From QUINTESSENTIAL JETS

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines, which bumped more passengers than any American carrier last year, was fined $200,000 on Tuesday for violating rules on kicking passengers off oversold flights.

The Transportation Department said Tuesday that it reviewed passenger complaints and found many cases of Southwest failing to promptly pay bumped passengers and give them written notices of their rights.

Last year, Southwest bumped 13,113 passengers — 80 percent more than the next closest carrier. However, Southwest carried the most passengers in the United States, and travelers faced a greater chance of being bumped on some other airlines, with American’s regional affiliate, American Eagle, being the worst.

Federal rules require airlines to first ask for volunteers who will give up their seats in exchange for compensation. After that, airlines can begin to bump ticketed passengers. Most passengers bumped from flights are entitled to up to $800 in cash.

Airlines are required to give bumped passengers a written statement detailing their rights and explaining how the airline decides who gets bumped.

The airlines can offer travel vouchers but only after telling the passengers that they are entitled to get cash or a check instead, and what they’re owed.

In a consent order, the Transportation Department said it would waive $90,000 of the civil penalty if Southwest did not break the rules again in the next year. Also, Southwest can use $20,000 of the fine to develop ways to notify passengers of their rights and the airline’s policy on overselling flights.

In the consent order dated Tuesday, the company said it mostly followed the rules — the number of violations was not disclosed — but would provide more training for employees to improve compliance. The airline also said it would give customers more notice of their rights when they buy tickets on the company Web site.

A Southwest spokeswoman, Brandy King, said the incidents involved “a small percentage” of the airline’s flights.

“However, we take every violation seriously and are working to improve our procedures to ensure full compliance with DOT regulations and to provide the best possible experience for all of our customers,” Ms. King said.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Florida-based airline Spirit sent shock waves through the travel community last week when it announced plans to start charging a fee for carry-on luggage. The airline is taking heat once again for a move to install seats that don’t recline in new aircraft, the Palm Beach Post is reporting.

Airline spokesperson Misty Pinson told the Post that Spirit’s two new Airbus 320 aircraft feature “pre-reclined” seats, which means there isn’t an option for passengers to pay for reclining seats.

The first aircraft went into service March 14 on the Fort Lauderdale to Washington, D.C., route. The second launched last week and flies from Fort Lauderdale to New York LaGuardia. Two additional aircraft featuring the “pre-reclined” seats will hit the skies this summer.

“You have to realize that you’re giving up some comfort to fly at those low prices,” Matt Daimler, founder of SeatGuru.com, told the Post.

Pinson told the Post the decision was made based on the fact the new seats offer greater fuel economy due to a lower weight, and maintenance costs are less with stationary seats.

Spirit’s A-320 aircraft have 178 seats, 174 of those being “deluxe leather seats,” which are about 17 1/2 inches wide with a 28-inch pitch, the shortest in the industry. The Post reports that “most low-cost carriers feature an average pitch of 29 to 30 inches, so they can fit additional seats in the plane and charge less.”

Allegiant Air went the way of non-reclining seats in 2007, and its seats feature a 30-inch pitch. –Rebecca Heslin

By USA TODAY.

The top representative for the airline industry asserted Thursday that the disruption caused by the eruption of an Icelandic volcano had undermined efforts to include aviation in the European Union’s Emissions Trading System.

Accurate and up-to-date information about emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft is needed before airlines could join the European Union system, said Giovanni Bisignani, the director general of the International Air Transport Association.

Yet aircraft have burned far less fuel — and thus emitted less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases — than would ordinarily have been the case because of the near-absence of flights across large parts of Europe and the North Atlantic in recent days.

“We’ve seen such a dramatic level of reduced capacity as a result of the crisis that the data this year won’t be representative,” Mr. Bisignani said in an interview in Brussels. “You cannot use this year as a base year to calculate an airline’s normal amount of emissions,” he said, adding that there may be a need to “postpone” aspects of the regulation.

Connie Hedegaard, the Europan Union’s climate commissioner, was quick to reject that suggestion.

“Although I know it’s a difficult situation for the airlines, I think that that is not an appropriate excuse for saying, ‘Why should we not be excluded here?’ ” she said in an interview.

The air transport group “has always argued against this piece of European legislation and now they are just trying to find a new argument,” she said.

