Posted by Seth on February 5, 2012 under Flying, Review, Trip Reports | 
The route network of Adria Airways is a bit limited, as is their overall fleet (13 planes, 10 of which are CRJ-200/900s), but when Ljubljana is your destination, as it was for me, they’re definitely the carrier of choice. OK, fine, the CRJ-200 is a pretty miserable experience, even with the friendly Adria flight crew, but the flight actually wasn’t bad at all.
Adria actually blocks the front few rows of the CRJ200 as "Business Class" though the offerings aren’t particularly impressive. I was flying in economy and, other than no mini bottle of water prior to departure, I think the service was pretty much the same. I was fortunate to have an empty seat next to me so I was relatively comfortable for the flight.
The trip from Munich to Ljubljana is a quick one, only about 35 minutes in the air, so no service during the flight though I didn’t mind much. I was rather distracted by the beautiful views out the window. I love flying over snow-capped mountains.
The approach into Ljubljana was similarly beautiful, particularly with the mountains off to the side behind the airport. It makes for quite a first impression getting off the plane.
The flight was quick and pleasant. No service to speak of but really not an issue for 30 minutes in the air. And given their awesome connectivity in the region I can see flying Adria more often if in the area again. And, given how beautiful Ljubljana is, I hope to be back in the region sooner than not.
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Posted by Seth on February 4, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, points |
One of the more notable stories in frequent flyer land this week was that award inventory for Korean Air is being published into the GDSes, meaning that it is publicly visible and searchable. Both Gary and Ben mentioned it earlier today and both of them also note that folks can sign up for an ExpertFlyer account to search the inventory and setup email alerts for it. I’m a big fan of ExpertFlyer and I love the access they have to a lot of otherwise private inventory and fare data, but I’m also a big fan of free access to free data, and in the case of Korean Air awards and upgrades, getting the information for free is absolutely possible.
One of my many travel-related projects is the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools website. It includes, among other things, award inventory information for a bunch of airlines. And now that the data is accessible, Korean Air is part of that collection. You can search for award or upgrade inventory for free. And there’s even an email alert function that can be set, allowing you to get a message if the award inventory opens up.
Yes, you have to register to gain access to the data, but it is free and no strings attached.
Here’s a snip of what the search page looks like:
Not particularly pretty, but quite functional. Also of note is that sometimes the system will provide options that don’t quite get you where you’re going, but to an intermediate connecting point instead. On the above Seoul to Singapore search there are two non-stop flights (KE 641 and 643) that are both available, but there is also KE 683 to SGN, from which you might be able to pick up a connection on SkyTeam partner Vietnam Airlines, another of the carriers searchable in the tool collection. Displaying more than just the non-stop options should help folks with flexibility to better find awards that work.
Coach award inventory is not currently available in the system and first class isn’t available to partners, but otherwise the data should be accurate for redemptions.
Give the tools a try and let me know what you think.
Tags: award, frequent flier, frequent flyer, Korean, points, Seoul, Singapore, SkyTeam, upgrade, Vietnam, Vietnam Airlines
Posted by Seth on January 30, 2012 under Flying, News |
I love when our elected representatives decide to speak up and express just how idiotic their thoughts are. I’ve heard a Representative state for the record that she thought Adobe Acrobat should be outlawed, for example, but I’m not so convinced that her view there is more ridiculous than that put forth today by Representative Tom Graves of Georgia. Graves, who represents Georgia’s 9th Congressional District (North of Atlanta, up to the Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama borders), has announced that he will be introducing legislation which will repeal the DoT rule requiring airlines to list the full price of tickets, including all taxes, when they advertise.
This rule, put forth as part of the DoT’s consumer protection efforts, has come under attack from such legendary consumer advocates as Sprit Airlines, who is complaining the rule violates their first amendment rights because they cannot advertise one number and then charge a completely different number when the customer goes to actually make the purchase. Seems like just the sort of actions that should be protected, right?
The Congressman has a very simple premise for why the rule is bad: It prevents the airlines from indicating what part of the fare is actually the fare and what part is taxes and fees.
