Pretty certain this will not come as a surprise, but I am on a never ending search for cheap airfares. Below are those that I have found over the past few days and re-confined them this morning. I hope that these will help you out in your quest for miles, enjoyment of air travel or even maybe a “normal” vacation. These are all Economy fares. I created a separate site for the sole purpose of discussing and posting First & Business Class fares, sorted by airline: FandJfares.com
I hope you will join me there and add your expertise. Thanks and good flying!

• LGA-PVG (Shanghai)-JFK $789; American; round-trip 2/18-2/25 –Kayak
• EWR-PVG $850; United; round-trip same dates as above –Kayak
• JFK-DXB-PVG $878; Emirates; round-trip 2/2-2/9 –Kayak
• LGA-ATL-JNB $850; Delta; round-trip 3/6-3/12 3/6-3/12 –Kayak
• ROR (Palau)-NRT-SFO $1531; Delta “Y” fare ONE-WAY 3/23 –IATA.com
• GUM (Guam)-NRT-SFO $1238; Delta “Y” fare ONE-WAY 3/23 –IATA.com

When I make short jaunts around the US, I typically try to fly Delta Economy Class and hope for an upgrade. When I sit in coach, I continue to be surprised by the selection and quality of food for purchase in the back of the bus. Some of the offerings are better than what is served in First Class.(Delta’s roast beef sliders were fantastic). Alaska clearly states on their menu that the items are available for purchase in First Class as well as Economy. I have heard of mixed availability of food for purchase in Delta’s First Class.

On my last Domestic trip, one segment was on Alaska Airlines and while I did not eat, I was also pleasantly surprised by the food for purchase selection; both in creativity and in presentation (the menu, anyway)
Things on each menu that stood out to me:

A) Who eats egg salad for breakfast? (Delta)
B) Heavy Hawaiian theme on Alaska’s menu; why the focus? You’re based in Seattle. Because of the heavy West Coast traffic?
C) Alaska also has arrows to denote which way is East/West for those passengers who… well, you know…

As for prices on each, they seem reasonable considering I am sitting 5 miles above the earth. I’ve paid much more for much worse food at sea level.

I posted both menus below for your perusal. Anybody tried Alaska’s offerings?

ALASKA AIRLINES MENU

Ok. Enough travelling for the moment. Let’s take a break and look at some airfares. Without which we won’t be able to plan another trip. This is another installment of “Where The Good Fares Are”

I search for international airfares using a random set of dates and somewhat random city pairings. I see relative value in these fares. They may be good for mileage runs, checking out different airlines, positioning or hell… even leisurely travel. Not an all inclusive list. I found all the fares today on Orbitz (where Planereality has an affiliate agreement) using January 11, 2012 through January 18, 2012. I used the “search 1 day before/after” function in Orbitz.  Fare listed include  fees and taxes.  You may want to do the same.  Labor Day Weekend fast approaching.  No hurricanes please.

ECONOMY CLASS

JFK-Dublin $540 Delta – search for fare

JFK-Berlin $647 Air Berlin – search for fare

EWR-Oslo $708 SAS – search for fare

IAD-CDG $699 Air France & Continental search for fare

LAX-Madrid $781 Iberia – search for fare

SFO-Beijing $939 Air China – search for fare

BUSINESS CLASS

LAX-Shanghai $3453 Air Canada – search for fare

Boston-LHR $2858 Virgin – search for fare

JFK-Madrid $2721 Air Europa – search for fare

After the pageantry and speeches, it was finally time to fly. Each coach seat had a pillow, blanket, headphones, slippers and a toothbrush. I immediately began fussing with the brand new touch screen televisions. The purser came by and welcomed me on board by name.

The JFK-ICN inaugural flight was scheduled for 12hrs and 44min of flight time. We taxied and had virtually no wait for take-off, a miracle in itself at JFK. At 3:46pm (1hr and 46min past schedule) we were airborne. After I got over my disappointment of not having access to the upstairs bar, I began to enjoy the flight.

