Posted by Seth on February 5, 2010 under Trip Reports | 
Fly enough and strange things are bound to happen. I haven’t had to evacuate a plane or deal with oxygen mask deployment yet but I’ve had my share of aborted take-offs and “go around” missed landings. Those are unsettling but I actually understand what is going on in those cases and it doesn’t really seem all that bad when it is happening. Flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles today on my way to Hawaii I got to experience a final approach that was unlike any other. And I got a bit spooked by it.
The pilot had the Channel 9 audio feed on so I was able to listen to the cockpit communications throughout the flight. I heard the discussions of the weather with the controllers and our pilots’ requests to deviate around the worst of it. That was all good stuff. But having access to that audio also probably contributed to me freaking out a bit when we made a strange left turn about 30 seconds before touchdown. What I heard was something to the effect of:
Tower, this is United 817. We’re seeing wide variations on the localizer for runway 6R. It is all over the place.
The localizer is the radio beacon that broadcasts out the location of the runway so that the plane’s autopilot functionality can glide it it to a safe landing. If the plane is off course the autopilot will hone in on the localizer and correct the course. But if the localizer goes wobbly bonkers then the plane will change course to “correct” even if that means actually heading away from the runway.
And that’s exactly what our plane did this morning. The good news is that the pilots reacted quickly and professionally. They disengaged the autopilot, corrected the course of the plane and brought us in for a completely normal landing. Except the part where we briefly were headed in the wrong direction.
The pilot and ATC folks had a brief conversation about the incident while we were still flying. They checked with the plane behind us on the approach path to see if they saw the same issues with the localizer (they did) and then things continued on normally. Once we were finally on the ground the pilot gave the tower another tongue lashing about the localizer and clarified that it was the runway localizer and not the glide slope indicator (another piece of the autopilot system) that was having problems. And that was pretty much the end of it.
As we were deplaning I mentioned the event to the pilot and we chatted briefly about it. It was only after that conversation that I fully grasped the severity of what had happened. Probably a good thing as we were safely on the ground at that point and freaking out a bit wasn’t as significant an issue. But I was definitely feeling spooked by the event.
No real reason to freak out, I know. The pilots knew exactly what they were doing the whole time and they fixed the issue quickly and perfectly. In fact, had I not been listening to Channel 9 I’m not entirely certain I would have even known something went amiss during the approach. But it was still a bit freaky. Certainly not enough to prevent me from getting on the next flight, but a bit freaky.
Sadly the LiveATC.net feed of KLAX is offline right now so I don’t have access to the actual tower communications to get the verbatim conversation that happened with our pilot, the pilot behind us and ATC. I may have to dig a bit more to see if I can find it.
Posted by Seth on February 5, 2010 under Trip Reports, points |
For a guy who doesn’t really love Hawai’i I seem to go there an awful lot. It is hard to complain too much when the airlines offer up a $250ish fare from the New York City area as it is a trip worth a bunch of miles, but I generally don’t really enjoy being there. Of course, I blame that on having stayed in Oahu, specifically in Waikiki Beach, when I get there. I know that there are supposed to be better bits to see and this time around I’m finally going to give that a try. I’m headed to the Big Island.
Today’s trip is a four flight affair, starting with a departure from Newark at 6am and finishing with a puddle-jumper flight from Honolulu to Hilo scheduled to arrive at 8:30pm tonight. Just enough time at each connection to hop into a lounge or two for a snack and then on to the next flight. Assuming everything connects OK (which seems pretty likely so far) I shouldn’t have any troubles other than the fact that it is about 20 hours in transit from my apartment to the bed at the other end.
Map from the totaly awesome Great Circle Mapper tool
Perhaps the best part about the first flight today (EWR-SFO) is that the plane is mostly empty. Normally when flying on United Airlines I’d perform some sort of “upgrade flirt” at the counter or in the lounge to try to get a seat in the Economy Plus section for free (I know it is coming soon enough with Continental OnePass reciprocity but I’m impatient) but this morning I didn’t even bother. The First Class cabin may be booked full on this A319 but the back is wide open. There are at least 10 half rows that have one or zero customers seated there. I traded my seat up near the exit row for 22E, a middle seat in the back.
