Posted by Marshall Jackson on December 27, 2009 under Commentary / General Info, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, Safety and Security | 
Even I don’t believe everything I read on the internet (unless it comes from this blog), but if only 1/4 of what I’m reading is true, the entire travel industry is at risk. Why? The security “enhancements” enacted over the weekend after NW 253 are getting out of hand. Let me offer a small selection of choice items for your purusal:
- Gate searches of all passengers and their carry ons
- Passengers must remain in their seats for the final hour of flight
- No lavatory access for the final hour of flight
- No access to carry on luggage
- Nothing in your lap the final hour of flight
- No inflight entertainment the final hour of flight (apparently this is up for debate as I’ve seen a few blurbs about IFE being shut down entirely)
That’s a short list and it is apparently supposed to apply to international flights to the United States only. However, there is anecdotal evidence that some airlines (or perhaps certain flight crews) are employing these practices on domestic flights. There’s an extensive thread on Flyertalk.com which indicates that United has turned off its IFE entirely on international flights leaving its passengers to twiddle their thumbs for 12 hours.
I know that folks in charge want to give the appearance of doing something. However, all of this is questionable as to its real effectiveness, and I can’t imagine that any of it would’ve prevented our latest terrorist attacker from boarding NW 253. Seriously, the airlines and TSA need to figure out what the hell is going on quickly. Travelers are not going to tolerate this crap for very long, especially if its being applied on shorter domestic flights. Having been privy to security directives in the past, I know they can sometimes be confusing and the first day or two of implementation is subject to missteps. I hope that’s the case here, and we can get ourselves on firmer footing with exactly what is and is not required to meet TSA’s wishes for enhanced security. If things remain as they are, the negative impact on travel is going to be far-reaching.
All this said, I have no doubt that we’ll figure things out. But until then, things could get cute. Take my advice and pack a little patience in your one and only carry on.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on December 26, 2009 under Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, Safety and Security, Travel Tips |
I’m not going to review the situation with Northwest 253 yesterday. Unless you’ve been really out of touch, you know that some jackhole managed to burn himself and others trying to blow the airplane up yesterday. Preliminarily at least, it looks like he was packing some pretty powerful explosives and we are very fortunate that something went wrong in the detonation process, or we could be looking at a much more horrible outcome.
Expect some changes at security right away. They may already be happening. Here’s a link to a New York Times article on the subject. Hat tip to Dan Webb for the article. Joe Brancatelli reported in an alert to his members this morning (note: I am a subscriber to Joe’s newsletter) that Air Canada and WestJet have already put some more onerous restrictions in place including a limit of one carry on bag. Here’s a link to an announcement about new security procedures on Air Canada’s website. The situation is evolving rapidly and I wouldn’t expect TSA to publish every possible change they might implement in advance. Pack a little patience and extra time into your air travel plans beginning now.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on December 6, 2009 under Commentary / General Info, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines |
Yesterday, I completed what was, for me at least, the world’s easiest mileage run. December found me 3,530 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) short of Delta Silver Medallion status. At this point in the year, there isn’t much one can do about that other than fly somewhere, so I did. As I noted yesterday, I found a pretty reasonable DCA-CVG-SFO-DTW-DCA fare and I flew the trip, which nets me just over 5,000 MQMs.
The whole trip went very well. We were ontime or early for every segment, the inflight crews were uniformly friendly, and things just could not have gone much better. This morning, I awoke to find that the first half of my trip has posted, but return portion (SFO-DTW-DCA) has not. Therefore I sit a frustratingly short 994 MQMs short of Silver Medallion. My return flights were on NWA metal, and Delta now takes at least 24 hours to post miles, so I’m hopeful that the miles show up this evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest. If not, I’m calling SkyMiles.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on November 1, 2009 under Commentary / General Info, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines |
Fare Sale
Southwest initiated a 72 hour fare sale this week starting at $25 dollars each way. Other carriers matched selectively. Granted, it covered the traditionally non-peak periods between Thanksgiving and Christmas as well the post New Year travel period. $25 dollars? How long has it been since we’ve seen fares like that? It’s going to be a very cold winter for airlines, actual temperatures may vary.
NWA Overfly
No one understands how you overfly an airport by 150 miles. I understand how it happens, but that doesn’t mean there’s any excuse for it. And no, I don’t think they were asleep.
Delta Lands on the Taxiway
For any pilot of any size aircraft, those runway lights can get confusing at night, following a long flight into a very large airport with multiple runways and taxiways. In my former airline career, there were procedures in place to help you make sure you were lined up with the correct runway. One thing we always did was tune in the ILS for the runway we were assigned to even during the clearest weather. I can’t help but think that Delta does the same. That said, I understand how this happened as well. Still, doesn’t mean there’s an excuse for it.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on October 29, 2008 under Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines |
Delta and Northwest have merged creating the biggest airline on the planet. Details here.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on October 26, 2008 under Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines |
I’m catching up on some old-news. Had that small issue of a wedding over the weekend that otherwise occupied my time! And yes, it was successful! My bride planned a truly great event.
