Posted by Seth on September 30, 2009 under News | 
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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first Boeing 747’s roll off the assembly line. It continues to taunt me to this day, denying me a ride upstairs, but I’ll get there eventually.
Check out the logos on the nose. How many can you recognize? Of carriers that no longer exist?
I definitely see Delta, Continental and Eastern in there.
Posted by Seth on September 30, 2009 under Internet | Read the First Comment
Lots of crazy going on in the travel world this week and I’m struggling to keep up (and keep my job). Here’s a quick summary of some of the fun stuff going on out there:
It is a lot of random stuff, but all worth a look.
Posted by Seth on September 27, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
I’m a big fan of the in-flight map on the entertainment systems on planes. Seeing the names of the places we’re passing over and knowing how far along we are – as well as speed, altitude and heading – are fun for me. Sadly, however, it seems that airlines are doing their best to take away that bit of fun, or at least to cut it back significantly on the newer entertainment systems.
On my recent Korean Air flight back from Asia I noticed just how little the map channel actually showed anything resembling a map. It was all about ads for hotels in places our plane wasn’t going. Very disappointing. Yesterday morning, on my first of five jetBlue All I Can Jet flights I timed it again. The loop for the map channel is 7 minutes 10 seconds long – 430 seconds in total. Of that, a map of some sort is on screen for only about 110 seconds, about 25% of the time. That stinks.
I know that airlines are desperate for revenue anywhere they can find it and I’d much rather have a crappy map channel than pay more for my tickets, I suppose, but it really does suck that things have gotten this bad. Ironically, it is bad enough that I’m just not watching that channel, so the ads don’t get to me at all. I’ll just read a book on my Kindle and leave football on in the background.
But I wish we could go back to the classic in-flight map. Sure, it didn’t have the Google logo on it, but it did have the same cartographic features and it was actually just flight information. Much more useful.
Posted by Seth on September 27, 2009 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ | 4 Comments to Read
I actually paid for my first “Even More Legroom” seat upgrade as part of the AYCJ pass this morning. I had neglected to reserve a seat in advance for my flight from JFK to San Diego (big mistake, I know) and I was faced with the option of paying for the EML seat or being stuck in 17E for the flight. Given my strong aversion towards sitting in the middle seat I coughed up the cash and selected 4A a window seat.
At the boarding gate the agent was waiting for me. Apparently she had to change my seat to accommodate a family traveling together. When informed of this I immediately asked if it was still an “A” seat. It was, though she also offered me an “F” window seat. My response, “But we’re flying into San Diego; I need the A seat,” threw her for a loop. But it is true. Flying into San Diego is an event where you really want to be on the left side of the plane.
The final approach is unlike any other airport. First you get to see the navy ship yards and the iconic Coronado Island bridge.
Then you’re right next to a whole slew of high-rise office buildings and right over the top of a parking garage that makes you wonder if the pilot is looking to park the plane or land it.
The views on departure out the left side of the plane aren’t half bad either, looking down on Mirimar (I think) and Coronado Island).
And, just for fun, here’s one last shot of the inbound flight, with the fog sitting in the hills of Southern California or Mexico (I’m not exactly sure where we were at this point in the flight).
Posted by Seth on September 26, 2009 under Internet | Be the First to Comment
Alaska Airlines expects to have in-flight internet service available fleet-wide by the end of 2010 according to Craig Chase, Manager of Product Development and Market Research. While they haven’t announced a formal contract with provider Row44 yet, that seems to be the logical choice based on the current testing that the two are performing on one of Alaska Air’s planes today and the additional work that they are performing together to gain certification for the Row44 hardware on the other plane types in the fleet.
A deal with Alaska Air would be the second major carrier for Row44 and would mark the end of the US-based in-flight WiFi game in many ways. All the other major carriers have announced plans of some sort for connectivity over the next 18 months or so. Not all of them will have something actually in place, but they’ve all made it clear what their plans are.
Of the announced plans, only Continental is really up in the air right now. The carrier is still looking at a trial of the LiveTV Kiteline service, expected to start late this year or early 2010, pending availability of the service. Pretty much everyone else has some plan announced to be in deployment or completed.
Of course, there is still the issue of whether the providers are going to be solvent at the end of 2010, with rumors swirling around AirCell after a decent number of layoffs there recently. Eventually someone is going to figure out how to offer the service profitably and it’d be great if that were sooner than later.
Posted by Seth on September 25, 2009 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments to Read
On the flight down to Florida this past weekend I got to talking with a flight attendant sitting next to me deadheading home after a 6 day trip. Another deadheading FA on the same flight was having terrible trouble figuring out how to get her bags stowed in the overheads across the aisle from us. Eventually I got involved (though without leaving my seat), suggesting a sequence of actions that allowed them to successfully get all the bags stowed in the overhead bin and let us get out of town. This scene started another conversation between me and the flight attendant: Why do international flights board so much more quickly than domestic ones.
Despite my otherwise unimpressive flights with Korean Air a couple weeks ago, I have to admit that I am impressed that they can board a packed 747-400 – including a stupid security screening between the gate and the jetway – in less time than Continental can board a full 737-700. Why? Sure, the 747 has two aisles and potentially multiple boarding doors, but that isn’t the full story. Even the international 757s that Continental flies seem to board more quickly – with more passengers – than the 757s do.
