Posted by Seth on September 23, 2010 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ, Trip Reports | 
Wander around the square outside the cathedral the Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo for more than a couple minutes and the layers of touts become quickly apparent. They even go so far as to wear appropriate uniforms depending on exactly what they’re shilling for. The guys in pink are all selling tchotkes, for example. On the plus side, that does make them rather easy to identify and avoid.
One of the groups working the square is a collection of volunteer guides (blue shirts), willing to show tourists around for “free.” Even knowing that it was not really free, I decided to take Manuel up on his offer to walk me around the Zona for an hour. Odd are he knew more about what I should be looking for and I was too lazy to do any research of my own. Besides, while my walkabout yesterday was pleasant enough, I really had no idea what I was looking at.
So we set off together to explore the oldest city in the Americas. Because of Santo Domingo’s position as the oldest city it has many other “oldest” designations as well. Oldest cathedral? Yeah, we got that. Oldest hospital? We saw that, too. Oldest stone house and oldest military installation were covered, too.
The cathedral is actually quite impressive. The cornerstone was laid in the 1520s and construction was completed in the 1540s. They’ve done a fantastic job of maintaining the interior of the facility. Other parts are more recent – the bell tower is from the 1600s – but still quite impressive.
The exterior of the cathedral tells the history of the island as well. There are statues and carvings that reflect a few different European occupations of the area. Some are original and some are replicas, such as the six stone works that replaced bronze statues melted down to make cannon balls at one point.
We wandered over to a couple old homes from the early days. Many have been restored in one form or another. The original tax collector in town had quite a nice setup for his living arrangements; it is now a children’s museum. The original representative of the royal court was rich enough to have his own chapel adjacent to his home. That has been restored into an art gallery. Others are hotels or government offices.
There was also a stop in to the building housing the eternal flame honoring great Dominicans that have honored the country in some way. From past presidents to the pair of women responsible for writing the national anthem, there are scores of honorees in the building and an honor guard keeping an eye out for all of them.
The ceiling of the facility was to me even more interesting than the memorial at ground level. There was a large chandelier that was a gift from General Franco (I think; Manuel was very excited and talking very quickly at this point) and also a pretty awesome painting representing life and death.
Wandering a bit further up towards Place d’España we saw a replica of a pretty cool sundial – two faces for telling time in the morning and afternoon – as well as a wedding party taking some photos. Both rather cool scenes.
And then a trip to the shopping street. Typical process of showing the process first – in this case stones being polished for jewelry – and then the shop next door selling the wares. It is good to know that some things truly are the same the world over.
And then my hour was up. I set the deadline, not the guide, and I think he was just as happy to have me out of his hair. He again reminded me that he was a volunteer and that I was welcome to pay him a small sum as a thanks for the tour I received. Apparently my idea of a small donation and his were rather different.
Maybe it wasn’t really a “proper” tour in the truest sense of the word. Still, I managed to see a bunch of things that I probably would not have otherwise. All in all a pretty good deal. Definitely better than being in one of the groups of 30 I watched being marched from gift shop to gift shop around the square later in the afternoon.
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Posted by Seth on September 22, 2010 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ, Trip Reports |
I’m reclining, cabana style, on the roof top deck of my hotel in the Colonial District of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and I’m honestly not entirely sure how I got here. I’ve got a couple ice cold Presidente beers on the table next to me, a full moon overhead and a gentle breeze blowing in from the water that I can see just a couple hundred yards away. Life in All You Can Jet world is not so bad.
The morning started entirely too early. The redeye flight from Long Beach to Ft. Lauderdale was only 4.5 hours long, dropping us on the east coast way too early in the morning. Fortunately the wait for the flight to Santo Domingo passed uneventfully and the flight itself was only half full. For reasons I still do not understand most of the passengers crammed themselves into the front half of the plane. The guy in front of me was about to take the window seat where the middle and aisle were already occupied. I told him to take my assigned seat one row forward and made my way tot the back of the plane where I had my choice of a dozen beds ready to go. A touch under two hours later I awoke to the pilot announcing final approach into Santo Domingo. Lie-flat coach seating really can be quite wonderful.
A broken down taxi and a couple frantic emails and phone calls and then an easy ride into town followed the flight. I was shown in to one of the cutest hotels I’ve ever seen: Coco Boutique Hotel. There are only four rooms and mine is not particularly large, but the spacious lobby area and the beautiful roof deck more than make up for that. It also happens to be located just off the edge of the Colonial District, one of the best neighborhoods for exploring and dining.
