In other airline, hotel and travel industry news this week…

• A survey of the 50 most popular U.S. destinations conducted by the Global Business Travel Association found Chicago to be the city charging the highest total taxes for travelers. Not to worry, New York was number two so don’t get your hopes up for an inexpensive trip to the Big Apple, but I was kind of surprised it didn’t take the top spot. The lowest tax burden can be found in Ft. Lauderdale with two more Sunshine State locations taking the next two on the list. California sees some love with five cities taking the award for lowest discriminatory travel taxes: Orange County, San Diego, San Jose, Burbank and Ontario.
• American Airlines again suspends New York JFK – Tokyo Haneda (HND) flights from September 3 this year through June 1, 2012. Delta Air Lines also suspended its service from Detroit and United Airlines balked at the government filing an argument to ensure American’s suspension would be capped to match Delta’s. United still sounds pissed to have lost out on access to the close-in Tokyo airport, but I’m sure they’d be in the same boat seeing lack of demand and seeking relief. Separately, American is also dropping San Francisco – Honolulu (you’re welcome United) and Los Angeles – San Salvador service.
• A boutique hotel near LAX airport recently completed a “refresh” and it sounds fantastic. The Custom Hotel offers a “creative, hip and playful” environment including a 12^th floor relaxation room called the Stratosphere, a Transonic gaming lounge with Xbox and Wii games, the LAX Lounge inspired by VIP airport lounges and a lot more. Airport pickup is via their Mercedes Benz Sprinter luxury van complete with complimentary bottled water and hot (or cold) towel service. I’m not flying next month, so I might have to book a stay and review this chic sounding property. (Hat tip: USA Today).
• Staying on hotels for a moment, Club Carlson is offering double points on hotel stays now through September 15, 2011. Registration is required and is available at participating Radisson, Country Inn & Suites, Park Inn and Park Plaza hotels (apparently not Radisson Blu properties). I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do with my 100,000 points in Club Carlson, but I’m leaning towards converting them into 18,000 American AAdvantage miles. I’d still love some additional advice on that… click here and leave a comment, please.
• Citing unprofitability, Southwest Airlines is cutting four routes from their Philadelphia offering with Jacksonville (JAX), Manchester (MHT), Pittsburgh (PIT) and Providence (PVD) being axed. Service to Boston will also be reduced from eight to five nonstops daily beginning in February. I’ve taken many a mileage run from LAX to MHT and PVD with fares being incredibly inexpensive due to Southwest’s presence in both of those cities, but I doubt these cuts will affect overall fare action.
• Qantas is also looking to make adjustments to their route network and will likely drop their daily Los Angeles – New York JFK flight. Not too long ago it was operated with a Boeing 747, but they downguaged it to an Airbus A330 and still don’t seem to be making enough money with limited through traffic from Australia. As such, alliance partner American will pick up the traffic if Qantas indeed drops the route. Further restructuring is expected in the ailing international arm of the Australian carrier with a detailed announcement schedule for August 24, 2011.
• JetBlue’s All You Can Jet (AYCJ) didn’t return this year, but the carrier is offering a BluePass out of Boston or Long Beach for those seeking unlimited travel from August 22 to November 22 this year. Not quite as nice as the AYCJ in that these passes carry greater restrictions in cities offered and limits open jaw, circle trip & multi-city abilities. Boston is the winner here with the select pass at $1,499 for service to 13 cities or the $1,999 option for the entire JetBlue offering from BOS. The Long Beach pass is $1,299 and opens travel to Las Vegas, Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle, Austin and Chicago.
• And finally, totally unexciting and not at all unexpected, United extended their deal with Visa, Inc. to keep their co-branded credit card deal in place and offer the Mileage Plus Visa once Continental’s OnePass program terminates December 31, 2011. United has offered a Visacard since 1987.

It’s time for another edition of Vintage Airline Seat Maps and I’ve selected the American Airlines Boeing 747-100 appearing below. This map was published in 1977 and shows the reconfigured layout after American took out the piano bar and lounge in coach. Seating a total of 396 passengers with 66 seats in first class and 330 in coach, American flew this exclusively on long haul domestic flights.

