GOOD FORTUNE FRUITS

A vendor arranges round fruits at his stall in CP Garcia in Quezon City on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022. Round fruits are believed to bring good luck and prosperity for the coming year. PHOTO BY MIKE DE JUAN

Flying home for the holidays will cost you more this year

By Associated Press/Manila Times

PEOPLE still looking to book trips home to visit family or take a vacation during the holidays need to act fast and prepare for sticker shock.

Airline executives say that based on bookings, they expect huge demand for flights over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Travel experts say the best deals for airfares and hotels are already gone.

  

On social media, plenty of travelers think they are being gouged. It's an understandable sentiment when government data shows that airfares in October were up 43 percent from a year earlier, and US airlines reported a combined profit of more than $2.4 billion in the third quarter.

Part of the reason for high fares is that airlines are still operating fewer flights than in 2019 even though passenger numbers are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels.

"Fewer flights and more people looking to head home or take vacation for the holidays means two things: Prices will be higher, and we will see flights sell out for both holidays," says Holly Berg, chief economist for travel-data provider Hopper.

Yulia Parr knows exactly what Berg is talking about. The Annandale, Virginia, woman struggled to find a reasonably priced flight home for her young son, who is spending Thanksgiving with his grandmother in Texas while Parr visits her husband, who is on active military duty in California. She finally found a $250 one-way ticket on Southwest, but it's not until the Tuesday after the holiday.

Parr figures she waited too long to book a flight.

"My husband's kids are flying home for Christmas," she said. "Those tickets were bought long ago, so they're not too bad."

Prices for air travel and lodging usually rise heading into the holidays, and it happened earlier this year. That is leading some travelers in Europe to book shorter trips, according to Axel Hefer, CEO of Germany-based hotel-search company Trivago.

"Hotel prices are up absolutely everywhere," he said. "If you have the same budget or even a lower budget through inflation, and you still want to travel, you just cut out a day."

Hotels are struggling with labor shortages, another cause of higher prices. Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, which owns travel-search sites including Priceline and Kayak, says one hotelier told him he can't fill all his rooms because he doesn't have enough staff.

Rates for car rentals aren't as crazy as they were during much of 2021, when some popular locations ran out of vehicles. Still, the availability of vehicles is tight because the cost of new cars has prevented rental companies from fully rebuilding fleets that they culled early in the pandemic.

US consumers are facing the highest inflation in 40 years, and there is growing concern about a potential recession. That isn't showing up in travel numbers, however.

The number of travelers going through airport checkpoints has recovered to nearly 95 percent of 2019 traffic, according to Transportation Security Administration figures for October. Travel industry officials say holiday travel might top pre-pandemic levels.

Airlines haven't always done a good job handling the big crowds, even though they have been hiring workers to replace those who left after Covid-19 hit. The rates of canceled and delayed flights rose above pre-pandemic levels this summer, causing airlines to slow down plans to add more flights.

US airlines operated only 84 percent as many US flights as they did in October 2019, and plan about the same percentage in December, according to travel-data firm Cirium. On average, airlines are using bigger planes with more seats this year, which partly offsets the reduction in flights.

"We are definitely seeing a lot of strength for the holidays," Andrew Nocella, United Airlines' chief commercial officer, said on the company's earnings call in October. "We're approaching the Thanksgiving timeframe, and our bookings are incredibly strong."

Airline executives and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg blamed each other for widespread flight problems over the summer. Airline CEOs say that after hiring more pilots and other workers, they are prepared for the holiday mob.

Travel experts offer tips for saving money and avoiding getting stranded by a canceled flight, although the advice hasn't changed much from previous years.

Be flexible about dates and even destinations, although that's not possible when visiting grandma's house. In a recent search, the cheapest flights from Los Angeles to New York around Christmas were on Christmas Eve and returning New Year's Eve.

Look into discount airlines and alternate airports, but know that smaller airlines have fewer options for rebooking passengers after a flight is canceled.

Fly early in the day to lower your risk of a delay or cancellation. "If something goes wrong, it tends to progress throughout the day — it gets to be a domino effect," says Chuck Thackston, general manager of Airlines Reporting Corp., an intermediary between airlines and travel agents.

There are plenty of theories on the best day of the week to book travel. Thackston says it's Sunday because airlines know that's when many price-conscious consumers are shopping, and carriers tailor offerings for them.

For the most part, airlines have dodged the accusations of price-gouging that have swirled around oil companies — which drew another rebuke this week from President Joe Biden — and other industries.

Accountable US, an advocacy group critical of corporations, linked airline delays and cancellations this summer to job cuts during the pandemic and poor treatment of workers. "But generally, we would say the airline industry is not currently at the same level as big food, oil or retail in terms of gross profiteering," says Jeremy Funk, a spokesman for the group.

