Emirates have a sale today through Thursday 22 July in economy and business class for New Zealand to Australia (ie Auckland to Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne and Christchurch to Sydney). Economy class travel dates for next several months excluding school holidays, business class travel dates now until mid December.

As usual Air NZ and Qantas have matched, kind of. Air NZ business class fares are slightly higher than Emirates, with Qantas higher again (and blackouts on certain flights).

Wendy Perrin of Perrin Post recently put a reader question from Steve Belkin (you may recall my posts on his Competitours personal amazing race offering) to Richard Branson about the possibility of a future Virgin Alliance – you can see Richard talking about a Virgin alliance here.  Last week Gary Leff commented on which non-Virgin airlines might be interested in joining Virgin in a fourth major airline alliance.

For those who may be unfamiliar, the Virgin airlines are:

• Virgin Atlantic (51% owned by Virgin Group)
• Virgin Blue (26% owned by Virgin Group) – plus subsidiaries Pacific Blue (operates within NZ and across South Pacific), Polynesian Blue (operates to & from Samoa), and V Australia (operates longhaul)
• Virgin America (25% owned by Virgin Group)
• Air Nigeria (49% owned by Virgin Group)
• Air Asia X (20% owned by Virgin Group)
• Virgin Galactic (100% owned by Virgin Group) – not yet operating commercial service

The route network of these airlines together is fairly impressive (see below), although far short of the 3 main airline alliances (Star Alliance, Oneworld, Sky Team).

(map courtesy of Great Circle Mapper)

If Singapore Airlines (49% owner of Virgin Atlantic) was added, the network is even better as seen below.  (Note Virgin Blue domestic flights not shown due to clutter.)

(map courtesy of Great Circle Mapper)

It has taken the 3 main Virgin airlines (Atlantic, Blue and America) a long time to do something as basic as offer earning and redemption on each other’s flights, and this still isn’t complete – see Virgin earning on other Virgin expands but not perfect.  Thus I’m not holding out hope of a Virgin Alliance any time soon.

In the meantime we are currently waiting on reviews by competition authorities in both Australia and New Zealand on the proposed alliance between Virgin Blue and Air NZ, which is a limited alliance restricted to co-operation on trans-Tasman routes only.

ITA Software is known to some readers as a way for non-travel professionals to query fares and availability across most airlines. It is very powerful software. Thus the recent sale to Google has attracted attention. Will there continue to access to this software for us “amateurs”, will it change or stay the same.

Ed Hasbrouck (The Practical Nomad) has an interesting series of posts on how ITA works and why he thinks the purchase by google will be bad for travellers.  Part 1 – background to ITA.  Part 2 – what ITA does.  Part 3 – why Google purchase is bad for travellers.

For a limited time, you can make your own personalised luggage tags courtesy of KLM (there will be a small KLM logo on the tag as well as your picture).  Link to make your own luggage tags.

Although there is a limit of 1 set per household, it doesn’t seem to remember if you’ve taken advantage of this offer in previous incarnations.

In some places where the airport is relatively close I’ve have walked to the airport.  But I was surprised the other day that someone was trying to walk from the central city to Auckland airport – that’s 20km away by the most direct route (motorway = not allowed to walk).  She had a large backpack and a rollerbag.

I pointed out the public transport options that are considerably cheaper than a taxi (if only 1 person travelling) – the airport bus which goes direct but is relatively expensive (for a bus), or taking local buses (much cheaper but slower and requires a change of bus in another suburb).

I’ve written about A380 a few times (A380 tag link), and there seems to be a lot of interest in how to fly A380 cheaply, especially in first and business class.  This post summarises all the currently operating regularly scheduled A380 services, which I’ll update from time to time [last updated 12 December 2011].

There are currently 7 airlines flying A380:

• Singapore Airlines
• Emirates
• Qantas
• Air France
• Lufthansa
• Korean
• China Southern

The next airline to operate A380 is Malaysia Airlines which is scheduled to commence July 2012, initially on Kuala Lumpur to London Heathrow route.

