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E L L I O T T' S TRAVEL NOTES
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November 28, 2003

Hey, Jeff ... About That IPO — Orbitz is once again trying to raise money in a public stock offering. But before you put in an order with your broker, here are a few questions for CEO Jeff Katz: 1) Why would anyone want to invest in a company that's losing money? 2) Why did you wait until the week of Thanksgiving to file the paperwork, when most of the business media is on break? Are you trying to hide something? 3) How can you justify giving yourself such a rich compensation package when your company continues to hemorrhage money? 4) How much of the money invested by the airlines actually belongs to the taxpayers of the United States, and was the indirect result of the generous airline bailout? 5) Should we expect a refund on our next airline ticket if Orbitz goes public? 6) How about giving some money back to the government for bailing your current investors, and your company, out?

November 26, 2003

Southwest's Holiday Spirit — When it comes to being a good corporate citizen, no airline does it quite like Southwest. Take, for example, its Home for the Holidays program, which gives free tickets to people who can't afford to fly home to be with their relatives. The cynical journalist in me would like to believe that's just another example of philanthropic grandstanding. But alas, it's not. Southwest last week offered to fly a visiting Fulbright scholar from Orlando to Miami for a South Florida Fulbright Association meeting after I contacted it. And the airline has quietly done similar things for others I know without issuing a press release. > Correction: Despite numerous attempts to set the record straight, many folks still attribute the following quote to me: "I wish US Airways would just do everybody a favor and go out of business already." The actual quote: "Stories like this make me wish US Airways would do us all a favor and go out of business" — a comment I later revised. Here's the full story and the follow-up article, in case you're interested in all the facts.

November 25, 2003

Was US Airways Bailout a Mistake? — The answer, according to a recent Time magazine feature on the post 9/11 airline aid package, may be "yes." "Like a damaged World War II bomber, US Airways is big, slow and vulnerable," writes aviation reporter Sally Donnelly. "And the fighter jets are closing in. Southwest is going to attack the Philadelphia 'fortress' hub of US Airways, where it accounts for 65% of the flights and where it has kept out rivals by scheduling more flights of its own." Now, for those of you reading this blog, that's hardly news. But Donnelly also hints that the carrier's demise may be imminent, and that is definitely a "stop-the-presses" kind of statement. > And speaking of bad airlines: No one is broken up over yesterday's ouster — er, I mean, retirement — of Delta's Leo Mullin, the guy who paid himself a $1.4 million bonus while demanding salary and benefit cuts from his loyal employees. What took them so long?

November 24, 2003

Of Course You Can Vent, Michelle — "May I vent?" asks Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary. Yes, by all means. Singletary put hotel surcharges in her crosshairs in yesterday's Color of Money column, and she scored a direct hit. The Post, usually an underachiever when it comes to covering travel news, should give this woman a travel column. I've been covering hotel fees and extras since the beginning of my career and rarely see such clear, compelling writing about one of the hotel industry's most reprehensible practices. There, I managed to write about the hotel business without mentioning Paris Hilton. Don't I deserve some kind of reward? > Speaking of surcharges: Stay tuned to this blog for an upcoming NPR story on — you guessed it — hotel surcharges. I taped it last week in Orlando, and almost got myself kicked out of a hotel.

Note: This Web log represents my personal views at the time of their writing. My views are subject to change without notice. Further, I can't vouch for the accuracy or integrity of links to source information.

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