After a bit of work in the morning it was off to explore the city. The Colonial District is a great mix of old and new. From forts and churches dating back hundreds of years to reasonably modern facades decorated with beautiful iron works, the neighborhood is a 
great place to wander around for a few hours and enjoy the vibe of the people radiating out into the streets. I only caught a brief glimpse today; I’ll be back out on the streets again tomorrow for more of it, but the whole area has a very relaxed, easy-going feel to it.
The city seems to thrive very much on a sense of community rather than individuality. There is not a whole lot of privacy in town. Windows and doors are left open and folks are living their lives essentially in full view of their neighbors. Folks sit out in the parks and on the corners relaxing and otherwise whiling away the day rather than cooped up inside their homes, shut out from the world around them. It is quite different and quite pleasant all at once.
The old/new juxtaposition exists in more than just the architecture around town. It seems that many of the businesses in the Colonial District are print shops. I have no idea why, but there is a whole lot of paper and a number of presses in the area. And these are old school printing presses. Some looked like mimeograph machines that I remember from the early 80s. Yet they were chugging away, producing whatever it was that they had been hired to create. Maybe old, but certainly still quite functional.
I was wandering around town when it started to rain a bit. Nothing major; just a typical afternoon shower blowing through. But that forced me inside for lunch. I might be able to find the restaurant again if I tried but I actually walked past it in the rain before turning around and going back in to seek shelter and sustenance. The food was delicious, plentiful and rather inexpensive. For roughly $4 I got a tray full of beef, beans, rice, salad and a soda.
Dinner was similarly delicious, though a bit more expensive. I ended up at Mesón de Luis and was enjoying my Presidente when Luis stopped over to say hi. That’s always enjoyable. The fact that I barely understood anything he said before he switched to English wasn’t too big a deal either.
I was hesitant to commit to the Santo Domingo visit on my AYCJ pass. I didn’t know that it would be worth the $126.80 in taxes (and an extra $10 at immigration for a tourist card that is shredded about 30 second after you purchase it; exact change is greatly appreciated) that the trip would cost. Now that I’m here, relaxing on the roof top under the light of the full moon, I cannot believe I ever considered not making the visit. Definitely a cool place and worth coming back to, particularly if I can time it for the winter baseball leagues and try to smuggle a couple decent ball players back to New York City for the Mets.
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Posted by Seth on September 22, 2010 under Internet, News |
JetBlue has made a big splash today with their announcement of an impending in-flight internet offering. The service, leveraging the Ka spectrum of satellite connectivity form provider ViaSat, will offer significant bandwidth and a broader coverage footprint than that of ATG provider Aircell, the company behind the gogo product. Company CEO Dave Barger sums it up nicely in the press release issued today with the announcement:
This system will be designed for the 21st century, not just for today’s personal connectivity needs, but with the bandwidth to expand to meet tomorrow’s needs as well. In just the three years since we launched BetaBlue, the first commercial aircraft with simple messaging capability, technology has advanced by generations. Rather than invest in current technology, designed to transmit broadcast video and audio, we elected to partner with ViaSat to create broadband functionality worthy of today’s interactive personal technology needs.
Great news, right? Sortof. There’s a catch (actually a few).
![674451208_dBNgv-M[1]](http://boardingarea.com/blogs/thewanderingaramean/files/2010/09/674451208_dBNgvM1.jpg)
The announcement is based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) not a formal contract. Maybe that’s splitting hairs, but in the end it could make a difference. The MoU is non-binding and a full contract is expected by the end of the year.
Additionally, the technology is new – VERY new. So new that it doesn’t really exist in a form that can actually be installed and won’t for two years. The first trial installations are not expected to occur until mid-2012.
Not only are there many potential pitfalls along the way with getting the technology functional for commercial air service – and let’s not forget that getting a functional antenna was part of the death knell for the Kiteline service that JetBlue & LiveTV tried to bring to market previously – but VIaSat is also new in this market. The JetBlue MoU represents ViaSat’s entree into the commercial aircraft connectivity market.
And then there is the fact that between now and mid-to-late 2012 JetBlue will have no connectivity. While Delta (70+ seat aircraft only), Virgin America and AirTran will have fleet-wide coverage in span and other carriers will have something, JetBlue will have nothing. Having the best product is great but if it takes so long to deploy there is something lost in terms of customer value in the interim.
There is also the consideration of potential partner connectivity offerings. LiveTV was supposed to be providing connectivity options for Continental, too. Those plans went out the window when Kiteline died and Continental also delayed the gogo trial that was supposed to parallel the Kiteline effort. Can LiveTV convince the new world’s largest carrier to hold off on expanding the gogo deployment that they’ll have through the United Airlines p.s. offering for nearly three more years, offering nothing in the interim? Yes, the ViaSat/LiveTV Ka-band offering will be the best out there, but do customers today really need that or just something to get the job done?
