I’m sure almost everyone is familiar with Delta’s new “pay with miles” option, and that has been covered ad nauseum on a variety of blogs and forums. What I find interesting about the press release is the end of it:

 * Revamping its Award Ticket program later this year by introducing
  three new redemption tiers and more flexibility for members.

This has been discussed on FlyerTalk, and there are a few different takes. I think the key word in that sentence is “flexibility.” After being the first US legacy carrier to eliminate the “standard” award option, which allows members to redeem miles for any flight for double the miles, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see a return of this, of course with a liberal markup. Oh, and best of all I’m sure they’ll spin this as a new enhancement, of course “due to customer feedback.” Only time will tell, but I’m very curious.

I know I’m about two weeks late here, but I didn’t see it anywhere else and just stumbled across this thread on FlyerTalk. Apparently an internal memo says that effective April 1 US will be eliminating glassware in First:

To All Flight Attendants:

One of the hottest topics discussed since the merger was announced has been the differences between the service offered onboard East metal aircraft and the service offered on West metal aircraft. Our goal to ensure the best possible onboard experience for all customers has always been at the forefront…so much so that we asked them what’s most important to them when flying in each class of service we offer.

We were able to determine that they felt that the quality of both the food and beverages we offer onboard were the most important. This was the reasoning for addressing these items across the board first so that the most customers would feel the biggest impact as quickly as possible. Along with the roll-out in December of all new menus, we also re-introduced flatware and beginning in June, hot towels will return to our domestic service.

One area where our First Class customers didn’t feel we should focus too much of our attention, was glassware. As long as the quality and quantity of the beverages we offered were both high, then the use of glassware wasn’t as important. Today, we offer glassware on most meal flights to/from LAS and PHX operated by West metal, but do not offer such on the same flights operated by East metal. Conversely, the opposite holds true where our meal flights to/from CLT and PHL operated by East metal do not offer glassware, yet the West metal does. This has created a great deal of confusion among not only our catering teams and crews, but amongst our customers as well. To eliminate confusion and inconsistencies, beginning April 1, we will no longer offer glassware in any First Class cabin and serve beverages in plastic cups. We continue to look at upgrading the quality of the plastic used when serving beverages in First Class.

With the continuing rise in fuel prices, we must always look to invest our money in those products that really matter to our customers. To add glassware to all First Class flights would have cost the company $15 million a year, money that can be better spent to improve the food quality and amenities that the customers say really matter to them.

Great progress continues to be made on a daily basis and I thank you for your continued support and dedication to offering our customers the best service day in and day out.

Sincerely,

Sherri Shamblin
Vice President, InFlight Services

I’m not sure how much worse US wants to get, but it’s pretty clear they’re positioning themselves as the ultimate LCC. Some people in the thread describe the nature of this “survey” where US got “feedback,” and it was basically a “What’s more important to you, glassware or an on-time arrival?” survey. Add this to the no 500 mile minimum, $25 for the second checked bag, and I’m surprised anyone that travels with any frequency chooses them anymore. To be honest I’m kind of excited to see what cost cutting measure they come up with next, it’s kind of entertaining!

My friend Robert sent me a link to an interesting article in The Economic Times, which makes zero sense to me.

The National Commission had upheld an order of the state-level commission based in Chandigarh which had awarded Rs 50,000 as damages to a lady passenger for mental agony, harassment and inconvenience.

Complainant Sonali Arora — along with her two minor daughters — had travelled on Air France flight from London to Paris on July 4, 1998, and from there to Delhi. It was alleged that the staff of the airline did not allow her to carry one of her handbags on board on the ground that it was oversized. She was compelled to abandon the handbag at the Heathrow Airport in London. According to her, the bag in question contained various valuables, including a camera, two Rado wrist watches, six crystal decoration pieces and souvenirs.

She claimed compensation for not only the loss of valuables but also for mental agony, harassment and inconveniences.

Rs 4 lakh was claimed for loss of value of goods and Rs 50,000 for mental agony and harassment. The district consumer redressal forum, Jalandhar, however, dismissed her claim. But the state consumer redressal commission had awarded Rs 50,000 for loss of contents of handbag and Rs 50,000 as damages for mental agony, harassment and inconvenience. It was upheld by the National Commission. Then, Air France approached the apex court.

Someone please help me understand this. The lady brought an oversized bag (maximum dimensions are available on the airline website), the airline refuses it since it’s too big, she decides to leave it there, and then she has a case to sue them for mental agony? HUH?!?!

There was a Bloomberg article today about Lufthansa’s profits for 2007.

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) — Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s second-biggest airline, said 2007 profit doubled after the carrier added U.S. and Asian routes and offered cheaper tickets.

Lufthansa rose the most in more than four years in German trading after the carrier said net income jumped to 1.66 billion euros ($2.46 billion) from 803 million euros a year earlier. Earnings beat the 1.56 billion-euro average analyst estimate. The Cologne, Germany-based airline said it plans to raise the 2007 dividend by 79 percent to 1.25 euros a share.

