Posted by Seth on December 31, 2011 under frequent flyer, points, Trip Reports | 
As 2011 comes to a close it is time once again to look back at all the crazy I’ve managed to experience in such a short period of time. This was once again a banner year for me, with plenty of new experiences. It also had a number of repeats, however, and those were mostly good, too. And so, without further ado, some of the highlights of my 2011 travel numbers.
It was a personal best for me in terms of total miles flown at 217,781. That is more than eight times around the globe (though I only did that as an actual trip once) or 87% of the way to the moon. The miles were spread across 103 segments for an average of over 2100 miles/flight; apparently this was the year of long-haul for me. That said, I also managed to grab some really short flights, like a 93 mile hop from Carlsbad, CA to Los Angeles. Awesome views of sunrise on that one.
It was also the year of one million actual flight miles. I actually know there are many more from other trips as a kid that I cannot properly document so I’m not counting them, but I definitely became a millionaire this year.
Of the 104 segments there were 54 routes I had previously not flown. There were also 54 in coach. That’s right, more than half the flights (though only 47% of the total miles flown) were in coach. It isn’t always champagne and caviar for me, though there is plenty of that, too. Oh, and only 5 of those segments were work-related, making up less than 1% of the total mileage flown. Only 19 of the flights were on regional planes of fewer than 90 seats.
Speaking of airplanes, I flew on 33 different aircraft types, including 7 I had not previously flown on. I finally got to fly on an A380 (though I had been on one a few times prior) and I got to fly the 787 in its first week of commercial service. I also got the A345 and A342, a Dash8-100 and an E35, completing my collection of all the Embraer RJs. That’s something of an ignominious accomplishment, but there it is.
I flew on 17 different carriers, of which 5 were new to me. SriLankan, AirOne, South African, ANA, Austrian and Alaska Airlines were the new ones and all but AirOne were quite pleasant.
As for where I traveled, there weren’t as many new countries for me this year – only 7 – as last. Austria, South Africa, Mauritius, China, Brazil, Argentina and Sri Lanka are the new entries in that collection, bringing my total number over 50. I managed to enter a foreign country 20 times through the year, plus all the returns to the USA. No wonder I needed extra pages in my passport. Again. Two of the trips had 3 countries in them; I’ll best that mark early in 2012 with a six-crossing week in January.
Perhaps the most surprising number to me, however, was the total spend I had in consular fees. I paid for new pages for my passport and for my wife. There were also the visas required for India, China, Brazil and Argentina (though I ended up getting out of that last one). Overall I spent nearly $1,000 on consular fees alone. No regrets there at all, but the numbers can add up in a hurry.
I didn’t count how many nights were in hotels or on airplanes (something to add to my list next year, I suppose) but my best guess count based on my TripIt records is nearly 100 nights spent not at home.
There was a trip derailed by an earthquake (I ended up in Guam/Hong Kong instead of Tokyo) and then two more trips later in the year to Tokyo to make up for it. I had an airline try to charge me more while at the gate and I managed to take a VDB in a foreign language. I got to drive a jet bridge, load baggage, make boarding announcements and walk a plane out on pushback (all appropriately supervised, of course).
I got to join three different couples in celebrating their weddings all over the world and narrowly missed out on crashing a couple more wedding parties here in India towards the end. I got to relive a bit of history with TWA and a ride in a helicopter over the tip of South Africa.
I saw penguins, went diving in the Pacific and pet an elephant in India. There were also giraffes, cheetahs and antelopes. Plenty of wild in my life.
Indeed, it was a good year, maybe even a great year. And 2012 shows no signs of that letting up. Happy new year to all; may your upgrades clear and your flights on time.
Tags: 787, A380, Airbus, Alaska Airlines, ANA, Argentina, Austria, Boeing, Brazil, China, Dreamliner, Embraer, India, Mauritius, South Africa, South African Airways, Sri Lanka, SriLankan
Posted by Seth on December 13, 2011 under Mileage Run, Trip Reports |
August 6, 1945. In the blink of an eye the world had changed. Just a few hundred feet above Hiroshima, Japan, a bomb unlike any other ever used before detonated. The effects are still being felt today, nearly 70 years later. The tens of thousands who died immediately were, in many cases, the lucky ones, compared to those who suffered the after-effects in subsequent years. Today the city of Hiroshima has recovered rather impressively. But at its heart remains the shell of the one building left mostly standing when the bomb went off, a memorial to the dead and an eerie reminder of just how good we are at destroying ourselves.