As soon as the pilot let the flight attendants know they could do so, the FA’s passed out pajamas to the children on board, set up a few bassinets and drew a curtain between the cabin and galley, in order to prepare for service. After 50 minutes, beer, wine, juice, soda, peanuts and a sanitary towel were offered.

Korean Air’s A380 boasts the fewest number of seats (301) in the coach cabin (and overall) vs. other A380 operators. I found this very evident in the amount of legroom I had in 36C. Also, the seat never got uncomfortably hard, like my experience with ANA’s new economy seats and was sitting on 2 pillows by the end of the flight. Much more on the best seats in the next post.
The coach cabin was bright, but not in a negative way. It was refreshing and clean looking, very un-complicated.

Dinner consisted of Korean Bimibap and seaweed soup. This is what I was offered and not sure if there were more choices. It’s delicious stuff and oddly, bimibap was exactly what I was served when I flew Korean Air Business Class.

After dinner, the show, aka duty free sales, started. It was quite chaotic. There were 4-6 fa’s in each aisle, shuffling to & fro, passing goods back and forth and speaking loudly to each other. When that concluded, the lights dimmed and I slept. I woke to an fa offering me water and banana or bread. When I woke up again, the cabin lights were on, there were 4 hours to go and the 2nd meal service was commencing.

Airline food used to, and probably still does, get a pretty bad rap. I think it’s improved considerably over the last decade. However, when people talk about “airline food” and the images that are conjured up, they were referring to the piece of chicken served on this flight. Not exactly edible. The other option was creamy pasta with vegetables. Water and OJ were offered before our 5pm arrival at foggy ICN.

The service on Korean Air has never disappointed me and this flight was no exception.
I will post some pictures of the rest of aircraft shortly.

big windows huh?

push back

note the CX tail

22R

smiling; novel concept

great stuff; where can i buy it?

“it’s ice”

2nd meal service

mid cabin

rear cabin

korean’s other a380; the 1st delivered: HL7611

I’m sure this goes without saying, but I spend entirely too much time researching airfares. But I finally just put the finishing touches on my next trip. Come to think of it, I actually need 1 more domestic flight.
Anyway, throughout the planning process I came across a few fares that piqued my interest. Some could be used as potential mileage earning opportunities, others just to enjoy a 5 star airline. These fares are being posted under “FARES” a.k.a. “Where The Good Fares Are”

I’m sure you can figure out where I am going next by looking at these fares. Or at least narrow it down… or, perhaps you don’t care, which is OK too.

Do you “Like” Planereality on facebook? That’s where I put the other 75% of the pictures and other stuff from the road.

Disclaimer Alert! I do have an affiliate agreement in place with Orbitz, but not the other sources referenced. The blogging gods say I am supposed to disclose this (as if blogging is a highly regulated industry) Basically, all this means is that if you click on the Orbitz link and buy a fare, I would receive a commission. Scandalous huh?

Fares.
One-way departing November 9, 2011; A mix of economy and business

• SIN-ICN-AKL: 1708 KoreanAir Economy; Y fare; Orbitz
• SIN-BKK-AKL: $744 Thai Economy; V fare; Thai.com
• SIN-AKL: $473 Emirates Economy; Orbitz
• MNL-CDG: $1546 Qatar Business Class; QatarAirways.com
• TPE-SFO/LAX: $1500 United Business Class; United.com

It came as little surprise that as soon as I posted some tips on staying healthy during air travel, I caught a nasty cold. Just in time for my trip to Honolulu. Such is life. After 2 hours of sucking down water, juice and cough drops in Newark, I boarded the 10hr 3min flight, Continental 15, to Honolulu.

I was seated in 22B which seemed to be as good as any seat in the coach cabin. I was impressed by the cleanliness of the cabin. In fact, the condition of the seats, personal video screen and quality of entertainment were all better than United’s Economy Plus product. The first few rows of economy on this 767-400 did have EmPower at each seat.  The center section of row 28 was reserved for crew rest.  Every seat in coach and business first was taken.

What I found to be disappointing was that on a 10 hour flight there was not a single complimentary snack, only food for purchase. Yes, I realize this is not an international flight, however, it is longer in duration than many of Continental’s trans-Atlantic flights.  A few Continental flight attendants I spoke with take great umbrage with providing only food for purchase–more on that later.

