Posted by Seth on March 24, 2012 under Dining, Flying, Review, Trip Reports | 
In many ways calling it the short route is silly. After all, it is the longest scheduled commercial flight in the world, clocking in at more than 18 hours. Singapore Airlines flight 21, Newark to Singapore, is simply ridiculously far. But it is the fastest way to get from the New York City area to Singapore and it is a pretty stylish way to do it, too.
The route is flown on an Airbus A340-500 with only 100 seats, all business class. Booking one of those seats used to require a large chunk of cash (or getting lucky with a couple routings out of the Pacific Islands) but recently they started showing up in limited quantities for award bookings. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity and even though I don’t really have any pressing reason to be in Singapore I’m on my way. It seems like a reasonable enough place to spend a couple days. And the flights to and from seem pretty fun, too.
The Seat
With such a low density seat map there is plenty of room on board for each seat and Singapore Airlines takes advantage of that fact. The layout is 1-2-1 across the A340 body, the same spacing as First Class on Lufthansa. The seats are about 30″ wide; it is quite spacious.
When the time came to convert the seat to a bed it actually flips forward rather than reclining all the way back. This is good and bad, as it somewhat limits the reclining positions available, but it also means that the full width is usable for bed mode. I chose the bulkhead seat so the footwell was full width as I don’t really lie my feet going in to a cubby hole. That part worked out well, though there is a gap between the seat and the well, basically forcing you to sleep at a slight angle.
Also, the bed is quite firm. Not a problem for me but I could see how some might not enjoy it too much. With a few pillows and sufficient booze in my system from the lounge and from dinner I had no problem sleeping for a solid 8 or 9 hours. Or again for another few hours after my mid-flight snack.
Checking in for the flight at the counter the agent was somewhat surprised that I had selected the seat I had. He mentioned the proximity to the lavs and the potential noise and smell issues there. That turned out to not be an issue for me, though I can see how it could be annoying.
Food & Beverage
There are three meals served during the flight. The first is a dinner served shortly after takeoff. Next is a lunch mid-flight and finally breakfast shortly prior to arrival. I very much prefer this sequence of service over the option from Thai on their soon-to-be-retired LAX-Bangkok flight. It just makes more sense. Also, the food was much better.
My first meal started with a salad and bread. Fresh veggies and a couple strips of seared fish on top, with a nice balsamic dressing.
For the main course I had the braised pork served over egg noodles in a broth. Excellent presentation and the food was quite tasty, too.
Finally, for dessert, I had both the chocolate ice cream and the chocolate mousse, though I did pass on the petit fours.
Somewhere over Uzbekistan, I was hungry again. Having been asleep for the past eight hours that seemed to make sense and I wandered back towards the galley to see what my options were. Set up in the galley was a nice spread of chips, fruit, cookies and other snacks; I grabbed a couple for later. But I was thinking of something more substantive. The flight attendant greeted me by name (little things like that really make me happy) and offered up a few lunch options. I went with the chicken over udon noodles. About 10 minutes later she brought it out to my seat.
The flavors were great; no real surprise there. But it wasn’t heated all the way through. I actually didn’t mind that too much, but it was somewhat surprising. My seatmate ordered the same a few minutes after I did and his was heated evenly. Go figure.
Oh, and they had Dunkin Donuts on board. They spelled it wrong in the menu, but they had an actual box of Dunkin – the variety pack – and gladly served up donuts upon request.
For breakfast I had another noodle option, sliced beef in broth with noodles. The omelet looked fine, too, but I like the flavors of the soups. This also may have been the first time I’ve had a 4-course breakfast, with fruit, pastries and yogurt all preceding the actual meal. The bagel was actually quite good, too.
In-flight Entertainment
The IFE system on Singapore routinely gets high marks and it is easy to see why. The screen is large – 15.4″ – and the range of titles available is rather extensive. Whether you want TV, movies, audio or games, there are plenty of options to choose from. Me? I just watched the moving map when I wasn’t sleeping. But I like that there were lots of other options available.
