Archive-name: travel/air/online-info
Last-modified: 2006/12/17
Changes from last week are indicated by the usual marks in the right margin.

Please look through this entire document, particularly the PLEASE NOTE at the
end, before e-mailing me a question or comment, since most of the questions I
get are already answered in it.

* December 2006 update |

Five years after 9/11, the US airline industry finally is showing signs of
recovery, but with some airlines in much better shape than others. Rising fuel
prices have hit the industry hard, particularly the already fragile carriers
who don't have fuel price hedges. With oil having risen past $70/barrel,
prices and fares are heading straight up, although we may have a respite now
that it's back in the $50 range.

Planes are fairly full, schedules about back to the level of 2001. Since the
UK bomb plot was reported in early August, the rules about what you can take
with you on the plane rather than check, particularly what amounts of what
kind of liquid, and what electronic equipment, have been changing
unpredictably from day to day and place to place, despite the fact that the
authorities have known for at least a decade that bad guys might try to use
liquid bombs detonated by consumer electronic equipment.

The airlines that aren't bankrupt have shrunk themselves and raised fares
enough that in late 2006 they all managed to show modest profits. American,
Continental, Southwest, US Airways, Airtran, JetBlue, Midwest, and even United
are in the black. Northwest and Delta are flying in bankruptcy. National,
Midway and Vanguard Airlines are out of business, Independence Air threw in
the towel and stopped operating as of Jan 5, and Canjet shut down scheduled
service on Sept 10th.

Northwest and Delta went into Chapter 11 within minutes of each other in early
September. Delta is financially in worse shape having hocked everything in
sight before finally throwing in the towel. Northwest's flight attendants are |
threatening to strike over the givebacks Northwest is demanding, although they |
haven't struck yet. The FA's say they don't plan a full strike but rather |
unpredictable walkouts one flight at a time, but the company still says that's
likely to lead to liquidation. Delta has wrung givebacks from the pilots union
and other employees, which has limited the bleeding a little, and they appear
to have dodged a fatal pilot's strike in early April. The new US Airways (see +
below) is trying to buy Delta, but Delta management and the pilots' union, +
which is one of the larger creditors, are both adamantly opposed. Unless US +
Airways can make the rest of the creditors an offer they can't refuse, this +
merger looks unlikely, and Delta is more liable to emerge from bankruptcy +
intact but still shaky. +

Hawaiian has emerged from bankruptcy, and Aloha recently rounded up some money
and emerged, too. It's hard to say what the prospects for either will be.
Maybe they'll merge and die together.

US Airways slogged through its second bankruptcy, and merged with America
West, with the combined company to be called US Airways but run by the
management of profitable America West, which hasn't been bankrupt for a couple
of years. Their operations are supposed to be integrated during 2006, although
I hear reports that it's still two airlines underneath with unpleasant
surprises when you try to change a ticket bought online and find that the web
site still belongs to the other half. The new US Airways surprised us all by
being profitable in 2006, and say they expect to be profitable for the rest of
the year. Their stock has doubled since the merger. With all that nice fluffy
stock, the Wall Street Journal says they've been making overtures to Delta,
although Delta says they're not interested.

ATA made a surprise deal with Southwest to provide codeshare service between
Midway and places Southwest doesn't go, such as New York LaGuardia and Hawaii.
A private investor took them private at the end of 2005 as they came out of
bankruptcy, so they no longer publish financial results.

Air Canada emerged from bankruptcy in OK but not great shape, and has been
modestly profitable, making it look like a survivor, particularly since
low-cost competitor JetsGo turned out to be so low cost that it ran out of
cash and died, Canjet retreated back to charters, and surviving low cost
competitor Westjet isn't competing very hard.

Passengers are subject to much more extensive screening than in the past,
including screening of checked baggage at check-in time, and, according to
news reports pat downs that approach groping. Airlines recommend arriving at
least an hour earlier than before. In my experience the extra delay is rarely
more than 15 minutes, even with the extra baggage screening, although I
usually fly out of smaller airports, not big hubs where you can get the killer
two hour lines. The TSA has taken over screening at most airports but the
inconsistency in procedures from one airport to another, particularly with
respect to your shoes, is worse than ever. I've gone through the metal
detector, it beeped, I went back and took my shoes off, walked through again,
it beeped again, and they didn't notice (so neither did I, since I'm pretty
sure I have no plans to blow up any planes.) A variety of extra cost "trusted
traveller" may allow people to get through the screening faster, or may just
involve waiting in a different line. The TSA makes no promises. They have a
web site with estimated wait times (http://waittime.tsa.dhs.gov) based on
averages in previous months, not real time numbers. Foreign airlines are
flying to and from the U.S. normally.

Other changes include: some airports have stopped curb-side baggage check,
anything vaguely resembling a knife or lighter may or may not be confiscated,
you're sometimes only allowed one carry-on plus a purse, briefcase, diaper bag
or the like, non-passengers aren't allowed past security without a gate pass
from an airline, all passengers must have a document that looks like a
boarding pass at most airports to get past security, you may have to put your
toothpaste and shampoo some parking areas close to terminals are closed. But
check-in clerks no longer have to ask you whether you packed your own
suitcase.

* What's in this document?

There's an enormous amount of information available on the Web about airlines
and aviation. This FAQ concentrates on two things: schedules, fares,
reservations, and tickets for commercial airlines, and on-line travel agents.
We list both airline-sponsored and independent information.

The first parts of this FAQ discuss on-line sources of airline schedules and
fares, of which there are several general-purpose services.

After that it lists airlines that have any of online schedules, fares,
reservations, ticket sales, and flight status.

Next comes a listing of on-line specials, sources of special fares and other
deals available over the net. Many airlines have short-notice specials which
are worth checking out.

The rest of the FAQ lists travel agents that offer service over the net and
have indicated that they'd like to be listed. I am not a travel agent (I
consult and write computer books which you can find out about in my web site
at http://www.johnlevine.com, and the agent listings are provided free to any
agent that asks and sends in a short description of what he or she offers.