There are no official details published by Aircell nor Row44 about the uptake on their products. No one knows just how compelling the in-flight connectivity availability is in terms of driving bookings to one airline versus another. So maybe it isn’t a big deal at all. But a two or three year wait to find out is something of an eternity in the airline industry.
More in-flight connectivity options is always a good thing. There is no denying that. Hopefully this one happens on schedule and isn’t too late to the market.
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Posted by Seth on September 22, 2010 under News |
Apparently the booze just wants to be free and there is nothing that the airlines can do to stop that. Following a relatively recent move by US Airways to offer up some free booze in their airport lounges as well as moves by Delta and Continental to start charging for some drinks in theirs, American Airlines has become the latest US carrier to offer complimentary alcoholic beverages. Starting October 1, 2010 beer, house wine and well drinks will be complimentary.
"Updating our beverage selection to include complimentary alcoholic beverages is another example of American’s commitment to reinvest in our premium products and enhance the travel experience for our loyal members and guests," said Nancy Knipp, American’s President – Admirals Club. "Our customers have asked for free drinks and we are delighted to respond to their request by providing this service for our existing and new members at our clubs worldwide."
This is a great move for customers of AA but also for those of Continental and United Airlines as well. It leaves United as the only holdout of US-based carriers not offering free booze in their lounges. Given that Continental does and now the competitive pressure it seems rather unlikely that the new UA/CO lounges would choose to be the only holdouts on this front.
Want details on lounge locations and services available? Check out the Wandering Aramean Airport Lounge Guide. Details of over 300 lounges and photos from a whole bunch of them, with more added as I travel.
Drink up!
Posted by Seth on September 21, 2010 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ, Trip Reports |
Getting to a meeting in Seattle shouldn’t be too hard. Thanks to the JetBlue All You Can Jet pass I managed to schedule a meeting that otherwise likely would not have happened so I’m pretty excited about that. Any opportunity I have to help share the knowledge of frequent flyer programs’ inner workings and the myriad of ways to calculate the value of the points I see as a great thing. But I also needed to actually figure out how I’d get to Seattle for the meeting.
Sure, there is the option of the non-stop JFK-Seattle but that’s not really very creative. There’s a flight via Boston but I have not had a ton of luck with those so far this month. And then there’s the Dulles – Long Beach – Portland – Amtrak option. Yeah, that’s right up my alley.
For no particular reason I’ve always wanted to ride the Amtrak line between Seattle and Portland. I tried to schedule it during AYCJ last year but I couldn’t get a flight out of Seattle. This year I managed to get that seat so I booked the train, too. I even splurged and spent the extra $15 for the business class seat. After all, I’m on my way to a meeting. Actually, I did it to avoid potential lines at the station in Portland in the morning. 
Turns out there were no lines but I did get a great seat – a solo on the double side of the train so there was plenty of room to spread out and work. I also got a great recommendation for breakfast from Jerry, the Amtrak guy at the counter. Turns out that the post office across the street from the train station has a cafe on the 4th floor that is open to the public and that serves up pretty good, cheap food. I put my Voodoo donuts aside, had the chicken-fried steak and then headed back down to board the train.
We pulled out right on time and I was then treated to some phenomenal views as we rolled north towards Seattle. The train ride was smooth, on time and mostly uneventful, other than the fact that the cafe car apparently didn’t receive the correct catering so they did not have breakfast available. They responded by offering up everything they did have for free which was a nice touch. At the second stop en route they finally got some of the catering resolved: a delivery of fried chicken showed up on the train. Needless to say, the announcement of “Last call for free chicken in the cafe car” made over the PA system was rather entertaining.
The portion of the ride around Olympia was probably the most scenic section of the ride but the whole thing was pretty impressive.
And then it was off to the meetings (more on that later) and back to the airport for my first AYCJ trip to the Caribbean. I’m flying three new lines today, from Seattle to Long Beach to Ft. Lauderdale to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. It is a beautiful day for flying.
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Posted by Seth on September 21, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
So, just how much extra can you expect to pay on top of your fare to travel? While it depends on the airline you’re flying the number is about 6% on average. Sortof.
