Posted by Seth on May 6, 2012 under News | 
Several months ago United Airlines announced that they would be changing the configuration of the 757-200 aircraft they have running in their "premium service" routes between New York City‘s JFK airport and both Los Angeles and San Francisco. The changes include removing the first class cabin and replacing the business class seats with the flat-bed models used on their transatlantic 757 service. It also means adding in more economy seats and changing from an all Economy Plus layout to both regular economy and Economy Plus. The target date for the conversions to begin was sometime in the second half of 2012 but nothing more specific was ever announced. Looking at the timetables today, however, it appears that a bit of information about a possible start date for the conversion has been sighted.
Flight number 161 is operated by a sCO 757-200 with lie-flat seats.
The change appears to start on September 1, 2012. In many cases I’d discount changes such as this one which show up on weekends, particularly with all the schedule changes that United is running on weekends still. This one, however, changes the operating carrier of the flight on that route making it seem much more likely to be legit.
The change makes sense for a number of reasons. The company will need to pull at least one aircraft out of service at a time to fit them with the new configuration. This move comes after the peak summer season for trans-Atlantic trips, allowing the company to shift a properly configured 752 over to the route and to provide the new premium service to customers. It isn’t enough seats – 10 fewer than the new config will eventually have – to offer it to everyone, but it is definitely better than putting a non-flat bed config on the route.
The sCO 752 also has the new AVOD IFE system and Economy Plus seating, but it does not have gogo wifi, unlike all the other p.s. aircraft. It remains to be seen which in-flight connectivity solution the p.s. planes end up with after their conversion but I’d bet on them ultimately having the Panasonic-supported satellite-based system. They might have to go with gogo in the interim if the new system isn’t ready yet, but I would expect them to end up there eventually.
The overall conversion timeline is still somewhat in question, but this is a pretty good indication that things are finally getting started.
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Posted by Seth on April 13, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, Mileage Run |
I’m a huge fan of Istanbul and Turkey in general. I’ve had nothing but wonderful experiences there (even with attempted scammings twice) and between the architecture, food and people it is one of my favorite places to visit and one that I return to willingly, which is a big step for me. When a visit can be had on the cheap that’s an even bigger draw. And right now there are some great deals out there for travel from the USA to Istanbul.
The deals are for the shoulder season so look for travel in September or October for great weather and even better rates. Here’s what the fare calendars look like for October, departing a few cities in the USA:
New York City
Washington, DC
Los Angeles
Chicago
In many cases the W fares on United Airlines aren’t too much more than these lowest fares (~$300 ex-EWR) and the upgrade inventory is plentiful. I’ve already confirmed my flat bed for a weekend in early October. It is going to be a lot of fun.
Tags: Chicago, Deals, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Mileage Run, New York City, Newark, Turkey, United, United Airlines, Washington DC
Posted by Seth on March 21, 2012 under News |
The recent addition of perimeter exemption routes for Washington, DC‘s National Airport included the provision that the four largest carriers were entitle to slots, assuming they gave up a non-exempt slot. Three of those four routes were announced previously, with Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Los Angeles being chosen. Up until now, however, US Airways has remained silent on their plans. They already hold perimeter exemptions for service to Phoenix and Las Vegas and, as of June 8, 2012 service so San Diego, California.
The new service will start as an evening flight westbound and a redeye eastbound. In mid-July the route switched to a morning flight westbound and a noon departure eastbound, arriving at 8:30pm.
DCA-SAN lv 5:40p ar 8:03p
SAN-DCA lv 11:00p ar 7:00a
Effective 7/11/12
DCA-SAN lv 8:55a ar 11:18a
SAN-DCA lv 12:30p ar 8:23p
Neither of the timings seem particularly fantastic for business customers, particularly on the eastbound times, but I guess they have their reasons.
It will also be interesting to see how this announcement affects the pending applications from the other carriers trying to get the slots. Alaska Airlines had applied to operate the same route non-stop while both Frontier and Southwest are hoping to operate it as a one-stop service via Colorado Springs and Austin, respectively. This definitely gives the DoT some interesting things to think about.
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Posted by Seth on March 19, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
It was August 2010 when Virgin America announced their plans to offer reciprocal earning and redemption benefits with the other carriers in the Virgin brand. Alas, the frequent flier market works slowly in some cases and after more than a year there was no real news on the redemption side of the deal. That ends this week, with both Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia and Virgin America announcing redemption rates.
I’m focusing on the the rates for Virgin America here, mostly because I find the ranges they cover to be more intriguing than the numbers from the other two. Virgin America has published a calculator that displays the number of points required based on the city pairs that the two partners serve. Even more interesting to me, however, is that the underlying data is contained in a singe easy to download XML file. Drop that file into Excel and throw some filters on it and the data that comes back is quite interesting indeed.