Under European Union law, all commercial aircraft that land in union countries or take off from one of its airports will have to start paying for some pollution permits beginning in 2012. The European Union plans to tighten the “cap” on those permits between now and 2020. The goal is to drive up the cost of permits and force industries including aviation to invest in greener technologies.

Experts at the European Commission said the total amount of permits allocated free in 2012 would be unaffected by the volcano crisis because that calculation was based on average emissions from 2004 to 2006. But the experts said the crisis could affect the way that the European Commission distributed permits.

“The reduced activity could result in small changes in the distribution of free allowances between aircraft operators,” the commission said in a statement on Thursday. “However, any such impacts are likely to be tiny as most operators have been impacted by the flight restrictions,” it said.

The air transport association and many of the world’s largest airlines have long opposed plans by the European Union to include them in the system. The system works similarly to other “cap and trade” systems operating regionally in the United States, but is far larger.

On Thursday Mr. Bisignani reiterated his organization’s view that Europe was overstepping international aviation rules by imposing the rules on international carriers, and he said the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations body, should broker a global deal to regulate aviation emissions to avoid a patchwork of competing systems.

Mr. Bisignani also said that the authorities in countries like China and Japan soon could make formal complaints to E.U. authorities about including foreign carriers in the European system.

By JAMES KANTER, The New York Times

February snow storms and rising fuel prices pushed AirTran Airways to a $12 million first quarter loss, but executives at the Orlando-based airline said surging consumer demand for air travel will return it to profitability in the current quarter.

“We’re going to have a good April, though it’s not going to be as strong as March,” CEO Bob Fornaro told analysts and reporters today in a conference call. “Then we’re going to have an exceptional May and June.”

That theme is echoed by other U.S. airlines as they reveal their first quater earnings. On Tuesday Delta Air Lines also reported a first quarter loss and high expectations for the rest of year based on a strengthening U.S. economy and recovering travel demand. American Airlines reported a $505 million quarterly loss, but analysts expect the carrier to be profitable in subsequent quarters.

Meanwhile, giant U.S. airplane maker and defense contractor Boeing reported today that its first quarter profits fell almost 15% to $519 million. Boeing officials blamed the slide on a reduced number of aicraft deliveries that caused revenue in the quarter to drop 8%.

Boeing said it still expects to makes the first delivery of its already-delayed new 787 Dreamliner to launch customer ANA Airlines before year’s end, as previously planned. Delivering 787s is becoming more important to Boeing each quarter because it doesn’t get paid for the planes until they’re delivered. Next year, after 787 deliveries pick up, Boeing officials say the company’s revenues will pick back up.

At AirTran, improving customer demand for airline seats in the first quarter drove revenue to a first quarter record of $605 million. But tough winter weather along the East Coast, where the carrier’s operations are heavily concentrated, erased the positive effect of that. However, Fornaro said AirTran’s unit revenues — money received from customers per available seat mile — grew by a double-digit amount in March, and that similar increases are expected through the second quarter, and likely through the rest of the year.

Fornaro also said AirTran would like to play a role in the round of industry consolidation that appears likely in light of merger talks between United and both US Airways and Continental. If United decides to merge with either of those carriers, Fornaro said, AirTran would like to play the role of “facilitator” by acquiring landing rights, airport facilities and other assets that they might need to divest in order to win approval from antitrust regulators. AirTran already is playing that role to a small degree by acquiring landing rights at New York’s LaGuardia Airport from US Airways as part of that carrier’s complicated swap with Delta of New York and Washington, D.C., airport slots.

Fornaro also said his carrier would consider offers to merge from other carriers, but downplayed AirTran’s interest in such a deal. Instead, he said, the carrier is focused now on modest growth of about 2% in the current quarter and 4% for the balance of the year. That comes after two flat years after the airline in stopped its previous rapid expansion plan.

AirTran’s $12 million first quarter loss was equal to 9 cents a share. Excluding one-time accounting items — mostly unrealized fuel hedging gains — the carrier lost $16.7 million, or 12 cents a share, a penny worse than than analysts’ consensus expectation. In the first quarter of 2009 AirTran earned $28.7 million, or 21 cents a share.

By Dan Reed, USA TODAY

Delta Air Lines said Tuesday that ongoing travel disruptions to Europe  caused by the volcanic cloud of ash shouldn’t deter it from being profitable this quarter.

