Posted by Seth on August 21, 2009 under Uncategorized | 
Be the First to Comment
I’m sure that the thunder storms that blew through the New York City area earlier tonight messed up plenty of folks’ travel plans with delays and other troubles. But they sure made for a beautiful sunset.
Looking down on Jersey from the 29th floor doesn’t suck all that much.
Posted by Seth on August 21, 2009 under News | Be the First to Comment
I’ve avoiding posting on the diversion of CO 2816 thus far mostly because I knew that there was a lot of information out there that wasn’t fully accurate. I’m not entirely sure how much that has changed, but there are certainly more primary source bits available allowing for less influenced judgements. I still think that the situation was handled miserably, including that the total compensation offered to the passengers was apparently a refund of the fare paid, a $50 give certificate and $200 voucher with a liability waiver attached.
It is quite interesting to listen to some of the actual communications that was going on at the time. We’ve heard everyone try to pass the blame off to someone else, and many of them did do that throughout the night. We’ve even heard folks representing the airport insist that they never denied any requests to deplane the passengers inside. Sadly, that has turned out to not be entirely accurate. There are audio recordings of the communications between the dispatch office and the airport authorities in which the woman representing the airport clearly says that “I can’t have them in a closed airport,” as she denies the request to get them off the plane.
The whole thing just sucks. But the initial blame being thrown at the pilot and the operations folks seems now to have been slightly misguided. They aren’t going to come out looking like angels, but they certainly aren’t demons either. It is too bad that everyone raced to judge before they actually knew the answers – or even the questions in some cases.
More of the actual recordings and timeline information can be found here.
Posted by Seth on August 20, 2009 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ | Be the First to Comment
And it is all about me!
The jetBlue All-You-Can-Jet deal is generating a ton of buzz online. There are blogs popping up left and right, crazy schemes to maximize value and the twittersphere is going crazy with #AYCJ references. The airline actually cut off sales of the pass two days earlier than they initially planned due to strong sales numbers. And while they may not make a ton of profits, a lot of their costs are sunk so the incremental revenue – at $600 a pop – isn’t a bad thing.
I had the good fortune to speak with a reporter from Time Magazine yesterday; the article came out this morning. Here’s the lead:
Beware: this new $599, All-You-Can-Jet flight pass from JetBlue, which allows unlimited travel for customers between Sept. 8 and Oct. 8, is making some people act insane. Take Seth Miller, an aerophile who for some baffling reason enjoys nothing more than sitting on planes and lounging in airports. Between 10 PM on Friday, Sept. 11 and 10 AM that Monday, he’s flying from New York to Ponce, Puerto Rico back to New York to Las Vegas to Long Beach, Calif. to Portland, Ore. back to Long Beach to Chicago to New York to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and back to New York one last time. Yes, Miller will board 10 flights in 60 hours, without missing a minute of work. Yes, the poor soul will jet to the Caribbean, twice, and not even leave the airport. In fact, the only time he’ll be on the ground is for an overnight stay in Portland. "I totally admit that I am crazy," says Miller, 32, a freelance IT consultant who, believe it or not, has a wife who tolerates such excursions. "I’m not sure which wires got crossed in my brain."
Yes, I really am that crazy, though I did plan for 12 hours off in Portland to have a few beers and sleep in a real bed.
I’ll be sharing my adventures in a special All I Can Jet blog and tweeting about them as @WanderngAramean. Come follow along. It is going to be quite a ride.
Posted by Seth on August 19, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
Lie-flat seats are all the rage in long-haul business class cabins these days. Pretty much every airline is moving in that direction, though with varying speeds depending on fleet size and other factors. But what happens when a carrier picks a seat that doesn’t work so well? Delta is finding out first-hand with their 767-400D airplanes.