* Where is this FAQ available?
It's on the Web at http://airinfo.aero, and perhaps at mirror sites. Anyone is
welcome to mirror the web version so long as the mirror is kept up to date
with the original. If you make a mirror, please let me know by e-mail
so I can tell you when there are updated versions.

You can also get it by e-mail every Sunday. To get on the mailing list, send a
message to majordomo@lists.iecc.com containing the line "subscribe airline".
(Don't type the quotes, nor any other punctuation.)

* How do on-line reservations work?

Four giant airline computer systems in the United States handle nearly all the
airline reservations in the country. (They're known as CRSs, for computer
reservations systems, or more often now GDS for global distribution systems.)
Although each airline has a ``home'' CRS, the systems are all interlinked so
that you can, with few exceptions, buy tickets for any airline from any CRS.
The dominant systems in the U.S. are Sabre (home to American and US Airways),
Galileo (home to United), Worldspan (home to Delta, Northwest), and Amadeus
(Continental and many European lines.) Many of the low-price start-up airlines
don't participate in any of these systems but have their own Web sites where
you can check flights and buy tickets. Southwest, the largest and oldest of
the low-price airlines, doesn't participate, either. Southwest's web site gets
car and hotel info from Galileo, but the info seems not to flow the other way.
Orbitz, one of the big three online travel agencies, runs its own system which
is linked directly to many of the airlines.

In theory, all the systems show the same data; in practice, however, they get
a little out of sync with each other. If you're looking for seats on a
sold-out flight, an airline's home system is most likely to have that last,
elusive seat. If you're looking for the lowest fare to somewhere, check all
four systems because a fare that's marked as sold out on one system often
mysteriously reappears on another system. Some airlines have rules about
flight segments that are not supposed to be sold together even though they're
all available, and at least once I got a cheap US Airways ticket on Expedia,
which didn't know about all the US Airways rules even though I couldn't on
their own site or Travelocity which did know about them. On the other hand,
many airlines have available some special deals that are only on their own Web
sites and maybe a few of the online agencies. Confused? You should be. We are.

The confusion is even worse if you want to fly internationally. Official fares
to most countries are set via a treaty organization called the IATA, so most
computer systems list only IATA fares for international flights. It's easy to
find entirely legal ``consolidator'' tickets sold for considerably less than
the official price, however, so an online or offline agent is extremely useful
for getting the best price. The airlines also can have some impressive online
offers on their web sites.

Here's our distilled wisdom about buying tickets online:

* Check the online systems to see what flights are available and for an idea
of the price ranges. Check more than one CRS. For tickets within the U.S. and
Canada, the prices in the CRS are for the most part the real prices that
people are paying.
* After you have found a likely airline, check that airline's site to see
whether it has any special Web-only deals. If a low-fare airline has the
route, be sure to check that one too, since most low-fare airlines don't
appear in CRS listings.
* If your schedule is flexible, check ticket bidding sites including Hotwire
(http://www.hotwire.com) and Priceline (http://www.priceline.com) and ticket
auctions such as SkyAuction (http://www.skyauction.com/).
* Particularly if you don't qualify for the lowest fare visible on the CRS,
check with a travel agent to see whether he can beat the online price, and buy
your tickets from the agent unless the online deal is better. Most agents get
no commission on fares visible on the CRS, so you can expect an agent to
charge you for ticking them.
* For international tickets, do all the steps above in this list, and then
check both online and with your agent for consolidator tickets. This is
particularly important if you don't qualify for the lowest published fare. See
Edward Hasbrouck's Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ
(http://hasbrouck.org/faq) for much more detailed information on consolidator
tickets.

* How can I get airline schedules on the Internet?

There are many sources listed in later sections. Many of them will also let
you book and buy tickets. Until mid-1996 there were paid services were
considerably better than the free ones, but now I find that the free services
are just as good.

* What's available on the Internet?

There are now several Internet gateways to airline CRS (computer reservation
systems) described later in this section. Also check this interesting
comparison of many of them (http://www.travelterminal.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl).

* Are these the same systems that travel agents use?

The underlying data are the same, but the interface is different. Some data
are visible to agents, but not to these systems. A good way to work is to make
the best reservation you can on-line, then call a travel agent, tell him what
you've reserved, and see if he can do better.

* How do I get access to them?

Most of these systems are provided through web sites. Many of the sites use
frames and SSL secure connections so you need a relatively recent browser such
as Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org/), Opera (http://www.operasoftware.com/),
or, if you're willing to accept the security risks, Microsoft Internet
Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/ie/default) 5.0 or later.

A few systems provide their own software which invariably is a plug-in for
Microsoft's Internet Explorer, again if you're willing to accept the security
risks.

Travelocity: Travelocity (http://www.travelocity.com) is an online agent owned
by Sabre. You need to provide a credit card number to make reservations, but
they won't charge you until you tell them to. Tickets can be issued as
e-tickets or, at extra cost, by mail. There is also a great deal of travel
destination information of variable usefulness. Unlike most other web-based
systems, it sometimes lets you hold a reservation without buying it. Also
handles hotels and rental cars. A nice fare watcher feature lets you list a
few routes you're interested in, and it sends you e-mail when an interesting
fare becomes available. They have a Travel Deals page that often has private
fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Their flexible search option provides
a fare calendar, table of what fares are available on what dates, that's
better than any other site I know. Unfortunately, just because a fare is
available on a date doesn't mean that any actual seats are available at that
fare, so a certain number of the fares are cruel jokes, great bargains if only
the airline would sell you a seat at that fare which they won't.

Some fares are marked "good buy" which means that they're only available on
Travelocity. But that doesn't mean that they're any cheaper than other fares.
All fares now include a $5/ticket service fee.

Travelocity includes a "last minute deals" feature which is a rebranded
version of Site59 (http://www.site59.com), which Travelocity owns.