The federal government should not be inserting itself in the private sector to limit consumers’ ability to see how much they’re getting taxed. If the American people can’t see these costs clearly, I fear it will be easier these fees and taxes to be raised without their knowledge.
There’s just one problem with this line of thought (two, really, but I’m ignoring that the second line there isn’t a complete sentence): it is completely unfounded in reality. There is absolutely nothing in the rule that prevents the airlines from explaining in excruciating detail how much the taxes are and how much the fare is. There is nothing preventing them from reminding the consumer that there are a dozen or so different taxes and fees on the average airfare and way more on international itineraries. What the rule does, however, is prevent an airline from advertising a $9 fare which cannot be purchased for less than $20, no matter how hard you try. And that’s a good thing for consumers.
Fare listings like these, which are fully compliant with the rules, make it quite clear what the taxes and fees are, without violating the DoT rules:
And, yet, somehow apparently it is actually impossible for the airlines and OTAs to actually publish the information this way, as they are inhibited by the DoT rules. Strange, isn’t it, how they’ve managed to do it anyways??
I understand the complaint that nothing else in the USA is required to be marketed with the all-in price rather than allowing for customers to be surprised at the cash register. Let’s not use the examples of things that are bad for us as citizens as examples of why progress shouldn’t be made. Let’s got the other direction instead. Let’s hold hotels and rental car companies accountable, too. Let’s stop rental car companies from hiding the 50%+ surcharges until the final page of the check-out process. Let’s stop hotels from adding on $15-30 or more, per guest, per night, as a "resort fee" rather than actually including those charges in the fine print. After all, you cannot avoid paying them.
There is nothing wrong with calling attention to the fact that the average airfare has so many taxes associated with it. But pretending that there is some unwritten rule out there which is somehow preventing airlines from actually doing so is just plain lying.
Time to step up and face the facts, Congressman Graves: you’re full of it. Step up and do something that actually helps your constituents rather than lying to them. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it when elections roll around.
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Posted by Seth on January 30, 2012 under Flying, News |
Thai Airways has announced the end of their non-stop service between Thailand and the United States. The flights will be reduced from the current daily service to 5x weekly on February 1 and will shift to one-stop service via Seoul starting in May. At that time the route will also shift from the gas-guzzling Airbus A345, the only plane flying today with the range to make the non-stop trip (Update: I forgot the 772LR can make it, but TG doesn’t have any), to a Boeing 777-200ER, which has lower fuel burn rates but also a much more limited range. This new flight schedule will only operate 4x weekly. Additionally, the change means no more premium economy product on the route as the carrier’s Boeing aircraft are not configured with that seating. The connection will also increase the travel time between Los Angeles and Bangkok by approximately 2 hours each direction.
This move doesn’t come as too much of a surprise given the trend in jet fuel prices, but it is still somewhat disappointing to see the option disappear. Then again, when I flew it last July I wasn’t particularly impressed with either the hard or soft products on board. And that was in business class. So maybe it is for the best that it is going away.
If you’ve got a ticket booked on TG 794/795 now would be a pretty good time to call the carrier and get that straightened out.
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Posted by Seth on January 29, 2012 under Flying, News |
What happens when an airline CEO gets ahold of a Twitter account? In the case of JetBlue CEO David Barger, the answer is an entertaining amalgamation of content. And some of it is even about the airline. Actually, this week, a ton of it was about the airline.
In a guest post I’ve got online for Flying with Fish today, I take a look at route scheduling, as seen through the lens of Barger’s Twitter feed. He gives hope to some communities (PVD, I’m looking at you) and dashes the dreams of others (HVN, MSN, LAL and MLB all take a hit). Even better, however, is that he also manages to engage others from within the company.
Then again, maybe "better" isn’t the correct term there. Being told to zip it by your Corporate Communications group probably isn’t the most appealing tweet to read.
Anywho, give the post a read; there’s some interesting stuff in it.
Posted by Seth on January 27, 2012 under Flying, Trip Reports |
Take a random, tiny airline with a handful of prop planes flying the islands of Hawaii and give them a little bit of encouragement and what happens? Something ridiculous like this. Mokulele is a regional operator in Hawaii, flying a few Cessna aircraft on hops within the islands. And now they’re aiming big, really big.
