Gulliver

ON THURSDAY, the White House announced that President Barack Obama had signed a new executive order aimed at promoting travel to America by easing the visa process and reducing paperwork. This is good news. Gulliver has written before about the need for visa reform, which is a really simple, largely non-controversial way that America could boost its economy. Unfortunately, Congress, sclerotic and divided as usual, was unable to act—and Mr Obama had to do what he could on his own. 

Mr Obama's executive order will reduce visa waiting times for Chinese and Brazilian travellers, move towards eliminating visas entirely for visitors from Taiwan, and take the Global Entry programme, which speeds pre-screened travellers through customs, out of the trial phase and make it permanent. Easing visa requirements for travellers from Brazil and China was one of the major planks of the US Travel Association's "Ready for Takeoff" visa reform campaign, so this should be counted as a victory for the trade group, which represents a wide swathe of businesses that benefit from tourism. The group posted a swoony press release on its website praising the White House move. "The steps the president took today are significant and will boost travel to and within the United States," said Roger Dow, the group's president. "His timing could not be better."

But there's still a lot more that could be done on visa reform, and some of it can only be done by Congress. The big thing, of course, is hiring more people to process visas. The administration has called for a 40% increase in capacity on that front, but realistically, that will either require more funding or shifting money from some other priority. It seems unlikely that Congress will act to spend even the smallest amount of new money on something like this during an election year. Mr Obama also wants 80% of non-immigrant visa applicants interviewed "within three weeks of application". That's a great goal, but don't be surprised if the State Department and Department of Homeland Security fall short. The president is a powerful man, but even he cannot fix America's slow, clunky visa system with a wave of his hand. That will take money—and more money for visa processing and visitor screening just isn't on the cards right now.

A COLLEAGUE has written on our Which MBA? blog about the plans for a second high-speed rail track in Britain. One management teacher theorises about why the country would be better off spending £34 billion ($53 billion) on putting a woman on the moon instead.

YOU'RE in luck if you need extra room on a Canadian airline because you're obese. Federal regulations require airlines to treat such passengers as disabled and provide a second seat at no additional charge. But you're out of luck if you're too tall, as Malcolm Johnson from Edmonton has discovered. The Canadian Transportation Agency recently dismissed Mr Johnson's complaint that Air Canada was discriminating against him in forcing him to pay extra for a seat that could accommodate his 201cm (6'7) frame. The reason: Mr Johnson did not prove that his height was a disability. Though his doctor wrote a note supporting his case, pointing out that Mr Johnson was at risk of developing deep vein thrombosis if forced to sit in an economy-class seat, the agency decided that “a risk of developing a medical condition does not equate with having a condition.”

Fees for preferred seating vary by airline, length of flight, type of fare purchased and frequent-flyer status. Mr Johnson says they add up to an extra $200 when he travels from Edmonton to Paris twice a year. An Air Canada spokesperson pointed out that the fees start at $16 per one-way trip, though this is of dubious relevance because that price applies to flights under 350 miles within Canada and the US.

Mr Johnson's troubles are akin to those experienced by Brooks Anderson on a Spirit Airlines flight from Chicago to Fort Myers, Florida, in 2010. In that case, Mr Anderson, also 201cm tall, spent most of the flight standing up, “dodging people going to and from the bathroom.”

One fellow tall person said in support of Mr Johnson: “Perhaps us tall guys should all stand and be counted.” Just don't do it on take-off.

THERE was terror for passengers and embarrassment for British Airways after an accidental announcement during a flight from Miami to London on January 14th. Some three hours into the journey, as the plane soared over the Atlantic, a message was broadcast over the intercom: "This is an emergency, we will shortly be making an emergency landing on water."

Cue panic. Two passengers told the Telegraph, "We looked at each other and figured we were both about to die. Families with children were distraught and people were in tears. It was very distressing." And it was not until 30 seconds later that flight attendants told passengers that the warning was a mistake.

This wasn't a mechanical malfunction: British Airways says the recorded message was "played in error". I'd say that's a serious mistake. The "you're all going to die" message (because with a landing on water, Miracle on the Hudson notwithstanding, that's what we're talking about) should not somehow be playable in error. BA's technicians, cockpit designers, etc, need to ensure this can't happen again.

IF you're a business-jet broker, how do you tempt buyers to your office? Steve Varsano, an industry veteran, has put a lot of money into the answer. He has located his new company, the Jet Business, on a highly visible site in one of London’s more moneyed areas, and built a full-size mock-up of the interior of an Airbus A319 in one of the reception rooms.