Expedia: Expedia (http://www.expedia.com) was Microsoft's flashy entrant into
the web travel biz. In July 2001 they sold a controlling interest to USA
Networks, owner of Home Shopping Network and other great cultural monuments.
In August 2003, the two companies were merged under the extremely trendy name
of IAC/InterActive Corp, along with hotels.com, Match.com and LendingTree. It
still has that Microsoft feel, although I can hardly wait to see them start
cross-selling. The site is garish, but it's reasonably easy to negotiate and
to find schedules and fares. Underlying info is from Worldspan, prices now
include a $5 per ticket service fee. You have to provide a credit card number
to make a reservation, even if you don't want to buy immediately. Early on,
when I tried to reserve, it said it the credit card link was down, no
reservations possible, call a number in Florida if it's urgent. Yeah, right.
(At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1.) It seems to work better now. There's also
lots of promos and tie-ins, with Expedia-only special fares. You can sign up
for weekly e-mail about best fares on routes you select. Your web browser must
accept cookies or Expedia doesn't work.

Orbitz: Orbitz (http://www.orbitz.com), was intended to be the "killer"
airline ticket web site. Founded by United, Northwest, Continental, Delta, and
American, it was sold in October 2004 to Cendant, a large travel company that
owns Avis rent-a-car and Ramada Inns and dozens of other familiar chains, and
is now in the process of being spun off as a standalone company along with
some smaller travel companies that Cendant bought along the way. At least 30
airlines including the founders are Orbitz charter affiliates, which means
they give all of their web fares to Orbitz. It has a very nice lowest fare
search engine. You can tell it to add alternate airport within 70 miles, and
it gives you the possible routings, cheapest first. It now lets you give a
range of dates, or say that you want to take a weekend trip in a particular
month, and it gives you a grid showing the lowest available fare for each
combination of departure and return dates. They promise unbiased fare and
schedule listings, and have agreements with affiliate airlines to include all
publicly available fares (a term that is harder to define than it looks) such
as web specials. Their search engine does a more thorough job than others
(it's written in Lisp and runs on PCs, the others are written in assembler on
mainframes) so it'll often find fares and connections that are entirely valid
but not shown on other systems. For domestic US tickets on the airlines they
include, they're hard to beat. (Like other online agencies, they don't include
Southwest.) For international tickets, particularly on anything more complex
than a round-trip, they can be very hit and miss. Try building your trip one
leg at a time and watch the price zoom up and down. They also have some spiffy
customer service, e.g., they can call you or send a text message to your
mobile phone or PDA a few hours before flight time to tell you your gate and
whether there are delays. They charge a service fee of $6 per ticket.

Opodo: Opodo (http://www.opodo.co.uk) is owned by nine European airlines and
the Amadeus GDS. Its coverage of the European majors is good, but keep in mind
that on most intra-European routes you can usually find something cheaper on a
low-cost airline that's not in Amadeus. (See Fare Searches below to find
services link to the airlines that Opodo doesn't.) Its user registration is
the most broken I have ever seen; no matter what I do, it insists I have
entered an unknown user or password or the e-mail address for password
recovery doesn't match the user name, even though I copied them from
confirmation messages that Opodo just sent. It appears to be possible to buy
tickets without registering.

Apollo systems:

Internet Travel Network (http://www.itn.net) is now part of American Express.
It's a WWW-based flight booking system. You make reservations, using Apollo,
which are then ticketed by American Express, unless you entered via another
agency's web site. Several other sites on the net including several airlines
have ``private label'' connections to ITN, but it's the same system, usually
just with slightly different screen backgrounds and titles. The base ITN
system uses data from Apollo, but apparently some of the private label
versions use other CRS. Now that Easy Sabre is gone, this is the only system I
know that can display available fare classes, an important feature for some
kinds of discounts and special fares. It also displays an approximate number
of seats available in each fare class, useful both for guessing whether you
need to buy a cheap ticket right away, and for seeing which flights are likely
to have seats available for upgrades to first class. Set your display
preferences to ``expert.''

Worldspan (http://www.worldspan.com) is another large international CRS. They
provide a Web availability and pricing system, which underlies the web sites
of participating agents as well as the Delta and Northwest web sites, only
available via customer sites, not on their own site. It's the system that
underlies Expedia and Orbitz (described above). Galileo's owner Travelport is +
in the process of buying Worldspan and will presumably merge the two. +

Trip.com (http://www.trip.com) has been merged into Cheap Tickets.

Cheap Tickets (http://www.cheaptickets.com) originally sold mostly cheap
tickets to Hawaii, but is now a general purpose online agent. I gather that
unlike most other web sites, the live agents at their 800 number have access
to fares not on the web site and often not available through other sites.
Owned by Cendant, being spun off in the same travel company as Orbitz,
although the sites remain separate.

* Amadeus

AmadeusLink (http://www.amadeus.net/), was started in 1987 by four European
airlines and in 1995 absorbed System One which started a long time ago as
Eastern Airlines' reservation system. They offer extensive schedule and
availability info, along with rental car, hotel, and destination info. For
bookings, you need to use a subscribing travel agency, such as Opodo, or a
site built on their AmadeusLink system. The AmadeusLink booking systems all
link into the same site, so other than some of the graphics, the function they
provide is identical.

* Mobissimo

Mobissimo (http://www.mobissimo.com/) was originally an experimental
meta-search that searched lots of other web sites for a pair of cities and
dates and showed you what fares it found. Now it's just a gateway where you
can enter the cities and dates and click through to other sites. The other
sites include Kayak and Mobissimo, which really are meta-searches.

* Kayak Kayak (http://www.kayak.com) is a meta-search that looks at lots of
airline and agent web sites and produces a combined listing with links you can
click through to the various sites to buy. It works well, but as with all
combo sites, there are usually interesting sites they don't search so you
still have to look for yourself. AOL has a deal with Kayak so they're featured
on AOL.

