Posted by Seth on June 18, 2008 under Uncategorized | 
A couple weeks ago during our tour of the new JFK Terminal 5 with JetBlue I asked the marketing and TrueBlue folks there if a bigger seat option (i.e. first class cabin) was on the drawing board. I was almost laughed out of the room. They made it pretty clear that they are very unlikely to remove seats from the planes because they don’t think that the yields are there on the larger seats to justify removing any from the cabin.
But today JetBlue CEO Dave Barger was quoted as saying, “Everything is on the table,” so they certainly seem to be considering it. The carrier recently reconfigured their planes to add a few rows of 38” pitch and call it Even More Legroom (“EML”). If they put in the wider seats to allow for Even More Butt Room (“EMBR”) seating then they’re almost certainly going to have to remove some seats or dramatically scale back on the EML seating area in the planes. They pretty much need to add an extra row of seats to keep the number of seats on their planes level at 150 and also add EMBR seats. To find 32” of space in the plane likely means further reducing the pitch available in the existing “normal” seats on their planes. Even just getting rid of EML seats completely would only recover ~20” of pitch on the plane, some of which would still be needed by the EMBR seats, assuming EMBR includes EML, too.
So it might be on the table, but unless they can charge enough to cover the loss of 6 seats on the plane with the 12 first class seats (or cover losing 4 with 8 F seats) the chances of EMBR seem to be pretty low to me. It would also take away for their egalitarian marketing shtick, though the EML seats are moving in that direction a bit anyway. On the plus side, I got to coin a new acronym, so I’m pretty happy with that. More discussion here as well.
Posted by Seth on June 17, 2008 under Uncategorized |
When I am on the road for work I almost always book the last (or close to it) flight out from wherever I am. I never know if work is going to require me to stay until the very end of the day or if things will wrap up early. And when they did wrap up early I’d head over to the airport, walk up to the gate or lounge and ask for a seat on an earlier flight. This seemed to be a win-win deal for the airline and the passenger. I get where I’m going earlier and the airline fills up a seat with a body, opening up the seat on a later flight to either sell or otherwise use for other passengers. What’s not to love?
Apparently having such a policy is so onerous on the airlines, however, that they find themselves in a position where they feel compelled to charge passengers for this benefit. Over the past couple years most of the major carriers in the US have initiated such charges, so I shouldn’t be all that surprised that Continental has chosen to join the ranks of those who do, but it does annoy me.
They only charge you if you actually get a seat on the new flight, and they’ve expanded the offering for a “confirmed standby” seat from 3 hours to 12 hours, but it still stinks. Oh, and half price ($25 instead of $50) for Platinum and Gold elites – but not silver which is a bit surprising. And Continental was in the minority for not charging fees for this benefit, but that was a good thing.
At this point I think I’d rather sit in the lounge and drink more to counteract the income that they think they’re getting for this new feature. Or eat all those little cheese packs or something. I just don’t see this generating enough money to tank up a 737 for a flight to Florida, and it sure does piss people off to be nicked for the little things.
Posted by Seth on June 17, 2008 under Uncategorized |
One of the most annoying rental car policies is the fuel issue. You have to return the car with a full tank or face exorbitant refueling prices. I’ve been fortunate to use a discount code from Avis for some time now that includes the refueling at pump prices, but contracts such as those are rare; the profits are too high for the rental car companies to ignore the opportunity. Or so I thought.
Hertz has decided to remove the fuel mark-up on their refueling option effective July 1. They will still charge a refueling fee ($6.99) but the fuel will be provided at local prices rather than 2-3x local price. They are also still offering the option to pre-pay for the full tank, at a 15 cents/gallon discount from the regular prices, but that is still a terrible deal. If you take the 15 cent discount you’re saving ~$2 over a tank of gas, so unless you can return the car with a half gallon of gas in it you’ve paid too much for the fuel. With the $6.99 refueling fee you’ll need to return the car with ~2 gallons to make it profitable. But the frequency with which that happens is pretty low.
