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 Trip Reports, points |
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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Posted by Seth on January 29, 2010 under frequent flyer |
Nearly a year ago American Airlines sent a letter to the IRS defining about 40 different “services” that the carrier offers to its customers. They asked for specific rulings on each of the 40 with respect to § 4261 of the IRS code, the section that covers the specific activities for which the airlines are required to collect and remit taxes. In general such a document wouldn’t be all that interesting, but there are a couple things that this particular one has in it that are worth noting. The impact on taxes for baggage fees has already been covered, and that is reasonably interesting, but there are two specific entries in the services list that describe potential future offerings. These are the two bits that piqued my interests most.
- Service P allows Members to purchase “bonus” Miles (i.e., double or triple miles) on certain flights to be credited to the Member’s Account. Currently, this service is occasionally offered to members free of charge on a limited-time basis. However, Taxpayer is preparing to offer Service P for a fee.
United Airlines currently offers a program similar to that identified as “Service P” above. They call it their Award Accelerator and it is generally a pretty bad deal; the points are too expensive. Continental also offfers something similar with their “Extra Mile” promo every year. So American wouldn’t be breaking new ground with such a more. Still, it would be an interesting move to see American attempt to further monetize their frequent flyer program and cash in on the obsession with points.
- Service CC allows Members to redeem Miles for the purchase of air transportation on Taxpayer’s website. At the time this letter ruling request was issued, Taxpayer was not charging a fee for Service CC. Taxpayer is, however, contemplating implementation of a fee for this service. The fee would be charged at the time of ticketing.
This one is a bit more worrisome from the consumer perspective. It suggests that AA is considering adding a booking fee for reward ticket reservations made through the website. Currently most airlines charge for such reservations when they are booked through the call center. Extending that out to bookings made online would be quite a leap. Currently there are a couple airlines that have such “convenience fees” for bookings but it would be quite a shock for a legacy carrier to start down that route. The verbiage is sufficiently different – “contemplating implementation” versus “preparing to offer” – that it doesn’t seem likely such charges are imminent, but it is out there now and intriguing enough to raise an eyebrow or two.
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Posted by Seth on January 21, 2010 under Trip Reports |
It has been a long couple weeks on the ground in New York City. Sure, I’m having plenty of fun but I’m also working a lot more than usual so getting back into the air is a great pleasure that I get to indulge in this weekend. And it really is a bit of indulgence – probably more fun than I should have in any given weekend.
First up today is the trek from New York to Seattle. I’m flying via Chicago to meet up with some friends who are based there. Plus it is my first opportunity to use my Continental Star Alliance Gold credentials while flying with United Airlines so that’s been fun to see how it plays out. Oh, and it means free drinks thanks to a large supply of coupons provided by one of the guys in the group. Today is two flights and gets me across the country but that’s just the beginning for the weekend.
After a couple days in Seattle we’re flying down to Houston on Continental. We’ll spend a day there doing some things with the carrier and then it is on to San Diego on Sunday. I’ll be flying on US Airways via Phoenix because of the significant cost savings. That’s five flights and three cities over four days.
The trip home will be equally entertaining. On Monday I fly San Diego – Los Angeles – Portland – Seattle – Newark on a combination of United, United Express and Continental. I get three new routes and a new aircraft type – the Embrear 120. Yeah, it is a tiny turboprop and I don’t expect it to be particularly wonderful in terms of the in-flight experience, but it does get me very, very close to closing out the entire Embrear product line in terms of aircraft flown. This is the second time I’m trying for the E120 and last time I was the victim of delays so I missed it. I’m hoping that I can get it more quickly than I did the upper deck of the 747; that was way too many tries.
On the plus side, the lounges have all been nice thus far. The Bloody Mary at the Presidents Club in LaGuardia this morning was perfect, as always. The Goose Island brew at the newly remodeled Red Carpet Club was excellent; I’m a fan of local beers in the lounges. And the drink certs on the flights have come in quite handy. The plane is now out of rum and gin; yeah, we’re having a great time here. More of the same is expected this weekend in air world. It is a great place to visit frequently.