* Sidestep

Sidestep (http://www.sidestep.com) also searches multiple airline web sites to
find the lowest fares, along with promotions like weekend fares and extra
frequent flyer miles. Their original version is an add-in to Internet Explorer
that you download and install so it only runs on Windows with Internet
Explorer. (Considering the well known security disaster that is IE, this is a
significant drawback.) Now you can also visit their web site and use it like
any other search system. It's gotten wonderful reviews but when I've tried to
use it I haven't been very impressed with what it found, no better than fare
searches at Travelocity, often worse than Orbitz. When you install the IE
add-in, it splatters your browser, desktop, toolbar, and start menu with icons
which is really annoying.

* Farechase

Yahoo's Farechase (http://farechase.yahoo.com/) is yet another meta-search. It
has the slick interface you'd expect from Yahoo, results similar to but
perhaps not quite as complete as Kayak.

* Other general sites

OneTravel (http://www.onetravel.com) offers booking and ticketing. They used
to have a "fare beater" feature with negotiated and "white label" fares, but
it's gone. Too bad. It's a competent but ordinary online agent now. Cheapseats
(http://www.cheapseats.com) is another portal into the same system.

Travelweb (http://www.travelweb.com), also known as Lowestfare
(http://www.lowestfare.com), is a subsidiary of Priceline. It offers the usual
array of tickets, with lots of links to Priceline.

* Fare searches and comparisons

ITA Software (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch) builds the search
engine used by Orbitz and an increasing number of airline sites, and you can
use a copy of the latest version of their search system. No booking, you have
to take what you find and book elsewhere. It's by far my favorite tool to
explore what's available when, keeping in mind that it can't see low fare
airlines not in the GDS that provide its data.

Qixo (http://www.qixo.com) searches two dozen airline sites and returns a
combined list of the lowest fares found for route. If you book through them,
there's a $20 booking fee, but of course once you know the airline and times,
there's nothing keeping you from booking up the same flights on another site.

Cheap Flights USA (http://www.CheapFlights.com) and Cheap Flights UK
(http://www.CheapFlights.co.uk) offers a nice search engine for low cost
tickets from the US and UK, many of which don't appear in the major search
engines. Not a travel agency, they link to other agents and airlines where
they presumably collect a referral fee (which is fine, it doesn't affect the
price of the ticket.)

Foundem (http://www.foundem.com/search/flightsUK.jsp) searches multiple sites
in the UK. Supposed to include both regular agent sites and low-fare airlines,
but it missed a lot of the low-fare ones when I looked.

Sky Scanner (http://www.skyscanner.net) offers an excellent search engine for
cheap flights within the UK and Europe. Don't miss their month views with
little bar charts of daily fares.

Flight Atlas (http://www.flightatlas.com/) offers cute animated maps showing
what routes are available among European airports, with links to the airlines
serving them. (To me it looks like of like a game of Battleship.)

SimplyQuick (http://travel.simplyquick.com/discount-airfares/) is an
independent guide to who's cheapest online for discount airfares, based on a
large survey of the top 8 online booking services, and providing a search
tailored city by city (US only). They also rate online travel agents and
travel service web sites. They're in New Zealand, but most of the info is for
US travellers.

Cheapo (http://www.flycheapo.com) has comprehensive info on European discount
airlines including a map that shows where they all go, and frequent blog style
news items on new and changed service.

Discounted international tickets:

AirTreks (http://www.airtreks.com) has a spiffy web site that helps construct
and price multi-stop and round-the-world international travel. They're a
travel agency, the site estimates the price, exact prices and tickets come
from live agents at the agency. (That's what you want, no computer can
navigate the swamp of international routes and fares very well.)

Farepoint (http://www.farepoint.co.uk/) provides a large database of fares via
UK travel agents. The site links to some of the agents who offer their
service.

Flights.com (http://www.flights.com) (formerly called TISS) is an online
database in Germany with current airfares provided by a group of
consolidators. They offer departures from a lot of different countries, now
including the U.S. They claim the prices they offer are the best available.
For routes within the US they act as a front end to flifo. One reader reports
a bad experience with their US agent, rebooking his reservation in a way that
lost the discount fare he'd reserved, although he'd had good results with
their UK agent.

Air Fare (http://www.air-fare.com) tracks lowest fares among major U.S.
cities, with daily updates of significantly lower fares. Worldspan-based Res
and ticketing also available.

Deal Checker (http://www.dealchecker.co.uk) compares fares and hotel prices
from major UK web sites.

* Prognostication

Farecast (http://www.farecast.com/) attempts to predict future airfares so you
can pick the best time to buy your tickets. It currently only does routes from
Boston and Seattle to a modest list of domestic destinations, but it's an
interesting idea.

* Real-time flight status and information

The extremely cool service from TheTrip (http://www.trip.com/) (scroll down to
Flight Tracker on their home page) gives you a real-time position map and ETA
for most domestic flights. Choice of plain text or way beyond cool animated
Java relief maps, and you can tell it to send e-mail when the plane arrives,
or an hour or two before. If you haven't already got your ticket, they offer
ITN for info and ticketing.

Expedia (http://www.expedia.com/pub/agent.dll?qscr=flin) now has real-time
flight ops including times and gates for major US airlines.

The Track A Flight (http://www.trackaflight.com/) service (formerly Flyte
Trax, same organization as flytecomm.com) also provides real-time position map
and ETA for most domestic flights, by flight number, or departing or arriving
airports. It's as nice as TheTrip.

Flight Arrivals (http://www.flightarrivals.com/) offers impressively complete
arrival info for most US airports. (It even has info for the teensy Ithaca NY
airport.) No maps, but lots of data.

* Itinerary Lookup

Each of the GDS has a web site where you can look up the details of the record
for a reservation if you have the locator code, generally a sequence of six
letters or digits, and the passenger's last name. A single trip can have
information on more than one system. For example, if you make a United
Airlines reservation on Travelocity, the main Travelocity record is on Sabre,
but there's a copy on United's home system Galileo, as well. Each system has a
different locator code, and it can be hard to find the codes for other than
the original system. Virtually There sometimes shows the locator for other
system records as the Confirmation field, although you have to figure out or
guess which system it's on.

