The fast track into the skies
Business travellers are nowadays all too familiar with the stress and inefficiencies of air travel.
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Heightened security measures following September 11 2001 have created long delays at airports worldwide. US airlines saw more flight delays and reports of mishandled baggage last year than in 2004, as well as a 17 per cent rise in complaints about airline service, according to a report last month from the US Department of Transportation. Travel can be an anxiety-ridden ordeal.
But new services are emerging that, for a price, could ease the hassles of travel: a helicopter shuttle that links John F. Kennedy International Airport and Manhattan; express security lanes through US airports; and a service that brings luggage directly to your destination.
Faster, chopper, higher
The stress of travel often starts before the trip has begun, en route to the airport. But on a ride with US Helicopter, a new service between Manhattan and JFK airport, the commute becomes more of a jaw-dropping than a jaw-clenching experience.
The eight-passenger aircraft takes just eight minutes to cover the distance from city centre to airport - and treats passengers to views of the Statue of Liberty and the spectacular Manhattan skyline.
The short commute costs $159 plus tax (or an introductory rate of $139) through US Helicopter's website at
www.flyush.com.By comparison, a typical executive car service charges $84 (not including tolls, tips or waiting time) for a ride that can take 50 minutes from midtown Manhattan in light traffic. Private helicopter charters to New York airports cost about $500 per person and do not land on the "secure" side of an airport terminal.
US Helicopter's service, which will be launched on March 27, will start with just three eight-passenger helicopters, though it plans to expand to eight by the end of this year and 28 aircraft in five years.
Flights will leave every hour from 7am to 7pm between the downtown Manhattan Heliport, near Wall Street, to JFK.
In April the company plans to begin a service from a heliport on 34th St - and, later in the year, to add flights to New York's other two major airports, LaGuardia and Newark in New Jersey. It estimates that it will shuttle 150,000 passengers to airports this year.
Certified by the US Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, US Helicopter has its own flight path to and from the airport to ensure it sticks to schedule. In the past, the lack of flight path and subsequent delays caused other airport helicopter services to fold.
Passengers must arrive at the heliport with their luggage 25 minutes before departure so that they can be screened by Transportation Security Administration guards. The helicopter lands outside the American Airlines terminal, which is reached after a short walk on the tarmac, and houses the airline's business class lounge.
For travellers flying with American, there is another advantage: they do not have to go through security again at JFK. Those flying on other airlines must exit the American terminal and take buses or the AirTrain monorail to other terminals and then make a second pass through security.
US Helicopter hopes to solve this by forming partnerships with other airlines, particularly those with international flights favoured by business travellers. In the longer term, it plans to expand its services to other US cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Seattle, San Francisco and Miami.
Shortcuts at security
Waiting in long, sluggish queues to get through airport security has become a common experience of air travel after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.
But TSA, an arm of the US Department of Homeland Security, plans to launch the fledgling Registered Traveler Programme in June. Travellers will pay about $80 to speed up the screening process, reducing queuing time to about three minutes.
Participants must go through a background check and submit fingerprints and iris images to be eligible for a card that allows passage through fast-track security queues at a small number of US airports. The company says personal information will be rigorously protected.
For security guards, looking for a safety threat is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Pre-screening a large group of low-risk travellers "removes a lot of the hay from the haystack", saysSteven Brill, founder of Verified Identity Pass, one of the private companies administering the programme. Verified's partners include Lockheed Martin and aviation communications maker ARINC. General Electric also recently announced a $16m (￡9.1m) investment in the company.
Verified has been running a pilot programme at Orlando Airport in Florida since 2004 and in February it cleared 1,000 registered travellers in one day. Participants wait a maximum of three minutes to reach security screening - compared with 31 minutes in a typical queue. However, travellers and their luggage must still go through a metal detector and X-ray machine.
For now, they will still have to endure the inconvenience of removing shoes, coats and laptops from cases, though Verified is working with GE to make a special shoe-screening device.
The programme is far from a panacea for the hassles of security queues - for one thing, it is expected tobegin at just a handful of airports in California (San José and Sacramento) and Indianapolis.
However, about 16,000 people have already registered for Orlando's pilot programme and Mr Brill estimates that as many as 8m people could register for similar initiatives in the next five years.
Lose the baggage
Lugging baby strollers, golf clubs and suitcases to the airport, waiting at baggage claim or cramming a carry-on into a plane's overhead compartment can be exhausting.