That the building remains at all is something of a surprise. In part that is because it survived the explosion which was centered nearly directly above. But more because the Japanese were rather keen on razing the damaged structure shortly after the attack and clearing the space for reconstruction. Eventually the conservationists won out and the remains of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now generally known as Genbaku, or A-bomb Dome, is now preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
There’s more to the area than just the dome. While it is the iconic center of the Peace Park area there are a number of other memorials within a 10 minute walk. Some are dedicated to specific groups (students and children are most common) and there is also the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum at the south end of the walk which holds some incredible artifacts from that fateful day and other exhibits as well.
Among those artifacts are watches which stopped at the moment of impact. Even if their owners had survived the watches would not be able to change from that point in time with the gears seized up from the explosion.
There was also a tricycle and helmet that were the prized toys of a small child killed in the aftermath of the explosion. His father buried them with his son in a grave near their home. Only years later was the body dug up and moved to a proper cemetery and the bike taken out to be preserved.
There are many more pictures and exhibits in the museum, nearly all of which are heart-wrenching. It is an experience that is not to be missed (the admission was a trivial ¥50, approximately USD $0.60) but is is also an experience that is both humbling and awesome.
Between the museum and the Dome the Peace Park are any more memorials and even more stories. One of the more famous is that of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. As a child suffering from leukemia as a result of the bombing Sadako heard the tale of folding one thousand paper cranes and having that grant a wish. The ending of the story varies as to whether the full 1,000 were folded by Sadako or not but she died not long after starting the effort. Her story is now shared in schools the world over with folded paper cranes arriving nearly daily at the memorial site (approximately 9 tons annually). The cranes have become something of a symbol for the city (ANA used them in their local announcement of 787 service) and for peace around the world.
On the day of my visit there were a few different school groups who came to the site to offer up their cranes to the memorial. Each group had a small performance associated with the offering (I have no idea what they were singing, of course) and then quickly made way for the next group such that all had the opportunity to participate.
There is also the Cenotaph dedicated to the victims of the bombing. Regardless of nationality, names are added to the registry held in the stone chest that sits under the arched roof. The chest holds more than 221,000 names and bears the inscription (translated from the Japanese), “Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil.”
There is a Peace Bell in the park as well. Every now and then the sound of the bell rings out over the area; it is often the only sound you’ll hear walking through unless a school group is near by. The bell is marked with a map of the world that ignores national boundaries. The strike point of the mounted log is an icon of the atom such that each time the bell tolls a statement is made opposing atomic weapons.
A visit to the Peace Park can be emotionally draining, to be certain. It definitely was for me. But absolutely, completely and totally worth it. I’m incredibly happy that I chose Hiroshima as the interloping city for my 787 Dreamliner adventure and that I got to have the experience. It is unparalleled.
Read more from this Trip Report under the Dream2011 tag here.
Posted by Seth on December 11, 2011 under Hotel, Review, Trip Reports |
As part of my quick run to Japan for a flight on ANA‘s 787 Dreamliner I found myself in need of a hotel quite close to Haneda airport. Normally I’d stay in a small room or pod hotel when in Tokyo (I’ve done a plywood box, too!) but with the subway not running 24×7 there I was concerned about getting out to the airport in time for a 6:45am departure and not spending a fortune on a taxi. There is a hotel at the terminal but the rates there for the nights I needed were rather steep; instead I found myself at the JAL City hotel, just a few minutes from the terminal.
Not being at the airport offered a few benefits over and above the lower rate. The hotel is located just a couple blocks from a subway station with a solid collection of restaurants and shops lining the path between the two. That made it quite easy for me to get a beer on arrival between the train and the hotel as well as dinner the one night I needed it.