The world’s largest airline, which has cancelled nearly 400 trans-Atlantic flights over the last several days, made the announcement even as it was reporting a $256 million loss during the first three months of the year.

However, Delta CEO Richard Anderson told analysts and reporters during a morning conference call that a rise in the number of business travelers who pay more to fly are resulting in growing revenue for the airline.

The trend is such, Anderson and other Delta executives said, that neither the first-quarter loss nor problems such the travel disruption over the Atlantic, rising oil prices or a potential second wave of recession are dimming the airline’s outlook.

“We’re a bit optimistic as we head into the busy summer travel season,” Anderson said. “We are encouraged by the improvements we continue to see in the revenue environment. We expect the positive revenue trends to continue and to be solidly profitable” in the current quarter that ends June 30, he said.

Delta president Ed Bastian said that through Monday night the airline had lost only about $20 million as a result of five days of extremely limited trans-Atlantic flying. That’s the result of a shutdown of most European airports because of the cloud of volcanic ash that spread over northern and central Europe from the eruption of an Iceland volcano.

Delta’s estimated loss indicates that U.S. airlines will suffer smaller losses from the disruption than their European counterparts and smaller losses than some analysts had projected.

So far, Delta’s loss is less than a third the size of what it incurred from winter storms in the first quarter. February snow storms this year caused Delta to cancel more than 7,000 flights and to lose about $65 million.

Bastian said that although short term losses caused by the ash cloud were higher, they were offset by reduced spending on fuel and other items. In addition, much of the revenue lost will return to the carrier as stranded passengers eventually catch flights home.

Delta on Tuesday was operating about 50% of its normal trans-Atlantic operations, Bastion said, and expected to operate 100% of its west-bound flights out of Europe on Tuesday night. The airline also planned to run several unscheduled flights in upcoming days to help stranded passengers and freight on both sides of the Atlantic reach their destinations.

The first quarter loss of $256 million — $192 million excluding one-time accounting items — was a third the size of Delta’s first quarter loss in 2009, when the U.S. and global economies were very near the trough of the deepest recession since World War II.

“We continue to see the right trends in the revenue environment and are very optimistic about the balance of the year,” Anderson said.

Delta executives stopped short of predicting profits beyond the current quarter. But they also downplayed the other threats to a recovery.

“The issue that concerns us now is fuel,” Anderson said. And, he said, “There’s still some issues with unemployment, and there’s still some issues with commercial real estate. But it appears the economy now has some pretty good legs under it.”

Bastian said oil prices aren’t expected to reach the high $90-a-barrel range until late this year. However, he said, the airline’s hedging program gives it ability to deal with the higher price. He also said he didn’t expect higher oil prices to damage the return of business travelers, especially, to the sky.

“Clearly, the strength we’re seeing on the revenue front now is coming from the corporate traveler,” Bastian said. The evidence: the airline’s revenue is rising faster than its passenger volume. That means business travelers, who tend to pay above average fare prices, are returning to the skies at a faster rate than price sensitive leisure travelers

“We are seeing corporate travel demand improve across almost all geographies{hellip} and across all our hubs,” he said.

Anderson said Delta’s revenue from corporate travel sales last week was 61% higher than in the comparable week a year ago. Meanwhile, overall ticket sales were up last week 49% from the same week last year. That’s further evidence of that business travel is returning at a rate higher than overall travel demand, he said.

“We’re not quite back to 2008 levels,” he said. “But we’re close to 2007 levels. We expect to be close to 2008 levels by end of the year.”

Delta’s reported $256 million loss in the first quarter was equal to 31 cents a share. In the first quarter of 2008 it lost $794 million, or 96 cents a share.

Excluding one-time accounting items, Delta’s $192 million loss was equal to 23 cents a share, which was in line with the consensus expectations of analysts.

The carrier flew 1.4% fewer revenue passenger miles in the first quarter than it did in the year-ago period. But its capacity, or seats available to travelers measured in available seat miles, was down 4.4%.

As a result, the carrier was able to charge passengers 8.4% more per passenger mile flown in the first quarter of this year than in the year ago period. In the first quarter, passengers paid 10.89 cents to fly one mile vs. 10.05 cents in the first quarter last year.

