Posted by Seth on February 16, 2010 under Trip Reports | 
Given a total of 14 hours on the ground in Mexico City, of which the majority was during sleeping hours, there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity for grand adventures or expeditions. Things got even worse when my phone lost data service on arrival and I couldn’t find the address of the hotel to tell the cab driver. A quick phone call back to a buddy in Los Angeles solved that problem (Thanks, Damien!) but I was still left with a few hours on a Monday morning that I had to fill. I wasn’t willing to just sit in the hotel room until I had to head back to the airport – what fun is that?!?! – so I set out on a very limited exploration of a very small part of Mexico City.
My hotel, the Wyndham Garden Inn, is in the Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City. About 30 minutes from the airport, the area is very accessible and also happens to be a reasonably nice neighborhood to wander about. Even putting aside the significant number of points I earned for the hotel stay I think that the property is a winner. Free internet that is a pretty decent connection, great towels (very soft) and a pretty good location make the property a winner to me.
I got some great tips from a friend in terms of what I should try to see and I managed to do pretty well overall, I think. I still need to get to El Moro, the churros shop that was recommended, but I did get to see El Angel de Independencia and a couple other sites while wandering around the neighborhood for the couple hours I had that morning. Plus, I’ll be back in six weeks and should be able to get that bit of fun in on that visit.
But on this visit I simply walked up one of the main streets of town for a bit and was exposed to an enjoyable snippet of the city. Plenty of folks out on the street and I watched their completely crazy means of dealing with traffic circles (they just go on whichever side gets them to the destination faster rather than in a circle!). Overall, it was a rather enjoyable way to spend a bit of time in the morning getting acclimated to town.
Plus, I had a ridiculously delicious breakfast on the street. As I walked past the guy on the way out for my rambles I had a very good feeling about the situation. He had several meats, each kept in a very neat pile on the griddle. Plus the whole rig looked to be very clean. Still, there was no one else out eating so I was a bit apprehensive. I got over that when I returned from my excursion and saw a couple others around the stall eating off of plates that were covered in a disposable wrap. So he runs a very clean shop. That’s a good sign.
My initial order – in my version of very broken Spanish and his much better English – was for carne y queso; steak and cheese. Served on a couple tortillas and then topped with onions, salsa and a squeeze of lime juice from the condiment bar that he had on the cart. Half way through consuming that delicious I managed to order a second round, this time with chorizo rather than carne. It also had a different cheese though I really couldn’t describe the difference with any reasonable accuracy.
The two tortillas overfilled with meat plus a soda were about 30 pesos. That’s just over two US dollars. The food was great and at the price there was really nothing better out there. At least not that I could figure out how to order anywhere. After all, I barely speak Spanish.
And then it was back to the airport and then onto the circuitous routing back to New York City. Having the same flight crew for the Mexico City – Panama City flight as the night before into Mexico was fun. So was meeting a guy in the lounge in Panama that I vaguely knew from a previous trip. But that’s all a different story.
Posted by Seth on February 16, 2010 under Trip Reports |
And this time I didn’t even leave my apartment.
A couple weeks ago I scheduled a meeting in Toronto. Given that all the flights were basically the same price and that the meeting was going to be in downtown I made the quite easy decision to fly Porter Air for the trip. Yes, I’d be giving up some points in my normal loyalty programs but the experience flying with them is great and the fact that they operate from the City Airport right downtown is a huge benefit. So I made my booking online and went along on my merry way.
Fast forward a couple weeks to this morning. I no longer actually had a meeting to attend in Toronto and figured I’d be out the cash for the ticket. It isn’t the most expensive ticket I’ve had to throw away but it is still annoying to lose out, even though I paid a third of the refundable price for my limited ticket. And it is snowing. Not heavily and certainly not as bad as last week’s storm, but it is definitely coming down. Newark airport can barely operate on a decent schedule when there is no weather. When snow comes into play all bets are off. That means weather waivers come out.
Porter has issued a waiver for travel in and out of Newark today. My scheduled flight actually looks like it is going to be on time but there are a few others that have been canceled. And I don’t have any reason to go to Toronto today nor a return ticket. So I tried my luck with their call center to see what my options were.
After choosing between English and French on the IVR system the call was answered on the first ring. That alone is a big win, but it got better from there. As I explained that the weather was precluding me from getting to the airport to get to my meeting the agent quickly offered up the option of rebooking for another day. Generally a great thing but I don’t know when I’ll be back up that way so I just wanted the value of the ticket as a credit. This is where the agent went above and beyond to help me out. He really tried to stop me from just getting the value back in a credit, with very good reason.