In first class you’d definitely find me in the nose and while row one looks unique, I’d definitely choose a seat mid-cabin. Check out how huge the center table looks and of course notice the unique “dining in the sky” section and upper deck lounge. In economy I’d prefer the first zone of seating with particular focus on the two-seaters in rows 18, 19 and 20. How nice that American offered a total of 20 of these pairs of doubles. Of course this was pre-deregulation before airlines started stuffing as many seats in as possible. I’d love to know the seat pitch figures. Seven rows in the nose plus those tables behind the first row leads me to believe it couldn’t be more than 38″ in first class.

Where would you sit?

Image courtesy American Airlines

Politicians disgust me. The idealism of the democratic process our nation runs on is a lovely principle in theory, but in practice it’s just ridiculous. I used to expend energy on being an active engaging citizen, but I gave up that position years ago. Yes I still vote, but I absolutely cannot be entertained into any conversation relating to politics. Most of it is bullshit and when it’s not I still find too many people revert to pointing out the “failures” of an opposing stance. I find it pretty incredible that anyone wants the job of President of the United States and actually feel horribly for whoever has that post because it seems all Congress is good for is to make their life as intolerable as possible. Political persuasion aside, our government sucks. It’s all about posturing for the best position, making the “other side” pay and then going on a publicity tour.

Case in point is our current partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). A shutdown that’s costing them $30 million a day in lost revenue due to the ticket tax “holiday” and upwards of 4,000 FAA employees out of work not to mention other construction workers and employees whose companies that supply the resources for the current work scheduled and underway for the much needed improvements at airports and facilities. Totally ridiculous. While I was initially happy for the temporary price reduction in airfares (most airlines have now raised their fares), it comes at a cost exponentially more impactful to those it hurts.

Long-term funding for the FAA ceased in 2007 and our government kept it going until last Friday at midnight through a series of 20 short-term extension bills. Shouldn’t there be a statute of limitations for these? Does anyone else think it’s ridiculous this has gone on? So, the last extension failed because of politics. The House and Senate are at battles with each other and apparently no one wants to come back to the table to come up with a solution. Some resolutions are seeking increased security fees that include additional areas of angst for Democrats and Republicans. Republicans are demanding their bill pass that will eliminate a $16.5 million air service subsidies for 13 rural airports while Democrats hate the Republican version that will be unkind to labor unions in that if members don’t vote in elections, it would be equivalent to a “no” vote. And so… since no one is returning to the tables, the FAA remains largely unfunded. Totally unacceptable.

The U.S.A. is in a crisis. Our budget is screwed and our leaders are duking it out to see who will be the first to flinch and give a reprieve. As apolitical as I am, I abhor the situation we’re in. I’m not going to cheerleader anything, but can we please bring back some rationality into the picture and somehow re-fund the FAA? Although it’s one of the most antiquated systems in the world, we need to at the minimum get people working again to improve those locations slated for updates and bring us back into some semblance of a operational entity. Anyone… anyone?

Now, regarding the airlines making additional revenue by raising their fares to compensate for the lack of taxation. I completely agree that they should do it because they are otherwise the highest taxed industry out there and subject to extraordinarily intense pressures as a “deregulated” enterprise. Yes, most airlines are profiting this year, but I don’t blame them for taking advantage of our government’s incompetence. How long will this last? No one seems to know, but I hope it gets fixed soon.

I suppose it’s easy for me to sit here and criticize the government as an armchair quarterback, but I cannot be alone. My apologies to my readers as this has been an unusually soap boxy diatribe not in my regular script for Frequently Flying. The sun will set today and tomorrow will bring back regularly scheduled posts here for your reading enjoyment. I promise!

I was going through my photos yesterday and came across the batch of pictures I took when I flew on the inaugural United Airlines Boeing 777 flight from Denver to Chicago on June 7, 1995. Knowing there are a ton of aviation geeks out there like me, I figured it would be worth it to post a vintage trip report of my experience and share the pictures below.

