Posted by Seth on January 31, 2009 under Uncategorized | 
And I’m not talking about the light chop that our plane has been experiencing for the first two hours of the flight down to Trinidad. Don’t get me wrong – things could have been worse and at the end of the day I’ll be in the Caribbean. But this trip feels a bit like rolling over a rumble strip in a car with no shocks at this point.
I left packing until the last minute this morning and that wasn’t particularly fun. I am good at packing and have a system pretty well established, but getting ready to go in 20 minutes isn’t my forté and I paid the price. I made it all the way to the bagel shop before realizing that I forgot my passport at home. I had just enough time to run back and grab it without missing my train, but it was close.
Then, once I was on the train, I realized that I forgot to pack my books. I actually went out to a great book store in NYC – Idlewild, you should go there – to get a book for the trip. They are a travel book store on 19th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues with an interesting twist. They arrange their books by region but have fiction, non-fiction and guides all mixed together. So in the Trinidad & Tobago section they had some novel written by a native Trinidadian (and a Nobel winner for Literature) amongst everything else. I found one of his books that looked pretty good and picked it up for the trip. And it is sitting on the chair in the living room at home now because I forgot it.
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| Looking down on Newark airport and the fleet of ERJs, plus the El Al jumbo |
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| Ahhh….New Jersey |
The train trip to the airport was actually pretty good. The train was on time and the conductor didn’t bother to collect my ticket so I got a freebie out of the deal. And I picked up another book at the airport book store at the recommendation of a friend (thanks, Mike) that has been pretty good through the first 100 pages so it isn’t a complete loss.
I’ve also managed to empty the catering cart in first class of their rum supply (apparently they only stock 3) though the flight attendant had no troubles dipping in to the coach supply. For those who know me as a vodka drinker I still am, but when going to the Caribbean I feel compelled to play along and go with the local stuff, and that means rum. The “steak” that I ordered for dinner turned out to be a pork loin of some sort, which was an interesting surprise, but it wasn’t too bad and the shellfish appetizer was delicious, so no complaints from me on that front.
And the flight really has been pretty bumpy. We’ve had about 10 minutes of smooth air in the first two hours. Things seem to have finally smoothed out now and I’m hoping that they remain this way for the rest of the flight. After all, I wouldn’t want to spill the little bit of rum they still have available on the plane.
We’re due in to Port of Spain in about two hours and then I have my quick hop up to Tobago to see what the smaller island has to offer. My seatmate has had great things to say so far (though she, too, disbelieves that I’m doing all this for 36 hours on the islands) and a couple decent recommendations. She was also rather impressed that I managed to fly to the islands for $265 round trip in first class both ways. Life is good as a frequent flier.
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| Sunset, somewhere over the Atlantic |
I’m through immigration and customs now in under 10 minutes, despite the fear that the flight attendants instilled in me. I’m checked in for my onward flight to Tobago and will now enjoy the free wireless in the airport for the next hour until my flight departs. I’m truly looking forward to the next couple days.
Posted by Seth on January 29, 2009 under Uncategorized |
October 24, 2009 is the last date that Continental Airlines will be a member of the SkyTeam alliance. This date was noted in today’s earnings conference call by CEO Larry Kellner. Kellner deftly sidestepped when pressed for a specific date that Continental would be joining Star Alliance, responding only with “promptly thereafter.” It is expected that the shift will not be immediate, but that specific bilateral agreements will be forged first with the formal alliance membership taking a bit longer to iron out thanks to all the gritty details and integration issues that will inevitably come up.
Ever since the announcement of their intention to switch back in June, there have been a lot of questions about the details and the timing of the change. At least we now have one date nailed down. I’m sure that more details will follow.
Some coverage here from the Houston Chronicle. And for those who are curious, October 25th is the last date of the summer schedule as organized by IATA, so it makes a lot of sense as the date that they make the jump.
