Falling air travel means bankrupt airlines

Plummeting jet fuel prices caused by the sharp decrease in the price of oil won't help the troubled airline industry. Passenger traffic was down 10.6% in November. We're also not talking about a nice (relatively) Chapter 11 bankruptcy that allows an airline to reorganize. Oh no, these are the Chapter 7s, liquidation.

Now, with both business and leisure travel in North America expected to fall as much as 15% this year, the industry may face another round of bankruptcies. Unlike the last spate of failures in the mid-2000s, not every airline may survive. In previous downturns, carriers often used Chapter 11 as a reset button that let them emerge from bankruptcy even stronger by shedding debt and other obligations, such as pensions. To play it safe, big carriers such as American Airlines and US Airways have raised fresh cash. But many airlines have hocked most of their assets, leaving them little to borrow against. "At this point, bankruptcy is liquidation," says Roger E. King, an airline analyst at institutional research firm CreditSights.

The 15% fall in North American passenger traffic squares with some numbers I found in a previous post (decrease to 240 million from 299 million passengers on American carries). That stories referenced from that post said ticket prices would rise. But this more recent article says that carriers are slashing fares to fill empty seats, but doesn't mention what's happening with capacity. Anecdotally, I haven't seen massive fare decreases.

The BusinessWeek article says Air Canada and US Airways are the two big airlines that are in danger of going under. From my reading, it seems that Air Canada's problems are due to the financial engineering of the hedge funds that bought it during its last bankruptcy.

Resources for renting vacation homes

Renting a vacation home is cheaper than paying for multiple nights at hotel rooms. How can you be sure that you're renting a nice home though? There are many online resources that can help.

Homeaway Inc., the world's largest vacation rental booking company by the number of properties listed, is moving to increase reliable user reviews on its Web sites, so potential renters can have more confidence in their choices. Tripadvisor, a unit of Expedia Inc. that is the market leader in hotel user reviews, plans to add vacation-rental reviews to its site by the end of the year.

Other companies are trying to make the experience of renting a home more like staying in a hotel. Last month, three rental booking companies -- Mountain Reservations, Rooster.com and Mexican Destinations -- joined their inventory and launched the booking Web site VacationRoost.com. The site says customers will get "hotel-like amenities" such as check-in, cleaning services, 24/7 service and maintenance, and the ability to book a rental with a credit card. Late last year, Group RCI, a vacation-rental and time-share-swapping company owned by Wyndham Worldwide, entered the U.S. market with Endless Vacation Rentals. The company says it offers 24-hour help over the telephone, full refunds on canceled reservations, and free over-the-phone concierge service in multiple languages.

The big 3 travel sites (Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz) are bumping up their activity in the vacation rental space, with Travelocity increasing its condo, B&B and vacation rental inventory by 5 times in the last 2 years.

Solving the bogus vacation property review problem

Being able to trust a review of a vacation property is a problem, right? A small company called FlipKey (which was recently purchased by TripAdvisor) has come up with what I think is a cool a solution. Only solicit and accept reviews from people who have stayed at the property.

Flipkey Chief Executive T.J. Mahony says that only people who have stayed at a property can comment (unlike with hotel reviews on TripAdvisor) because reviews are solicited by an email using booking records. "One of our mantras," to property managers, "are negative reviews are a good thing," because it creates trust with travelers, Mr. Mahony says.

I poked around the site a bit, but couldn't find any places that I have actually stayed to do a comparison, but your mileage may vary.

Vacation (and home) spots threatened by global warming

SmartMoney has a story on six vacation spots threatened by global warming. The one on the list I want to visit one day is Mount Kilimanjaro. However:

If you want to see the storied snowy peak, you had better go before it melts. Since 1912, 82% of the ice fields have disappeared. And they could all be gone between 2015 and 2020 if the ice continues to recede at its current pace, according to Lonnie Thompson, professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University.

It is the highest peak in Africa. It is one of the Seven Summits, and I believe it's the only one that doesn't require technical climbing to scale, meaning you can hike up it.

There other critical sites in SmartMoney's list, like the Maldives, which isn't just a vacation destination. These islands are being threatened with going underwater, which would displace tens of thousands of people.

Starwood and Delta offer

I received a postcard for a double miles offer from Starwood and Delta. I can earn double airlines on every eligible stay at a Starwoods hotel between June 1 and August 31, 2008. Registration at spg.com/promo closes July 15, 2008.

