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Robert Buckman

January 24, 2008

Technology: Free Market Flying

I guess I shouldn't be surprised the airlines have been fighting tooth and nail over proposals to charge them higher runway fees during rush hours. The idea, called "congestion pricing," is to apply free market incentives that would lead carriers to spread flights throughout the day.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 12:04 PM | Add Comment

January 18, 2008

Technology: A Dream Deferred

With 52 airlines awaiting a total of 762 787s, word that delivery of Boeing's much-ballyhooed Dreamliner would be deferred was unwelcome news indeed.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 8:33 AM | 1 Comment

January 14, 2008

Technology: Can Caps Cut Delays?

Now that the federal government is taking action to deal with the chronic delays that characterize the New York City area's air traffic — which accounts for one-third of America's commercial flights — the big question is, will it actually help?

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 7:43 AM | 1 Comment

December 3, 2007

Innovation: Feds Focus on Flight Fixes

New York City's airports have seen the worst of the worst when it comes to the flight delays that have characterized this past summer. And as we come into the busy holiday season, it appears that there will be more of the same.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 7:09 AM | 4 Comments

November 20, 2007

Innovation: Does My Stomach Believe My Eyes?

The worst institutional food short of Sloppy Joes at a junior high school cafeteria has long been found flying through the air. Inflight fare hasn't been the butt of jokes for no reason — food service has become a casualty of hard economic times that airlines have faced over the recent years.

And today, in fact, the real airline innovators don't feed you at all.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 10:27 PM | Add Comment

November 13, 2007

Innovation: Rock, Paper, Scissors

Everybody knows the game of rock, paper, scissors.

Airbus seems to know the game, too. The aircraft consortium has been playing it with the choice of materials for its A350. Originally, Airbus was planning to build a conventional metal model. Then the news of Boeing's planned 787 Dreamliner caused Airbus to change course with a skeleton of aluminum married to a skin of composites.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 8:29 AM | Add Comment

October 28, 2007

Innovation: Antique Air

America's air-traffic control system lags behind systems already rolled out in other parts of the world. This summer's flight delays have demonstrated all too clearly that our system is too slow to handle today's volume.

That's the storyline of a September 28 article in The Wall Street Journal, which also observes that what's limiting the on-time reliability of America's airlines isn't so much lack of runways as it is lack of airspace.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 6:05 PM | Add Comment

September 26, 2007

Innovation: The Air Up There

Decades ago, the airship was touted as the wave of the future in travel, with the Hindenburg zeppelin poised to be the proof of that prophecy. The largest airship ever built, the Hindenburg offered the height of luxury travel and was capable of carrying 2,656 people across the Atlantic.

But on May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg burst into flames in a mid-air disaster that would essentially mark the end the era of the dirigible.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 9:35 PM | 1 Comment

September 20, 2007

Innovation: The Future Is Here

Although signed earlier this year, the new Open Skies agreement for free movement of flights between U.S. and European cities, which kicks in starting in March 2008, is still developing momentum among the world's airlines.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 5:33 PM | Add Comment

August 22, 2007

Innovation: Today's Time Tunnel

For one storied season just 40 short summers ago, a sci-fi show called "The Time Tunnel" held sway on ABC-TV. Created by "Poseidon Adventure" film and TV producer Irwin Allen, the aforementioned Time Tunnel was a secret government machine (naturally!) for traveling back in time. Only problem was, each week the show's characters — including star James Darren — were lost in time. (Unfortunately for our intrepid heroes, they never quite made it back to their government laboratory before the show was cancelled.)

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 9:18 AM | Add Comment

August 15, 2007

Innovation: You Don't Need a Crystal Ball

As a follow-up to my most recent blog post about increasing delays among the U.S.'s network carriers, I'd like to note that one of the most accurate forecasters of our current travel woes is Scott McCartney, author every Tuesday of The Wall Street Journal's "The Middle Seat" column and moderator of the "Middle Seat" forum (formerly Friday's "Middle Seat Mailbox").

So long as there's "The Middle Seat," who needs a crystal ball?

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 11:32 AM | Add Comment

August 8, 2007

Innovation: The Late Business Traveler

This isn't to announce the death of the business traveler.

But it might as well be.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 8:00 AM | 1 Comment

August 2, 2007

Innovation: A DIY Postscript

"Shopping for travel on the Web has become a long-drawn-out chore," noted William J. McGee in a just-published Money magazine story ("Capturing a Fare Deal") that appears on CNNMoney.com.

Mr. McGee essentially corroborates what I said in my previous blog entry about the overlooked value of travel agents for travelers who've had it up to here with endless surfing and no human help at most travel sites.

Not to say that the technology is broken. It's just that, unfortunately, as the Money article indicates, "no Web site offers everything."

Have truer words been spoken?

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 4:52 PM | Add Comment

July 30, 2007

Innovation: Tired of DIY Travel Bookings?

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

For me, that sometimes is when I have to book travel online.