Services that pick up your luggage and send it to your destination may relieve some of the stress of hauling cumbersome loads to and from the airport.
Sending luggage via cargo carriers such as FedEx, UPS and DHL is an old trick employed by frequent travellers. But new services that pick up, deliver and return baggage to US and international destinations are now cropping up.
Some of them, such as Luggage Express, Luggage Forward, Luggage Free and Sports Express, send baggage via those same cargo carriers but cut out paperwork and the hassle of weighing, tracking and delivering bags.
Domestic services vary from next-day delivery to two-day delivery with luggage returned between three to five days. Luggage destined for outside the US must be picked up seven to 10 days ahead.
At Luggage Express, next-day, one-way service for golf clubs or a small 35-pound suitcase costs $125; for a large 60-pound suitcase, $185. Two-day, round-trip delivery for a 35-pound suitcase is $165 or $245 for a 60-pound one. Luggage is insured for up to $1,000.
Security concerns about transporting luggage have not dampened the growth of baggage shipment services.
"Carriers like DHL, UPS and FedEx welcome the business from our emerging industry," said Zeke Adkins, co-founder of LuggageForward. The company says bookings were 50 per cent higher in the fourth quarter of 2005 than in the same period in 2004.
Given that airline passengers last year filed 3.5m reports of mishandled luggage on US airlines, according to government statistics, frustrated travellers might well be willing to pay extra to be free of their baggage.
坐直升机去机场
如
今，商务旅客对航空旅行的压力和低效率已经见怪不怪了。
因9/11事件而得到强化的安检措施，已在全球各个机场造成了长时间的旅客延误。美国交通部(US Department of Transportation)上月公布的一份报告称，美国各家航空公司2005年的航班延误情况和行李处理失当报告的数量比2004年更为严重，旅客对航空服务的投诉也增长了17%。航空旅行成了让旅客忧心忡忡的一种折磨。
新的服务由此应运而生：往返于约翰?肯尼迪国际机场(JFK International Airport)和曼哈顿之间的直升机航班、美国机场安检程序的快速通道、以及行李直达目的地的快递服务。旅客们支付一定的代价，即可舒缓航空旅行带给他们的烦扰。
更快、更高、直升机
旅行的压力往往在旅途开始之前――在通往机场的路上――就已经开始了。但美国直升机公司(US Helicopter)最新推出的往返曼哈顿与肯尼迪机场的直升机航线，将这种原本令人紧张的经历，变成令人叹为观止的新体验。
这种可乘坐8名乘客的直升机从市中心飞到机场只需要8分钟。途中，直升机还可以带旅客俯瞰自由女神像(Statue of Liberty)和壮观的曼哈顿风景。
通过美国直升机公司网站(
www.flyush.com)预定这种短程通勤服务，花费是159美元（加税），促销推广期的收费是139美元。
相比之下，典型的商务租车服务收费为84美元（不包括道路通行费、小费和等候的时间），从市中心到机场需要50分钟。私人租用直升机到纽约几个机场的花费约为每人500美元，并且还不在机场航站楼的“安全”一侧着陆。