There are a few key problems with the seats. The tray table is apparently difficult to operate. The gap between the cushion and the frame is too great, leading to lost items. And apparently the seat isn’t wide enough to handle some of Delta’s “larger” customers. In their defense the last of these has long been a complaint about their BusinessElite seats, but the other two are definitely new.
Delta’s solution to this problem – at least until they can get find a better seat model and get the new seats into the planes – is to actually have a dedicated technician on EVERY 764D flight. This person is tasked with assisting the customers and flight attendants with operating all the systems on their seats. They also get to troubleshoot the in-flight entertainment systems since those apparently are troublemakers, too. So every flight, every day on the 14 affected planes has to carry an employee around. That means extra salary and the loss of one seat to sell in the front cabin.
This has to be costing them a lot of cash. That’s hardly something any airline needs help in doing right now.
Posted by Seth on August 19, 2009 under TSA | Be the First to Comment
This is very much a rumor right now, but there are a couple sources who have been pretty reliable in the past that seem aware of it to some level so I’m pushing it up into the “very likely” rumor category. Apparently the TSA is no longer satisfied with simply banning an entire form of matter – liquids – from air travel. Now they’re moving on to “things that can pour,” namely powders. I don’t know much more than that in terms of whether it will be all powders, whether a small container inside the already bulging “freedom baggie” will be permitted or anything else particularly concrete, but it seems that something is coming down the pike in this regard.
The security theatre continues.
More on this if or when something actually gets announced.
Posted by Seth on August 18, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
For the past couple years now, as airlines have teetered on the brink of bankruptcy with more than a couple tipping over, the common refrain heard across the industry is that the US commercial aviation industry needs to lose one more big player to bankruptcy. There is simply too much capacity and that is artificially keeping fares low, preventing the airlines from making money. Over the past 16 months or so we’ve been hearing over and over again how airlines are going to be cutting 10% here and another 10% there. And they have been cutting to some extent. So where are the profits? And were are the cuts?
The first quarter on 2008 saw approximately 261 billion Available Seat Miles (ASMs) flown. In 2009 the first quarter saw only 237 billion ASMs flown in the United States. In that same window US Airways only flew 17 billion ASMs. Continental flew 26.3 billion in that time frame and Southwest flew 24.2 billion ASMs. So we’ve seen a drop in capacity the equivalent of losing a major carrier. And it still isn’t helping.
Load factors are up. Way up. Carriers are reporting loads as high as 90% lately where 75% used to be considered pretty full. So with all those seats full and fewer planes flying around – precisely the recipe that was called for with the shuttering of a carrier – why aren’t the airlines seeing profits? Why aren’t yields going up?
Apparently there is actually more needed than simply cutting capacity out of the industry. Or there was WAY too much capacity to begin with. Do we still need to lose another carrier? I suppose that might be the solution. That would bring the US air travel industry back to levels last seen in early 2002. And those were particularly dire days.
But I’m also starting to wonder if there isn’t something else going on. Are the pressures on fares from the younger carriers too great for the legacy carriers to endure? Would losing any one of the legacies to bankruptcy actually change that fact? Certainly a carrier won’t just disappear. Even if they go Chapter 7 and cease operations the (profitable) remnants will be picked up in a hurry and put back to work, so the total capacity loss isn’t going to happen.
I’d love for the airlines to come up with some way to be profitable, but it seems that the common wisdom thus far actually isn’t playing out the way they all said it would. Methinks it is time for a different solution to come to the front. Anyone have any bright ideas?
Stats above from http://www.bts.gov/xml/air_traffic/src/datadisp.xml and airline 10-Q filings.
Posted by Seth on August 12, 2009 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments to Read
When airports restrict access to their facilities – generally through the use of slot controls – those slots can become incredibly valuable. Access to slots at London’s Heathrow airport have long been some of the most expensive out there, along with those at Narita, Washington National and New York’s LaGuardia. Those last two are the subject of a number of trades and swaps this week amongst carriers there, with some major shifts in service coming as a result.
