Gradual reductions to in-flight meals have finally reached the international market. It used to be that everyone on the aircraft got a meal, wherever where you were going or in what class you were. That slowly devolved to meals in first class on some long-haul flights (exception: Continental, where all meals in domestic are still free!).

Now, spurned by cost cutting measures across the industry, United Airlines has announced that they're discontinuing meal service on some of their international flights.

From Washington DC's Dulles airport, flights to Europe will now offer food for purchase instead of the standard "chicken or pasta" choices. Nine dollars will get you a salad or sandwich while six buys a snack box. I found no mention of warm food in this Bloomberg article.

To reiterate: they aren't even charging you $9 for the soggy chicken that you used to get.

As to whether the changes will be unrolled to the rest of the international legs, the airline is still not sure. They'll be taking input from passengers after this trial period to see how poorly it's received.

And poorly received it will be. On a three or even four hour flight across the country I can see how someone can gorge up on food beforehand and make it through the itinerary. But on a nine hour flight you need to eat at some point. And unless you brought a sack lunch you're going to be forced to pay whatever prices they're charging. Yes, they only take cash.

Take this opportunity to send a note to UA protesting the changes. There's still time to reverse the tide.

The UK's British Airways, American Airlines and Spain's Iberia this morning announced that they would soon be cooperating on flights between North America and Europe while they would also start to collaborate and expand on other routes together in the Oneworld Alliance.

Are the airlines merging? No. But aren't they already all part of the Oneworld alliance? Yes, they are. What the airlines have agreed to is tighter collaboration among their operations. Ground operations, codeshares and mileage programs will be better integrated to ensure seamless operation among carriers (read: keep passengers hooked in the alliance), while costs and overlapping spending will be reduced.

It's important to note that the airlines will continue to operate independently, similar to the Continental and United collaboration announced earlier this year. What's not clear is whether they will be collaborating on pricing. As Virgin Atlantic, the main competition, sulks about the conglomerate having over 50% of the landing slots at Heathrow, many have noted the potential for monopolistic pricing among the new bedfellows.

So will prices actually go through the roof? Technically, less competition in the market suggests that prices may have the potential to rise -- but there are still plenty of carriers and entry points into the EU. American, British and Iberia may soon have a good handhold on Heathrow (Sorry, Virgin), but Amsterdam, Gatwick and Frankfurt are still wide open, so with a little bit of creative routing you don't have to call of your summer vacation.

Several Oneworld airlines are filing for antitrust immunity to get the ball rolling on the cooperation agreement -- should this get approved, expect to see small changes in operations over the course of the year.

United Airlines just fired up a tool on their website called Award Accelerator, a tool that essentially lets you pay to double or triple earned miles on any of your flights. Basically, you pay a sliding fee on check-in that effectively equates to three cents per mile, then at the end of your flight the airline dumps the bonus into your account.

So say you're flying 500 miles from Detroit to New York City. Pay fifteen bucks and you can earn 1000 miles for the trip, or pay thirty and you can earn 1500.

So when is this useful?

Well, if you divide the cost of a regular domestic award ticket, 25,000 miles, by 0.03 cents/mile, you get a total of 750$ spent for those miles. In other words, if you bought all of your miles for an award ticket this way you would be paying 750$ for that ticket -- too much for any old domestic ticket. So it doesn't make sense to double or triple your miles on every flight.

The instance in which this tool might be handy, however, is when you need just a few extra miles to reach that award tier from which you can book. You're at 24,000 miles, you'll earn 500 on your next trip and want to push that to 25,000, for example. In this case, it makes sense.

Just try not to make a habit out of it.

Scrambling to cut costs at every corner, airlines have now turned to their airport lounges as possible ways to save money.

If you've ever been walking through the airport and saw a business person on a Blackberry weaving through the crowd only to duck into a room labeled "Red Carpet Club" or "Admiral's Club", you know what I'm talking about. Airport lounges were created as a way to award elite and first class passengers for their business, make a little money on memberships and provide haven from the oft busy airport terminals that we deal with on a daily basis. For me, they're a lifesaver, while others only view them as an extravagance.

Unfortunately, some of them just were not making enough money to justify their existence, so many airlines are closing their underutilized or overstaffed lounges. Delta just announced that it's closing nine of its Crown Room Clubs, while United similarly is closing four. You can check out the UA lounges being closed here, while you can find the CRC's that are still active here.

At the very worst, those who hold memberships to either clubs that are closing may be able to use partner clubs -- holders of Crown Room Club cards should be able to get into other Skyteam lounges while United members can use Star Alliance lounges.

And if those aren't an option? Try a magazine.

[Thanks to Moody75 for the link]

For those of you following the story of the the solider's dog that was lost by United Airlines earlier this week, you can now get updates on the unfolding events on the website helpfindjeddah.com or via a Twitter feed that they set up.

Apparently, enough people had caught wind of the story via the web such that there's a serious movement towards finding the animal -- well over five hundred people are now following the feed, garnering enough attention to get the Washington Post to run an article this morning.

In it, we learn some new facts about the debacle, including the interesting note that the owners only fed the dog people food and are concerned about her ability to fend for her self on her own.

Judging from some of the intense comments we got on our earlier story, there seem to be two schools of thought on the attention and resources that this search is getting: either you think we should shut down DC tomorrow and form a human chain across the the metropolitan area or you think we should sack up and let things sort themselves out -- haven't you ever seen that movie Homeward Bound?