The weather waiver permits him to move my booking to pretty much any day and any flight. But the credit is just the value amount and it is generally not enough for a last-minute purchase. He explained the fare structures and advance purchase concepts to me to make sure that I realized I’d be potentially losing out with my decision. I’m a big fan of customer service agents that are well informed about their own product and look out for their customers in this way.
In the end I got the credit as I desired and made sure that he knew that I understood the risks of such a move. And I continue to be impressed by Porter Air.
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Posted by Seth on February 14, 2010 under News |
This one isn’t quite as awesome as the Kulula Air livery that was making the rounds on the internet last week, but the latest special livery from AirTran is pretty sweet. The carrier has partnered with McKee Foods to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bakery’s best known brand, Little Debbie Snacks. I have a special place in my heart for those little bundles of excessively sweet and gooey goodness as I pretty much grew up on them so I’m sure that skews my view of the livery a bit. I’m OK with that.
Oh, the airline is running some contests and whatnot associated with the plane, too. Whatever. If they aren’t serving Fudge Rounds or Oatmeal Cream Pies or Star Crunch on board it shouldn’t really count.
Some more info on the promos and the livery here and here.
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Posted by Seth on February 14, 2010 under Trip Reports |
It seemed like a good idea at the time. I swear. Well, at least sortof.
The price was right and the routing – from JFK to Mexico City, via Panama – was plenty fun, with a decent amount of time in both Panama and Mexico. Plus, the flights earn 150% credit in Continental’s OnePass program, bringing me that much closer to requalification for next year, the 100K EQMs I need for the SWUs and to finally hitting my lifetime million miles status.
Yet, as I left my apartment at 1am to head over to the E train and make my way to the airport I was most definitely questioning my sanity. Sitting on the floor outside the lounge – it is closed until 4am – that questioning is getting stronger. The flight is scheduled to depart at 5:07 am. That would mean a 3:30ish cab at the latest or a 3am subway ride. That’s not much time to sleep which meant that pushing up my departure from home a couple hours didn’t seem all that crazy, even though it did mean no sleep tonight.
Sure, I should get the upgrade so I’ll have a comfortable sleep to curl up in when I get on the plane. And the flight is pretty long so I have an opportunity for several consecutive hours of sleep. That should be nice. And I will be plenty exhausted by the time I get on board so falling asleep shouldn’t be a problem.
But planning a trip that requires heading to the airport at 1am seems quite foolish in retrospect. Of course, I have another trip on the same flight scheduled for the end of March. At least that one will be with a bunch of friends but it is still crazy.
Posted by Seth on February 10, 2010 under News |
The Mid-Atlantic US coast is suffering some of the worst snow in years today. The airline industry is experiencing the most cancelations on a single day in over 8 years – over 4,000 flights canceled today according to USA Today, and that doesn’t even include Southwest’s schedule. Needless to say that tens of thousands of customers are affected and the airlines are all responding to the storm. Of note, however, is that each airline is responding somewhat differently. Sure, they’ve all put out a press release essentially stating that customers can make changes “for free” to affected itineraries. But just how free are those changes?
It turns out that for most carriers the “free changes” are anything but. Getting a seat could cost hundreds of dollars and the airlines aren’t particularly cooperative or sympathetic in many cases. Even when the changes are truly free there are limits and caveats the customers face. Just how different are the policies? Here’s a quick summary.
At the most liberal end of the spectrum is New York City-based jetBlue. The carrier has implemented a no fee, no fare difference policy for affected customers. The main caveat is that all travel must be rebooked prior to the original scheduled departure time. But other than that the policy is quite friendly. Customers can book until until February 28 to reschedule their trips. Not too shabby.
American Airlines is up at the same level as jetBlue though they are somewhat more restrictive in rescheduling of the travel. AA is not charging any change fees or fare differences for changes so long as the rescheduled travel occurs by February 14.
Delta has matched AA’s policy. No change fees and no fare differences assuming the origin/destination are the same and travel is completed by February 14th.
Closely following these three in customer-friendly policy is United Airlines. United is permitting a waiver of change fees across the board and also of fare differences for travel rescheduled within 48 hours of the originally scheduled flight. For travel pushed farther than that any fare differences are borne by the customers. So a cheap advance-purchase ticket that is rebooked for a week from now may incur a significant charge to make the change as the cheaper fare buckets are unlikely to be available.
