It’s time for another Vintage Airline Seat Map and I’ve selected a Continental Airlines MD-80 (Super 80) seen flying the skies in 1987.

According to PlaneSpotters.net, Continental had about 42 in its fleet and the version appearing below offered 16 seats in first class and 130 in coach.

Sitting up front is always fun on takeoff, as it’s so quiet given how far away you are from the engines. As such, I’d opt for 2F in first  and 6A or 7A in coach.

Where would you sit?

Continental Airlines MD-80 Seat Map

Related posts:

Continental Airlines DC-10-30 Domestic/South Pacific Seat Map

Continental Airlines DC-10-10 Pub Configuration Seat Map

Top 10 Viewed Vintage Airline Seat Maps

I’ve got DC-10s on my mind this week having posted a video on Tuesday showing a “floater” landing by a United DC-10 at LAX years ago. And I’m jealous of a fellow #avgeek who’s flying a KLM MD-11 on Sunday. So… here’s a Continental Airlines DC-10-30 for this installment of Vintage Airline Seat Maps.

I posted another Continental DC-10-30 seat map a while back that was labeled exclusively as “South Pacific.” The configuration appearing below is labeled as “Domestic/South Pacific” with only three fewer seats, but with some unique differences.

Primarily, a few galley and lavatory locations swapped from the other configuration, causing the cabin layout in first class and business class to vary. Each version still seated 24 in first and 31 in business, however. Coach saw the 3-seat reduction in this layout.

I’d be keen on 3A in first, 10A/L in business and 15A/L in coach.

Where would you sit?

Related posts:

Continental Airlines DC-10-30 (South Pacific)

Continental Airlines DC-10-10 Pub Configuration

Continental Airlines 747

The Top 10 Viewed Seat Maps

Instead of posting a new Vintage Airline Seat Map this week, I decided to take a look at my site’s analytics and post the top 10 viewed seat maps since I began blogging in 2010. Obviously the earlier maps have had more opportunity for greater pageviews, but the top 10 didn’t come as a surprise to me. And I’ve published 73 maps since I introduced Frequently Flying in December 2010. Here’s the list and links:

1. American Airlines Boeing 707-123
2. United Airlines DC-10-10
3. American Airlines Boeing 747-100
4. American Airlines Boeing 747-SP
5. United Airlines Boeing 737-200
6. United Airlines Boeing 747-SP
7. American Airlines Boeing 707-323
8. United Airlines DC-8-52
9. Pan Am Boeing 747
10. TWA Boeing 747-100

One of my favorites didn’t make the cut and came in at #22, so as an honorable mention check out:

Continental Airlines DC-10-10 Pub Configuration

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

Last week, the Direct Marketing Association named United Airlines and Macy’s joint marketers of the year. Initially, the United nod had me scratching my head. But after reading a bit more of the background and realizing how different and specialized the email are that I receive now post-merger, I pretty much agree. They still have a lot of customer service issues to tackle, but on the pure marketing side, they’ve achieved many successes.

First, here’s the blurb from DMA’s press release about United:

With the merger of United and Continental Airlines, United Continental Holdings has become the world’s largest airline, and now operates the biggest loyalty program of its kind, MileagePlus. This merger required combining 90 million accounts and 30 years of transactional history into a single database. But United’s Managing Director, Loyalty Marketing & Analytics Mark Krolick and his team took the data initiative even further by launching a massive marketing and Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) campaign. This process included launching a highly complex series of communications to guide members of the two pre-merger programs through the combination of the airline operations and the launch of the newly revamped MileagePlus loyalty program. As a result, United gained an unprecedented understanding of its customers (both inside and outside its loyalty program), and the ability to leverage that data to drive revenue and change the customer experience.

United’s partner in helping combine the separate databases was Acxiom, who published a case study including some interesting nuggets of information. Here’s the Acxiom release, which has the link to the full PDF case study. Some of the highlights:

• Active flyers enrolled in the loyalty program spend, on average, significantly more than non-member passengers annually (no surprise, really).
• Having a valid email address on file for non-members makes them 60% more likely to convert to a member.
• United has more than 1 million valid email addresses for non-members.
• Richer non-member data helped convert 4% to members – more than ever before – for “tens of millions in additional revenue.”