Also, there is a universal plug, a couple USB plugs, iPhone/iPad interface and RCA jacks for hooking in to the system. Even if you don’t like what they’re showing, there are still plenty of options.
Lounge/Ground Services
The lounge used in Newark is the SAS lounge. It is pretty nice and for the late departure of the Singapore Air flight there are no other passengers in the lounge. They up the catering a notch to offer a more substantial meal option around 9:15pm, tiding folks over until the dinner served on board. I enjoyed the self-serve alcohol and a bit of a snack and then headed out to the plane.
As I mentioned before, the first agent I dealt with suggested that the seat I had wasn’t so great. I told him I was flying with a friend so I didn’t want to change anything until I could speak with my friend. Turns out the same guy also handled that check-in and remembered that I had mentioned we were flying together. Again, a little thing, but one that was quite nice.
No arrivals facilities in Singapore upon landing at 6am is a bit rough, but that’s how they roll.
Other bits
A couple other things of note related to the trip. First, it is not at all common to see numbers like these on the flight map data page. More than 18 hours and more than 15,000 km left to fly is insane. The flight actually ended up being nearly 19 hours in the air due to headwinds.
Next up, it is somewhat strange that there is no amenity kit on the flight. All the goodies are stocked in the lavs and it certainly reduces waste, but I was still a bit surprised. They do distribute eye masks and socks to all passengers.
Finally, the pilot put the plane down so hard on arrival in Singapore that we actually bounced off the runway. And when we pulled in to the gate the APU was inoperable. Dunno that the two are definitely related, but it was one of the hardest landings I’ve ever experienced. Of course, the FAs played it down suggesting that it just felt hard because we had been flying 19 hours. But the look on their faces when it actually happened belied that smoothness.
Overall there is very little bad to say about the experience, other than that 19 hours in a plane is a really long time. I’m quite happy I got the opportunity to make the trip and look forward to having this as an option for future award travels.
Tags: Airbus, award, Dining, Flying, Lufthansa, New York City, Newark, review, Singapore, Singapore Air, Trip Report
Posted by Seth on March 22, 2012 under News |
It wasn’t too long ago that the concept of the fuel surcharge in the context of airline tickets simply didn’t exist. The full price of the transaction was simply the ticket cost and the mandated airport and government taxes or fees and that was that. A few years ago airlines realized that they could manipulate the pricing systems a bit, charging a fuel surcharge rather than just raising fares and an ugly trend began. In theory the fuel surcharges would be relative to the actual costs of fuel and would decrease when those costs decrease, but that sort of behavior has not been particularly common.
Perhaps the most adversely affected group from these fees are those traveling on corporate contracts. Those deals allow for discounts on the fare paid but the taxes and fees are not subject to discount. By shifting the cost to the fuel surcharge the airlines have effectively killed a chunk of those discounts. The US government has finally caught on, however, and they don’t seem too impressed.
In a notice published in the Federal Register two weeks ago the Department of Transportation put the airlines on notice that they consider the current practice to be a violation of the unfair or deceptive trade clauses which they have the power to enforce. To that end, they are proposing that the airlines must change their behavior in two significant ways.
First, all fuel surcharges and any other fees which the airlines keep for themselves must be identified separately from fees which are paid to the government or airport authorities.
We have found, in reviewing airline Web sites, that many Web sites which detailed additional fees labeled all additional charges, government and carrier-imposed, as taxes when in fact carrier-imposed fees were often the major portion of these fees. Such displays were deceptive and in violation of section 41712.
This should help clear up the fact that a $100 base fare plus $650 in "taxes & fees" for a NYC-London flight is actually $550ish to the airline and $200 in real taxes (still obscene, but way better than the old way it was shown). Interestingly, they do indicate that it would be acceptable to have a single entry called "Taxes and carrier-imposed fees" rather than just "Taxes and fees"
Second, the airlines will be required to align the fuel surcharge component with the actual cost of fuel to provide the service, or at least a near approximation.
When a cost component is described as a fuel surcharge, for example, that amount must actually reflect a reasonable estimate of the per-passenger fuel costs incurred by the carrier above some baseline calculated based on such factors as the length of the trip, varying costs of fuel, and number of flight segments involved.