Every travel agent except Orbitz uses one of the GDS to make its reservations
so the master record for each trip is available through one of the systems.
The online systems usually show the locator code on one of the confirmation
screens, and any airline or local travel agent will tell your the locator for
your reservation if you ask. Since Orbitz uses its direct connect technology
to make reservations directly with many airlines, the master record is on
Orbitz itself and as far as I can tell you can't tell the airline's locator
until you get your boarding pass.

Virtually There (https://www.virtuallythere.com) can show records from Sabre
inclding reservations on Travelocity, American Airlines, and US Airways.

Check My Trip (https://www.checkmytrip.com) can show records from Amadeus,
including reservations on Continental and many European airlines.

My Trip and More (http://www.mytripandmore.com/) can show records from
Worldspan, including reservations on Delta and Northwest.

View Trip (https://www.viewtrip.com/en-us/ViewTrip.asp) can show records from
Galileo, including reservations on United.

Some of these systems will also show rental car and hotel info if they're
included in the same records.

* What about the airlines' own web sites??

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

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Trans.../
http://www.airlineguide.info http://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm
http://flyaow.com/

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 (http://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 (http://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.

Alaska Airlines (http://www.alaska-air.com/) has a web site with flight info,
reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. On-line tickets get
250 bonus miles, more for e-tickets and automated checkin. The reservation
system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty but not as
cute as the old retro design. Downloadable PDF schedule, too.

Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies
MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and Sanford (sort of near
Orlando) FL. Reservations, lots of packages, free tee-shirts with most
packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis glasses available for purchase
on many flights.

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

Aloha (http://www.alohaairlines.com/) flies within Hawaii, also to and along
the U.S. west coast. Routes, schedules, tickets, special fares. Frequent flyer
program allows family members to pool miles. Recently rounded up new money and
came out of bankruptcy.

America West (http://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 (http://www.aa.com/) has 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 (http://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable
formats.

American Trans Air (http://www.ata.com) has a web site with schedules, fares,
flight ops. Reservations provided through a system which appears to be a
private label version of Travelocity. They currently offer a free companion
ticket after three round trips, free ticket after six round trips, for travel
booked on their web site. They're morphing into a feeder for Southwest, but
other than codeshares the frequent flyer programs are still separate.

Amtrak (http://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 (http://www.bwee.com/) flies to, from, and around the Caribbean. They
have a separate site (http://www.bwee-ticket.com), if you want to buy tickets
rather than just look at their soothing green web site.

Chalk's Ocean Airways (http://www.flychalks.com/) has been flying 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. Attractive site has reservations, destination info, and a
lot of "under construction" pages.

Continental (http://www.continental.com) has a spiffy new design with schedule
info, on-line booking, and flight status. CO.O.L. system offers a general
purpose reservation system with hotels and cars as well as flights, with the
same features as Microsoft's Expedia. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF
miles for tickets bought on-line. Weekly specials via mailing list or web
site. (CO.O.L. requires cookies.)

Cubana (http://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 (http://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.

The current incarnation of Frontier (http://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a
low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. Site
has reservations, flight ops.

Go! (http://www.iflygo.com) is a subsidary of commuter carrier Mesa Air that
flies small jets among the Hawaiian islands with fares as low as $45, thereby
setting off a huge inter-island fare war.

Great Plains Airlines (http://www.gpair.com/) is a low-fare carrier with a hub
in St Louis.

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

Independence Air (http://www.flyi.com/) is the new name for Atlantic Coast
Airlines, ran out of money and stopped operating as of Jan 5.

Jet Blue (http://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 (http://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 (http://www.maxjet.net) is another entry in the premium low-cost niche,
offering one daily all business class roundtrip between New York JFK-London
Stansted and Dulles-Stansted. Online reservations and seat selection, list of
goodies at each end of the flight (shower and massage, anyone?) Conditions of
carriage require that passengers over the age of two must wear shoes.

Midwest Airlines (http://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express,
has routes, schedules, and fares. Also seat maps and a surprising number of
missing pages, like the one that's supoosed to tell you what other airlines
are in their frequent flyer program. On the ``signature'' flights, the ones
that don't go to vacation places, the chocolate chip cookies are still free.

New England Airlines (http://www.block-island.com/flybi/sumsched.html) flies
between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations
via an e-mail form.

Northwest Airlines (http://www.nwa.com) has schedule, fares, reservations, and
flight ops, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. Weekly Cybersaver
specials offered, book through the web site for the lowest price. On-line
store offers a $12.99 plush moose and a $279 1/100 scale 747-400. That's only
$10/inch!

Pan Am (http://www.flypanam.com), the airline that just won't believe that
it's dead, flies small commuter planes among obscure cities in the northestern
US like Elmira and Trenton, and a bonus gambler's special route from Atlanta
to Tunica MS. It's owned by the parent company of the Boston and Maine
railroad and has no connection to the old Pan Am other than buying the logo.
Online schedules, reservations, and destination info.

Song (http://www.flysong.com) was Delta's low-cost airline within an airline.
Their web site was all fluffy and beautiful and offered the same stuff as
everyone else, schedules, reservations, flight ops, and online checkin. Now
it's just part of Delta.

Southwest Airlines (http://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.

Spirit (http://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!

Sun Country (http://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.

Ted (http://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 maiing list with special deals.

Transmeridian (http://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and is expected to
liquidate. Ah, well.

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

United (http://www.ual.com) has resdesigned their site so that instead of
being intriguingly bizarre, now it's just plain ugly. Reservations and booking
via ITN. Web site requires cookies, although ITN itself doesn't. Direct link
(https://wunited.itn.net/unitedair) to United's reservation sub-site on ITN is
a lot faster than navigating through the main pages.

US Airways (http://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 (http://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 (http://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.

* Airlines in Canada

Air Canada (http://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has schedule info,
reservations, ticketing, and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible
en francais (http://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). You can also
download a 400K PC version of the entire schedule.

Air St Pierre (http://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.

Air Transat (http://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 (http://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.

Canadian Airlines (http://www.cdnair.ca) has been absorbed into Air Canada,
familiarly known as Mapleflot.