Avoid fluctuating exchange rates

A new card product can lock in exchange rates, taking away some risk in a falling dollar environment.

Launched earlier this month by Travelex, a London-based foreign exchange company, the Cash Passport allows prospective travelers to lock in exchange rates for euros or pounds before crossing the Atlantic. The prepaid foreign currency card functions like a debit or credit card and works at ATMs and retailers all over the world. (The card itself is issued by MasterCard).

In addition to locking in an exchange rate, use of the card incurs no currency conversion fees. The card costs $9.95, and there are fees for making an ATM withdrawal with the card. There's also the risk that the dollar will rise (U.S. travelers keep wishing for this), which will make the foreign currency account to which the card is tied less valuable.

Rent a vacation home instead of a hotel room

Can you save over $150 a night by renting a vacation home instead of staying in a hotel room? Probably only in rare circumstances, but you may be able to save a considerable amount.

One way of getting more for your money: hit the Internet to find a vacation rental instead of a hotel room, gaining space and possibly saving a couple of bucks. Today, vacationers can connect directly with second-home owners online.

Having access to a kitchen allows travelers to cook some of their own meals. Also, renters often aren't paying someone to clean up after them as they would at a hotel.

Often, the cost per square foot will be cheaper at a rental than at a hotel. But in some markets, even the larger accommodations will cost you less, says Bob Barnes, chief executive of Salt Lake City-based Zonder.com, a vacation-rental Web site.

"It happens in the Orlando market, it happens in some ski destinations," he says. Renting a condo or privately owned apartment can also be less costly than a hotel room in some urban markets, including Chicago and New York, he adds.

Besides Zonder, the story mentions VRBO.com and CyberRentals.com, and of course good old craigslist.org.

I've had relatives stay in an apartment when visiting us instead of a hotel room, and they saved a bundle on a week and a half stay at Christmastime. There was no maid service, but they had a full kitchen.

More air travel problems

More flight cancellations

I found the articles I referenced at the end of this post on air travel. Airlines are going to be cancelling more flights, according to this Middle Seat column (free WSJ Digg link). (Yep, another post about this column. It's really excellent, both the column and my posts!) But wait, they're doing this to better passengers overall experience. From the column:

Airlines and airports say they have new procedures to prevent prolonged delays aboard airplanes, and the number of planes left sitting for three hours or more has recently declined.

But there's a trade-off: more cancellations.

Fliers are having to swap one travel nightmare -- being stuck on a plane -- for another -- being stuck in an airport. Carriers defend the choice, saying that being quicker to cancel flights rather than risk leaving planeloads of people marooned allows airlines to recover more quickly from disruptions. And, they say, airports are a much more comfortable place to while away the hours than cramped planes. Passengers have better access to essential services at airport terminals, some of which now have started to keep concessions open all night during weather disruptions and provide essentials like blankets and baby diapers. Some airport vending machines have been stocked with overnight essentials like toothpaste.

It's working too. The number of planes waiting more than 3 hours to take off is down, but cancelled flights are up. Is this a good thing? Is it better to wait in the airport than on the plane. A couple of choice points on this question.

[...] Sometimes it doesn't make sense to impose deadlines -- a flight may be very close to leaving after three hours elapse and neither passengers nor crew want to start over.

"Why should you mandate a pilot to return to the gate when he's No. 2 for takeoff?" asks David Barger, chief executive of JetBlue
Airways Corp.

[...]

Widespread cancellations don't sit well with all passengers. Dory Dean Alford, a sales manager who has "platinum" status with American because of her frequent travels, has been left stranded six or seven times by cancellations in the past year. Sometimes, she'd rather try to get where she's going than get left for a day or two. "I'd rather sit three hours because I can get home sooner," she said.

I was a beneficiary (victim?) of this move to more quickly cancel flights at the end of April, on a flight to New York. New York was experiencing thunderstorms, and the airline cancelled a slew of flights into LaGuardia that day. We were fortunately able to get on the first flight the next morning, and we were staying with relatives, so there were no additional hotel costs. We were also notified of the cancellation before we even left for the airport, so we didn't even have to drive to the airport only to drive back.

We were travelling with a small child, so in this instance I didn't mind the cancellation as much. It would have been a nightmare waiting at the airport for the plane's delayed departure, boarding the plane, and then waiting to get clearance to take off to fly to New York.