Don't get me wrong. Online travel websites are a wonderful thing. Unless, of course, you have to book a complex trip with all kinds of connections and different modes of transportation, or are traveling to an unfamiliar or exotic locale. Then even the most ardent DIY (Do It Yourself) advocate might want to seek out a true travel pro.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 4:19 PM | 2 Comments

July 25, 2007

Innovation: Are We Happy Yet?

A couple of surveys of airline customer satisfaction have been released in recent weeks, and the results should surprise nobody:

Passengers are ticked.

Reason number one is that the nation's Big Six carriers are sliding toward a 60 percent on-time average.

Reason number two is that the Big Six are "mishandling" (airline code for "losing") record numbers of checked baggage.

If you've gotten the feeling lately that the airline industry is going backward when it comes to customer satisfaction, you have proof in the quarterly results of the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) released by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 8:00 AM | 2 Comments

July 23, 2007

Innovation: Paper or Plastic?

I invariably have a tough time with the easy decisions, such as when the grocery clerk asks me whether I want to tote my purchases home inside a dead tree or an oil byproduct.

Now, at least at the airport I never need to pick paper again.

That is, if I am flying WestJet.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 6:18 PM | Add Comment

July 12, 2007

Innovation: Keep 'Em Flying

There's no future in flight if planes have no place to park.

Yet that's exactly the future we face, with 14 U.S. airports and eight metropolitan areas needing new capacity to accommodate anticipated growth in air traffic through 2025. In fact, 15 metro areas will not be able to manage demand by 2025 unless they act now. Places like New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles need to identify better ways to use existing, smaller, or underused airports — and they need to do it fast.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment

July 3, 2007

Innovation: Women's Website: Winner, or What?

Some folks believe technology is inherently negative.

Yet when tech does something positive, you hear not a peep.

It's the nature of news that you only hear when technology wastes time or money, or causes frustration. Well, I'm happy to report what is certainly an underreported techno-win. Surprisingly, this news is from a major airline.

Even more surprisingly, the winner is women.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 4:07 PM | 2 Comments

June 26, 2007

Innovation: The Big Squeeze

In "The Future of First-Class," Forbes.com writer Shivani Vora lifts a page from my blog in forecasting the future of travel in the air up there. Her thoughtful column dissects the amazing transformation of business class and first-class flight service.

Vora reports that some first-class is going become like service at Five Star hotels.

Meantime, business class will become more like first-class.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 9:32 PM | Add Comment

June 15, 2007

Innovation: Salt Me Down

Airlines have long been derided as 'buses in the air.' But new technology, new planes, and even new seating in those planes are all contributing to turn air travel upside down.

Or is it back to front?

Ben Webster in a story in The Times (UK) reveals that some airlines are considering "yin-yang" seating that would call for some passengers to sit facing the rear of the plane. In fact, ten airlines, including British Airways, are examining a back-to-front seating arrangement to give people more legroom.

Oh, I should mention that this yin-yang configuration would enable airlines to shoehorn up to 50 additional seats into, say, an A380 — which, at first blush sounds like we'll be packed sardine-like into the fuselage. This is an improvement?

In a word, yes!

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 12:49 PM | 2 Comments

June 11, 2007

Innovation: A Fly on the Wall

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the farseeing folks at American Airlines were busily inventing their new "unbundled" website — www.AA.com. What wonderful stories could I have told you about the way airlines innovate?

What I can tell you for dead certain is that American Airlines has just become the first full-service, major U.S. carrier to offer different levels of service based on the "fare family" concept.

Have you checked it?

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 12:26 PM | 2 Comments

May 29, 2007

Innovation: A Question of When, Not If

A flurry of news indicates more American carriers suddenly may becoming more receptive to the à la carte pricing strategy pioneered by such non-U.S. carriers as Air Canada.

According to a recent article by David Jonas in The Beat, airlines like AirTran Airways, Frontier Airlines, and US Airways are weighing a shift to what some analysts are calling "dynamic packaging," that is, abandoning the old cookie-cutter formula of "one size fits all" and restoring choice to the customer.

The question seems to be not if, but when the U.S. carriers will make the leap.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 1:57 PM | 3 Comments

May 24, 2007

Innovation: Reinventing the Wheel

Are airlines reinventing the wheel?

Airlines may reinvent first-class service, according to a recent item in Forbes magazine. In fact, some airlines may elevate their first-class service to that of a five-star hotel, some industry observers say.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 5:52 PM | 1 Comments

April 19, 2007

Innovation: The World Turned Upside Down

When Cornwallis's army marched out of Yorktown in surrender to George Washington's troops (and a few French) at the end of the Revolution, it is reputed to have played the tune "The World Turned Upside Down."

Today the Irish are joining the British in marching to the beat of a different drum with Ryanair's announcement last week of a revolution in its transatlantic fare structure.

Ryanair says that four years hence, it will offer flights featuring fares as low as $12.

You read that right: Twelve dollars.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 5:56 PM | Add Comment

April 11, 2007

Innovation: Back to the Future

Air carriers live and die by technology.

