Travel updates

WILFREDO LEE / AP A Florida company offers flights in which a series of steep climbs and dives creates a weightless effect. Passengers on Zero Gravity's first public flight last month could moonwalk or float through the padded cabin of a modified Boeing 727. However, there's a heavy cost to fly light: A two-hour excursion is about $3,000 per person.

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Air travel

More services monitored as airlines struggle

With two major airlines — United and US Airways — in bankruptcy protection and Delta Air Lines creeping ever closer, passengers increasingly are worried about some fundamental issues of air travel such as aircraft safety and customer service.

Whenever an airline plunges into bankruptcy proceedings, or teeters on the edge, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) increases the level of surveillance of the carrier's maintenance operations.

FAA spokeswoman Alison Duquette said United, US Airways and Delta are on the FAA's "heightened surveillance list," which means the airlines' ramp operations, training, recordkeeping and maintenance facilities are inspected more often than usual.

Stepped-up inspections also occur when an airline begins seeking pay cuts from its employees, Duquette says. All three carriers have sought (and received) billions of dollars in pay and benefits cuts.

Customer service typically takes a hit when airlines begin slashing workers' wages. Morale gets bruised, and passengers see the difference at the ticket counter and on board their flights.

"The quality of customer service has already started to go down — not just at US Airways. Airlines just don't want to pay for labor," said Pam Terry, president of the Communications Workers of America Local 2000, which represents US Airways' airport customer-service agents and club workers.

Las Vegas

Video, puppets highlight new Cirque du Soleil show
 

Cirque du Soleil is opening a new show Nov. 26 at the MGM Grand hotel-casino in Las Vegas, featuring pyrotechnics, puppets, martial-arts sequences and the use of multimedia, including video. The show, called "KA," also will include the Montreal-based troupe's trademark heart-stopping acrobatics.

This is the fourth Cirque du Soleil show to open in Vegas. Following the lucrative "Mystere," Cirque du Soleil launched "O," a water-based show, and the risqué "Zumanity." "KA" will rank as one of the most expensive shows in Las Vegas. Tickets are $99, $125 and $150.

Family vacations

Parents lament lack of time, money for trips

The ideal family vacation? Seven nights or more. The actual family vacation? Four nights or less.

That's the conclusion of a survey of 4,048 parents, in 20 major U.S. cities, who took a trip in the past year.

A vacation of four nights or less was considered ideal by only 14 percent of those polled by the Orlando-based firm Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell. Yet four-night trips are what most people take on average, according to research by the Travel Industry Association of America.

An additional 32 percent said they'd prefer a vacation of five or six nights. But 54 percent said seven or more nights would be ideal.

Among those longing for more than a week away, 12 percent would like 11 nights or more.

So why not take longer trips? Time and money. Forty-three percent cited cost; 22 percent said it was too hard to find the time.

Resorts

Where to hide out in luxury in the U.S.

Looking for luxury? The top U.S. resort hotels (and 2003 ranking), as named by upscale travel guru Andrew Harper's "Hideaway Report," are:

1. The Greenbrier, W.Va. (1)

2. Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Hawaii (5)

3. Four Seasons Hualalai, Hawaii (2)

4. Auberge du Soleil, Calif. (3)

5. Blackberry Farm, Tenn. (9)

6. Post Ranch Inn, Calif. (4)

7. Twin Farms, Vt. (6)

8. Ritz-Carlton Naples, Fla. (14)

9. Rancho Valencia, Calif. (19)

10. The Boulders, Ariz. (7)

Havana

Famous bars now are run by Cuban government

Ernest Hemingway's favorite bars in Havana are under new management in a drive by Cuba's Communist government to increase control over its main cash cow, the tourist trade.

The Tourism Ministry has directly taken over restaurants and other nightlife spots, including Havana's famed Tropicana cabaret, that had been managed autonomously by state-run hotel groups. The Gran Caribe hotel group was stripped of the Floridita and Bodeguita del Medio bars, obligatory stops for tourists seeking the Havana of Hemingway, who drank his daiquiris and mojitos there.

The move is part of a massive shake-up of Cuba's tourism companies aimed at wiping out middle-management corruption and maximizing income from the $2 billion-a-year tourist trade for President Fidel Castro's financially strapped government.

Travel ticker

Count of children flying solo; new airport train in Vienna ...

In the past three years, 16 percent of parents have sent a child on an airplane alone, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. ...

Get to Vienna, Austria, from the airport on a new high-speed train for a fraction of the taxi fare, and in half the time. Details: www.cityairporttrain.com ...

American Airlines customers must pay $250 each way to use frequent-flier points to upgrade from deeply discounted coach seats to business or first class on international flights. Full-fare coach seats are exempt.

Seattle Times staff and news services