Canjet (http://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service as of September
10th. Before that, they offered low fare flights on 737s in Canada with a few
routes to New York and Florida. They may still run vacation charters to the
Caribbean.

Firstair (http://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.)

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

Porter Airlines (http://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 (http://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 (http://www.westjet.com) is a low-fare Canadian airline. Schedules,
reservations, flight ops, weekly web specials.

Zoom Airlines (http://www.flyzoom.com/) flies their three planes on a sparse
schedule between Canadia and Britain and France. (Don't miss the cute animated
route map.) Online reservations, with date or name changes for C$50. The site
will be nice when it's done, but for now there's an awful lot of place holder
pages.

* Airlines in Europe

Aegean Air (http://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 (http://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. It also explains their plans to
cancel their current frequent flyer program, which means that if you don't use
your points by October, you lose.

African Safari Airways (http://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 (http://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany
to holiday spots all over Europe and North Africa and to London. The very
thorough 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 (http://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain, has
routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

Alitalia (http://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site
in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (http://www.alitaliausa.com) has info
and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. Also online
specials, e.g., a fairly impressive 25%%%% off what appears to be any coach or
business fare through 25 Oct.

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

Air Scotland (http://www.air-scotland.com) is a new airline apparently flying
between Scottish airports and Mediterranean holiday destinations. It has a
nice site full of plaid Scottish motifs, but I was unable to get it to cough
up any actual flights I could book.

Austrian Airlines (http://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.

British Airways (http://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.

British Midland (http://www.flybmi.com/) has a Web-based booking and ticketing
system which lets you reserve and buy tickets.

bmibaby (http://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of British Midland,
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 (http://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade us
that they're not Sabena. (Legally they're not, but 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.

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

Easyjet (http://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 (http://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."

Excel Airways (http://www.xl.com) flies from the UK to vacation destinations
in southern Europe and north Africa, primarily package vacations. Dense,
functional has all the stuff they offer.

Finnair (http://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 (http://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 (http://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 (http://www.flyglobespan.com) flies between Scottish airports and
mostly Mediterranean destinations. Site offers booking of flights and vacation
packages.

Hapag-Lloyd Express (http://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 (http://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 (http://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English,
Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label
Amadeus site.

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

Luxair (http://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 (http://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with
schedule info. There's supposed to be fare info but it pops up a box saying
it's out of order.

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

Mytravellite (http://www.mytravellite.com/) is a low cost airline flying from
Birmingham (UK) to Ireland and Spain. Schedules, reservations, destination
info. Small discount offered for online booking.

Norwegian Airlines (http://www.norwegian.no) is a low cost airline flying from
Oslo to Norway and elsewhere in Europe. Site has reservations and info mostly
translated from the Norwegian.

Olympic (http://www.olympicairlines.com/), the flag carrier of Greece, has a
basic site with online booking.

Ryanair (http://www.ryanair.ie) is a rapidly expanding low-fare airline with a
hub at London Stansted and minor hubs in London Luton, Dublin, Shannon,
Glasgow, Brussels, Stockholm Skavsta, Frankfurt Hahn, and Milan Orio Al Serio.
Web site offers routes, fares, and booking.

SAS (http://www.sas.se) has schedule info on-line, and in large downloadable
text file. Windows interface program (2MB download) lets you search through
the schedule file, but it's far faster to search with a text editor. Also
limited reservations for pass holders and frequent flyer redemptions.

Swiss (http://www.swiss.com), the successor to Crossair, has schedule info and
on-line booking on a somewhat sloppy site, and some web specials. (Click
Special Offers on the home page.) They're about to be taken over by Lufthansa,
but it's not clear whether it'll continue to operate as a separate airline.

Swissair went bankrupt in September 2001 and their schedules have somewhat
been taken over by Swiss airlines.

Transavia (http://www.transavia.nl/en) is a subsidiary of KLM flying from
Amsterdam to holiday destinations in Europe and north Africa. Info and online
reservations. Their former low-cost subsidiary Basiqair is now merged into
Transavia.

Virgin Atlantic (http://www.fly.virgin.com/) has a spiffy looking site with
reservations, fares, and ticketing. Also tours and occasional specials.

VLM (http://www.vlm-airlines.com/) is a low-cost airline flying small planes
mostly between the UK and Benelux. (The V stands for Flemish.) Schedules,
reservations, company history.

* Airlines elsewhere in the world

Air Asia (http://www.airasia.com/) is a startup headquartered in Kuala Lumpur
(Malaysia) offering low-fare single-class point to point service along the
lines of JetBlue or Ryanair. They have some amazing intro fares, like round
trip from Kuala Lumpur to Johor, across the bridge from Singamore, for RM78,
about US$20. Online reservations, info, and a nice three page menu of onboard
food offerings. I think I'll try the Asian egg salad sandwich.

Air India (http://www.airindia.com/) has a home page chock full of dancing,
blinking flash animations that looks like an Asian bazaar (which, I suppose,
it is.) Site is oddly organized but has the usual stuff, online ticketing,
ops, destination info, and so forth. To buy tickets you have to register as a
YATRIK (Your Airline Travel Reservation Internet Kit.) It's different inIndia.

Air New Zealand (http://www.airnz.co.nz) offers schedules and booking via a
private-label version of ITN/Getthere, which assured me that you can't fly
from Auckland to New York. Also special fares and frequent flyer info.

Ansett Australia (http://www.ansett.com.au) stopped flying in March 2002. But
the web site has lots of tedious details of the financial dissection of the
carcass.

Aerolineas Argentinas (http://www.aerolineas.com.ar) has schedules and
reservations (for Argentine residents) through a private label version of
Amadeus. In Spanish and English. I think it's flying this week, labor has been
battling owner Iberia.

Cathay Pacific (http://www.cathay-usa.com), Hong Kong's airline, offers
booking through ITN and a variety of special offers such as bonus AA frequent
flyer miles or package deals to Asia.

El Al (http://www.elal.co.il) has U.S. schedules and some US-oriented package
info. Appears to have on-line booking although I couldn't get it to work.

