On the Record
Airlines Warn Agents New United Picks Senior
“The story behind our revenue per
available room growth is the rebound in business travel, which is
75 percent of our business. Revenues
from global accounts and midweek occupancy have nearly returned to 2008
levels. The sectors leading the charge
are financial, consulting and tech.”
—Starwood Hotels & Resorts president
and CEO Frits van Paasschen
On Secure Flight Data
Management Team
■
“For reasons that defy logic, every
now and then when people start
to make money in this business they
start to think it makes sense to add
more airplanes, as if that will allow
them to make even more money. The
result is it causes us all to lose money.”
—US Airways CEO Doug Parker
■
“The business travel management
profession has much bigger fish to
fry than this question of unbundled
ancillary fees. Regardless of whether
the ancillary fee issue is settled as a
ripple in the market or as a subject of
federal legislation, it is a distraction for
an entire industry at a critical time. It’s
not a question of paying for goods or
services delivered, but the manner in
which these are presented and billed.
As a global industry, we need to gain
consensus around this but then focus
on the bigger fish that are circling our
boats—just waiting to be fried.”
—Association of Corporate Travel Executives executive director Ron DiLeo
Satisfaction Rises
In J.D. Power
Hotel Survey
BY JAY BOEHMER
DOMESTIC AIRLINES ARE WARNING travel agents that passenger name
records could be canceled or agencies
debited if they fail to properly submit the
appropriate data for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s Secure
Flight program.
Though TSA since
August of last year has
been collecting new
Secure Flight data elements, including gender and date of birth,
beginning Nov. 1, 2010,
“TSA has threatened
to return all non-compliant records to the
airlines for follow-up,”
regardless of where the
booking originated,
the American Society
of Travel Agents said
in a warning to members last month.
Among the carriers
that are getting tough on Secure Flight
compliance, US Airways is warning
agents that itineraries not containing the
proper data elements could be canceled,
Continental Airlines said it could debit
agencies for failing to submit Secure
Flight data and American Airlines said it
would not issue tickets unless the data is
present at the time of ticketing.
“Ticketing transactions attempted
without Secure Flight passenger data
will generate an error message advising
that the data must be collected,” American Airlines vice president and general
sales manager Kurt Stache said in a letter to agencies last month, noting that
American would require the Secure
Flight data at the time of ticketing no
later than Sept. 15.
“As it stands today, the airlines collect
Secure Flight data at the time of booking
with all airline-direct reservations,” ac-
cording to ASTA. “The agency channel
has the flexibility to collect Secure Flight
data at any point during the reservation
process as long as the data elements are
added to the PNR prior to 72 hours of
travel. Yet this flexibility comes at a risk,
as the burden of following up with the
customer and updating the PNR is on
the travel agent.”
ASTA said it would work with TSA
and the global distribution systems to
develop a solution for collecting Secure
Flight data “in a way that minimizes en-
forcement action by TSA and/or the air-
lines as the Nov. 1 deadline approaches.”
The government in June assumed all
watchlist-matching responsibilities from
all domestic airlines as part of Secure
Flight. The next step of the passenger
prescreening system is for Department
of Homeland Security to assume by year-
end the watchlist matching for passen-
gers flying international airlines to and
from the United States.
DHS said the new program would re-
duce the number of misidentified passen-
gers that occurred under the predecessor
program, the Computer-Assisted Pas-
senger Prescreening System, since Secure
Flight requires passen-
gers to submit more
biographic data to
bounce against watch-
lists, including passen-
ger date of birth and
gender.
The shortcoming
with CAPPS, which
based its watchlist-
matching process on
name only, was that
passengers could be
flagged for further se-
curity review at the
airport if their name
closely matched one on
the watchlist. With the
new data elements, DHS said it has more
parameters to determine if a passenger is
truly on a watchlist, or just has some coin-
cidental similarities to people considered
threats to aviation security. ■
The American Society
of Travel Agents has
warned its members
that “TSA has
threatened to return all
non-compliant records
to the airlines for
follow-up,” regardless
of where the booking
originated.
BY MICHAEL B. BAKER
TRAVELERS RATED RITZ-CARLTON,
Omni Hotels, Hilton Garden Inn, Drury
Inn & Suites, Microtel Inns & Suites and
Homewood Suites the top brands in their
respective tiers in J.D. Power and Associates’ 2010 North America Hotel Guest
Satisfaction Index Study, released in late
July.
Every tier, on average, improved its
satisfaction score compared with the
2009 study, according to J.D. Power. The
midprice and extended stay tiers saw the
greatest increases, and guest satisfaction
improved the most with reservations,
guest room quality and the costs and fees
across all tiers.
The study, now in its 14th year, tabulated responses from more than 53,000
guests who stayed at a hotel between May
2009 and June 2010. Guests rated hotels
on reservations, checkin and checkout
procedures, room quality, food and bev-
erage quality, the hotel’s services and fa-
cilities and ancillary costs and fees.
“Occupancy and average daily rate are
down for many of the brands, but satis-
faction is up, and this is stemming back
CONTINUED ON PAGE 49.
eral counsel. From Continental, Zane
Rowe will be continue to be CFO, Mike
Bonds will head human resources and
labor relations while Nene Foxhall will
take the helm for communications and
government affairs.
As planned from the beginning, United
CEO Glenn Tilton will become non-ex-ecutive chairman of the merged carrier.
The two airlines in a joint statement
said the new leadership team, along with
Smisek, would flesh out the rest of the
organization, adding that they “are de-
veloping a talent-selection process for
other management and clerical roles
and refining the planned organizational
structure.”
Meanwhile, United said its president,
John Tague, along with CFO Kathryn
Mikells, Mileage Plus president Graham
Atkinson and senior vice president of
corporate and government affairs Rose-
mary Moore will leave once the transac-
tion is closed.
“We are somewhat surprised to see Jeff
Smisek take over the role of both president and CEO despite the fact that both
companies have had separate individuals
in each position in the past,” Keay said.
“We believe Mr. Tague or Ms. Mikells
could have ably filled this position,” attributing United’s “liquidity turnaround”
to Mikells and calling Tague “well respected on Wall Street for United’s revenue outperformance and unbundling
initiatives.” Smisek ascended to the CEO
post just this year, replacing Larry Kellner, who left Continental for a private
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4.
■
“Smisek has
demonstrated a more
aggressive and risk-
taking managerial style
since taking over for
Larry Kellner.”
NB TA president Craig Banikowski
“We are very much committed as we
grow to be able to provide resources
on public and governmental policy
for regions outside the U.S., as well
as refocusing our efforts in the U.S. to
be able to respond, such as when the
White House comes out with something that we don’t believe in, like the
recent statement by President Obama
that he wants to look at cutting government travel. Given how fragile the
economy is right now, we don’t think
that’s the best move.”
—National Business Travel Association
president Craig Banikowski
equity firm. “Smisek has demonstrated
a different managerial style since taking
over for Larry Kellner, and appears to be
more aggressive and risk-taking than his
predecessor,” Keay said.
Smisek and Tilton during separate
second-quarter earnings calls last month
said they continue to expect the transaction to close before year-end. Smisek said
the companies have “several hundred
people divided into about 30 functional
teams working on integration planning,”
while both carriers are working with the
U.S. departments of Transportation and
Justice to comply with pending reviews.
Shareholder approval should come in the
September, Smisek said. “I remain confident that we will close the transaction in
the fourth quarter,” he added. ■