If I were travelling by myself, coming home from a business trip for example, I would have preferred to risk it and have the airline keep the flight and board me. As long as they have movies to show on the plane and they keep the air conditioning on, I can sit in those seats for hours waiting to take off (which I've done many times). Throw a kid into the mix however, and my story rapidly changes.

Fares will increase

At the end of this BusinessWeek article on the Delta/Northwest merger, there is a prediction on how much fares will increase and what the ramifications are:

[...] That would boost the average cost of a round-trip ticket from $280 to roughly $340.

While the increase may seem small, Kovacs believes it would be enough to price the hoi polloi out of the market and reduce the number of passengers on U.S. carriers from 299 million to 240 million a year. But that may be the price the airlines—and their passengers—must pay for profitability.

From what I've read, even though the number of passengers would decrease, since airlines are cutting their capacity, flights would still be just as crowded. The mass affluent will be able to handle these price hikes, but for some of the less well off, air travel will become an unaffordable luxury.

So prices are going up and the chances of flights being cancelled are going up. Sign me up.

The public's suggestions for fixing the airlines

Finally, CNNMoney offers reader feedback on how to fix the airlines. The writers thesis was that if airlines raise prices and if they also improve the flying experience, customers would be willing to pay. He had many readers agree with him, including:

"Give me back the meal, take my luggage at no additional charge, give me my window or aisle seat without an upcharge, and increase the price of a ticket," wrote Norm from Haddonfield, NJ. "I use and need the airlines and am willing to pay my share to keep them alive and well. Charge what you need to charge. We'll get used to it....just like $4 gas. Stop beating me to death with these ridiculous additional charges."

Yes! Yes! Norm for President! Stop nickle and diming me and put the price in the fare and give me a pleasant flight experience. But do I really think that when airlines raise fares to where they're finally covering their fuel and other costs that they'll improve service? Nope.

Airline machinations

OK, here is my weekly occasional first roundup of what's happening in the airline industry.

Delay insurance

First up is a story about something airlines used to provide for free (free WSJ Digg link). All right, granted airlines didn't used to provide free delay insurance, but if you were delayed you'd get free meal vouchers and a free hotel room. The basics are as follows:

After last summer's many travel hassles, travel-insurance companies are pushing low-cost policies that include "delay insurance," which pays for hotel rooms and meals if you get stuck. Delay insurance is included in some policies that offer protection like refunds if you fall ill. Cost: Usually less than $50 when flying on inexpensive domestic tickets.

While these policies have long been offered by the travel-insurance companies, the airlines are getting into the game, with Air Canada leading the way.

And airlines are now getting into the protection game, sensing they can make money off the disruption they sometimes create. Air Canada, an innovator in pricing chemes, has launched a new "travel assistance" service that provides hotel rooms and even airfare on rival carriers if you pay $25 to $35 extra per one-way flight when you buy a ticket.

[...]

Buying the "On My Way" service, which began three weeks ago, gets you a phone number to call specially trained Air Canada agents who can book and pay for hotels, find seats on other Air Canada flights or book competing airlines if Air Canada doesn't have an option to offer within two hours. Air Canada, a unit of ACE Aviation Holdings Inc., will pay for rental cars if driving is faster, and even make pre-paid meal reservations.

I researched the On My Way service on the aircanada.com site. (Their description of the benefits are here.) The $25 price point is for flights 1000 miles or less, and the $35 price point is for flights over 1000 miles.

Good customer service used to be free!

I remember (and it wasn't that many years ago) when you used to get the hotel room, paltry $10 meal voucher and rebooking for free. I missed a connection in Cincinnati for the last flight to Salt Lake City that day because of a weather delayed New York to Cincinnati flight. When I got off the flight in Cincinnati, the airline had a table set up in the terminal for people who missed their connections. They had the hotel and meal voucher, and ticket for the next morning's flight waiting there for me.

On another occasion I missed a connection in Dallas to New York for the last flight because of weather. The process was a little more painful (no table set up for the passengers, it was a long wait in the customer service line), but I still got the hotel and meal, and even an upgrade to first class on the next morning's flight. The column does delve into this:

When airlines were healthier financially, they often did voluntarily pay to accommodate stranded customers. But for several years now, carriers have more often than not told travelers they are on their own when they get delayed overnight because of bad weather or other travel problems -- a cot in the airport or a hotel room on their own credit card.

Airlines do have to pick up the cost of hotels and provide a few dollars for meals when travelers get stuck somewhere because of an airline problem like a maintenance breakdown. But they won't pay if the problem stemmed from factors out of an airline's control.

