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

• Southwest Airlines acquired AirTran in May last year and received a single operating certificate from the FAA last month, but each carrier remains an independent operation for the time being meaning AirTran’s baggage and other fees will remain intact. Unlike the relatively faster integration between Delta & Northwest and United & Continental, Southwest says it will take, “several years to fully transition AirTran into Southwest Airlines to become one airline.” The fees will continue through at least the end of 2013 and possibly into 2014.
• US Airways is expanding its Gogo Wi-Fi service across their entire Airbus fleet and Embraer 190 aircraft, eventually bringing onboard internet capabilities to 90 percent of its domestic mainline fleet. Regional carrier Republic Airlines will also add the service to its Express Embrarer 170 and 175 aircraft. Gogo Vision will be included where passengers have the option to download movies, TV shows and other content directly to their Wi-Fi enabled devices.
• Lufthansa announced their new Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental aircraft will be deployed on the Frankfurt to Washington Dulles route shortly after deliveries begin April 23. It will replace the existing 747-400 flights, LH 418 and LH 419. All of Lufthansa’s 747-8 aircraft will feature the new business and first class product, as well as 787-style overhead bins and LED lighting. I look forward to burning some miles to fly this bird in a premium cabin later this year.
• Japan Airlines took delivery of its first two Boeing 787-8s this past week making it the second airline to receive the long-delayed Dreamliner. The airline is expected to begin 787 flights to Boston this month and to San Diego later this year. I may have to start building up my American AAdvantage miles for a future redemption.
• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel predicts Chicago O’Hare’s newest runway will be built and in use by 2015. The city will rely on financial help from both American and United to get it built and predicts once in use, it will reduce delays by 80 percent and allow for 300,000 more passengers annually.
• My “air traveling idiot of the week” award goes to a woman onboard US Airways flight 1697 from Charlotte to Fort Myers who, in an allegedly intoxicated state, kicked, scratched and spit on flight attendants, even knocking one to the ground. Unlike other recent incidents, the flight didn’t divert and continued to Fort Myers after she was restrained with the help of an off-duty sheriff’s deputy.

Finally, here are some other noteworthy items deserving of a click-through:

• A revealing Q&A with American Airlines CEO Thomas Horton.
• Alaska Airlines dedicates it’s new Terminal 6 location at LAX.
• New York-area airports may fine and prosecute disruptive passengers.
• Airlines for America ends its lawsuit over the EU ETS “tax” scheme.
• New Marriott properties will pop up in 2014 at L.A. Live in Los Angeles.

I’ll have a full recap of other airline, hotel and travel industry news from this week probably on Monday, but there were a few noteworthy items from United Airlines this week that I think deserve a unique post. If you didn’t already know…

• Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune reported United-Continental is planning to upgrade Terminal 2 facilities at Chicago O’Hare Airport. A total of 10 new jet bridges will be introduced on the F-concourse, eliminating the need at some current gates to board directly from the tarmac. Even more welcome news, however, is the announcement of a new United Club lounge for T2 replacing the dated, crowded and insufficient existing embarrassment. The new lounge is purported to be “triple the size” of the current offering.
• All of Continental’s international Boeing 757-200s now feature Economy Plus, a very welcome enhancement for those flying CO routes to/from Europe, as well as the domestic tag-ons. With the reconfiguration, there are now 16 flat-bed seats in BusinessFirst, 45 seats in Economy Plus and 108 in regular economy. It will be some time before the remainder of the domestic Continental fleet completes the E+ overhaul, but I’m hoping it will be as quick as I’ve been seeing United’s aircraft repainted.
• United will be launching new routes soon, including a daily Washington Dulles to Honolulu nonstop operated with Continental’s 767-400 aircraft. Living here in Los Angeles and often taking the first flights to Dulles in the morning, I’ve seen firsthand the amount of people who arrive from Hawaii and connect onto that Dulles flight. It’s likely a very good decision from an O&D and yield perspective. Other additions include nonstops from Denver to Fairbanks, AK operating from June 7, 2012 through August 27, 2012, as well as seasonal service from Houston to Rapid City, SD and Houston/San Francisco to Jackson Hole, WY.

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

If you recall from my Mother’s Day post, I am fortunate to have a wonderful Mom who basically broke into United’s headquarters to buy me something unique for my birthday as a youngster. My Dad is equally fantastic and did everything he could to encourage and foster my passion for airlines, airports & travel, and this Father’s Day post is devoted to him.

