• Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ (2/4)

    From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 4 06:00:09 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 18 06:00:06 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 25 06:00:06 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 1 06:00:11 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 8 06:00:07 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 15 06:00:08 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 29 06:00:08 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 5 06:05:10 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 28 06:00:09 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 19 06:00:17 2021
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 9 06:00:08 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 6 06:01:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 13 06:00:21 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 20 06:00:27 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 27 06:00:13 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Mar 6 06:00:41 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Mar 13 06:00:22 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Mar 20 06:00:13 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 10 06:00:13 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 15 06:00:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 22 06:00:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 19 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 26 06:00:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 10 06:00:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 17 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 24 06:00:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 31 06:00:06 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 7 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 14 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 21 06:00:06 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 28 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 4 06:00:06 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 9 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 13 06:00:06 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 20 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 4 06:00:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 11 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 18 06:00:04 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 25 06:00:05 2022
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 8 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 15 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 12 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 26 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Mar 12 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Mar 19 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 16 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 23 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 30 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 14 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 4 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 16 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 23 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 6 06:00:06 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 20 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 27 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 10 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 17 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 1 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 15 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 22 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 19 06:00:05 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 17 06:00:04 2023
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John R. Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 7 06:00:05 2024
    [continued from previous message]

    mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
    from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

    Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog (https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

    Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

    Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar.

    Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that include some interesting deals.

    Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location. Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly rainy day.

    * Ticket auctions and the like

    Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

    If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
    although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

    I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
    put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
    reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ.

    Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget.

    SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
    Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
    to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
    and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights.

    General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
    deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
    a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

    Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.)

    * Individual airlines

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares.

    American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials.

    Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March and April, buy by 23 September. Book online (https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

    Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on their web site and by Twitter.

    Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
    they are.

    Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
    tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.)

    South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
    auctions.

    Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials.

    United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
    and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

    * What about the airlines' own web sites??

    Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

    https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
    https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

    This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info.

    In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
    than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
    credit card.

    This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines. The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines elsewhere in the world.

    Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
    they don't fly any more.

    Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

    Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable but not as cute as the old retro design.

    Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

    ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

    Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

    America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
    and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
    images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
    sort of separately.

    American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats.

    American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2. They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
    no nothing.

    Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow.

    BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean. They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

    Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
    and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

    Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

    Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

    Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line.

    Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
    in late April.

    The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

    Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go! operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
    London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

    Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

    Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

    Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
    airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash.

    LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
    dates.

    Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining passengers.

    Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears unlikely to resume flying.

    Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

    New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form.

    Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

    Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with the famous logo.

    Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
    presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

    Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly tight seating.

    Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any trips that it would be a big problem to change.

    Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
    shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

    Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah, well.

    TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
    Hughes now that we need him?

    United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first class when you've only paid for E+.

    US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating somewhat separately.

    US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
    Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
    other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just too common.

    USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
    in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work.

    Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
    online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g. $200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
    at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system specifically forbids sending spam.

    * Airlines in Canada

    Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

    Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
    in English.

    Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

    Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
    around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95.

    Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South poles.

    Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot.

    Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
    run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

    Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
    and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.)

    Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

    Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
    eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
    2006.

    Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport. (Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are, and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

    Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
    in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

    Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline, currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules, reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
    cheap.

    Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late August.

    * Airlines in Europe

    Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic.

    Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

    Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
    New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap, but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

    African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
    has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
    France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

    Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
    site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

    Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
    has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

    Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full coach.

    Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
    huge labor costs.

    Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

    Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

    Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

    L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

    British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

    bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
    and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

    bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

    SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
    us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
    bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

    Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
    to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now under the same ownership.

    Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise.

    Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

    Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
    type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden."

    Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool.

    flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
    UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

    GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

    Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

    Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info.

    Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
    private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

    Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site.

    Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

    Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
    prices.

    Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
    Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

    KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
    web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

    Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

    Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
    including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

    Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

    Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.


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