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Worst domestic and international airports for business travelers

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

delay screenLow fares business class specialist Lets Fly Cheaper (LFC) has compiled its first “world’s worst airports” list of international and domestic airports with the worst records for delayed flights.

LFC culled through several sources to ultimately come up with its own criteria and list of worst performing airports.

“There are tons of year-end worst airports lists out there. Some are based on overall satisfaction, while others focus on details like how easy it is to sleep in the airport,” said Ramon Van Meer, Lets Fly Cheaper marketing director. “We wanted our list to be relevant to our customers, who travel primarily for business, and to our company, which specializes in getting customers the best travel deal, right here, right now.”

“Business travelers live in the moment,” said Van Meer. “They care about making their flight connections today, not whether they could have made them 11 months ago. Their #1 concern is getting to their next big deal on time. Period.

That’s why LFC has shortened our time horizon from all year to the past month and focused exclusively on delays, not airport amenities. Our data is based on December 2011 statistics only. This gives us the flexibility to publish new results monthly, if customers find our list useful.”

Lets Fly Cheaper’s 10 worst airports based on delayed departures:

International Airports:
5. Pu Dong, Shanghai
4. Madrid-Barajas, Madrid
3. Charles De Gaulle, Paris
2. Changi, Singapore
1. Capital International, Beijing

Domestic Airports: 
5. George Bush Intercontinental, Houston
4. Denver International, Denver
3. Hartsfield-Jackson, Atlanta
2. O’Hare, Chicago
1. Dallas/Ft. Worth International

Not surprisingly, all “winners” are among the world’s busiest airports. LFC’s international list includes three Asian-Pacific entries and two European entries. Charles De Gaulle is one that appears consistently on almost every “worst” compilation across the board.

Yet it only clocks in midway down the LFC list. The “top” honor for most delayed flights – by a margin of almost 2:1 is Beijing, with a whopping 12,864 delayed flights for December.

Domestically, the “usual suspects” that seem to always top other worst lists (Miami, JFK) are notably absent from LFC’s picks for delayed flights. LFC’s list includes two Texas airports, plus three that come as no surprise, given the volume of air traffic they handle.

WORST INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS:

5. Pu Dong Airport (PVG), Shanghai
Number of Delayed Flights: 5,175
Shanghai Pudong International Airport (sometimes noted as Pu Dong) is the world’s 20th busiest airport and China’s third busiest, hosting over 40 million passengers annually. The airport is a hub for both Shanghai Airlines and China Eastern Airlines.

4. Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD), Madrid
Number of Delayed Flights: 5,448
Madrid-Barajas Airport is an international bridge connecting Europe with Central and South America. The airport serves Spanish carriers, members of Star Alliance and Skyteam Iberia Airlines, as well as international carriers.

3. Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG), Paris
Number of Delayed Flights: 6,731
Charles de Gaulle Airport is Europe’s second busiest airport (after London’s Heathrow). The airport serves international travelers, Air France and other European airlines.

2. Changi Airport, (SIN), Singapore
Number of Delayed Flights: 7,428
Changi Airport in Singapore is the world’s 17th busiest airport serving 100 international airlines to more than 60 countries. The airport handles over 19 million passengers every year. Changi has received the “World’s Best Airport” award from Ultratravel Magazine the last four years.

1. Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), Beijing
Number of Delayed Flights: 12,864
Beijing Capital International Airport is the busiest airport in Asia and the second busiest in the world. The airport hosts over 73 million passengers annually with 70+ airlines flying to more than 200 cities worldwide.

WORST DOMESTIC AIRPORTS:

5. George Bush Intercontinental (IAH), Houston
Number of Delayed Flights: 4,919
George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston is the eighth busiest airport in the United States and #3 for non-stop domestic and international service. It is also provides service to 30 destinations in Mexico.

4. Denver International (DEN), Denver
Number of Delayed Flights: 5,300
Denver International Airport is the fifth busiest airport the United States and 11th busiest in the world. Denver Airport opened in 1995 and in less than 20 years has become a major transportation hub, handling some 50 million passengers annually.

3. Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL), Atlanta
Number of Delayed Flights: 5,472
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world’s busiest, serving 90 million domestic and international passengers. The airport has spent the last decade making major improvements. The Air Transport Research Society named Atlanta the world’s most efficient airport in 2011. [Note: Considering the tremendous volume it processes, we’d say Atlanta is doing pretty darned well with “only” 5,472 delays for the month!]

2. Chicago O’Hare International (ORD), Chicago
Number of Delayed Flights: 6,817
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is well known as the second busiest airport in the states. It’s also the world’s fourth busiest. O’Hare is the major hub for United/Continental Airlines. The vast airport has four terminals, with three serving both domestic and international flights and one serving international flights only.

1. Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW), Dallas
Number of Delayed Flights: 7,231
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is the fourth busiest airport in the US and eighth busiest in the world. The airport has five terminals with two dedicated exclusively to serving American Airlines passengers.

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Posted in Business advice, Business Briefs, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off

Small businesses hiring, boosting pay, anticipate rebound

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

InsperityHOUSTON – Small business owners are hiring more workers and boosting compensation in anticipation of increased business in 2011, according to the most recent Business Confidence Survey released today by Insperity (NYSE:NSP), a  provider of human resources and business solutions. While 23 percent believe that an economic rebound is currently under way, 40 percent expect it to occur in the last half of 2011 or later and 35 percent remain unsure.

While business owner sentiment as gauged by the survey indicated an increasing willingness to be more aggressive in coming months, Insperity internal data suggests that these same entrepreneurs are still taking a more conservative approach to employment-related business decisions.

Compensation metrics from Insperity’s base of more than 5,700 small and medium-sized businesses indicated that compared to last fall, average commissions paid to sales staff  were down to 5.4 percent versus 8.8 percent last November.

In the survey conducted April 19-21, when asked how they are managing the number of company employees, 37 percent of respondents said they are adding new positions, up from 24 percent previously; 57 percent stated that they are maintaining current staffing levels, down from 67 percent; and only 6 percent are laying off employees.

Starting to move in the right direction

“Small and medium-sized businesses are taking steps consistent with a slow-growth economy, while finding ways to convert obstacles into opportunities. We’re starting to move in the right direction, led by the flexibility and adaptability of this vital segment of the business community,” said Paul J. Sarvadi, Insperity’s chairman and chief executive officer.

The economy was again listed as the leading short-term concern by 68 percent of business owners, but down from 77 percent in November; followed by 46 percent specifying rising health care costs versus 54 percent previously; 45 percent citing government health care reform; and 36 percent listing controlling operating costs.

For longer-term concerns, 73 percent said they were either very concerned or had elevated concerns about the federal deficit and the total national debt; 61 percent designated the economy; 60 percent listed potential tax increases; and 59 percent cited government expansion and its effect on business.

When asked about their pipelines for new business for the remainder of 2011, 53 percent of survey respondents said that they expect sales to rise versus 38 percent last fall, representing a significant increase; 31 percent predicted it will stay the same; 8 percent anticipated decreasing sales and 7 percent were unsure.

In addition, 76 percent of owners and managers of small and medium-sized businesses said that they are either meeting or exceeding their 2011 performance plans, up from 67 percent in the last survey; while the remaining 24 percent reported that they are doing worse than expected.

Increased service is leading strategy

The survey also found that 54 percent of participants expected to maintain employee compensation at current levels throughout 2011; 31 percent planned increases – up from 26 percent in the last survey; 3 percent expected decreases and 13 percent were unsure.

Concerning their current profit-generating activities, 72 percent named increased levels of service to clients as the leading strategy.

This was closely followed by 69 percent who expected to sell new accounts; 41 percent who said they were adding new services or products; 30 percent of survey respondents listed negotiating with vendors; and 27 percent named investing in new improvements.

 

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Many miss big web design opportunity

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

By Allan Maurer

Kelley McDonaldMCLEAN, VA – If you spend much of your time, effort and money working on your web site’s landing page, you’re probably missing a major opportunity to capture more attention from your visitors. So says Kelley McDonald, director of Information Architecture with Navigation Arts, a McLean, VA-based web design and development company.

