Two Years of 2B - Portland Business Travel Guide

ysynut.wordpress.com
But be warned: There are no overarching trends As is so often the case on the these last two years have been almost totally to insane swings in the price of fuel to the apparentlgy endless cycleof boom-and-bust that dominates hotell development, and, of course, to the economic wave that has carried us from the relativelyt giddy times of April 2007 to our current…uh, well…to whateverf it is we're living and working Southwest's Steady Course Even the nation'as one financially sound U.S. carrier, Southwest Airlines, hasn't been able to escape the ravages ofthe nation's economicc collapse.
Its traffic is down abou in linewith industry-wide trends and it has takenn the unprecedented step of trimminyg its overall capacity by 4 percent this year. And the airline'ds vaunted fuel-hedging strategy, which saved the carrief about $3.5 billion in the last decade, cost it money in the seconed half of 2008 as oilprices collapsed. But some thingws never change: Southwest is usiny the downturn to position itself as an alternative tothe nation'as mainline carriers. After decades of shunnint some of thelargest U.S.
cities, it launcheds flights to Minneapolislast month, is scheduleed to begin its first-ever flights into New York (via LaGuardiaq Airport) in June, and will serve Boston'sz Logan Airport in the United's Inexorable Decline It's gone from worst to even worser than that at United the most troubled of the nation'w so-called "legacy" carriers. Once the nation's largest airline, United is hemorrhaging after abungled mega-bankruptcy and years of managemenrt missteps. About 40 percentt of what flies as United Airlines is subcontracted to regiona airlines and much of the remaining servicde isactually code-share operations with its internationapl partners in the Star Alliance.
Every one of its uniobn contractsbecomes "amendable" next year (airline contracts never technicallgy expire). Compared with the other legacy its cash reserves are small and there are few unencumberec assetsto hock. And early next year, it will have to discuszs cash-draining "holdbacks" with JP Morgan Chase, its credit-card Operationally, there's no good news, either, since its once-profitablr service to the Pacific Rim is deterioratinyg rapidly due to plunging yields to Asia and fresh competitioj on its Australia Fate of the Fourth Class The worldwidr collapseof premium-class traffic since last fall has had the expectes effect: Airlines have stepped up their discountintg in business class and more carrierx are adding a fourth class, which is rather genericallyh known as "premium economy.
" The discounting trends is both structurally strategic—the airlines now offerd a range of discounts from three to 60 days beforee departure—and tantalizingly tactical, with sale fares slashinh as much as 75 percent off the price of internationapl business class. As for premium economy, Air Francs added the new cabin on three premierroutess (from Paris to New Tokyo, and Osaka). But the fate of fourtnh class is farfrom secure. Even as Air Francer was debuting, OpenSkies, British Airways' boutique carrier, was renamin g its fourth cabin asthe "biz The reason?
Premium economy stilo exists in a computer-coded limbo, whicn makes selling it via the airline industry'as omnipresent global reservation services difficult.  Th Banking Blues and London RediscoveredIf I've been at all prescien in the last two years, it was the Run on the Bankers column that posted shortly after Lehmah Brothers tanked last September. Exactly in line with the meltdowh ofthe markets, banker s stopped flying, and that has cause d the calamitous decline in premium-class airline revenue. It's been especially tough on British Airways, which is disproportionately dependen on premium flying on theNyLon (New route.
And there's no doubt that BA (and London) are stilol suffering a year on from the disastrous openinbg weeks of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport inMarch 2008. The good news for thosw of us wholove London? The British capitaol is cheap again for upscales American visitors, thanks to massive airfare and hotel discounts and the precipitouss decline of the value of the British pound. Counterintuitive Currench Just beforethe world's economies shuddered, the U.S. dollar was at an unaffordablelow ebb. But for reasons known only to the masterxs ofthe universe, the U.S. dollard has gained strength against almost all ofthe world'a currencies as the American economy weakened.
If you've got any discretionary income left, this will be a grear summer to travel virtually anywhere in the The dollar is buying 20 to 50 percent more than last spring and The only exception: Japan, where the dollar continuesz to languish at or below the 100-yen A Fee By Any Other Name it isn't all bread and dollar-denominated chocolates overseas. Banks and othefr financial institutions continue to raise the fees they chargee when you use your ATM or creditr card outside of theUnited States. The latest Currency-exchange fees of 3 percent or more even if you use yourown bank'd ATM card to make a withdrawaol from your own account at an overseas ATM owned and operatedf by said bank.
Even financial institutions that continuw toadvertise fee-free ATM usage are adoptin g the currency gambit. One example: Charles Schwabh Bank, whose print ads promise in big, bold type that therd are "No ATM fees—we rebatw all ATM fees from any ATM. Period." But as Schwab's fine print makes clear, "ATM free rebatesx do not include currency exchange fees or other Some of the fewtruly fee-free ports in the stornm are the credit cardz and ATM cards issued by Capital One.
The Fine Allow me to end this colum n where I began inApril 2007: I still believe the singlwe best investment you can make in your on-the-roax comfort and productivity is Priority the worldwide airport-lounge access program. The fees haven' changed, but the lounge network has grown by 20 to more than 600 clubs in300 cities. Portfolio.cokm © 2009 Cond Nast Inc. All