Posted by Seth on June 30, 2009 under Internet | 
As part of a promo with Delta Gogo has introduced a promo code good for the next three weeks to provide a single half-price session on their in-flight internet service.
Save 50% on a single Gogo session (except segment pass and 24hr pass) until 7/19/2009. Use code 156FLYDA.
To Use your discount on a wi-fi session:
1) Select ‘gogoinflight’ as the wireless network and launch you browser
2) Sign in or click ‘Buy’ to create a new account
3) On ‘Payment Info’ page, enter promo code in space provide (code is case sensitive)
4) Click ‘Update Total’
Thank you! And Happy Travels,
Gogo Inflight Internet
This almost makes the cost of the service reasonable.
Posted by Seth on June 30, 2009 under Uncategorized |
As airlines invest heavily in improving their business-class product, updating the seats to be fully flat for the most comfortable sleep possible, there is an often overlooked segment of the market that has great potential for both the customer and the customer’s pocket – lie-flat coach seating. Of course, this is rather difficult to come by, but having just awakened from a solid 6 hours of sleep on my flight from Newark to Paris I have to say that lie-flat coach seating is quite underrated.
When we boarded the flight as some of the first passenger in coach we were already in pretty good shape seating-wise. We’d booked the aisle and window seats in the reclining exit row of the Continental 757-200. These are some of the best coach seats available in the fleet, with full recline, extra legroom and no one reclining into you. There was no one booked into the middle seat between us. Score! I made one last check of the seat map to ensure that we still had the middle seat available and noticed a phenomenal sight – all three seats in the row in front of us were empty. So we split up, each taking a set of three.
Defending the full three seats is not as easy as it would seem. One gentleman across the aisle tried to take mine while I went to the lav and another guy tried to take the window seat that was clearly not his. Fortunately we were able to fend them off and maintain our beds in the sky.
Setting up a lie-flat coach bed requires a bit of work. You have to manipulate the pillows and blankets just so to avoid the metal of the arm rests digging into your side or back and also to properly support your head against the wall of the plane. And having a seat belt extender works wonders for making the sleeping position much more comfortable.
I’d still prefer true lie-flat beds in coach like this one:
But since that seems highly unlikely I guess I’ll have to just hope for more empty coach rows.
Posted by Seth on June 26, 2009 under Internet |
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| Happy Birthday, CO! |
Celebrating a birthday is always cause for a party, and when it is a major milestone birthday – such as number 75 – the party is generally bigger than not. This held true for Continental Airlines as they have been partying up a storm over the past couple days to celebrate their 75th year of operations. The main focus of the party has been the delivery of their 75th birthday plane – a brand new Boeing 737-900ER – painted in the style of the 1947 birds Continental was flying. The plane was delivered from the Boeing factory on Thursday and promptly flew to Houston where it did a fly-by of the Continental headquarters downtown and then was the centerpiece of a party at the airport there. The plane then came up to Newark for a celebration with the employees here.
I should repeat here that the celebration was intended for the Continental employees here in Newark. But that didn’t stop me and a few friends from heading out to Newark to see the new plane and trying to crash the party. It turns out that we were quite successful in this effort. Showing up early and asking a guy in a suit if we could take some pictures was enough to get us “inside the ropes.” Of course, we did take some pictures at that point, but we also just happened to still be there when the event actually got started and at that point it would have been rude to walk out, so we just stuck around and enjoyed the event.
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| The new 737-900ER in the 1947 livery |
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| Two Flight Attendants, in uniforms of the style of 1947 hanging out on stage during the event |
The party was mostly a few speeches from various folks within the organization plus a woman from the Port Authority and a guy from the office of the Mayor of Newark who declared that there will now be a “Continental Airlines Day” in Newark each year. There was also cake. Mmmmm…cake. That part of the event was great for photo ops, and the one local employee they had speak was actually wonderfully excited and happy to be part of the Continental family so that was really quite nice to see. But for me the real fun was hanging out among the various employees, chatting with them and getting a feel for their impressions of the company.
And there were plenty of opportunities to chat it up, even as the interlopers without an employee badge. Sure, we got a lot of strange looks and questions from people, but it was well worth it. I spoke with both Larry Kellner, the CEO, and with Jeff Smisek, the President. They actually sortof remembered me from the various other events I’ve been to so that was quite an ego boost. Those conversations went about as I expected from the guys who run the company. A couple little bits of data were gleaned but no crazy insider knowledge there.
