Mark Pestronk:
Agen ts defenseless against debit
me mos for auto-priced fares.
P. 22
www.travelweekly.com
MORE NEWS:
First Delta, now Continental
drops Certified Vacations
P. 6
Arnie Weissmann:
Technology will be the new
bat tleground in future GDS wars.
P. 12
THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
APRIL 14, 2008
[ CALIF. PROPOSES OCEAN RANGERS ]
Bill would put
cops on ships
TRAVEL WEEKLY
Special Report
Jeff Clarke
CEO and president,
Travelport
By Johanna Jainchill
Cruise ships sailing to and from California
ports would be required to have a law enforcement officer known as an ocean ranger
onboard to protect passengers, if a bill now
before the state’s legislature is enacted.
The California Ocean Ranger measure
cleared its first hurdle last week when the
state Senate’s Public Safety Committee gave
it unanimous approval, pushing the bill to
the next step in the legislative process.
State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) introduced the measure, asserting that the
cruise industry was not adequately protecting passengers from crime nor complying
with environmental laws.
The bill states that the cruise industry
“has failed to adopt adequate measures to
See RANGERS on Page 62
e vWehratyifo n e
Tim Zagat
co-founder,
co-chair and CEO,
Zagat Survey
could travel?
Ian Swain
president,
Swain Travel
Jean-Claude
Baumgarten
president, WTTC
John Noel
president and CEO,
Noel Group & AIG
Travel Guard
Med market now
beginning to slip
Christopher Rodrigues
chairman, VisitBritain
Tony Potter
CEO,
Corinthia Group
The WTTC Summit envisions oppor-
tunities and complications alike in
a world where travel is universally
assumed to be a basic human right.
By Lester Craft PAGE 26
By Johanna Jainchill
The old adage about too much of a good
thing might well describe the pricing pressure this summer in the Mediterranean.
Whether there are pockets of softness, flat
pricing or more empty beds than they had
anticipated, the Mediterranean market is not
where the cruise lines had expected it to be
when they moved so much capacity there for
the 2008 summer season.
It would be easy to blame the economy,
and in fact agents and cruise executives said
that economic problems have contributed
somewhat. But the softness seems to be primarily a self-inflicted wound, a case of challenging the law of supply and demand.
Tony Peisley, a U.K.-based cruise industry
analyst, called the recent shift to Europe “one
of the most significant changes of focus in
the modern [cruise] industry’s 40-year history.”
In a report he authored, titled “2020 Vision: New Focus for the Global Cruise In-
See MED on Page 64
[HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS HIT WITH FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS]
Politics and air safety: A disruptive mix
By Bill Poling
WASHINGTON — Had it been a grand jury
hearing, there would have been indictments.
Using words and sentiments such as those,
House Transportation Committee Chairman
James Oberstar (D-Minn.) presided over a
televised, all-day hearing
April 3 on airline safety that
no doubt put the fear back
in flying for some viewers.
After listening to a litany of abuses recounted by FAA whistleblowers, Oberstar
concluded that there had been a “systemic
breakdown of the oversight role of the FAA
… bordering on corruption.”
Other witnesses and committee members
said they were “troubled” or “alarmed.” Some
FAA practices were said to be “egregious” or
“a hoax” on the traveling public.
And Southwest’s chairman, Herb Kelleher,
admitted that his airline had “screwed up” by
continuing to fly four dozen 737s after discovering that they were overdue for a mandatory inspection for fuselage cracks.
All this was playing out against a background of increasingly irritating flight cancellations as American, Delta
and United pulled hundreds
of planes out of service for
safety checks, part of an FAA
audit that could stretch on for weeks.
And even before the memory of the hearing had a chance to fade, American abruptly
put its MD-80s on the ground once more,
canceling nearly 2,500 flights during a three-day period last week to inspect certain wiring
bundles, yet again.
Air travelers are generally aware that there
have been no spectacular crashes recently,
ANALYSIS
no fatalities. Yet the cumulative impact of all
these headlines has the nation wondering:
What’s going on here?
See SAFETY on Page 63
WORLD BEAT
Perfect Producer Morocco is
Itinerary: A brings ‘Jersey expanding its
week of golfing Boys’ to Las U.S. outreach
in Bali. Vegas Strip. effort.
P. 56 P. 46 P. 54