Three other major carriers – Continental, US Airways and Southwest – have implemented a no change fee policy (Southwest never charges one anyways). In each case, however, the airline is requiring that the same class of service be available for rebooking without charge. Lacking that availability customers must either pay the fare difference – potentially hundreds of dollars per ticket – or fly standby and hope to grab a seat. Neither is particularly appealing. The details of the policies for those carriers are spelled out here: Continental, US Airways, Southwest.
Are such variations in policies enough to drive your booking tendencies? And are they fair? After all, it isn’t the customer’s fault that mother nature decided to assault the mid-Atlantic this week, right?
Posted by Seth on February 10, 2010 under News |
Although jetBlue was very early in getting in-flight internet connectivity off the ground with their Kiteline product, they have fallen well behind competitors Aircell and Row44 in the deployment race. Kiteline came into the market with quite a splash back in 2007. Unfortunately the progress since then has not lived up to the hype. Indeed, while Aircell has deployed its gogo service in hundreds of aircraft and Row44 has secured a deal with Southwest to have the service deployed in all 500+ of their planes in the coming years, the Kiteline product still exists on only one aircraft: jetBlue’s BetaBlue.
And it doesn’t look like that is going to change anytime soon.
Continental Airlines announced plans to deploy the Kiteline product in conjunction with their deployment of the LiveTV television service. The initial announcement was quite some time ago, with the expectation that the Kiteline system would be installed around the same time as the television service. Around January ‘09 the schedule was revised with the Kiteline service expected to see deployment towards October or November of that year. By June the Kiteline deployment was pushed to Q1 2010 and only on about 30 planes as a trial. Then, in December, Continental announced that the deployments of the Kiteline product on the 737-900ERs would not take place until Q2 2010, at the same time that the gogo product would be trialed on the 757-300s. While the delays have been unfortunate, at least that last delay set up a first for the industry: a true side-by-side comparison of two different products on a significant number of planes from the same company. Alas, even that seems not meant to be.
A number of unofficial sources reported over the past few weeks that the deployment of the Kiteline product will not occur by Q2 2010 as was most recently scheduled. There appear to be issues with the hardware that are preventing the system from performing as expected. This is pushing the initial install date to May 2010 at the very earliest and that date is highly unlikely to stick either, according to the reports. And now Continental is confirming the delay with the following statement from a company official:
We continue to follow the progress of LiveTV’s development of Kiteline. We don’t expect that it will be available on our flights in the second quarter of 2010.
What does this mean in the long term? Hard to say for certain. But Continental was the only major carrier committed to the new Kiteline product and they are going to be going ahead with the gogo trial in Q2. If that is the only functional option available to them for a wide-scale deployment it is hard to imagine that they will choose to continue waiting for the Kiteline product, especially with the number of delays it has seen thus far.
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Posted by Seth on February 9, 2010 under News |
There is serious snow due in the mid-Atlantic – stretching from Washington, DC to New York City – between this evening and tomorrow. Depending on which forecast you believe the accumulations will range up to 18” in various areas. And the airlines are pretty much just giving up. The realize that odds are they won’t actually be able to operate anywhere close to on schedule so they simply aren’t bothering to try. Here are some of the highlights from a couple carriers.
Continental: (details)
- LGA – All flights canceled effective 8am Wednesday, February 10
- EWR – All flights canceled for February 10 except for the three long-haul arrivals already in the air (TLV, DEL, BOM) when the decision was made this afternoon
- PHL – All flights canceled until at least Wednesday night
- PIT, BWI, DCA, IAD – All service canceled until 11am Thursday, February 11
- PVD – Likely cancelation of service to CLE on the afternoon of February 10
jetBlue:
will suspend the majority of operations to and from the following cities for Wednesday, Feb. 10 due to a forecasted severe winter snowstorm:
- John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia in New York City
- White Plains/Westchester County Airport
- Newark Liberty Airport
It seems that only one runway is expected to be in operation at Dulles and nothing at National. Newark is going to be pretty much shut down. LaGuardia and Philly, too. I’m really glad that I’m not flying during this mess. I just hope that the system is functional enough by Sunday that my flights are operating.
Posted by Seth on February 9, 2010 under Mileage Run, Trip Reports |
Indeed, I owe the islands of Hawaii an apology. For years now I’ve been telling anyone willing to listen (and quite a few who couldn’t care less) just how much I disliked Hawaii. That hasn’t stopped me from visiting 5 times in the past three years – when it comes to miles on the cheap I’m easy – but I never really enjoyed the trips.
