A while back I wrote an article analyzing the finances of online travel agency YTB. My conclusion was that it was better to be YTB than someone who is building a travel agency based on them. It all smelled a bit. Apparently I am not the only one who reached that conclusion as they were just sued by California’s Attorney General as a Ponzi scheme.

Brown Sues To Topple Online Pyramid Scheme

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced a lawsuit against YourTravelBiz.com for operating a “gigantic pyramid scheme” that recruited tens of thousands of members with deceptive claims that members could earn huge sums of money through its online travel agencies.

Wireless culture taking to the air

Delta Air Lines announced Tuesday that it will introduce Wi-Fi access on certain aircraft by fall and expand it to its entire domestic fleet of more than 330 planes by next summer. American Airlines and Virgin America previously have said they will launch in-flight broadband Internet services on certain planes by year-end.

TSA to allow laptops to stay in approved bags

There’s a new option for people annoyed at having to take their laptops out of their bags at airport security. The Transportation Security Administration will now allow travelers to leave their computers inside “checkpoint friendly” cases.

Airline industry axes 60m seats

The global airline industry will fly 60m fewer seats in the run-up to Christmas - equivalent to a 7% cut in flights - as the oil spike and economic downturn force carriers to axe services.

Kayak and American Airlines are having a bit of a tif:

Kayak.com drops American Airlines airfares from listings

American Airlines telling you that it will no longer be displaying airfares on Kayak.com or sister site Sidestep.com.

American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner explained the company’s tiff with Kayak. The airline asked the meta-search engine to bar American ticket purchases through online travel agencies such as Orbitz.com or Cheaptickets.com. As of today, American’s airfares were not available on Kayak.com but flight schedules were still listed.

and in the expected follow up story:

Kayak.com drops American Airlines airfares from listings

American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner explained the company’s tiff with Kayak. The airline asked the meta-search engine to bar American ticket purchases through online travel agencies such as Orbitz.com or Cheaptickets.com. As of today, American’s airfares were not available on Kayak.com but flight schedules were still listed.

American Airline sues parent of Kayak.com and Sidestep.com

Fort Worth-based American Airlines is suing the parent of meta-search sites Kayak.com and Sidestep.com, saying the Web sites violated its agreement to use the airline’s airfare content.

At issue is whether the sites were allowed to display American fares through third-party sites, including orbtiz.com and cheaptickets.com — where the carrier must pay booking fees — rather than just on www.aa.com.

After Beheading, Greyhound Kills Ad Campaign

Yes, the company offering famously lousy service had just launched an ad campaign with the line “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage’” when, on a trip from Alberta to Winnipeg, one of its passengers was apparently beheaded and eaten. Suffice to say, they’re doing away with the campaign

and in the strangest piece of news, the conspiracies around the murder that happened at the Olympics:

An American tourist is murdered, and conspiracy theories abound

What would make you stab a 62-year-old tourist to death in the middle of the day and then leap off a 150-foot tower? That’s a question you can’t help puzzling over if you’re in Beijing. What on earth was going on in the mind of Tang Yongming, the 47-year-old man who stabbed two Americans and their Chinese guide over the weekend? Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of the U.S. men’s volleyball coach, was killed in the attack.

I was saddened to see the news that ATA Airlines is pulling out of some of its commercial flights because of the high cost of fuel. Back when my kids were in Jr high we flew on ATA to Boston through Midway and our kids first flew alone on this route back from Boston. Midway is a much more manageable airport than O’Hare and ATA was a very nice low cost option at the time.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Citing high fuel prices, ATA Airlines announced Thursday it will leave Chicago’s Midway Airport starting next month.
ATA will stop its domestic flights out of Midway on April 14 and its international flights to Mexico on June 7.

The decision will not affect its scheduled commercial flights to Hawaii from Oakland, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas, spokesman Steve Forsyth said.

“This was a difficult decision, but the high cost of fuel has made it economically unfeasible to continue our low-fare service at Midway,” said Rob Binns, ATA’s chief commercial and planning officer, in a statement released Thursday. “We will redeploy our ATA aircraft in profitable charter service.”

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April 3, 2008

I just read that ATA has now filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11.

CNNMoney recently published a list of the most admired airlines according to a survey of businesspeople. The survey was not of travelers so your list may not be the same.

1. Continental Airlines (score 8.20)
2. Singapore Airlines (score 5.82)
3. Lufthansa Group (score 5.53)
4. British Airways (score 5.37)
5. Air France-KLM Group (score 5.22)
6. Japan Airlines (score 5.16)
7. All Nippon Airways (score 5.15)
8. AMR (score 5.10)
9. Northwest Airlines (score 3.97)
10. UAL (score 3.81)
11. Delta Air Lines (score 3.55)