Air passengers love tech that makes their lives easier, such as the tech that supplies entertainment on an otherwise boring flight. When air technology providers get their acts together, carriers soar. Other times they don't.

Boeing missed the mark when it went too far into the future with its elaborate service to deliver on-the-fly Internet access (the buzz phrase is "in-flight connectivity"). Boeing called it, modestly, Connexion By Boeing; but the marketing folks behind this broadband service evidently "connexed" with their target audience about as well as they could spell.

Nevertheless, as the character Marty McFly asserted in the 1985 futurist flick whose name I have appropriated for the title of this blog post, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."

Or so Boeing thought.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 9:00 AM | Add Comment

April 4, 2007

Innovation: Have Tribe, Will Travel

Time travel.

People have been doing it in great numbers ever since air travel became affordable.

Jets collapse space and time. As more travelers travel farther and faster than ever before, travel companies need to time-warp forward to uncover future-defining trends.

That's why here at Amadeus we have done just that by peering a decade and more ahead to discern air travel patterns. We've issued a report which even has a nifty name — "Future Traveller Tribes 2020" — and it's a good read.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 9:00 AM | Add Comment

April 2, 2007

Innovation: Waiter, There's Too Much Pepper on My Paprikash

Correct! That line was spoken by Billy Crystal's character in 1989's "When Harry Met Sally," a film which had among its great themes that life is a menu of choices, and it's okay to be choosy.

The movie's Sally Albright (Meg Ryan's character) is the living incarnation of American consumers who "just want it the way I want it." That is, à la carte.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 9:00 AM | Add Comment

March 29, 2007

Innovation: Dream On

Even a futurist needs to cool his jets when he thinks he just dreamt the headline that appeared at CNNMoney.com recently about the doubling of air travelers by 2025.

Is that level of growth real, you might ask, or just a daydream?

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 5:40 PM | Add Comment

March 26, 2007

Innovation: Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

Sometimes I think flyers think flying ought to be a matter of rubbing their slippers together and uttering "There's no place like home!"

Unfortunately, flying tends to be more like Dorothy missing her balloon trip back to Kansas because of the Wizard's unscheduled departure.

Flying's like that. Arcane things like database silos are really at heart of what happens when, and why. Of course, just as consumers don't want to know where their water or electricity comes from (they just want it when they want), they aren't much interested in what goes on behind the scenes.

Let me pull back the curtain.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 3:00 PM | Add Comment

March 14, 2007

Innovation: Curses!

Since everybody's been blogging about JetBlue over the past few weeks, and since everybody's missing an essential part of the story, which is the role that passenger management (i.e., computer) systems play in plane delays, I am not going to say word one about JetBlue today.

Oh. I guess that was a word, wasn't it?

Anyway, what I wanted talk about here was simple and quick: lost luggage.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 7:30 PM | Add Comment

March 5, 2007

Innovation: Increase Your Virtual Productivity

For all of you that trade in traffic jams and road rage for the serene virtual commute along the Internet superhighway every morning, here's a new take on air travel that I think you'll find compelling ...

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 7:00 PM | 1 Comment

February 23, 2007

innovation: A Rose By Any Other Name?

Names can be powerful. They can evoke an emotion, an ideal, even memories.

In business, the right name can convey character, bestow distinction, and make an impression that lasts. Names can send out vibes that subtly shape perception.

What this has to do with the technology shaping air travel is this: Like many of you, I enjoy getting to the airport about as much as getting a root canal. There is one glimmer on the horizon that may change this nightmare into a dream for both you and me.

That glimmer goes by a dream-name — "Dreamliner."

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 5:59 PM | Add Comment

February 16, 2007

Innovation: Something About the Weather

The last few weeks you haven't been able to turn on the news without reports of blizzards or some other massive storm clobbering the U.S. and even Europe. To say that bad weather has been taxing on travelers of late would be a gross understatement.

Everybody complains about the weather, but is anyone doing anything about it?

Actually, someone is.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 4:30 PM | 5 Comments

February 14, 2007

Innovation: Foresight is 20/20

Futurists at best hope to give people glimpses of what will be.

Peering beyond the horizon, however speculative it might be, is standard operating procedure for the airlines, who have to know with some certitude how travel is changing, or go out of business.

If we were to translate what is happening in the air up there into futurist Alvin Toffler's "wave theory," we would see that one of the wavelets shifting the travel sands is demographics.

What kinds of people will populate the travel future? And how far into that future can we say who they will be with any accuracy?-

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 8:50 AM | 2 Comments

February 8, 2007

Innovation: When Life Hands You Lemons...

With my first small step into the blogosphere, I want to thank Fast Company's Lynne d Johnson for this window to reflect upon how technology is changing the air travel experience, what it means to you, and why.

But I especially want to use this space to shine light on tech stories that have the potential to change our air travel experience -- and hopefully for the better!

For example, there's JetBlue.

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Posted by Robert Buckman at 9:00 AM | 1 Comment