[The Practical Nomad Newsletter] The Amazing Race 13, Episode 5

[Edward Hasbrouck]

This column with links:
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001561.html

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Te Puke (New Zealand) - Siem Reap (Cambodia) - Angkor Wat (Cambodia)


Should "The Amazing Race 13" have gone to Cambodia? And should they have 
sent the racers to search the vast Angkor Wat complex for a particular 
temple, on foot, without giving them a landmine awareness briefing first, 
and requiring that they be accompanied by a guide to keep them on the 
paths and away from any areas not known to have been cleared of landmines?

I wouldn't think it worth the risk to life and limb, and I don't think 
it's fair to put the racers in a situation where they had to make their 
decision while already on the road, with little time or information to go 
on and a million-dollar prize to tempt them into possible danger.

Cambodia is the most heavily-mined country in the world. Because of the 
marquee allure of Angkor Wat, it's the only one of ten or twenty most-
mined countries that mainstream tourists would even think of visiting, or 
where they wouldn't be aware of the risks of war. The wars in Cambodia are 
over, but mines can kill for decades: people in Europe die every year from 
unexploded ordnance left from World War I as well as World War II.

If you decide to go to Cambodia, keep two things in mind:

   1. Both the government and the tourism industry are anxious not to 
scare away foreign tourists and their money. Given their compelling 
financial interest, you can't rely on them for an honest or impartial 
assessment of mine hazards, either before your trip or in the country. 
Before you go, check out third-party information, particularly reports 
from non-governmental de-mining and mine education groups. When you 
arrive, insist on a mine awareness briefing from the local office of such 
a group. While you are there, make a donation to support their work (and 
its continuation in agricultural areas where most mine deaths and injuries 
now occur, not just tourist sites) and for the families of those who have 
died in de-mining efforts. They have risked their lives (and lost many 
lives) crawling through the grass around the Angkor Wat temples (once 
heavily mined), poking the ground every few inches to find any mines, so 
as to make possible your touristic visit.

   2. Mines are not confined to well-bounded minefields. Mines were placed 
by many armed groups and individuals, most of whom left no maps or other 
records. Other mines and munitions were scattered from the air. In a 
country like Cambodia, it's necessary not just to avoid known minefields 
but to avoid anywhere that isn't known not to be mined -- something that 
can really only be known if the area has been thoroughly and 
systematically probed for mines and other explosive hazards. If you have 
to pee, for example, do it in the road, not a single step beyond the tire 
tracks onto the verge (a common location for mines and unexploded 
ordnance), much less in the bushes.

It takes a bit of detective work to figure out which flights the racers 
took from Auckland to Angkor Wat. We saw boarding passes being printed, 
but stepping through a digital recording frame by frame reveals that the 
same footage of boarding passes being printed at LAX was spliced into the 
TV "reality" show for diffeerent teams in both Auckland and Singapore.

Most of the teams left Auckland in the afternoon, and arrived in Siem Reap 
the next morning on Jetstar Asia , a "low-fare" subsidiary of Qantas. Ty 
and Aja, who started two hours later than any of the other teams, got a 1 
a.m. flight out of Auckland and arrived in Cambodia, still two hours 
behind the pack, on Singapore Airlines' short-haul subsidiary Silkair . 
It's possible that they could have made up an hour by using double 
connections via Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur, leaving Auckland at 7:30 p.m. 
and ending up on Air Asia from KUL to REP. But since they got to the 
finish line still two hours behind any of the other teams, that probably 
wouldn't have prevented their elimination.

Most likely they didn't know that Air Asia was even an option. In a 
typical pattern, the travel agency at Auckland Airport was able to tell 
the racers about connections between unaffiliated airlines (which they 
might not have been told about by an airline that would have steered them 
to routings favoring its marketing partners), but didn't know or didn't 
tell them about routings involving "low-fare" airlines like Air Asia that 
don't participate in global reservations systems and/or prefer to sell 
tickets directly rather than through travel agencies. The extreme case of 
the latter is Ryan Air, which provides explicitly in its terms and 
conditions that "All bookings for Ryanair flights must be made directly on 
www.ryanair.com or via a Ryanair call centre. Any booking you may make via 
a third party website or online travel agent may be cancelled without 
notice or refund." Buying a Ryan Air ticket from an agent or third party 
is like buying a ticket to a concert or event from an unauthorized scalper 
or tout .