“Most traffic goes to content pages within your site,” McDonald tells us. “Only 15 percent goes to the landing page.” Nevertheless, it can be difficult to get clients to listen when he tells them that, McDonald admits.

“Three quarters of the doors through which people come into your site are content pages. You’re missing a big opportunity by not thinking about how to serve people where they are actually landing,” he says. “Think of Google as your homepage. People experience you through your content pages and they don’t march through your site as if they’re in a house.”

If our own analytics are any guide, McDonald is right on with his. Half our traffic comes from search engines and almost all goes to content pages rather than our landing page.

Design from the inside out

How do you take advantage of knowing people arrive at content pages rather than a landing page?

“Design from the inside out,” says McDonald. “Ask yourself how you can build on the question that brought them to the content? It’s important to have highly relevant links to other content that builds on the user’s question.”

That doesn’t mean services that automatically provide links to somewhat relevant content, he adds.

He also recommends avoiding “happy talk.” It’s all the “Hi, welcome to our site, we’re here to server your needs,” type of copy so prevalent on business sites. “It’s a highly ignorable block of text that people quickly gloss over,” says McDonald.

More technically, he also suggests separating content from its display, creating relationships between objects and systematically relating pages.

It’s not magic

There will always be a large percentage of users who come to a site for one item and leave, he notes. “We don’t think you’ll ever catch more than 35 percent (to click on other content).” But the idea is to “Move the dial closer to what you want.”

“The key thing is relevancy. It’s more about the content than technique.” Eye-tracking studies show where people look and where they don’t, but “It all comes down to content people need or want and what’s relevant to them,” McDonald says. “It’s about taking that extra step to connect things. I don’t think it’s magic.”

Treat ads as content

The same concept works regarding advertising on the web, he says. “Advertising online is in many ways a blind spot for people. Studies show people avoid it if it looks the least bit like advertising. Eye-tracking shows them avoiding ad spaces.”

Making ads more relevant and more digital increases the chances that people will engage with the ad,” he points out.

“It’s about personalization and localization,” he adds. “If you can serve up ads related to the user and what his questions are (that brought him to the content), and if  they’re treated and shaped more like content, they work better. If they’re shaped like print ads, no amount of trickery will work.”

“The user experience is the bread and butter of what we do at Navigation Arts,” McDonald says. The 70-employee company includes 19 information architects.

McDonald is one of more than 50 Internet and digital media experts who will converge on Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18 for the first Digital East event.

Diversified DC market good to the company

McDonald tells us the Navigation Arts founders, who ran and sold Bethesda-based Iconics during the dot com boom era, wanted to “Give it another go and focus on quality.”

They filed their company papers the day before Sept. 11, 2001 at the Watergate Hotel, but despite those inauspicious beginnings, established a solid reputation in the Mid Atlantic region, Houston, and upper MidWest.

“The DC market has been good to be in for user experience,” says McDonald. “There are so many different kinds of organizations here. It’s the capital of non-profits, there’s the federal government, telecom startups, and different startups in Northern Virginia.”

That multi-faceted DC economy means that during the downturn, Navigation Arts business “Didn’t skip a beat, we had irons in the fire with so many different buyers, all focused on the user experience.”

Designed city portals

While the company doesn’t pretend to be a large government IT integrator, it does find projects where it can have a big impact, McDonald says. “We look for projects such in e-government, anything that is citizen-facing.”

It’s been working on a major project, not yet live, for the State Department consulates to streamline its processes to make finding information on Visas, passports and fraud much easier and faster, for instance.

It also redesigned the Charlotte Observer’s Charlotte.com site to make it more focused on social media, and a city portal site for Richmond, VA.

“Both have done well and we created each in two months from inception to launch,” McDonald says.

The Navigation Arts site follows the company’s own advice. It is user friendly and offers lots of short videos, including several by McDonald, on improving user experience and other topics.

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Posted in Events, Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, IT, Potomac, Virginia, Washington, DC | 2 Comments »