I was employed by United at the time, took a vacation day that Wednesday and purchased a revenue ticket to ensure I’d have a seat on the historic flight. As I recall, the ticket was about $240 for the same day ORD-DEN-ORD trip, and luckily I still had elite status with United so I was able to upgrade into Connoisseur Class on the all-important 777 segment.

I was “Premier Emeritus,” the soft landing United used to bestow on elites in the year following not having requalified for any status. This was in the day of paper 500-milers and I do remember I had only two left, so my flight to Denver that morning on a 757 was in economy. I broke the rules and booked my own reservation (a no-no for employees to book their own revenue tickets at that time) and I also self-upgraded the DEN-ORD segment, but did that within my 24-hour window per the rules. Sorry United!

It was a beautiful day to fly and I arrived in Denver early leaving about an hour and a half to savor the departure gate festivities at B36 for United flight 910.

The gate area was decked out with balloons, beverages, food and cake, and several members of the media were present along with United executives.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony it was time to board, and my heart was racing in excited anticipation of the historic flight. The business class cabin on the initial configuration seated 49 passengers and was divided into a three row cabin forward of door two, and a four row cabin aft.

Onboard, champagne was served and each passenger (at least in Connoisseur Class) was provided with commemorative baseball caps and inaugural flight certificates.

I had hair (and acne)!

Although I was disappointed in not having scored a window seat, I was still able to witness many of United’s employees and airport workers watching us taxi out to the runway. The flight was fantastic and I noticed Lester Holt, a CBS news anchor in Chicago at that time (now on NBC’s Today Show), was seated in the rear Connoisseur cabin. The flight flew by and we were far too quickly arriving at our gate in Chicago.

It remains to this day one of my all time favorite experiences flying United and I hope you enjoyed the flash back photo tour.

Related posts:

United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner Inaugural – Houston to Denver

[Midnight on Saturday 7/23: It looks like Alaska Airlines, Frontier & Virgin America are the only three airlines remaining who haven't increased their fares to compensate for the tax break. It was nice while it lasted.]

Due to congressional gridlock, a deadline was passed at midnight last night without resolution causing several federal air travel taxes to expire. I’m sure this will be temporary, but if there’s ever a time to buy your airline tickets, do it this weekend! According to the Associated Press:

My quick pricing out of a Los Angeles to Chicago ticket on United Airlines this morning confirms it where only the PFCs and security fees are collected:

So, save upwards of 10% on your airline tickets and buy them NOW!

[Edited to add: American, JetBlue and US Airways have raised their fares to offset the difference, though United and Virgin America have not so far. I haven't priced out Delta yet.]

Several smaller stories in the airline, hotel & travel industry caught my attention this week and I’ve summarized them below:

• A Canadian couple sued Air Canada and won an award of C$12,000 (plus an apology) from the airline failing to serve them “in French” aboard their flights to the United States. Records show the passenger, Mr. Thibodeau, a Canadian federal government employee, is fluently bilingual and critics claim him to be the “equivalent of a compulsive coupon clipper” demanding the Canadian law of providing airline services in both French and English be upheld at all times. (Hmm, would this equate to a Skykit on United?)
• Attention all Priority Club members, Crown Plaza London-The City now offers a “snore-absorbing” room for those pesky people with an obnoxiously loud issue upon falling asleep. The room features soundproof material on the walls and headboards, plus a white-noise machine and “anti-snoring bed wedge” to assist guests to fall into a calm REM rest while encouraging them to sleep on their sides or upright.
• The FAA is investigating a report where an ATC controller in the Denver Center tested positive for alcohol while on duty. The center in Longmount, Colorado immediately removed him/her upon failing the random testing and forwarded the results to the FAA. Air Traffic Controllers are also held to the same strict standards as pilots where anything at or above a 0.02 is against FAA guidelines.
• Identity theft has been rampant in the past decade and now thieves are targeting your hard-earned frequent flyer miles. The research firm Kaspersky Lab identified phishing scams targeting Brazilian nationals where one customer lost approximately $7,600 worth of airline miles. As is common with all such scams, these came in the form of emails that offered bonuses or other prizes after logging into a fake website with their frequent flyer data.
• Alaska Airlines announced this week new service between San Diego and Honolulu beginning November 17, 2011. The single daily nonstop in each direction will be operated with a Boeing 737 and offers direct competition with an existing Hawaiian Airlines flight between the city pairs. I’m all for a fare war to Hawaii, so my hope is this will bring down fares from (sort-of) nearby Los Angeles. That’s a lie. Having worked in United’s Revenue Management department, I know they’d only tinker with the direct SAN-HNL fare structure and leave LAX out of it.
• United Airlines (and Continental Airlines by default) signed a new multi-year agreement with Travelocity to continue their existing relationship with the Online Travel Agency (OTA). Largely a PR release by both companies, it basically means United will continue to offer its fares & schedules as usual via a Global Distribution System (GDS) to the OTA. Not really surprising in my mind as OTAs still generate a significant amount of revenue for airlines, but I still think all airlines are keen on American’s initial undertaking to challenge the distribution model. My prediction is we’ll see dramatic changes in the next 5-10 years in that model.
• And finally, while on the subject of United Airlines, they posted a second quarter 2011 profit of $538 million yesterday beating analyst expectations. Even with the revenue hit due to the Japanese earthquake & tsunami, a 30% rise in fuel costs from the same period a year ago, and $39 million in merger-related costs, United shined in the second quarter. Congrats to my preferred carrier… keep it going please!

