Posted by Seth on March 31, 2009 under Uncategorized | 
Getting caught falling asleep on the job is always an awkward situation. It is made that much worse when the job involves working for an airline and you wake up to find that you’re on a plane, in the cargo hold, and you have no way to get out until the flight lands. Just such an incident happened late last week when a jetBlue employee found himself locked in the cargo compartment for a flight from New York’s JFK to Boston.
The employee apparently realized that he was no longer on the ground and called the company’s operations center to report that he was on the plane. Upon arrival he was discovered by baggage handlers in Boston who called the police. He wasn’t arrested but it sure is an interesting set of circumstances that would lead to one being on a plane, in the cargo hold, but not noticing that the door was closed and that the plane was taxiing, much less taking off. The good news is that the cargo hold is pressurized (most are these days) so we aren’t reading a story about a guy dying. And there is no confirmed evidence that he was asleep, but I cannot come up with any other reasonable explanation for how it happened.
Personally, if I were looking for a place to sleep on a plane I’d go for the overhead bins, not the cargo hold, but to each his own.
Posted by Seth on March 30, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Casco Viejo, also known as the old city or the ancient city (Casco Ancien) is the bit of Panama City that exists out on a small peninsula at the western edge. It is the remnants of bits built 300-400 years ago, as well as the site of important buildings like the president’s residence and offices. It is also, as was recently relayed to me in a story, home to many of the “glue sniffers and prostitutes” that the city has. Yeah, it isn’t particularly glorious as far as places to visit, but if you’re in Panama City and don’t stop by you’ve done yourself a disservice. It is a combination of old and renewed, destitute and restored, degenerate and upscale. It is everything all at once. And it is a bit scary, but that is a good thing.
As you head into the area there are a few things to consider. One of them is that many of the buildings surrounding you are derelict and appear as though they might collapse at any given moment. Even the restored buildings look a bit suspect in many cases. And then there is the fact that you are out on a peninsula. That makes it easy to defend in the good old days when the attacks would only come from the sea. These days, with the maze of one way streets and dead ends it just increases the risks of getting lost, turned around and otherwise confused in a slightly sketchy part of town.
Lest my introduction to the area seem less than ideal, let me be very clear. I wouldn’t at all be intimidated into skipping it. The area itself is completely safe (lots of cops around) and has a certain sense of beauty to it, even amongst the run down buildings that make up large parts of the area.
We arrived in the area somewhere around 10am and still hadn’t had breakfast. As we drove around, hoping to find a building that resembled something historic rather than something derelict, we passed a reasonably nice looking cafe. We found a parking space around the corner, in the shadows of the Cathedral, and wandered back to grab a quick bite to eat. The Gourmet Cafe actually produced pretty good food. The menu was all in English and the contents of the store were all up-scale. Plus, they have free WiFi. It was clear that they were catering to the tourist population, not the locals. And I am only a bit saddened to admit that as we ate our breakfast I looked across the street into a local place with a very different target market, wondering if the food would be better there. That’s not to say that either of our sandwiches (bacon, egg and cheese on an english muffin and a “cajun” shrimp on ciabatta were bad – quite the opposite – but the slightly dirtier places often appeal to me and it is hard to pass them up. I did briefly consider ordering a second breakfast but passed on the opportunity as we had limited time and sights to see.
After breakfast we wandered about the neighborhood a bit. We found the president’s residence and offices (when the guard barks at you just open your bag so they can look inside) and some phenomenal views of the new Panama City off to the east. We also took in the Cathedral (impressive, but not amazing, I’d say) and a few other buildings in the area. There are nice sights to be seen and a visit is imperative on any Panama City visit itinerary lasting more that 36 hours, but do not go in expecting to see a beautifully restored old city like in many European locales else you discover great disappointment.
There is also quite a bit of construction going on these days in Casco Viejo; they are working very hard to clean up the area and rebuild the various buildings into structures that are beautiful (and inhabitable). Given a couple years I think that they can truly accomplish that and greatly regentrify the area. In the interim, I’d be a tiny bit worried about wandering around there at night. Yes, there are several hotels and restaurants and bars and a lot of armed cops in the area, too, but you do need to be VERY careful in the area. Much like the old town of Quito, Ecuador surrounding the Plaza de Independencia, there are many questionable characters that you need to be on alert for, even with the increased patrols by the local police who are trying desperately to secure the area for the tourists.