Just after takeoff I was happily asleep in my lie-flat coach seat, trying to imagine if it would really work with a second passenger cuddled up next to me as Air New Zealand thinks they’ll be able to sell with their new SkyCouch seats. And I still don’t see it working, at least not for customers over 5’ 6” tall.
I awoke from my 3+ hour snooze to one of the more disgusting views I’ve seen on a plane. This:
Seriously, it isn’t your house. I know that it isn’t particularly crowded on board this morning but keep your feet down. Yuck!
Only 15 hours yet to go on this trip. Plenty more nap time and writing time to come.
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Posted by Seth on February 5, 2010 under News |
It looks like I need to schedule a trip so South Africa so that I can experience in person what is probably the most entertaining airline livery I’ve ever seen. The airline is South Africa’s Kulula and they’ve gone rather whimsical and informative with their new paint job.
Photo from psfk.com
Way more fun than my previous favorite, the Continental “retro-jet” sporting a livery from the company’s history. I really like that font.
Even if I can’t make it there at least I can enjoy the photos. Reminds me a bit of this Far Side cartoon from many years ago:
Posted by Seth on February 4, 2010 under News |
The rapid decline of Delta’s operations at their former hub in Cincinnati is somewhat unparalleled. In a roughly ten year span the carrier has slashed daily flight operations by a two-thirds and the total number of passengers passing through the airport is down over 30%. Those cuts aren’t quite as bad as the effects of their decision to de-hub Dallas-Ft. Worth but they are still rather significant. And the hits just keep on coming.
The carrier notified its pilots last week that they intend to close the 767-300ER pilot base at the airport at some point in 2010. This move comes as Delta shifts its planes around in the network, moving most of the 763ERs toward the northwestern United States to offer service to Asia from there. The move will affect over 200 pilots who are currently based at CVG. It is expected to have limited effects on the overall operations at the airport, however, as there is currently only one intercontinental destination being served from there – Paris – and that route is expected to remain in service.
It cannot come as much of a surprise that the service is shifting away from Cincinnati. The airline has another hub in Detroit, just 230 miles away, thanks to the merger with Northwest Airlines and that hub has historically been much stronger. In the end there had to be cuts made in order for the merger to result in profits and Cincinnati was pretty much always looking down the barrel of that gun. It seems that Delta has finally decided to pull that trigger.
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Posted by Seth on February 3, 2010 under News, media coverage |
It turns out that the folks who love flying so much don’t only enjoy those experiences in the air. Folks fly to hang out and party together on the ground, too.
As a follow-up to the article in the February issue of Conde Nast Traveler, the magazine, Lufthansa and Boarding Area sponsored a reception in New York City earlier this week. More than 50 folks showed up, many of them coming in from across the country for a quick evening of revelry before heading back to the real world, work and other obligations. It was a lot of fun.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a frequent flyer event without plenty of discussion of travel and deals. That was magnified in this case by the fact that there were a couple great deals on offer briefly Monday evening. The number of flights booked to Mexico City via Panama in the bar that night was rather significant. Good times!
More on the party here.
Posted by Seth on February 3, 2010 under News, frequent flyer, points |
Frequent traveler loyalty programs often like to subtly point out their advantages over competitors. Whether it was bragging about no blackout dates back in the day (most programs offer that these days) or pointing out variations in upgrade policies, raising the differences help the programs differentiate themselves and attract customers. The comparisons are generally rather passive; no need to outright attack the other programs.
Priority Club, the frequent guest program for Holiday Inn, Intercontinental and several other brands, has decided to skip the subtlety with their latest promotion. They’re attacking Hilton’s HHonors program with a full frontal assault and they aren’t shy about it at all. The promo is titled “The Luckiest Loser.” It goes after Hilton’s recent rewriting of their reward charts where, on average, the value of HHonors points dropped about 20%. Priority Club is offering folks who are feeling a bit jilted by the devaluation an opportunity to get some of those points back in the form of Priority Club points. Here’s how the promo works:
- We’ll automatically "give you back" 1,000 Priority Club points
- If you’re one of the top 20,000 "Lucky Losers," you will gain back up to 20% of your current HHonors balance in Priority Club points (up to 20,000 points)
- If you’re "The Luckiest Loser," you’ll win 2 million Priority Club points
It is a pretty smart promo in terms of what they are offering and generating some buzz. And the way they are going after HHonors directly is definitely more aggressive than programs have been in the past. It will be interesting to see if this sort of aggressiveness carries over to other programs.
