Travel News I Don't Understand

In the last week, I've heard three pieces of travel-industry news that I don't quite understand. In no particular order:

1. Mo' Money, Mo' Problems: Delta and JetBlue are fighting against a new Department of Transportation tarmac rule that goes into effect on April 29 and limits how long an airline can keep passengers in a grounded plane. The airlines are asking for a temporary exemption - though the AP story doesn't specify how long "temporary" might be, and let's be frank, in airline parlance, that might actually mean forever (but I digress...). The airlines argue that with the JFK runway closure, flights will inevitably be backed up and the AP story calculates that a full Boeing 737 could run up a $3.5 million fine at one go, since the airlines will be fined $27,500 per passenger. USA Today reported in December that JetBlue's response to the annoucement was to say f-you to passengers and aggressively cancel flights since seats are prepaid. (According to the article, in 2005 and 2006, JetBlue cancelled about 254 flights a year; after they instituted their own four-hour limit in 2007, that number jumped to 1,223.)

But I digress, again. What's shocking about today's story is that by asking for an exemption, Delta and JetBlue are actively seeking permission from the DOT to keep passengers in a grounded plane for more than three hours. If they get this exemption, that will be okay - which just seems crazy to me, closed runway or no. I mean, isn't this rule going into effect to stop this sort of thing? I get that this is a business and the airlines want to stay in business, but there have been a lot of changes lately (specifically in the area of fee hikes) that have benefitted the airlines and have distinctly harmed the consumer. And it's lame.

2. Mo' Money, Mo' Problems (Part Two): Last Friday, The Guardian reported that the United States plans to charge incoming tourists $10 in order to pay for a marketing campaign promoting travel to the U.S. President Obama signed the 2009 Travel Promotion Act into effect last week; the legislation creates an Office of Travel Promotion within the Commerce Department, in an attempt to bolster U.S. tourism, which has dwindled even though travel numbers around the globe have increased. Now you might argue - as The Guardian does - that charging people even more money (it's $10 on top of visa fees) could actually hurt tourism, and maybe it will. But what bothers me - because let's be frank, I'm an American and I'm already here - is the effect this legislation will have on American travelers who want to go abroad. It means that we pay more, as other countries hike their own fees in retaliation. Which is incredibly annoying, especially as airline prices rise and the value of the dollar falls.

I've experienced retaliatory pricing once, when I was on study abroad in Argentina. My friend and I went to the Brazilian consulate to get a visa for a weekend trip and I remember perfectly how the woman told us, with a gleam in her eye, that a visa was free - except for us. She said that the price of a Brazilian visa was tied to the price of an American visa for Brazilians - and when our price went up, so did theirs. I'm pretty sure we had to pay $50 in 1997 - according to the Consulate website, it's now $130.

3. Aruban Crime and Punishment: AOL News last week published a story on one woman's grassroots campaign to maintain a travel boycott on Aruba until authorities "solve" the Natalee Holloway case. The boycott website doesn't exactly say what it will take to end the boycott and the AOL story is also vague - on the one hand, Michelle Harstad-Simonsen says that she wants justice for Holloway but on the other hand, admits that the case will most likely never be solved. So I guess the boycott goes on forever? Personally, I've always found Aruba to be a little boring but it seems extreme to boycott an entire island for something that was done by a small number people five years ago.

I think what most bothers me is the subtle idea, once again, that foreigners are out to get us and if they're not doing it our way, they're doing it wrong. It's the same thing we saw in the Amanda Knox case (and even in the Schapelle Corby case, though that was Indonesians going after Australians). Certainly the Caribbean has problems - in 2007, the World Bank and United Nations released a report that said the region has the highest violent crime rate in the world - but we still have to respect the way that Aruba chooses to conduct its investigations, while also allowing that no country, including our own, is perfect. I can't imagine the reaction if another country tried to butt into our internal affairs - hell hath no fury like an America scorned.

In an undated brochure released by Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi to combat inaccurate information on this very subject, he (or his rep) writes, "From the start, Aruban law enforcement officials have carried out a highly professional, extensive, and intensive effort to find Ms. Holloway. Aruban police began and continue to consult with both the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Dutch police experts. Aruba’s Plenipotentiary Minister to the U.S., Henry Baarh, has addressed the issue with all 50 U.S. governors by letter and will continue to remain in contact in order to keep U.S. government officials informed. We are asking them to respect our highly professional police investigative process just as we respect their right to investigate their own situations." If you care to read it, the brochure also lists numerous ways police and locals alike tried to solve the case.

Again, I just don't understand the point of boycotting Aruba. I am not much of a cynic and I have no doubt that Aruba would solve this case and charge someone with a crime if they could. The fact of the matter is that there's a significant lack of evidence in this case because they were never able to find her. And that is a fact, whatever else you believe, and not a distortion of fact.