Posted by Seth on December 30, 2007 under Trip Reports | 
And it was phenomenal!
We spent a full day on Franz Joseph glacier with Franz Joseph Glacier Guides, with about 7 hours of time on the ice. For anyone interested, absolutely do the full day – the half day stops well before the fun stuff really starts. They outfitted us with crampons (spikes to go on the bottom of our shoes) and rain coats, as well as ice axes about half-way into the trip to help us keep our balance in the less well groomed sections of the ice. Our guide (a crazy, crazy man) actually found a very, very small crevasse on the ice that no one had every transited previously. He took that on as a challenge for the rest of us. I don’t have any pictures of us inside the crevasse because it was too small for me to get my hands into my pockets to pull out my camera. And many of you know how far I’ll go to use my camera. It was incredibly tight. I had to help the guy in front of me back out at one point because his feet got stuck. Probably no more than 10-12″ wide – definitely not for the claustrophobic. This is the view from outside:
The scale of glaciers is pretty hard to understand until you’re actually on one. Even just looking at it from the ground you can tell that it is big, but until you get out onto the ice it is difficult to fathom just how huge they really are. We hiked up along side Exit Glacier in Seward, Alaska, and up to the face of Fox Glacier here in New Zealand, and we could tell that they were big, but getting on to one and hiking up for 5 hours to look up
and down
and realize just how little of it you’ve managed to cover is rather awe inspiring. And you definitely don’t want to slip into one of the crevasses 
or holes
though our guide offered some comfort with his observation that most of them are narrow enough that we’d just get stuck and make him have to pull us out, not that we’d actually have real injuries or death – very motivating he was.
If you have the opportunity and the inclination, I highly recommend finding one to hike at some point.
Posted by Seth on December 28, 2007 under Trip Reports |
Some posts are going to be a bit out of order for a while since internet access is intermittent here and half the time I’m posting from my BlackBerry instead of the stuff I’ve written already on the laptop.
Anyways, we did a couple nights in Te Anau a couple of nights ago. We used it as a launching point for our tour of Milford Sound, which is actually a fjord, not a sound, but apparently noone wants to correct Captain Cook, so the name stuck. We tried to book in to a kayaking trip on the sound but everything was sold out for 3 days. We contented ourselves with a cruise on a boat powered by something other than our arms. It would seem that the full booking was something of divine providence, as it rained all day while we were on the sound. A lot of rain. So much that a number of waterfalls spontaneously established themselves on the cliff faces as there was nowhere else for the water to go. More on the Milford Sound trip later when I can add some pictures to a post.
Back to the idea of a Lake View” room in Te Anau. It turns out that the lake has trees lining it pretty much the whole length of town, and the trees are taller than all the buildings. So we could see the lake a little bit between the trees, but really only barely. And that was from our upstairs room. The downstairs rooms had nice little patios, and a view of the road and the trees, but not really the lake. And most of the other hotels along the strip seemed to be the same way. Long story short, don’t pay extra for the view – you likely won’t get your money’s worth.
Posted by Seth on December 25, 2007 under Trip Reports |
Sitting in the Koru Club at the domestic terminal of the Auckland airport right now and I have to say that this is definitely the nicest domestic lounge I’ve ever seen. There is a full spread of hot and cold breakfast foods out on buffet, as well as coolers full of drinks available for self-service. Free WiFi, plenty of room to spread out in comfy chairs, a massage chair, a business center with free computer/internet use and probably some other cool things I’ve not seen yet. They’re actually announcing the flights, and the entire staff is supremely friendly, though I’m pretty sure that in at least one case it is just the guy flirting with the passenger.
Yesterday was spent walking around Auckland in the morning, getting to see one of the oldest cemeteries in the city (if not the oldest) on Symmonds road, as well as meandering through the Auckland Domain, their version of Central Park.
Then another park and on to lunch at Hammerheads, a great seafood place overlooking the harbor and downtown Auckland. I managed to be an hour off in my recollection of when our reservation was, so we had time for an extra drink at the bar. And despite the rain showers throughout the afternoon we still had some pretty impressive views.