Read more on the Priority Club promo here.
Posted by Seth on January 29, 2010 under frequent flyer |
Nearly a year ago American Airlines sent a letter to the IRS defining about 40 different “services” that the carrier offers to its customers. They asked for specific rulings on each of the 40 with respect to § 4261 of the IRS code, the section that covers the specific activities for which the airlines are required to collect and remit taxes. In general such a document wouldn’t be all that interesting, but there are a couple things that this particular one has in it that are worth noting. The impact on taxes for baggage fees has already been covered, and that is reasonably interesting, but there are two specific entries in the services list that describe potential future offerings. These are the two bits that piqued my interests most.
- Service P allows Members to purchase “bonus” Miles (i.e., double or triple miles) on certain flights to be credited to the Member’s Account. Currently, this service is occasionally offered to members free of charge on a limited-time basis. However, Taxpayer is preparing to offer Service P for a fee.
United Airlines currently offers a program similar to that identified as “Service P” above. They call it their Award Accelerator and it is generally a pretty bad deal; the points are too expensive. Continental also offfers something similar with their “Extra Mile” promo every year. So American wouldn’t be breaking new ground with such a more. Still, it would be an interesting move to see American attempt to further monetize their frequent flyer program and cash in on the obsession with points.
- Service CC allows Members to redeem Miles for the purchase of air transportation on Taxpayer’s website. At the time this letter ruling request was issued, Taxpayer was not charging a fee for Service CC. Taxpayer is, however, contemplating implementation of a fee for this service. The fee would be charged at the time of ticketing.
This one is a bit more worrisome from the consumer perspective. It suggests that AA is considering adding a booking fee for reward ticket reservations made through the website. Currently most airlines charge for such reservations when they are booked through the call center. Extending that out to bookings made online would be quite a leap. Currently there are a couple airlines that have such “convenience fees” for bookings but it would be quite a shock for a legacy carrier to start down that route. The verbiage is sufficiently different – “contemplating implementation” versus “preparing to offer” – that it doesn’t seem likely such charges are imminent, but it is out there now and intriguing enough to raise an eyebrow or two.
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Posted by Seth on January 29, 2010 under News |
A few months ago I wrote about some inquiries that Congressfolks were making over the unbundling of airfare components. Basically the airlines have been shifting more and more of the travel costs out of the base ticket price but the feds are only able to tax that base ticket price. The end result is that all the unbundled services are about 7.5% better for the airlines than simply raising fares by a comparable amount across the board.
It seems that the folks on the ill can take a break from that saber-rattling or at least find a way to refocus their efforts. The IRS released a ruling in response to a request from American Airlines, clarifying about 40 different scenarios and the taxability of each under the IRS code. The document is, as one might expect, a rather boring read. But it does provide some insight into just what the carriers can charge for without having to pay any taxes. In addition to any baggage handling the ruling addresses the taxability of buying miles (taxable), lounge memberships (not taxable) and fuel surcharges (taxable).
Probably not a huge surprise but it does confirm that the airlines’ decision to unbundle services and charge fees is more profitable for them than simply raising fares, to the tune of about 7.5%. In an industry that has been bleeding cash every little bit helps.
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Posted by Seth on January 29, 2010 under News |
Continental Airlines announced this morning that they will be increasing service between London and their Newark hub starting this summer. The increases – up to four daily departures beginning at the end of March and five daily beginning at the end of October – will be mostly operated by the carrier’s Boeing 757-200 aircraft; one of the daily flights will remain on the 777-200s.
