{"id":13214,"date":"2008-06-23T19:58:52","date_gmt":"2008-06-24T02:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/06\/23\/friendless-skies.html"},"modified":"2008-06-23T19:58:52","modified_gmt":"2008-06-24T02:58:52","slug":"friendless_skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/23\/friendless_skies.html","title":{"rendered":"Friendless Skies"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

It is becoming clear that United Airlines is not so much interested in economic survival as in driving everyone away from flying.<\/p>\n

First: Surcharges on a second checked bag.<\/p>\n

Second: Surcharges on a first <\/em>checked bag.<\/p>\n

Now: Minimum stays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Starting Oct. 6, most United fares will require a one- to three-night or weekend-night minimum stay, spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said.<\/p>\n

The new rules, which apply to nearly every ticket, are bound to be unpopular with business travelers who prefer to catch a flight out early in the morning so they can make it back home in time for dinner.<\/p>\n

Major carriers scrapped most minimum-stay rules \u2014 put in place largely to discourage big-budget corporate travelers from snatching up the cheapest seats \u2014 years ago, although a number of airlines have been tightening up restrictions and tacking on fees in recent months as the price of fuel has soared.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remarkably, this is one case where United seems more interested in slamming it to business travelers than family vacationers. In this case, it’s going to be much more expensive — and scarce — to do a “fly-out-fly-back” the same day. Though … how many non-business travelers actually do that sort of flying?<\/p>\n

I’m just trying to figure out now if this makes my using United for business travel prohibitively expensive, or prohibitively inconvenient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is becoming clear that United Airlines is not so much interested in economic survival as in driving everyone away from flying. First: Surcharges on a second checked bag….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12258,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/12\/costly_baggage.html","url_meta":{"origin":13214,"position":0},"title":"Costly baggage","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Jun-08 10:38pm","format":false,"excerpt":"United has now joined the bandwagon with American and US Airways to start charging $15\u00a0for the first bag of luggage checked, each way. Expect people to start carrying bigger and...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11774,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/05\/flying_light.html","url_meta":{"origin":13214,"position":1},"title":"Flying light","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Feb-08 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Just ... swell ...\u00a0 United Airlines will begin charging some passengers $50 to check a second piece of luggage on domestic round-trip flights, becoming the first big carrier to impose...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12256,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/13\/more_on_luggage_shipping.html","url_meta":{"origin":13214,"position":2},"title":"More on luggage “shipping costs” by the airlines","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Jun-08 6:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"The more I ponder this, the more irritated I get. United expects that \"only\" a third of its domestic fliers will be impacted by this fee. The two exempt groups...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1376,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/16\/bag_checks.html","url_meta":{"origin":13214,"position":3},"title":"Bag checks","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Jan-02 9:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow has been dubbed \"Black Friday\" by many of the nation's airlines, as it is the day by which Congress mandated all checked luggage be somehow \"screened\" before it is...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24545,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/15\/just-my-luck.html","url_meta":{"origin":13214,"position":4},"title":"Just my luck","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-Dec-11 9:48am","format":false,"excerpt":"Denver International Airport is rated worst big airport for tech travelers in the US, due to limited power outlets (esp. USB) and crappy (and not free) WiFi and cellular service.Yup, yup, and yup, though when flying Southwest the outlet issue is a lot better, since they put up charging tables\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33492,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/01\/frontier-airlines-is-going-to-debundle-itself-out-of-business.html","url_meta":{"origin":13214,"position":5},"title":"Frontier Airlines is going to debundle itself out of business","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 1-May-13 1:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"When Frontier was first around in Denver, not only were the a great price competitor with United, but their service was excellent, their planes new, their people friendly.The crunch of the airline industry post-9\/11, coupled with an unfortunate merger and the general trends in the airline biz, have made Frontier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}