Posted by Seth on July 21, 2010 under News | 
Following on the approval granted by the EU last week, the US Department of Transportation has approved the request from American Airlines, British Airways, and Iberia to have anti-trust immunity on their service in the highly competitive and lucrative transatlantic market. The approval was granted 12 years after AA and BA initially requested such permission and after being denied repeatedly for most of that interim period. The approval is not without conditions, but generally they are minimal compared to the benefits that the airlines will receive from this approval.
The airlines will be required to give up 4 daily slot-pairs at London’s Heathrow airport, two of which will be ear-marked for service between London and Boston. This divestiture requirement is less strict than that required by the EU and significantly less than some competitors, namely Virgin Atlantic, would have liked to see. The DoT dismissed Virgin Atlantic’s concerns rather abruptly,
Furthermore, Virgin Atlantic’s analysis of the constraints at Heathrow airport does not prove that the agreements are anti-competitive and should, therefore, be disapproved. We directly addressed the issue of Heathrow access in the Show-Cause Order. Even though the immunized oneworld members will collectively hold almost half of Heathrow slots, there are still a number of other competitors at Heathrow. There are also some important mitigating factors that Virgin Atlantic does not adequately consider. First, since the provisional application of the U.S.-EU open-skies agreement, at least three major airlines have begun serving the United States from Heathrow, and the overall U.S.-Heathrow market has enjoyed an expansion and diversification of services.27 The new entrants have enhanced competition and will continue to exert competitive discipline in the market when the joint venture is implemented.
The DoT is correct that there have been a number of new entrants into the Heathrow market but those companies have paid a sizable sum for those slots. Moreover, fares have increased significantly in the US-London market. It is not clear that competitive discipline has truly remained even with the competition, and this approval will reduce competition in the market.
Also interesting in the filings is the support that the oneworld partners received from parties who are exposed to potential harm from the move in terms of reduced competition. The Dallas-Ft. Worth airport authority supported the application even though BA and AA are the only carriers offering non-stop service to Heathrow from the airport. The fact that is is a major hub for AA certainly doesn’t hurt the claim, but ultimately both the airport and the DoT are supporting the idea that connecting traffic is sufficient to preclude anti-competition concerns.
As DFW pointed out in its reply, the connecting services available in the nonstop overlap markets discipline the fares charged for nonstop service. For example, in the case of the Dallas/Ft. Worth-London route, which concerned Virgin Atlantic because it will effectively have one competitor in the nonstop market following the transaction, we determined that approximately one-quarter of the passengers already use connecting services in the overall city-pair.
The approval of this request was not at all unexpected, though the very light divestiture requirements are somewhat so. The DoT has previously approved similar deals for SkyTeam and Star Alliance; continuing to deny similar benefits to oneworld would amount to a regulatory competitive disadvantage being applied to the carriers. Fares will be higher in many cases, not lower. It is rare that reducing competition results in anything else; that the DoT can suggest otherwise is disheartening. It is even more confusing when considering the restrictions that the DoT applied to the proposed Delta/US Airways slot swaps which would have similar impact on competition.
The DoT release can be found here and the full report here.
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Tags: American Airlines, Boston, British Airways, frequent flyer, Iberia, London, New York, New York City, OneWorld, points, SkyTeam, Spain, Star Alliance
Posted by Seth on July 14, 2010 under News, frequent flyer, points |
In a move that will create the third largest airline in Europe, EU regulators have approved the merger of British Airways and Spanish carrier Iberia. The approval was expected for some time now and does not come as much of a surprise. The two carriers will continue to operate as distinct brands in their respective markets. No word on whether they will be combining their loyalty programs or which other back-office operations will be combined, though many are expected to be.
In addition to the merger approval the EU has also approved – with conditions – the ability for the new British Airways to operate with their USA-based partner American Airlines with anti-trust immunity (“ATI”). The ATI deal gives the OneWorld partners the ability to coordinate schedules, inventory and fares on transatlantic markets where the carriers operate, including the European Union, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Norway and Switzerland.