I also got to talk to a 757 First Officer who is currently on furlough and (rather reasonably) less than ecstatic about the situation. It was a very interesting conversation, particularly in light of the interaction I had with some folks from ALPA back in February after the last big Continental event down in Houston. The good news is that we were actually able to have a civil conversation in public and share our views on the airline in a civil way rather than the “discussions” that generally take place on the Internet. And that did include reliving some of my less classy moments, like swigging from the champagne bottle while in the exit row on the charter flight we took. But I think we do understand each other quite a bit better now.
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| Truly a classy look; I’m a big fan! |
I had a very entertaining, albeit brief, chat with a random customer service agent. We saw one of the ramp guys run up to Kellner and grab a photo with him. I joked that having a photo with the boss is always a good thing and we got to talking about Kellner, Bethune (the previous CEO) and many of the other management folks from the past many years. It was clear that he enjoyed the job and that he had been there long enough to know the history and have a reasonable outlook for the future, though he did apparently like the previous boss better.
I spoke with a 777 captain who has been flying with Continental since the era of the Golden Tail – over 30 years of service. He was rather dumbfounded that we were there but appreciative of the business and the excitement that we had for travel in general and Continental specifically. He was also somewhat amazed that he represented 40% of the life of the company with his service; I am too!
There were several other conversations throughout the morning and all were enjoyable. Getting to see the company from the inside – particularly when most of the folks didn’t realize that I was an outsider – was quite refreshing and insightful.
There were a couple slightly juicy bits that came up in terms of the fleet and what is going on with the in-flight internet service options on Continental. They are still sitting back and watching to see how the industry will shake out on this. They see that there are lots of planes being deployed with the service but are waiting to see if there will be a critical mass of adoption before considering investing in something like Aircell’s gogo or the Row44 service. They are still planning on putting a trial of the LiveTV Kiteline service into play once it is available, hopefully with 30 planes in service for the tests by the end of Q1 2010. This pseudo-internet service offers access to email and a few other limited services but not a full experience. On the plus side, they do expect to offer it for free. Oh, and the new retro-jet is going to be headed to Orlando once the party wraps up in Cleveland so that it can have the LiveTV3 system installed. It should be entering commercial service sometime early next week.
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| One last shot of the plane as it headed out to the runway and Cleveland |
Posted by Seth on June 24, 2009 under Uncategorized |
There are plenty of reasons to not get on a plane. Being told that you have to sit at the back to help deal with balance issues is quite certainly not one of them. But that is just what a bunch of British tourists did this past Sunday, refusing to board a Thomas Cook flight from Majorca back home to Newcastle. And they’ve taken their story public, desperately trying to make it seem like the airline is at fault and not them.
Many passengers chose to pay $200 or more each to fly home on different airlines rather than board the plane, all because they were asked to sit at the rear of the plane rather than in the front. The rear baggage compartment door was stuck closed so no baggage could be loaded there. That changed the center of gravity of the plane enough that the airline tried to move seats around. And instead of canceling the flight the carrier actually put the laws of physics into action, reassigning seats to keep the plane safe to fly.
But several of the passengers, apparently well versed in the nuance of aeronautics and flight planning refused to board. They some choice quotes, including:
It was like they were being asked to fly in something that was being balanced out like a see-saw.
and
We just wanted a plane that would stay level without us being used as ballast.
Here’s a hint folks: EVERY TIME you get on a plane you’re being used as ballast and to balance the see-saw, err, plane. It is part of the pre-flight checklist and one of the reasons the flight attendants count the passengers on the plane. The pilots are going to make sure that when they pull back on the control stick the plane actually gets airborne. And that means getting the balance right. I cannot count the number of times I’ve moved around for weight and balance reasons; it is just part of the travel experience. Oh, and when the pilot – someone who actually does know how the crazy hunk of metal is able to hurtle through the skies at 500 miles per hour – is willing to get on the plane and go maybe that should be a hint that things are fine. After all, most pilots I know don’t routinely hop on a plane to kill themselves and all their passengers.
And instead the news is about kids crying and people kissing the ground as they deplaned because the didn’t crash. They even got a great photo of a forlorn 17 year old “reunited” with her mother after spending the night sleeping on the floor in the airport. Stay classy, media. You’re doing a great job.
