$80 Roundtrip on JetBlue
March 4, 2009 – 6:44 amJetBlue is out with a one day “Sample Sale” with fares as low as $29 each way for weekday travel during March. With taxes, trips are only $80. Book by the end of today, March 4th.
On Crashes
March 1, 2009 – 6:50 pmFully-intact airplanes are not supposed to fall out of the sky fully intact. Even when things go wrong there is an extremely high chance that the plane will stay in the air long enough for pilots to react. Over the past couple weeks, two incidents deadly incidents have occurred with planes literally falling out of the sky.
On Friday the victims of the Continental tragedy filed suit against Continental and Colgan, “claiming the plane had inadequate de-icing equipment and its crew wasn’t properly trained.” Preliminary reports indicate there was icing and that the pilots may have responded incorrectly to an automatic safety feature of the relatively new Q-400 turboprop. As this article points out, pilots too often bear the blame for crashes. Instead, crashes should be seen as system failures. The airlines, manufactures, air traffic controllers, pilotrs and countless other things play into the system. The final report may indicate that the pilots did not respond correctly to the plane’s reactions. If so, who is at fault? The pilot was aware and doing, perhaps, what he had been trained to do on the Saab turboprop he used to fly. Did anyone point out this crucial difference during training? These are the questions that need to be asked. If they are not, then the right lessons will not be learned from this tragedy.
As for the Turkish Air flight — it is a strange case. Preliminary reports are due out Wednesday. A Turkish professional association has blamed wake turbulence from an inbound 757. Here is the running list of possible causes: “turbulence caused by another plane that landed shortly before the crash, weather-related factors, insufficient fuel, loss of fuel, navigational errors, pilot fatigue, bird strike and engine failure.” In other words, everything.
A final word on immediate speculation of crash causes. Most of the time it useless as there is very little information and, as mentioned above, there seems to be a tendency to find the one issue to blame. These are complex machines and failure is complicated and as a result takes time to isolate.
Buy Ahead
February 26, 2009 – 7:18 amAs the AP reports AirTran has launched another fare sale. Why is this noteworthy? Instead of the typical sale for a specific period in the upcoming 120 days or so, this fare extends through November 4th. So, while it is usually smart to wait and book until closer to departure, this sale changes the game. Your 401k may have no balance but you can fly to that wedding this summer or fall for pennies.
ALGT Comments About “Branding”???
February 24, 2009 – 9:08 amAllegiant went on the record about its move into LAX. And, the comments were a bit strange coming from Allegiant. Why not Ontario? The facilities were too expensive. Alright, I’ll buy that as an explanation when comparing other pros/cons with LAX. Why not San Bernardino? Here is where it gets strange. The explanation: "It was a little too far and didn’t have the brand recognition that LAX would offer." Too far? Well here is the google map from San Bernardio Airport to Los Angeles, CA. Total Travel Time: 1 Hour 8 Minutes. Now, here is another map from Orlando Sanford to Disney World. Total Travel Time: 1 Hour 2 Minutes. So, I’m not sure that I buy the "too far" argument, since Orlando Sanford is a primary base for Allegiant.
Now, the last comment from Allegiant is even more strange. Tyri Squyres claims that San Bernardio doesn’t have the "brand recognition that LAX would offer." Since when was "brand recognition" a concern for Allegiant? That is not the game they play and not the game that has propelled them to success while everyone else has struggled.
Allegiant is really good at proving everyone wrong. But, then again, branding was never a concern in the past.
Also: Cranky has more details on the actual operations.
LCCs Go Big Time
February 20, 2009 – 8:59 amA couple stories out this week about LCCs heading to airports non-traditional for LCCs. First, Allegiant announced it will be serving a dozen cities from LAX. Los Angeles as a destination makes sense, but flying out of LAX is a bit of a surprise. With their weekly and bi-weekly service model the 12 destinations will only require a couple MD-80s, but still paying the airport service fees at LAX is a new thing for Allegiant. As per usual though, none of these flights are long-haul as all the destinations are west of the Mississippi.
Then there is news out over the last day that Southwest plans to fly from Boston Logan. They have traditional served the Boston market via Providence and Manchester. These moves are getting less surprising has Southwest is now in primary city such as SFO and has announced plans to launch service at LGA.
JetBlue Goes Outside the Box
February 18, 2009 – 7:43 amYou’ve got to hand it to JetBlue: Given the weak demand they are trying anything. The airline is now promising to refund your fare if you lose your job after purchase. The redemption process seems tedious (how could it not be), but I like the gimmick. Oh yeah, and they have dropped down to $39 fares on off peak days. Happy Jetting.
Web Crisis Strategy
February 16, 2009 – 8:15 amQuick Observation: Last month when US Airways 1549 ditched into the Hudson, US Airways switched its over to a “plain” website. I can only speculate but it was likely a pre-constructed website that was turned on as part of crisis plan. The site mirrored the US Airways layout, but was absent any advertising. Of course, as we later learned, the crisis became a miracle with no fatalities.
Fast forward to the very unfortunate accident this past Thursday and Continental took a different path. For at least the first day following the crash the Continental website operated as normal with a information link on the incident placed next to items such as “2009 OnePass Changes.” Technically, the Q400 was not a Continental flight as it was operated by Colgan Air. But, by this morning (I’m not sure exactly when this happened), Continental has taken down its typical rotating banner and replaced it with a static Continental branded banner.
This is not a jab at Continental. There is no “right” way to react in this situation but I was a little surprised that Continental was still advertising its “Asian Adventure” the day after the terrible accident.
Buffalo Crash
February 13, 2009 – 5:29 amVery sad news. The Buffalo News has an eyewitness account in its story that could lend some insight. Still, based on the circumstances, it looks like it will be some time before the final cause is determined. Hopefully, lessons will be learned to prevent future incidents.
UAL Reverses Outsourcing
February 11, 2009 – 8:35 amYesterday United announced that it would be bringing 165 customer service jobs back to Chicago from Inida. The move is cost neutral. The major benefit is that US agents are better suited to respond to customer complaints/needs. I applaud this move for this very reason. The majority of the time the offshore call centers perform just as well. Last month there was a small issue with my credit card processing and the call center took care of it easily. But, I recall a time last year during a major thunderstorm that flights between LGA and ORD were being cancelled at a rapid pace. I needed my customer service rep to act quickly to grab me the last remaining seats on a later flight. It didn’t happen because the agent could not pick up on my sense of urgency, nor was he or she familiar with the routine nature of thunderstorms impacting the LGA-ORD route.
Long story short this is a win both from a job and customer service perspective.
(Disclaimer: Just to be clear, I am not against offshoring. I do have issues with declining customer service.)
Update: I’ve been reading conflicting reports that United’s actual plan is to just streamline complaints via email. While it makes sense from a cost perspective, it is not really a win for the customers.
9% off JetBlue
February 9, 2009 – 8:22 amEnter JetBlue’s 9th Anniversary Sweepstakes and you’ll receive a promo code (JFK09) for 9% off flights purchased today only. Various restrictions apply.
