That may be a rethorical question, but it might be one those in the United States who are concerned about customer service and the "energy crises" should seriously consider. It may also be that if one were to examine the success of the Brazilian Airline, GOL they would find the issues with the U.S. Airline Industry are more serious than I will touch on here.Let's look at some of the things the U.S. Airline Industry wants us to do. First, maybe you are in San Jose, Costa Rica and want to go to Lima, Peru. Pop those locations in a few airline websites and you might find that it just as cheap to fly on a US Airline from San Jose, Costa to Lima, Peru via New York City than to fly a Latin American Airline the same route, but with a stop in Panama City.
Now, as a consumer, an extra 12 hours or so in the air plus a whole bunch waiting in airports is not my idea of a good time! From an "energy crisis" prespective I can't imagine anyone benefits (except maybe the owners of the oil wells), and therefore from an Airline Business prespective it must be a pretty whacked out proposition as well. Yet, it is "business as usual" I think.
The U.S. Airlines seem to lower their prices in porportion to how whacked out your travels will be. The shortest, most direct flight always seems to be the most expensive one. Punish the customer who pays less.
It becomes more difficult with international flights it seems. The various travel websites often don't produce any results (or poor results) when you start with a "foreign destination" (and remember there are more people OUTSIDE the United States than inside).
American Airlines website at first seems to do the best job. The only qualification is that at least one segment must be on American Airlines.
For example, if you try to book a light on aa.com from Barranquilla, Colombia to Miami, you get a convoluted trip that takes you to the Dominican Republic and Jamica. However, if you book a flight from aa.com from Barranquilla, Colombia to most any other location in the United States, you get a nice trip. Barranquilla to Miami and then on to your selected city.
Here's the catch. The flight from Barranquilla to Miami will be on an Avianca (Colombian Airline) flight (under Delta airlines name). The flight from Miami will then be on American Airlines. Good connections, good prices.
You have to understand that Avianca and Delta both issue e-tickets if you book directly with them. Delta also advertises heavily on TV in South America (in Spanish), yet won't even give you prices, much less book a reservation from www.delta.com.
Ok, back to www.aa.com. Time to book the flight from Barranquilla to Detroit. The price, the schedule is perfect. Oh oh! The computer says they will only issue a paper ticket and only mail it to the credit card holders address. This isn't going to work. I'm in South America, my credit card billing address in the United States, and the traveler is in Barranquilla. The trip is less than a week ago and using "overnight" delivery to get the ticket is no guarantee it will arrive before flight time. There is an American Arlines office just down the street so my best bet is to just go there and pay for the ticket.
I call American Airlines, to make sure I get the reservation set before I trundle off to pay for it. The nice lady tells me I need to select "hold reservation" on the website. Nope. There is no such option.
Ok, she checks and the price comes up many hundreds of dollars more expensive (even through aa.com claims there is just a small fee for making your reservations on the phone). The second problem is that they won't issue an e-ticket because part of the flight is on "delta". But, for just $100 more (on top of paying $600-$700 more for the reservation) she can have the ticket sent to be picked up "anywhere".
So there are two extremely bad choices. Almost double the price of the ticket just to get it delivered in Barranquilla, or pay over $100 for overnight delivery to the USA and another overnight delivery to Colombia. I asked the nice lady at American Airlines what would happen if I chose that option and the ticket was delayed in transit. She had no answer for me.
The whole problem here seems to revolve around American not being able to issue an e-ticket for Delta. Aside, why does Delta make it so hard for customers in South American when they do so much advertising here? (I suspect Delta would have been a better choice for the trip, but without any internet reservation service that was out of the question).
Back to the internet. Again to aa.com, as it seemed to be the only site that would show any flights from Colombia to the United States. They had a nice selection of flights from Bogota to Detroit. Those even gave the "hold reservation option" and they would issue an e-ticket. The price, significantly less than the flight from Barranquilla to Detroit. I was able to pay for it with no major project at the local American Airlines office (I had to pay the local tax than came to about 15 bucks).
Avianca has cheap flights from Baranquilla to Bogota. The result is a trip that has almost the identical price as the original flight I found on aa.com (but couldn't purchase), and wastes a considerable amount of time and takes our traveller 400+ miles out of her way, coming and going.
All because American and Delta can't get together on e-tickets. Of course, what is the point of a non e-ticket in this day and age. The real questions is why would any airline make use of any non e-ticket for anything?
I had wanted to plan a 1 or 2 day layover in Miami, but that upped the price way too much (and the cost to the airline for that?). It turned out that the flight to Detroit was missed, because the flight from Bogota was delayed.
The original flight schedule I wanted from Barranquilla to Detroit via Miami (and not Bogota) left sufficient time for delayed flights. The flight from Bogota to Detroit didn't provide for any delays on the way to Miami.
The result? One night in a very nice hotel, and day in Miami, compliments of American Airlines!