Singapore Airlines A380 routes

• Frankfurt to New York JFK (from January 2012)
• Singapore to Frankfurt to New York JFK (from January 2012)
• Singapore to Hong Kong
• Singapore to London Heathrow
• Singapore to Melbourne (until January 2012)
• Singapore to Paris
• Singapore to Sydney
• Singapore to Tokyo Narita to Los Angeles
• Singapore to Zurich
• Tokyo Narita to Los Angeles

Emirates A380 routes

• Bangkok to Hong Kong
• Dubai to Auckland via Sydney
• Dubai to Bangkok
• Dubai to Beijing
• Dubai to Hong Kong via Bangkok and also nonstop
• Dubai to Jeddah
• Dubai to Johannesburg
• Dubai to Kuala Lumpur (from January 2012)
• Dubai to London Heathrow
• Dubai to Manchester
• Dubai to Munich
• Dubai to New York JFK
• Dubai to Paris
• Dubai to Rome
• Dubai to Seoul
• Dubai to Shanghai
• Dubai to Sydney
• Dubai to Toronto
• Sydney to Auckland

Qantas A380 routes

• Melbourne to London via Singapore
• Melbourne to Los Angeles
• Melbourne to Singapore
• Sydney to Hong Kong (from January 2012)
• Sydney to London via Singapore
• Sydney to Los Angeles
• Sydney to Singapore
• Singapore to London Heathrow

Air France A380 routes

• Paris to Dubai (until March 2012)
• Paris to Johannesburg
• Paris to London Heathrow (ceased)
• Paris to Los Angeles (from May 2012)
• Paris to Montreal
• Paris to New York JFK
• Paris to San Francisco (until ???? 2012)
• Paris to Tokyo Narita (suspended until March 2012)
• Paris to Washington Dulles

Lufthansa A380 routes

• Frankfurt to Beijing
• Frankfurt to Houston (from August 2012)
• Frankfurt to Johannesburg
• Frankfurt to Miami
• Frankfurt to New York JFK (resumes May 2012)
• Frankfurt to San Francisco (resumes March 2012)
• Frankfurt to Singapore
• Frankfurt to Tokyo Narita
• Munich to New York JFK (ceased)

Korean A380 routes

• Seoul to Hong Kong
• Seoul to Los Angeles
• Seoul to New York JFK
• Seoul to Paris CDG
• Seoul to Tokyo NRT

China Southern A380 routes

• Beijing to Guangzhou
• Beijing to Shanghai PVG

A380 destinations in the Americas

• Houston – Lufthansa (from Frankfurt) from August 2012
• Los Angeles – Air France from May 2012, Korean, Qantas (from Melbourne & Sydney), Singapore Airlines (from Singapore via Tokyo Narita)
• Miami – Lufthansa (from Frankfurt)
• Montreal – Air France
• New York JFK – Air France, Emirates, Korean, Lufthansa (from Frankfurt) resumes May 2012, Singapore Airlines (from Singapore via Frankfurt) from January 2012
• San Francisco – Air France until ???? 2012, Lufthansa (from Frankfurt) resumes March 2012
• Toronto – Emirates
• Washington Dulles – Air France

A380 destinations in Europe

• Frankfurt – Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines (from Singapore to New York JFK via Frankfurt) from January 2012
• London Heathrow – Emirates, Malaysia Airlines from July 2012, Qantas (from Melbourne and Sydney both via Singapore), Singapore Airlines
• Manchester – Emirates
• Munich – Emirates
• Paris – Air France, Emirates, Korean, Singapore Airlines
• Rome – Emirates
• Zurich – Singapore Airlines

A380 destinations in Middle East and Africa

• Dubai – Air France until March 2012, Emirates
• Jeddah – Emirates
• Johannesburg – Air France, Emirates, Lufthansa

