UAL Corporation

Natalie Angier in The New York Times:

When a visa snafu marooned honeymooners Bethany Thomas and Dmitri Zagidulin in Frankfurt en route to St. Petersburg last week, their journey had all the makings of a disaster: a tepid response from their travel agency, Expedia, a closed consulate and luggage that had gone on to Russia without them.

Major airlines are scrounging for every dollar now that fewer people are flying amid the economic downturn, yet the carriers have been slow to install in-flight wireless Internet access across their fleets that could generate millions in fees.

Cost, technology and passengers' willingness to pay for the service are issues some of the carriers are dealing with. Others say it simply takes time to install the necessary equipment to allow fliers to surf the Internet and send e-mail from their laptops and PDAs from the comfort of their seats.

Delta Air Lines Inc. no longer is outsourcing reservation calls to India after years of complaints from customers who preferred to speak to someone in the United States.

Chief Executive Richard Anderson told employees in a recorded message late Thursday night that the world's biggest airline operator is in the process of bringing all customer calls back in-house in the U.S.

After being laid off for the third time, Joyce Mueller decided shed had enough.

As a United Airlines customer service and sales rep for 21 years, Mueller, of Schaumburg, survived 9/11 and the company's bankruptcy. But when her job was outsourced to the Philippines, she vowed that was the end of being bounced around by an up-and-down industry.

"I can't keep going back and getting laid off again," she said. "Its too hard to go forward with your life."