Is it because passengers check bags more on international flights? Or because folks flying internationally travel more than those who fly domestically in the USA? Or something else? I don’t really know, but I do know that it makes me want to travel internationally more – not that I really needed much motivation on that front.
Posted by Seth on September 25, 2009 under Uncategorized | 3 Comments to Read
US Helicopter, the service that provides connections from Newark and JFK airports to two heliports in Manhattan, has suspended all service, both scheduled and charter. According to the release on their website it is a “standown” of service and they will be reorganizing their operations with an eye on restarting service in November.
We are temporarily halting all service as we regroup to add aircraft to our fleet and introduce new routes. This ‘standown’ of service applies to our scheduled flights as well as our charter service. We plan to return to the skies of New York – a bigger and better airline – by late November. For information on refunds for tickets you hold for future travel, please contact your credit card company for a credit or refund. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and we look forward to serving you again very soon with our 8 Minute Airport Shuttle.
While this certainly is unfortunate, it is also not all that surprising. The two times I used the service I was the only person on the helicopter. They recently offered a huge sale – $59 each way – in an effort to drum up some cash but it doesn’t look like it was enough. I hope they are flying again in December and that they have the deal on offer; I’ve got a trip planned and it would be fun to do it again if it is cheap. But at $159 each way the value just doesn’t seem to be there for me. And apparently not for enough other people either.
Posted by Seth on September 24, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
jetBlue has been playing up their new TrueBlue loyalty program quite a bit over the past several months, and with good reason. There are a number of things that are worth looking forward to in the new program based on what they’ve announced so far. It looks as though it will be much more rewarding that then current iteration of the program.
Sadly, however, it will be a few extra weeks until anyone knows for certain – the launch of TrueBlue2 is going to be delayed. When the first round of details came out it was expected that TB2 would launch in September ‘09. Now that we’re pretty much at the end of the month it was pretty clear that wasn’t going to happen. And jetBlue agrees, announcing today a new start date for the program: November 9, 2009.
Waiting another six weeks to get started in the program isn’t all that great. Indeed, it really stinks for folks who would rather earn in the new program due to the limited fungiblity of the older points. And that carries over to folks with the jettBlue credit card, too. Still, the TrueBlue program wasn’t really a huge draw with the old program so perhaps the delay won’t really hurt jetBlue too much. Plus there are rumors of a new promo coming out leading up to the launch of the new program, but the Magic 8 Ball is a bit hazy on the details there right now.
And, most of all, getting it right is way more important than just getting it out the door.
I’m mostly hoping that this delay means more partner integration from the initial launch rather than waiting until Q1 2010 and that it will give them a chance to release more details before it actually goes into effect. I guess I’ve got the next 6 weeks to figure it out.
Posted by Seth on September 22, 2009 under Internet | Be the First to Comment
In-flight Internet connectivity has been quite the rage this year. Almost every US-based carrier has announced some sort of initiative to get Internet onto their aircraft in one form or another. And while Row44 and Aircell duke it out for signing up customers today, it appears that a third competitor is just around the corner: LiveTV.
LiveTV’s Internet solution today consists of one jetBlue plane flying around with their KiteLine service on board. The KiteLine service is incredibly limited in terms of what one can access, but it is also free, a major differentiator between it and the Aircell/Row44 camps. But according to LiveTV’s CEO, another satellite-based solution is coming quickly, like early next year, and the new one is going to have WAY more bandwidth available to it.
Certainly it makes sense to go where the costs are lower, but that has to be tempered by the need to go to market at a particular point in time. Thus far only Continental has stepped up to say that they intend to wait out the rush to provide Internet service in favor of finding out if customers are actually willing to pay for it. And it just so happens that Continental is aligned with LiveTV for their other in-flight Internet offerings. What an interesting coincidence.
If LiveTV can offer their Ka-Band sattelite service for free to customers of their TV service that would be a hugely disruptive force in the market. Of course, there is no guarantee that it will be free, but they do expect to have it in the air in 2010, so at least we won’t have to wait too long to find out what will really happen with it.
Posted by Seth on September 20, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
There are certainly plenty of reasons to love travel (along with plenty of reasons to hate it, I suppose). For me one of my favorite reasons to hop on a plane and get up in the air is the blues. Not the music and not feeling down, but the color blue. Flying exposes us to a range of colors that are much harder to find on the ground. And the odds of finding blue skies up above are much better than on the ground.
I may have the blues, but I’m quite certain that’s a good thing in this case.
I can’t wait to get back up there!
Posted by Seth on September 17, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
It isn’t all that hard to make a huge leap in quality when you’re towards the bottom to begin with. Still, the move that US Airways announced this week is pretty significant. The new seat will be fully flat for sleeping and pretty spacious. They’re actually removing two seats per row in their business class cabin – going from six to four – to get these new seats in. But with the seats at an angle rather than facing straight forward they can actually get the same number of seats in the cabin with fewer per row. Crazy.
It has most the “normal” features that a new business class seat would have these days, like in-seat power and what appears to be a decent entertainment system with a 12” screen.
The only thing I can’t figure out is what they are thinking calling it a “suite.” It doesn’t have a door. It isn’t particularly private (though they do point out the little divider). There isn’t space for a travel companion to sit with you and dine. It is most definitely not a suite. But it is a decent business class seat.
Look for the new seat starting in December on the A330 routes that USAir flies or check out more on the new “suite” here.