First up, both one-way and round-trip redemptions will be offered. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, there is a penalty for one-way awards relative to return trips. The penalty is generally 5-10,000 points, based on the samples I saw, though one or two did go higher than that, especially in premium cabins.
As for the actual redemption rates, there are definitely some interesting sweet-spots on the chart. JFK to London return is only 35,000 points in Upper Class, for example, which is pretty nice. The down-side is that it also comes with $1100 in taxes and fees to be paid. Also, it is more than double the price of an economy award on the same route (15,000 points + $650 in fees). The fees do track directly with what Virgin Atlantic charges for a revenue booking (the APD and the YQ are both higher in business class) so that’s not completely ridiculous, but with base fares as low as $120ish round trip in economy dropping 15,000 points seems like a REALLY bad idea.
The real fleecing in the program, however, comes when you try to redeem for Business Class awards on Virgin Australia AND you add a connection in the United States. Los Angeles to Brisbane is a rather reasonable 80,000 points up front. Want to connect onward to Chicago? Tack on another 100,000 points. And if you want to go to JFK rather than Chicago it is an extra 50,000 on top of that. Yeah, it is that ridiculous.
And the taxes aren’t particularly great on those fares either. At least the transcon penalty on Virgin Atlantic is only 15,000 points.
Comparing the rates to the value via American Express Membership Rewards – one of the easier ways to accumulate Elevate Points – shows further examples of the limited value. Getting that JFK-London award is 35K Elevate points, which would mean 70K MR points. Redeeming via ANA would allow the same trip for 63K points and roughly the same fees. JFK-Capetown would be 190K MR points via Elevate or 115K via ANA.
Adding these partners is a great thing, in theory, for members of the Elevate program. With the redemption charts the way they look, however, the numbers are not particularly attractive. I’d stay far, far away.
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Tags: American Express, ANA, Australia, award, Chicago, frequent flier, frequent flyer, Los Angeles, Membership Rewards, New York City, points, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia
Posted by Seth on March 13, 2012 under Flying, News |
Washington, DC‘s National Airport is one of the "lucky few" airports in the country where the government has limited destinations which can be served. The so-called "perimeter rule" keeps the long-haul flights out at Dulles for the most part, but there are a few exceptions to rule and those are coveted by the airlines. As part of the most recent FAA budget authorization bill Congress has added a few perimeter exceptions to the pool at DCA and now airlines are scrambling to grab those slots. The filing deadline was yesterday, and here’s what the proposals look like.
New Entrants
The slots are split into two pools, one for legacy carriers and one for new entrants. In the new entrants category six carriers – JetBlue, Virgin America, Southwest, Air Canada, Frontier and Alaska Airlines have applied.
Alaska Airlines is going big with their application, hoping to offer transcon service from both their Portland, OR hub as well as San Diego. Virgin America is also hoping for hub service from San Francisco. Southwest is aiming to provide service to Austin, TX, with onward connections to San Diego and JetBlue has applied to serve both Austin and San Juan. Air Canada is hoping for Vancouver service and Frontier is looking to serve Colorado Springs.
There is some interesting overlap with the routes being requested and it seems somewhat unlikely that the DoT is going to approve such applications so perhaps the final approval will look something like this:
Legacy Carriers
For the legacy carriers the access to beyond perimeter slots comes with a slightly higher price, as they have to give up service to a destination inside the perimeter to get the new service. On the plus side, the route authorities are more or less guaranteed given that condition so the DoT has less work to do there. Of the eligible carriers, Delta, United Airlines and American Airlines all made their intentions known a couple weeks ago, with service to their Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Los Angeles hubs, respectively. Apparently US Airways has decided to not apply for an additional beyond perimeter slot. They already have service to Phoenix and Las Vegas but it is still somewhat surprising that they haven’t tried for more.
The new routes should be interesting to watch, especially with the potential for competition on the LAX and SFO routes.
Tags: Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Congress, Delta, DoT, FAA, Frontier, JetBlue, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, San Juan, Southwest Airline, United, United Airlines, Virgin America, Washington DC
Posted by Seth on March 6, 2012 under frequent flyer, Mileage Run, points, Trip Reports |
Lots of people go out for brunch in Santa Barbara. In fact, based on the wait we had to get a table once we got there, I would say that it is a quite popular event. But I’m pretty sure that we were the only folks who did so starting in Philadelphia.
A while back a pretty good fare came up for flights between Philadelphia and Santa Barbara so I bought one. I was going to be in Philly anyways so the positioning costs were basically nil and I was up for a bit of sun and warmth. Why not?