The company has received approval to operate scheduled charter service from Honolulu to Rockford, Illinois and continuing service to London‘s Stansted airport. Of course, they won’t be doing this with their Cessnas. They are chartering a 767-200 aircraft to run the operations. I cannot imagine that it will be a particularly comfortable in-flight experience, nor a particularly cheap one. We are talking about roughly 18-20 hours wedged into a tight, charter seating configuration with minimal amenities.
Still, the lines and the operator have me pining for a chance. Oh, and I’m going to be in Hawaii anyways at the beginning of June thanks to the inaugural Hawaiian Airlines JFK-HNL service, so I’ve got the opportunity.
Now to see just how ridiculous it prices.
Hat tip to the folks at NYC Aviation for sharing the details on this one.
And, as always, thanks to GCMap.com for the cool maps.
Posted by Seth on January 26, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, News |
Today’s quarterly earnings conference call from JetBlue had a few interesting bits of information that was unveiled, giving insight into future developments that can be expected from the carrier. The company reported a profit for both Q4 2011 and the full year, but there are also some very real challenges that the company is facing in 2012. As one person said on the call, "The honeymoon we enjoyed prior to this period is over."
A lot of the news which I found most interesting was around the "Even More" products that the company sells. What started with Even More Legroom seats offering additional pitch in the cabin has expanded to Even More Space (offering pre-boarding to ensure overhead bin space) and Even More Speed for access to priority security lines in many airports. This service started in 15 airports and recently expanded to 9 more. And selling the service resulted in $120MM of incremental revenue for the company in 2011. That’s a huge number, more than 20% of the total incremental that the company saw in the year.
Given the high revenue realized from the offering, it is not surprising that the company is expanding the number of seats for which it can be purchased. Specifically, the company confirmed that they will be adding 8 more seats to their Embraer E90 planes in the Q2/Q3 timeframe this year. Full details aren’t yet available on the announcement (seems to be a bit of a pattern there lately) but a quick review of the seat map suggests that they can get away with sliding a couple rows behind the exit row around and not really have to change too much else around, so long as they’re willing to keep the 34" pitch that the E90 has. If they go for the 38" that the A320s have they could also do that behind the exit row with minimal impact to customers, changing the other seats in that section from 33" to 32" pitch. Either way, it looks to be a positive change for the company to make more EML seats available.
Beyond the Even More bits, the honeymoon comment piqued my curiosity. The company had a huge growth spurt a few years back, taking on a bunch of new airplanes in a very short timeframe. Those acquisitions are now hitting the magic point in the life of an airplane known as a "C-Check." The maintenance costs for the C-Check and engine restorations on the aircraft are significant and the number of planes the company has going through that process in the next couple years is quite high. The result is a spike in maintenance costs. JetBlue has worked with their maintenance suppliers to mitigate the costs somewhat, but it will still be a challenge for the company in the coming years. And that’s all with a fleet that is still only 6.1 years old on average with a maximum age of 12 years.
There was mention of the new Hawaiian Airlines partnership, but no additional details shared there. And it was suggested that 5-7 new partners will be coming online in 2012, with links at Boston and Orlando likely rather than just at New York City. I’m betting on JAL being a partner via Boston with their new service there starting soon, but who knows.
Other than those bits, not a whole lot of interest. Plenty of accounting mumbo jumbo but nothing that seems especially significant at this point. And there are still a number of open questions, like where the company stands on rolling out additional benefits for their most frequent customers or many of the partnership details with Hawaiian. I guess patience will have to suffice.
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Posted by Seth on January 25, 2012 under Dining, Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
A trip from Stockholm to Istanbul shouldn’t take 4 days. That said, it can if you want it to thanks to the joys of airline scheduling and the rather impressive route network of Star Alliance within Europe, I managed to schedule just such a trip, with stops along to way to see friends and also three new (to me) cities. First on that list was Berlin and the flight down was on SAS.
The flight was relatively quick and uneventful. I actually remember very little of it thanks, in part, to a rocking hangover. But nothing really happened that was at all special. I was hungry so I bought the chicken salad snack box during the flight (all food AND beverages were BoB only!). The Swedish version of pasta salad isn’t really my thing, but it wasn’t bad. The chicken and the lettuce part of the salad were pretty good. I’d call it overpriced in general, though not really so bad once you figure in both the Scandinavia and airplane markups.