But what I found even more interesting from the report were the following statements (all bolding mine).

Given the untapped revenue opportunity within the airline’s large universe of non-member passengers, United is now heavily focused on growing MileagePlus. To do so, the group must identify millions of non-members, understand them better and be able to reach them.

This sort of confirms the rumors I read about on Flyertalk and heard elsewhere where United executives were mentioning they’d rather have a someone who hasn’t flown in first class before get an upgrade over elites as their experience might convert them into long-term United fliers. While some think the “tens of dollars” upgrade issue has been resolved (where all elites on the upgrade list clear before reduced price upgrades are sold at check-in), I think it’s still alive and well.

Another statement from the report:

On the marketing side, United is adding dimension to member records with demographics and other segmentation data, enabling personalized offers not possible before.

Hence, the emails we all receive now after booking a trip mentioning things such as “how about a hotel in (destination)?” But also, I have a feeling we mileage runners are now more closely being monitored and given a particular ‘segmentation’ flag.

The following blurb from the study is pretty cool – has it happened to you?

At several test airports, United identified all MileagePlus members traveling each day that would hit a program milestone, such as reaching the Premier Silver, Gold or Platinum level or 1K level. Agents were given thank-you notes and instructions so they could congratulate passengers during the boarding process. Not only does this change a routine process for customers but for agents as well.

The next bit of info adds support to the fact United is aggressively favoring the high-spend traveler, regardless of MileagePlus membership, furthering the focus on transactional loyalty vs. long-term patronage:

“For so long, the norm in our industry has been, ‘Your frequent flyer data is your customer database,’” added Michelle Brown, director of strategy & analytics, MileagePlus. “For the first time, we have true analytics on the number of people flying with United, flying United repeatedly, and buying our best products. That’s changed the mindset in the company when it comes to customer data.”

Finally, under the “looking ahead” section, the report says:

United is now expanding its CRM efforts to more airports and customer segments. It’s also putting in place methods of collecting more data from non-members and applying behavioral information from Acxiom to understand more about non-members. Customer intelligence will fuel decisions on everything from routes to aircraft types to the menu for onboard food. And critically, it will also allow the airline to recognize missed opportunities and make a point of acknowledging them. The ultimate goal: give every United team member who touches customers the information they need to serve customers better.

I’d also have to guess the behavioral information is being captured and applies to MileagePlus members, too, of course.

Perhaps most interesting is the fact United itself didn’t issue a press release announcing its achievement with the DMA. I’d think they’d want to promote every positive post-merger success given their recent struggles. Do they want to hide something?

Related posts:

Being Schooled on United’s Complimentary Premier Upgrades

United Airlines Retweeted WHAT?!

United’s Generous Compensation, Yet Impersonal Reply

It’s time for a little narrowbody love in this installment of Vintage Airline Seat Maps. Shown below is a Continental Airlines Boeing 727-200 seen flying the skies in 1987.

Formerly a People Express bird, this all-coach, high-density aircraft was likely flying the shuttle routes in the Northeast corridor. Seat pitch must have been punitive as most other all-coach 727-200s flying in the late-1980s had four fewer rows, such as this one from Braniff.

You’d find me in a window seat near the front, such as 5F.

Where would you sit?

Related posts:

Piedmont Boeing 727-200 Seat Map

Eastern Airlines Boeing 727-200 Seat Map

Continental Airlines Boeing 727-100 Seat Map

Tidbits of information about forthcoming improvements to SHARES, the reservations system for United Airlines, were revealed during the second quarter earnings call last week.

In addition to apologizing for a range of customer disservice issues we’ve all experienced since March 3 (seat assignments falling off, missing upgrades, miles not posting, etc.), CEO Jeff Smisek said, “We plan a number of improvements, including an enhanced front-end interface for our airport and contact center agents.”

Apparently a beta test of a new “fastair” and “fastres” (the old nicknames for Apollo’s efficient front-end GUI) were conducted last month. Some of the improvements said to be coming for airport and reservations agents will be an easier ability to handle premium cabin up-sells, same-day upgrades and standby requests.