The trip started entirely too early, with a 6am-ish flight from Philadelphia to Dulles. The only redeeming quality of the early morning departure was the opportunity to watch the sun rise. I love the visuals but hate the alarm clock required to make it happen.
The connection in Dulles was fine, other than a relatively last minute gate change and my forgetting one of my bags in the lounge. Fortunately I got it back and we made it to the plane in plenty of time.
We had one of the international config 772s, meaning the complimentary upgrade was in to the international business class seats. Sadly, it was the old seats still, but having that for nap time was way better than a domestic seat. Breakfast was nothing to write home about and there was no cereal option. Not horribly offensive, and that’s about all I look for on a domestic meal these days.
We pushed back from the gate a bit late due to some power issues and that had us in to San Francisco a bit late, too. Somehow, the travel gods were smiling on us, however, and the flight down to Santa Barbara that was one earlier than our original booking was also late. We raced to the gate and inquired about getting on the earlier flight. It was full, but they were still working out the last-minute load numbers. Weight and balance issues are often a challenge on the Embraer E-120s and they had previously bumped two passengers to a later flight to lighten the load on this relatively long small prop hop, but the somehow managed to load us on the plane at the last minute.
We chatted with the flight attendant (I was basically sitting in her lap thanks to being assigned 1C) and confused the heck out of her and the others within ear shot as we explained that we were just headed to the beach for a couple hours before catching the redeye back to the east coast. The strange looks were worth it, however, as we got guidance on how to walk from the airport to the beach (about 15 minutes) and from there where to find a great brunch. We followed the instructions and were rewarded with sun, sand and a couple celebratory beers while watching the locals bundle up in the "cold" mid-60s weather.
We could have stayed longer at the beach – our original departure gave us about 6 hours in Santa Barbara – but that would have meant no dinner at LAX or, possibly even worse, eating in the T6/7/8 complex. Fortunately for us there was an earlier flight that gave us plenty of time to get off-property and over to In-and-Out for a proper dinner. So we walked back to the airport, got on the standby list and enjoyed the brand new terminal for a few minutes before walking out to the plane and making the short jump into Los Angeles.
Dinner was good and we enjoyed watching the planes land. We even got a couple wide-bodies coming in which is always fun. And then it was back to the airport. We walked, Partly because we had the time, partly because no one ever walks to LAX and partly because there is actually a cute little flower garden that you go through (I’d seen it before a couple times) and the flight attendant on the SBA-LAX flight insisted that my buddy see it. From there it was in to the United Club where we stayed hydrated for the hour or two before the redeye home. No upgrade there, but the exit row window seat was comfortable enough and pretty soon we were touching down in Newark, almost exactly 24 hours after leaving Philadelphia.
Yeah, just another normal Sunday brunch in Santa Barbara.
Tags: Dulles, Embraer, frequent flier, frequent flyer, Los Angeles, Mileage Run, Newark, Philadelphia, Photos, points, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Trip Report
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 23, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Hawaiian Airlines and JetBlue will announce today a partnership for both travel and their frequent flyer programs. The deal comes on the heels of the recent announcement of new service by Hawaiian Airlines with the upcoming launch of non-stop service between New York’s JFK and Honolulu. While the Hawaiian service doesn’t start up until June, the deal will start sooner, with the carriers routing passengers via Los Angeles for one stop service on interline itineraries.
JetBlue has been steadily growing their roster of interline partners but one one of those – American Airlines – has any form of points reciprocity set up. This deal will include at least some reciprocity on the frequent flyer side. Full details are yet to come, but it is nice to see benefits in both the flight and loyalty programs coming to fruition.
More details to come as they are made available…
Posted by Seth on January 18, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, News |
I’ll be the first to admit that I was definitely betting against Philadelphia scoring service from Virgin America in their announcement yesterday. There were a couple other destinations on their "short list" which seemed more likely to me. Alas, I was wrong, and the carrier will be launching five daily frequencies starting in April.
As part of the launch release Virgin America pulled no punches, describing their competition in less than flattering terms. Said company CEO David Cush:
Travelers deserve more options than just the typical legacy airline cattle car, and we hope our unique brand of low fares and inventive service will be a breath of fresh air for Philadelphians.
I didn’t expect Philadelphia to be the new market based mostly on the fact that transcons are expensive and it generally takes a lot of capacity to compete in those markets; once daily service, especially between larger cities, is often frowned upon by customers. Virgin America is coming in big, however, adding three flights to Los Angeles which will increase the daily frequencies from 7 to 10, a reasonably significant capacity upgrade. Similarly, the frequencies on the San Francisco route will increase from 8 to 10 with the two new Virgin flights.
