United Airlines purchased Pan Am’s Pacific Division and acquired several aircraft in 1985 and I’ve selected a 747-200 from that time period featuring United’s Royal Pacific configuration for this installment of Vintage Airline Seat Maps.

This particular layout – one of several in United’s 747 fleet at the time – was likely seen flying the U.S. to Japan market as almost 40% of the cabin comprised premium seating. A total of 35 seats were available in First Class in a 2 x 2 layout (or 2 x 2 x 2 aft of door one), Business Class seated 100 passengers in an uncomfortable looking 2 x 4 x 2 configuration with limited pitch, and coach offered 212 seats in the usual 3 x 4 x 3 setup.

In First Class on this bird you’d find me in the nose section as usual, probably in 2A or 2F. In Business I’d be in 17 or 18 A/H and in coach I’d opt for those exit row aisles in rows 27 or 37 if alone, or back in the two-seater section if I had a companion in rows 49-51.

Where would you sit?

If you haven’t already guessed by reading several of my recent posts, I’m closely monitoring my reservations and other ticketing concerns as the United Airlines system conversion creeps closer.

I’m a big fan of ExpertFlyer and have several “Flight & Seat Alerts” saved that are monitoring upgrade and award space on future itineraries beyond the planned March 3 cutover to Shares. I emailed ExpertFlyer last week asking whether or not they’ll automatically convert the alerts to match the new class-of-service codes/buckets and received the following reply.

I’m glad to hear they’ll be proactive and adjust all saved alerts, as well as send out a confirmation email. As they mention, it’s always a good idea to double-check your own alerts after the cutover, so I’ll be doing just that next Monday or Tuesday.

To access your saved alerts, just click on the View Saved Alerts link under the Flight & Seat Alerts section found along the left-hand column after signing into your account, as shown below.

Kansas City has been “on sale” for some time now out of LAX, but a $69 one-way base fare is also now available from SFO and SEA on both American and United. Delta has only filed a matching fare in the LAX-MCI market as of this posting. Travel must be completed by May 9, 2012.

Routing rules vary based on carrier with United offering the most generous mileage-maximizing opportunities. Still, though, there are many options with American and Delta at under 4.0cpm

Selfishly, as I’m primarily a United guy and LAX-based, here’s an example of a zero-nighter available on May 2 and May 7.

Routing: Los Angeles to San Francisco to Cleveland to Kansas City roundtrip

Travel period: Now through May 9, 2012

Dates I found available: 5/2 & 5/7

Number of nights stay: 0

Day of week restrictions: Mon/Tue/Wed/Thur/Sat

Fare basis: GAG7CS

Fare: $188.60 all-in

Elite Qualifying Miles earned: 6,712 (assumes 500-mile minimums)

Cost-per-mile (CPM): 2.81

Example itinerary:

Just a quick post to note my discomfort with United’s homepage this afternoon. You know that central windowpane that features scrolling specials and other updates? Here’s one of the items appearing right now and it looked new to me, so I decided to click in to see if it contained any information different from what I already know.

Well, when clicking the “Preview changes” link, I was redirected to the following.

Not good, United… not good. Mistakes happen, but if you’re trying to instill confidence in the mind of Joe Q Traveler before this weekend, 404 error messages do very little to accomplish that.

This past weekend I completed another mileage run with United rolling me past the 45,000 EQM mark for the year and I – as well as many other passengers in Business Class – scored a customer appreciation certificate for a faulty video system onboard a new configuration 777 from Los Angeles to Washington Dulles. Movies would begin to play, but then freeze partway through without being able to restart them or do virtually anything else but get to the airshow.

I’ve already flown more than 30 flights this year without so much as a bump or any other type of irregular situation, so was pleased to get the “We’re sorry…” certificate assuming it would likely yield the usual choice of miles or an e-certificate.

As I always do, I chose the $200 domestic e-cert knowing I’ll be able to turn that into about 6,000 EQM in the coming months.

Then I got to thinking about the system conversion scheduled to take place this weekend and wondered if Continental’s website was already programmed to accept United e-cert numbers. I made a dummy booking and discovered the answer is a definitive “No.”

Neither of the two United reservations agents I spoke with this morning knew whether or not these type of certs will be redeemable online once the legacy United website goes away next week, but assured me they’ll still be valid and intervention by web support will likely be necessary to complete a booking.

I’ll be certain to make a follow-up posting once “the switch” occurs and outline the steps necessary to redeem these types of certificates. The next couple of weeks at United-Continental will be very interesting, to say the least.