The Jet Business is an interesting enterprise. Styling itself "the world's first corporate aviation showroom for business jet aircraft", it's a brokerage that links purchasers to planes (mainly second-hand). But it throws a lot more technology at the process than has traditionally been the case. Sitting in front of a 26-ft (8-metre) display screen, Mr Varsano uses a database of the world’s business jets to help clients decide on the craft they need and to work out their availability. The giant screen allows the oligarchs and the potentates to compare, in life size, the cabin dimensions of different planes, look at the seating, and drool over the detailing of the walnut veneers. That’s something you can’t do with PDFs sent by the manufacturer.

The investment in this office is an indication of Mr Varsano's faith in the health of the top end of the business-jet market as the world economy negotiates choppy waters. He admits that the financial crisis has had an effect lower down the market, where people are looking to spend $1m on a jet. But for Mr Varsano there is no recession. He focuses his attention on three types of jet—the super-mid size, the large-cabin and the ultra-long-range—and would-be purchasers of $30m planes are not becoming rarer. “There’s always somebody making money,” says Mr Varsano. “I follow the money.”

Changes to the world economy have had an obvious effect on the nationalities of private-jet buyers. A market that as recently as 15 years ago was dominated by American clients now reflects the rise of the BRICs. Last year 35% of sales of ultra-long-range business jets went to buyers from mainland China.

But wherever the jet-buyers are from, they all eventually come to London. Mr Varsano says the city was an obvious place for him to set up his business because so many rich people pass through. “They have to come through Knightsbridge and they look through the window [of the showroom],” he says. What else is there to do when you're sitting in a chauffeur-driven Bentley waiting for the lights to change on Hyde Park Corner?

BOTH Delta Air Lines and US Airways have expressed interest in possibly acquiring the bankrupt American Airlines, according to multiple reports this week. Hunter Keay, an analyst with Wolfe Trahan & Co, told Bloomberg he expects the odds of American being an independent company post-bankruptcy are "20 percent, at most." So if a merger looks inevitable, which suitor would best for business travellers?

First, a few things to keep in mind. As my colleague noted in November, American has some debt problems—before it entered Chapter 11 in November, it had $30 billion worth of obligations against around $4 billion in cash. And the airline industry isn't exactly a great business. Note one of my favourite statistics ever, via Slate business correspondent Matt Yglesias: "Cumulative earnings across the history of American passenger aviation are negative $33 billion." That doesn't mean that individual airlines haven't made money, or that the industry couldn't be profitable in the future—indeed, the progress of industry consolidation and deregulation offers some hopeful signs for both travellers and the industry itself. But it's hard to know which way that's going.

Mr Yglesias argues for a "patriotic merger" between American and US Airways in order to give America three very large global airlines (Delta, United and the new US Air/American entity), with one big airline in each of the three major airline alliances. (Mr Yglesias wants the merged airline to join the American-led oneworld alliance, which sounds like a good idea but is far from a forgone conclusion. An American-less oneworld would be under enormous pressure from Star Alliance and SkyTeam, and could conceivably lose more members or fold altogether—something that should probably be avoided.)

Since I'm generally bullish on the airline alliances (and competition between them), I'd tend to think the US Airways/oneworld route would be better for competition, and thus better for travellers. But the real question is what American government regulators and anti-trust authorities think about the whole idea. A Delta-American merger would produce a company that would control a huge chunk of domestic market—29.6%, double the share of its next biggest competitor, Southwest Airlines.

Another issue is whether Delta's supposed interest in acquiring American is serious or simply an effort to cause problems for US Airways and oneworld. It's hard to imagine that Delta's executives aren't aware of the regulatory problems a merger with American might face. Whatever happens, this struggle will be interesting to watch.

A WOMAN is suing Starwood Hotels in New York over an incident at the Hotel Kamp in Helsinki. Alison Fournier alleges that one night last January a staff member at the Starwood-owned hotel gave a key to her room to a man who said he was her husband. This man, whose advances Ms Fournier says she had rebuffed earlier in the evening, then entered her locked room at 4am and attempted to assault her sexually, before she managed to flee.

Ms Fournier, who has not been able to work since, is seeking "unspecified compensatory and punitive damages" from the Kamp's parent company. That's not surprising. What does surprise me is the way the lawsuit has queried Starwood's ongoing relationship with the hotel:

To this day, although Starwood has the ability to terminate its relationship with Hotel Kamp as punishment for its actions or inactions, and/or as a means of enforcing its protocols and standards, Hotel Kamp remains a Starwood hotel, and the only Starwood hotel in Helsinki

Given that the lawsuit has not been settled yet, it seems only right that Starwood should hold off doling out "punishment" to the Kamp until all the facts are out in the open. And on a related note, is one employee's foolishness reason for an entire business to suffer, even if it doesn't say much for the Kamp's training programmes?