We had some rain this morning, but the skies are clearing up now and it looks like it’s going to be a great day.
Posted by Seth on December 25, 2007 under News |
MaxJet, one of the initial carriers offering an all-business class service between London and New York City declared banruptcy as a Christmas present this past Monday. They’ve blamed higher fuel prices as the main reason for their inability to continue operations, but it also seems that AA may have had something to do with it, competing directly with them on their JFK-STN route. As is typical for many upstart carriers, a little competition from the established providers can prove to be the death knell unless there is real differentiation in price, service or something else. In MaxJet’s case, AA went for the jugular, and MaxJet didn’t have sufficient resources or other routes (though they did also serve LAX and LAS) to help counter this.
I’m not all that sad to see them go, though I do know a few folks who used to use them on their trips to London, so not so good for them.
The timing is particularly unfortunate as it happened right at Christmas when many folks are traveling. Fortunately other carriers, including Continental, are accomodating the passengers on a standby basis, though there is no indication that they are all flying in business class like they originally booked. Merry Christmas indeed.
Posted by Seth on December 23, 2007 under Trip Reports |
I suppose it depends on which 12 hours you’re looking at. Our day started at 6am EST with a wakeup and ride to Newark to catch our first flight on the way to Auckland – Newark to San Francisco. For the Saturday before Christmas the airport was pretty much what I expected, which is to say bedlam. Seriously, it was pretty ridiculous. Even the Presidents Club was overrun with kids, all families on their way to somewhere warm for the holiday week. So a quick 5.5 hour flight to San Francisco and then we headed downtown to meet up with a former co-worker for lunch and a drink. The trip downtown got us up and moving around and helped to break up the 10 hour layover into something somewhat reasonable. As we headed to the BART station to go back to the airport we were treated to a nice view of moonrise and sunset over the Bay Bridge.
The other first 12 hours – that of the flight to Sydney were pretty good as well. We got on the plane in San Francisco around 10pm PST now having been awake for about 20 hours, but still determined to make it through the dinner and enjoy the service that we would receive in Business Class. Dinner was served very quickly, very much in contrast to the Alitalia flight we took last year for our New Years trip where dinner consumed about three of the eight hours in the air. This one was done in just under two hours, including dessert. And then it was time to put the seat into the sleep position and zonk out.
I’ve been in business class on a few airlines now (5, I think) and I have to say that the seats on United are the only ones I’ve ever experienced where all the adjustments are manual. There’s a “switch” but it serves more as a lock than anything else. So to recline you just lift the switch and lean back. No big deal for reclining, but when it comes time to sit up and eat the process involves some contortion as you lift the switch with one hand and reach behind yourself with the other in an effort to pull the seat forward to the desired position. Ditto for extending the leg rest, which involved reaching down and physically pulling the seat into position. I understand that there are a number of savings, including weight and mechanical difficulties in not having the electronics in the seats, but I still wouldn’t make that choice if I was running the airline.
After about 6-7 hours of sleep I came out of my slumber and noticed that the full moon was illuminating the clouds below in a rather surreal way. I tried to get a couple pictures but that didn’t work so well. Shortly thereafter sunrise came about. I’ve posted before about the glory of sunrise from the air, and I have to say that today’s flight was no exception. Scattered clouds add to the effect, and having the huge wing of the 747-400 and the two engines in the shot is pretty much the icing on the cake for me.
Out the other side of the plane the moon was still high in the sky, though working on setting. With both of these going on at the same time it was hard to choose which way to look.
It was right around hour 12 that things started to go badly. It was breakfast time and the flight attendants were working the cabin quickly to make sure that they could serve everyone and get everything cleaned up and packed away in time for our arrival. And they were rushing. So it wasn’t all that surprising to see the FA spill a glass of juice in the row in front of us. Even worse, it was right in to the guy’s laptop on which he was watching a movie, so that put her in a pretty frantic mood, and I’m pretty sure that she still hasn’t recovered. She got snippy with us because we were still watching a movie (Live free or Die Hard) and that was clearly interrupting her efforts to do whatever it is that she was trying to do. And then she gave us a lecture on manners and being polite. I actually managed not to attack her, which I think shows a lot of maturity.