Emirates (http://www.emirates.com), the airline of Dubai, has an attractive
site with info about schedules, packages and special offers, and requent flyer
info. The on-line booking makes it easy to search by schedule, even among
multiple days, somewhat possible to search by fare, and due to Javascript bugs
I can't tell whether it actually sells tickets.

Gol (http://www.voegol.com.br) is a low-fare airline flying in Brazil and a
few adjacent countries. Routes, fares, e-tickets, ground connections. Nice
flash animation of flying pigs on the home page.

Lan Chile (http://www.lanchile.cl) has an attractive multi-lingual site with
schedules, fares, and some cheap Internet-only specials.

Malaysia Airlines (http://www.malaysiaairlines.com) has route and schedule
information, with frequent special deals, but if you want to buy a ticket, you
have to call them.

Polynesian Airlines (http://www.polynesianairlines.co.nz/) has basic routes
and schedules.

Qantas (http://www.qantas.com.au) has an attractive site with online booking,
schedule info and flight ops and a downloadable off-line Windows itinerary
manager. Bookings are oriented toward but not limited to Australian residents.
Also a mirror site (http://www.qantas.com) in the U.S which appears to be
unreachable due to mistakes at the Internic.

Royal Air Maroc (http://www.royalairmaroc.com/) has an attractive site with a
fragile connection to Amadeus that will occasionally sell you a ticket. Site
has a grab bag of other goodies such as detailed information on many airports
they fly to (but none of the ones in Morocco), and the results of the 4th
World Executive Challenge golf tournament.

Royal Jordanian (http://www.rja.com.jo) has a stylish but slow web site with
routes and schedules to and from their Amman hub.

Singapore Airlines (http://www.singaporeair.com) has schedule info, best
viewed via a proxy server that will filter out anything that's unwholesome.

South African Airways (http://www.saa.co.za/saa) has schedules and a little
destination info, but they've toned down the eye-straining graphics.
Occasional seat auctions.

Varig (http://www.varig.com.br), Brazil's major airline, has schedule info and
reservations via Amadeus.

Virgin Blue (http://www.virginblue.com.au) is a low-fare domestic airline in
Australia with its hub in sunny Brisbane. Schedules and on-line booking. Lunch
costs extra.

Airlines often offer special fares or promotions to Internet users, and there
are some other specialist outfits selling tickets on-line.

* Special fare newsletters

Smarter Travel://www.smartertravel.com/ ( collects) weekly specials from
selected major cities and both puts them on their web site and e-mails them to
mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

The Wednesday Airfares webring (http://www.bomis.com/rings/airline) has links
to many sites with. on-line specials, although they should really update it to
take out the link to TWA.

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.

* Ticket auctions and the like

Priceline (http://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 (http://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 (http://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
(http://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html) or Travel
Tickets:Airline at Yahoo Auctions
(http://auctions.yahoo.com/26180-category-leaf.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 (http://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 (http://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special
fares.

Airtran (http://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 (http://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 (http://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar
at the top.

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

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

Austrian Airlines (http://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.
The currently offer $200 off their all-Asia pass, 21 days with round trip to
Hong Kong and 18 other places they fly for $1299. You have to register in
their free ``Cybertraveller'' at the web site. If you like knick-knacks they
have a 60th anniversary stuffed bear in the online duty-free for about US$20
plus (quite a lot of) shipping.

Continental (http://www.coticket.com/) has a mailing list and web site for
net-only specials. You buy tickets on-line, but you have to subscribe to the
mailing list to get access. (Site requires cookies.)

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

Lufthansa's US site (http://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 (http://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.)

Northwest (http://www.nwa.com/nwa/flight/promos/index.shtml) has promotions
including a few web-only fares which they put on their site on Wednesdays.

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

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

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

United (http://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 (http://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.

* Are there many on-line agents?

There's lots of them, grouped below by location of the agent and type of
service.

NOTE: All of the descriptions below are edited from info provided by the
agencies themselves. There are many resources other than travel agents
available on the net, as well, but they're not listed here. Most agencies
offer a broad range of services, so the groupings by type of service below are
pretty arbitrary.

NOTE: If you're a travel agent and would like to be listed, drop me a note and
I'll add you. Please make my life easier by e-mailing me a three-line or so
description in the style above. Thanks.

* Generalist agents located in the U.S.

VGO World Inc. att.net> is a full service travel agency offering low
fares to international and domestic destinations backed with professional and
courteous service. Competitive prices to complicated international trips that
online sites cannot figure.

Montrose Travel (http://www.MontroseTravel.com), one of the 50 largest Travel
Agencies in the United States combines online deals and discounts with
unmatched offline service.

EZTrip.com (http://www.eztrip.com/), an online agency in Missouri, offers
tickets, hotels, rental cars, and modest amounts of destination info.

Bayless Travel Associates (http://www.baylesstravel.com) Full-service Vacation
Travel (Domestic and International) in Oklahoma City. Book your vacation
on-line.

Isha Tours & Travels (http://www.ishatravels.com) in Edison NJ provide
consolidators airfares to anywhere in the world.

Enid Cohen <enid.cohen@worldtravel.com> affiliated with WorldTravel Partners
in Dallas, has over 30 years of experience both arranging travel and
travelling herself, specializes in meticulous, old-fashioned service to
business and leisure/personal travellers.

JetStar Travel Service (http://jetstartravel.vacation.com) is a full service
agency Specializing in Cruises, Family Vacations, Honeymoons, European Travel,
Las Vegas, and much more.

Compass Point Travel cptravel.com> is a full service agency that
welcomes Internet customers. Specialties include custom planning of major
trips, Club Med, discount cruises, adventure travel, and US-originating
international travel. Web page (http://www.cptravel.com/).

Edward Hasbrouck (http://www.airtreks.com), now at High Adventure Travel, San
Francisco, around-the-world specialist; also other discounted international
tickets; NOT a general-purpose, corporate, or domestic travel agency. Also see
his Airline Ticket Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ
(http://hasbrouck.org/faq) for info on getting the lowest international air
fares.