All Nippon Airways (ANA) sent me an email today offering 100 Mileage Club miles for participating in an online survey. I received it since I subscribe to their ANA Mileage Club (AMC) “Mail Magazine” and the offer is as follows:

As many of you know, the ANA award tool is bar none the premier way to search for Star Alliance award space and they had previously attempted to restrict access to only those who held a balance in their AMC account. The workaround (as described in this link) has been active for well more than a year now, but taking the survey might be critical to those (like me) who don’t have a balance should they further clamp down on access. Luckily, the link provided appears to be non-targeted, so cut & paste the url below into your browser, delete the space that prevents you from linking to it directly,  and take the survey for a quick 100 miles.

https://www .surveymonkey.com/s/jul2011e

Survey Participation Period: July 21, 2011 – July 28, 2011 23:59 (Pacific Time)

[See comment#2 regarding targeting. I still think this offer would still flow through even if you didn't receive the email.]

And in further editing, the exact email I received appears below. The bolding is mine referring to the possibility of being targeted, but I still maintain if you have the url, you’ll get the 100 miles even if you do submit it multiple times with your ANA number. I absolutely could be wrong, but something tells me if you have a valid ANA number, the system will take it and post the miles even if you didn’t receive the email. Worth the try, at least!

As widely reported, American Airlines announced an industry record aircraft order yesterday for 460 jets spread across Boeing and Airbus. American’s tweets came alive in the morning and I clicked through one and watched part of the live stream from a Dallas Admirals Club where American’s Chairman & CEO Gerard Arpey made the formal announcement with Airbus & Boeing executives flanking his sides. The carrier will introduce Airbus A319 and A321 aircraft beginning in 2013 along with adding additional next generation Boeing 737s to their fleet. In addition to eliminating MD80s, the eventual retirement of American’s 757s and 767-200s was also mentioned, and for a more descriptive breakdown of the order, check out AAdvantageGeek’s posting today.

Also yesterday, American announced a $286 million loss for the second quarter of 2011, worse than analysts had anticipated and an unfavorable signal pointing to dismal full year results. According to an article by Terry Maxon appearing in the Los Angeles Times on July 1st, airline analysts claim AMR Corporation “will lose more than $600 million in 2011 and more than $100 million next year.” This while Delta and United are predicted to post profits of $1.2 & $1.3 billion respectively this year, with both carriers likely earning $1.7 billion in 2012. How long can American continue to hemorrhage money like this? No wonder they were first at bat in the attempt to shake up the distribution model whose annual expense for an airline is near the top after direct operating costs.

Next up, the Irish Times reported yesterday that American is planning to close its Dublin Ireland reservations center where approximately 130 employees currently man the facility that has been around for the past 15 years. The carrier informed the Irish Communication Workers Union and is now in “a period of consultation to discuss a proposal to outsource the work to an offshore location.” No disrespect, but I’m hoping offshore from Ireland means those jobs will come back to the U.S.