Posted by Seth on January 29, 2009 under Uncategorized |
It is earnings season on Wall Street, and jetBlue took their turn today. They lost some money, but not too much, all things considered. The earnings/losses bit is not really all that interesting to me. What I like listening to is the details of how they got to those numbers. Things like where capacity is shifting to and where they are realizing their revenue. Yes, I am an aerogeek.
So what did jetBlue have to say today? A couple interesting things, at least to me.
- They’re shifting away from transcons and into the Caribbean. They’ve been pushing in this direction for a while, but I finally heard some specific numbers and they are pretty staggering. Transcon capacity has been reduced about 30% since last year. At the same time, Caribbean/international capacity has increased by about 40%. And they did that while also reducing the number of planes in the fleet. In line with this move they’ve announced a couple new routes, including launching a new city – Montego Bay, Jamaica. They’re also going to be trying again for the LAX service to Boston and New York City, so they are not killing transcon capacity completely.
- They are not realizing revenue very far in advance, and it is getting worse. This is a big one in many ways. One thing that jetBlue does that limits them is that they have limited schedules releases. So if you wanted to buy a ticket for October right now on jetBlue you wouldn’t be able to do so. But it seems like that doesn’t really matter too much to them, as bookings are moving much closer to the date of travel rather than far in advance. I have to say that I am seeing this in general, too. Part of the drive in this direction is changes to the fare pricing systems that allow the carriers to be more flexible and manipulative in their pricing rather than just releasing all the seats day one and seeing the cheap seats sell first and most expensive seats later. And part of it is that most folks are worried about their income so they aren’t planning vacations as far in advance. The downside of this is that they don’t get to sit on the cash and earn interest waiting to actually realize the expense of carrying a passenger.
- They make a lot of money from non-fare events. Sure, the bulk of the revenue for the carrier comes from the base fare price. They averaged $151 per ticket last month, the highest in their history. But on top of that they are realizing a LOT of revenue in non-fare events. The Even More Legroom program accounted for about $45MM in income in 2008. That is a drop in the bucket for $3.056Bn in total revenue, but it makes a big difference when you consider that it actually doesn’t cost them anything to realize that revenue. Other incremental fees – like checked baggage, pets, etc. – weren’t detailed in this call, but in the last call they were something around $20 per passenger, on top of the fares. That is a big deal, especially when no one carrier can really force fare prices up. And the best part is that they seem to do it without making folks feel like they are being hit with tons of fees. I’m not entirely sure how that works for them, but it does.
- They have international partners, but they barely use them. From the customer perspective, the jetBlue partnerships with Lufthansa and Aer LIngus have pretty much been a bust thus far. They talk about passing passengers back and forth and marketing with a global presence, but the fact remains that one cannot book flights via the jetBlue website for either of those partners. Aer Lingus does allow booking through on to jetBlue flights, so it isn’t completely useless, but it is pretty close. The good news is that jetBlue plans to link up with Aer Lingus in Orlando starting this year, in addition to their existing Boston and New York links. And they expect that the Lufthansa partnership will finally start to actually exist from a passenger perspective later this year. Of course, none of this is going to be a seamless benefit for jetBlue customers until they get a new reservations system in place, and they expect that to happen starting late this year and going live in early 2010, so we can hope.
Like I said, mostly aerogeek stuff, but I thought it was an interesting view into their perspective on the market and where they are going in the near future.
Posted by Seth on January 27, 2009 under Uncategorized |
It looks like the previously predicted drop in air travel is finally starting to actually show up in the booking systems. And some of the airlines are reacting by getting more aggressive with their weekend fare specials in an effort to put some bodies in the seats and a couple extra bucks in the airlines’ coffers.
I actually thought it might have been a mistake last weekend when I saw some of them – transcon round trips for $140 are rather rare, even for the weekend specials – but it seems that the deals are going to be around for a while. In reality, it seems that the $140 transcon deal was a mistake – American Airlines has theirs up around $210+ for next weekend and Continental is up to $248+ this weekend. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still deals to be found.