Germantown Travel airtravel.com> in Germantown Md is a full service
airline ticket agency suppling information and discounted tickets for domestic
and international travel. Web site (http://airtravel.com) with special fares
and Caribbean tour info.

CTM Travel in Coral Springs FL welcomes
business from the Internet.

Genie Travel Services Inc. genietravel.com> specializes in discounted
international and domestic airline tickets for Internet customers. For prices,
see their web page (http://www.genietravel.com).

Endeavour Travel Anzac.com> is a travel agency specialising in NZ
and Australian travel, staffed in large part by Aussies and Kiwis. Web pages
(http://www.anzac.com/endvr/endvr.htm). I got Circle Pacific tickets from
them, service was decent.

Marla Baer-Peckham iquest.com> of Cornucopia First Class Travel is a
full-service travel agency. Web page (http://iquest.com/~marla).

Uniglobe GEM Travel uniglobe-gem.com> or Full service agency, WWW site
(http://www.uniglobe-gem.com/) with leisure info and travel request forms. Our
goal is not to find the cheapest product, but the best value for money.

Park'N Ticket Travel photobooks.atdc.gatech.edu> located in Atlanta GA,
specializes in Business Travel. We have a 24 hour travel agency as well as a
1,250 car parking facility with a 24 hour shuttle service.

Paul Foley his.com>, at Passport Executive Travel of Alexandria, VA, a
full-service agency, CLIA, and IGTA, specializes in Corporate Travel, personal
preference is Gay and Lesbian travel. Web page
(http://www.prairienet.org/business/travex/homepage.html).

The Travel Experts prairienet.org> in Champaign, Illinois is a full
service agency with a special emphasis in Caribbean destinations and the UK,
and have expertise in Israel and the Middle East. Web page
(http://www.prairienet.org/business/travex/homepage.html).

Newlywed Susan Mitchell Skinner aol.com> at Online Travelservices
near Atlanta specializes in honeymoons and family vacations -- but also work
with consolidators and offer fast turnaround on quotes to international
destinations.

Priority Travel tiac.net> is a small agency in Waltham, Mass
specializing in corporate travel for small companies and start-ups who need to
minimize their travel costs. Also have specialist in European business or
vacation travel.

World Travel sprynet.com> located in Stockton, CA, specializes in
travel to Southeast Asia. A Traveler's Choice Associate.

Super Saver Travel usa.pipeline.com>, Aurora, CO, offer personalized
service in getting you the lowest available airfares out of Denver and
Colorado Springs area. Domestic & International.

Adventure Travel Service (http://www.greencis.net/~ats) provides domestic and
international consolidator tickets. Book online for domestic tickets using
ITN, and Spring Break '97 packages now available. Email greencis.net>.

QuinWell Travel Service (http://www.quinwell.com) is a full-service travel
agency offering SABRE online reservations & ticketing, discounted cruises &
tours, free newsletter, and an extensive web site.

Metropolitan Travel (http://www.mettravel.com), specializes in corporate
travel, res/tickets through ITN, offers reports online, tracking for companies
and employees, tracks trips, FF miles, etc., including pre-trip reports. Also
vacation specials through "Club Met".

Heather Trofholz prtcl.com>, Aliso Veijo CA, corporate/business executive
specialist. Knowledgeable, personalized service, delivery, maps, vacation
planning to the traveling individual. Available for new So. Orange County
clients. Web site (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/3005).

Certified Travel Services (http://www.certravel.com) is building a network of
independent travel agents who operate from their homes or places of business.
Complete training, software, reservations system, manuals and continuing
support is offered. Listings of travel specials and on-line air travel booking
is provided through their Internet site.

RMS InHouse Travel (http://www.rmssys.com) is a full service agency offering
on-line reservation system.

Travel Service, Inc. usa.net> has three offices in the Tulsa area,
in the business since 1973, are a full service agency, specializing in groups.

Rosemarie Hughey at Go Vegas First Class aol.com> located in Las
Vegas NV provides a service to travelers to Las Vegas and surroundings as well
as airfares to Europe. German spoken.

Lovely Planet Discount Travel Service micron.net> in Hailey, ID
specializes in researching international discounted airfares.

Biztravel.com went out of business in September 2001

B. Charles and Co. (www.airreservations.com) has lists of discounted fares and
travel agent contacts. No on-line schedules or booking, call their toll-free
number.

Kayron and Don Lance sprynet.com>, independent agents for Carroll
Cruises and Tours, specialize in cruises, tours and packages. Especially
knowledgable about the Caribbean. Online reservations
(http://www.travelopinion.com) and Caribbean hotel information
(<http://www.caribbeanopinion.com).

Terminal One Travel (http://www.terminal-one-travel.com) offers direct
bookings via Worldspan. Also packages, custom tours. E-mail mailing list.

MtRoyalTravel (http://www.MtRoyalTravel.com), full service "personalized"
travel agency for leisure and corporate travel arrangements, many packages,
all experienced agents and many price ranges (economy to first class). Over 25
years of experience.

* Tours, cruises, and special interest agents located in the U.S.

Kalliste Tours (http://www.kallistetours.com) specializes exclusively in
Corsica since 1999. Escorted luxury cultural tours in spring and winter for 4
to 8 people.

Journeys Off the Tourist Track (http://www.balijourneys.com) is a 11 year
expert in groups and unique individual vacations to Bali, Thailand, Fiji,
Hawaii plus individual African Safaris and Off the Tourist Track travel with
discounted air to most international destinations.

Travelagentus.com (http://travelagentus.com) is a consolidator travel agency
primarily promoting business class air ticktes to Europe, Africa, Asia, and
Australia.

Fly Malaysia Air (http://www.flymas.com) offers discount airline tickets on
Malaysia Airlines for international flights departing the United States via
LAX and Newark to Malaysia and southeast Asia.

Trav.com (http://www.trav.com) offers Online Reservations for Budget
Accommodation. Book hostels, hotels, apartments, campsites and bed and
breakfasts online.