COMING AND GOING
The Plane Truth

Sunday, October 14, 2007

UPRIGHT AND LOCKED
The Plane Truth

Would an airline lie about the cause of a flight delay to avoid compensating passengers? There is a clear incentive to lie: Airlines owe you nothing if a delay is due to weather or other factors outside their control, but most promise in their contracts of carriage to provide meals and a hotel during a long delay if the fault is theirs.

When Delta canceled a recent flight and blamed weather, Frank Pimentel of Herndon was suspicious. The details: He was scheduled to fly from Atlanta to Wichita at 9:20 p.m. Just before then a storm hit Atlanta, but it quickly passed. He waited around for five hours, and at 2 a.m. his flight was canceled.

Pimentel went to a flight-tracking Web site, http://www.flightaware.com, and found that 291 flights had departed Atlanta between 9:20 p.m. and 2 a.m. So maybe the bad weather was in Wichita? No, Pimentel says: Eight flights landed in Wichita that night after 10 p.m., including one from Atlanta.

His guess: Delta canceled the flight because the intended crew members had "timed out," meaning that if they'd flown to Wichita after the short weather delay, they would have worked too many hours.

In fact, Pimentel's flight was canceled because his plane never made it to Atlanta that night , said Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott. While en route to Atlanta, she said, the plane was diverted because of weather. Besides, if Pimentel's guess about the crew had been correct, she said, that still would have been a weather event .

"Weather doesn't always mean the weather where you are or the weather where you're going," Elliott said. " Any disruption anywhere can cause a ripple effect ."

Bottom line: If the first ripple on any airline is caused by weather, open your wallet, because meals and hotel are on you.

ROOM KEYS
Not His Kind of Fantasy

The Web site of the Fantasy Island resort on Roatan, Honduras, promises "the ultimate of guest comfort and luxury." But Dana Krupa of Springfield arrived to find that his room's air conditioning wasn't working , wires were dangling from the spot where the ceiling fan should have been and the locks on his door and window didn't work .

He was offered another room, but when he locked the sliding-glass door and then gave it a tug, the lock, still attached to the door, broke away from the wall attachment.

He stayed in the third room offered, although the cable TV wasn't working and a big spider dashed through the bathroom. He was also surprised to find that the all-inclusive resort charged for beer and soda . The fact that Hurricane Felix forced guests to flee after two nights made Krupa's fantasy vacation that much more nightmarish.

Rick Durmon, manager of Fantasy Island Travel Services, hinted that Krupa's expectations had been too high. "Do you know what guests paid that week? For seven nights, three meals a day and scuba diving: $609 ." (As a single occupant, Krupa paid $970.)

CoGo turned to Trip Advisor.com for insight. Some of the 103 reviews of the resort have positive things to say, but even most of those generally conclude that it was great "for the money." Others said they'd never return. The range of expectations is clear: Some visitors were enthusiastic about the monkeys on the property, for example, while others complained about monkey poop on the grounds.

CoGo's advice: If you're considering an unfamiliar property, especially a budget one, don't book until you've checked a hotel review site such as Trip Advisor or travel.yahoo.com. If headed to the Caribbean, try http://www.debbiescaribbean.com.

TRAVEL TICKER

The Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, N.C. , will be one of the two greenest hotels in America when it opens Nov. 9. Proximity ( http://www.proximityhotel.com, 336-379-8200) heats water with 100 solar panels, has a roof covered with vegetation, will recycle 75 percent of construction waste and will use about half the energy of other hotels of similar size. It expects to meet the gold certification standard from Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, an environmental group that sets green building standards and operates a rating system. Starting rates through Jan. 13: $119 weekends. One other U.S. hotel is so green it's gold: Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa ( http://www.gaianapavalleyhotel.com, 888-798-3777). . . . A new Southwest Airlines service allows cruise passengers leaving a ship at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to check their bags at the port and have them delivered and checked on Southwest flights out of Fort Lauderdale. Cost: $20 for up to three bags. Details: 800-435-9792. . . . The outdoor ice rink at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan opened last week despite the warm weather.

BARGAIN OF THE WEEK

South African Airways is offering sale fares to cities in South Africa. Round-trip fare from Washington Dulles to Johannesburg, for example, is $874, including $72 taxes; fare on other airlines starts at about $1,350. Similar sale fares to Cape Town and Durban are also available. Travel Nov. 1-Dec. 12; some blackout dates apply. Book by Oct. 21. Info: 800-722-9675, www.flysaa.com.

Reporting: Cindy Loose

Help feed CoGo. Send travel news, road reports and juicy tattles to cogo@washpost.com. By mail: CoGo, Washington Post Travel Section, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.