Posted by Seth on January 18, 2010 under News |
The Department of Transportation announced on Friday that United Airlines has been assessed a fine of $30,000 for failing to properly disclose fares inclusive of taxes on their website. Specifically, there was a 60 hour period during which United failed to include the 7.5% Federal Excise Tax in fares displayed at www.united.com. Although they quickly resolved the issue when confronted with the error the carrier was still hit with a rather notable fine, mostly because this was the second such violation in a short period of time.
In August United had a similar violation for which they were fined $75,000. Half of that fine was suspended for a one year period pending any further violations of the regulation. They barely made it four months of that probationary year before committing a similar violation, however, meaning that they were required to pay not only the new $30,000 fine but also the $37,500 still pending from the previous violation.
Whoopsie!
Posted by Seth on January 15, 2010 under News |
Continental loves their hubs. They have historically had an incredibly intense focus on offering only hub-and-spoke service, to the point that non-hub routes could be counted on your fingers, sometimes only requiring one hand. Things are changing, however, and the non-hub route map is growing.
Late last year Continental announced several non-hub routes serving Hawaii from Los Angeles and Orange County. Today they’ve announced service between Portland, Oregon and Anchorage. The service will be seasonal for the peak summer months and not particularly well timed for connections from Newark but it will serve the local market and other west-coast feed (from United , I suppose) reasonably well. From the release:
The flight from Portland International Airport (PDX) will depart at 6:10 p.m. and arrive at Ted Stevens International Airport (ANC) in Anchorage at 8:55 p.m. The return flight will depart Anchorage at 1:25 a.m. and arrive in Portland at 6:15 a.m. Continental will operate the flight with a Boeing 737-800 with 160 seats.
I might need to start using my toes to count the non-hub routes soon. Nice to see some growth in the industry.
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Posted by Seth on January 8, 2010 under Mileage Run |
Interesting in a weekend getaway to London? Wanna more than double the number of miles you travel to get there?
There’s a “sale” of sorts on right now for flights between New York City and London that isn’t all that phenomenal, especially for travel only into mid-March. Seriously, a $650 fare is nothing to write home about normally. But this one is somewhat unique in that a permissible routing is via Los Angeles, California. That more than doubles the miles involved (and roughly triples the travel time) making it a somewhat better value for folks looking to accrue miles.
The fare requires a Saturday night stay and expires March 15th. The timing of the flights via LAX mean that there is a forced overnight in London. Happy trails!
Posted by Seth on January 5, 2010 under News |
Airline bankruptcies are never a good thing and it is certainly a terrible way to start the new year. But such a filing was made by Mesa Air Group this morning with the carrier seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Dan over at Things in the Sky has a pretty good review of the filing and potential impact it may have. Most notable is that the regional carrier seems to think that this will help them receive legal relief (or at least resolution) more quickly in cases they have pending against Delta and United Airlines regarding the larger carriers terminating regional services. But even if Mesa wins those lawsuits I’m not sure the cash is enough to help them deal with the large number of regional jets they’ve got lying around now with no customers.
The Mesa operation in Hawaii, go! Airlines, is excepted from the filing so that operation is running as normal right now. That seems strange but I’m sure there is a legal reason to do it that way.
Posted by Seth on December 23, 2009 under Flying, News |
The weather last weekend from Washington, DC to Boston was pretty miserable for folks looking to fly. I had a blast watching the almost foot of snow pile up on the back deck and then wandering through Manhattan the following morning but I know that the airports, airlines and passengers didn’t fare so well. Just how badly they fared, however, is interesting to look at.
In Washington, DC, both United and Delta cancelled all of their flights in and out for the duration of the storm. They didn’t have much choice as the airports were shut down for several hours. United got back up and running pretty quickly while Delta was a bit slower to get started. It makes sense as Dulles is a major hub for United. Plus, Delta did send in a few extra planes late on Sunday to help move passengers around.
