Hawaiian to begin charging fee for checked in baggage

No real shock here since almost all the other major airlines are doing this but Hawaiian yesterday announced that they will be charging a $15 fee for the first checked baggage and $25 for the second for all Mainland flights starting October 1st. (For interisland flights you won’t be charged a fee for the first bag checked in) Hawaiian also announced that if you try to book you Hawaii travel over the phone instead of online they will be charging a fee as well of $10 for interisland flights and $20 for Mainland flights.

And the Numbers are in

Just today I was able to see how many visitors took a Hawaii vacation in the month of June and it looks there was a 14% drop off in arrivals. This dropoff could of resulted from two major airlines, Aloha and ATA, going out of business which resulted in less seats being sold or it could be the fact that airline prices have seen a dramatic increase due to high oil prices. The state of Hawaii realizes that harder months are ahead with the Fall season coming so they just got $6.5 million to help out with marketing and help cover some of their losses. It should be a really interesting Fall season.

Changes in the Online Booking World

Last week there was big news that American Airlines was in the process of no longer offering their airline pricing to travel search engine Kayak.com and may possibly look to also stop selling their seats to Orbitz. From what I read it sounds like the reasoning for this was because Kayak was supposed to send their vistors to Americans site to book their flights but were instead sending them to Orbitz. As a result of this it sounds like American was having to pay double commissons to both Kayak and Orbitz instead of just the one which doesn’t make sense for them. It should be interesting to see if they later on offer their pricing back to Kayak or even if their relationship with Orbitz changes in any way.

Interisland Carrier to Charge Fee for First Checked in Bag

For your next Hawaii vacation you may be surprised to see that you will be charged $10 for your first check in bag on Go! Airlines which will begin charging this fee on August 10th. Go! Airlines is saying that the reason for this fee is to offset oil prices which is about to bring almost all of the airlines out of business. If you plan on checking in two bags with Go! airlines you can expect to be charged $17 for the second bag which will bring the total cost to $27 for two bags. Maybe now it’s cheaper to mail your luggage prior to your trip than taking on suitcases?

Northwest Airlines cutting 2,500 jobs

More news today coming from the airline industry. Northwest Airlines said Wednesday that it will eliminate 2,500 management and front-line jobs to offset the cost of high oil prices. Northwest previously announced that it would shrink the amount of flying it does by roughly 9 percent later this year as well to offset the high price of oil. These layoffs join the many other that have been happening in the last weeks with other airlines as they try to save themselves from going out of business.

AirTran Layoffs

With the layoff announcements from American Airlines last week you knew more was bound to happen soon with the other airlines. This week discount airlines AirTran is announcing that they are laying off 180 pilots and 300 flight attendants by September 6th and that it is continuing to look for other ways to bring it’s payroll and may result in more layoffs or a decrease in wages for its employees. Airtran is saying that the reason for these layoffs are due to the fact that oil is over $140 per barrel. I feel that if the government can stop the future trading of oil then maybe we can finally see oil prices go down and hopefully result in most of these people getting their jobs back.

Hawaiian Volcano Erupts

Thought I would share this video of Hawaii’s most active volcano shooting lava 50 feet in the air. If you ever in Hawaii you need to check this out.

Check the video out here.

More layoffs coming for American Airlines

News earlier this week that American Airlines are going to layoff around 900 flight attendants seems to be just the beginning. Today the news coming out from American is that they plan on laying off 8% of it’s work force which comes out to about 6,800 jobs. The reasoning from American for these layoffs are because in the Fall they plan on cutting domestic capacity 11 percent to 12 percent and as a result they need to layoff some people to offset the lack of revenue.

American Airlines to Possibily layoff 900 Flight Attendants over increase in fuel prices

More possible bad news hit the travel industry today with American Airlines thinking about laying off 900 flight attendants due to high fuel prices. This seems to be the way that airlines are trying to offset the increase prices in fuel. With the decrease in people traveling for vacations this summer has resulted in airlines not operating with full capacity for all their flights. Just last week I was on Hawaiian Airlines from San Jose to Honolulu and there were a lot of empty seats which is unheard of for summer Hawaii travel. I expect things to get worse for the airlines as fall comes around.