In other hotel and travel industry news last week…

• Hilton Hotels & Resorts completed renovations of the former International JFK Airport Hotel and officially opened its doors last week as the Hilton New York JFK Airport. This marks the chain’s sixth property in the New York metro area (excluding New Jersey). The JFK hotel features a total of 356 rooms, which includes 64 Executive Level rooms and 11 suites. Separately, Hilton will reportedly open 500 new restaurants at its properties during the next three years. Included among the options being considered is Ruth’s Chris Steak House at hotels where it would make sense based on guest demographics. Yes, please!
• Still more than two years from opening, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts released a rendering of their planned Park Hyatt property in Bangkok. Shaped like a coil, it will mark the chain’s third property in Thailand and feature 222 rooms with a top-floor restaurant and lounge, along with more than 15,000 square feet of meeting and convention space.
• Starwood Hotels & Resorts plans to open 20 new properties this year through a combination of conversions and new construction. Twelve of the new hotels will be located in China, all of the Sheraton brand. According to Starwood’s President of Global Development, Simon Turner, “Sheraton’s impressive global pipeline is being fueled by phenomenal demand in China and India as well as by a surge in high-quality conversions in developed markets.” Eight new Sheraton Resorts will also open this year.
• On the car rental front, both Hertz and Dollar-Thrifty reported impressive fourth quarter results for 2011. Hertz enjoyed a $52.1 million net income for the period versus a $23.6 million net loss the year prior, and Dollar-Thrifty reported a $33.9 million net profit for the period this year. Dollar’s CEO, Scott Thompson, feels optimistic about the first quarter in 2012 mentioning he expects the “rental rate environment to improve in the first quarter of 2012 versus the fourth quarter of 2011.”
• As widely reported and blogged, United’s switch to the Shares GDS is right around the corner and it was reported last week that the conversion will temporarily deactivate the ability to book United’s Economy Plus seats for users of Sabre and Travelport. This is actually a pretty big deal given the volume of corporate agencies that subscribe to the impacted GDSs. There is no ETA for when this critical ancillary and loyalty mechanism will be restored.
• It was reported another ’30 Rock’ star had an issue while flying American Airlines a week ago. Katrina Bowden tweeted on February 21, “Flight attendant on American just refused to give me more water because ‘I had enough already’ what the what?! These people are the worst!” While I’ve never been refused water, I have in the past noticed a bit of attitude when asking for more. This is total speculation, but I think many FAs like to bring “extra” full bottles of water with them from the galleys on their layovers and tend to horde them near the end of longer flights. This might have been what happened to Katrina.
• And finally, the airline-traveling idiot of the week goes to a Saudi teenager who refused to turn off his e-cigarette when a flight attendant advised him to do so. The Continental Airlines flight from Portland to Houston turned around and the man was arrested upon landing in Portland. The disruptive passenger also allegedly took a swing at one of the attendants and “sang of bin Laden.” Eek!

This week, the fine folks over at Gadling posted an American Airlines commercial from 1981 themed “Full service no matter what you pay.” It’s a quick look back at what air travel used to be like, with (relatively) low fares, free meals in coach and a swarm of airline and airport employees with smiles on their faces. Times have changed, particularly for American right now, and it made the Gadling staff sad (me, too).

Watching it got me headed over to YouTube to look over other vintage American commercials and I found the one appearing below showcasing the luxury of the carrier’s 747, 707 and DC-10 fleet in 1972. It takes a quick look through each aircraft, showing off the coach lounge on the 747 and DC-10 and the “new” interiors of the 707B. When describing the DC-10, the commentator mentions, “Its takeoffs are quieter and virtually smokeless.” Different times, indeed.

Enjoy!