Posted by Seth on June 24, 2009 under Uncategorized |
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| The cool logo along with the NYC Parks logo |
One of the amazing things about a city as big as New York is that there are always people around to take up a cause, not matter how small it might seem. So when an elevated freight railroad line, built in the 1930s and in service until the 1980s fell into disrepair there were actually people around who recognized the potential value that it could offer as a green space and, more importantly, who were willing to invest the time and energy to see the project through. The end result is the High Line Park, the latest addition to NYC’s ever growing collection of park space and, quite frankly, one of the nicer parks in the city.
After serving as an active freight line for forty something years, connecting from the rail tunnel to New Jersey at 34th street to the Nabisco factory and the Meatpacking district (back when they actually did process meat there) the rail tracks became abandoned in the 80s. During the 90s the area became something of a natural park, with wildflowers and other flora growing on it but access was generally prohibited and it was not “user-friendly” at all. What a difference 20 years makes. Over the past 10 years a couple local guys – Robert Hammond and Joshua David – have worked with the city and private donors to raise the necessary funds and secure the future of the space. CSX, the owner of the rail lines at the time, donated the facilities and the renovations began in earnest, culminating in the opening of the first section of the park a couple weeks ago.
It has been an overwhelming success, so much so that the city has actually had to limit access on certain days allowing entry only from the Gansevoort Street entrance to control the crowds. But on a weekday there may not be a better place to get above the din of the streets in the meatpacking district and relax. I even managed to pick up a signal from an unsecured wireless access point around 15th street and did some work for a couple hours on Tuesday, just to see if it was possible. The signal wasn’t great, but it was open, so that was nice.
There are plenty of seats and benches available through the park including some that are full length for laying down. There are even a few that are on the rail tracks with wheels, though they only roll a few inches.
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| Lounging on the rolling chairs |
More than just the benches, the rail theme is tightly woven into the design of the park. The original rails were removed as part of the renovations and many were worked back into the layout of the park. There are rails running everywhere. Some, like in the seating areas, are in areas where visitors are allowed to tread. Many of the others are mixed into the flower planters, a nod to the history of the High Line and its previous overgrown wildlife nature.
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| Just a couple of the places where the rails are integrated into the design of the landscape. |
More than just a park, the developers have managed to work in some art installations on the High Line, too. The most interesting one to me is The River That Flows Both Ways, a series of 700 glass panels installed in the old windows of one of the Nabisco buildings (the one on the west side of 10 Avenue). The installation is quite pretty and changes throughout the day as the levels of light change. I’m not a huge fan of modern art but this one works for me.
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| The River That Flows Both Ways |
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| The amphitheatre and the sloping ramp integrated into the benches |
One of the other really cool features of the park is the mini amphitheatre that they have built at 17th street. It has a half dozen rows of benches looking north over 10th Avenue through great big windows. But in addition to that they have designed it to be ADA compliant all the way down to the bottom and the windows. The ramps are built into the rows of the benches. It really is quite cool.
Finally, the flowers planted on the High Line have already begun to attract residents, mostly in the form of bees thus far. Watching the bees flit from flower to flower certainly kept me entertained with my camera for a while.
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| One of the many shots I got of the bees |
The next phase of the park – from 20th Street up to 30th Street – is still under construction and the ETA for its opening is a bit fuzzy right now, but it will happen eventually. Having that will certainly make the walk up to Penn Station much more pleasant, if not a bit longer, once it opens.
A few more pictures – mostly of the bees – are available here.
Posted by Seth on June 23, 2009 under News |
Just when it seemed like Boeing was finally really making progress in getting the 787 Dreamliner into the air they’ve hit another snag. This time it seems that there are structural deficiencies in the “side-of-body” section of the plane, requiring that area to be reengineered to provide additional support. This was discovered during the testing of one of the planes on the full-scale static test rig and was announced this morning.
First flight and first delivery will be rescheduled following the final determination of the required modification and testing plan. It will be several weeks before the new schedule is available. The 787 team will continue with other aspects of testing on Airplane #1, including final gauntlet testing and low-speed taxiing. Work will also continue on the other five flight test aircraft and the subsequent aircraft in the production system.
Scott Carson, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes said a team of experts has already identified several potential solutions.
"Consideration was given to a temporary solution that would allow us to fly as scheduled, but we ultimately concluded that the right thing was to develop, design, test and incorporate a permanent modification to the localized area requiring reinforcement. Structural modifications like these are not uncommon in the development of new airplanes, and this is not an issue related to our choice of materials or the assembly and installation work of our team," Carson said.
