Continental ending free meal ticket on most U.S. flights
It’s the end of the free lunch. And breakfast and dinner.
Continental Airlines Inc. announced last week that it would stop serving complimentary meals in coach for most domestic flights, marking the end of the free-meal era among most U.S. airlines.
The Houston-based carrier is the last major airline in the continental U.S. to serve free meals in coach on most domestic flights. The free meals will end this fall. That leaves only Hawaiian Airlines, which still serves free meals in coach on flights from the mainland to Hawaii and the South Pacific.
On Continental flights, free meals will still be served to passengers in first class and business class and to fliers on certain international routes and on domestic flights longer than six hours. The nation’s fifth-largest airline has yet to announce how much it will charge for meals in coach.
“Our traditional free-food model has served us well for many years, but we need to change to reflect today’s market and customer preferences,” said Jim Compton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Continental.
Service cut at regional airports
The declining demand for air travel has begun to inflict pain on business travelers who rely on small regional airports to get to distant meetings.
In the last few weeks, several airlines have announced cutbacks in service at a few regional airports in Southern California. As a result, those business travelers will have to schlep to the big, crowded airports for airline service.
Last week, United Express said it was pulling out of Oxnard Airport by this summer, putting an end to regular commercial airline service from western Ventura County. The airline, operated in Oxnard by SkyWest, cited a drop in demand for the move.
Virgin America announced plans to end service to Orange County’s John Wayne Airport starting in May. The airline’s only route there was between John Wayne and San Francisco International Airport. In the same announcement, the airline said it planned to expand service from Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport to Orlando International Airport.
JetBlue Airways Corp. announced it was eliminating two of its 14 daily nonstop flights between the Long Beach Airport and the East Coast as it adds routes out of Los Angeles.
The service cuts reflect a push by airlines to save money by shifting from less profitable routes from small airports to service at busy international airports, said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Assn., the trade group that represents the nation’s largest airlines.
“When you have weak economic conditions, you have carriers that are right-sizing their service,” he said.
It has happened before. The industry eliminated service to about 70 small airports in the summer of 2008, when airline fuel prices skyrocketed.
Flight attendants oppose big bags
If you sense that flight attendants are giving you an angry look when you jam an oversized carry-on bag into the overhead bin, it may not be your imagination.
The nation’s largest union of flight attendants says those extra-big bags are not only taking up too much space but are also causing injuries.
According to the Assn. of Flight Attendants, half the members it surveyed said they witnessed carry-on items fall from the overhead bins in the last 60 days.
Another survey of flight attendants found that more than 80% of the airline employees said they sustained injuries while wrestling with overweight bags. Common injuries are strained and pulled muscles in the neck, arms and upper back, the union said.
The problem has become worse in the last few years, the union says, as airlines have increased luggage fees, prompting passengers to cram more belongings into carry-on bags to avoid the charges.
The union, which represents 50,000 members at 22 U.S. airlines, has been pressing Congress and the airlines to adopt a standard size for carry-on bags.
“We now have compelling evidence that flight attendants and passengers are being injured by excess amounts of oversized carry-on items,” association President Patricia Friend said.