So how do you find out about airlines like these? There's no single source 
of comprehensive information about local and regional "low-fare" airlines. 
Fortunately, most advertise heavily in the places they serve, and it 
rarely makes sense to use them unless you are buying tickets locally, at 
the last minute.

The Asia-Pacific region is one of those best served by "low-fare" 
airlines. Some operate mainly within a single country, such as Lion Air in 
Indonesia, but most of the rest focus on short to medium-distance 
international routes within the region, or mix domestic and internatoonal 
routes like Cebu Pacific and Air Asia. There's an unusual degree of cross-
investment between Asia and Oceania in this sector, with Qantas owning 
most of Jetstar Asia (as well as Jetstar within Australia), and Singapore-
based Tiger Airways also operating a domestic Australian network with a 
hub in Melbourne. That wouldn't be allowed in the USA, where protectionist 
ules against foreign ownership have limited Richard Branson's role in 
Virgin America to that of a minority owner, and a silent partner at that.

We flew Tiger Airways from Darwin, Australia, to Singapore earlier this 
year, when we changed our plans in mid-trip becuase of the changes in 
China's rules for visas . It was good value for the price, but it was also 
the first time I'd heard an announcement on an airplane, "Because we have 
food and water for sale onboard, no consumption of outside food or water 
is permitted on our flights." But if you could figure out how to buy 
bottled water beyond the last security checkpoint, they didn't actually 
try to stop you from drinking it in flight.

Once you figure out which "low-fare" airline serves a route you are 
interested in, you can usually get schedules and prices on their Web site. 
Buying tickets on their Web sites from a different country can be more of 
a problem: some won't accept a credit card with a billing address in a 
different country (just as many e-commerce companies in the United States 
won't accept foreign credit cards, to reduce the risk of fraud). Badly 
designed airline Web sites sometimes won't allow you to enter a phone 
number or address that doesn't match the format of addresses in the 
country where they operate, doesn't have a valid postal code in their 
country, or the like. You can usually work something out, at the price of 
an international call to their reservation center. If that fails, you may 
have to wait until you get to a city where they fly, and buy a ticket the 
old-fashioned way, over the counter from their office at the airport.

The good thing about "low-fare" airlines is that they typically price 
tickets on a one-way basis, and require little or no advance purchase as 
long as seats are still available. You may get a better price further in 
advance, or with a round-trip purchase, but their last-minute one-way 
fares are still much less than the prohibitive "walk-up" fares of 
traditional airlines.

The bad thing about "low-fare" airlines is that you can't count on them. 
Unlike national "flag carriers," they are operated to make a profit, not 
for national prestige. If they don't make money for their investors, they 
will be quick to shut them down. Governments are less likely to bail them 
out than they would be with a national airline, even a nominally 
privatized one. Similarly, if a particular route or flight isn't making 
money, they are quick to discontinue it.

One reason there is less difference between the highest and lowest fares 
of "low-fare" airlines is that they operate with fewer empty seats. 
Traditional airlines try to charge business travelers enough that they can 
make money even if what they refer to derisively as "the back of the bus" 
is empty. Low-fare airlines only fly where, and when, they think they can 
get enough passengers to fly full. Many of their flights operate only in 
the busy season for the route (whenever that is). They are willing to try 
out odd-seeming routes where they think traditional airlines have 
overlooked a profitable opportunity, but they are equally willing to dump 
them unceremoniously if they don't work out, or if something causes 
traffic on a previously profitable route to flag. The routes where they 
are offering the largest discounts, in order to try to fill their planes, 
may be the ones most in danger of imminent discontinuation of their 
service. Conversely, they may be entirely sold-out at short notice on a 
successful route, even in the off-season.