Delta filled 79.5% of its seats in the first quarter with paying passengers, up from 77.1% in the first quarter of 2009.

By Dan Reed, USA TODAY

Last year, when the Mount Redoubt volcano blew up southwest of Anchorage, Alaska Airlines’s response was to ground its fleet, divert flights and wrap the engines in the parked planes in plastic.

That is how seriously airlines take volcanic ash. Of course, an ash cloud has never hovered over an airspace as congested and critical as Europe’s.

As airlines were forced to ground flights for five days in the wake of the eruption of a volcano in Iceland, some criticized the European authorities as having overreacted and needlessly stranding millions of passengers and tons of cargo. But with flights scheduled to slowly resume Tuesday, the industry’s record shows a very low level of tolerance for getting airplanes anywhere near volcanic ash.

“We’ve been flying for over 100 years, but volcanoes have been around for a lot longer and frankly, they win,” said Capt. Rory Kay, the head of air safety at the Air Line Pilots Association and a Boeing 757 and 767 pilot. “We have to treat them with the greatest respect.”

Even though volcanoes have always been a threat to aviation, there are no guidelines for dealing with volcanic ash clouds other than to avoid them — in contrast with the standards for dozens of other potentially hazardous situations like landing in low visibility.

Jet engines are vulnerable to ash, which can cause engines to stall, or shut down. The ash, which acts like millions of pieces of shredded glass, can also scrape the paint off the planes or sandblast the windshield. Ash clouds are also tricky to make out, since they can resemble vapor clouds.

“There is almost no day where there is no volcanic ash cloud somewhere in the world that people are tracking and trying to avoid,” said Tom Murray, the director of the Volcano Science Center, part of the United States Geological Survey, in Anchorage. “It is that frequent. There is a lot of activity you need to keep track of.”

In most cases, flights are rerouted or diverted, and people do not notice, said Robert W. Mann Jr., an aviation industry expert in Port Washington, N.Y.

“Ash clouds happen all the time, but thankfully they just don’t happen in one of the most densely populated, most densely traveled areas in the world,” Mr. Mann said. “If it happens in the middle of the Pacific, it’s like a tree falling in the middle of a forest. You don’t really notice it.”

From 1953 to 2008, just 89 planes were reported to have encountered an ash cloud, said Denis Chagnon, a spokesman for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.

But the real perils were demonstrated in June 1982, when a British Airways Boeing 747, flying to Australia from Malaysia, flew directly into an erupting volcano’s ash cloud.

One after the other, all four engines shut down within minutes, turning the aircraft into a overweight glider. After 15 harrowing minutes, the plane had dropped about 20,000 feet, enough for the plane to fly under the ash cloud and allow for clean air to feed the jet turbines. At that point, the crew was able to restart the engines, which allowed for an emergency landing.

Another Boeing 747, belonging to Singapore Airlines, lost power in three of its four engines when it hit ash from the same eruption. And in December 1989, all four engines of a three-month-old KLM Boeing 747 shut down when the plane encountered ash from Mount Redoubt. The plane descended to 12,000 feet from 25,000 feet before the crew was able to restart two of the engines.

The lessons are simple, said Bob Graves, director of operations at Alaska Airlines. “You do not want to fly in an ash cloud, and we did not see any data that would persuade us there would be safe level to fly through ash,”  he said. The aviation authorities in Europe have been using computer models to predict the presence of ash. But those models are not precise enough to say where it is safe to fly.

“Ash cloud detection is very primitive,” said Paul Tronsor, the head of FedEx’s global operations control. He said that volcanoes affect a route flown by FedEx about once a month. FedEx flight operators, he said, always use a buffer zone of about 400 to 500 miles.

FedEx flew its first flight out of Paris on Monday, Mr. Tronsor said, and will resume partial operations from several European airports on Tuesday.

The three Boeing 747 episodes of the 1980s led to the creation of a system of global monitors of volcanic activity to warn pilots about the threat caused by ash clouds.

That is the system that shut down Europe’s airspace, after Norwegian air traffic controllers first sounded the alarm in the middle of last week.