The deal isn’t awesome, and it certainly doesn’t match the Avis deal I’ve got, but it is a nice move towards making things slightly better for car renters these days. There have been enough situations where I’ve been running a bit late for a flight that the $7 fee would have saved me quite a bit of money versus paying their high-priced gas bills.
Posted by Seth on June 16, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Qantas has decided that they needed a bit of extra publicity around their launching of their A380 service later this year. And apparently selling seats at ridiculously cheap prices is their means for getting that publicity. Flights from Los Angeles or London to Sydney or Melbourne are on super sales, as low as GBP380 or USD470 for a round trip ticket. These fares are good for flights in November and December it seems.
It is VERY tempting, even though it would mean 15 hours in a 31″ of seat pitch. Plus I don’t know that I really have the time to spare. But it sure is tempting.
Posted by Seth on June 14, 2008 under Trip Reports |
Towards the south of India, a bit southwest of Bangalore, the town of Mysore is a great destination for any visit to the south of the country. The region was incorporated as a kingdom as long as 600 years ago and settled thousands of years ago, meaning that there is plenty of history there to view. Plus there is a great view of the main town area from the temple at the top of Chamundi hill, just on the outskirts of town. The temple can be reached either by driving up to the top, or by hiking up the 1,000 steps along the side of the hill.
On our tour of India we decided to visit Mysore as a day trip from Bangalore. The drive was about 2-3 hours each way, but should be shorter now as they were in the midst of re-paving the roads during our trip, and they should be done by now. We arranged the tour with the front desk of the hotel and they made sure that our driver was waiting for us bright and early that morning. He didn’t speak a lot of English, but that seemed OK since he had clearly done the “day trip to Mysore” tour previously and knew where we were supposed to go. The fact that we wanted to skip some of the temples and other things on the road in to Mysore didn’t really seem to phase him – we stopped at them anyway due to the language barrier. Eventually we made it to Mysore and drove up to the 12th century temple of Chamundeshwari at the top of the hill. The views were phenomenal as we expected and the temple itself was quite nice overall.
Outside the temple there were a number of merchants set up. Some were kids offering to guard our shoes for us during our visit in the temple (no shoes allowed inside) or various other things that they were selling. There were also a number of folks selling stuff to offer up to the gods in the temple and various other foodstuffs in the plaza outside the temple.
We decided that we would walk down the 1,000 steps, rather than up the steps, during the car ride to Mysore. Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble explaining that to our driver. He was all set to drive us on to the next stop on his itinerary, but we weren’t ready for that yet. I tried sign language. I tried pointing to pictures in the guide book. Nothing was working. Fortunately one of the local merchants came to our rescue, speaking to our driver and explaining to him our plans. And, it turns out that he was selling fried dough of some sort. So in addition to working as a translator he also provided us with some great nourishment for the hike down. As a small aside, it seems that every culture has a fried dough meal of some sort, and they are universally delicious. When in doubt, fried dough should always be consumed.
Fully nourished, we began our descent of the hill. It was at about this point that I started to realize that perhaps the indigestion I was feeling was a bit more than just a bad breakfast. Still, with this being our only chance to tour the Maharaja’s Palace and the other sights in Mysore I pushed on. And I’m really glad I did.
A few hundred steps down from top of the hill is Nandi, Lord Shiva’s Bull. The bull stands ~15 feet tall and is quite an impressive sight. On the day we were there a number of folks were out offering prayers. In addition, apparently it was bath day for Nandi; an number of men were up on scaffolding surrounding the statue washing it down, one bucket at a time.