New destinations such as Karachi, Pakistan, and Orlando, Florida, helped Lufthansa take on Paris-based Air France-KLM Group, Europe’s biggest airline. The German carrier sells short- and medium-haul flights for as little as 99 euros to confront discount rivals such as Air Berlin Plc. Profit was helped by the takeover of Swiss International Air Lines Ltd. and the sale of Lufthansa’s stake in travel company Thomas Cook.

I guess what I’m most surprised about is that the profit rose so much largely due to the added flights to a few destinations which on the surface wouldn’t seem all that profitable to me, and at the same time lowering tickets on some shorter flights. Those are incredible results though, so kudos to Lufthansa. Too bad they don’t seem to be sharing the love with United!

 Thanks to Robert for the heads up on this.

After a nearly three week hiatus of not flying I’m back in the air again. I booked Tampa to Denver to San Diego to San Francisco, obviously to add on a few miles. Most of the time I would much rather route through Washington Dulles or Chicago for even more miles, but today I had a Flight Attendant friend (also a FlyerTalker) working the Tampa to Denver flight, meaning the four hours would fly right by. The plan was to have dinner with FlyerTalkers Saturday and Sunday night, and spend the rest of the day finishing up some loose ends. I’ll be taking the redeye to Newark tonight, routing back through Dulles and then finally to Tampa.

I was booked from Tampa to Denver at 6AM, but since my friend was on the flight 90 minutes later I stood by for it instead. As a 1K I can do confirmed standby for free four hours in advance, so I woke up at the delightful hour of 3:30AM to call United, fully intending to go back to sleep. While I had gone to bed early I simply couldn’t sleep, and after making the call at 3:30AM I had a million things on my mind, so decided to just get up.

I purposely left for the airport early since I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss my flight (the opportunity to fly with a friend that’s working the flight doesn’t arise everyday). After parking my car I took the shuttle to the terminal, and the crowd on there never ceases to amaze me, a hybrid between the stereotypical Ted and Southwest passenger. In today’s case we had one lady who was “carrying the remains of a friend,” laughing about it, while pointing to a gift bag by her feet. Wow, well thanks for sharing…

Nothing drives me more nuts than security at TPA! Usually there’s basically no wait on a Saturday morning, but for some reason today was an exception, which seems to happen about 20% of the time lately. The security line was well over 30 minutes long, and watching the efficiency (or lack thereof) of the TSA made me cringe. Another favorite pastime of mine is watching people in security lines. I saw a man with his wife and two young sons carrying six 20oz. bottles of water and four large yogurts. I guess not everyone is familiar with TSA regulations…

Eventually I got through security and to the gate a few minutes after boarding started. I really had a blast. I’m best off not going into details, but I haven’t laughed as hard as I did during those four hours for a while, and heard some great stories too. Thanks to the crew (especially my FlyerTalk FA friend) that made the flight very enjoyable! It’s also worth mentioning that Channel 9 was on, despite no announcements from the cockpit.

We then hung out in Denver for a little in the Red Carpet Club before I left to catch my connection to San Diego, discussing a lot of FA stuff I wasn’t all too familiar with, including details on crews going illegal as well as the new uniforms, which apparently two FA’s in each domicile are carrying. The lady admitting people into the Red Carpet Club was wearing an “Obama ‘08” pin on her blouse… I’m counting the days till a supervisor asks her to remove it, although it was mild compared to some of the stuff I have seen employees wear in the past, including an FA offering legal services, but that’s a different story.

My crew Denver to San Diego was equally good. As the FA was taking meal orders (choice being between a turkey wrap and shrimp salad), she asked what my first choice was, and I responded “Whatever makes your life easier,” with a smile on my face She didn’t really respond at first, but when I went to use the restroom she said “Is this your last name?” while pointing to my name on the manifest. I confirmed it was, used the restroom, came back out, and she said “Which did you say you preferred?” since she had marked mine as a question mark on the manifest. I told her to give me whatever makes her life easier, since a lot of people seemed particularly passionate about getting their choice, which she seemed thankful for, although she insisted I choose what I want. Then I got the typical “Wow, you look young for being a 1K,” with an ensuing couple of minutes of chit chat. They asked all kinds of questions and I eventually gave them a link to this blog and FlyerTalk, so we’ll see, right?;)

Another thing that’s worth mentioning is that the meals were enhanced quite a bit over what I have seen in the past. The wrap was actually very good for once, and it came with a potato salad on the side, something I haven’t seen before on United. Also, it came with a chocolate chip cookie, which I knew had returned to ORD-West Coast flights, but didn’t know was on shorter flights again too. Before landing one of the FA’s came up to me and asked if I liked her new uniform, which was really funny since we had been discussing exactly that on the layover in DEN, so what are the chances of me flying with one of the two FA’s of the DEN domicile wearing it?!?!

I got into SAN on time, and immediately went to the Red Carpet Club to see if I could standby for the earlier flight to SFO, knowing the weather was looking AWFUL. The ladies in the RCC, that were VERY friendly, said it looked like I might get on, and that I should go to the gate and play “Deal or no Deal,” because they loved the show. I did that and within a few seconds my name got called and I got a First Class boarding pass. The Purser was all smiles, and as I walked in I saw that there was a kid in the Captain’s seat having his picture taken, so all around great service. I went to the flight deck to ask the Captain about Channel 9, and he confirmed it would be on!