American's baggage problem

Next is a good discussion on American's new policy of charging $15 to check your first bag (free WSJ Digg link)! This story has been getting a lot of coverage. Since this came out on Thursday, this column seems to be a special non-Tuesday Middle Seat column (the usual day of publication for the Middle Seat column).

Personally, I'd rather they just charge me a higher ticket price up front. I don't want to have to be fumbling with paying by credit card to check the bag at the counter, or be stuck in line while morons in front of me struggle to find their credit cards to pay this new fee.

There were a couple other things I wanted to talk about, namely the greater propensity for airlines to outright cancel flights and the projected increase in average ticket price, but I can't find the supporting articles right now, so they'll have to wait for another time.

Fidelity and Delta offer (still valid)

I received a letter this week about a Delta SkyMiles offer from Fidelity. If you open a new nonretirement brokerage account with Fidelity and deposit $50,000 you can earn 25,000 Delta SkyMiles. $10,000 will get you 15,000 miles, and $2,500 will get you 5,000 miles. It says the offer expires July 15, 2008. fidelity.com/delta has details.

Updated June 2: I received a postcard that says the offer expires August 15, 2008. The Web page makes no mention of any expiration date.

Updated January 4, 2009: I found another postcard while going through old mail that says the offer expires November 18, 2008, but when I checked the link again today, the page still makes no mention of any expiration date.

Can you avoid cruise ship crowds?

Have you ever had an experience while vacationing in the Caribbean?

In fact Trunk Bay is one of the most popular St. John outings with Carnival passengers, not to mention the rest of the two million cruisers who visit the U.S. Virgin Islands each year. By noon the ships had arrived, and several hundred people made a beeline for the beach, their towels covering the sand like wall-to-wall carpeting. The sunbathers next to them were so close, says Blair, "they could have literally reached over and pulled a drink out of our cooler." Even trying to snorkel with the crowds turned out to be a dangerous proposition — something that became painfully clear to Blair's wife, Lela, when she was conked in the head by a fellow swimmer's flipper.

Not my idea of a fun time on vacation. The article in SmartMoney has more facts on cruise ship impacts on onshore vacationers, and the Caribbean islands they visit. It offers some tips to cope:

But many locals and frequent travelers to cruise hot spots have a different take — like the Blairs, who now set foot on Trunk Bay beach only before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m. Some swear by web sites like CruiseCal.com to clue them in on when cruise crowds will be where. Some hotels, like Tortola's Mongoose Apartments, keep guests up-to-date by posting the weekly cruise schedule. Susan Shevlin, a Caribbean specialist at Linden Travel in New York, says she advises clients to avoid heading to an island's downtown on heavy cruise days or even to schedule a day trip to another island altogether. She also suggests booking outings well in advance, since the popular activities often sell out when several ships are in port.

The cruisecal.com subscription is $3 a month, or $25 for the year.

Flew Midwest Airlines recently

I flew Midwest Airlines recently. What a treat! The seats are leather and are the size of first class seats on other airlines. The seat pitch isn't the same as first class on other domestic airlines (it's less), but it does seem to be slightly greater than the other domestic's coach offerings (Compare Midwest's 34" to Delta's 32" or United's 31. If I lived in one of Midwest's hub cities (Milwaukee and Kansas City), I'd make it my primary airline.

While I've read articles that suggest Midwest only has one class of seating, they do offer 'Signature' seating on some flights. According to their site, it's only available on some routes (they weren't available on my flights, as it wasn't the plane that has those seats). It's possible to upgrade to those seats for $60.

The free chocolate chip cookies Midwest offers are the best part of the flight. Apparently, they're going to start selling them retail some place in Milwaukee. I'm updating my airline food post just on the basis of the chocolate chip cookies, they were so good.

Automatic rebooking and other useful airline tools

Ignore the headline in this article. It's actually about useful airline tools like automatic rebooking, and not about those useless text message alerts that a flight is going to be delayed that arrive on your cell phone 2 hours after the flight was scheduled for departure. Orbitz seems to be leading the way:

Lockhart, it turns out, is a "care specialist" at Orbitz, a big online travel agency you may think of as just a place to score cheap flights. But with flight delays and airport hassles reaching epic proportions, few travel companies can afford not to guide frustrated customers through their travel problems. At its Chicago headquarters, Orbitz has created a command center staffed by a determined team of former air-traffic controllers, travel agents and even pilots, all focused on freeing folks from airport purgatory. On this day Lockhart, a travel agent for more than two decades, runs up a good tally: 19 of her 24 travelers will get rebooked. "This is my favorite part of the job," she says, after unstranding one more.