Starwood gave CNN a predictable response to news of the lawsuit:

The safety and security of our guests is our first and foremost priority. It is company-wide policy to ensure proper identification is shown and verified before distributing a key to a registered guest’s room. We are taking this allegation seriously and are working with the hotel in question to understand the facts and any breach of security that may have contributed to this very unfortunate event.

The assailant has not faced criminal charges.

UPDATE 16/1/2011: I've heard back from Ms Fournier's lawyer as to why the assailant faced no charges: "Finnish authorities gave cost as the reason in a letter that they sent to my client."

THE fact that the Chinese can put a building together quickly is not news. But the fact that teams working near Dongting Lake in Hunan province can assemble a prefabricated 30-storey hotel in 15 days is rather impressive, as this time-lapse video demonstrates. Work done on building the foundations—and indeed on fabricating the various sections used to create the hotel—were not added to the video's timing, so the claim to a 15-day construction period should not be taken too seriously. Writing on Treehugger.com, Lloyd Alter is awed by the way the building was put together.

When I was a kid I used to play with systems like this, but never thought that they would actually become real some day. The implications of this are significant; construction is just about the only industry that has not been exported. But now the Broad Sustainable Building Corporation has designed a system that will let them build anywhere, to construction tolerances of +/- 0.2 mm. The architectural and construction world just changed.

The hotel is the creation of Broad Group, an air-conditioning specialist, which says that the building can withstand an earthquake of magnitude 9. And its construction cost, according to Next Big Future, is one third of the current standard for Chinese skyscrapers. You may be seeing more of them.

HOTEL ROOM RATES rose 4.3% in America in 2011, a sign that business-travel demand continues to increase. Rates are expected to rise again in 2012, and will probably continue to outpace overall inflation. The Los Angeles Times's Hugo Martin reports:

At the end of December, hotel rates nationwide were up 4.3% from a year earlier, to an average daily rate of $107.56, according to a study released Friday by STR Global, a hotel research firm in Nashville.

The number of hotel rooms in the U.S. grew only 0.6% last year, said Jan Freitag, senior vice president at STR. In contrast, the hotel industry added rooms at a rate of 2.2% a year over the last 20 years, he said. Fewer hotels were built last year because banks were more reluctant to finance hotel construction, [Freitag] said.

"The limited number of rooms gave the hotels pricing power," Freitag said.

This is all pretty basic economics: the economy is improving, so business travellers and leisure travellers alike are taking more trips. But the economic situation isn't yet strong enough to make building new hotels an easy or straightforward proposition. A new hotel is a big investment, and uncertainty about the euro and the broader global economic situation is probably holding back new construction. So instead, you see the increase in demand for hotel rooms outpacing the increase in supply. This is made worse in areas such as San Francisco that have ultra-strict zoning and development rules that make it even harder to build new hotels. The San Francisco-San Mateo area saw America's highest rate increase year-on-year. 

On a small scale, this is bad news for business travellers. Higher room rates hurt the bottom line. If they were paired with a booming economy, that would be one thing. But they're not. What can you do about it? Don't take trips that aren't absolutely necessary, ask yourself if you really need the four-star room, and make sure you shop around for the best price. If you're really pressed for cash, consider AirBnB and similar services. And encourage your property-developer friends to get going on those new hotels. Room prices are set to go up another 3.6% in 2012, according to Mr Martin. But if big travel destinations like San Francisco and New York don't add rooms, that figure could be even higher.

A PIECE in this week's Economist looks at Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme and the effect it is now having on aviation. Since the start of this year, any airline whose planes fly into or out of the European Union must pay for its carbon emissions. And foreign carriers are none too pleased...

Because flights into the EU have been included in their entirety, not just the portion within European airspace, they detect an infringement of their sovereignty. Last month, in response to a suit from an American industry body, Airlines for America (A4A), the European Court of Justice dismissed that concern. A4A, which claims, improbably, that the scheme will cost its members more than $3 billion by 2020, may file a fresh suit in the High Court in London.

Read the whole story.

HOW far does an iPad get you on the road in Africa, perhaps the toughest continent for travellers? Your correspondent spent the past month finding out, while journeying 5,000 miles overland in eastern and southern Africa, two of the continent's better connected regions. (Parts of north Africa are fine too, as are limited parts of west Africa... but the bit north of the middle from Congo to the Sahara is virtually a no man's land for tablet computers.)

Between Nairobi in Kenya and Cape Town in South Africa one can find plenty of 3G coverage. Pretty much every town now has a 3G signal. You can even pick one up on cross-country bus trips in Tanzania, and intermittently while driving in Zimbabwe. But this happens at astonishing cost. Westerners switching on their 3G receiver will probably get a message from their service provider saying they will be charged about $40 for just the first few megabytes THAT DAY, AND EVERY DAY. And lots more after that. Locals pay a tiny fraction of said amount, so it's worth trying to get a local SIM card, though that can be tricky.