The most memorable bit of the flight for me was the final approach into Berlin’s Tegel airport. It was right a sunset and that let to some great views of the suburbs, Tegel airport and the general area as we made our way down.
Like most flights, this one wasn’t really all that special, either good or bad. That’s just the way I like them.
Tags: Berlin, Dining, EuroHopping, Flying, in flight, Photos, review, Star Alliance, Stockholm, Sweden, Trip Report
Posted by Seth on January 24, 2012 under Flying, News |
Spirit Airlines is protesting the new fare rules requiring full disclosure of all costs for a flight, claiming that the government is requiring them to hide the taxes from their customers. And they’re doing it in style. Their main homepage now shows this when you visit:
If you click the link offered you get this:
Thanks to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s latest fare rules, Spirit must now HIDE the government’s taxes and fees in your fares.
If the government can hide taxes in your airfares, then they can carry out their hidden agenda and quietly increase their taxes. (Yes, such talks are already underway.)
And if they can do it to the airline industry, what’s next?
As the transparency leader and most consumer-friendly airline, Spirit DOES NOT support this new USDOT mandate. We believe the better form of transparency is to break out costs so customers know exactly what they’re buying.
The scary thing here is that I almost actually agree with them.
It is true that, by requiring the big, final price number to be displayed to the customer the actual tax burden is obfuscated. So they’re not really wrong there. But that obfuscation also prevents all sorts of other fees from being hidden, the sorts of fees that Spirit is famous for. And that’s a good thing.
Plus, at the end of the day, most customers care much less about how much of the fare is for taxes and how much is for the airline. A $300 ticket is a $300 debit on my credit card. Whether the airline keeps $150 or $250 of that doesn’t skew whether I think it is a good price for the trip.
Besides, there is nothing stopping Spirit from showing the full breakdown underneath the all-in price. That way they can continue to be a "transparency leader and most consumer-friendly airline" as they always have.
Posted by Seth on January 20, 2012 under Dining, Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
Any trip that starts with a dozen folks hanging out in the lounge, enjoying a few drinks before the flight, has strong potential. That I had already been in the lounge 2+ hours when the others started to arrive didn’t hurt the situation either. And the fact that my upgrade into the BusinessFirst cabin on the 757-200 had cleared at the time of booking made things even better. So it was slightly lubricated that I made my way down to the duty free shop and then to the gate for a flight from Newark to Stockholm.
Boarding was a bit of a mess, even though we arrived at the gate towards the end of the process. We were awaiting the last of the duty free deliveries which took us precariously close to departure time and my mobile boarding pass failed, causing me to hunt down a printed one while the gate agent dealt with some other issues which involved the police. Still, I had sufficient time to stow my bags in the overhead and settle in to 1E with a glass of champagne prior to departure.
I also was able to find the International Concierge working the flight, despite his best efforts to remain invisible in the cabin. Somewhat critical to the success of our first day in Stockholm, I requested access to the arrivals facility that the BusinessFirst service provides. In Stockholm this is a day room at the Radisson Blu hotel in the airport. There were four of us in the forward cabin so four rooms were requested. And he actually followed through on the request; the agent meeting the flight knew that we needed the rooms and was ready for us (sortof).
I chatted with my seatmate a bit during our short taxi out to Runway 22R and the ~7.5 hour flight to Sweden began.
It turns out that there are only two bottles of Heidsieck Monopole catered in the forward cabin on a 752. Those went pretty quickly, starting with the warmed nuts service and lasting part of the way through the appetizer service. The nuts were not particularly memorable but the apps were. Both the cold seafood soup and the beef empanada were quite nice. There was a salad, too.
I took a risk when ordering dinner: I chose the miSteak. It is a complete crap-shoot taking that route. Sometimes the meat is horribly overcooked and miserable. For this flight, however, it was cooked to a reasonable medium doneness (still way overcooked for my tastes, but at least edible) and actually tasted pretty good. The accompanying sides (creamed spinach, asparagus and a potato patty of some sort) were not particularly memorable, either for being good or bad.