Now that is something really useful! No more waiting in line or on hold to rebook canceled flights. This alone is a reason to choose Orbitz over other flight booking options.

Other new services are mentioned in the article, such as Travelocity's reconfirming of hotel rooms before the customer arrives, but none seem as useful as Orbitz's automatic rebooking.

National Geographic Traveler ombudsman's blog

Christopher Elliott, is ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine, maintains a fabulous travel troubleshooting blog at http://www.elliott.org/category/the-troubleshooter/ (I discovered it through the CNN travel site, which syndicates the articles. His site contains many more articles.) It makes for a great read.

Airline food

BusinessWeek has a rundown on the current state of airline food offerings. Of course, you have to pay for anything except snacks on most of the airlines the article profiles. Continental is the exception, offering complimentary coach meals. I also did a little additional research. All information was taken from the company Web site. Snacks (including sandwiches) don't count as meals. I only counted food as a meal if it included an entree.

Airline: American
Meal Web page: http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?p=/travelInformation/duringFlight/dining/domesticMealService.jsp
Highlights: Can pay with credit or debit card. Complimentary coach meals on Europe, Latin America, Japan, and Hispaniola flights. Complimentary first class meals on all flights over two hours.
Chefs: Nancy Brussat-Barocci, Stephan Pyles, Dean Fearing

Airline: Continental
Meal Web page: http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/dining/default.aspx
Highlights: Complimentary coach meals on Europe, Latin America, Asia and Caribbean flights. Complimentary coach meals (lunch and dinner) on domestic flights over 3 hours. Complimentary first class meals on all flights system-wide with flying times over two hours.
Chefs: James Canora, Michael Cordúa, Paul Minnillo, Roy Yamaguchi

Airline: Delta
Meal Web page: http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/inflight_services/food/index.jsp
Highlights: Complimentary first class meals on Alaska, Hawaii and international flights over five hours.
Chefs: Michelle Bernstein

Airline: Northwest
Meal Web page: http://www.nwa.com/services/onboard/special/meals.html
Highlights: Complimentary first class meals. Complimentary coach meals on international flights.

Airline: USAir
Meal Web page: http://www.usairways.com/awa/content/traveltools/intheair/default.aspx
Highlights: Complimentary first class meals on flights over 3 1/2 hours.

Airline: United
Meal Web page: http://www.united.com/page/middlepage/0,6823,1057,00.html
Highlights: Complimentary first class meals on longer flights.

UPDATE:
Airline: Midwest
Meal Web page: http://www.midwestairlines.com/MAWeb/travelPlanner/customerExperience/menu.aspx Highlights: No complimentary meals, but the free chocolate chip cookies (for flights after 10AM are an excellent snack. Can ONLY pay for meals with credit or debit card (genius).

Top 25 travel Web sites

CNN (actually Travel + Leisure) has run a story on the top 25 travel Web sites. I use kayak.com whenever I'm searching for flights, and really like it. I'll also vouch for hopstop.com as a great tool for finding routes on public transportation.

More on air travel congestion

It's not your imagination, air travel delays are increasing (free WSJ Digg link). There are numerous reasons for this, as the stories I've linked to discuss. (Overscheduling infuriates me the most.) Here's another:

Yet one fundamental shortcoming in the nation's air-traffic system has gone little discussed: the federal map of routes, largely unchanged since the 1950s, that airplanes are required to follow.

Just like rush-hour freeways on the ground, the nation's airways, particularly on the East Coast, have become choked with traffic. Block one with a small thunderstorm and jets sit on the ground waiting for hours because there's no room for them on other routes.

How were these airways established? It's an interesting bit of trivia.

The nation's airways evolved from air-traffic routes established in the 1920s when the government was developing airmail service. Pilots followed established ground routes, generally flying low enough to trace actual roads and spot one geographic landmark, then another. In 1926, the Air Commerce Act authorized the government to build a network of other navigational aids, beginning with bonfires that were later replaced by illuminated towers and, eventually, radio beacons and radar.

That's right, we're still using routes that were originally marked by bonfires. Has anyone informed these people that Woodrow Wilson is no longer President?