As a young pre-teen and teenager my Dad took me to the parking lots around Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on countless weekends so I could watch the arrivals and departures. We would bring a scanner to listen to air traffic communications to know what was coming and going, and I often filmed our planespotting sessions on an old school VHS recorder. This of course is very much prior to 9/11/2001, and although a security car once stopped to monitor us, we were never approached.

Our typical spot was alongside runway 4R/22L and aircraft would either be departing 22L or arriving on 4R. The parking lot at that time belonged to a flight kitchen, and service trucks would frequently pass by. Even though it’s one of the shorter runways at O’Hare, I still had the opportunity to see a number of wide-bodied jets take off and arrive, particularly DC-10s, L1011s & A300s.

Once I had my driver’s license at 16 I would venture out to O’Hare even more frequently and at all times of the week, sometimes bringing my homework to do in between lulls of traffic. With my Dad’s foundation I found even more spots around the runways to continue my passion for planespotting. I even had quite a few pilots wave to me, which I greatly appreciated. Sitting alongside airport runways and watching as much as I did, I hoped one day I’d frequently fly.

Last month I flew through Chicago on a couple of occasions and was incredibly fortunate to be seated in a window seat on the correct side of the plane to capture the following takeoff from runway 22L. Happy Father’s Day, Dad… this takeoff is for you.

My Love & Light,

Darren

Dad & Darren

Today was my first time traveling through Terminal 1 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport since the United Airlines deflowering rebranding effort, and I thought I’d share a few of my photos in case some of you haven’t yet traveled through ORD. It actually looks very clean & appealing and although I’ve never disliked the disco ball/globe, I’m still sorry to see the tulip go.

It’s time again for a quick wrap up of noteworthy news items from the airline and travel industry this week, summarized below:

• Delta Air Lines and US Airways have re-engaged each other for a potential slot swap at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport aimed to align each carrier better with their desired presence and route offerings in each market. The deal needs a blessing by the U.S. Department of Transportation and it is expected to clear given the recent merger by Continental and United that gave Southwest entry in the congested slot controlled New York market.
• The U.S. government also has their eye on global distribution systems (GDSs), with both airlines and GDS companies confirming they’ve received inquiries from the Justice Department to cooperate in an antitrust investigation. Stemming in part from awareness of American Airlines’ push for Direct Connect technology and the various lawsuits between carriers and GDS companies in the news lately, it will be interesting to monitor this in the coming months.
• New service, bonus miles & special offers are a plenty for Chicago-bound flyers from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Virgin America launched service into O’Hare Airport yesterday from both cities, and both American and United have targeted bonus mile offers to dissuade people from abandoning them. Additionally, American announced five days of giveaways this week to a lucky few flyers on flights from Chicago to Los Angeles and San Francisco. One person on each flight in each direction will win bonus AAdvantage miles, a couple of vouchers for future travel, and a day pass to the Admirals Club along with a $50 membership discount certificate.
• Singapore Airlines will launch a wide-bodied low-fare subsidiary in the near future aimed at gaining a share of the budget conscious medium- to long-haul markets in the Asia-Pacific region. The yet to be named carrier will look to steal some business away from existing carriers serving the area including Air Asia, JetStar (Qantas) and Tiger Airways. Oddly, Singapore Airlines holds nearly a 33% stake in Tiger, but has no managerial input as to how the carrier is run.
• Steven Slater is the former JetBlue flight attendant who will certainly be remembered for his less than professional (but wildly entertaining) exit from a flight he worked at New York’s Kennedy Airport last year. He’s penning a memoir and if his writing is as poignant and polished as this interview, he’s already sold his first book to yours truly. Very well spoken and realistic about an industry he loved, he comes across honest and comfortable with his predicament. I wish him nothing but success with upcoming book and all his future endeavors.

Check-in

After a 13-year hiatus from flying American Airlines, and in part to achieve Platinum status through February 2012 via a challenge, I flew AA this past Saturday from Los Angeles to Chicago to Los Angeles. I was excited to compare my experience as a top-tier elite with United Airlines to that of being a non-elite “nobody” with American and interested to see what had changed since last flying them.