Tracking the reality of airline pricing is, at best, a gray magic sort of scenario. There are quarterly reports, annual reports and a myriad of different acronyms and categories of statistics reported. Some of the reports are required by the Department of Transportation and then aggregated and distributed by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Even those numbers are incomplete, however, because the reporting requirements simply have not kept pace with the flood of fees that the airlines are coming up with. So all the numbers are soft. The BTS states it rather clearly:
Revenue from seating assignments and on-board sales of food, drink, pillows, blankets, entertainment, or any other ancillary items are reported as Transport Related Revenue and cannot be identified separately.
So they cannot identify all those details but that doesn’t mean that the details are trivial. The Q2 2010 report was just released and the numbers it documents are rather impressive. The industry realize $2.1 billion in “ancillary revenue” in Q2 2010. Of that nearly $900MM of the revenue came from checked baggage fees. Another $600MM came from reservation change fees with the balance attributed to standby fees, pet carriage charges and sales of frequent flyer miles to business partners.
Putting the number in context, the total industry profits from the reporting carriers during the time period was a hair over $3 billion. If there was any doubt about just how important these fees are to the profitability of the airlines this report (along with the past few that have told similar stories) should put said doubt to rest.
As for which airlines are seeing the bulk of the profit from these fees, the usual suspects are pretty well represented. As the largest carrier in the world (for a couple more weeks) Delta is atop the list for total ancillary revenue. The soon to be largest carriers, a combined United Airlines/Continental at about half the total revenue that Delta realized in the quarter ($681MM v. $340MM combined). US Airways is holding strong in its position near the top of the list which is quite impressive, especially considering how much smaller than the other airlines it is.
There’s Southwest, coming in at $200MM in ancillary fees collected in the quarter. Sure, the may not charge for checked bags (and they love to publicize that in their commercials) but their customers are still paying plenty of fees, enough to see them above the industry average in terms of revenue from fees compared to total operating revenue (6.4% to the industry average of 6%).
And, just to make sure that they’re on the top of some list, there’s Spirit Air. The carrier realized 24.2% of its revenue in the quarter from ancillary charges. Ouch.
Of course, if the total cost is the same then no big deal but the numbers generally are not well published or particularly clear for customers meaning that the total travel cost is often not known by passengers until the trip is over, after it is too late to make a fair fare comparison. There are a few folks out there trying to help level the playing field (check out TruPrice for a pretty solid example) but it is still nearly impossible for customers effectively compare prices in advance.
Lots more numbers in the report, including fuel costs (figure ~$3.5 cents per seat mile flown, so that 2500 mile trip from New York City to Los Angeles costs the airline about $85 in fuel for your seat. Kindof hard to believe that they still sell the seats for not much more than that so often.
Tags: Continental, Delta, DoT, fees, frequent flyer, merger, points, Southwest Airline, Spirit Air, United, US Air
Posted by Seth on September 20, 2010 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ, Trip Reports |
Today has me up to 18 flights in to my All You Can Jet adventures and my first repeat flight attendant experience. Sure, there was the mother-daughter pair last Thursday but that was mostly the same trip with a stop in the middle so I’m not sure it really counts. In this case I was boarding the plane I noticed the name tag of the woman in the galley and i immediately knew it was a repeat: the name Agda is not particularly common as best as I can tell.
Of course I then had to remember when I was actually on the same plane with her previously. That took rather longer than just remembering the name. Turns out we shared a ride from Long Beach to Sacramento last Wednesday. She double-checked her calendar and confirmed that she did work that trip.
I’m not entirely sure why I find this at all interesting but, well, I do. Go figure.
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Posted by Seth on September 20, 2010 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ, Trip Reports |
For the second time during my travels on the All You Can Jet pass from JetBlue I had trouble with my crazy itineraries that involved an extra connection in Boston. Last week it was my desire to fly Sarasota – New York – Boston – Las Vegas rather than just New York – Las Vegas. This week it was an even more irrational desire. I really wanted to fly to San Jose, California.
Why the obsession with San Jose? It is one of only two domestic stations that JetBlue flies to that I haven’t yet visited. I really wanted to get there during this AYCJ period. Even if it meant missing my return flight. Yeah, like I said, bad idea.
Shortly after I made it to Boston I noticed that my connecting flight was orange on the monitor – delayed. About two hours. I originally had built the trip with a 2:25 connection so the two hour delay was not critical initially but it was definitely going to be tight. Still, I made the decision to press on with the trip. I really wanted to get that visit to San Jose. It was only after we were fully boarded and the door was closed and we took an extra 10 minute ground hold after pushing back from the gate that I knew I was screwed. Alas, there was nothing to do at that point but enjoy the flight.