The first salvo in the swaps was news that Continental and AirTran are making a trade. Continental is giving up six slots at Washington National and four at LaGuardia in exchange for ten slots back at Newark. Those ten slots represent the entirety of AirTran’s schedule at Newark. They’re ceding the market. This is great for Continental as AirTran generally provided downward pressure on fares. Plus it allows Continental to further strengthen their hold on their fortress hub in the New York area.
That trade is child’s play compared to the major deal that Delta and US Airways negotiated and announced today (US Announcement // DL Announcement). Delta will be trading 42 slot pairs at Washington National to US Air in exchange 125 slot pairs at LaGuardia. Delta will also be giving US Air some slots for service to Brazil and Japan. And to top it all off, Delta is going to trade terminals with US Air at LaGuardia, with US Air moving all their operations to the Marine Air Terminal while Delta takes over the US Air terminal.
These changes are nothing short of huge. US Air is slashing their US Express service from LaGuardia, removing 26 destinations from the map. They’ll keep the Shuttle, as well as mainline service to Charlotte and Wilmington, NC and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, PA.
Delta will be replacing the turboprop service that US Express runs with various jets – regional or otherwise – and will be turning LaGuardia into a true hub operation for the northeastern US. Delta will be adding service to 30 cities across the region, including more than a dozen that are currently served by US Express. They will also be constructing a connector between the two existing terminals – theirs and the US Air terminal – to make a single terminal capable of handling their operations.
In Washington, US Air will be adding 15 new destinations, including replacing Delta service on several routes that are being cut. And, similar to Delta’s efforts at LaGuardia, US Air claims that they will be increasing the average aircraft size to add additional passenger capacity in the same number of total slots.
In the end it does not appear that any cities that currently have service from either National or LaGuardia will be losing it, but I also haven’t seen all the details so I’m not positive on that. Still, the changes in operations are quite significant, particularly the way Delta is converting LaGuardia into a true hub operation. Losing the Marine Air Terminal will be a significant loss for the Delta Shuttle operations, but they’ve degraded those so much lately that it doesn’t really matter all that much. And now US Air will have that incredibly convenient terminal. Too bad they won’t really fly many places from there.
Posted by Seth on August 12, 2009 under Uncategorized | Read the First Comment
It seems that jetBlue really wants to find out the answer to that question. They’ve announced a new product this morning – the All-you-can-Jet pass – with an eye on making unlimited travel available for a 30 day window. Priced at $599, plus the appropriate taxes and fees per segment booked, the pass allows last seat availability for booking on any jetBlue-operated flight system wide. There is a three day advance purchase required so it will require a bit of planning to effectively make use of the pass, but there seems to be quite a bit of potential there. And it is limited to a very specific time window: September 8 to October 8, 2009. There is also a $100 cancelation/no-show fee if you change a flight inside the 3-day advance purchase window, but other than that there seem to be very few restrictions on the product.
The pass comes with a fixed number of TrueBlue points – only 35 – rather than earning per flight actually taken which detracts from its appeal as a means to accrue points, but considering that I don’t really place much value in the old TrueBlue program anyways (though the new one looks much better) I’m not too upset about that.
The pass must be purchased by August 21st and there is a pesky asterisk that reads “while supplies last” associated with the deal. But it does seem like one could have a lot of fun given sufficient free time. Sadly, I do not think that I have that sufficient free time. I’m already booked for one of the covered weekends and there are some work obligations that would probably get in the way. Then again, the appeal of “unlimited” is pretty strong. I wonder just how much damage I could do over three weekends. Time to check the jetBlue timetable and see if I can’t have a go at it.
A quick update on this…Taxes are only charged on international/Puerto Rico itineraries. Domestic US flight have no charges over the $599. It keeps getting better!