The rest of the climb down was relatively uneventful, except that my legs started to give out on me towards the end. We did encounter a few others headed up the steps, including this woman:
Our driver was waiting for us at the bottom of the hill and took us to a restaurant where we had lunch. Actually I merely tried to have lunch, as I couldn’t really stomach any food. At this point we had to cut the trip short and return to the hotel in Bangalore. The bad news was that the hotel was a few hours away, and we had a very hard time explaining to the driver that we wanted to skip the rest of the trip, much less why we needed to return. Fortunately we eventually made the point clear enough. I spent the next couple days lying on the couch, waiting desperately for the cipro to kick in and clear up my stomach bug. It did, and hopefully next time I will remember to not lick my fingers when eating street food in India.
We didn’t get to see the palaces, the gardens, the market or a number of other things we intended to do during the trip. Now we have a(nother) good reason to go back to India.
More on Mysore and the 1000 steps here and here.
PS – These notes are based on my trip from November 2005, so things may have changed a bit. But considering the thousands of years of history and the slow pace of change of things in India, I’m guessing that things are pretty much the same these days.
Posted by Seth on June 13, 2008 under Uncategorized |
US Airways has been steadily decreasing the benefits they offer to their passengers over the past several months. Yet another set of cuts came out this week, with the removal of all free drinks and snacks from their flights, and also the removal of elite bonus miles.
The drinks and peanuts thing sucks and they’ll probably generate a little bit of extra revenue there which will be nice, but the overall impact will probably net neutral on the company; I don’t know anyone who buys a ticket just to get that free cup of ginger ale.
The miles thing, on the other hand, will likely have a real and significantly negative impact on their passengers. It started with the removal of the 500 mile minimum for flights, meaning that it was going to become harder for folks to qualify for elite status. Now they are taking away one of the main benefits of being elite – the accrual of extra miles while flying. The top brass have realized that the frequent flier miles are a liability and they are basically making it significantly harder for their most frequent passengers to earn more miles.
Miles issued through the Dividend Miles program represent a real and significant economic cost. Each mile that is issued can result in the loss of revenue for the company. By reducing the number of bonus miles issued, US Airways is in a better position to withstand the impact of record fuel prices.
They blame it on fuel prices but the fact is that they still haven’t integrated the airline since the America West merger years ago and they haven’t been able to realize any savings anywhere else in the system. Plus, most of their passengers with tons of miles want to redeem for trips to far away places and US’s route map is too weak to get there so partner redemptions come in to play, and that would seem to be a one-way revenue stream out for US Airways; I cannot imagine many of their partners’ fliers redeem a lot of trips on US Air. That adds up to a lot of money flowing out of the coffers.
I’ve got ~77K miles in a Dividend Miles account that I rarely touch. Looks like it is time to cash out – on a partner reward – and save my miles while they still have a chance of being useful. I don’t see the airline lasting too much longer.
Posted by Seth on June 12, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Or, in this case, maybe it should be “Excuse me pilot, I speak English.”
There’s a report out of England that a Lot Polish Airways pilot spoke such poor English that the controllers at Heathrow had trouble communicating with him, resulting in the plane meandering around the airspace above England and coming dangerously close to another aircraft that had to be diverted to avoid it.
And, despite the fact that English is the official language of aviation globally, Poland has applied to ICAO for a further extension to allow their existing pilots to keep flying. Lot also denies the incident.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time listening to the tower radio communications around major international airports, and the accents are often fun to listen to, but I can see how there is the chance of issues over time.
Posted by Seth on June 12, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Continental Airlines announced a couple weeks ago that they intended to cut about 11% of their capacity this September versus fall ’07. Today the specific routes and airports were announced. While many of them make sense as they are serving smaller cities that probably cannot support the service at the higher fare levels necessary, there are a few surprises.
Houston George Bush Intercontinental:
- Cali, Colombia
- Chatanooga, Tenn.
- Guayaquil, Ecuador
- Hartford, Conn.
- Monclova, Mexico
- Montgomery, Ala.
- Oakland, Calif.
- Palm Springs, Calif.
- Reno, Nevada
- Sarasota, Fla.
- Tallahassee, Fla.
- Washington – Dulles
Newark Liberty:
- Albuquerque, N.M.