It also meant that getting to and from the hotel was incredibly easy. The hotel offers a free shuttle but service from the international terminal wasn’t running when I arrived and I didn’t really want to wait around the second night after I returned from Hiroshima so I took the train both times coming in. With the subway running every 10 minutes or so and the fare at ¥300 (~$3.50) or less it was easy and cheap to just hop on the train.
As for the room, it was pretty much exactly what I expected from a "single" in Tokyo: SMALL. Enough room for me to dump my bag and sleep and even get into the bathroom but not much additional space for hanging out or relaxing. When I wanted to sit at the desk I found that the bed was quite close. Still, it was pretty much exactly what I needed for the nights I was there and only ~$120/night which was pretty good given the convenience of the location (the on-airport hotel was ~$250/night).
The other particularly interesting part of this hotel stay was that I needed to have some laundry done. I was on the road for 10 days with only a small backpack so the laundry day wasn’t really a surprise. In fact it was a planned part of the itinerary. And I think my clothes may have had a better time at the hotel than I did. They were certainly more pampered. The five shirts and pair of jeans I had cleaned came back individually wrapped in plastic. Then wrapped in a bow. Then stacked and wrapped again. Oh, and the shirts had wax paper or something like that folded inside to keep them wrinkle free. And it definitely worked. The clothes traveled quite well for the second half of the trip despite being jammed in the same backpack as the first half.
Overall I have no regrets about the stay. And if I find myself in a similar situation – late arrival or early departure from HND – I wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again. Lacking that time sensitivity I’d head into town, but that’s not always an option.
Read more from this Trip Report under the Dream2011 tag here.
Posted by Seth on December 2, 2011 under News |
Airbus CEO John Leahy is claiming that United Airlines is likely to order the A380 according to a story being carried by Aviation Week. Putting aside the fact that they have been advertising the story with some incredibly misleading headlines suggesting that the order is imminent, there are still issues with the story. Not the least of which is that Leahy actually states that the order is not imminent, though he absolutely seems convinced that the order is coming.
I’m not saying there is an order soon, but United understands that if it wants to have a major presence in Asia it needs the A380.
Airbus has already given up on Delta; the company has indicated it will pursue a policy of smaller widebody aircraft, so United is the only North American carrier left for the manufacturer to try to bring on board.
That leaves United as our target.
There are so many things that don’t add up here. For starters, United has committed to ordering the A350-900. Assuming that shows up eventually it will meet the needs of a multi-hub carrier on many routes that the 747-400s currently operate on. And United has more A350s on order than they have 747s currently in service. On top of that, United has a whole bunch of 787 Dreamliner orders in the pipeline, with initial deliveries currently expected at some point next year.
The A380 is great if you have a huge number of customers that need to be moved between two points – namely hubs – and from which you will then move them on smaller planes after the fact to their eventual destination. The numbers seem to work quite nicely for single-hub carriers where all the passengers can be funneled through a single point. But an operation that has nine hubs needs more flexibility in terms of routes and frequencies.
On top of that, the implication that it is needed to provide service in Asia doesn’t seem to match United’s current route map or indicated plans. There are scarce few intra-Asia routes and those are mostly tag-ons. Replacing those with non-stop 787 service from North American gateways seems much more likely to actually address the demand than flying larger aircraft to the Tokyo hub or Hong Kong.
Oh, and Leahy’s observation that the US airports are already too crowded, while accurate, ignores the fact that much of that congestion is slot hoarding by regional aircraft, flights that are easy for the carriers to scrap if they decide they want to fly bigger aircraft, and the entire premise of the demand Leahy is drawing falls apart pretty quickly.
Oh, and if they really do want a bigger plane don’t forget there’s that Boeing 747-8i out there that is desperate to rack up a few sales to keep the program alive.
The headline certainly got a lot of attention and got folks to read the story, but that doesn’t mean an order is coming any time soon.
