online explosion
Are you booking most of your trips online now? According to a study by PhoCusWright Inc., the online travel industry is booming. While sales of all travel services are growing by about 2 to 3 percent a year, PhoCusWright said, online sales are showing annual increases of more than 30 percent. In 2002, about 15 percent of all leisure and "unmanaged" business travel was booked through the Internet, the company said; in 2003, it was 20 percent (or a total of $39.4 billion) and by 2006 it will reach 33 percent, the company is predicting. About half of online bookings in 2003 went to big travel agency sites, while half were booked directly with suppliers' Web sites, the company said.

low-fare revolution
While the major airlines keep going back to their employees for more cost reductions, the low-fare airlines keep growing and modernizing. Among recent developments: (1) JetBlue Airways said it plans to exercise options to acquire another 30 Airbus A320s, giving it firm orders for 123 new planes—to be delivered at a rate of up to 17 a year for the next eight years; (2) AirTran Airways recently took delivery of its first new 737, the aircraft that will eventually replace its existing fleet of Boeing 717s; AirTran has ordered 100 new 737-700s; (3) Spirit Airlines, flush with capital from new investors, will receive its first four new Airbus A321s in November; it has ordered 35 of them, with options for 50 more, to replace its MD-80 fleet.

airport expansion
The Federal Aviation Administration has identified a number of airports that must add more runways and passenger facilities if they hope to meet an expected growth in demand. Five major airports are already in desperate need of additional capacity, FAA said: Atlanta Hartsfield, Newark, New York LaGuardia, Chicago O'Hare and Philadelphia. In fact, Atlanta could probably use a second airport to serve as a reliever facility, the agency said. In addition to those airports, others that will need to expand by 2013 include Oakland, Burbank, Long Beach and Orange County in California; Tucson, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Houston Hobby, Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood.

new bag tags
Delta is the first major airline to move ahead with a new checked-baggage tracking system using technology that has been around for many years in other businesses. Delta said it will spend up to $25 million in the next couple of years to deploy radio frequency identification (RFID) baggage technology throughout its system. It's already in place at Delta's Atlanta and Cincinnati hubs. With RFID, new baggage tags send signals to wireless tracking devices, making sure checked luggage gets on the correct flight—and if it doesn't, making it much easier to find out where it is in the airline's system. Delta said use of RFID at Atlanta has dramatically improved its lost-luggage record there.