Finally, according to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), American Airlines has clarified its policy on transporting non-human primates (monkeys) to outright ban the acceptance of such animals intended for “laboratory research, experimentation or exploitation purposes.” Very welcome news and how sad to think that some airlines still accept monkeys for this purpose. Only one U.S. airline remains on BUAV’s list of carriers that “do or would” fly primates destined for the research industry. Eh hem… paging Continental Airlines. I will follow up this post with a direct inquiry to United to see if they’re even aware Continental is on the list.

It’s time for another edition of Vintage Airline Seat Maps and I’ve selected the Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar appearing below. The L-1011 was the DC-10 alternative with both aircraft exhibiting nearly the same design and passenger volume. Eastern Airlines took delivery of the very first L-1011-1 in early April of 1972 and began passenger service later that month. While popular with the airlines that flew them, Lockheed’s reentry into the commercial aircraft market with this bird eventually failed due to production delays, engine manufacturer issues and the lack of a larger, longer range option in the early development.

This version seated a total of 316 passengers with 28 in first class and 288 in coach. In first you’d find me in either row two or three, likely a window, as row one appears rather tight due to the curvature of the fuselage though I doubt as much as this map makes it appear. In coach my preferred seats would be a window or aisle (on the two-seater sides) in rows 21 or 22. Why not the forward coach zone? Well, back in the 1980s we didn’t have all our wonderful technology to entertain ourselves, so the movie would have been a big highlight for me not to be missed. It’s also nice to see Eastern isolated the smoking section in coach to the rearmost zone aft of doors 3L & 3R.

Where would you sit?

Yesterday I received an email inviting me to “share your opinions about being a Red Carpet Club member,” as it was so titled. Fantastic, I thought, that United Airlines wants feedback from current RCC members and I was hoping to give some praise and criticism since I figured they’re gathering direct input for the eventual rollout of a rebranded “United Club.” Without really reading the rest of the email, I clicked through to the questionnaire.

Image courtesy United Airlines

As it turns out, since I had redeemed miles for membership at one time this ended up being a targeted survey with an ominous tone. Here were the questions & options and my perhaps too honest of answers are bolded:

1. If you were not able to use your miles to purchase your Red Carpet Club membership, would you have purchased your membership with money instead? A: Definitely would, probably would, probably would not, definitely would not, not sure
2. If you were not able to use your miles to purchase your Red Carpet Club membership, how would you have redeemed those miles instead? Standard air award, saver air award, hotel or car award, merchandise or other award, would not have used the miles
3. If you were not able to use your miles to purchase your Red Carpet Club membership, how would your satisfaction with Mileage Plus change? My satisfaction would have decreased, my satisfaction would not have changed, my satisfaction would have increased
4. If you were not able to use your miles to purchase your Red Carpet Club membership, how would this affect your flying behavior on United? I would fly more often on United, I would not change how much I fly on United, I would fly less often on United

Then it asked a few classification questions about how long I’ve been a RCC member, my Mileage Plus status and how much I’ve flown on United and other airlines in the past year. Even though burning miles (47,500 for an individual membership at the 1K level) is a poor redemption value when compared with other awards, I ended up doing it that way last year since I’m always mileage rich and cash not-so-much at my renewal period in December. (I should never have started around the holidays!).

What’s concerning here is this survey is blatantly determining what impact would be felt if United pulled the mileage option. I find that possibility pretty strange coming from “the airline that wants you to use your miles,” or perhaps that tag line is now extinct with the merger. Several others on Flyertalk also received the survey and decisively answered that they would not pay cash, their satisfaction would be decreased and they’d reduce their flying on United. Maybe I should have done the same.

If they do take away the mileage option, I will still renew because given the amount I fly domestically, I enjoy having a fairly comfortable place to relax, plug into Wi-Fi, have a light snack, and most importantly have a much shorter wait time to see a customer service agent in the event of irregular operations. Would such a change impact your opinion of United and/or RCC membership?