Posted by Seth on November 9, 2011 under Flying, Trip Reports |
When booking my flight from Tokyo‘s Haneda airport to Hiroshima to position for my 787 Dreamliner trip I really wanted to book the 7:50am departure. It is a quite civilized time to fly and wouldn’t require waking up at a ridiculous hour to get to the airport. Alas, the inventory I needed for my Japan Pass wasn’t available so I booked the 6:50am flight. The early flight is early, but that was the only viable option for getting to Hiroshima with enough time to see the city and also get the 787 flight. So that’s what I booked.
Haneda is a great airport and I got there quite quickly from the JAL City Haneda hotel (more on that later, I hope) and was hanging out in the lounge prior to flight. The lounge was nice enough, though no food so I ambled back out into the terminal to see about grabbing some breakfast prior to the flight. That’s when I noticed one of the agents behind the counter writing on a large white board. The flight was oversold. Given that I was at the airport an hour earlier than I wanted to be anyways I was happy to volunteer.
The process of volunteering was not as simple as it is in the USA, mostly because I do not speak the language. With some gestures and pointing at the board and my boarding pass I managed to get the point across and the agents asked me to wait to see what would happen. It turns out that they did need me as a volunteer. Woohoo!
There were a number of interesting things about the process. For one, the compensation offer was either cash or points in ANA‘s Mileage Club loyalty program. The offer was JPY 10,000 (~$130) or 7,500 points which is a pretty high valuation for the points. Lacking any use for the points I chose the cash.
After making that choice I realized that there were still a lot of ways this could go wrong. If they needed to mail me a voucher or if they issued a check I was going to have trouble actually collecting on the offer. Much to my surprise, however, that turned out to not be an issue. The comp was paid out at the gate. In cash!
The entire process was incredibly civilized and polite; no real surprise there given that I was in Japan where that sort of thing is taken quite seriously. In the end the JPY 10,000 was about the amount I had paid for the one-way segment and I got the comp in cash which meant it actually had decent value to me. Of course, I didn’t convert it back to dollars so I’ll have to spend it to actually see the value, but that’s just another excuse to head back to Japan, something I don’t need much encouragement for anyways.
Read more from this Trip Report under the Dream2011 tag here.
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Tags: 787, ANA, Dream2011, Dreamliner, Flying, frequent flyer, Hiroshima, Japan, points, Tokyo, Trip Report
Posted by Seth on November 3, 2011 under Flying, Review, Trip Reports |
It was day three of scheduled commercial service for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, operated by ANA, and I was on board. No, it was not the actual inaugural flight, but I still managed to get there within the first week of operations and I could not be more excited about the experience. It was awesome. That’s not to say that everything about the aircraft is perfect, but the experience certainly was.
My flight on the Dreamliner was from Hiroshima to Tokyo‘s Haneda airport. The trip is only about 400 miles and the total time in the air was just over one hour so it wasn’t really sufficient to try out everything on board, especially the effects of the higher pressurization (though I don’t recall my ears popping like usual, but I’m also not great at noticing that because it happens so often) and the more moist cabin air, but I still managed to put it through the paces as best I could.
Boarding was quick and efficient, as expected from the Japanese. Still, they allotted an extra 5 minutes to the process as they knew this was a special experience. There was something of a crush of gate lice to the self-boarding gates as they announced that boarding was available. Fortunately my Star Alliance Gold status (and being the big, ugly American) got me towards the front of the crush and on reasonably early in the process.
Business Class Cabin
Nothing really to say here; looks pretty comfy but this also is not their premium long-haul configuration so I’m not too worried about it.
Economy Cabin
There has been a bit of concern since Seat Guru published their guide to the seat map of the aircraft about the seat width in coach. The 2-4-2 layout (which really is more like 2-2-2-2 without an aisle in the middle) lends itself to a very generous seat width yet the reports on the site show the width as a hip-crushing 16.5". Good news, folks. That data is just plain wrong. The bulkhead rows, where the tray tables are in the arm rest, have the narrower width but the rest of the aircraft has a quite generous 18.5" or more width. The seats are quite roomy.