This weekend Continental has specials to a number of Caribbean/Mexican destinations at some great prices, at least from Newark or Houston. For me, it means a random last-minute trip to plan to Trinidad. The trip is full of great abbreviations. The airport code is POS, and the country is often abbreviated as TnT. And that’s where the dynamite reference comes in. And then it is a short jump to the alternate spelling.
Anyways, look for some photos and tales from a completely random trip to Trinidad coming up later this weekend. Oh, and I already have been upgraded for the outbound flight thanks to my elite status. 
Posted by Seth on January 26, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Delta has rarely tried to hide the fact that they are fleecing their SkyMiles members these days. Reward requirements are going up, benefits are going down, and SkyMiles members are going crazy.
The latest changes that Delta tried to implement were reducing the number of miles earned on the most expensive coach tickets and removing the best benefit that top-tier elites get – free changes on reward tickets. There was much outrage amongst the frequent fliers, and now it seems that Delta is going to relent on some of those changes.
They’ve backed off the change on the miles credit for the expensive tickets completely. They just walked away from that change. And they’ve “compromised” on the Platinum’s change fee rule. They’re going to offer each platinum medallion two free changes each year, and then only charge half price for the rest of the changes.
That’s not too bad, but it is still a huge hit against their top members. They still claim that they are making the change because of the significant number (10%) of seats that are booked and never flown and not canceled until after the trip. Simply make changes free until the time of departure and that problem would go away. But then Delta would have to admit that they aren’t just doing this as a cash grab, and I doubt they would be willing to do that.
Here’s a copy of the email sent to some Delta elites tonight about the givebacks:
We’re working hard to bring together the frequent flyer programs of Delta and Northwest Airlines®. As a part of this effort, we are aligning the SkyMiles® and WorldPerks® programs with the goal of creating a single, best-in-class loyalty program for our combined members by the end of 2009.
What does this mean for our Gold Medallion® members in 2009?
We will continue to offer several core benefits that you have told us are important to you including:
- Unlimited Elite Complimentary Upgrades on all Delta and Northwest operated flights – Delta continues to be the only top three carrier to offer complimentary upgrades for all elite customers
- Preferred security access, priority boarding, preferred seating and select baggage fee waivers
- Same day confirmed fee waivers and the ability to stand by for alternate flights
- A 50% Medallion Qualification Mileage and base mileage bonus in Y, B and M booking classes – you may have noticed in your credentials packages a change to this policy – however we can confirm this bonus will remain
Remember, you can now re-qualify for Gold Medallion status by earning 50,000 Medallion Qualification Miles or 60 Medallion Qualification Segments. And coming soon:
- Platinum and Gold members will receive Elite Complimentary Upgrades on Award Tickets
- You will be able to link and transfer your miles between your SkyMiles and WorldPerks accounts in early February
Thank you for your loyalty and this summer we will share more details of our 2010 Medallion program, which will offer more choices, benefits and access.
You’re the reason we fly,
J. W. Robertson
Vice President – Loyalty Programs
It is certainly a roller coaster ride for the folks collecting SkyMiles (and Northwest’s WorldPerks members, as they are subject to the same rules changes now, too) these days. Good luck out there.
Posted by Seth on January 26, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Another entrant has decided to take the plunge in the open skies market between the USA and Europe, but this one is rather strange. United Airlines is teaming up with Aer Lingus to provide service from Washington Dulles to Madrid, Spain.
The flights will operate under both United and Aer Lingus codes, but will be operated fully by Aer Lingus. Basically United is using Aer Lingus to operate the flights as a means to get a toehold in the market without investing in an aircraft or crews to operate the flights. There is little doubt that the Aer Lingus costs to operate the flight are going to be significantly lower than United’s costs would be if they were operating the flights directly.
So, on the plus side, some competition to the 5x weekly service that Iberia offers. On the down side, some potentially troublesome labor relations issues for United. Considering the quality of their labor relations already I don’t know how much worse things can get, but outsourcing their operations seems like a good way to find out.