Oh, and there was that one “bum” on the streets of Casco Viejo that remembered us from two days prior on Calle Central. That was intriguing, surprising, interesting and scary, all at once. Just like the Casco Viejo area of Panama City.
Posted by Seth on March 29, 2009 under Uncategorized |
First a loud bang, followed by a bright flash out of the corner of my eye, over by the window. Then another one. Not really what I was expecting sitting in the hotel room this evening while enjoying a bit of a siesta and getting ready to head out to dinner. So the wise-assed comment slipped out. The good news is that they certainly were not. It was an impromptu fireworks show, right outside our window. So I grabbed my camera and held down the shutter button:
The five minute long flurry was actually pretty impressive. Nothing close to the Hong Kong New Year celebration or a typical NYC show, but considering the fact that they were launched by some guy standing on the median in the middle of the road outside our hotel while traffic was still flowing normally and that they didn’t get up much higher than 100 feet in the air, a pretty good show. Certainly better than anything else I was expecting to see tonight.
Posted by Seth on March 29, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Today we visited the canal and the Miraflores locks and see the actual workings up close. I was expecting it to be pretty impressive and it absolutely exceeded my expectations. It was outright amazing. Considering that it has been in operation for 95 years, more or less in exactly the same way as it operates today that is even more impressive.
The visitor center at the Miraflores locks visitor center is about five miles north of downtown Panama City, about 20 minutes and a $35 cab ride round trip. Given that we wanted to make a couple other stops and that we needed to get back out to the airport in the morning we just rented a car. Other than the fact that there are no street signs anywhere (that’s a whole different story) I think that the rental car option is way better. So a quick drive up the canal and we arrived at the relatively new tourist center, built in 2000. We arrived at the same time as the buses from a cruise ship, so that wasn’t particularly great, and the organization of the security screening at the entrance makes the TSA look organized, but we managed to get inside after about 10 minutes and raced up to the top floor observation deck, about 60 feet above the canal. A cargo ship was transiting right then, along with a couple private yachts and a tugboat, and getting to see the canal in operation was phenomenal.
The larger ship was connected up to a few locomotives. The locomotives handled the job of holding the ship in place as the waters shifted in the locks and then moving the ship forward once the locks were opened.
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| One of the locomotive drivers focuses on moving the ship through the locks. |
For the smaller ships the line work is done by hand. There are several employees assigned to working each ship as it passes through the locks. These smaller boats are generally paired up with the larger ships where there is space available to ensure maximum utilization of each flow from the locks.
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| Two “hand-liners” walking the bank of the canal after tying up a yacht. |
After the ships are secured inside the lock the magic happens. In eight minutes millions of gallons of water move from the lake down into the lock, lifting the ships up in the process. The second stage of the Miraflores lock includes a rise of 27 feet in that time. Watching the ships move up like that was pretty incredible. And then the gates are opened and the the ship is maneuvered out to the end of the locks. From there it navigates out through the lake and up to the next lock.
Throughout the process there is a play-by-play announcer giving out information in both Spanish and English. They actually tailor the script to the specific ships passing through which adds to the experience. We learned the costs of the toll – up to $250,000 for the largest container ships that pass through, or about $1000 for a smaller yacht – and also that it was the maiden voyage through the canal for one of the tugs in the grouping. Very cool.
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| The gates are finally opened and the ship can now head on to the next set of locks. |
We actually arrived just in time, as the ships we watched were the last ones to clear the locks for about three or four hours. I’m not exactly sure why there was such a delay – maybe because it is just too damn hot for the crews to be out working in the noontime sun – but the place runs at a 95%+ rate of transit slots being used so I’m sure there is a good reason they don’t add more slots in to the work day. Basically there was nothing going on there from ~10:45am to ~2:30pm, at least not today. And while the locks are rather impressive to see just existing, they are way cooler to watch as the ships pass through.
After watching the ships pass through we headed back inside to the air conditioning to watch the movie on the history of the canal and visit the exhibitions that they had in the museum there. The videos were not particularly well done in my opinion (“they looked like a high school project” was one comment) and the museum had some neat things like tools from the excavations but otherwise was a waste. I’d skip those next time and spend more time watching the ships, plus save $3 on the admission fee.
