Flying in style; Air of luxury at Midwest Express; Bon appetit; Midwest's cities
Feb. 28, 1990
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33,000 FEET OVER PENNSYLVANIA - There's no mistaking the aroma filling the cabin of Midwest Express Flight 415 on this Friday afternoon. It's the smell of freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies.
Talk about being spoiled. The passengers aboard this 90-minute flight from Milwaukee to Washington, D.C., have just finished lunch - half a Maine lobster, salad, shrimp, cucumber slices, a roll and an attractively carved stuffed tomato - served on china. Linen napkins on laps, passengers sipped glasses of red or white Bordeaux wine - complimentary, as always, on Midwest Express.
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Stretching the budgets; Low-price hotels add amenities as competition grows; The cheap sleep market segmented
June 5, 1990
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Breakfast has become a big deal at budget hotels.
It started years ago with free cups of coffee. Next came doughnuts. Then Hampton Inns began serving free breakfast buffets in the lobby featuring cold cereals, fruit juices, toast, pastries - even fresh fruit and bagels at some. Budgetel Inns this year fired the latest salvo: free juice, roll and coffee delivered to your room.
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Gridlock in the sky; Airlines flock to the skies of California
Aug. 20, 1990
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SAN FRANCISCO - This summer's hottest sequel isn't playing at your local movie theater. Fare wars II is happening in the skies over California. For the second consecutive year, a dogfight has broken out on the busy San Francisco-Los Angeles air route as an unprecedented number of airlines slug it out in the USA's most competitive air corridor.
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Shrinking airlines, higher fares; Consumers face brunt of shakeout
Oct. 26, 1990
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High-priced jet fuel and a sick economy are propelling airlines into a shakeout.
The USA's strongest airlines will wind up stronger and the weak ones weaker - if they survive at all, industry watchers say. "There's about to be an enormous wave of consolidation," says Lawrence Cunningham, a visiting professor of transportation and marketing at Duke University. "Two or three (major) airlines might disappear."
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Hotels set out to dazzle guests with niceties
Jan. 11, 1991
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The USA's major hotel chains are racing to pamper business guests.
Burdened with too many rooms after overbuilding in the '80s and frustrated by the drop in travel due to the recession, everyone is scrambling to one-up the competition.
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To fly or not to fly; Many people are afraid to fly, and that could cost them their jobs; Sky anxiety grounds fearful fliers
March 25, 1991
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Donna Laird's favorite place in the world is London. But the Louisiana sales director for a national travel firm hasn't flown there in years. These days, she hasn't flown anywhere much - and that has almost cost Laird her job.
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Foreign travel's new era; Pan Am flies out of Heathrow; United flies in; Better service expected as result of pact
Apr. 4, 1991
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35,000 FEET OVER THE ATLANTIC - Pan Am Flight 2 was roaring toward London - bound for Pan Am's final landing at Heathrow Airport Wednesday morning - but passenger E.M. "Bump" Hanley didn't feel sentimental.
The United Airlines captain was hitching a ride to London and was busy thinking about piloting United's maiden flight out of Heathrow today. "Just wait till this flight tomorrow night," Hanley boasted to a passenger. "It's going to be superb. We'll show them how to do it."
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Checking in on air travel; Bonus plans: 10 years old and booming
Apr. 29, 1991
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Wayne Matthews of Safety Harbor, Fla., knows how to treat his family like royalty.
Last year, he flew his parents to nine European countries and Hawaii. In June, the marketing consultant plans to send his sister to London. Later this year, he will escort his 13-year-old daughter to either London or Paris.
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Pleasures of business class; Pampering and legroom - for a price
Feb. 20, 1992
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37,000 FEET OVER JOLIET, Ill. - Ninety minutes from New York, I lean back in my sheepskin and leather seat, raise a glass of red wine and wonder when the fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies will arrive.
The coach section I flew in yesterday is only a few feet behind me, but it seems a world away.
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Hotels rebuild their hopes; Worst may be over for industry
March 5, 1992
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For Houston's Radisson Suites hotel, it has been a tough road back.
Originally called the Luxeford Suites, the 190-suite hotel opened in 1985 - just as the city's oil-based economy slumped. In a market already glutted with new hotels, the Luxeford quickly sank in a sea of debt. The lender, a defunct savings and loan, foreclosed. By last year, the hotel - shabby, dirty and nearly empty - was in the hands of the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency cleaning up the S&&L mess.
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The great airfare gamble; Airlines bet their fares on survival
June 15, 1992
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If clever airfares were poker hands, Grown-ups Fly Free seemed unbeatable to Northwest Airlines executives on May 26.
Until the next day, when American Airlines laid down a royal flush, unleashing a half-price fare war that left Northwest's hand no more potent than a pair of deuces.
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Airfare suit settled; fliers to benefit
June 23, 1992
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Millions of fliers will get discounted airfares under a proposed settlement with four of the USA's biggest airlines.
American, United, Delta and USAir agreed Monday to pay $412.5 million to settle the class-action lawsuit, which accused most of the USA's major airlines of price-fixing.
