Domestic Flights

Senior air fares seem to change almost as often as the clouds these days. The 10% senior discount on domestic flights, dropped by most major carriers a year ago, is back. Earlier this month, United Airlines was the first to reintroduce a 10% discount for mature travelers age 62 and over, but the carrier added that the discount applied only to excursion fares, not regular fares. The discount would apply to a traveling companion of any age, as long as the senior and companion travel together.

Capping an intensive three-year investigation, the Justice Department filed a civil antitrust suit Monday charging eight of the nation's largest airlines with using a computer system to fix prices in the $40-billion domestic air passenger business. Two of the carriers, United and USAir, entered into a proposed consent decree to settle the charges, the department said, while the other carriers indicated that they would contest the suit.

Although most airlines--but not all--have dropped their regular senior discounts on flights as part of the industry's fare restructuring last summer, there are still savings to be found on domestic destinations through the use of coupon books. The books generally contain four or eight coupons, with two required for any round-trip flight. One coupon is good for a one-way coach flight, even though it may require a stop or change of planes.

About 10 million airline passengers received a claim form in the mail last month, telling them how to file for a partial refund for certain ticket purchases made in the past five years. At first sight, the seven-page document seems complicated, but don't be intimidated. For most recipients, filling out and submitting the form is easy, and the reward could be at least a small savings on future air travel. The refund is the result of an antitrust settlement reached June 22 with nine major U.S.

The "hub-and-spoke" route system has been a financial boon for the major airlines but, as demonstrated in Tuesday's shutdown of New York-area airports, it can create nightmares for air travelers. The system that concentrates flights at a few airports makes it nearly impossible to contain disruptions, such as the AT&T telephone breakdown, and prevent them from spreading to airports around the nation because the flow of traffic from many points depends on conditions at a few major airports.

Want to light up a cigarette during a flight within the continental United States? Forget it. How about on a non-chartered bus trip? You're out of luck. In some cities, Singapore among them, there are nonsmoking taxicabs. Many airport shuttle services are no-smoking. And a growing number of hotels have not only designated nonsmoking rooms or entire nonsmoking floors, but some hotels have banned smoking altogether. The news from the smoking front is good if you're a nonsmoker.

Though not many people realized it, during the recent war in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Postal Service quietly decided to stop using U.S. airlines to ship most packages and parcels on flights within the United States. Why? Airport and airline security was at an all-time high, right? Technically, yes. Shortly after the war in the Persian Gulf began in mid-January, new security measures were imposed at airports throughout the United States. It was called "Level Four" security.

The House approved a bill Thursday to allow most of the nation's airports to impose a new passenger fee that could add as much as $12 to the cost of a round-trip domestic flight and raise $1 billion a year for U.S. airport expansion. An attempt by California Rep. Doug Bosco (D-Occidental) to kill the proposed "head tax" as regressive and unnecessary was rejected on a 252-171 roll-call vote before the House adopted the bill by an overwhelming vote of 405 to 15.