First up was the online check-in experience. Whereas United’s email to announce check-in is available 24-hour hours before your flight generally arrives within minutes of that mark, American’s took more than an hour to reach my inbox. Not a big deal, though. Also, being “programmed “as a United flyer, I checked in right at the 24-hour mark assuming I could come back later in the day and check-in for my return flight. That was a mistake. For non-connection itineraries operating on the same day such as mine, American doesn’t allow you to check in for such flights until that first coupon (flight segment) is shown as “used,” or scanned at the gate as having boarded, if you have checked in for an earlier flight in the day.

I called AA.com support and was advised I needed to check-in for the return in Chicago at a kiosk, but only up to one hour before flight time. After that, I’d need to see an agent to manually check me in because I technically missed the cutoff. Given I had exactly one hour from scheduled arrival to departure, I asked if they could offload me, or un-check me in, to which they responded no it wasn’t possible. Not satisfied, I called back to another agent who told me the same thing. Okay, not a big deal, but good to know for the future.

LAX Security

Upon arriving at the airport, I reprinted my boarding pass at the lobby kiosks just to experience that process and was given the opportunity to buy up to Zone 1 boarding for $9. I passed as I was in Zone 2 and only had my laptop bag, so overhead space wasn’t a concern to me necessitating boarding earlier.

Next up was non-elite security and although I had a brief wait in line, I was fairly quickly through and on my way to the gate. This was the first time in years I haven’t had lounge access, so instead visited Starbucks where I got coffee & surfed the net on my iPhone for a while. Not bad, but I did miss the lounge bathrooms as the ones in the terminal have a higher “ick” factor for me.

Legroom

Boarding time arrived and after waiting for First Class, Executive Platinum, Platinum, Gold, Priority Access, and Zone 1 to board, I was one of the first among Zone 2 passengers to be scanned for boarding. I settled into aisle seat 22C and immediately noticed the legroom. As you can see from the picture, my knees flushly touched the seat in front of me. I now have a much greater appreciation for United’s Economy Plus. It was tolerable for a 3-1/2 hour flight, but I wouldn’t want to fly much longer, let alone on an international flight, with only 31” of seat pitch being 6’1″.

The United “rush” to have the doors closed at 10-minutes prior to departure didn’t seem to be present on American, where doors closed a minute or two before. A pre-recorded announcement for cell phones & other devices to be turned off was made (other boarding announcements were also pre-recorded & standardized), and the aisle flight attendant went through the cabin activating the flight attendant call button above anyone she saw with phones still in use or on. Pretty clever procedure, actually. Moments later, a flight attendant did make the announcement, “we can’t close the cockpit door until all mobile devices are turned off and put away.” One by one the aisle attendant confirmed each row was compliant, deactivated the lights, and the flight deck door was closed & we pushed back.

Once airborne, the standard service announcements, cabin policies, welcome from the flight deck, and others were made. It was primarily a drink service flight, and although light snack items were available, the breakfast options were not. I asked a flight attendant about it & she replied, “Oh, it’s too early of a flight for those.” Interesting. Although I’ve flown United many times from Los Angeles to Chicago on the 6am flight, I’m usually in First and don’t recall the economy choices, however on the 6am flights to Washington Dulles airport United does cater the breakfast options in economy. Just a data point.

I’ll get into my impression of the flight attendants overall later, but for now, I’ll summarize that it was a fairly comfortable and non-eventful flight. We arrived early into O’Hare and I had enough time to visit a kiosk and check myself back in for the return trip to Los Angeles. Not having an Admirals Club membership, I got a bite to eat and walked the concourses to stretch my legs.

737 Astrojet

The inbound aircraft for my return to Los Angeles was late coming in, but I was thankful for that since it gave me a chance to get a photo of it arriving at the gate. Thankful because it ended up being the 737-800 “Astrojet” retro livery aircraft painted as such in part to commemorate delivery of American’s 50^th next generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Since I geek out on those types of things, I was happy to be flying on it.

Boarding time quickly came & I noticed a gate agent enforcing the carry on size rule by standing next to the sizer and pulling people aside after they’ve been scanned to board if they had questionable bags. She did end up tagging a couple. Missing from American’s boarding announcements, however, is the rather frequent United announcement, “If you’re in Seating Area 4, we will (may) have to check your carry on luggage.” That was a refreshing change.

