Faced with a Long Layover, What Do You Do With Your Luggage?

At the Rome Fiumicino airport, a travelers problem was easily and affordably solved. What a relief! We were traveling home from Sardinia to New York, and had a day-long layover in store. What to do with all of this baggage, from a week's trip?

The solution lies in a place called Deposito Baggagi, or "Left Luggage Area." It's like a similar service I found on my way home at JFK, the same idea.

Rome's facility is located on the first floor level of Terminal C way far down at the far side of the building. There you'll find an x-ray machine and a man who takes your luggage to store and hands you back a bar coded reciept. For seven hours, it costs 2 Euros per bag. Over seven hours and you'll pay 3.5 more Euros per bag.

We left our bags for the day and happily boarded the train into the Rome's Travestere neighborhood for some shopping and lunch at a cafe in a Piazza. On the train, everyone but us were lugging huge suitcases, and piling them on the seats of the train. Glad we found Left Luggage area, it made our day much easier.

Clever Ways to Save Fuel in the Air

While I was on a trip to Sardinia this week, I read the International Herald Tribune, and found out that airlines are finding new ways to shave their costs in this time of climbing fuel prices. One way is to slow the plane down, and add several minutes to the arrival time. This saves as much as $548 per long haul flight for Delta, and passengers aren't going to notice.

Southwest began slowing down each flight by 1-3 minutes two months ago, and projects it will save $42 million in fuel this year. Jet Blue adds an average of just under two minutes per flight, saving $13.6 million each year by going about 10 miles per hour slower. Another way to save fuel is to land with just one engine running. By using just one to land, a European carrier saves hundreds of gallons of fuel.

Don't be alarmed, this isn't that uncommon...it's a good way to save because you don't need two engines to fly the plane, or to land it. You do need both to take off, however, so nobody is trying that out yet.

Eos Dies Before We Can Talk it Up on GoNOMAD

Eos, we hardly knew ye. Just as we were about to publish a glowing article about the all business class airline, Eos, they went under. What happened, according to my friends in the airline business, is that most likely they didn't get their next round of funding from their banks and stock holders. Plus American matched their business class fare...and kapow!

The story that we would have published quoted Eos' CEO saying that it's not what you add to airline service, it's what you take away. These folks had come up with a luxurious configuration of just 48 seats in a 220 seat airplane. They had reduced the lines one had to wait in to a minimum, and offered their own limo service to and from the airport. They took away the hassles and that was their business plan.

But lurking in the background of any airline start up are the big bad wolves...Like American Airlines, who matched the $3800 fare offered by Eos from JFK to Heathrow, not London Stanstead, where Eos left you off. This combined with losing their funding spelled doom for Eos, a great idea whose time, most likely, will not come again. There are just too many of these all business class airlines in the graveyard for anyone to try this again, at least not anyone except a major who might be able to pull it off.

"Travel Escape Hatches" Make Sense This Summer

Travel advice from the Charlotte News Observer suggests that this summer is the time to think about an 'escape hatch.'

One frequent traveler says that he learns the flight attendant's names and schedules on his regular flights out of Newark so that he knows which flights are frequently delayed. He's even figured out which American Airline planes offer the least amount of legroom.

One strategy this saavy flyer uses is the keep the airline reservation numbers on his cellphone, and if he's cancelled, he quickly rebooks from the terminal. "There is usually only one person at the counter, but 100 people on the phone waiting to help you, he said. He uses the airlines websites to check the ontime percentages...less than 80% and he might bail out and find another flight.

Other advice in the column suggests using a luggage shipping service to send the bags ahead, or else using Fed-X or UPS. There are many companies in several price ranges that can take the hassle and fear out of traveling with luggage. One thing to watch out for is wine--it weighs a lot and some airlines are limiting luggage weight, meaning you might have to donate it to the desk clerk when you're checking the bags.

Some advice that I learned during my trip to Sardinia this week is some that I rarely heed myself. A man traveling with us had his luggage lost, but looked great the next night because he had packed a change of clothes in his carryon. I never do that, but I guess I should.