But on to business. According to this thread on FlyerTalk.com, reciprocal upgrades are coming to Delta/Northwest in fairly short order. Good news! We’ll see how it works in practice. I’m sure there will be some kinks in the beginning, but I’ve found the reciprocal upgrade process between Continental and Northwest to work well.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on April 26, 2008 under Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines |
Let’s see…. in no particular order:
Delta CEO Richard Anderson, and Northwest CEO Doug Steenland marched on Capitol Hill to start selling their merger to the Judiciary Committees of both the House and Senate. I was not able to tune into the hearing, but I’m sure it would’ve been entertaining for an airline nerd like me.
And then SkyWest announced an offer to buy ExpressJet for a whopping $3.50 per share. Of course, this represents a premium of approximately 60 percent over ExpressJet’s paltry share price. My favorite thing in all this is a letter from Continental’s CFO to ExpressJet which basically said we’ve negotiated a deal with your proposed buyers. By the way, we’re pulling 51 jets from our capacity purchase agreement with you in short order, and then we’re going to let the agreement expire and you can figure out what you’re going to do with your 200 or so regional jets that no one else wants. I love this stuff! SkyWest has rejected the offer. I assume they are fishing for a better deal, because there is no other way out of this in reality.
Let’s see…what else? Oh yeah, US Airways and Alaska lost money and announced that they were taking various steps to reduce the red ink. Big surprise there. US Airways also said it was going to focus on raising revenue through various fees such as a new fee to reserve aisle or window seats close to the front of the aircraft. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m probably the only person on earth who could care less about these new “add ons” as long as high fare classes and elites are exempt.
And we closed things out on Friday with the possibility that the Senate may actually pass an FAA reauthorization bill next week. Here’s a link to a Wall Street Journal article (subscription required).
I suppose that’s enough aviation news for now. I’m not even going to talk about the blurb about American being in merger talks with US Airways and alliance talks with Continental. That deserves it’s own posting, which I’ll work on.
Thanks for reading. I’m flattered that a few hundred people per week are reading my ramblings about the crazy airline world. I’ve picked up quite a bit of traffic of late. If you like what you see, you can subscribe via email or RSS feed.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on April 18, 2008 under Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines |
Delta and Northwest have pulled the trigger to create the biggest airline on the planet. Will others follow? I think so. Of course, the conventional wisdom has Continental getting together with United next. Might happen, but I can’t imagine a pair of airlines being more different. Continental has a fairly well respected management team, and a young fleet of new Boeings along with a reputation for good customer service (by US airline standards). United, a not all that well respected management (whether deserved or not, I can’t say) and a hodge-podge of Airbus and Boeing narrow body jets, and if you’ve flown out of Dulles in the last decade you know where they stand on customer service. I can see it happening, but only if Continental is the surviving entity, whether they name the airline Continental or not.
I’m not sure who is out there for American. The only airline left is US Airways, and I don’t think AA wants to touch that with a 10 foot pole. Alaska would fill a hole in AA’s network out west, but AA’s record on acquisitions isn’t that great, and I don’t know if imposing AA’s structure upon Alaska will end in a good result. It’s hard to say. American has a whole list of problems, not the least of which is its rapidly deteriorating labor situation.
American’s unions are out to get back everything they gave up in 2003 and then some. All of this as oil hits $115+ per barrel. The pilots and flight attendants have managed to elect some rabble-rousers into leadership positions in their respective unions that have bumped the rhetoric meter off the scale, so much so that I fear they are backing themselves into a corner that they can’t get out of when reality sets in and they realize that they aren’t gonna get smack as far as significantly richer contracts go.
All in all, things are dicey in the airline business right now. Stay tuned because things are going to get cute.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on April 14, 2008 under Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines |
Details here.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on April 13, 2008 under Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines |
Well, wonder of wonders, Delta and Northwest may have a deal afterall (click here). Mergers can be a pain, but Delta has a strong management team with the skills to pull this off. Now if they can get the employees on the same page, they may be on to something. Time will tell. The fleet of the combined carriers is a bit of a mis-match with Delta being a big Boeing customer while Northwest has been an Airbus buyer. The only common fleet is the 757, with both carriers’ 757 airframes powered by Pratt & Whitney engines.
While I am a fan of Delta Air Lines and their frontline folks, their mileage program leaves a lot to be desired from this blogger’s perspective. I have no experience with Northwest’s WorldPerks program, but I can’t imagine its any worse than SkyMiles. From a service perspective, I haven’t found Northwest to be nearly as bad as they are portrayed to be from an attitude and courtesy perspective, and their customer-facing technology has always been a strong point in my opinion. So these two could make a formidable match. It’s all in the execution. We’ll see what happens.
