Monthly Archives: June 2007

Lastminute.com still sucks – I’m sorry

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I’ll have to admit to being caught up in the frenzy when Lastminute first came on the scene. They were pioneers of the dotcom bubble, yet somehow they managed to ride out the storm.

Back then, lots of people thought they had a good idea. They certainly had a great name – although there is still an association with booking late, and right now I’m trying to plan ahead.

Back then, lots of people said they’d been to the site, but few people said they’d bought anything from them. I have bought a couple of flights from Lastminute.com in the past, but right now I’m trying to get some concert tickets. I’ve bought a fair few of these this year, but am getting a little bit fed up with paying all these booking fees, so I thought I’d try going through a site that we theoretically have an arrangement with. I tried them last night for hotels in Antigua, and (admittedly just like 3 of the big four), they were useless at that too.

Last time I booked concert tickets through Lastminute.com was back in 2005. I remember them dragging me through several really annoying screens, and I remember getting so frustrated that I decided I would stick with them until I could confirm the booking – whatever it takes. I guess most users would have clicked away by then, but stubbornness was kicking in big time.

So I’ve just found out that Elton John is playing at the new O2 Arena – it should be a great night, but I’d still like to show my “support” to a site we work with. Lastminute doesn’t even have the event listed. Last week, they kindly informed me about new Prince tickets – 3 hours AFTER they had gone on sale.

So I hope they can pull their socks up, but in the meantime, it is back to See Tickets or Ticketmaster for concert tickets, and Expedia for hotels.

Trying out Hotel Booking Websites

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I guess I might be ventruing slightly off my cheap (or not so cheap) flights patch here, but I have been asked if we can push a few of the other consolidator websites, especially for hotel and flights packages.

The problem is that I am very stuck in my ways in this respect – if I am looking for hotels in the UK, I nearly always end up on either Late Rooms or Expedia, and Expedia certainly takes the crown for overseas bookings. Sometimes, I’ll give Superbreak a try – and to give them credit where it is due, they do often have some excellent deals on UK city hotels.

So last night I was looking for a hotel for one night in either Antigua or St Lucia, as I can’t find any flights that will get me from Nevis back to Barbados in the same day. When it comes to searching for hotels, I’m pretty flexible – naturally, I’d rather stay somewhere a bit fancy, but I still expect good value. This isn’t always easy to find in the Caribbean, but the starting point has to be at a hotel booking website which offers plenty of choice.

So here’s a simple league table of how many hotels each of the “big four” offered me in Antigua. I think that, for the time being, my loyalty to Expedia shall remain. They have even stopped referring to the “Royal Antiguan” as an “all-inclusive hotel” (see Hotel Snob blog) – about time!

How many hotels in Antigua does each site offer – for one night in early July 2007

 

Caribbean inter-island flights are still too expensive, too unreliable, and just too inconvenient

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If you think you can find bargain flights to the Caribbean from the UK, then that is fine – as long as you only want to stay on the one island.

Try moving between them, and journey planning becomes a nightmare. Unfortunately, the story is one with which we are all too familiar – too little competition, inefficient airlines propped up by state subsidies, and an uncaring attitude amongst upper management when it comes to finding ways to make improvements.

Following February’s marger, the only airline offering a significant level of inter-island flights around the English speaking Caribbean is LIAT. Caribbean Airlines (formerly BWIA) connect some of the larger islands, but these services generally act as feeder flights onto their long haul services. Other connection are available with airlines such as Winair (often through St Martin), or American Eagle (usually though San Juan, Puerto Rico).

I’m looking for flights from Barbados to Nevis. This really shouldn’t be difficult, considering the distance, but I am trying to get back to Barbados on a Tuesday, the one day there are no flights to Antigua (from where the connections are made to Barbados), from Nevis.