Air travel congestion

Air travel is just a terrible experience these days. There are many reasons for this. Point fingers and blame almost anyone in the industry. I doubt it's going to improve anytime soon. This fact aggravates me the most:

One of the big reasons flying is so miserable is because airlines schedule more flights at desirable times than airports can handle—much as they sell seats to more passengers than their planes can hold. On a typical Tuesday morning in August at New York's John F. Kennedy International, the airport has enough capacity for around 44 departures between 8 and 9 a.m. But airlines schedule 57, guaranteeing delays, even under perfect conditions.

That is just absolutely moronic. There is no excuse for scheduling more flights than an airport can handle in a given time period.

Airline lounges shouldn't quit their day jobs

Airline lounge service and amenities are hit or miss, according to a Journal article. Nothing I read in the article would want to make me pay for a day pass for an airport lounge. A sampling of the negative examples:

... In San Francisco, the lounge had very few seats and the lack of windows gave the space a claustrophobic feel. At La Guardia, the men's bathroom was dingy -- the tiles on the floor were cracked and the walls were scuffed.

...Besides Atlanta, all of the Admirals Clubs we visited had serious cleanliness issues. At La Guardia, crumbs and other unidentifiable detritus were scattered on the carpet, on tables and on chairs. In the ladies' room, there was a large puddle on the floor and toilet paper was strewn around. At LAX, several seat cushions had huge gashes, and the bar area was sullied by crumbs and orange peels.

Even the praise of some lounges given is pretty faint.

In Atlanta, the spread was pretty lavish for the low price tag: Complimentary drinks flowed freely from a well-run bar. There was also plentiful snack food (also free) including trays of olives, celery and carrots, as well as cookies, pretzels and nuts.

Wow, free olives. Prices for a day pass range from $25 to $50. I've included links to the Big 6's airline lounge programs below.

American Airlines
http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?p=/travelInformation/airportAmenities/AdmiralsClub.jsp

Continental
http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/airport/lounge/default.aspx

Delta
http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/airport_information/crown_room_clubs/index.jsp

Northwest
http://www.nwa.com/services/bustrav/worldclubs/wclub.shtml

United
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,52673,00.html

USAir
http://www.usairways.com/awa/content/traveltools/club/default.aspx

Foreign airline lounges rule

A final note, the lounges of non-U.S. airlines sound far superior:

Indeed, U.S. lounges are often no match for those of foreign carriers in overseas airports. Lufthansa's first-class lounge in Frankfurt has a cigar room and passengers are driven to their planes in a Mercedes or Porsche. Virgin Atlantic's "Clubhouse" at London's Heathrow Airport has a Jacuzzi and its own movie theater. There's also usually plenty of free food and drink. But many foreign carriers restrict access to first-class passengers and don't offer day passes.

Negotiating hotel deals

Jim Thomas, the author of Negotiate to Win, provided some tips for getting a better hotel deal. My favorite is calling the hotel you want to stay at directly instead of the 800 number.

Scoring first class seats

Use check-in kiosk upgrades and coach instant upgrade fares to score a cheap first class airline seat (free WSJ Digg link).

Airlines have expanded their offers of upgrades at check-in kiosks, priced anywhere from $50 to $300. They are also making it easier to find coach tickets that come with instant upgrades (known as Y-UP fares in industry jargon) on their Web sites. AMR Corp.'s American Airlines launched a feature on aa.com a few weeks ago that lets users see Y-UP fares with one click (Hit "Search by Price & Schedule.")

[...]

American says it incorporated Y-UP fares into its new online function. Before, Y-UP fares, also known as Q-UP and M-UP in airline coding nomenclature, were almost impossible to find on American's Web site (they don't show up under first-class tickets or unrestricted coach). But the fares, sold with coach-class ticket coding so they don't violate corporate travel policies if they prohibit domestic first-class tickets, have grown in popularity, hunted by smart travel agents, road warriors and savvy vacationers in particular. FareCompare.com, a ticket-searching site, has a search option specifically for Y-UP and Q-UP fares.

Updates:

FareCompare's Y-UP search is located at http://www.farecompare.com/search/yupfares.html.

American still has the Y-UP fare finder feature, as described in the story. I was unable to find a similar feature on Delta.com, United.com, Continental.com or USAir.com. I did a quick search of the FlyerTalk forums and couldn't find a mention of the other airlines having the upgrade feature, but I don't have time to do a detailed read through and deciphering of the forum to try to rule it out for certain.