I personally am a bit divided. I do hope that we find the dog quickly and think that all of the effort that people have put into finding her is quite touching. At some point, however, we'll probably need to stop consuming resources and leave the rest up to fate.

United just posted a secret sale to Buenos Aires, Argentina last night that has lasted well into today, slurpee day (7/11), from several corners from the country.

From departure points such as Los Angeles, Washington DC (Dulles), and New York City you can get to Buenos Aires LATER THIS MONTH for only about 600$ total. For high tourist season in the United States, that's a downright steal. So if you haven't got plans for the kids' summer vacation, now is the time to strike.

Check your local airport to see if there are similar deals or cheap connections to a target city.

And don't forget -- it's winter down in Argentina right now, so you might want to consider a trip over to the Andes for some skiing or maybe some time down in Patagonia watching some glaciers fight. You also might want to pick up a couple kilos of some of that delicious Mendozan wine and that Argentine steak while you're down there.

If you're worried about visas, American's don't need any pre-departure paperwork for immigration.

To book the ticket, use a flex search on Kayak over the next few weeks to find availability. You shouldn't have a problem finding seats for flights later this month.

Happy Trails!

This is not the first time I have complained on gadling about the uber-stupid Saturday night rule.

For those of you young enough not to remember the rule: airlines used to require passengers to stay Saturday night, in order for them to take advantage of the cheapest tickets.

Sometime in the last decade, more and more airlines stopped imposing minimum stays, because, well - how does one put it - it didn't make any sense. Once those low cost carries started popping up, traditional airlines needed to be competitive.

Now, the Saturday night monster is back!

USA Today reports that United is not only raising fares, it's also bringing back those minimum-stay rules that used to be the norm. The minimum-stay requirements will depend on an itinerary's route and fare. For example travelers booking the cheapest seats between Chicago and Minneapolis or Boston and San Diego will now be forced to stay three nights or the entire weekend.

In other words, business travelers are the ones who'll suffer the most. Hotels, on the other hand, must love it.

Start planning those long weekends, folks. The changes will go into effect for flights beginning October 6.

Continental just issued a press release saying that they're entering a cooperative agreement with United Airlines, saying the two airlines will "cooperate extensively, linking their networks and services worldwide to the benefit of customers, and creating revenue opportunities and cost savings and other efficiencies." This means that Continental will also join United in the Star Alliance.

For those of you who follow airline alliances, this means that CO will be dropping Skyteam, whose partners include Delta, KLM and Northwest, and picking up partners such as Lufthansa and US Airways.

Basically, Continental Onepass members won't be able to accrue or spend miles on Skyteam anymore (similarly, partner airlines can't spend miles on CO), but they can on Star.

It does not, however, mean that the airlines are merging -- only that they'll be collaborating on many routes, codeshares and other logistics.

In the current airline industry, this change was almost inevitable. Carriers are looking at ways to collaborate on operations and cut costs, just like Northwest and Delta announced earlier this year. With the two airlines' combined routes and networks, a stronger entity will now exist that can better compete with the soon to be uber Delta Airlines.

No word yet on when exactly the alliance changes will take place and a schedule for the official divorce from Skyteam airlines. But if you were thinking about booking a ticket with your Skyteam miles on CO, now might be a good time to do it.

United and U.S. Airways formally put an end to their merger talks yesterday, citing rising oil prices that are making it difficult for airlines across the board to be profitable.

Both airlines announced the end of talks in messages to their employees.

According to the Associated Press, United CEO Glenn Tilton said: "After a considered review by our board of directors, United has determined that it will not be pursuing a merger at this time due to issues that could significantly dilute benefits from a transaction. We are evaluating other options, and will do what is right for United."

United "will take the additional steps to size the business appropriately, leverage our capacity discipline to pass on commodity costs to customers and accelerate development of new revenue sources," Tilton added.

The merger would have formed the world's largest airline, but industry experts say it would have almost certainly increased ticket prices and reduced travel routes as well.

United has not closed the door on forming an alliance with another airline, a move that offers many of the benefits of a merger but stops short of total consolidation. Right now, United and Continental are in alliance talks.

How much can an airline save on fuel costs just flying a little slower?

JetBlue reckons that by adding two minutes to each of its flights, it saves $13.6 million a year. Southwest is now extending most flights from 1 to 3 minutes, and says it will save more than $40 million. Northwest says it saved about $530 by flying 532 mph instead of 542 mph on one recent Paris-Minneapolis flight (that added eight minutes to the journey).

The Associated Press mentions these figures in a piece about how some carriers are choosing to go it a little slower in this era of insane fuel costs. With jet fuel prices up some 73 percent, to $3.54 a gallon, adding a few extra minutes to normal flight schedules is just one of the ways airlines are coping, along with levying higher fuel surcharges and, of course, increasing fare prices.

United is looking at special software to help pilots choose better routes and speeds and says the software could save the company $20 million a year.

Not all airlines say they have adopted a slowdown approach in order to save on fuel costs. American Airlines, for instance, says it wants to maintain the integrity of its schedules, whatever that means.

It doesn't seem that customers mind too much. Many are surprised to find out that their flight was a tad longer, and they usually agree that a few minutes is not really that big of a deal. Besides, these slight increases in flight times are built into the advertised schedule, along with taxi time and the like, so we probably wouldn't know it anyway.