The good news is that they are continuing with the other testing needed to get the plane ready to fly, but they are still looking at a delay of “several weeks” before the new schedule is even announced, so figure that the entire delivery schedule will push a couple months now. Not good news for the manufacturer or the airlines who have been waiting for years to receive their new planes. Then again, the airlines don’t have to pay for the planes until they are delivered so the delay here – in the midst of one of the most significant industry downturns in history – might not be such a bad thing for the carriers.
I like that Boeing is going to just wait to get the plane actually into its final configuration before putting it up in the air but the additional delay certainly is frustrating – and I’m not even financially vested in the success of the program.
Posted by Seth on June 23, 2009 under TSA |
Verified Identity Pass, the company behind the “CLEAR” security lanes program at many airports across the United States, has ceased operations effective as of 11pm Pacific time June 22. That was last night. Their security lanes – which used to be available at a few dozen airports – are closed effective immediately. Here’s the notification that they sent to their customers:
Dear xxxxx
At 11:00 p.m. PST today, Clear will cease operations. Clear’s parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc. has been unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations.
After today, Clear lanes will be unavailable.
Sincerely,
Clear Customer Support
Verified Identity Pass
600 Third Avenue
10th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Short and sweet as far as notifications go, though they only gave about 3 hours notice to their customers which pretty much sucks.
The company and the associated program had a rocky life. The TSA used to perform background checks on the folks applying for the cards, making it seem somewhat reasonable that they’d move to the front of the security lines. Then that went away and the customers still went to the front of the lines. At the same time, however, those customers were still subject to ridiculous TSA policies, like still needing to show a photo ID after using their CLEAR pass and its integrated biometric features to verify that they were the person who signed up for the program.
In the end, the program only really was helpful at a handful of airports and it cost way too much – over $100/year – to really make much sense for most people. Considering that elite customers with the airline frequent flyer programs often received similar benefits at many airports the target market wasn’t really there for them. And it got even smaller when the economy tanked and the number of folks traveling by air dropped significantly.
I’d like to pretend that I’m sad to see another small business fail but in this case I’m actually really quite ambivalent. Sure, it sucks that a bunch of people are out of work, but the program was silly. They provided very few real benefits and created a tiered system of access to public services. I’m not really a fan of that, particularly when the actual benefits were so minimal. Had it meant a reduced screening or other real benefit maybe there would have been value, but that just didn’t happen based on the idiocy of the TSA.
Posted by Seth on June 22, 2009 under Uncategorized |
The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is always a great celebration, welcoming the summer to New York City in a way that only Coney Island can – crazy and fun. Revelers of all ages gather to either march or just watch the show, and what a show it is. This year the weather forecast called for rain which posed an interesting question – would the mermaids still show up even if it were as wet on land as under the sea? The answer was an overwhelming yes. The participants were there, as were the spectators. And the rain actually wrapped up shortly before the actual parade started so the umbrellas disappeared and the fun truly came out.
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| The parasols were much more useful for looking pretty than keeping the rain away |
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| Hula hoops are always fun! |
It helps to know people who know people in life. In my case I happen to have a friend in the family that runs the Mermaid Parade (and the side show in Coney Island). That means that I get to walk inside the barricades on the parade route some of the time and work as a volunteer, in addition to taking photos and otherwise enjoying the day. I even managed to sell a few t-shirts to the fans in the crowd, fulfilling my volunteer duties with great success.
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| More of the parasols |
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| Fish eyes! |
Depending on how you’re counting, it has been reported that the Mermaid Parade is the 2nd largest parade event in New York City. I’m not really sure which metric they are using there, but it is quite a spectacle.
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| King of the parade, Harvey Keitel |
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| Sea horses lining up for a race on the parade route |
The Mermaid Parade is definitely one of the more enjoyable ways to welcome summer to New York City, even when summer arrives a bit cold and damp as it did this year. But the hundreds of participants and thousands of spectators lining the parade route didn’t seem to mind the weather at all. In fact, it is quite possible that the rain brought out the crazy side of some in the crowd a bit more than usual. Good times!
More photos from this year’s Coney Island Mermaid Parade can be found here. Photos from last year’s festivities are located here and here, too.
Posted by Seth on June 15, 2009 under Uncategorized |
What to do on a lazy Sunday morning when there isn’t much else going on in New York City? Why not head out to JFK Airport and check out a few airline lounges and watch the planes flying? That’s exactly what I did with a couple friends, getting to talk about travel and schemes to maximize benefits as well as just hanging out and enjoying the lounges.