Seat recline is an interesting change from a typical airplane configuration. The seat back doesn’t actually move. Instead the seat-bottom slides forward about three inches and the back slides down a bit, creating the same effect as reclining. But it does so without imposing the seat on the passenger behind you. This sucks if you have long legs and also want to recline as you’re basically stuck but it is great for folks (like me) who hate having someone reclined into you.
The AVOD system is pretty nice, with 9" screens in coach. That’s about as big as you can get being so close to the screen and still be able to watch comfortably. There is a seat-to-seat messaging system and the screens can be used either as touch screens or with the controller. I was rather unimpressed with the music and video selections; no movies (though maybe because the flight was too short) and only a couple dozen short video programs plus maybe a dozen CDs for music. I hope that’s just because they don’t have the content fully loaded and not because it is going to be such a paltry offering going forward.
I’m also a big fan of the built-in cup holder in the tray table. They have two, one if it is open and one if it is closed, meaning that you can use the tray table for a laptop or other purposes and still have somewhere to stow a drink. Definitely a nice touch.
And then there is the mood lighting. Lots of fun there. The flight attendants were playing with this feature a bit, particularly during boarding and de-planing. It is fun, but I’m not sure it adds much value to the in-flight experience. It does demonstrate the ability to control the lighting levels to a very granular level, which I suppose is a very useful thing.
The windows are HUGE. It was a night flight so I’m not sure how much this really matters, but they were noticeably larger than on older aircraft. We’ll have to see what the net effects of this are in the long term but it certainly was nice. The electronic dimmers on the windows were a bit sluggish to react but they behaved exactly as advertised in the end. Again, a night flight made it hard to really evaluate the impact of this but it was certainly neat.
In the lav
The Japanese and their toilets. Touchless flushing (it puts down the seat, too!) and bidet functions (designed by Toto) are built in to the toilets. There’s also a window in the lav by 3L (though not at 3R). I do like a lav window.
It isn’t perfect
OK, maybe my expectations are just too high. Still, like one of the notes in a review offered up by Kerwin I noticed a few quirks in the flight. It was VERY quiet at cruise, and I was sitting just aft of the wing so I should’ve had engine noise to some extent if there was much. During the flight there wasn’t. That said, the mechanical noises surrounding the operation of the flaps and other wing control surfaces were pretty loud. Again, maybe just because I was sitting basically on top of them, but Kerwin noticed it, too.
There was also a strange "whine" going on throughout the flight. It was very high pitched – like an old tube TV going bad – and I have no idea if others noticed it or not. It kept going even after the engines were shut down upon arrival so I’m guessing it has to do with the electrical power plant on board. No matter what, it was pretty annoying. Not enough to ruin the experience, but if it really is like that going forward I can see it being a problem for me flying on this aircraft.
Finally, the new overhead bins, while well designed for baggage, are not particularly well configured for an adult to climb in. I’m thoroughly disappointed in that development.
It was a great day and a great trip. I’m definitely looking forward to getting back on board soon.
Oh, and if you want to check out the pre-flight safety video it is here:
Read more from this Trip Report under the Dream2011 tag here.
Tags: 787, ANA, Boeing, Dream2011, Dreamliner, Hiroshima, Japan, Photos, review, Star Alliance, Tokyo, video
Posted by Seth on November 3, 2011 under Flying, Trip Reports |
I landed at Tokyo‘s Haneda airport about two hours ago having just flown in on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Hiroshima. The experience was quite spectacular, though not everything about the aircraft was perfect.
That said, it is very late and I’ve been up for near 20 hours now today and the adrenaline is finally wearing off so putting together a full post with coherent thoughts simply isn’t going to happen. Instead I’ve decided to post this teaser with just a few of the many, many photos I shot throughout the day.
A full post will be coming after I’ve slept a few hours, so either late tonight back in the USA or tomorrow; either way it’ll be tomorrow here in Japan. Enjoy the pictures.
Read more from this Trip Report under the Dream2011 tag here.
Posted by Seth on October 21, 2011 under Flying, media coverage, News |
The Wall Street Journal has a piece today about inaugural flights and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner discussing next week’s initial flights for the aircraft and the efforts some folks went through to secure a seat on the flight. After reading the details of what some of the others were willing to go through I can quite easily say that I’m both a bit jealous and also quite certain that I stood no chance of getting anywhere close to being on that first flight.