I did sample both the cheese plate and Thai chicken wrap- both pretty tasty, but pricey. “Passengers can always bring their own food on board.”  Great, but what food of any significance will stay for 8 or 9 hours in my carry on? Continental (United) needs to provide some type of snack or food on EWR-HNL.  Continental bends the “rules” in other areas for this flight (more on that later too) so they should do the same when it comes to the food policy.

There was a food & beverage service at the start of the flight, another when we made it above the Pacific and then a drink service before arrival.  There was water distributed between services.

EWR-HNL is a very long flight.  Not necessarily in hours, really just mentally.  Particularly if you are used to flying from the East to West Coast or vice-versa.  No matter how many times you tell yourself that you are NOT almost there when you fly over California, you still find your yourself with that hope.  Unfortunately you wind up sorely disappointed.

Special thanks to Erin & Joshua who happily and enthusiastically provided outstanding service for the entirety of the flight!

N76021 push back for NRT

san francisco taken form the tiny window in the door

Just like in Frankfurt, check-in for my Etihad flight was unnecessarily painful. I asked the Etihad agent who was greeting passengers in the check in lobby who I needed to speak to about purchasing an upgrade.  She directed me to  a line that was short in length, but took 25 minutes to pass through. When I reached the check-in agent, he, in less than 30 seconds, sent me to a separate ticketing desk. Etihad wanted some astronomical sum to upgrade and I decided to pass, but had to wait another 20 minutes in the previous line to check-in (the kiosk was not able to check me in) I noticed that several agents and at least 2 managers were occupied putting out fires concerning a few separate parties of departing passengers. Finally, I was checked in with a window, exit row seat: 42K on this Boeing 777-300ER.

One thing you will notice at Abu Dhabi airport is that many flights are boarded remotely, meaning you will take a bus from the terminal to the aircraft. This makes for large crowds and limited seating within the terminal, in addition to crowded bus rides across the tarmac. One gate area is used for multiple flights. See pictures below.

If you have broad shoulders, think you have broad shoulders, wish you had broad shoulders or know someone with broad shoulders… DO NOT select 42K as your seat. Yes, you will have more legroom, but due to the curvature of the aircraft, the shoulder room is extremely limited.  I was jammed into the seat and my right shoulder blade basically laid flat against the aircraft wall. In addition, you have NO window and the emergency slide protrudes into your leg room.  I noticed that Row29, also an exit row, appeared to be more spacious and there was no emergency slide in  the door.  The flip side of row 42, if you can call it that, is that you will be served first during meal service. The service and food were great on this 8+ hour flight. Here’s the rest of the trip, in photos:

dedicated 1st and business class check-in

check-in

control tower

very crowded gate area

line to board bus to my flight

pulling up to our “equipment”

my seat

view while seated

passing by DXB during climb out

stir-fry egg noodles with asian vegetables

almost there

On my last transatlantic flight I made a discovery.  A few months ago I purchased a pair of Bose “Around-Ear” headphones; not one of the noise canceling models that would require me to take out a loan to buy, but they do block out a fair amount of noise.  Just like the Bose bookshelf speakers I own, I absolutely love the headphones.   Not only for the noise canceling aspect, but also for the clarity of sound. 

The only time I had wished I had bought the top-of the line model was on my last United flight.  There was a woman with a screaming child seated in Business Class.  The child could be heard clearly in the Economy Plus Cabin.  To add insult to injury, the woman walked back to the Economy Plus cabin and paced the aisles with screaming child in tow.  At this point the noise was too much for me. Either that or I was just annoyed she thought it OK to come back to our cabin.

