earlier to book it in and to get a wheelchair for use at the airport. Ask for a staff member to help you through to the plane. This has the added advantage of giving you quick checking through customs. You’ll be put in an “aisle chair”, which is a wheelchair narrow enough to get you down to your seat on the plane and you’ll get taken to your seat first.

Unfortunately this also means that you’ll be last to get off, but don’t worry; with the VIP service through customs you’ll be first at the luggage carousel! And ask for staff help all the way through as it will make things much easier and quicker.

5. When traveling if you are disabled, it’s very important to book ahead. Unfortunately your days of just dropping into a town and grabbing somewhere to stay on the spur of the moment are over. We started booking accommodation almost a year prior and the internet is a wonderful (and cheap) tool for this. Don’t rely on those ‘wheelchair friendly’ symbols because sometimes they’ve been put there for no apparent reason.

Contact the owners directly by e-mail and check on steps, space inside rooms, doorway width, safety rails, bathroom configuration and accessibility generally. (In fact, I could write a book on motel rooms-I have quite a list of practical suggestions for improving them for disabled travellers!) In general, I found it’s better to exaggerate rather than downplay your level of disability. That way you’re less likely to end up somewhere unsuitable.

6. You’ll want travel insurance; if only to cover any medical emergencies. We had to pay a little more to cover my “pre-existing condition”, but it wasn’t at all hard to get. Most insurance companies will be happy to cover for everything apart from your illness!

7. I bought a lightweight partially collapsible electric wheelchair especially for the trip. Luckily I bought it early enough ahead to iron out a few teething problems and to get used to using it (at the expense of our house, which has been gradually destroyed by my earlier miscalculations).

8. Louise began cursing the wheelchair early in our trip as its rather small battery began running out of charge and I had to keep finding power points and wait for a re-charge. In future we’ve decided to just take the manual wheelchair overseas. It’s a lot less bulky and if you’ve got someone to push, they’ll appreciate the exercise!

9. Don’t forget your disabled parking pass, if you’ve got one. We tried to organise an NZ pass before we left, through CCS, but it didn’t eventuate. So we just used our Australian sticker and had no problems at all. In fact in New Zealand you’re very unlikely to encounter parking problems even in the peak tourist season.

10. And don’t be afraid to say you could do with help. It’s taken me a while to work this out, but most places are set up to cater for disabled people and are only too happy to help if given notice. You might be pleasantly surprised and even find yourself at the front of the queue for once!

Airline miles and frequent flyer credit cards can be a great way to save money on vacations and airline tickets. As with most products, knowing the differences between the products that are available is the key to making sure you get your best deal. The first thing to know is that there are two classifications of “Airline” credit cards. Most people are unaware of the differences between the two types of cards so I thought I would make things a little clearer.

The first thing you need to know about airline credit cards is that they are horrible credit cards unless you intend to use them specifically for the purpose of airline travel. Most of them have annual fees and higher interest rates than credit cards that are available. If you are the type of person that will even occasionally carry a balance on their card this class of card is not for you. The interest rate that you pay coupled with the annual fee will probably negate your gains in airline miles. This being said, let’s look at the first type of airline cards.

 Frequent Flyer Credit Cards – These cards are sponsored by a specific airline. The credit cards are co-branded with a major bank like American Express or Bank of America. These are the original frequent flyer cards that hit the market. These cards are perfect for those people who are “brand loyal” or otherwise compelled to use one airline by work or airport location. These cards will allow you to establish frequent flyer accounts that actually have cash values.

The downside is that these cards do not allow you to shop fares because the miles will not accumulate on other airlines. These cards usually have the higher annual fee when compared to airline miles credit cards and has the higher of the interest rates between the two classes. I presume the higher rate is because of the extra expense to the issuer for the co-branding.  Of coarse I could be wrong; I am due for my first mistake this year. The next type of airline credit card is airline miles credit cards.

Airline Miles Credit Cards – This class of card is usually sponsored by credit card companies or banks don’t have an affiliation with a specific airline. This class of airline card has its pros and cons as well. The best feature among airline miles credit cards is the ability to use them on multiple airlines. These cards usually reward the user with “points’ as opposed to miles like frequent flyer credit cards do. These points can then be converted to airline miles or other travel related perks. Unlike frequent flyer cards the card holder has the choice to apply these points to hotels, restaurants, retail stores as well as airline miles.

Savvy shoppers with good credit can also find better rates and no annual fees on some airline miles credit cards. One of the best cards in this class is hands down the Capital One® No Hassle Miles(SM) Rewards card. It doesn’t have an annual fee and its interest rate is tolerable should you have to carry a balance. The down-side of the airline air miles credit cards are the “gotchas.”.

These are the little things in the fine print that can zap your air miles or cost you money. Read the guidelines carefully. For instance some cards will totally erase your air miles earned in a reporting period is you are more than 3 days late on your payment. Even though this is within the credit card issuer’s grace period there is a separate rule for the air miles benefit. So, make sure you read the fine print to make sure the card meets your lifestyle and spending habits.

The best way to get the most of the perks on both classes of cards these cards is to charge and pay back around $1000 each month. One example is that my wife and I just found out that our mortgage company allows people to pay with American Express. Just using our air miles card to pay our mortgage each month we will earn one free ticket per year! Just remember what I said at the beginning. Unless you are using air mile credit cards for the specific purpose to earn air miles they are probably not a good idea.