Peggy Gilligan, the associate administrator for aviation safety at the F.A.A., said that General Electric Aircraft Engines has taken the lead in a government and industry program, which began this weekend, to assess the ability of jet engines to operate with ash. A spokeswoman for G.E., Deborah Case, said that the company was “reviewing past engine experiences with volcanic ash”  to see how they performed and what level of damage was sustained. Ms. Case was not able to say when G.E. expected to have results from its review.

Setting a standard for ash may be possible, in theory. For the moment, the models tend to point to a black-and-white solution, “while in fact what we’re dealing with here are various shades of gray,” said Barry Humphreys, the chairman of the British Air Transport Association, the trade group of the British carriers.

“There’s no doubt at all that there are thick clouds of this stuff out there and it is dangerous to fly through thick clouds, but there’s areas around the edge where it’s much thinner, and areas where there’s no cloud.”

By JAD MOUAWAD and MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times

From the IATA (International Air Transport Association), an estimate of what the Iceland volcano is costing the airline industry per day–$200 million. The IATA represents 220 airlines comprising 93% of scheduled international air traffic. Bloomberg recently reported that the “Volcanic eruptions in Iceland which this week caused thousands of flights to be canceled may continue for months.”

Based on the flight routes of the airlines with the most traffic in the North Atlantic, it is likely that most of these costs are being borne by British Air, which has bled red ink, has laid off 8,000 people in the last year, and has an under-funded pension. BA is merging with Iberia.

Also almost certain to be affected are AMR Corp (NYSE:AMR), parent of American, and Continental Air (NYSE: CAL) which flies in and out of the U.K.’s Heathrow and Gatwick. Delta (NYSE: DAL) has had to cancel a number of flights from the East Coast to Amsterdam. According to Reuters, “United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp, said it had halted 30 arrivals into Europe and 32 departures from Europe.” Several news reports say that on routes to the East toward Asia, JAL, Korean Air, and Singapore Air have large numbers of flights some of which go over the North Pole.

The IATA release

Date: 16 April 2010
Statement – Financial Impact of Icelandic Volcano Ash
The air transport industry is experiencing major disruption of services following the Iceland volcanic eruption.
IATA’s initial and conservative estimate of the financial impact on airlines is in excess of US$200 million per day in lost revenues. In addition to lost revenues, airlines will incur added costs for re-routing of aircraft, care for stranded passengers and stranded aircraft at various ports.
IATA has set up its crisis center in Montreal and is closely coordinating with Eurocontrol and European air navigation service providers.

By Douglas A. McIntyre, 24/7 Wall St.

April 15 (Bloomberg) — UAL Corp.’s United Airlines and US Airways Group Inc. may need to relinquish routes to gain approval for their merger from a tougher Justice Department than the one that sank their previous marriage proposal in 2001.

UAL and US Airways, the third- and sixth-largest U.S. airlines by traffic, have been in merger talks since mid- February, people familiar with the matter said last week. The only way to win over regulators may be to surrender some hub-to- hub routes, such as from United’s Denver base to US Airways’ Charlotte, North Carolina, said Steve Martin, a senior vice president at InterVistas consulting in Washington.

“Justice is going to be very skeptical, just because they’re so big,” Martin said of the carriers. “The antitrust division is going to give a really close, hard look at this.”

Christine Varney, President Barack Obama’s lead U.S. antitrust enforcer, has said the Justice Department will be “aggressively pursuing” anticompetitive behavior. The agency has demanded concessions from a British Airways Plc alliance with AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, and likened Continental Airlines Inc.’s request to coordinate flights abroad with United to “sanctioning collusion.”

“It is probably a tougher test” to win approval under Obama than under President George W. Bush, said Clint Currie, a transportation analyst with Concept Capital’s Washington Research Group. “The current DOJ is not as business-minded as the last one,” he said.

‘Elephant in the Room’

Bush’s Justice Department scuttled UAL’s $12.3 billion takeover of US Airways in 2001, saying the combination would create a monopoly on 30 routes and lead to higher fares and poorer service for U.S. passengers. Both companies filed for bankruptcy the following year.

UAL, based in Chicago, and Tempe, Arizona-based US Airways are discussing an all-stock transaction to combine the companies, with the smaller US Airways being the acquirer, said the people familiar, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The merger would help United steer travelers to international flights from US Airways’ domestic routes, said one of the people.