In Sardinia, I learned a Bit More About Alitalia

Last night we had dinner in a monastery on Sardinia, and at the table was an executive with the Eurofly Airline. He used to work for Air France and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the airline business. Across the table as we sipped the wonderful dry Sardinian wine, I asked him to tell me about how he thinks the Alitalia mess will resolve itself.

"Alitalia is the primary driver of tourists to Italy," he explained. Many visitors who fly Air France are heading somewhere else, they might stay in France a few days, but then leave for other countries. But Alitalia brings 85% of travelers to Italy and they stay here. It's a vital part of the tourism infrastructure, because it's more than just an airline.

He told us about the five planes that the airline has for cargo...and that there are 360 pilots who fly just these five planes. How the pope has several Alitalia liners always ready, always gassed up and waiting, in case his holiness wants to go somewhere. He told us that the airline has been used by politicians and big government honchos as a sort of private shuttle. The unions are the killer here, he said....and KLM is never going to make another offer.

But he defended all the money that the government pours into Alitalia, explaining that other flag carriers do the exact same thing, despite EU rules to the contrary. "They pumped money into British Air, Lufthansa, Air France, they all do it, because of how those airlines are more than just companies, they are national carriers with lots of government duties as well.

Branson's Virgin America Gives Passengers the Menu on the Seatback--And they Love It

Richard Branson's handsome face graced a full page article in last week's Time Magazine. I read the story as I sat on a plane bound for Sardinia. The story was about his new airline, Virgin America, that has recently begun flying between New York, Seattle and LA.

The airline, like any in this cut throat, tough environment, faces challenges. Yet Branson is his usual supremely confident self, describing his keys to success in the airline business. It starts with avoiding the traditional hub and spoke system, and instead, choosing high profit routes. But another part of their success is that they are cool, always cool, and stylish.

The planes Virgin America flies are all the same: new Airbus A320s, which seat 149 passengers. The interiors cost 2-3 million to decorate, but for that money you get very cool looking planes.


Instead of dishing out 'gruel from a cart,' the article described their innovative new way to serve passengers: The menu is in the seatback video screen, and as soon as you want to put in your order for a salad, or a turkey bacon wrap, you swipe your credit card and a server in a crisp purple uniform brings it to your seat.

Once the plane runs out of certain popular food items, they no longer appear on the seat-back screens. The trips from LA to NY cost just under $300. A fair price. They also offer a first-class service for 29 passengers up front with hot food and the usual amenities.

Virgin America also offers another perk: Free Wifi and the ability to send text messages to other passengers. These fun little extras are some of what sets Virgin apart.

But Branson also stresses that he'll never fly a Kansas City-Phoenix route, or the other more pedestrian, and less profitable airline routes. No, he leaves the middle of America alone, and concentrates only on high demand routes such as NY-LA.

He said he considered an all business class airline, like Eos, but decided not to do it...because there would not be much business during weekends. And they want to keep their planes flying and making money seven days a week.

Alitalia Can't Give Itself Away

The ongoing saga of Alitalia took another twist as the outgoing president of Italy, Romano Prodi, gave the ailing carrier a $469 million gift to ensure that they can keep flying until the new government comes to power in May.

The deal was almost made to sell the carrier to Air France/KLM. But the unions in Italy objected to the loss of jobs in Milan, and tried to play hardball with the biggest airline in the world. But it didn't work--KLM walked away when the unions tried to play hardball, and even after this, the union bosses thought that the big player would come back.

NOT! With an aging fleet and difficult contracts, Alitalia has lost money every year for decades. But the European Union won't allow the Italian government to keep propping the carrier up. When he was running for office, Silvio Berlosconi railed about how the airline should remain in Italian hands, and said there were Italian investors who would pop up and buy Alitalia. Now that he's been elected, these "Italian investors" are no where to be found.

Why doesn't he buy, it, he can afford it, and that way the union headaches, the old jetliners and the hundreds of mid-level managers will be his headache.