Our first stop was the Flagship Lounge operated by American Airlines. The lounge is reserved for their first class passengers traveling Internationally or on the Flagship transcon service and is much more similar to the lounges operated by international carriers than a typical Admirals Club. It was really quite nice inside – bright and wide open with nice windows looking down on the terminal and taxiways below. There were about as many employees in the lounge as there were passengers – 6 or so of each – so there were always folks around to help out if we needed anything. They had some food and drink options that were not particularly inspiring but they were better than nothing, I suppose. The Flagship Lounge also had some workstations available for use and free WiFi via TMobile if desired, both of which were nice. Apparently the bandwidth was sufficient for one of the other guys in the lounge to be streaming porn on his laptop so that is a good metric for the speed performance, I suppose. With the less than impressive “lunch” service out and not so nourishing we decided to head out of that lounge and make our way to the next stop, jetBlue’s T5 facility.
This was the first visit for either of my friends to the jetBlue terminal (but not mine) so it was quite enjoyable to see their reactions in person as we entered the facility. The walk over from the AirTrain station didn’t seem so bad this time and we very quickly found ourselves with boarding passes in hand and passing quickly through the TSA checkpoint. Once inside we were treated to the pleasure that is the bright and open terminal. They were quite impressed and we we wandered around a bit before making our way to the end of the center pier to watch planes for a while. They still have the issues of overlapping announcements from adjacent gates but that is something that I don’t think is going away. And they still have one of the best plane-spotting locations available. Sadly, the runway under construction at JFK is one of the two that crosses in front of the jetBlue terminal so the spotting was not as good as it was last time I visited, but there were still some good photo opportunities to be had. Oh, and the Asian food place is still really good.
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| One of three different *A liveried planes at the field on Sunday |
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| Lining up to head in to the gates |
All in all it was a great way to spend a few hours on a Sunday. Definitely better than being stuck in the chaos surrounding the Puerto Rico Day parade.
Posted by Seth on June 12, 2009 under Uncategorized |
It turns out that it isn’t possible to spend every waking moment of every day underwater enjoying the marine life of Belize. Sad, but true. The good news is that there was enough to do on land that it made the time between dives pass pretty quickly. We didn’t even have to bother with the inland jungle excursions and we still found ways to fill our time. Much of that was spent wandering around through the streets of San Pedro on Ambergris Caye or around Caye Caulker, watching the locals go about their daily business. You can learn a lot about a place by just watching folks doing their thing.
Whether it was headed to or from school or hanging out on the waterfront and performing some rather acrobatic leaps off the docks into the water, everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time.
I think that the most significant thing I learned about the Belizeans is that they have learned to relax and enjoy life, even while taking important things seriously. Definitely a good balance to strike.
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Posted by Seth on June 11, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Delta just cannot seem to move forward in their efforts to find profits (or even smaller losses) since their merger with Northwest was completed. In an open letter sent to all employees yesterday that was also shared with the general public this morning CEO Richard Anderson and President Edward H. Bastian laid bare their concerns with the carrier’s chances.
Among the bits that the two identified as troubling are a 20% reduction in passenger revenue from last year and a 20% rise in fuel prices since the beginning of the year. The first one is hard to work against with the sever cuts in travel as the economy has suffered but the fuel pricing issue is one where I think the airlines would have been wise to see that the prices were going to start edging back up once they finally settled late last year.
Most significant, however, is the announcement of a further 10% cut in capacity coming at the end of the peak summer travel season. This is 10% off of last year’s numbers, which were already cut as the high fuel prices and low loads forced airlines to park lots of planes and cut unprofitable routes. Speaking of cutting routes, Delta is doing that, too.
The biggest loser in the route cuts is probably Cincinnati which will be losing its service to both Frankfurt and London. For a city that is supposedly a hub of a major airline they seem to be losing routes and frequencies pretty quickly there.
But even with the cuts that they announced Delta is still planning on launching a bunch of new service, too, mostly on routes where there is already stiff competition (e.g. Los Angeles – Sydney) or where there doesn’t seem to be much of a market (e.g. Pittsburgh – Paris). Oh, and they mention that they are probably going to need to trim staffing head counts but they intend to do so without involuntary furloughs if they can.
I’d like to think that someone there knows what they are doing with all of this but the more I see of the way they are running things the more I question that reality. Things are ugly and they’re likely to get worse before they get better. At least fares have stayed ridiculously low so I can still travel basically as much as I want.