Posted by Seth on August 11, 2009 under Uncategorized | 4 Comments to Read
Sure, airlines are mostly still cutting capacity, but every now and then a new route crops up on the schedules. This week it seems that Ft. Lauderdale is the winner of two such announcements in a big way. The first announcement came from Virgin America, indicating their plans to offer up four daily flights to California (two each to San Francisco and Los Angeles). Not to be outdone, jetBlue announced a couple hours later their intention to offer the “first nonstop service” between San Francisco and Ft. Lauderdale. And, while they are first, they are really only alone in the market for a day; the Virgin America service starts the day after jetBlue launches theirs.
The moves are certainly interesting and for several reasons. First, who knew that there was such a pent up demand for travel between South Florida and California? Right now there are seven daily flights between Miami and Los Angeles and another three from San Francisco to Miami, all operated by American Airlines. The represent a lift of some 1500 seats across the country. The introduction of these five flights will increase that capacity by about 35%, albeit from Ft. Lauderdale, not Miami. That is a huge increase in a market that has long been seen as questionable in terms of revenue. Oh, and jetBlue flies Ft. Lauderdale – Long Beach daily, too.
Beyond that, why Ft. Lauderdale? For jetBlue it makes a lot of sense. The New York-based carrier already has significant operations in Ft. Lauderdale and this is actually sortof bringing back a route they used to operate (Ft. Lauderdale – Oakland) that disappeared a few years ago when it wasn’t making any money. jetBlue can offer onward connections to the Caribbean and the rest of their network. For Virgin America, however, it is a strange choice. Operating out of Ft. Lauderdale is cheaper, and it also means they don’t really have to compete against American. After the heavy duty fare and bonus points wars in the Boston market earlier this year I’m sure that they’re pretty happy about that. But the smaller carriers are rarely too concerned about going for the jugular against incumbents. Is it possible that Virgin America sees the Ft. Lauderdale area as able to deliver better yields than Miami can? Lots of things have left downtown, including a lot of the wealthier residents, heading north along I-95. It seems that Virgin America is gambling that the business travel market is desperate to make a similar move.
The new schedule from jetBlue also has them removing their one-stop service via Austin, Texas. The good news there is that the San Francisco – Austin flights will now be at much better times for the locals on those routes.
Adding this much capacity to any market seems like revenue suicide for those involved; seeing it happen on transcons (more expensive to operate) in a market that has historically been very much focused on leisure travel is even stranger. Still, look for plenty of promotions and bonuses to be coming out in the weeks ahead as these new routes look to build up loads.
Posted by Seth on August 10, 2009 under Uncategorized | Read the First Comment
Amtrak’s Guest Rewards program is sortof a “Little Engine that Could” in the loyalty marketplace. They certainly don’t need to have a program – most of their customers are not folks who have a choice in their train travel needs – but it is nice of them to offer it and it certainly helps them compete in the NE Corridor area from Washington, DC to Boston, the area where they are the closest to profitable. I actually was involved in a focus group many years ago to help them define and improve the program (some of the benefits discussed even made it into production!) so I have a special place in my heart for AGR.
It also happens to be a program with some very useful rewards to be had. Earning points is pretty straightforward and the redemption rates on train travel are pretty decent, other than the Acela trips. And they do run their fair share of promotions throughout the year, but the one I received notice of today was particularly intriguing. They are about to sign up their 2,000,000th member into the AGR program. And to celebrate they are giving away 2,000,000 points. Rather than a contest or a lottery or some other means, they are just giving them to all their members who ride a train next week. Every AGR member who rides a train on Thursday, August 20th will simply split the 2,000,000 points equally. Obviously that is a bad deal if everyone rides the train that day – one measly bonus point – but I think that the odds are significantly against such a likelihood. Amtrak only sees about 28MM riders annually – about 80,000 daily – and there is no way they are all members of AGR.
I don’t know just how many points each AGR member riding next week will earn on this promo, but I am strongly considering finding a cheap train out of NY Penn for a quick ride in the morning, just to find out. Registration is required in advance of the ride.