The approval of the ATI brings OneWorld into the same arena as the other two global alliances, SkyTeam and Star Alliance. Those two have recently increased their TATL ATIs (Alitalia just joined the SkyTeam group in the past couple weeks) so this move will have all three on a level playing field as they compete for much coveted traffic in the TATL market. But, as noted above, the approval does come with some strings attached.
Over the next ten years the OneWorld ATI members will have to cede airport slots at New York City’s JFK airport and also at London’s Heathrow or Gatwick airports. New entrant airlines looking to start service into London or Spain will also be guaranteed “favorable terms” for add-on segments on the BA or Iberia networks for onward travel once they get to Europe. From the EU Commission release:
Concretely, the parties offer to make available landing and take-off slots at London Heathrow or London Gatwick airports, at the entrant’s choice, on routes to Boston, New York, Dallas and Miami. The number of slots will allow one or more competitors to operate a total of 49 more return flights a week between London and the four affected destinations in the US.
On the London-New York city pair, the parties also propose to provide the competitor with slots at New York John F. Kennedy airport.
In addition, BA, AA and IB undertake to provide access to their frequent flyer programmes on the relevant routes, allowing passengers of new entrants approved by the Commission to accrue and redeem miles on the parties’ frequent flyer programmes.
The parties also propose to allow fare combinability and offer special prorate agreements in relation to the routes of concern, which would enable competitors to offer tickets on the parties’ flights and facilitate access to connecting traffic.
Neither of these approvals is much of a surprise. Other airlines and alliances have passed the BA/AA behemoth by in recent years in terms of coordination of operations and this move lets the two start to catch up. The conditions levied on the ATI are not all that burdensome, either. Giving up a total of seven daily slots in London isn’t too much of a burden on the carriers that control such a significant portion of the market there. The JFK slots are actually likely more of an issue for those carriers but they do have enough to make it work when the requests come in.
No word yet on whether AA and BA will be able to remove the limitations on their frequent flyer programs that preclude earning or redemption on flights between the USA and London on the other party or what other synergies they expect to realize. Still, this move definitely will give OneWorld a bit more leverage in the market.
Tags: American Airlines, British Airways, frequent flyer, Iberia, London, New York, New York City, OneWorld, points, SkyTeam, Spain, Star Alliance
Posted by Seth on June 30, 2010 under News, frequent flyer, points |
After a relatively quiet spring for frequent flyer points bonuses on travel, the summer is heating up quite nicely. There has been plenty of competition in the New York City – Chicago market, mostly started because Delta added shuttle service on the ORD-LGA route starting just a couple weeks back. And now, for some reason, Los Angeles has become a target for promotions as well, with JetBlue announcing a triple miles promo for non-stop flights from LAX.
There are only two routes covered by the latest promotion from JetBlue – New York’s JFK and Boston – but the promo is valid for all new purchases through October 31. Registration is required: https://trueblue.jetblue.com/web/trueblue/lax-triple.
I’ve been looking to book a flight out to LA for a wedding in October and the triple points – as well as the 34” pitch, free snacks and free LiveTV – might just be enough to swing my business that way, especially since I’m not going to get upgraded otherwise on that route for free and the price is right.
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Posted by Seth on June 24, 2010 under Trip Reports |
I travel a decent amount, but apparently not particularly broadly. I thought my list of 40+ countries visited so far was pretty decent but with my most recent booking I’m also realizing that perhaps I’ve visited as many as I have because they have been relatively easy. And then along came a deal that I couldn’t say no to.
I needed to be in San Juan, Puerto Rico in mid-August. Airfare was running around $300ish round-trip. Not great but reasonable for the route. I was pretty close to booking that trip until I noticed that there was, perhaps, a similarly priced deal that would get me a ton more frequent flyer points. Instead of just flying to San Juan and back I’ll be flying in via San Francisco, Chicago, Brussels, Accra and Philadelphia.
Yeah, I’m going from New York City to Puerto Rico via Ghana.
