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News & Notes

Checkpoint wait times shorter over Thanksgiving

By Times Staff
Published November 30, 2005

Despite record crowds and reduced capacity, airport security checkpoint systems performed well over the Thanksgiving holiday travel period, according to an annual survey by the online booking site Travelocity. As one example, Travelocity said, monitors at security checkpoints at the 25 busiest airports in the United States reported "slightly shorter wait times than in 2004 and minimal delays overall."

Having a membership in an airport lounge program on Northwest, Delta and Continental becomes a little more valuable starting Thursday. You'll be able to use your membership card interchangeably worldwide at any of the 90 locations of Northwest WorldClubs, Delta Crown Room Club or Continental Presidents Club when flying any of the three airlines. This expands an alliance begun last year that allowed a Presidents Club member flying on Delta, for example, to use a Crown Room lounge. Under the policy, all the clubs will be available, no matter which of the three airlines you're flying.

The world's top hotels, as ranked by well-heeled readers in the annual survey by Institutional Investor magazine: St. Regis, New York; Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome; Mandarin Oriental, New York; Four Seasons Milan; Four Seasons Singapore; Four Seasons George V Paris; Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco; Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore; Peninsula Hong Kong; Four Seasons, Chicago. The fabled Ritz Hotel did not make the top 50; over the past 25 years, the Ritz has usually been in the top 10. Survey respondents had average annual incomes of $817,000 and spent an average of 62 nights in a hotel last year, Institutional Investor said.

Online travel bookings for airline, hotel and car reservations will total $65.4-billion in the United States this year, according to the annual Online Travel Overview by PhoCusWright, a travel research and advisory firm based in Sherman, Conn.

Responding to growing complaints from business travelers about charges for in-room Internet access at upscale hotels, Radisson Hotels and Resorts said that starting Jan. 1, high-speed Internet access will be free in rooms at all its 186 hotels in the United States and 21 hotels in Canada.

Intensifying its competition with Virgin Atlantic on the lucrative trans-Atlantic and other intercontinental routes for business-class passengers, British Airways is spending about 100-million pounds ($172-million) on an extensive overhaul of its Club World business-class cabins; it will introduce the service starting in mid 2006. British Air started the contest in 2000 when it introduced full lie-flat beds in its refurbished business-class cabins. Virgin Atlantic matched that, and barged ahead in 2003 with the introduction of its Upper Class Suite service, which featured longer lie-flat beds that are arranged in podlike cubicles.

This will be a record year for travel spending in the United States, according to the Travel Industry Association. Total spending in the United States by domestic and international travelers will total about $646-billion this year, a 7.8 percent increase over 2004, the group says.

[Last modified November 30, 2005, 02:15:38]