In other airline industry news this week…

• United Airlines announced new daily nonstop service from Newark to Istanbul effective July 1, 2012. Initially the route will be flown with United’s current international 767-300ER aircraft with three classes of service, but beginning August 28, the airline will swap in a new configuration that features BusinessFirst, Economy Plus and standard economy. United is planning to convert the current domestic 767-300 fleet typically seen on the Hawaii routes into this new layout.
• Delta Air Lines completed the installation of Wi-Fi on all Delta Shuttle aircraft flying the New York-LaGuardia to Boston, Washington National and Chicago O’Hare flights. According to the carrier’s local Senior Vice President Gail Grimmett, “We are thrilled that Wi-Fi is now available to our Delta Shuttle customers as it’s a perfect complement to other Shuttle amenities including free morning coffee and newspapers.” The carrier expects to have internet service available on more than 800 aircraft by this summer.
• Sticking with Delta for the moment, they announced expanded codeshare agreements with both China Eastern and China Southern Airlines this week. The Civil Aviation Administration of China approved the link-up of codes and flight numbers and once implemented, codeshare service will be seen across 34 cities within the U.S. and China with China Eastern and 18 cities with China Southern.
• American Airlines issued another letter to its employees this week notifying them of the necessity to “re-gauge” their fleet in order to match supply with market demand, particularly from their hub in Chicago. Current contracts with the pilot’s union prevent the carrier from subbing larger regional jets into markets currently flown with larger mainline aircraft, causing an industry-losing position in unit revenue. The letter also states the airline will focus on premium international business traffic once it exits Chapter 11 protection, hoping to grow their share of the lucrative segment.
• US Airways filed a formal objection with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday claiming Philadelphia’s planned airport expansion would “harm its finances and business operations and force it to shift flights elsewhere.” The carrier controls 70% of the market flying to, through or from PHL, and as a result, the airline would take the brunt of the all but likely increases to airport rates and fees charged to fund the expansion. The city, meanwhile, claims the proposed new runway and terminal expansion are essential to sustain further growth.
• Survey results were released this week from Buyology and uSamp (who?) revealing the most desired brand in the United States. Sorry, Apple, top honors went to Southwest Airlines. Buyology CEO Gary Singer thinks Southwest did so well largely due to its no-fee ad campaign and because of what its service represents in the minds of passengers.
• Finally, and hopefully not an omen of things to come at United, Cathay Pacific continues to have issues a week after it converted from an in-house reservations system to GDS provider Amadeus. Passengers with award tickets are still unable to manage their bookings online and the carrier is working through additional “teething issues” (their words) with the system migration. With United’s upcoming switchover, let this be a reminder to passengers to be proactive and have as much detail about their itineraries as possible in print.

On Wednesday, I posted a giveaway for the last remaining 50% off rack rate Starwood Preferred Guest certificate I have in my possession and here’s the winning comment via random.org:

Congrats to “goheerow!” I’ll be sending you an email momentarily.

Thanks, everyone, for your interest and stay tuned as I’m sure I’ll be offering more giveaways in the months to come.

The PR firm for PricewaterhouseCoopers (“PwC”) sent me a link to an interesting study PwC recently completed and published focusing on strategies the airlines should be incorporating to ensure they’re meeting the needs of both business and leisure travelers.

I could write-up multiple posts covering the entire Experience Radar 2012: Customer Insight for the US Airline Industry report, as there is a great deal of research and data covered, but I’ll simply summarize a few takeaways for people like me – the mileage running and elite status junkie.

PwC received input from more than 6,000 consumers for this study and thoroughly broke out each segment of traveler within both the leisure and business demographic to derive “experience segments.” Meet my favorite among the business travelers, Premier Status Peter.

Image courtesy PwC

According to the study, Peter is a Gen Xer living in a major city, prefers United (yes) or Southwest (what?), is among the highest portion of people unlikely to switch airlines (agree), has the highest frequency of negative experiences a month due to travel volume, and is most influenced by positive experiences when repurchasing. Peter also seeks convenience from his elite status, not luxury – things like priority boarding, upgrades, standby, rebooking assistance and extra legroom. I couldn’t agree more.

The result below struck a little fear in my system as a travel voucher can typically be turned into more than 10,000 elite qualifying miles & 20,000 redeemable miles as a top-tier elite, so it has more value to me than a sincere apology. Both are nice, of course.

Image courtesy PwC

This next graphic reveals the consistency of the inconsistency of flight attendant service many of us have experienced and shows the words used most often when describing a positive or negative experience. Notice how the word “attendant” is basically equal in both? Two words on the positive front dear to any elite junkie’s heart are sizeable – upgraded and first class.

Image courtesy PwC

If you have the time and interest, download a copy as the other results and methodology used for the study are a fascinating read.

United Airlines yesterday released their annual 10-K report as required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – a light 238 pages of company history, industry information, financial statements and more. I geek out reading through these and will take some time to do so as there are often noteworthy nuggets of information not released elsewhere.

While I do that, I thought I’d share the carrier’s operating fleet as it existed on December 31, 2011, which includes Continental and United aircraft, as well as those operated by regional carriers on behalf of UACO (listed as “Capacity Purchase” below).

In addition to the aircraft appearing above, United and Continental own or lease the following aircraft, which are either parked or subleased:

• Five owned 747-400s, including one to be inducted into charter service;
• One leased 767-200, which is being subleased to another airline;
• Three Airbus A330s, which are subleased to another airline (this was news to me);
• Two leased 757-200s, which have been returned to the lessor;
• 16 737-300s, of which four are owned and 12 are leased;
• 18 owned 737-500s; and
• 30 leased ERJ-135s, five of which are leased to another airline.

It’s fun for me to study these tables and add a few items of trivia to my United knowledge. Next week, I’ll be flying on the carrier’s second youngest fleet type – a Boeing 757-300 with an average age of 6.6 years. I hope you find something interesting for yourself.