This won’t be my first trip to Africa – I visited Egypt over Christmas last year – but it certainly will be the first trip into what I consider a “hard” country to visit. Among other things, the list of vaccinations required is pretty significant. Typhoid, Tetanus, Hepatitis A & B, Meningococcal Meningitis and – the big one – Yellow Fever. So on Tuesday I found myself hopping between clinics, getting vaccinated and giving blood to test antibody levels for some vaccines. I’m guessing that I’ll need a few more shots in a couple weeks when I get home, but the big one has been taken care of. I got my Yellow Fever vaccination and the certification card that will serve me for the next 10 years.
I’m not a huge fan of needles, but if this is what it takes for me to explore Ghana, Benin and Togo in August and other more adventurous destinations in the coming years, so be it. My obsession with travel is much, much stronger than my aversion to needles.
Tags: Accra, Belgium, Chicago, Egypt, Flying, frequent flyer, Ghana, New York, New York City, Philadelphia, points, Puerto Rico, San Francisco
Posted by Seth on June 23, 2010 under News |
SkyTeam, one of the three major global airline alliances, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week with events in New York City. Included in the celebration were several announcements regarding new members as well as a press conference where Leo M. Van Wijk, the CEO of SkyTeam, spoke on both the history and the future of the alliance.
Van Wijk had a number of interesting comments about the history of SkyTeam, including its pre-cursor in the “Wings” alliance and the details of its recent growth from just a few carriers to the current 13. The alliance has grown over its 10 year history to now serving nearly 900 destinations across 169 countries with 13,000 flights. Not too shabby.
The numbers do not tell the whole story. In his prepared remarks Van Wijk noted that the alliance has a tremendous presence in North America and continental Europe, but that there are also regions where they are not so strong. Specifically, Latin America, India, Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific regions were acknowledged as needing better coverage. Van Wijk stated that the alliance was in conversations with several unnamed carriers in these regions to fill the gaps.
At the same time, however, Van Wijk made it clear that SkyTeam is not interested in growing to have as many members as possible. Rather, they are much more concerned about finding strategic partners who fill specific route coverage areas.
[W]e do not necessarily aim to be the biggest alliance, but we do strive to be the most effective, meaning that we want to offer our customers a global network based on complimentary [route networks] instead of overlap….
[O]ne of China’s leading airlines, China Eastern, yesterday signed an agreement to formally begin the joining process to SkyTeam…. And we intend to add more Asian carriers to our group, thus firmly positioning SkyTeam as THE alliance for Asia.
Certainly a noble goal, but with the limited number of unaffiliated carriers in the regions in question, adding new members will be difficult, especially should the alliance choose to only choose partners with limited overlap in the existing route plan that existing SkyTeam partners operate.
Another significant focus of the SkyTeam alliance in the immediate future is the effort to “Enrich the seamless SkyTeam experience. The alliance is working to improve service consistency across the partners and expects to be able to co-locate airline operations in six airports per year. This co-location will be just one part of the effort towards “intensifying the cooperation between our members,” and working “more effectively to deliver on the promise to our customers.”
The prepared remarks were interesting enough, but the more candid and revealing bits of the discussion came during Q&A portion of the event. Specifically the questions focused on the opportunities for SkyTeam to increase their coverage. Van WIjk did note that “[T]he greatest need – and the greatest challenge – is in Latin America.” Looking at the list of unaffiliated carriers in the LatAm region that challenge is quite real. There are very few opportunities there for growth without a major defection from a currently allied or committed carrier.
Van Wijk was also asked how SkyTeam plans to compete against Star Alliance considering the likelihood that Star Alliance is likely to son have the world’s largest carrier in the combined Continental-United Airlines behemoth. The response was quite simple and certainly in line with what one would expect of a CEO, if not a bit far-fetched:
[SkyTeam’s] global coverage certainly has some light spots compared to Star Alliance, but it is up to par.
Yes, there are certainly a large number of destinations served by the alliance, but connectivity between destinations in the lesser served regions is much more sparse and the number of routes with such limited connectivity is much higher than Star Alliance currently experiences. While overlapping route maps may prove to be somewhat less valuable to the individual carriers they are incredibly valuable to the customers that the alliance members must woo. Overlap will force competition on quality rather than scarcity. That improves the customer travel experience which will generate more business in a manner that is beneficial to all parties. Hopefully SkyTeam will realize this and alter their approach to growing the Alliance.