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| Deck hands, waiting for the next leg of the trip through the canal. |
The Panama Canal truly is one of the wonders of the modern world. The fact that they got it built is amazing and watching it in operation today, 95 years later, doesn’t disappoint.
Posted by Seth on March 28, 2009 under Trip Reports |
Maybe “cruising” is the wrong word since it is a pedestrian-only road now, but Calle Central is definitely the place to be for local shopping in Panama City. There are a variety of options there, from big department stores to little storefronts selling just about anything you could imagine. And on a Saturday afternoon there were lots of people. Not crowded like a Tokyo subway at rush hour, but still bustling with people everywhere.
Looking for street meat? There were many options available, including this woman with some sort of grilled meat that actually looked pretty good. I skipped it the first time past and didn’t get back to her as we were wandering so I have no idea if it was any good, but it looked yummy.
Want your fortune read? Have a seat and let this woman tell your future. If I had to guess, part of the forecast would be “you will stare at my cleavage” but I’m not sure that she actually said that.
And then there were the shaved ice guys. They had a simple cart, stocked with a block of ice, a variety of fruity sugar flavored toppings and a stack of cups. They also had a very cool tool that they use to do the actual shaving work. It looks a lot like a plane that you’d use in woodworking, but this one has a place to hold the cup built in so the “planing” motion fills the cup directly. No waste and less work for everyone.
We were also warned by at least four different people to be very careful with our cameras. I was somewhat impressed that so many people were concerned for our safety, but it was also a bit strange. We survived the visit without losing the cameras, so that worked out OK in the end.
And this parting shot isn’t from the Calle Central, but it is worth sharing anyways. The local buses in Panama City are all old school buses, tricked out by their owners. This one had a particularly nice paint job on it. The only other place I’ve seen such creativity is on the trucks in India, and I think that the Panamanians take it to the next level.
Posted by Seth on March 28, 2009 under Uncategorized |
This morning’s adventure in Panama was a trip to the Amador Causeway to see the Pacific Ocean up close and also view the traffic on the Panama Canal. After a cab ride out to the general area (note: speaking better Spanish really would have helped on this trip, even though the majority of the folks we’ve met speak some English) we wandered around for a bit before happening upon a bicycle rental facility. Since walking was hot and tiring we decided that maybe biking would be better. We were right.
The Amador Causeway runs for five kilometers from the mainland out into the Pacific, connecting a few small islands together. It also offers a flat, easy path for cyclists and pedestrians. There is a Smithsonian museum on one of the islands and marinas, restaurants, hotels and shops all along the way. Between those, however, is a serene, beautiful ride out into the ocean.
We made it out to the end of the causeway and stopped for some lunch and then made our way back in, enjoying the views of the fishermen at work:
The causeway also marks the Pacific Ocean entrance to the canal, so there were many, many ships about, waiting their turn to enter the canal. For a facility that is so busy I was surprised at how slowly it seemed the ships passed through. We only saw one actually moving through the canal in the couple hours we were out there.
Also visible from the Causeway is the Bridge of the Americas, built in the 60s to connect North and South America across the canal. It is ridiculously high to accommodate the ships that pass under it, and if this afternoon is any indication, it is always jam packed with traffic.
In a strange and outright baffling display of geography, the bridge is actually backwards, sortof. A person driving from North America to South America would actually be headed vaguely North when they pass over it. So the crossing from North to South actually requires going north. Don’t believe me? Check out the map (North America is on the left and South America is on the right). It really is baffling and completely worth seeing in person.
Posted by Seth on March 27, 2009 under Uncategorized |
As part of my travel obsession I tend to read a lot of travel magazines. They range from Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel (not bad, really, at the budget end of the spectrum) to American Express’s Departures (ridiculous by any reasonable measure of such things, but certainly entertaining) and many, many options in between. And they all seem to have their own way of evaluating the value of the dollar. Sometimes it is the cost of a movie, sometimes the cost of a local bus ride and sometimes the cost of a luxury hotel room or dinner for two with booze at a premium restaurant in the destination city.