Until this past weekend.
The reason? I got the hell out of Waikiki. I even made it off Oahu and out to another island (the Big Island). And that made all the difference in the world. It was incredibly refreshing to discover normal people hanging out and enjoying the island life rather than catering to package tourists in high-rise hotel towers on a fake beach. I got to hang out with locals who actually enjoyed living there and leading relatively normal lives, not just running tourist trap tours and pretending that they actually serve decent food.
At the encouragement of my friend Vince, a longtime resident of the Big Island, I paid him a visit. Immediately after arriving in Honolulu I found myself making the long trek over to the commuter/interisland terminal for the short flight to Hilo. Sure, Vince lives near Kona on the other side of the island, but I figured why not get an extra airport in my collection and see some more of the island by driving across.
I booked a bed at the Hilo Bay Hostel, knowing that I’d be in late, out early and not have too much need of a full service establishment. It was clean (enough) and the others staying there were quite friendly. It also is right in the middle of town which meant easy access to a few bars at night and to decent breakfast in the morning at Bear’s Coffee. The breakfast was fine but the conversations there were absolutely phenomenal. I happened to sit amongst a few folks at the counter who were recounting their days running the local pot growing operations and private security shops, regaling each other with tales of who was doing what and reminiscing about how they “had to get out when the cocaine came in.” I also was up early enough to catch a sunrise over the shoals that sit just off the edge of downtown. Not too shabby.
After breakfast I hopped in the rental car (pretty cheap via these guys) and set out along the Saddle Road across the middle of the island to meet up with Vince. The drive to Kona has gotten significantly better in recent months due to the repaving of that road. There is only one section now that is in terrible disrepair. I don’t really know how bad it used to be but I made the drive much more quickly than I expected to (about 2 hours versus the 3 I was led to believe it would take) and it was fresh asphalt for the vast majority of the trip. No complaints at all.
Our destination that morning was Hapuna Beach State Park, a bit north of town and adjacent to the Hapuna Beach Prince hotel. The beach was crowded but not so much so that we couldn’t find space to lay out some towels and catch some sun (too much, in my case). Plus the waves were pretty good there and Vince provided boogie boards. It had been about 17 years since I last rode on one but, much like riding a bicycle it all came rushing back to me, including the sensation of being slammed into the sandy bottom by a wave as I wiped out during one ride. No lingering effects but definitely a bit woozy for a few seconds there.
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| Relaxing between sets a Hapuna Beach State Park |
We also did a bit of cultural tourism, paying a visit to the Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site. The site was the long standing seat of power for the Hawaiian islands. It was 200 years ago when King Kamehameha finally completed his unification of the islands as a single kingdom, the completion of a 19 year effort that started with the construction of a war temple at the Pu’ukohola Heiau site. Among other things I learned during the visit, apparently the opposing leader sacrificed at the temple knew that the meeting was a setup that would involve his death but he went anyways, knowing that it was his fate to be the death that would provide the power to unify the peoples of Hawaii. That’s pretty impressive.
The temple itself is not open for tourists (it is still used by native Hawaiians performing religious rituals) but the site is and there is a well labeled trail, some videos explaining the history at the ranger station and another local beach at the base of the cliffs. The other beach – Spencer State Park – is even more of a locals hangout than Hapuna Beach. They permit camping and there is a small, well protected beach that was quite pleasant. Again we came across many families out enjoying the Saturday afternoon. There were more grills running than I could count and my mouth was watering at the sight of all the different foods being prepared. Alas, no time to try to crash one of the many parties; we had a plane to catch.
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| The beach at Spencer State Park on the Big Island |
Yes, we had a plane to catch. That’s because during the afternoon I had convinced Vince to make the hop over to Oahu with me that evening to meet up with a half dozen other guys for dinner. The fact that he had no running water at home that night probably helped in the convincing, though I still like to think that I really was that motivating. Anyways, off to the airport and on to the plane.
It was a whirlwind 18 hours on the Big Island but infinitely better than any of my previous trips to Oahu. Next time one of the $250 fares to Hawaii comes up I know what I’ll be doing when I arrive in Honolulu: leaving!
Posted by Seth on February 5, 2010 under Trip Reports |
Fly enough and strange things are bound to happen. I haven’t had to evacuate a plane or deal with oxygen mask deployment yet but I’ve had my share of aborted take-offs and “go around” missed landings. Those are unsettling but I actually understand what is going on in those cases and it doesn’t really seem all that bad when it is happening. Flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles today on my way to Hawaii I got to experience a final approach that was unlike any other. And I got a bit spooked by it.