Posted by Seth on June 23, 2010 under Trip Reports |
When I booked our vacation trip to Scotland this summer I wasn’t paying too much attention to the FIFA World Cup schedule. And even if I was I probably wouldn’t have tried to reschedule just so I could watch the USA-Algeria game this morning. Still, it turns out that I’ll be flying across the Atlantic on the morning flight from Newark to London in about an hour, taking off right around when the matches are starting. And I really don’t want to wait until we land to find out the scores.
Continental Airlines doesn’t have OnAir or any other in-flight internet connectivity these days so that’s not going to be an option. So what to do? I’m hoping that the pilots will be amenable to my requests this morning for score updates. Looking at the flight logs from the past few days it appears that we’ll be getting right to the edge of radio coverage for Gander Center – the last station before we head out over the ocean – just about the same time that the matches are wrapping up. And England is playing Slovenia at the same time so there should be plenty of interested parties on board.
Here’s hoping!
Posted by Seth on June 21, 2010 under Trip Reports |
Yes, it was ridiculously hot outside. Yes, it was hazy. Yes, the smoke given off by the planes racing obscured the view a bit. But that didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the Red Bull Air Races in New York City very much at all. Sure, I am disappointed that the photos didn’t come out as well as I’d have liked, but it was still quite impressive to watch those pilots zipping around all afternoon, weaving through the gates and otherwise being very cool.
I watched from the Battery Park side, not the grandstands on the New Jersey side. There were also a few hundred folks taking advantage of the views from the water, the SI Ferry and numerous Circle Line and other ferry ships in the area.
It was definitely a show worth watching.
Posted by Seth on June 10, 2010 under News, frequent flyer, points |
Delta has announced a triple miles promotion for the summer. The promotion covers three routes – all the Delta Shuttle operations – and offers the bonus on both reward miles and Medallion Qualifying Miles. Registration is required (you can do so here).
The promo is valid for all travel between New York City’s LaGuardia and Boston (BOS), Washington, DC (DCA) and the new service to Chicago’s O’Hare (ORD). The new Shuttle service to O’Hare includes 11 daily round-trip flights on weekdays. The promotion is valid from June 14th – the launch date of the LGA-ORD service – through August 31, 2010.
In order to qualify the flights must be operated by Delta or a Delta Connection carrier and must be on the non-stops between the cities in question. Also, the 3x calculation is based on the actual miles, not the 500 mile minimum for elites.
More details on the promotion can be found here.
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Posted by Seth on June 6, 2010 under Trip Reports |
Apparently the weather in New York City was pretty bad today, or close enough that lots of flights were delayed, including mine into Newark. It happens some times and I wasn’t too worried about it. I was relaxing in the Singapore Airlines lounge waiting for my delayed flight and noticed that there was another option into JFK that was listed as on-time. A quick jaunt over to the gate to see if maybe I could get home a bit closer to on-time than not. And that was when I ran into the bitch.
That’s truly about the nicest thing I can say about this woman. As I approached the gate she was giving the agents an earful about the fact that she was stuck in a middle seat in the back rather than receiving an upgrade and how that was completely unacceptable. “You should be more empowered to fix things like this,” was her most compelling argument. Apparently the fact that she had purchased a ticket in the coach cabin was not particularly relevant to her. The agents were trying their best to be polite, suggesting that perhaps if another passenger no-showed an aisle seat might open up.
And then there was me and another woman, both just trying to grab any available seat to get home. Polite deference to the agents and a comment about being willing to take whatever they have apparently worked quite well. A few minutes later the agent paged all three of us. The other Newark passenger and I headed down the ramp with the agents while the bitch was now fighting with a supervisor at the desk. “I fly this route monthly and I might just have to take my business elsewhere,” was her choice comment at that point.
