11:44AM EST November 6. 2012 - Airport lines can feel like an eternity. Travelers have a hard time figuring out their final tabs because of all the extra fees. And an empty seat on a flight is a distant memory.
Those are a few of the challenges business travelers face today, and they're among the issues that draw headlines and lead to long gripe sessions on online discussion boards.
Add the pressure to perform on the road and grappling with tight budgets, beefed-up airport security and flight delays and you can see why these are hot-button issues for the frequent business trekker.
"There are always different challenges they have to face," Ed Perkins, contributing editor to SmarterTravel.com, says of business travelers today. But mostly, he says, "the main challenges are with the airlines.
"Unless you're sitting up front, air travel is a miserable experience these days."
Airlines have pared the number of flights and seats they put in the air to make sure they're not flying half-empty planes. That's making for good news headlines for the airlines, as they are routinely posting profits again after a decade of losses. But some business trekkers say the cuts are taking a toll.
"Every flight, no matter the size of the plane, is sold out," says Steve Ording, a national convenience store sales manager who lives in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. "That means if you miss a connection for any reason, you are stranded at the connecting airport for hours.
"This has forced me to fly in a day ahead of any appointments," he says. "My company now has to spend more for hotel rooms and meals."
Airlines that have carved up coach to eke out extra revenue from more coveted seats have also pushed Ording to the back of the plane.
"Since I purchase the economy seats to save money, many times I cannot book a flight unless I take a middle seat or the last row," he says. "By the time I get to board, the overhead bins are full or almost full."
Like Ording, Mike Maloney says he also has a tough time finding convenient flights because of airline cuts.
"Most of the time it means I have to take a flight that is less convenient, and in some cases I have had to even move my travel up or back a day to fit my schedule," says Maloney, a senior manager who travels roughly 45 weeks a year, and lives in Overland Park, Kan.
Perkins' peeve is the refusal by some businesses — especially in today's ongoing tough economic times — to pay for the extra leg room several airlines offer for a fee at the front of coach.
"When a company asks somebody to go away and represent the company, it can be a high-pressure situation," Perkins says. "Granted, business- or first class is ridiculously expensive. But companies ought to be willing to pay whatever it takes to improve, if only marginally, what their business travelers have to go through in economy."
The pain of taxes and fees
Extra fees for airlines perks and services are a particular headache for business trekkers, whose companies can't easily calculate and compare the final cost of their trips, says Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition.
MORE: Companies balk at reimbursing employees for airline fees
"Business travelers need to budget for and find the best value for a particular trip that includes schedule, price and desired services," Mitchell says. "They need to shop and purchase efficiently, as their time and the time of those travel agents who support them is highly valuable."
The coalition and other consumer advocates are behind ongoing efforts to try to force the airlines be more transparent in adding fees to ticket price totals before customers book so they can better compare prices.
Excessive taxes aimed at travelers are another challenge, says Joe Bates, vice-president of research for the GBTA (Global Business Travel Association) Foundation.
A study released by the foundation in September found that excessive taxes on rental cars, hotels and meals in the nation's 50 most popular destinations led to visitors paying 57% more, on average, than they would otherwise. Burbank had the lowest tax rate, while Portland had the highest, followed by Boston, Chicago and New York.
"We understand that every locality has to levy taxes," Bates says. "What we take issue with is to single out business travelers as a way to fund your local needs."
While the taxes are more focused on visitors, Bates says, local residents can wind up paying as well — either directly when they go out to dinner, for instance, or because their city loses revenue when corporate trekkers take their meetings to a cheaper city instead.
"If a business decides I'm going to cut back on travel to New York or Chicago or Boston and go to low-cost cities for our meeting, that could have a big impact on the coffers of that locality," Bates says.
Oh, those lines
Lines at airport security checkpoints set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks remain a big concern for business travelers — though the Transportation Security Administration is working to ease them by expanding its PreCheck program of trusted fliers.
In return for providing the government personal information, the TSA lets fliers keep their shoes on and their laptops in bags.
There are PreCheck lanes at 26 airports and plans to put them in place at nine more by the end of this year.
"For me, the biggest inconvenience is the massively variable amount of time it takes to get through security," says Mitchell Goozé, a principal in a marketing strategy consulting firm who lives in Sunnyvale, Calif., who noted that more PreCheck lanes will shrink the wait.
"But until (more lanes) happens," he says, "it is still a huge variable which causes me to spend more time in an airport than I would prefer — either because I got through security quickly or because I didn't."
Source: http://www.news.theusalinks.com/2012/11/07/fliers-fume-about-fewer-seats-longer-lines/
0 comments:
Post a Comment