Travel Tips

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Here are some travel websites I use all the time. I hope you'll find them interesting, perhaps even useful.

  • Seat Guru - This guy has all the data on each airline's planes in terms of seating configuration. Specifically, he shows you which seats are good and which ones don't recline etc. He also shows you the measurements of each carrier's seats. Did you know that seat pitch (the distance between your seat and the seat in front of you) can vary from 29-36 inches and seat width can range from 16 to 21 inches? Look at his comparison charts to compare seat sizes across airlines. 7 inches of legroom and 5 inches of seat width goes a long way.
  • On time % - Did you know that some airlines are only on-time 65% of the time, while others are on-time as much as 80% of the time? This site allows you to search by airline, and even search for a specific airline at a specific airport. For example, you can learn that Delta is 85% on-time at it's Cincinnati hub, but only 78% on-time in Atlanta. You can also look up just by airport. For April 2007, Salt Lake City averaged 88% on time, and New York city (EWR, LGA, JFK) averaged just 58% on time.
  • How is the US airline industry doing? The airlines always whine about how it's so hard for them to make any money - here are the facts.
  • How old is this plane? Ever walk onto a plane and get the feeling it may have been assembled by the Wright brothers themselves? This is the average age per fleet, but you'll see that AirTran (formerly ValueJet) has a brand new fleet whereas Delta's Fleet is an average of 13 years old. Would you rather fly on a plane built in 2007 or 1987?
  • Real-time Air-traffic control delays. Our skies are literally traffic-jammed up these days. On average, 10 out of every 100 flights are held up by the air traffic control system. 6 of those 10 are due to weather problems, 4% are due to over-crowded skies and airports. The best years to fly in recent history were 2002 and 2003. September 11 caused such a drop in flight volume that all US air carriers combined were averaging 80%+ on-time flights. For 2007 year-to-date, they're averaging 72% on-time.
I hope these help. If anyone out there knows of other good sites like this, please let me know.

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