We’re about an hour out from arrival now and then a 3 hour layover and another 3 hour flight to get to Auckland. It has been a pretty long day, and I’m sure there will be another nap at some point to help deal with that problem, but we’ll be at the hotel before too long and then on to more adventure.
Posted by Seth on December 22, 2007 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Not a surprising development by any stretch, as inflation eventually takes over when the “currency” is available in such large volumes that the supply can’t keep up with the demand, but in this particular case, a very significant devaluation just happened for Continental OnePass members. Long considered one of the best redemption values in the industry, CO miles for Qantas rewards have been “enhanced” and the new numbers are scary bad. A first class reward went from 135K miles to 285K miles, an increase of over 100%. Coach and business class rewards went up by similar amounts. The new prices are probably “fair” all things considered, but a first class around the world reward is only 280K (admittedly no actual F flights since Continental doesn’t have access to the F seats on their partners) so the new reward level makes this the most expensive option out there. The new levels don’t kick in until February, but good luck finding availability between now and then – it was always hard and this will make it worse with a race to cash in.
Posted by Seth on December 19, 2007 under News |
It is no secret that air travel in the northeastern part of the USA is a nightmare. Between weather delays, limited capacity airports with zero room to grow, local residents with a lot of money and lobbying clout and some of the most densely packed airspace anywhere in the world, flight delays and cancellations have become the norm rather than the exception. I’ve blogged about it before and clearly something had to give. Well, today that happened.
The US Department of Transportation has indicated that they are going to implement limits at JFK to better space the air traffic in and around the NYC area. Also known as slot controls, the rules effectively limit carriers from just deciding to show up at the airport and ask for a landing slot when they get there (it doesn’t really work that way, but it is pretty close). Instead, all the airlines will have to get their schedules approved to ensure that the number of flights in any given hour is limited to 82-83. Since that is pretty much the maximum that the airprt can handle the fact that there are > 100 in some hours these days is a sure-fire way to delays. Even worse, the airlines blame the delays on “Air Traffic Control” rather than themselves (as though somehow the ATC folks are supposed to bend the rules of space and time to make more planes land on a runway than is physically possible), so the airlines aren’t liable for accommodating passengers who misconnect. This ends up pretty messy for passengers rather often.
The problem with slot controls is that it presents a huge barrier to entry for airlines that want to establish new service. Buying landing slots isn’t cheap. Some other major airports with slot controls/limits include Tokyo’s Nartia (NRT) and London’s Heathrow (LHR). With the recent Open Skies treaty many carriers are working to secure slots at LHR, with the price reportedly surpassing $10MM. That’s a huge investment to make, especially considering that most carriers fly to a place more than once a day. Effectively the slot controls are a mint for the existing carriers, as they can sell their slots to the highest bidder if they want (and think they’d make more money that way than via actually operating flights). Indeed, BMed (now owned by bmi) has been operating “ghost flights” for some time in and out of LHR to ensure that they get to keep the slots at LHR, waiting for the Open Skies thing to happen so they can sell them for big money or actually operate flights and make money that way.
Of course, LaGuardia has been slot controlled for a while now – since shortly after the summer of hell in 2001 when it and Chicago’s O’Hare were responsible for something like 40% of all delays nationwide. And some effort is being put in to making sure that the airlines don’t all just move their problems across New York harbor to Newark airport, since there are already plenty of problems there, too.
So now Lufthansa has bought ~19% of JetBlue, one of the largest carriers at JFK. And they own a sizable stake in bmi, the second largest slot-holder at LHR. They could conceivably cause a lot of trouble in the trans-Atlantic market if they saw fit. Or just make a lot of money doing so.