To my surprise we pushed back on-time and started taxiing! I pinched myself because I knew we couldn’t get this lucky with the awful weather at SFO. Not surprisingly around 30 seconds after we start taxiing the Captain comes on the PA and says “Ladies and gentlemen, a ground hold has just been issued for SFO so we’re not quite ready for takeoff yet. We’ll get an update in around 45 minutes.” It ended up being nearly two hours sitting on the tarmac, but the Purser just did an amazing job handling the situation, which is all that counts in my book. She provided drink service for the whole plane nonstop, including wine to passengers in coach. There were only three of us in First, one non-rev, me, and a guy across from me, so we had it relatively comfortable too.

After we took off the service began, and this is where it gets sad. The 737 only has two restrooms, and with three passengers in first and around 90 in coach on a one hour flight which suffered a two hour delay, it was no surprise that the rear restroom had a long line, so people started using the First Class restroom. Since First wasn’t full I had no problem with this since it was an unfortunate case for everyone involved with such a long ground hold, but Mr. 2B apparently felt differently. He loudly belittled the Purser, basically saying that he can’t believe she had the audacity to let people from coach use his lavatory. The Purser explained the problem in a very professional manner, and he continued on his rant. As the FA walked away I winked at her and she was back to her state of smiling. For the rest of the flight he didn’t say another word to her but did push his call button several times for more drinks and just pointed to the glass when he wanted more. When she offered him snack mix (and she was just such a nice lady) he just grabbed it from her. I then loudly complimented her since she was doing an incredible job and gave her a Going the Extra Mile certificate for her hard work, because she truly was a gem.

The approach into SFO had quite a few bumps and after the landing gear went down, about three minutes before touchdown, Mr. 2B pushed the call button, and the FA leans to the side from her jumpseat and asks if he needs anything. The FA and I exchange weird looks about this moron, and I start waving my hands at him since he has his headphones on to ask him what he needs, since she obviously needs to know whether or not it’s an emergency (not that it is, of course). He totally ignores both of us and keeps looking forward. After the roughest landing I’ve had in a long time (which I can’t blame the pilots for, there were less than pleasant conditions), I wished Mr. 2B a great day on our way out. The other non-rev loudly tells me “Wow, what a jerk,” obviously making sure the guy hears it. We exchange a few more words in front of the guy, and of course he pretends not to hear it.

I then got a ride over to Kincaid’s where we had dinner, and I had a great time. Tonight we’re having dinner at Hola in Burlingame before taking a redeye to EWR, which is sold out at the moment, so here’s to hoping for a bump.

Just got an email from United to remind me about this promo, now that the rules are fully out there. First of all, for those of you not familiar with the promotion, here are the details. I think this is one heck of a cool promotion, and there are some serious prizes at stake here! This can be especially rewarding for someone just starting a consulting gig who hardly flew last year, but I’m predicting the year-over-year EQM’s required to win are a lot lower than most of us expect. We’re talking 50 winning teams here, which is a lot. Let’s also keep in mind that finding a group of four that are all traveling more than the year before can be very difficult, so unless you can network with others that have similar travel patterns (via FlyerTalk or whatever), it’ll be hard to be too extreme. I’m predicting 400,000 EQM’s year-over-year for the whole team in order to win at the very most, which isn’t a lot for such a huge prize.

Unfortunately for me, I’m not worthy of participating in this promotion:

This year-over-year themed contest is open only to Mileage Plus members are legal residents of the fifty (50) United States or the District of Columbia as of January 1, 2008, and who are 21 years or older as of January 23, 2009.

Of course being the natural skeptic that I am, not to mention the fact that every contest I’ve ever seen that doesn’t include alcohol has had 18 as the minimum age, I decided to email United. Here’s a portion of the response:

Your concerns regarding the terms and conditions of the “Elite Team Competition” contest are appreciated.  United’s Mileage Plus department designs marketing programs and promotions to best meet the needs of all participants.  You address the age requirement of being 21 years old.  This is a matter of consistency due to the existence of a sweepstakes reward through the choice program.  The same age of 21 is used for both the team contest and sweepstakes promotion, per the advice of United’s Legal department.  Also the 21 year age limit is used so that a winner of a sweepstakes and/or contest is legally responsible for any taxes that may be owed for the reward/prize.  We are not able to make expectations to the terms and conditions as such.  Your understanding is appreciated.

Now I’m no lawyer, but huh? Since when does one have to be 21 to be responsible for taxes? Long story short I’m disappointed in United on this particular front because everyone else seems to have no problem doing promos that are 18+, but ultimately I’ll accept it and move on. I could go for it and ultimately lie, but since I may want to eventually get into the industry and some people at WHQ know me, that might not be the best idea. And of course, how could I forget the most important part, the moral implications of lying.;)

 I would still love some clarification, though for anyone in the know ont his kind of stuff. Does UA have a point here, or is this just poorly researched on their part?