Ultimately all three of us got seats on the flight. I’m happily relaxing in 16D, an aisle seat, while the other Newark-bound passenger is in 17C, also an aisle. The bitchy woman? Enjoying a glass of white w(h)ine in 15B, her original middle seat.
Indeed, karma is a bitch. The agents were going to give her the aisle seat but that wasn’t enough for her and in the end she didn’t even get that. They gave it to me instead, mostly because I was nice.
Posted by Seth on June 5, 2010 under News |
The Department of Transportation (DoT) has been rattling their saber quite a bit lately, handing out fines to a number of carriers and revising rules to better protect passengers, mostly under the auspices of enforcement against “deceptive trade practices” in whichever way the DoT chooses to interpret that clause. The most recent big-name actions coming from the DoT included notable fines for failure to comply with reporting requirements and insufficient notification of passenger rights when flights are overbooked. Oh, and the recently implemented 3-hour tarrmac hold time rule.
That was a pretty busy first half of the year for the DoT but they are not done yet. This week they’ve unveiled a slew of proposed rules changes to the rules. Most of the proposed rules appear pretty solid though there are a few which are questionable at best. Tarmac delay rule enforcement would be increased from domestic carriers to all airlines operating planes of 30 or more seats in the United States, for example. But beyond that change there are three significant areas that could see dramatic revisions in policies as enforced by the airlines.
Denied Boarding Compensation
The idea of permitting airlines to overbook flights and hope to have the correct number of passengers by the time the door closes is one that has been in effect for nearly 50 years, originally prescribed by the Civil Aeronautics Board way back when they ran the show for airline policies. Even after deregulation and the dissolution of the CAB the voluntary/involuntary denied boarding policies have more or less thrived. Passengers have often been willing to accept bumps and the airlines would pay out compensation either under the voluntary rules or the forced comp scheme of IDB as set by the Feds.
Unfortunately, however, the IDB comp is often not keeping pace with the economy or the changing landscape of air travel. The dollar amounts are fixed rather than tied to an annual adjustment rate such as the CPI. Moreover, there are some holes in how the compensations offers are presented to customers at the gate. Generally there isn’t much time to fully educate these passengers of their rights and the airlines have been taking advantage of this rushed environment to convince passengers to take company credit vouchers rather than cash or check compensation that they may be entitled to. Similarly airlines will offer a “free round trip ticket” without sufficient details of the restrictions surrounding those tickets. The DoT is suggesting that the rules be changed on this front such that any offer made verbally include all the options and details, not just the one that is best for the airline with the alternate options buried in fine print.
If a carrier offers free or reduced rate air transportation as compensation to volunteers, the carrier must disclose all material restrictions on the use of that transportation before the passenger decides whether to give up his or her confirmed reserved space on that flight in exchange for the free or reduced rate transportation.
Additionally, the DoT is altering the definition of what “confirmed reserved space” means with regard to denied boarding compensation. Currently “zero fare tickets,” those from certificates, frequent flyer points or consolidator shops where the actual price is not stored in the PNR, would not be eligible for denied boarding compensation. The DoT suggests that this be changed such that zero fare tickets are included. Determining the value of those tickets for the purposes of compensating the customer my be difficult as there is no good way to translate the value of points to dollars. One proposal is to use comparably priced tickets from others on the flight. Another is to simply refund double the number of points redeemed for the travel, plus the cash component paid for taxes and fees. Either way, this change will be good news for protecting folks on the “free” flights, tickets which are generally anything but.
Of course, increasing the compensation requirements may induce the carriers to reduce their overbooking thresholds. They overbook because they generally get enough volunteers to accept a voucher – and only about 35% of those vouchers are redeemed – to the point that they can still make money handing out the chits. As loads increase such that the airlines are less able to accommodate passengers on a re-route in a timely manner it becomes much less convenient for the customer to the point that a $200 or $400 voucher is less likely to solve the problem if it also involves a delay of a couple days rather than a couple hours. Hopefully this new set of regulations helps on this front.