Mostly you should stick to Wi-Fi networks in hotels or private homes. And there are lots of them. Hotels charging above $100 a night will have Wi-Fi, as will plenty charging less, though some connections are slow. Skype mostly works but not always. The bigger annoyance can be cumbersome log-in procedures that have to be repeated every time you turn on the iPad. And there are lots of unnecessarily complex passwords.

Another unexpected problem can be charging the battery. Power cuts are common across Africa and often the most reliable charging opportunity is found in a car, using an adapter to plug the iPad into the cigarette-lighter socket. The gizmos sold at Apple Stores are easier to use than some of the other stuff out there.

When it comes to actually using the iPad to make travel easier, there are three main areas: maps, travel guides and booking tools. Producing offline maps for Africa should be easy, yet your correspondent was not able to find anything as good as the online ones at Google Maps—and even they are not great. (Is it possible to get a Google map offline?) With an iPad in one's bag there really is no need to carry soiled hard-copy maps, and there is huge potential for the company that develops top-quality, downloadable maps. Please, someone sort this out.

The same goes for travel guides. Lonely Planet has started offering some of its books in Kindle format (usable on the iPad with the Kindle app). Even more useful for travellers in Africa will be the soon-to-be released e-versions of the Bradt guides. Your correspondent was able to use PDFs provided by the company, thus lightening his load by many pounds. On a long trip, travellers no longer have to lug around half a dozen guide books (plus novels, magazines etc). But the publishers have yet to exploit the full potential of the e-versions. Some are searchable and one can jump directly from the table of contents to a chapter or sub-section. But the maps are terrible. Most are black-and-white copies of what's in the hard-copy books. Some maps are halved or quartered because they didn't fit on a page. Who would do that on a computer? It would be nice to integrate Google Earth, or simply include full-colour maps with interactive features. E-guide books are very welcome but feel like the equivalent of 1960s television. Whichever company spends serious money on reinventing the travel guide for tablets—rather than just copying stuff over from paper—might discover a vast consumer market.

As for booking apps, here too there is still lots of room for improvement. Expedia has yet to offer more than a copy of its iPhone app. It works on the iPad but is puny. Kayak has an iPad app but it is less useful and versatile than the web version—lots of parameters have been stripped out. Tripadvisor works well.

So although the iPad is a huge help for travellers who want to cut down on luggage and increase their mobility, these are still early days. App providers have yet to take full advantage of the tablet's potential, though I have doubtless overlooked many useful apps for hardy travellers. Feel free to suggest more in the comments.

THE NEW YORK TIMES published a story in late December on the International Air Transport Association's push for more "streamlined" airport security screenings. IATA, the trade group for the world's big airlines, has good reason (at least in theory) to support less ridiculous security procedures. After all, airport security is one of the reasons why many people hate flying. But IATA's proposals belong more to the realm of fantasy than the reality that business travellers face every day. The Times's description of IATA's ideas is pretty uncritical, but it'll give you a decent sense of what's being proposed:

Travelers in the midst of another holiday season of shuffling shoeless through seemingly interminable airport security lines may find it difficult to imagine a future where screenings are not only speedy but thorough.

But Kenneth Dunlap, director of security at the International Air Transport Association, a global airline lobbying group, suggested just such a situation, seemingly straight out of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Total Recall.” In it, travelers would stop only briefly to identify themselves before entering a tunnel where machines would screen them for metals, explosives and other banned items as they walked through.

This is all accompanied by an image, provided by IATA, of the group's dream security set-up, which includes security tunnels for "known travellers," "normal" and "enhanced" screenings. Naturally, there's nobody waiting in the tunnels.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, most people understand that the thing that makes airport security take so long is the lines, not the actual screening itself. The lines happen because security lanes and screening personnel cost money. Making the screening process itself more expensive—with high-tech scanning tunnels and highly trained personnel to operate them—would necessarily mean either fewer checkpoints (and longer lines) or massive investments of taxpayer or traveller money.

That's before you even get to the idea (also discussed in the Times piece) of using trained security agents to screen travellers for behavioural "tells" and sort them into lines for "normal" and "enhanced" security tunnels. Yes, Israel does use enhanced behavioural screening and detailed questioning of some passengers. But Israel also is a small country with only one major international airport.

There's no magical future technological development that is going to make airport security screening cheap and easy. If there was, smart terrorists would eventually find a way around it. Yes, some types of security screening are more effective than others. But yammering on about special tunnels that are going to make going to the airport less of a hassle is a distraction from the actual choices at hand. You can reduce the money or the time spent on screening and accept slightly greater risk. You can spend more time or more money on the screening and perhaps have a slightly better chance of catching the bad guys. That's the real argument here. Most of the rest is just noise.