The pilot had the Channel 9 audio feed on so I was able to listen to the cockpit communications throughout the flight. I heard the discussions of the weather with the controllers and our pilots’ requests to deviate around the worst of it. That was all good stuff. But having access to that audio also probably contributed to me freaking out a bit when we made a strange left turn about 30 seconds before touchdown. What I heard was something to the effect of:
Tower, this is United 817. We’re seeing wide variations on the localizer for runway 6R. It is all over the place.
The localizer is the radio beacon that broadcasts out the location of the runway so that the plane’s autopilot functionality can glide it it to a safe landing. If the plane is off course the autopilot will hone in on the localizer and correct the course. But if the localizer goes wobbly bonkers then the plane will change course to “correct” even if that means actually heading away from the runway.
And that’s exactly what our plane did this morning. The good news is that the pilots reacted quickly and professionally. They disengaged the autopilot, corrected the course of the plane and brought us in for a completely normal landing. Except the part where we briefly were headed in the wrong direction.
The pilot and ATC folks had a brief conversation about the incident while we were still flying. They checked with the plane behind us on the approach path to see if they saw the same issues with the localizer (they did) and then things continued on normally. Once we were finally on the ground the pilot gave the tower another tongue lashing about the localizer and clarified that it was the runway localizer and not the glide slope indicator (another piece of the autopilot system) that was having problems. And that was pretty much the end of it.
As we were deplaning I mentioned the event to the pilot and we chatted briefly about it. It was only after that conversation that I fully grasped the severity of what had happened. Probably a good thing as we were safely on the ground at that point and freaking out a bit wasn’t as significant an issue. But I was definitely feeling spooked by the event.
No real reason to freak out, I know. The pilots knew exactly what they were doing the whole time and they fixed the issue quickly and perfectly. In fact, had I not been listening to Channel 9 I’m not entirely certain I would have even known something went amiss during the approach. But it was still a bit freaky. Certainly not enough to prevent me from getting on the next flight, but a bit freaky.
Sadly the LiveATC.net feed of KLAX is offline right now so I don’t have access to the actual tower communications to get the verbatim conversation that happened with our pilot, the pilot behind us and ATC. I may have to dig a bit more to see if I can find it.
Posted by Seth on February 5, 2010 under points, Trip Reports |
For a guy who doesn’t really love Hawai’i I seem to go there an awful lot. It is hard to complain too much when the airlines offer up a $250ish fare from the New York City area as it is a trip worth a bunch of miles, but I generally don’t really enjoy being there. Of course, I blame that on having stayed in Oahu, specifically in Waikiki Beach, when I get there. I know that there are supposed to be better bits to see and this time around I’m finally going to give that a try. I’m headed to the Big Island.
Today’s trip is a four flight affair, starting with a departure from Newark at 6am and finishing with a puddle-jumper flight from Honolulu to Hilo scheduled to arrive at 8:30pm tonight. Just enough time at each connection to hop into a lounge or two for a snack and then on to the next flight. Assuming everything connects OK (which seems pretty likely so far) I shouldn’t have any troubles other than the fact that it is about 20 hours in transit from my apartment to the bed at the other end.
Map from the totaly awesome Great Circle Mapper tool
Perhaps the best part about the first flight today (EWR-SFO) is that the plane is mostly empty. Normally when flying on United Airlines I’d perform some sort of “upgrade flirt” at the counter or in the lounge to try to get a seat in the Economy Plus section for free (I know it is coming soon enough with Continental OnePass reciprocity but I’m impatient) but this morning I didn’t even bother. The First Class cabin may be booked full on this A319 but the back is wide open. There are at least 10 half rows that have one or zero customers seated there. I traded my seat up near the exit row for 22E, a middle seat in the back.
Just after takeoff I was happily asleep in my lie-flat coach seat, trying to imagine if it would really work with a second passenger cuddled up next to me as Air New Zealand thinks they’ll be able to sell with their new SkyCouch seats. And I still don’t see it working, at least not for customers over 5’ 6” tall.
I awoke from my 3+ hour snooze to one of the more disgusting views I’ve seen on a plane. This:
Seriously, it isn’t your house. I know that it isn’t particularly crowded on board this morning but keep your feet down. Yuck!
Only 15 hours yet to go on this trip. Plenty more nap time and writing time to come.
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