wifi expansion Both Hertz and Avis are bringing high-speed wireless Internet access to a number of airport locations in the first quarter of 2005. Hertz (www.hertz.com) said it is teaming up with Wayport to offer the latter's WiFi service in its rental facilities and its #1 Club Gold rental areas at more than 50 major airport locations in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania. Avis (www.avis.com) said it will provide SBC Communications' FreedomLink WiFi service at 88 of its airport locations nationwide as an added amenity for its Avis business centers. In both cases, subscribers to the respective wireless services can access the Internet for free, and non-subscribers can do so for a small daily fee.
front-cabin fares Cheapflights.com (www.cheapflights.com) is an air fare "aggregator" (i.e., it searches for the lowest fare on a variety of different Web sites, and then directs you to the chosen site for final booking) that started up in the U.K. and entered the U.S. market in 2003. Recently, Cheapflights added the ability to search exclusively for deals on first class and business class fares; and it looks not only on major airline and leading online travel sites, but also on the sites of smaller companies that specialize in front-cabin deals, like Access Fares and Airfare Planet, as well as the sites of low-cost airlines that offer business class, such as Spirit and AirTran.
per diem data Business travelers whose expenses are tied to federal government per-diem rates can see the new 2005 levels at the General Services Administration Web site (www.gsa.gov/perdiem). The GSA has increased permissible 2005 daily spending levels for a number of cities. For example, the government per diems now permit government (and government contractor) travelers to spend $113 a night for a hotel room in Atlanta, up from $93 under the earlier guidelines. Permissible hotel spending rose from $99 to $105 for Minneapolis/St. Paul, from $90 to $112 for Denver and from $61 to $98 for Orlando.
sst revival Now that the Concorde's gone, what can the time-stressed traveler do? A company called Supersonic Aerospace International has teamed up with aircraft designers at Lockheed Martin to develop a new business jet (12 passengers) that flies at 1.6 to 1.8 times the speed of sound. Unlike the Concorde, this new jet—which looks a lot like a small Concorde—will be a lot quieter, and will suppress the sonic booms that limited Concorde to over-water routings at supersonic speeds. You can track the progress of this ambitious effort at www.saiproject.com.
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