Full Fare Pricing
The DoT holds a unique position in its ability to control pricing advertising rules over airlines. Neither states nor the Federal Trade Commission have jurisdiction; it is just the DoT. And for quite some time now the DoT has had a policy that
…states that the Department considers any advertisement that states a price for air transportation that is not the total price to be paid by the consumer to be an unfair and deceptive practice in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 41712. However, the Department’s enforcement policy regarding this rule has permitted certain government-imposed charges to be stated separately from this total price. Under this policy, taxes and fees that are collected by a carrier on a per-person basis, are imposed by a government entity, and are not ad valorem in nature are allowed to be excluded from an advertised fare. The existence, nature, and amount of these additional taxes and fees must be clearly indicated where the airfare first appears in the ad, so that the consumer can easily calculate the total price to be paid. The Department has consistently prohibited sellers of air transportation from breaking out any other fee, including fuel surcharges, service fees, and taxes imposed on an ad valorem basis.
In other words, the airlines have to publish everything except the per-passenger taxes as a single number and they have to make it very easy for a customer to figure out what those extra taxes are. Unfortunately airlines are stretching the limits of what those fees are the DoT is now suggesting that the rule “include a requirement that all advertisers include all mandatory fees in the advertised price.”
One quirk of such a plan is that each airport has a different Passenger Facility Charge item that is added on to a fare on a per-person basis but specific to a routing. So flying from New York City to Chicago to Las Vegas would price differently than New York City to Houston to Chicago or on a non-stop flight from New York to Chicago. This is just one of many hurdles that would need to be overcome to enforce a true “full fare pricing” scheme.
The policy would also prohibit the advertising of “one way” fares where a round-trip purchase is required. This is a pet peeve of mine and I would be quite happy to see it go away.
Another hurdle to overcome is the fact that carriers are racing to unbundle costs that have traditionally been considered part of air travel including checked baggage or carry-on baggage, meals, seat assignments and other similar benefits.The DoT is investigating the likelihood that pricing engines can accurately support the ability to allow passengers to specify a search not just by dates and city pairs but by the amenities required such as the ability to check a bag and have a meal on the flight. The GDS networks that handle the majority of the fare pricing for customers are not quite to the position where they can support these queries but it will be interesting to see what happens as they come about. Of course, it might mean deciding 9 months in advance if you’re going to check a bag on a vacation next summer, but you’ll have some idea of what it will actually cost in the end, much more so than is possible today. All booking documents such as e-Ticket receipts would be required to show the full details of these pricing details so as to inform the customer of any future charges as far in advance as possible.
Opt-Out Sales
The DoT is proposing to ban all add-on sales offers that require customers to opt out of a service rather than to opt in. These services often include advance seat assignments, airport transfers, travel insurance, show tickets and similar ancillary offers. These are generally high margin sales for the agents and confusing to the customer to figure out how to unselect all the offers. Even an educated consumer can be easily tricked by these opt-out offers as a good friend of mine experienced on a recent trip to Panama City and Mexico City.
Codeshare Service
Airlines love codeshare service. By creating phantom flight numbers one airline can sell service from another with virtually zero responsibility to actually deliver on that service. Whether through the outsourcing of flight operations to smaller, regional carriers or in setting up long-haul partnerships to provide increased global coverage, codesharing is generally a fantastic thing for the airlines. As part of approving international codeshare service the DoT has generally inserted this clause in the deal:
…the carrier selling such transportation (i.e., the carrier shown on the ticket) accept responsibility for the entirety of the code-share journey for all obligations established in the contract of carriage with the passenger; and that the passenger liability of the operating carrier be unaffected
When all the airlines had generally similar policies this was easy as there weren’t enough discrepancies in policies for it to matter. But as each carrier carves more benefits into nuance and minutiae the ability to deliver those benefits consistently across the codeshare is diminishing rapidly.When one airline permits holders of a certain credit card to check bags for free but then sells those customers a codeshare flight operated by a partner which does not extend that same benefit then the spirit, if not the letter, of this clause is violated. The DoT hopes that the revised rule will address this issue and require truly seamless applicability of benefits.