Ooohh….I just saw that Cranky Flier has a great post on this one.
Posted by Seth on January 24, 2009 under Internet |
Probably not right away, but there are some naysayers out there who are questioning the long-term viability of the service and putting it is questionable company – namely Connexion by Boeing – in terms of viability. That cannot be good.
First, a quick recap. Gogo is the brand name for the in-flight Internet service provided by Aircell. They have gear on planes in the American Airlines and Virgin America, with Delta and United having announced plans to put the gear on their planes in the very near future. So with such great market penetration, how could they possibly not be destined to succeed? Easily, it turns out. There are significant questions as to just how many people are paying for the service and whether it can turn in to a profitable business model.
One pundit/Analyst is now openly questioning the same thing that many have been quietly suggesting since the service and the rates were announced: Will enough people pay the asking rates to make Gogo go?
On a American SFO-JFK afternoon flight last October, we decided to walk the plane and count the number of users: the result was 8 out of 34 business and first passengers were using it, but only 2 out of about 110 economy passengers. I’m sure American is pleased with this – since the high revenue customers at the front of the plane are happy, but the amount of money flowing to Aircell is far from enough to pay for the network. We understand that to date Aircell has installed the equipment for free, so the only cost to the airline is the fuel to fly it around.
Based on the usage levels we saw, gross Aircell revenue is probably only ~$60K-$80K per plane per year, less even than the $100K seen by Connexion-by-Boeing back in 2006. Connexion had many of the same characteristics – giving away equipment, a high fixed cost network (in that case global satellite capacity leases rather than a national tower network), a large staff, and was also a great service for passengers and airlines.
OK. First off, a single flight is NOT statistically significant. I get the difference. But there are still a lot of open questions:
The carriers have no real stake in the efforts. They are putting the hardware on their planes and paying a small amount of extra fuel costs to fly the gear around, but they can more than cover that in goodwill benefits from being able to advertise that they have the service. Aircell is on the hook for the costs of the hardware for each plane they equip and they are taking all the risk there. This approach is pretty much identical to that which LiveTV is taking with their implementation on the Continental fleet. Both are very high risk to the technology company and very low risk to the carrier.
Then there are the costs to consider. LiveTV’s internet solution is very limited but also free to passengers. At least at that price you can’t really complain about what you are getting. When you’re paying for the service ($10 on a short flight or $13 on a long one) then you are actually going to care about the performance. All indications I’ve seen to date suggest that the performance is pretty good, but there is still some risk there. And for a very frequent flier the costs of remaining connected are going to be pretty high. At one point there was a rumor that Boingo was going to team up with Aircell to provide roaming coverage on the in-flight service, but that has yet to pass. Maybe a monthly unlimited pass for $40 would help for the folks who fly a lot. But there is still some pricing pressure on the service that would cause me concern if I were running their shop.
I’m reasonably convinced that the value in in-flight internet is based on a flight duration metric that isn’t really met in the domestic US market, at least not in high volume. Yes, there are more commercial flights in the USA than in just about any other region in the world, but the flights are generally short. Short enough that it is pretty easy to remain otherwise entertained or working without coughing up $10 for 45-90 minutes of internet access. Even on an expense account that is hard to justify. There just aren’t enough transcon/mid-con flights with enough people willing to pay for Internet on them. That’s my completely made up market research.
And, finally, there is the limited coverage area. Right now the Gogo service only covers the continental United States. That is pretty limiting. Runway Girl is reporting that Aircell is looking at overseas options, but in the same post she mentions that AA isn’t convinced that Aircell is the correct solution for their fleet-wide deployment. Uh-oh.
Another failure of an in-flight Internet provider could prove catastrophic to the whole concept. I really don’t want to see that happen, as I believe that there is value in being able to provide such connectivity to passengers. Much like Tim Farrar, however, I worry that the high Cap-Ex costs will outrun the low revenues too quickly and the providers will continue to strike out in their efforts.