I remembered that I had put together a personalized amenity kit for myself made up of several half-used amenity kits from previous flights (I never throw them away).  It contained 2 pairs of earplugs which I promptly inserted and then put my noise cancelling headphones back on. VIOLA!  I could barely hear the child screaming.  Just for good measure I turned on my i-pod to see if I would be able to hear it.  Not only could I hear it, but it brought the external noise cancellation to a maximum!  Awesome…

My transatlantic flight landed at 5:30am in Frankfurt; 11:30pm “my” time. The flight to Abu Dhabi was leaving at 11:15 am. Just enough time to be exhausted, but not enough time get any rest at a hotel. I did, however, muster an hour’s sleep in a chair that happened to include a foot rest. When I woke up, check-in for the flight was open. It was then that I had the misfortune of interacting with one of the rudest most impatient customer service employees I have ever come across.

Pre-Flight
Like many airlines that have minimal flights per day from an airport, Etihad uses hired hands at the check-in and gate areas. They don’t work directly for the airline, but are outsourced. This particular gal was offended and angry that my two carry-ons weighed more than 7 kilos combined and she demanded I check my roller bag, which I was fine with. I put up no fight. I didn’t even question her motives. I was simply clarifying what she had said and am damn glad I did because she was insisting that my roller bag be checked through to Manila despite me having a stopover in Abu Dhabi. I had to convince her I was stopping overnight in Abu Dhabi; despite it showing so on my itinerary. Then she didn’t want to check me in because her computer showed no return ticket out of Manila, to which I presented my itinerary leaving Manila. After she made a fool of herself (there are such things as one-way tickets honey) she was infuriated because she had to change my luggage tags for collection at Abu Dhabi.

On The Plane
This non-sense all changed once I was on the plane. I have not experienced many foreign airlines’ coach product, but I had pretty lofty expectations for Etihad. Let it be known that coach seats are… coach seats, but that’s where the similarities end between US based carriers’ coach product and Etihad’s. The flight attendant gladly “approved” my seat change request to the bulkhead (row 15 on this Airbus A330-200), which was empty. First I was given a cool cup of water after boarding, followed by a meal menu (note: 3 choices of entree). After take-off, I was offered a complimentary adult beverage and some snack mix. I chose the delicious pasta complete with salmon appetizer for lunch. I fell asleep right after I ate and the flight attendant woke me for some tasty desert and coffee. I had indeed said I would like the dessert and coffee when it was offered while she was clearing my lunch tray.

After a a bite of cake and sip of coffee I fell back to sleep.  When I woke, I had the opportunity to sample the plethora of movies and music with the noise cancelling headphones that were provided. A snack and more beverages were provided shortly before landing.

Between the food, friendly service and entertainment, I would consider Etihad’s coach product a fantastic one. Not only that, it was the cheapest way for me to get from Western Europe to Southeast Asia. As mentioned, a coach seat is a coach seat and I had 4 to myself. Would I feel the same way if I had been on a 777 filled to the brim? I would find out on the next leg.

check-in area where I spent my night

A6-EYK

seat 22k

in my original seat; 22h

seat 21k

power, usb, t1 at each seat

monitor on bulkhead wall

movie list; sorry it is not legible, but there were a lot of choices

15C

snack: caramel popcorn

Need some help. I am planning to fly one-way from Frankfurt to Manila in Coach. I am looking at Emirates (about $900) and Etihad (about $700)

Of course, I will have to connect either way and both airlines look like they have plenty of empty seats.

On Emirates, I can earn points towards Mileage Plus, Etihad, not so much.

Anyone have any insight or opinion? Much appreciated

OBW-I have to book ASAP as the flight is for next week.

I find it a bit more challenging to find relative value in coach class airfares as opposed to business class, but here is my shot at it. The fares below are coach class, round-trip and include all taxes and fees that I am aware of. I take into account not only price, but airline quality when selecting the fares. As you can see below, Australia and Asia, hands down, are providing the best bang for your buck right now.  Example dates are listed; use the flexible date search.

• Palm Beach-Sydney: $1194 Delta; 9/6-9/14 Orbitz
• Miami-Sydney: $1229 United 9/6-9/14 Orbitz 
• Atlanta-Hong Kong: $946 Korean Air; 10/7-10/15 Orbitz 
• Dallas-Hong Kong: $895 Continental/United; 9/8-9/15 Orbitz
• Dallas-Hong Kong: $913 Delta 9/8-9/15 Orbitz