美国直升机公司将于3月27日推出这项服务，初期投入3架8座直升机。该公司计划在今年底之前将直升机数量增至8架，5年内增加到28架。
从早上7点到晚上7点，每个小时都有航班从纽约下城区靠近华尔街的曼哈顿直升机场(Manhattan Heliport)飞往肯尼迪机场。
该公司计划于4月份开始启用位于纽约34街的一个直升机场，并在今年晚些时候开通纽约另外两个主要机场的接送服务，即纽约的拉瓜迪亚机场(LaGuardia)和新泽西的纽瓦克国际机场(Newark)。该公司估计今年将运送15万乘客。
该公司已经得到美国交通部和美国联邦航空管理局(FAA)的批准，拥有了往返于机场的专用航线，以确保运营准时。过去，因没有专用航线，并由此引发行程延误，其它公司提供的直升机机场接送服务被迫停运。
乘客必须在起飞前25分钟携行李到达直升机场，接受美国运输安全管理局(Transportation Security Administration)安检人员的检查。直升机将在美国航空公司(American Airlines)航站楼外的停机坪降落，乘客经短距离步行便可到达美国航空公司的商务舱旅客休息室。
对于美国航空公司的乘客，他们还可以享受另一项便利：在肯尼迪机场，他们无需再次接受安检。而乘坐其它航空公司航班的旅客则必须离开美国航空公司的航站楼，乘坐汽车或者AirTrain单轨列车去往其它航站楼，并再次接受安检。
为解决这一问题，美国直升机公司拟与其它航空公司结成伙伴，尤其是那些开辟有商务旅客偏爱的国际航线的航空公司。同时，该公司还计划在未来将其服务扩展至美国其它城市，如洛杉矶、芝加哥、华盛顿、西雅图、旧金山和迈阿密。
安检捷径
在9/11恐怖袭击之后，为通过机场安检而在缓慢移动的长队中等待，已成为旅客们乘飞机出行的共同经历。
美国运输安全管理局计划在今年6月推出 “旅客登记计划”(Registered Traveler Program)。旅客支付80美元，即可加速安检过程，将排队等候时间减至3分钟。美国运输安全管理局是美国国土安全部(Department of Homeland Security)的下属部门。
参加这一计划的旅客必须进行身份背景检查，提交指纹和虹膜图像，经过审查后发给一张卡，然后凭此通过美国少数机场的安检快速通道。美国运输安全管理局表示，个人信息将受到严密保护。
对于安检人员来说，寻找一个安全威胁就像大海捞针一样。Verified Identity Pass创始人史蒂文?布利尔(Steven Brill)表示，对大量低风险旅客进行的预审，缩小了检查范围。该公司是执行这一计划的私营公司之一，其合作方包括洛克希德?马丁公司(Lockheed Martin)和航空通信器材生产商美国航空无线电通信公司(ARINC)。通用电气(General Electric)最近也宣布向该公司投资1600万美元。
自2004年起，Verified Identity Pass一直在佛罗里达州奥兰多机场(Orlando Airport)试行这一计划。今年2月份，该公司每天处理1000名已登记旅客。旅客等候进行安检的时间不超过3分钟，通常排队则需要31分钟。
然而，旅客及随身行李仍必须经过金属探测器和X光仪器的检查。
现在，旅客们仍然不得不脱鞋、脱外套并把笔记本电脑从行李箱中取出接受检查。不过，Verified Identity Pass正与通用电气合作，生产一种特殊的鞋扫描仪。
该项计划远远不能完全消除安检时排长队的烦恼。原因之一是，预计这项计划仅会在加州（圣何塞机场和萨克拉门托机场）和印第安纳波利斯的少数机场中开始施行。
然而，约1.6万人已经在奥兰多机场的试行计划中进行了登记。布利尔估计，未来5年，最多可能会有800万人在类似的计划中参加登记。
甩掉行李
拖着婴儿车、高尔夫球包和行李箱来到机场，在行李领取处等候领取行李，或者把随身携带的行李塞到机舱头顶上的行李架内，这样的事情可能令人筋疲力尽。
上门接运行李并将其送到目的地的服务，可能会减轻一些携带笨重行李往返机场的负担。
通过联邦快递(FedEx) 、联合包裹(UPS) 和敦豪速递(DHL)等货运公司运送行李，是经常出门的旅客使用的老方法。但一种新的服务正在迅速兴起，他们上门接运行李，交付行李，然后将你的行李送回美国及海外目的地。
Luggage Express、Luggage Forward、Luggage Free和Sports Express等公司同样借助联邦快递等货运公司托运行李，但无需填单，并且省却了称重、追踪和托运行李的麻烦。
境内服务有次日投递和两日投递的区别，行李交付时间从3天至5天不等。行李托运目的地若在美国境外，则必须提前7至10日上门接运行李。
在Luggage Express，高尔夫球包或35磅小型行李箱次日、单程的价格为125美元，60磅大行李箱为185美元。35磅行李箱两日、往返的价格为165美元，60磅行李箱为245美元。行李保险金额为最多1000美元。
有关托运行李的安全忧虑，并未抑制行李运输服务的增长。
Luggage Forward联合创始人齐克?阿德金斯(Zeke Adkins)表示：“敦豪速递、联合包裹和联邦快递等承运商对来自我们这一新兴行业的业务表示欢迎。”该公司表示，2005年第四季度的订单比2004年同期增长了50%。
政府统计数据显示，去年，航空旅客提交了350万份有关美国各家航空公司行李处理失当的报告。因此，失望的旅客们为了不再为自己的行李操心，很可能愿意另外付费。