A380 destinations in Asia

• Bangkok – Emirates
• Beijing – China Southern, Emirates, Lufthansa
• Guangzhou – China Southern
• Hong Kong – Emirates (from Dubai via Bangkok and nonstop), Korean, Qantas (from Sydney) from January 2012, Singapore Airlines
• Kuala Lumpur – Emirates from January 2012, Malaysia Airlines from July 2012
• Seoul – Emirates, Korean
• Shanghai PVG – China Southern, Emirates
• Singapore – Lufthansa (from Frankfurt), Qantas (from Melbourne and Sydney to London), Singapore Airlines
• Tokyo Narita – Air France suspended until March 2012, Korean, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines (from Singapore and to Los Angeles)

A380 destinations in the Pacific

• Auckland – Emirates (from Dubai via Sydney)
• Melbourne – Qantas, Singapore Airlines
• Sydney – Emirates, Qantas, Singapore Airlines

Maps from gcmap.

FTer og alerted me to Oneworld alliance’s change in the baggage allowances for around the world (RTW) and circle fare products.  Up until now they use the piece allowance (because they include North America) which provided for 2 bags in economy/coach and 3 bags in business or first class.  The new rule is 2 bags of checked baggage of up to 23kgs each.

This is yet another example where the pursuit of simplicity (in this case no messing about with different limits set by various airlines) means less is provided.  Other examples in the past few years include the restriction to 16 segments, and removal of city co-terminals.

I finally found award availability for somewhere I’ve been trying to get to for ages, Uzbekistan.  It isn’t easy when the country doesn’t have flights to many other countries, and rarely has discounted or award availability in premium classes.  I was ready to book until I realised I need a visa, there is no nearby embassy (in my country or any neighbouring country) and I’m not in one place long enough to be able to be without my passport for a few weeks to send away for the visa.  Rats.

I have 2 backup options for that travel window.

A) a place much easier to get to, Laos, but which I haven’t yet visited due to an inconvenient schedule. Visa is available on arrival but I’ll waste time en route with forced overnight connections.

or

B) another place in the Balkans which will cost me more (time and money) to get to but doesn’t require a visa (one of a small number of visa free places I can visit that I haven’t already been to).

A year ago I posed the question “which countries have flights to the most & least number of other countries?” to launch the Flight Connectivity Index at 30 June 2009.  An update of the Flight Connectivity Index at 31 December 2009 revealed significant seasonal shifts for some countries.  Since the last update, there have been some significant changes in the connectivity of some hard to reach countries.  For details, read on.

Flight Connectivity Index (FCI)

Before I post the stats, here is a quick recap of the index.  The Flight Connectivity Index (FCI) value is the number of other countries to which you can fly directly from a given country, based on published schedules of IATA airlines. Domestic flights do not count. To simplify the calculation, countries are defined as members of United Nations, as opposed to using one of the many other country lists available.

With 192 member countries of the UN, the maximum FCI score is 191.  Germany is the country with highest FCI at the moment, at 109 (down 1 since December but up 3 on last year).  Four countries have no flights and FCI score of 0 – these are Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino.  The average FCI is 23.7, up 1.4 since December and up 0.7 on last year.

More results after the jump.

Read More…

Scott McCartney has a nice summary on the Wall Street Journal of the pros and cons of the airline alliances.  Gary Leff‘s comments on the article focus on United’s starnet blocking.

Translating the global coverage of the alliances into useability for mileage earning and redemption takes care, and to be fair is a big enough topic on it’s own let alone in a summary such as this. Scott touches on some aspects such as the current restrictions on American and British Airways frequent flyer members for flights between USA and UK, the number of destinations served, and the influence the location of primary hubs has on travel useability.

Scott mentions one place where Oneworld is lacking coverage - China.  I think there are other significant holes in the Oneworld network, for example Africa.

The key advice is that choice of airline alliance is relatively important for most frequent flyers, and the single biggest factor in the choice should be based on where you travel (or want to travel).