Peanuts
Finally, the DoT is back to looking at how to prevent peanuts from showing up on airplanes in the name of protecting people who have severe peanut allergies. In short, the DoT suggests that, “Airline passengers with severe allergies to peanuts have a qualifying disability as defined in Part 382.” A “qualifying disability” in this sense requires action to address it on the part of the carriers. The DoT once previously tried to issue a ruling on this issue. In 1998 they proposed that accommodations be made when the airline was informed in advance. Congress quite quickly stepped in and threatened to pull funding should that guidance actually be enforced.
The DoT isn’t giving up on the issue, however, and they are coming back with proposals for other ways to make such a ban stick.
A lot of the things the DoT is trying to require here are actually moves that will ultimately benefit the traveling public. Sure, I’d love to see more DBC vouchers in my travel funds kit but I also understand that protecting the folks who don’t understand how they work, the folks who will be left stranded for days at an airport waiting to get home, do need some protection. Probably not a ton of huge impact with these changes, especially with the current crop of GDS interfaces unable to actually produce the truly full fare costs including the al a carte services, but the ideas are definitely good ones. Hopefully the rest of the technology catches up soon to make it happen.
Want to read more about these proposals? Check out what Aviation Week, View from the Wing or Chris Elliott have to say about it.
Posted by Seth on June 3, 2010 under Trip Reports |
Yes, I will be spending more time flying round trip than I will on the ground in Sydney. Yes, I plan to have a ton of fun this weekend. Yes, I am crazy.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, allow me to elaborate. A couple weeks ago United Airlines had a very brief 40% off sale for fares to Australia. Not being one to ignore a good sale I took a peek and noticed that it included trips from New York City. The price was right and the number of miles earned – almost 20,000 EQMs and almost 40,000 reward miles – are large enough that knocking out a weekend of flying was a good investment plus a great way to get back down to Oz. Tickets were booked and I didn’t look back. Now, a couple weeks later, I’m in the middle of my first segment of four on the trip, JFK – San Francisco aboard a United 767-300 with the International configuration.
The regular p.s. plane was swapped out due to a fire a couple weeks ago so I get this one instead. The plane feels especially roomy due to the fact that there are way more coach seats on this than on a normal p.s. plane though United is still only selling the normal number just in case. Pretty much everyone who wants one has their own block of seats. Quite nice indeed.
That being said, I’m a bit disappointed in the interior appointments on the plane. Yeah, I know I’m sitting in coach, but I still expected a little better. United has been tooting their own horn a ton lately about cleaning up their aircraft. Maybe they just haven’t gotten to this one yet but the insides have a few issues that don’t make me all that comfortable about maintenance habits. Like I put my armrest down and was greeted with this:
Yeah, I can put the piece back on and I did and no big deal in the end, but it’s just not right. A couple minutes later, after push-back I look across the cabin and notice the flight attendants fighting to keep a couple overhead bins closed. They’re not over-stuffed or anything; thy just won’t stay closed. Apparently a previous attempted fix – taping them shut – also didn’t work. So there we were, cleared to taxi into position for take-off, and the crew was scrambling to find somewhere to store a few bags. Again, our plane was empty enough that it wasn’t an issue but not comforting to see that even the “just duct tape it together” approach wasn’t working. 
And, to top it all off, the IFE was broken. I’m not sure how entertaining watching a movie on these tiny screens would be; watching the moving map was hard enough though I do applaud United for not going to the fully advertising sponsored model there. Still, not having an option on the video was a bit annoying when I woke up from my nap. The good news is that United is familiar enough with things going wrong on flights so their flight attendants are prepared. They made an announcement about an hour prior to landing and came through with the compensation certificates for the entire cabin without prompting. They definitely have the service recovery part down pat.
And the flight itself hasn’t been all that bad. I got some work done, had a nap and read a bit. Not bad at all. Of course, this is the short flight, only 5:50 in the air. The true test is coming up in a few hours when I strap in on a more crowded 747-400 for the 14ish hour overnight flight to Sydney. Good thing I’ve stoked up on drink chits for the RCC in advance of that.