About half way through the flight I was chatting with Rodan and Ashton, two of the awesome flight attendants working the trip. Joe, a flight attendant deadheading out to SJC to work the return flight. I was asking Rodan to help me out by asking the captain to call ahead and let the gate know that there was a connecting passenger on board in hopes that they wouldn’t close the flight out 10 minutes early like they have a habit of doing. It was then that Joe piped in, noting that JetBlue only has one gate at San Jose.
Based on when we were going to arrive the New York flight was going to be just getting ready to push back. It was quite likely that they’d push that flight and then let us pull in to the gate. In other words I’d be watching my flight leave without me from my seat. My hopes were further thwarted when Rodan reported back that he’d spoken with the pilot and we were actually even later than expected getting in to San Jose.
I had missed my flight. Not good.
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Posted by Seth on September 19, 2010 under Trip Reports |
As I’ve mentioned in a few previous posts, there does not appear to be much of a tourist industry in Guyana. Still, the few things that do exist are quite enjoyable. At the top of any list of things to see in Guyana must be Kaieteur Falls.
Must. Be.
The falls are situated roughly 150 miles from the capital city of Georgetown but they are a world away in terms of the environment. The vast majority of civilization in Guyana lives within 50 miles of the coast. Further inland huge swaths of the country are dedicated as national parks, protected from development and from the timber and mining industries. It is in one of these parks that Kaieteur (or Kaiteur, depending on which version you believe) Falls is located.
The falls have a single drop of 226 meters (741 feet), roughly double that of Victoria Falls and more than five times the height of Niagara Falls. Combined with its rather impressive width (roughly 113 m/370 ft.), the falls have a volume of 23,400 cubic feet/second (663 cubic meters/second). This incredible combination has Kaieteur listed as one of the largest waterfalls in the world by folks who keep such lists.
Oh, and it happens to be rather beautiful, too.
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| A summary of the 10 hour trip to Kaieteur Falls in just under 10 minutes |
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Posted by Seth on September 17, 2010 under All You Can Jet, AYCJ, Trip Reports |
Today’s itinerary, JFK – Richmond, VA – Ft. Lauderdale, FL – White Plains, NY, was crafted with a singular goal. It turns out that there are very few domestic JetBlue airports that I have never flown to and I’m using the All You Can Jet pass to address that issue, among other plans. Of the five remaining on my list two (RIC & HPN) were on today’s itinerary. Add on the one I got Sunday (SRQ) and the one I’ll get this coming Sunday (SJC) and I’m dangerously close to crossing the finish line on that challenge.
Even though that was the ultimate goal of today’s flights I found that it wasn’t what I was ultimately focused on during the flights. For two of the flights I was focused on sleeping, attempting to rectify the misery inflicted by the redeye I took in from Sacramento last night. But I also found myself chatting with gate agents and flight attendants even more than I normally do, which is a lot to begin with.
The gate agents in Richmond were incredibly friendly and interested enough in my travel tales that I ended up chatting through the whole boarding process and was the last passenger to get on the plane. Many thanks to Matt and the whole crew there for making my brief stay in Richmond so enjoyable. Plus, I got to fly on the JFK-RIC route before it is cut later this fall so I’m happy about that.
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| My ride from Richmond to Ft. Lauderdale |
The flight Richmond to Ft. Lauderdale offered up yet another new travel experience for me. The two women working in the cabin are spitting images of each other. Turns out that they are a mother-daughter pair. They’ve been paired occasionally before when picking up segments here or there but this was the first time they ended up on a full trip together. Very cool to see them working together and enjoying themselves.
As an added bonus it was the same crew from Ft. Lauderdale to White Plains so I got to actually see them in action versus the initial flight that I slept through.
Wrapping up with the stats for my AYCJ adventures so far:
| Flights taken |
12 |
| Miles flown |
9,477 |
| New (to me) airports |
3 |
| New lines flown |
8 |
| Time in the air |
22:20 |
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Wander around the square outside the cathedral the Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo for more than a couple minutes and the layers of touts become quickly apparent. They even go so far as to wear appropriate uniforms depending on exactly what they’re shilling for. The guys in pink are all selling tchotkes, for example. On the plus side, that does make them rather easy to identify and avoid.
So we set off together to explore the oldest city in the Americas. Because of Santo Domingo’s position as the oldest city it has many other “oldest” designations as well. Oldest cathedral? Yeah, we got that. Oldest hospital? We saw that, too. Oldest stone house and oldest military installation were covered, too.
There was also a stop in to the building housing the eternal flame honoring great Dominicans that have honored the country in some way. From past presidents to the pair of women responsible for writing the national anthem, there are scores of honorees in the building and an honor guard keeping an eye out for all of them. 