And just when I thought I had seen it all, I picked up the February 2009 issue of Travel & Leisure on the flight tonight to finally get through it and see what they have to offer. The February issue didn’t have much that I really found appealing. But there was one page, one particular article, that I was drawn to like a moth to a light on a warm summer night. The article was in their “Strategies” section and was focused on money-saving travel tips. Coming from Travel & Leisure this was very different than what Budget Travel would ever even consider publishing.
It is the Martini Index.
Forget a local beer, a taxi ride, a local bus or a movie. Travel & Leisure had a piece evaluating cities based on the “average cost of a standard gin martini from a minimum of three luxury hotels in each city.” They have 25 cities scored, with a pretty impressive range – $3.30 at the bottom to $32.08 at the top.
There are, of course, many problems with such a survey. For starters, who leaves the United States or England and still feels that ordering a gin martini rather than a local drink is a good idea? On top of that, ordering drinks in the luxury hotel bar just seems like a recipe for disaster to me. I’ve been screwed enough by trying to get a cab from my hotel in Paris to know that anything where there isn’t a meter running is a really bad idea (and, not surprisingly, Paris is the most expensive on the index). Then again, why order a martini in Paris when there is great wine to be had?
Still, the Martini Index exposes a great disconnect in the global market. The fact that there is a full order of magnitude between the top and bottom prices and that the cities involved are all major tourist destinations – nothing off the beaten path in this list – is notable and actually worrisome considering the spread of cities involved; I didn’t expect the costs to range this widely. Plus they are looking at prices in “luxury hotels” rather than a local dive bar. Then again, ordering a gin martini in a local dive bar would probably be a mistake, so maybe that part of the survey isn’t such a bad idea.
The index doesn’t reveal anything all that shocking. South Africa and South America are bargain destinations, and that has only gotten better in the couple months since this particular survey was taken as the value of the dollar has firmed up against many foreign currencies. So if you are measuring your trip in the number of martinis you can afford to consume you’d do well to skip Europe and head to South America, South-East Asia, South Africa or even Canada. Apparently gin prices in those regions is quite competitive, even in the luxury hotels.
Happy drinking.
Posted by Seth on March 27, 2009 under Trip Reports |
Well, I have three out of four, so I don’t feel too worried about this weekend’s trip. The one that is missing, of course, is the plan part of trip, but I’m on my way to Panama to see the canal and otherwise relax for a few days, so things look pretty good overall.
The extent of my planning was to book the tickets a few months ago and to send a couple emails to people about potential sights worth seeing. The canal is obviously the main draw, but I’m also hoping to get out of the city a bit and see some of the jungle, too. It is close enough to town that I expect to be able to do both. I’ve got a hotel, which is better than I was doing when I arrived in Tokyo earlier this month, but that was arranged by someone else so I cannot really take much credit for it. Oh, and I checked the weather forecast – 98, sunny and humid. Yikes! At least it made packing my bags easy as I didn’t need to worry about long pants or sweaters.
And I’ve got my music player loaded up with plenty of Van Halen. I’ve been singing the song for the past couple of days and hope that listening to it a few dozen times during the flight will be enough to get it out of my head at some point. Or I’ll go crazy listening to it. Either one seems reasonably agreeable to me right now.
Posted by Seth on March 25, 2009 under Uncategorized |
In a word, very. The airline industry has been struggling to find an appropriate balance between capacity, service, fares and costs pretty much since deregulation kicked in and the CAB was retired in the late 70s. Airlines have launched, folded, merged, declared bankruptcy and otherwise been all over the place in terms of staying in business. But over the past 18 months things seem to have hit a new low in terms of outlook and performance. First it was the fuel price bubble of 2008 and now the economic fiasco continues to pressure the carriers.
Here’s a (no so) pretty picture from the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation that shows just how awful things are right now:
Those numbers are the year-over-year change in passenger loads in the premium cabins on the various routes between January 2008 and January 2009. The load numbers dropping are scary in their own right, but even more so when considered with the fact that many of the long-haul carriers depend on their premium cabin long-haul service to generate the big bucks they depend on to operate their networks. Sure, that may not be the right way to build out a business, but that’s the way they are set up, and these load numbers dropping are sure to cause major trouble in the industry.