Brett Snyder, who runs a travel agency and writes the "Cranky Flier" blog about air travel, says prices are high simply because flights are down from 2019 while demand is booming.

"How is it gouging?" Snyder asks. "They don't want to go (take off) with empty seats, but they also don't want to sell everything for a dollar. It's basic economics."

Travelers are sacrificing to hold down the cost of their trips.

Sheena Hale and her daughter, Krysta Pyle, woke up at 3 a.m. and left their northwestern Indiana home an hour later to make a 6:25 a.m. flight in Chicago last week.

"We are exhausted," Hale said after the plane landed in Dallas, where Krysta was taking part in a cheer competition. "We started early because the early flights were much cheaper. Flights are way too expensive."

They're not going anywhere for Christmas.

"We don't have to travel. We're staying home with family," Hale said.

So much the better!

My column in Mindanao Daily, BusinessWeek Mindanao and Cagayan de Oro Times

OPINION

By KLAUS DORING

 January 10, 2020

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WE could spend all year living healthier, more productive lives, so why do we only decide to make the change at the start of the year? Why do we all make (and break) New Year resolutions?

Many of us will start 2020 with resolutions – to get fit, learn a new skill, eat differently. If we really want to do these things, why did we wait until an arbitrary date which marks nothing more important than a timekeeping convention? British psychologist Tom Stafford asked this. And not only he. The answer tells us something important about the psychology of motivation, and about what popular theories of self-control miss out.

Today is a very cool and rainy day. I am lazy. Not on the mood to do anything. It's even difficult to write this column. But my motivation gets bigger and bigger while writing. New Year resolutions? Many writers discussed about this topic already. Here are my two cents in.

While celebrating during New Year's night, my family and friends found out, that what we want isn't really straightforward. At bedtime you might want to get up early and go for a run, but when your alarm goes off you find you actually want a lie-in. When exam day comes around you might want to be the kind of person who spent the afternoons studying, but on each of those afternoons you instead wanted to hang out with your friends. Believe me - I heard it many times from my students.

You could see these contradictions as failures of our self-control: impulses for temporary pleasures manage to somehow override our longer-term interests. One fashionable theory of self-control, proposed by Roy Baumeister at Florida State University, is the 'ego-depletion' account. This theory states that self-control is like a muscle. This means you can exhaust it in the short-term – meaning that every temptation you resist makes it more likely that you'll yield to the next temptation, even if it is a temptation to do something entirely different.

A corollary of the 'like a muscle' theory is that in the long term, you can strengthen your willpower with practice. So, for example, Baumeister found that people who were assigned two weeks of trying to keep their back straight whenever possible showed improved willpower when asked back into the lab.

But, and more importantly, that theory doesn't give an explanation why we wait for New Year's Day to begin exerting our self-control. If your willpower is a muscle, you should start building it up as soon as possible, rather than wait for an arbitrary date.

Another explanation may answer these questions, although it isn't as fashionable as ego-depletion. George Ainslie's book 'Breakdown of Will' puts forward a theory of the self and self-control which uses game theory to explain why we have trouble with our impulses, and why our attempts to control them take the form they do. The virgin page of a new calendar marks a clean break between the old and new you - a psychological boundary that may help you keep your resolutions.

And, so to speak with Tom Stafford again, Ainslie gives us an answer to why our resolutions start on 1st January. The date is completely arbitrary, but it provides a clean line between our old and new selves. The practical upshot of the theory is that if you make a resolution, you should formulate it so that at every point in time it is absolutely clear whether you are sticking to it or not. The clear lines are arbitrary, but they help the truce between our competing interests hold.

Let me ask you now,  my dear readers: How about your 2020 resolutions!

Coding lifted for Christmas and New Year holidays

By: Robertzon Ramirez (The Philippine Star)

MANILA, Philippines – The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) lifted yesterday the number coding scheme for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The MMDA suspended the traffic reduction scheme starting today until Jan. 2 next year for provincial buses.

The agency also lifted the number coding for private cars beginning Dec. 24 to Jan. 2.

The announcement brought confusion to the public after MMDA general manager Jojo Garcia said the agency only suspended the number coding scheme for provincial buses.

Garcia said they would still decide whether or not to lift the traffic scheme for private vehicles on Dec. 26 to 28.

The cities of Makati and Las Piñas have not yet issued announcements on the suspension of their own number coding schemes for the holidays.

EDSA traffic slows down to 14 kph.

The MMDA warned motorists that travel speed on EDSA is expected to slow down due to the surge of travelers during the holidays.