If the plan advances, regulators would scrutinize whether the merged entity would become too dominant in trans-Atlantic flights as part of the Star Alliance, the world’s largest carrier grouping, said Hubert Horan, an airline consultant in Phoenix.

United and Houston-based Continental already have antitrust immunity to collaborate in Star on overseas flights. A merger with US Airways would add strength to the arrangement and become the “elephant in the room” with regulators, Horan said.

Changing Circumstances

Neither company has said if a merger agreement is in the works, and Gina Talamona, a Justice Department spokeswoman, wouldn’t comment on the subject. A US Airways spokeswoman, Valerie Wunder, declined to respond to questions for this story, as did United spokeswoman Jean Medina.

Circumstances have changed since 2001, when the Justice Department first challenged the companies’ merger, and would generate even more scrutiny, said William Blumenthal, former general counsel of the Federal Trade Commission.

“US Airways was a smaller airline than it is today,” said Blumenthal, chairman of the antitrust group at the law firm Clifford Chance in Washington.

US Airways emerged from a second bankruptcy in 2005 by combining its operations with America West Holdings Corp. The companies were the seventh- and eighth-largest U.S. carriers prior to merging.

The Justice Department said in December that British Airways’ alliance with American Airlines should be given antitrust immunity only if some takeoff and landing slots are surrendered or routes are exempted from the partnership.

Harming Competition

The department also called for limits in June on Continental’s request to coordinate flights abroad with United. The agency said the request “is unprecedented in scope and breadth, sanctioning collusion” by the carriers on all international service.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department backed a tentative decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to require Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. and US Airways to give rivals a fifth of the slots the carriers sought to trade in New York’s LaGuardia and Washington’s Reagan airports.

In those cases, the department advised the Transportation Department and FAA. In a merger, the decision would be the Justice Department’s.

The carriers “will need to explain to the antitrust division how this deal does not harm competition,” said Andre Barlow, a former Justice Department attorney who’s now a partner at Doyle Barlow & Mazard in Washington.

Legacy Airlines

The carriers may have to surrender flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where US Airways is the largest airline, and where flight caps limit new competition, Currie said. Still, “any political kind of bent would have trouble overcoming the merits” of the merger, he said.

Low-cost carriers are more competitive with legacy airlines such as United than a decade ago, Currie said. Low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines Co. made up 25.7 percent of domestic traffic in 2009, up from 15.7 percent in 2000, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

“The environment has changed dramatically,” said Alan Bender, an airline economics professor with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. “The legacy carriers essentially have no pricing power” in setting fares.

The Justice Department could decide the United-US Airways combination is necessary because one or both could fail alone, Bender said.

“The carriers have been on the ropes a long time,” Bender said. A merger “may be permitted ultimately because the alternative is people out on the streets.”

Angie Zimmerman calls United Airlines to fix a seat assignment and ends up with a mysterious $35 fee. The airline says it’s for insurance, but she insists she never bought the policy. Her credit card sides with United in a dispute. Is she out of options?

Q: I recently disputed a charge on my credit card from United Airlines and lost. I need your help getting a refund.

Here’s what happened: I charged an airline ticket on my Discover card, but I had problems with my seat assignment, so I called the airline to fix it. When I received my bill, there was a separate charge for $35 on it from United with an explanation that I had bought flight insurance. But I never bought flight insurance.

I tried to contact United, but it is impossible to speak to anyone and if you can, you are speaking with people in India who don’t have command of the English language. It’s very frustrating.

I sent a letter to United and Discover, disputing the charge. Discover removed the charge, but later reinstated it because United sent a letter stating it was a legitimate charge and that I knew about it. I sent another letter to United and never received a response.

So my response is this: I will never fly on United again, unless I absolutely have no other option.

– Angie Zimmerman, El Dorado Hills, California

A: United shouldn’t have billed you for insurance you didn’t buy. Except, I’m not entirely convinced you were paying for insurance. At the time you bought your ticket, the major airlines were charging anywhere between $5 and $35 just to make a reservation by phone. It’s possible that by calling United, you incurred such a fee, but that it was mislabeled as insurance.

You did the right thing by protesting the charge, but phone calls to an airline are pretty much pointless unless your flight is imminent. An email to United through its site would have been far more effective. If that didn’t work, you could have taken your case up the food chain to a supervisor. I publish a list of them on my Web site.

