Search Results for: blog do you favor cattle call boarding

Saving on Summer Travel: Take the Bus

Not just any bus… How would you like to travel from New York to Washington — and back — for less than the cost of a candy bar and a can of soda? Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, brace yourselves budget conscious travelers—-it’s the real deal. A new company called BoltBus is offering tickets from the Big Apple to D.C. for as low as a $1 each way. The super cheap price is an attempt to lure summer travelers away from trains, planes and their own automobiles. I guess I should inform you that there is … Continue reading →

Digital Boarding Passes—Yea or Nay?

If you are arriving into or departing from Houston’s Bush International Airport on Continental Airlines anytime in the next three months you will likely be a part of an experiment that could help redefine boarding procedures. Continental along with the Transportation Security Administration is testing a new program that allows passengers to board flights using just a cellphone or personal-digital assistant (PDA) such as a BlackBerry instead of a traditional paper boarding pass. The system is activated when the airline sends a special bar code (basically a jumble of squares and rectangles) to a passenger’s cellphone or PDA. The unique … Continue reading →

Are You In Favor Of “Cattle-Call” Boarding?

There was a lot of attention paid to discount giant Southwest Airlines this week. First, the low-cost carrier announced it would no longer be allowing families with children to pre-board flights. Then, the company revealed that it would be sticking to its unique open seating policy—-a process many passengers have nicknamed the “cattle call.” In a previous blog I told you about Southwest’s efforts to experiment with different seating strategies. The carrier spent the summer running several different seating and boarding tests in San Diego and San Antonio. And according to airline executives, the results of those tests convinced them … Continue reading →