The MMDA said the average travel speed for both lanes of EDSA as of Dec. 13 was at 14.80 kilometers per hour, or 1.34 kph slower than the 16.14 kph in November.

Garcia said the travel speed along the busiest highway in the metropolis is expected to slow down to 12 kph today.

“This is because of the Christmas rush and the high volume of vehicles,” he said.

Based on the MMDA’s record, vehicles passing through EDSA increased to 402,000 on Wednesday, higher than its carrying capacity of 288,000 vehicles per day.

The MMDA said the average volume of vehicles on EDSA per day is only 367,000.

Garcia appealed for public understanding and asked motorists to strictly follow traffic rules to decongest traffic in Metro Manila during the holidays.

Bong Nebrija, traffic czar for EDSA, advised motorists to brace for monstrous traffic jams.

“But we are banking on the discipline of the motorists to address the traffic problem,” he said.

Nebrija said motorists can experience relief when they start implementing traffic reduction measures early next year.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow

TUE, JANUARY 3, 2017 BY THE MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR LEAVE A COMMENT

IN MY OPINIONKlaus Doring

Do you always count the days up to the next legal holiday without being on duty? Or do you start as early as September longing for Christmas? And do you wish the weeks or months to hopefully pass by like an assault up to the next possible salary increase?

Many times we are really too much in a hurry while feeling uncomfortable if we noticed how time flies. We have no time for someone or something, or even for ourselves. We don’t make time for some one of something or even for ourselves.

When I was still a teenager, I was longing for the time to be a grown up already. Later, I enjoyed listening to my grandmother’s stories such as “Once Upon A Time” or ‘When I Was Young” from her “yesterday’s life”.

After a couple of years, especially while observing that time really flies like a rocket to the moon, I always have the same question in my mind: Are the present hours and days less valuable?

These days between Christmas and New Year, between yesterday and tomorrow, I used to slow down and to relax. I even ignore my cellphone most of the time. I hide at a secret place to unwind.

The next turn of the year is just around the corner. For most of us it’s the time  to come to our senses. The future prospects smile at us already. What might the New Year 2017 bring us? Another hectic schedule of course! But hopefully also happiness, joy and health. Hopefully more peace.

Is life in future easier, nicer, more charming and being more fulfilled compared to the present? Many of us retreat into the past and forget their present existence. A possible topsyturved world of a golden youth tries to let us forget that also the past have had its share of disappointments, pains, tears, darkness, as well as desperate days. Dreamy and sleepy days – yes, lost days, irretrievable time….

I am glad and happy being able living a wonderful life as an expatriate here in the Philippines – together with my family and many very good friends. It hasn’t been easy during the first years. Now we stand on our own feet, because we worked hard and adjusted very well.

Very personal: Six years ago, I got the chance to write a regular column for the MIRROR. More than 300 write ups have been published here already. My deepest gratitude to publisher and Chief Editor Marietta F. Siongco  and Ana Theresa F. Basilio-Williams and the whole MIRROR staff.

Happy New Year to all of you and May God bless us!

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow / Gestern, heute, morgen

Do you always count the days up to the next legal holiday without being on duty? Or do you start as early as September longing for Christmas? And do you wish the weeks or months to hopefully pass by like an assault up to the next possible salary increase?

Many times we are really too much in a hurry while feeling uncomfortable if we noticed how time flies. We have no time for some one or something, or even for ourselves. We don't make time for some one of something or even for ourselves.

When I was still a teenager, I was longing for the time to be a grown up already. Later, I enjoyed listening to my grandmother's stories such as "Once Upon A Time" or 'When I Was Young" from her "yesterday's life".

After a couple of years, especially while observing that time really flies like a rocket to the moon, I always have the same question in my mind: Are the present hours and days less valuable? 

These days between Christmas and New Year, between yesterday and tomorrow, I used to slow down and to relax. I even ignore my cellphone most of the time. I hide at a secret place to unwind. 

The next turn of the year is just around the corner. For most of us it's the time  to come to our senses. The future prospects smile at us already. What might the New Year 2011 bring us? Another hectic schedule of course! But hopefully also happiness, joy and health. 

Is life in future easier, nicer, more charming and being more fulfilled compared to the present? Many of us retreat into the past and forget their present existence. A possible topsy-turved world of a golden youth tries to let us forget that also the past have had its share of disappointments, pains, tears, darkness, as well as desperate days. Dreamy and sleepy days - yes, lost days, irretrievable time... .

I am glad and happy being able to live a wonderful life as an expatriate here in the Philippines - together with my family and many very good friends. It hasn't been easy during the first years. Now we stand on our own feet, because we worked hard and adjusted very well. 

Happy New Year to all of you and May God bless us!