I’m surprised that Discover shrugged off your dispute. Your credit card company is supposed to represent your interests, not the airline’s. Unless the airline was able to furnish the credit card company with a transcript of your phone conversation, or a signed credit card receipt, proving that you bought travel insurance would not be easy.

This might be a good opportunity to start shopping around for another credit card. Your dispute was over $35, but who knows what might happen in the future? Would you want your card to take sides with a business that fraudulently bills you thousands of dollars?

Your only other option — besides contacting me — was to take this matter to small claims court. And although you probably would have won, the costs of filing a case may have exceeded your damages. Even if United had to pay your court costs, it wouldn’t have been worth your time.

The only way to avoid a phone fee or insurance charge is to do everything online. I think that’s what United would prefer, anyway. But it would have also ensured there would be no miscommunication or cross-cultural crossed wires to worry about.

It’s a shame that it’s come to this. Of course you should be able to pick up the phone and talk to someone in your own language when you have a question and not worry about getting socked with a fee. But that’s not the world we travel in.

I contacted United on your behalf. A representative called you and issued a refund of $25 to your card. I have no idea why United decided to keep $10, but it’s a resolution you’ve indicated you’re happy with. And it’s better than nothing.

By Christopher Elliott, Tribune Media Services

LONDON — British Midland Airways Ltd., or bmi, “is here to stay,” the airline’s chief executive said Tuesday, adding there is no intention to break up the carrier.

Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, who took the post as chief executive in November and is tasked with returning the airline to profit, said losses in 2009 would be worse than the pretax loss of £157.3 million in 2008, but a restructuring program would help halve those losses in 2010.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG was a reluctant buyer of bmi last year. It was forced to take control after bmi founder Michael Bishop exercised an option to sell his majority stake to the German airline. The option had been agreed in 1999, but the timing of Mr. Bishop’s decision to sell wasn’t ideal for Lufthansa, which at the time was trying to complete the Austrian Airlines acquisition and introduce its own measures to cope with the economic downturn.

But having attracted interest from some 12 airlines last year, Mr. Prock-Schauer said bmi is no longer in talks about a potential sale. “We are restructuring and that takes a period of time,” Mr. Prock-Schauer said, conceding Lufthansa could decide to sell the airline at some point. A restructured, profitable airline would command a higher price.

Since Mr. Prock-Schauer took charge, the airline has adopted an aggressive restructuring program that will contribute £100 million to annualized savings, but only two-thirds of that amount will be realized in 2010. “There was obviously a problem” with the old bmi model, Mr. Prock-Schauer said, leading to losses when the downturn began.

Bmi’s restructuring involves refocusing its network, reducing capacity by 20% to 25% in 2010, cutting 800 jobs, most of which already have been identified, and returning unwanted leased planes once contracts expire. The program has the backing of unions and employees.

Major factor in the carrier’s speed to restore profitability will be external, such as fuel prices and foreign-exchange-rate movements.

In its 2008 accounts, bmi said it plans to return to profitability by 2012 and that £190 million of additional funding is required by Oct. 31. Lufthansa has provided bmi with two loans, one of which–a £95 million loan–has been secured with slots, Mr. Prock-Schauer said.

Bmi has significant value in its ownership of 10% of the takeoff and landing slots at London’s Heathrow Airport, the world’s busiest international passenger airport. British Airways PLC owns 40% of the slots at Heathrow and previously had voiced interest in bmi because of those assets.

Bmi has leased a number of slots to other members in the Star Alliance and a few to competitors, but those will return to bmi in a year or two and will be used for further expansion if and when the market allows.

Bmi also faces competition from low-cost carriers. Mr. Prock-Schauer wants bmi to retain its budget airline bmibaby, which operates in a market that can still attract customers during downturns. Changes already enacted have meant that bmibaby is as productive with 14 aircraft as it was with 17 due to improved turnaround times.

Following the example of low-cost models, Mr. Prock-Schauer sees opportunities in expanding ancillary revenue across the group by charging for certain services, but he declined to give examples.

He wants bmi to expand routes to the Commonwealth of Independent States, Africa and in Continental Europe by flying into hubs of alliance partners and feeding passengers to other destinations. He also intends to expand services in the Middle East and target the oil and energy community there and in Aberdeen, Scotland, which bmi also serves.