In addition to the increased frequencies, Continental has committed to operating all these flights with their new fully flat Business Class product, effective June 1, 2010. It is the first time in recent memory that Continental has committed to including a specific product that only exists on a subset of its fleet on a specific route. The carrier generally avoids such commitments since they generally cycle their planes through their route network very aggressively rather than dedicating specific planes to specific routes. They get increased utilization from the planes but it also increases the troubles when they have mechanical issues and it prevents planes from being dedicated to routes.
The original timeline for the new lie-flat BusinessFirst seats is actually pretty slow; the 777s and 757s aren’t scheduled to be completed until mid-to-late 2011. But two 777s were ferried to Hong Kong – the site of the retrofits – recently increasing the speed of the deployment. And the 757s can be cycled through the upgrade pretty quickly as well. This is good news for passengers as it means getting the new product out into the fleet faster. The increased service also means more options for customers who are delayed in getting to Newark on connecting flights and more opportunities for connections to London-based Star Alliance partner bmi.
It is also worth noting that the increase in service is coming from Newark rather than the other potential option: Cleveland. Continental has previously run seasonal service to London from the Hublet but that was cut at the end of last summer. Rather than reinstating it there this year’s increase is going to Newark. This speaks to the increased flexibility of having the 757 in Newark and to the higher demand in Newark versus that of Cleveland. The good news for the folks there is that they have a lot of options (ORD, IAD, YYZ, YUL, etc.) that allow them to avoid connecting in Newark if they choose thanks to partners.
Here’s what the new schedule will look like:
Effective March 27, 2010, the airline’s Heathrow schedule will be as follows:
To London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO18 9:00 a.m. 9:20 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO28 6:40 p.m. 6:45 a.m.+1 Daily 777
New York/Newark CO112 7:20 p.m. 7:40 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO110 8:00 p.m. 8:20a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
Houston CO34 3:45 p.m. 6:55 a.m.+1 Daily 777
Houston CO4 6:25 p.m. 9:35 a.m.+1 Daily 777
From London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO29 10:25 a.m. 1:15 p.m. Daily 777
New York/Newark CO113 10:50 a.m. 1:55 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO111 12:05 p.m. 3:15 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO19 6:30 p.m. 9:40 p.m. Daily 757-200
Houston CO35 8:40 a.m. 12:40 p.m. Daily 777
Houston CO5 11:40 a.m. 3:50 p.m. Daily 777
Effective Oct. 30, 2010, Continental’s Heathrow schedule will be as follows:
To London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO18 9:00 a.m. 9:20 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO28 6:25 p.m. 6:20 a.m.+1 Daily 777
New York/Newark CO112 7:15 p.m. 7:25 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO110 9:20 p.m. 9:25 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO114 10:10 p.m. 10:15 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
Houston CO34 3:50 p.m. 6:50 a.m.+1 Daily 777
Houston CO4 6:35 p.m. 9:35 a.m.+1 Daily 777
From London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO115 8:40 a.m. 12:05 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO29 10:30 a.m. 1:30 p.m. Daily 777
New York/Newark CO113 11:15 a.m. 2:45 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO111 12:35 p.m. 4:05 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO19 6:00 p.m. 9:30 p.m. Daily 757-200
Houston CO35 9:20 a.m. 1:40 p.m. Daily 777
Houston CO5 11:40 a.m. 4:05 p.m. Daily 777
Posted by Seth on January 29, 2010 under Internet, News |
It is really, really, really official now. Southwest is going to have in-flight internet service from Row44. Yes, this would seem to be old news. It was 5 months ago that the carrier announced their intentions to go down this path with provider Row44. But both parties have been rather quiet for the past few months and there was no real progress in the contracts for actually making it happen.
That changed today when Runway Girl noted that the two had reached an agreement. The carrier confirmed the details shortly thereafter on their own blog. The contracts are signed and the hardware install is beginning. The existing four installed aircraft are no longer considered to be in “testing;” the system is officially live. They have still not announced full details on the pricing – that is still in testing apparently – but the product is definitely coming, and at a pretty quick pace. They expect to outfit 15 airplanes per month initially and ramp that up to 25 per month in the near future. That puts the at early 2012 for a full fleet-wide deployment completion date.
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