A full release is expected in October and Smisek says it will include “a new user-friendly design and experience, easier elite recognition, automatic calculation of service charges and better flight amenity details.”

Sometime in 2013, United plans to roll out a “comprehensive new front-end for our airport and reservations agents, which enables us to deliver a higher level of service than we’ve ever been able to offer in the past,” he added.

I’m sure there’s a little PR going on in what he said, but I’m happy to hear improvements are coming – and I’m certain airport and reservations agents are happy, as well. I still have a feeling that within five years, United will dump SHARES for a new reservations system, as United executives had previously noted that SHARES was “the best short-term solution” when it was announced as the system to be used in the merged airline.

What I’m still having a hard time swallowing, though, are the policy changes (from pre-merger United, anyway) of selling “tens of dollars” upgrades to non-elites reducing my upgrade chances and giving a higher priority on each ticket’s transactional value over long-term loyalty for the same upgrades. Ah well… revenue-based loyalty will soon be the norm. I guess these changes are slowly getting me used to the eventuality of it.

I thought about doing a full-fledged trip report for my recent trip to Ireland, but decided against it as flying United internationally isn’t quite as exciting as some of my other travels. That said, I did habitually take pictures of everything, so here’s my first stand-alone “flight review” of United Airlines flight 22 from Newark to Dublin in BusinessFirst on May 8, 2012.

I really don’t care for East coast to Europe flights given their relative short duration making it nearly impossible to get a decent amount of sleep. And with the flight time to Ireland being less than six hours, it leaves little time after the meal service for anything other than a short nap. Ah well… first world problems, right?

My chariot to Dublin was the Star Alliance Boeing 757-200, N14120 delivered to Continental Airlines in 1997.

My traveling companion and I were the first to board and we settled into seats 2E and 2F.

This was my first time flying in Continental’s lie-flat BusinessFirst seat, so I was excited to compare it against United’s offering. I found it much more comfortable and spacious than United’s hard product, though I do have to give United a nod for better audio and headset quality.

Pre-departure beverages were distributed, along with newspapers and amenity kits.

The aisle seat definitely has a much larger footwell, though I had no problems getting comfortable in the window seat when I eventually went into bed mode.

The connectivity sockets are in a bit of an awkward position up and behind your shoulder.

The purser came by prior to push back wishing us a pleasant flight and provided details about the service and flight time, which was a nice touch and something I’ve only previously experienced when flying first class on three-cabin aircraft. We pushed back right on-time and were airborne within five minutes at most. Service began with a beverage and hot nuts.

Meal orders were taken from probably the best menu selections I’ve experienced internationally on United in business class. To begin, here’s the drink list.

And the first two courses were as follows:

I’m not a fan of shellfish, but my traveling companion said the soup was quite tasty and I thoroughly enjoyed the beef turnover and veggie purse.

The salad was quite nice and I went with the Parmesan-pepper dressing.

The main course selections were:

I went with the grilled sirloin steak and was incredibly impressed with its size, though it was significantly undercooked for my taste. The flight attendant did offer to throw it back in the oven for a while, which was appreciated. My friend’s steak was a bit thinner and cooked through.

As I wanted to get as much sleep as possible, I skipped dessert and pre-arrival snack.

I did manage to get a solid 3 hours of sleep and REALLY could have used more, but my friend roused me with 30 minutes left in the flight, per my request. He said the breakfast salami was the “pepperiest” deli meat he’s ever had, for what it’s worth.

One of the flight attendants serving the cabin was stellar – great personality, engaging, professional, smiling, etc. Another, however, was a bit surly and sort of begrudgingly went about her duties. Hit and miss on Continental-United, as usual.

Overall, it was a decent flight. We landed early and were the only group of passengers at that time being processed through customs and immigration, which was quick and easy.

United Airlines recently refreshed their amenity kit offerings and I picked up their new BusinessFirst kit on my trip to Ireland this month. The pre-merger United version scored poorly, but Continental’s BusinessFirst kit did pretty well. How will this one rank? Check out my review below in this installment of Amenity Kit Reviews. For a better description of each category and the 7-point scale for scoring, please review my introductory post.