In New York City there were also a large number of flights canceled. Delta, United, jetBlue and Continental all had to cancel a number of flights. jetBlue seemed to keep operating the longest, running flights into JFK well after the others had stopped on Saturday night. Yes, it was still snowing, but the airport had their ground operations crews working hard to make sure that the runways were safe and jetBlue had just a few extra planeloads of passengers that they didn’t end up stranding. Again, it is a hub operation so it makes sense that they were focused on keeping things operating as much as possible.
JFK is also a hub for Delta, however, and they didn’t come out of the snow too well there. They canceled the vast majority of their transcontinental flights out of JFK on Sunday (only 2/11 flew) while the other carriers operated about 80% of their transcon routes. Delta didn’t send one single plane from JFK to Florida on Sunday. After the snow had stopped. They should have had crew available since those folks didn’t fly on Saturday. Ditto for aircraft. Yet they didn’t. Why not?
The icing on the cake for Delta, of course, is that with all the cancelations and the increased load factors in play right now – a function of the holiday travel season and significant capacity cuts in the industry – they aren’t able to get passengers rebooked very easily. This came to a head yesterday when police were called to handle passengers delayed 3 days trying to get back to Haiti. When the folks think that Haiti is better than the service and facilities you’re providing you know there are some serious issues. At least Delta finally stepped up and added a special flight for today to get those folks home.
Continental seemed to come out of the mess relatively unscathed. Sure, they canceled a bunch of flights just like everyone else, but they didn’t seem to have too many crises come out of the efforts. And they were able to get up and running on Sunday morning with a pretty full schedule operating.
US Airways proved true to form from a customer service perspective. They were boarding and upgrading non-revenue passengers rather than paying customers. They told standby passengers that flights were full and then sent the flights out with empty seats. Bad form.
And lest anyone think the troubles were isolated to the United States, folks over in Europe didn’t fare much better. Combining two package tour companies going out of business in the past week and some storms there and things are not good. Brussels was closed for several hours as were the London airports. Fortunately British Airways had some spare wide-body aircraft around to help cover for the cancellations but things aren’t pretty there either.
With predictions of a White Christmas in NYC this year we could be looking at a repeat performance again this weekend. I’m glad to be flying out on Thursday evening before the fun really starts.
Posted by Seth on December 21, 2009 under Flying |
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced this morning that the Department of Transportation (DoT) has established a “Passenger Bill of Rights.” These new rules cover a number of things, from the amount of time – 3 hours – that passengers can be held on an airplane on the ground before the airline must permit them to deplane to ground service requirements and handling chronically delayed flights. Failure to comply will expose the airlines to a fine of $27,500 per passenger on board. The following is the meat of the DoT rule:
The final rule requires that each plan include, at a minimum, the following: (1) an assurance that, for domestic flights, the air carrier will not permit an aircraft to remain on the tarmac for more than three hours unless the pilot-in-command determines there is a safety-related or security-related impediment to deplaning passengers (e.g. weather, air traffic control, a directive from an appropriate government agency, etc.), or Air Traffic Control advises the pilot-in-command that returning to the gate or permitting passengers to disembark elsewhere would significantly disrupt airport operations; (2) for international flights that depart from or arrive at a U.S. airport, an assurance that the air carrier will not permit an aircraft to remain on the tarmac for more than a set number of hours, as determined by the carrier in its plan, before allowing passengers to deplane, unless the pilot-in-command determines there is a safety-related or security-related reason precluding the aircraft from doing so, or Air Traffic Control advises the pilot-in-command that returning to the gate or permitting passengers to disembark elsewhere would significantly disrupt airport operations; (3) for all flights, an assurance that the air carrier will provide adequate food and potable water no later than two hours after the aircraft leaves the gate (in the case of a departure) or touches down (in the case of an arrival) if the aircraft remains on the tarmac, unless the pilot-in-command determines that safety or security requirements preclude such service; (4) for all flights, an assurance of operable lavatory facilities, as well as adequate medical attention if needed, while the aircraft remains on the tarmac; (5) an assurance of sufficient resources to implement the plan; and (6) an assurance that the plan has been coordinated with airport authorities at all medium and large hub airports that the carrier serves, including medium and large hub diversion airports. Failure to do any of the above would be considered an unfair and deceptive practice within the meaning of 49 U.S.C. §41712 and subject to enforcement action, which could result in an order to cease and desist as well as the imposition of civil penalties.