Posted by Seth on January 21, 2009 under Uncategorized |
When I told a friend that I’d be in Belgium over the weekend he mentioned that he would be going a little bit later this year and asked if I could, among other things, recommend “architecture, historical, Jewish, or cultural spots in Bruges.”
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| The Bruges train station. |
Well, I was in Bruges, and the closest I came to any of those things that I think was truly worth visiting is a bar. Does that count that as a cultural spot?
Bruges actually has some great architecture. It is a small town (no more than a 30 minute walk end to end) and it seems to be stuck in the 1700s architecture-wise. The whole town has a great, quaint feel to it that makes it a lot of fun to wander around and try to get lost in. And getting lost isn’t too hard thanks to the many small streets and complete lack of anything resembling order in the street plan.
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| The architecture in Bruges is more or less stuck in the 1700s. |
Looking out on the canals of Bruges. |
A quiet conversation and smoke on the canal. |
And there are a couple squares in town with lots of people and beautiful buildings surrounding them.
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| Guy on a bike. Typical for Belgium. |
So the architecture and history parts are easy. But what about looking for culture? I am pretty sure that the chocolate museum doesn’t count (and it really is just “meh” overall as an experience). But as the afternoon started to wind down we managed to find our way to ‘t Brugs Beertje.
The place is more than just a bar really. It is a truly local watering hole – far more locals than tourists were inside. And the beer selection was out of this world while remaining wholly Belgian. They have well over 100 beers from 60 different brouerij (breweries) across Belgium. I think that the Delirium Cafe has a similarly broad selection, but it is way more of a “scene” than a place for relaxing conversations with good friends and good beer. By the time we left, 90 minutes after they opened on Sunday afternoon, the place was packed.
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| Inside ‘t Brugs Beertje, a phenomenal bar in Bruges. |
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| Mmmm….beer. |
There was also the Wall of Beer that we saw. Maybe that is more cultural?
No? Certainly a statue has to be considered cultural, right?
Who knew that the Belgians were such fans of Harry Caray.
A few more photos from Bruges here.
Posted by Seth on January 20, 2009 under Uncategorized |
In the case of my flight home yesterday, the answer is at least four.
I had a sandwich made in Italy, mustard from Germany, potato chips from France and dessert from Ireland. And there’s a pretty decent chance that the box they were all packed in was made in China.
The global economy truly amazes me sometimes.
Posted by Seth on January 18, 2009 under Trip Reports |
The vast majority of people going to Luxembourg arrive via train. And that means no passport stamp. The stamp isn’t really anything special – a typical EU entry stamp with the “L” for the country code – but it was certainly fun to get it.
The flight from London’s City airport to Luxembourg on VLM was quite pleasant and rather unremarkable. The small sandwich (turkey or cheese) and beverage service on the hour-long flight was nice and otherwise the flight was uneventful. The Luxembourg airport is modern and beautiful, but eerily empty as there isn’t much flight activity through it.
And then there was the border agent. The conversation was somewhat typical right up until he asked me how long I was going to be staying. Apparently a 16 hour holiday in Luxembourg is somewhat unorthodox. The good news is I appear crazy enough to do such a thing, as he eventually rolled his eyes at me, stamped my passport and sent me on my way, though he did make me repeat my itinerary a couple times to make sure he understood that I really wasn’t going to be staying in town very long.
As I noted in my post yesterday, Luxembourg is quite impressive. Walking around this morning on my way to the train station I had a chance to admire the architecture in daylight and it did not disappoint. Some pictures from around town below.
I’ve also managed to empty the catering cart in first class of their rum supply (apparently they only stock 3) though the flight attendant had no troubles dipping in to the coach supply. For those who know me as a vodka drinker I still am, but when going to the Caribbean I feel compelled to play along and go with the local stuff, and that means rum. The “steak” that I ordered for dinner turned out to be a pork loin of some sort, which was an interesting surprise, but it wasn’t too bad and the shellfish appetizer was delicious, so no complaints from me on that front.