ORD Gate H11A

When it was time for me to board, the agent scanned my ticket and even addressed me by name, a rare occurrence on United even for me as a 1K. I appreciated it, and went on my way this time to window seat 12A. It was a full flight, and here again noticed the lack of legroom that seemed more so because I was in the window seat without an aisle to stretch into. This aircraft was equipped with Wi-Fi and in-seat power, which are a major benefit although I didn’t have a need for them this trip.

Again the pre-recorded announcements played although the flight attendants this time seemed less interested in enforcing the mobile device policy. “Full” service was available on the flight and included the snack items, as well as sandwich selections with the standard beverage service. We were fairly quickly airborne and on our way. I started working a bit on my laptop and listened to music. Had I desired it, a movie played on both flights, along with some television programming and audio selections. We landed early in Los Angeles and were quickly to the gate.

Now let me discuss the flight attendants. I was positively blown away with their service and genuine interest in their jobs from both crews, an incredibly refreshing change from the inconsistency at United. Both crews had “senior” attendants on the flights, and unlike United where I’ve often received incredibly indifferent and sometimes rude service from the senior attendants, the ones I encountered on these two flights were exceptional. Now I know I can’t assume all F/As at American are as outstanding, but it was incredible for me to witness and experience. Job well done American!

Wingtip to wingtip

I have about 10 more flights with American before the end of July, so will better be able to provide a meaningful comparison between American and United at that time. This first experience, however, was a very positive one with no delays or other irregular operations. My report might have been different had I been “stranded” or misconnected with no elite status, but for now I’m very happy with American Airlines except for the seat pitch. Exit row seating awaits me though, once I climb the status levels.

Stay tuned for continued reports on American as I travel with them over the coming months, including on the premium transcontinental run between Los Angeles and New York’s Kennedy Airport.

I mentioned previously that United Airlines does a fantastic job ensuring a quick recovery of backlogged passengers when events cause flight disruptions, and today is no exception. With St. Louis airport reopening today after the tornado struck on Friday night, United ferried in a Boeing 757 to make a St. Louis Lambert Field to Chicago O’Hare run. It likely enabled all passengers impacted Friday night & Saturday to reach their destinations. This short hop is currently only serviced by United’s regional carriers, so the 757 was probably ideal to clear the backlog.

Happy & safe Easter everyone.

Image from FlightAware

I was off on yet another mileage run yesterday and snapped the following pictures from 37,000 feet of Chicago and Detroit. Given my displeasure of being “trapped” in a window seat on longer flights in coach, I had reserved the exit row aisle on this Continental Airlines flight. It was lightly booked, though, and I ended up having the whole row to myself, so I scooted over to the window for some great shots. You can click on each picture for a full-size view, and I threw in Cleveland on final approach. Enjoy!

Chicago

Cleveland

Detroit

A mere hours after I posted my noteworthy news items for the week yesterday, two more even bigger announcements came down.

First, and absolutely most exciting for United flyers is the welcome news that Economy Plus will be a part of the NEW United Airlines. Many loyalists have been waiting for this decision, and had it gone the other way, some were ready to defect to American Airlines. Sighs of relief could be heard on the boards of Flyertalk and MilePoint (a NEW Flyertalk alternative).

Economy Plus is a section of coach seating in the forward part of the cabin featuring up to 5 inches of additional legroom. It is definitely not a “premium economy” product, but simply seats with sacred room to cross or stretch your legs. When United launched this offering, they simply removed a row of coach seats forward of the first overwing exit row and spaced them out as evenly as possible. It will take some time for all of Continental’s aircraft to be fully converted, and that process will begin in 2012. While it hasn’t been decided if they will remove a row of economy seating, or instead reduce their first class cabin capacities, I’ve illustrated on the left what Continental’s Boeing 757-200 looks like today, and on the right is possibly what the converted seat map will look like once Economy Plus is installed. Continental’s row numbering is as such to always have the overwing exit rows as 20 and 21, and they apparently don’t like the number 13.

Next up is the long-anticipated announcement of Virgin America’s entry into the Chicago market serving O’Hare Airport. I, selfishly, have been hoping for this for some time in an effort to find better fares in the LAX-ORD market; one I frequently fly. Presently launching with two flights per day from LAX and three from San Francisco, the service will begin on May 25, 2011. The introductory fare of $99 each way ($219.40 roundtrip all-in for those like me who prefer to see the total) is available through September 6^th. United and American have matched the fares outright, and that will likely continue for the foreseeable future.