Bag/Container: It’s a rectangular gunmetal gray zipper bag made of some type of synthetic fabric in a twill pattern. A small navy blue “United BusinessFirst” logo tag is sewn into the front lower-right edge of an exterior pocket and the logo is also engraved into the zipper, which operates very smoothly. The reverse side of the case is mesh and reveals one of the kits two interior side pockets. Fabric on each edge of the interior prevents the 1-1/2” wide case from opening flat and allows it to hang easily without spilling the contents. I’m not too keen on the mesh exterior on one side, but otherwise it’s an attractive bag. Would I reuse it? Yes, but other kits offer more space. Score: 4

Skin Care: United went with the philosophy brand of skin care items this time around and the BF kit includes “hope in a stick” lip balm, “hands of hope” hand cream and a “purity made simple” facial cleansing cloth. The scentless, gel-like hand cream absorbs rapidly and was surprisingly un-greasy. The lip balm, too, lacked any scent or flavor, but the moist facial cloth had a slight aroma of sandalwood and sage. My germ-phobic self was very happy to find a Purell sanitizing wipe in the kit. The enclosed product information card for philosophy offers 20% off any purchase of $50 or more on their website using an offer code. Score: 5

Oral Care: I’m thrilled United changed out the toothbrush that’s been making the cut the last several iterations of the kit and this one is soft-bristled and one of those where you pop the brush into the case. A tube of standard flavored Colgate toothpaste was also included along with a package of two no-name peppermints. I’m bumping the score up in this category because of the toothbrush and mints, much improved from United’s last kit. Score: 5

Comfort Items: The typical eyeshades, socks and earplugs are included, all fine for single use. The eyeshades are similar to the previous kits by being “one size fits all” with elastic straps. The socks aren’t the type you’d reuse, nor would they hold up in the wash, but I can’t really expect more… they do the job. Unlike the last kit, the earplugs are soft (yay!) and are the cone/cylindrical style large enough so they don’t pop out of your fingers when rolling them. A small packet of three facial tissues and a comb with the United BF logo are also included. I’m notching the score up because of the comb. Score: 5

Intangibles: While I wasn’t impressed by the pictures of it on United’s Facebook page when I first saw it, the kit managed to impress. I’m a branding dork and like that United’s logo appears in multiple spots while avoiding being overdone. It’s a useful kit and contains what I’d expect for a nice business class offering. The full-sized pen was an added plus. Score: 5

Total score & comments:

Besides the bag coming in at just adequate, every other category had something I found good enough to bump it up a notch. Perhaps I kept United’s old kit in the back of my head too much, but I feel 4.85 is a fair and deserving score for a nicely done amenity kit. United’s old version scored 2.90, while Continental’s BF version scored 4.75. Do I really think this kit is better than its CO predecessor? It’s a close call, but overall no. My uber-specific ranking system does, though.

It’s time for another Vintage Airline Seat Map and I’ve selected a “guppy” seen flying the skies in 1987.

Formerly a People Express aircraft, Continental Airlines flew the Boeing 737-100 appearing below in an all coach class configuration seating 118 passengers.

I flew on a bunch of -200s in my early years of flying and did occasionally sit towards the rear of the aircraft because I liked to watch the engine “come apart” after landing when reverse thrust kicked in. The -100 had the same engine configuration.

Seat 2A looks to be the best window seat on this aircraft, so you might also find me there.

Where would you sit?

Over the weekend, Henry Harteveldt – a top airline industry analyst – tweeted a link to a pretty incredible resource for United Airlines enthusiasts that details their entire fleet and includes information on each aircraft’s progress through interior modifications.

It’s a nifty resource to bookmark and when you click into a specific aircraft type, it displays a table showing each aircraft’s specifications and even includes whether or not it has been repainted into the “new” United livery.

Based on the 767-300 page, it appears that the first domestic “ghetto bird” (N674UA) is in Hong Kong undergoing modifications for conversion into an ETOPS aircraft with BusinessFirst seating and AVOD. The remaining 13 aircraft in this sub-fleet are also scheduled for the same conversion and these aircraft will eventually be seen flying international routes.