There is a Mr. Lee who lives in California and who was on the first scheduled flight of the 747 and the Airbus A380. He managed to convince ANA to give him a seat on their inaugural as well, though he does have to pay the same amount as the other lottery winners (~$1,000). Or Mr. Bertuccio who fat-fingered his bid in the auction to win a seat and ended up paying about $7,500 more than he intended to bid, but he got the seat for about $33,500.
And then there’s my line, all the way at the end of the article. Yes, I am indeed ecstatic to have the opportunity to fly on the Dreamliner in its first week of commercial service. I also had a lot more to say in the interview though I’m also not surprised at the line that got quoted. It was definitely the best sound bite I tossed out there.
It does gloss over that I’m stringing together a roughly 20,000 mile journey across 10 flights, three airlines (more if you count regional operators) and sleeping in five different cities in the span of 8 days in order to make this happen and the fact that I did it all for only about $1,200 in airfare. Then again, column inches are tough to come by these days, I suppose.
Only 13 days until I’m on the Dreamliner…I’m definitely getting excited.
Posted by Seth on October 4, 2011 under Flying, News |
JAL has updated the seat maps for their inaugural 787 Dreamliner route – Boston to Tokyo – and is showing off one of the more interesting cabin configurations I’ve seen in a long time. The Business Class cabin is reasonably normal with 7 rows of 2-2-2 seats. And the economy cabin will be similar to the ANA cabin with a 2-4-2 configuration and 144 seats, roughly 40 fewer than North American launch customer United Airlines will be putting in the same cabin. But that’s not the interesting part; it is the row layout that is unique.
There is a row of seats all the way at the back of the plane, just in front of the rear-most galley. Extra exit row seats – albeit the last folks to get off the plane – means potentially more seats with extra leg room. Always nice to see that sort of option showing up.
A hat tip to JALPak for noticing the new seat maps coming online.
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Posted by Seth on October 1, 2011 under News |
After abruptly canceling the delivery of the first Boeing 747-8F aircraft a couple weeks ago launch customer Cargolux is now ready to move forward with the aircraft. The delivery delay was attributed to issues regarding compensation over delays in the 787 Dreamliner for Cargolux minority share-holder Qatar Airways but that claim is being disputed by Qatar’s CEO. He suggests that the delay in the delivery was over a compensation issue between the carrier and engine manufacturer GE and a 2.7% shortfall in engine efficiency. Delivery of the aircraft is now expected mid-month.
More commentary on the delivery updates here and here.
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Posted by Seth on September 25, 2011 under News |
ANA took delivery of the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner today, marking a major milestone in the project’s lifecycle. Boeing has been working on the Dreamliner for more than 7 years and the initial delivery today with the signing of paperwork is the first step in a three day long celebration for Boeing, ANA and the global aviation community.
After today’s contract signing there will be a ceremonial delivery of the aircraft "keys" on Monday. The airline will fly the plane back to Japan on Tuesday.
Today’s events come a few years after the original predictions. While this delivery is a huge event and most folks are excited there are still a number of folks not so ecstatic about the delivery. According to some sources the project horribly over budget and unlikely to ever be a profitable aircraft for the manufacturer. Plus there are concerns that the plane actually is not ready for service but it was delivered anyways. The article published in today’s Seattle Times is pretty brutal on the overall project, detailing cost overruns, project delays and other issues that have plagued the development and construction of the new airframe.
Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter said the 787 team is "on track" to make the delivery.
But an experienced mechanic working on No. 8 believes that jet simply isn’t ready for service. The engineer who flew test flights fears it won’t immediately meet the standard of reliability required by ANA.
The senior engineer, however, dismissed such "bugs" as normal in any new program. "They won’t be nearly as bad as they were for the original 747."
The good news for me is that ANA has the aircraft now. I just hope the reliability issues are not such that I miss my opportunity to fly on it in a few weeks during the first week of scheduled operations.
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Photo from the Boeing Company flickr stream