- Cologne, Germany
- Santiago, Dominican Republic
- Sarasota, Fla.
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- San Jose, Calif.
- Tucson, Ariz.
Cleveland Hopkins: Austin, Texas
- Birmingham, Ala.
- Charleston, S.C.
- Charleston, W. Va.
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Detroit, Mich.
- Green Bay, Wis.
- Greensboro, N.C.
- Lexington, Ky.
- Little Rock, Ark.
- Memphis, Tenn.
- Nashville, Tenn.
- Norfolk, Va.
- Oklahoma City, Okla.
- Omaha, Neb.
- Ottawa, Canada
- San Antonio, Texas
- San Diego, Calif.
- Sarasota, Fla.
- Savannah, Ga.
- Toledo, Ohio
- Tulsa, Okla.
- Washington-Dulles.
Guam A.B. Won Pat:
- Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.
As a result of the discontinued service, the following stations will close:
- Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia
- Cali, Colombia
- Cologne, Germany
- Santiago, Dominican Republic
- Guayaquil, Ecuador
- Monclova, Mexico
- Oakland, Calif.
- Palm Springs, Calif.
- Chattanooga, Tenn.
- Reno, Nev.
- Green Bay, Wis.
- Sarasota, Fla.
- Tallahassee, Fla.
- Toledo, Ohio
- Montgomery, Ala.
Cleveland will bear the brunt of the cuts, though Newark and Houston aren’t getting off too lightly. Of the most concern for Cleveland is the cutting of flights to Detroit and Memphis, reducing the connectivity options for getting to two of NorthWest’s hubs and connecting onwards on reward flights. Of course, NW appears to be keeping their flights for now, but who knows.
I’ve only flown on one of these routes (Newark-Cologne) and that one has suffered for a while now in terms of loads, and I only paid $268 r/t for my ticket, so I can imagine that they aren’t making much money there. Sad to see some of these go, but I’m not really all that broken up by it; I don’t lose much personally and I’d rather the airline stay in business – I’ve got a lot of miles to burn!
Posted by Seth on June 9, 2008 under TSA |
I’ve posted before about the TSA and their strange interpretations of the word required when it comes to presenting ID while passing through their checkpoints. Up until now one has always been permitted to fly without presenting ID, so long as they are willing to undergo the extra screening at the checkpoint. Apparently the TSA has decided that too many people are choosing to exercise their rights, so they’ve decided to change the rules. Effective June 21st one will still be able to fly if they do not have any ID on them. If you have ID and choose to not show it to the TSA, however, they may choose to prevent you from flying. There will be a meeting with a TSA Behavior Detection Officer, and possibly a meeting with a law enforcement officer as well. And if they don’t like you they can reject your request to pass through the magic portal. All the while, your right to travel domestically without presenting papers shrivels up and dies. I guess the TSA is really keen on catching more illegal immigrants or kids with fake IDs, since they can’t seem to find guns or bombs too well.
Now I just need to come up with a reasonable place on my person to “lose” my ID for a few minutes while passing through the checkpoint. That should be fun.
Posted by Seth on June 7, 2008 under News |
Longtime ABC sportscaster Jim McKay passed away this morning at his home at the age of 86. One of Jim’s first roles on ABC was as host of ABC’s Wide World of Sports. The show saw him criss-crossing the world many times over. Among travel stories recounted about him today was that of Keith Jackson running past him sitting on a bench in Heathrow. McKay was sitting there, waiting to get a call for where his next destination was going to be. He had done six countries and eleven scenes in four days, and was about to add to the tally. It turns out that he didn’t actually enjoy the travel a ton since it meant being away from his family, but he continued to do it in spite of that.
If you can find a copy of the Bob Ley SportsCenter piece on Jim McKay online, I highly recommend it. I found a few other clips from this morning’s coverage online (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3), but the Bob Ley piece was phenomenal.
Really not all that travel related a post, but the man was huge and a testament to quality journalism, something that is missing more and more these days.