If that wasn’t enough, the fares are also dropping like a rock in many cases:
IATA estimates the reduction in average fares and fuel surcharges have resulting in revenues from premium passengers falling by at least a quarter in Jan-2009, which is "wreaking significant damage to network airline yields and profitability".
Along with the 28.5% load drops between the US and Oceania, there are two carriers introducing service this year – V Australia has already started and Delta launches service in just a couple month. With coach fares between Oz and the west coast of the USA now hovering between $500-$700 those flights are not likely to be profitable in the passenger cabin for quite some time. Add on to that the decreases in cargo requirements due to a slowing economy and the increases in cargo capacity pressuring prices down and the numbers look even less appetizing.
Transatlantic travel is suffering similarly. There is the 14.5% decrease in loads in the front cabin and fares continuing to remain very depressed in the back. Want to fly from the west coast to Dublin? Fares in the low $300s are available right up to the beginning of the peak summer season. Historically they’d be higher by now. I just bought a ticket to go to Germany for Easter weekend. The seat map (not an authoritative source but generally a good approximation tool) suggests that the plane is pretty full. Historically in such a situation the fares would be running higher and higher at that point. But only two weeks out I got tickets in the lowest fare bucket available, and at a pretty good price (<$400).
So fares are down. Premium loads are down. Coach loads are stable but not really driving much revenue. This all spells very bad news for the near future. On the plus side, it does mean that I can stretch my travel budget even farther. I’ve been in six countries already this year and have seven more planned already (one will be a repeat). I just hope enough of the airlines survive this mess so that I still have options available at the other end when things start to pick back up.
Posted by Seth on March 24, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Continental started a deployment of LCD screens for flight information a few weeks ago. The deployment is continuing and they’ve come up with a couple other screen layouts that should make the system even more useful for customers.
In some of the larger gate areas there are dual-screens being deployed to increase the visibility of the information:
I’m glad to see the additional deployments and, more significantly, the better location and arrangement of the screens in the gate areas.
Good stuff.
Posted by Seth on March 23, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Not willing to be outdone by the other major carriers, Delta announce today that they too will offer bonus elite miles for their customers. They even went so far as up the ante a bit, offering triple miles for some fares. This applies for Northwest customers, too.
The theory behind this type of promo is that the carriers need to drive revenue in the very near term (like before the end of Q2) to help make their numbers look almost passable rather than outright anemic. United, American, and Continental all chose a straight 100% bonus across the board. Continental isn’t even requiring that the tickets be new money spent. Delta, on the other has come up with a tiered approach, pushing more bonus miles at the top end of the fare spectrum and excluding the low end of the market.
Fares booked in the front cabin, as well as the top coach fares (J, C, D, S, I, F, A, Y, B, M) will all earn 300% MQMs in the SkyMiles program. These fares would normally earn 150% MQMs so it is only double normal but also triple the base number. Sure, someone is having fun with semantics there and whether it is truly double or triple miles is open for debate, I suppose, but I am willing to call it 300% MQMs and move on, especially since the other carriers are not doubling their class-of-service bonuses. So if you spend lots of money on Delta tickets you’re in really good shape.
For tickets booked in “normal” coach fares (H, K, Q) customers will earn 200% MQMs. This is essentially comparable to the promo from the other three carriers and is a nice match in that sense.
For tickets booked in the “discount” buckets (L, U, T) customers will earn 100% MQMs - no bonus. Delta has a habit of excluding these cheapest fares from promotions and they have done so again here. Basically they are acknowledging that the folks flying on the cheapest tickets are barely covering their costs (and possible not even that) so they get no bonus. This is much less generous than the promotions offered by the other three majors.
I cannot believe that I am typing this, as I rarely think that Delta has done things correctly with their SkyMiles program of late, but I actually applaud them for taking this approach. The are cutting off the bottom feeders which would really contribute to the bottom line anyways and rewarding the high spend customers. When the name of the game is promoting additional revenue this really makes sense. Yeah, a bunch of people will be pissed that they aren’t getting to qualify for top tier elite for less than $1500 like is possible on the other carriers, but that isn’t really what the carriers should be after. Kudos to Delta for actually trying to use the bonus to drive the behavior they want in their customers.