It would be easy to say that Nevis has it quite good, considering that only around 11,000 people live on the island. But, as with any Caribbean island, when tourism is the mainstay of the economy, the levels of flights are always going to be significantly higher than the population alone might suggest – and the Four Seasons Nevis resort alone can always generate a steady flow of inbound visitors. Unfortunately, from a British perspective, most visitors to the Four Seasons are arriving on flights from the USA, meaning that Nevis always seems to maintain better connections with San Juan in Puerto Rico than it does with Antigua, even though flights to Antigua only take around 25 minutes.

So why not hop over from neighbouring St Kitts? There might be regular ferries from Nevis to St Kitts, but I still can’t find a flight connection which will get me to Barbados with enough time to spare to catch the 17:25 flight back to Gatwick. The best I can get is a boat which leaves Nevis at 7:00 am, with an expected sailing time of 45 minutes, and a 5 minute cab ride to the airport, that gets me there at 7:50, if all goes to plan. The time of the only flight connection from St Kitts to Barbados? Guess what – 8:20, check-in time 30 minutes, leeway zero.

I lilke to cut things fine, but not that fine.

Have Ryanair quietly axed Inverness flights from Liverpool?

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It looks like Ryanair have stopped offering cheap flights from Liverpool to Inverness for the upcoming winter season.

Ryanair are quite often very happy to say which routes don’t perform well, but this seems to be one they have let go of quietly. Unfortunately, when it comes to confirming these details, Ryanair’s website is one of the most cumbersome out there. There is no quick way of checking timetable details, so users have to scroll back and forth through the dates they are interested in finding flights for.

This is, I’m afraid, yet another example of Ryanair’s needless unhelpfulness. So in the time it takes me to write this blog, I have got as far as confirming that there are no flights between Wednesdays and Saturdays in November. OK – can now confirm this route doesn’t operate on any days in November. Checking back through Ryanair’s booking form confirms that these flights do indeed end on 26th October.

So, we can expect the usual questions about why a route which appears to have been popular, both with point to point travellers, and people making their own onward connections from Liverpool, has been axed.

Our understanding is that these flights were indeed relatively full. There is certainly room for competition on this route, as passengers who have got used to Ryanair’s cheap flights to Inverness will now have to make do with Eastern’s services from an alternative airport like Manchester or Birmingham.

The clue lies in the probable reason for Ryanair offering cheap Inverness flights in the first place. Budget airlines like Ryanair do everything they can to get the best usage out of their aircraft, and this process involves carefully matching up city combinations, so that each plane can perform a maximum number of “rotations” (out and back trips) in one day. Sometimes, the schedule results in a time slot of, let’s say, 2 1/2 hours, into which they need to fit a return trip.

We have always suspected that destinations like Inverness and Aberdeen suit Ryanair’s purposes in this respect very well. In the case of Ryanair’s Aberdeen flights, the “yields” (i.e. the revenue the airline earns for each passenger) seem notably above those for Inverness, so the route seems likely to stay – for the time being at least. In the case of Inverness, it looks like even if Ryanair were making money, they can now make more money by moving their aircraft around to serve other routes.

Record visitor numbers for Flightmapping.com

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Yesterday (Monday 18th June) was a record day for Flightmapping.com, in terms of visitor numbers. In total, 9977 people visited the site, leaving us an “unlucky 13″ short of the big 10k.

If we include the 47 visitors to our new (but fast growing, of course) blog, then the total pips just over 10,000 for the first time.

Naturally, we still want to see Flightmapping.com reach this in its own right, and you can rest assured that we will let you know when it does. In the meantime, next time we come close like this, I think it will be time for an internet cafe crawl around Coventry.

That might have brought us to 9979 – ok, maybe not such a good idea then. Cheers!

 

 

Flightmapping on the Radio

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Flightmapping’s MD James Avery will be on BBC Radio CWR, in Annie Othen’s travel slot, from around 11:40pm tomorrow (Tuesday 19th June).

Topics set for discussion include:

As always, James promised to be on fighting form, so tune in for some interesting discussion.