And then there is the hour-long foodgasm that is dessert on the BF flights. First was the cheese plate, served with a reasonable glass of Port. Not particularly great cheeses, but the flavors were where they should be for the types served. Next up was the ice cream sundaes. I only had one (caramel and chocolate, thank you very much), but there were extras making their way back to the galley which may have been waylaid by a couple of the other guys. And then there were the pastries. They’ve got nothing on Austrian, to be sure, but they were pretty tasty.
And then it was time to try for some much needed sleep. I actually managed to get 3-4 hours which is pretty good for an eastbound redeye; it helps that this is one of the longer flights being run out of Newark to Europe. Plus, I managed to sleep through the relatively poor breakfast offering which was a good plan based on the reports I got from the others.
The food was fine, as was the seat and the sleep. What truly made the flight for me, however, was the crew. It is usually easy to tell at the beginning of a flight if the crew is enjoying themselves or not, and that generally translates into a better in flight experience. This crew was having a great time from the get go and it really did play out through the rest of the flight. It really is great to fly with a crew that enjoys their job.
Overall the trip was a very good one. Most of that is attributable to the crew, combined with having a bunch of friends on board, but I’m not so sure the reasoning matters as much as the fact that it was a nice flight. Even with the very recent surprisingly nice flight on Lufthansa, I have to say that the legacy Continental product that United is offering these days tops it, both in food and seat. It is one of the better business products across the pond.
Tags: Continental, Dining, EuroHopping, Flying, in flight, Lounge, Lufthansa, Newark, Photos, review, Stockholm, Sweden, Trip Report, United, United Airlines, upgrade
Posted by Seth on January 18, 2012 under Dining, Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
By the time we got to London we had been on the go roughly 34 hours. Sure, a decent amount of that time was spent in the glorious confines of Emirates‘ A380 First Class Suites but we were still pretty beat. The last flight of our vacation was all that remained – British Airways from Heathrow to JFK – in first class on the 747-400. When booking the flights I did my best to ensure that we would have the new first class product so as to hopefully experience the best that BA has to offer. When we got home I actually had to go back and double check to make sure that the product we saw was the new one; the experience itself wasn’t defining enough that I knew.
Yes, I had just come off of Emirates and their Suite so I’m sure that my point of reference is somewhat skewed. And I’m a bit disappointed that we couldn’t get a spa treatment in the Concorde Room lounge, though that is in part due to our short connection and my not pre-booking because of uncertainty with the connection times. But the seat itself was not particularly impressive, especially not for a first class product.
There is no doubt that the seat is good on privacy, but it isn’t particularly large. And, unlike other first class seats I’ve flown in, the British Airways seat tapers somewhat dramatically at the foot. Not enough to be uncomfortable to fly in, but I’m also not nearly the tallest or widest passenger they’re going to be dealing with; I’m actually probably smaller than average for the F cabin.
On the plus side, the soft product on board was incredibly good. I slept nearly the entire flight in the quite comfy PJs I was offered so I didn’t really eat or drink much, but the bits I had were very tasty. At the top of my list was one of the appetizers, a seafood dish that was delicious and also quite nicely presented.
I’ll give a bit of a pass on the lounge bit as missing the spa treatment was at least partially my fault. That said, the quality of the food served was, well, British. Not bad, but also not particularly awesome or inspired. And the soft product was very, very nice, definitely first class. But the hard product on board – the seat – really was a bit of a let down. I understand that the new seat – particularly the iFE options are better than the old one. To me that’s more a comment on how bad the old one was than an endorsement of the new product.
At this point I’d say that there are a number of business class products that I’d probably take over the BA first option, unless BA is pricing first at the business class price. In this case it was more or less free as an add-on to the Emirates fare home from Sri Lanka so I’m not really upset about it, but I was definitely expecting better from BA. I literally had to check after the flight to figure out if I really was on the new product. That’s probably not the impression they’re trying to leave with customers.
On the plus side, snagging seat 1K and getting to look out the front of the plane was pretty awesome.
Tags: A380, Airbus, Boeing, British Airways, Dining, Emirates, in flight, London, NYE2011, Photos, review, Trip Report