Most interesting to me is that they have chosen to declare that any violation of this rule is “considered an unfair and deceptive practice.” That is the same rule that the DoT used when announcing fines against Continental, ExpressJet and Delta’s Mesaba subsidiary earlier this year, the first time they issued a fine related to a tarmac stranding event. Such an approach, while permitting the government to do something, seems to be a bit of a stretch in terms of “unfair and deceptive.” Still, the rules have now been filed in the Federal Register and will be going into effect 120 days from today, just in time for the Passover holiday travel rush.
The penalties defined above only apply between the carriers and the DoT. There is still the issue of how passengers will be compensated (or if they should be) in such cases. The DoT doesn’t specifically answer those questions but they do define the systems by which airlines will be required to hear complaints from customers and what the airlines must do in response.
In this regard, we agree with ATA that we need not require carriers to receive complaints by telephone. In reaching this conclusion, we do not mean to imply that carriers should not have in place some mechanism for resolving consumer problems in real time, and failure to do so may require us to revisit this decision in the future. We also do not see the necessity in requiring carriers to accept complaints by fax. As a result, this rule only requires carriers to provide passengers their email or web-form address and their mailing address.
We have decided to adopt a rule along the lines set forth in the NPRM. The Department believes that 30 days to acknowledge a complaint and 60 days to provide a passenger with a substantive response represent standard practice in the industry and should allow carriers adequate time to investigate and respond appropriately. By “substantive response” we mean a response that addresses the specific problems about which the consumer has complained. This type of response often results in a resolution of the complaint. We are also clarifying that by “complaint” we mean a specific written expression of dissatisfaction concerning a difficulty or problem which the person experienced when using or attempting to use an airline’s services and that contains sufficient information for the carrier to identify the passenger.
So the airlines don’t have to accept complaints via telephone (good for you, US Airways and United Airlines) but they do have to actually respond to them (watch out, Continental) and in a substantive way that actually addresses the problem. This should be good for consumers overall.
Another positive move from this action is that the airlines will be forced to publish not only the generic on-tie percentage of their flights but also the number of severe delays (> 30 minutes) and to highlight if that happens on more than half the monthly operations of a flight. The airlines will also be forced to publish if flights are canceled more than 5% of the time in the previous month.
…[T]he Department views the posting of the percentage of arrivals that were more than 30 minutes late as important because consumers are particularly interested in significant delays as these delays are the kind that are likely to result in missed connections and other serious problems. The Department is also requiring special highlighting of flights if they are late more than 30 minutes of scheduled arrival time more than 50 percent of the time to enable consumers to make more informed travel decisions.
So it is mostly a good thing. And there is still the great loophole for the airlines, “unless the pilot-in-command determines there is a safety-related or security-related impediment to deplaning passengers (e.g. weather, air traffic control, a directive from an appropriate government agency, etc.), or Air Traffic Control advises the pilot-in-command that returning to the gate or permitting passengers to disembark elsewhere would significantly disrupt airport operations.” There will still be plenty of opportunities for passengers to be stranded on the tarmac. And if they are then all the DoT will require is that the airline pay a fine to the government; there is still no requirement of compensation or accommodation to the customers for violations. Such an approach does not seem so great for the passengers on the surface.
I just hope that next time we’re number 4 for takeoff after a 3 hour hold no one turns the plane around and heads back to the gate. That guarantees a cancelation instead of a 3:15 delay and I know that the latter is worse. And now that the DoT has addressed this problem maybe they can get back to work at addressing the underlying source of the problem – the antiquated FAA Air Traffic Control system – and help create a system where the flights can actually operate on time rather than needing to worry about punishment for when they don’t. The ridiculous slot and flow control issues that the FAA and airports have today contribute more to the problems than any airlines’ operational desires. No airline WANTS to keep passengers out on the tarmac for hours. But when the system cannot handle the number of flights passing through it then the system has to be considered part of the problem.
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