"Low-fare" airlines don't necessarily have lower fares. Especially on 
routes where they compete directly, other airlines often match their 
prices. Airline advertisements are useless for figuirng out how much you 
are likely to pay, or which airline is likely to have a lower price. Only 
a few seats are available, long in advance, at the lowest advertsied 
prices, and "fees" and "surcharges" -- whihc vary greatly between airlines 
-- typically make up more of the total ticket price than the low "fare". 
Only when you get to the final stage of the booking process, and see that, 
"Your credit card will now be charged this total amount if you click 
here", can you ascribe any meaning to an air ticket price.

The main difference between "low-fare" and "traditional" airlines is in 
operations, not prices. "Low-fare" airlines usually have opted out of some 
or all of the industry norms. Perhaps most importantly for travellers, 
"low-fare" airlines typically have no "interline" agreements, and can't 
put you on another airline if they cancel a flight or cease service to a 
destination. All flights on "low-fare" airlines (or any airline without 
interline agreements to protect you in case of a flight cancellation) 
should therefore be considered to be subject to cancellation at will by 
the airline at any time, without prior notice or any obligation to get you 
to your destination. All they owe you if they cancel a flight on which you 
you had a ticket is a refund.

What this means is that if you are planning to use a "low-fare" airline 
for part of your trip, you should always have a backup plan. You need to 
be prepared either to use surface transportation, if it's possible, or to 
pay for a ticket on a competing airline. If the "low-fare" airline picked 
the route because it was poorly served by traditional competitors, or 
their fares were high enough to create what the low-fare airline thought 
would be a profit opportunity, a walk-up replacement ticket could cost 
many times what the "low-fare" airline originally charged.

"Low-fare" airlines are thus most suitable for "impulse purchases" of 
tickets bought while you are traveling, and least suitable for tickets 
planned or purchased long in advance. If you had planned to use surface 
transportation, and there's a cheap flight with seats available that you'd 
rather take, great. Maybe you want to linger someplace longer than you had 
expected, or people coming in the other direction report that the bus or 
ferry you'd planned to take is slower or more uncomfortable or dangerous 
than you had realized. If you know that you will have to fly, though, 
don't count on a "low-fare" airline. Know that you are taking a risk, and 
know the cost of your contingency plan. Keep checking with the airline at 
intervals, to make sure your flight is still scheduled to operate.

At some airports "low-fare" airlines are consigned to the ghetto of a 
separate terminal. Fly into the "low-cost carrier" terminal in Singapore, 
expecting the comfy chairs and other transit amenities we saw in the 
background in scens from "The Amazing Race" in the main terminal, and 
you're in for a rude surprise. In other cases, low-fare airlines operate 
from secondary airports, where their landing fees and other costs are 
lower. (I think of the looks I used to see on the faces of French 
passengers on charter flights to Tahiti, deposited unexpectedly in the 
terminal in Oakland in the middle of the night while their Paris-Papeete 
plane was being refueled.)

Often these "cheaper" airports are farther from city centers and tourist 
districts, and less well served by public transport. Before you buy a 
ticket to or from an airport with which you aren't familiar, check out how 
easy it will be, and how much time and money it will take, to get between 
the airport and the place you really want to go. If you're a foreign 
tourist without a car, it may be worth paying considerably more to fly 
into La Guardia Airport in New York City rather than MacArthur Airport in 
Islip, Long Island, or Heathrow Airport on the London Underground (subway 
train) rather than suburban/exurban Luton Airport. Transportation to and 
from secondary airports can be especially poor late at night. Find out 
what time the bus or train stops running, and how frequently it runs, not 
just whether it exists.

There's more information advice on "low-fare" airlines throughout the 
updated chapter on air transportation in the 4th edition of "The Practical 
Nomad: How to Travel Around the World" (2007).

Bon voyage!


----------------
Edward Hasbrouck
<edward at hasbrouck.org>
<http://hasbrouck.org>
+1-415-824-0214

"The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World"
(4th edition 2007)
"The Practical Nomad Guide to the Online Travel Marketplace"
<http://www.practicalnomad.com>

Around-the-World and multi-stop international air tickets:
<http://hasbrouck.org/tickets/>