Things are going to remain bad for a while until real change comes about in the FAA’s navigation and air traffic routing plans, but hopefully this will help prevent carriers from pretending that they can actually operate the schedules that they’re selling the public on, especially when they know full well that they have no chance of actually getting the job done.
Posted by Seth on December 13, 2007 under News |
Lufthansa has announced intentions to take a $300MM stake in JetBlue, the darling of the LCC airline market in the USA. This move gives them a strange relationship with their previous US-based partners, United and US Air. Putting Lufthansa codes on the JetBlue flights would likely be a huge insult to the existing partners, though it would give them enormous access to connecting travel in/out of JFK. The other strange thing about this is that the JetBlue model is very, very, very different than the Lufthansa one. JetBlue has a single class of service. Lufthansa has three. There’s no way to buy a business/first class seat on JetBlue, so Lufthansa won’t be able to sell seats all the way through in the premium cabins, and that is where the real money is from passenger revenue, so that makes very little sense. There was a discussion of this on FlyerTalk at one point and the generally accepted theory (floated by me and confirmed by a JetBlue insider) is that JetBlue can’t really team up with other partners because they can’t offer matching cabin services.
In the end, a German carrier owning 19% of a US carrier isn’t such a big deal, especially when they are buying at a 40% discount thanks to the strong Euro versus the US Dollar. But the fact that they chose JetBlue, and that JetBlue needed the money to meet their short-term debt needs:
The cash infusion will come in handy for JetBlue, which has $433 million in current debt payable that it otherwise would have been “hard-pressed to fund from cash flow from operations or cash on hand,” according to a note from William Greene, an analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co.
The fact that JetBlue is still the darling of the industry, at least among the public, for their service offering but that they cannot meet their debt needs is a very bad sign for them. They can’t sell another 19% to Lufthansa due to ownership regulations in the USA. Plus that would pretty much kill the value of JetBlue since they’d be proving that they can’t run themselves profitably enough to meet their future debt load. Of course, they may be proving that already. If they can’t operate to meet their debt burden with the fares that they’re charging that is a very bad sign. They’ve already sold off old planes once in conjunction with acquiring new ones so the net number of planes didn’t change but the maintenance costs remained low (same reason you keep leasing a car for 3 years but then dump it after that), but the costs for doing that are pretty high. Not a good sign overall for JetBlue.
Posted by Seth on December 12, 2007 under Trip Reports |
Not a Fiddler on the Roof reference, but the beauty that i sunrise and sunset from the air. There are a lot of magical things about flying. For one, a chunk of ridiculously heavy aluminum manages to travel 500 mph through the air. But, by far, the most beautiful part of flying to me is sunrise and sunset. I was treated to another fine showing this morning on the 6:30am Delta Shuttle flight from LaGuardia to DC. There is something about taking off right at dawn, breaking through the clouds and seeing the range of orange and purple hues fully span the skyline that is rather amazing. If you can manage to find an afternoon flight from Europe to the US or a west-bound transcon timed correctly you can watch sunset for hours, chasing the sun west across the globe.
I highly recommend it.
Posted by Seth on December 6, 2007 under Trip Reports |
I love taking the Amtrak Acela Express between New York and Philly or Washington, DC. The entire experience is more relaxing. Most of the time. Today I got to experience the fun of moving between trains out on the tracks. It seems the pantograph on our train was damaged, preventing it from getting power from the overhead lines. So we sat on the track for about 30 minutes and then the train that was behind us pulled up along side and we migrated to the new one. Overall a pretty harmless delay, but certainly rather entertaining. Mind the gap.
The scale of glaciers is pretty hard to understand until you’re actually on one. Even just looking at it from the ground you can tell that it is big, but until you get out onto the ice it is difficult to fathom just how huge they really are. We hiked up along side Exit Glacier in Seward, Alaska, and up to the face of Fox Glacier here in New Zealand, and we could tell that they were big, but getting on to one and hiking up for 5 hours to look up