But are there enough passengers – profitable ones at that – to make the service work? Virgin seems to think so, suggesting that roughly half of the passengers on each of those routes takes a connecting flight rather than a nonstop option. So maybe there are enough people looking for nonstop options; the question is whether they’re profitable. Time will tell.
With all the hating that goes on against US Airways, this route might seem like a perfect assault. But attacking them at Philadelphia with only a couple non-stop destinations seems unlikely to be the way to go. Even Southwest, which attacked many more routes, is pulling back in their assault there, suggesting that US Airways is reasonably stable and willing to fight their competitors.
One thing it might do, however, is convince US Airways to compete on pricing for the routes. A one-way fare is currently $850 on US from Phillly to LA; the new numbers with Virgin in the market look to be a bit lower:
Interestingly, while US hasn’t been matching Delta fares on the route (or United Airlines on flights to San Francisco) they appear to be taking the Virgin entry into the market a bit more seriously. They aren’t completely matching the fare, but they are much closer, at least for San Francisco. Apparently they’re banking on their frequent flyers or the more frequent schedules demanding a $20ish premium for the route.
For Los Angeles, however, the price disparity remains, at least as of this morning.
It is also worth noting that elites in the US Airways Dividend Miles program can confirm that $850 fare into the first class cabin at the time of ticketing. Virgin is selling their first class cabin – admittedly MUCH nicer than that of the US Airways A321s – for about $1,000, a premium for elites, though still $200 less than the non-elite upgrade fare from US. Both are significantly higher than Delta’s first class fare on the route.
What does it all mean? I have no idea. But there are enough interesting bits at play here that it is worth watching. Oh, and prices on some of the inaugural flights are still pretty reasonable, so I might be headed to Philly for some fun in early April.
Tags: Delta, elite status, Flying, frequent flier, frequent flyer, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Southwest Airline, United, United Airlines, upgrade, US Air, Virgin America
Posted by Seth on December 6, 2011 under News |
American Airlines has made reduction of costs the cornerstone of its bankruptcy reorganization plans. From the very beginning they’ve made it clear that they expect to cut costs pretty much across the board. This includes returning some aircraft to lessors and getting out of some real estate deals and also, hopefully, renegotiating labor contracts. That last part likely just got a lot harder.
A nine-member panel was appointed to represent unsecured creditors of the company and three of those seats are held by representatives of the company’s unionized workforce. The pilots, flight attendants and ground workers each received a seat on the panel, along with Boeing and other creditors. Having that strong a union voice in the courts as recommendations are heard is going to make it much more difficult for the company to pull a fast one on the employees, but that also seems to be their only plan for getting out of the bankruptcy so that could hinder those efforts.
In other bankruptcy news, some analysts are suggesting that American should scale back operations at Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City and focus on their fortress hubs in Miami and Dallas-Ft. Worth. Fortress hubs are great, I suppose, for the business. But when that’s all you have you’re horribly susceptible to competitors showing up and fighting. And that sort of fight isn’t what an already struggling company needs to be faced with.
Always interesting to see what’s next…
Posted by Seth on November 22, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
April 2012 is going to be a busy month for Star Alliance. That’s when Copa and Avianca-Taca are expected to become full members of the global alliance, culminating a process that has been ongoing for many months now. The official invitation to join was extended just earlier this month and it seems that the integration process will be completed incredibly quickly by global alliance standards. Normally the integration takes 12-18 months (or even longer if you’re Air India) but these carriers plan to do it much faster.
For Copa the process shouldn’t be too hard. They already use the same OnePass loyalty program as Continental and that will merge into the new MileagePlus program from United. There will still need to be bilateral agreements drawn up with the other alliance members and some adjustments on the inventory and computer systems side of things but they are pretty far ahead in the game.
For Avianca-Taca there is definitely some more work involved. Although the carrier has frequent flyer relationships with Star Alliance members United and Lufthansa there are still more steps required to get fully integrated. Still, Copa CEO Pedro Heilbronn confirmed that join date for both programs so it looks pretty good, at least for now.
One interesting bit about Copa joining the program is that, as of today, there are no long-haul flights into the Panama City hub from overseas. There are connection options from Dulles, O’Hare, Los Angeles, Houston and Newark, giving great integration to the United Airlines network, but not much beyond that. It will be interesting to see if joining into Star Alliance can bring some more long-haul traffic into that hub.
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Tags: Avianca, Chicago, Continental, Copa, frequent flyer, houston, Los Angeles, Lufthansa, Newark, Panama, points, Star Alliance, Taca, United, Washington DC