…
Therefore, the “fuel surcharge” of $476 in the above example, which is associated with a transatlantic trip originating in New York City, must be an accurate reflection of the fuel cost over some reasonable baseline for an individual passenger for that trip and the carrier should be prepared to detail the services and costs per passenger associated with its “Passenger service charge international.”
In other words, the numbers have to actually line up with something that vaguely resembles the cost of the service being offered. Take, for example, the fuel surcharges levied by United Airlines for non-stop flights from Newark to four nearby destinations in Europe (all rates are one-way for travel in late March 2012):
- Dublin – $101
- London – $219
- Paris – $248
- Amsterdam – $248
With a spread of less than 500 miles from the shortest to the longest, it is clear that the numbers do not reflect the actual costs of the fuel. According to the company’s 2011 10-K filing the cost for fuel averaged 4.77 cents per ASM. That puts the actual fuel cost per seat for the above flights somewhere around $150. And that assumes that there is a direct correlation from the fuel costs to the miles flown, something that doesn’t actually work out quite so directly. Plus, the DoT seems to think that the "surcharge" should actually reflect the difference over some acceptable baseline, not the entire fuel cost.
This might mean that base fares go up while fuel surcharges go down, leaving the final fare the same for most folks. Not a huge deal in the end if the number is the same, but at least the fares will more properly reflect the reality of what is being offered.
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 17, 2012 under frequent flyer, Mileage Run, Trip Reports |
My United Airlines flight into Brussels arrived at a hard stand this morning. I generally find those annoying for any number of reasons, but in this case it gave me the opportunity to chat with another passenger about our trips and share a couple quick travel stories. Among them, I related that I generally enjoy coming in to Europe because the immigration process is so easy and it is such a quick flight from New York City for a day or two. She was ahead of me in line when we got to the immigration desk and made it through with only the slightest questioning. I was not so lucky.
The questions started in the normal manner – what is the reason for your visit and how long are you here for – and my answers were my usual ones, one day for holidays. Apparently this agent was not happy about the one day stay. Thumbing through my passport he noted, "You seem to come to Europe a lot, only for one or two days. I find that strange." Yes, I do. I like visiting. Can I now continue to do so? Not so fast.
Do I have a hotel reservation? Yes, I do. Where? Here’s the email confirmation; I don’t really remember the name as I just made it yesterday. Still not convinced.
I tried explaining the miles angle and he was having none of it. He complained about the taxes on awards and I started to try to explain that those weren’t nearly as big an issue in the USA-based programs but that didn’t seem to be helping my case either.
At this point – about 5 minutes in to my stay at the counter – he leaned over to his neighbor and started talking about me. I only caught a few words but the gist of it was that I’m apparently suspect. He started to fill out a form, one I’ve never seen before, which I’m guessing was sending me to a secondary inspection. He went to make a call to find someone, I’m assuming with the rubber gloves, and then noticed that a supervisor was standing right there. Lucky me.
I explained again that I really do just love traveling, that the ticket was only $350 and that I really like Belgian beer. I figured the flattery might help, plus it is the truth. The supe wasn’t quite as skeptical, but he still wasn’t convinced.
It was at this point that the supervisor noticed the luggage tags on my bag. I’ve got quite a collection and they’re great as souvenirs or to help folks identify me when I’m meeting a new group. In this case, they also seemed sufficient to prove that I really am a crazy travel person, but a harmless one. The supervisor flipped through them, made a couple more comments to the agent and then I heard the magic words: "You seem to have convinced my supervisor."
I’ll settle for the fact that the guys think I’m crazy – they’re not wrong – so long as I can also go get my beer.
Posted by Seth on March 4, 2012 under Trip Reports |
Some times I want to board a plane early to make sure I have room to stow my bags. Some times I don’t really care and just board whenever. It is rare, however, that I want to be the absolute last person on to the airplane. In Phoenix on Saturday night, however, I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. The crew working the gate made it very clear that I was going to be last and I can not thank them enough for the gesture. They made sure that I had the honor of being the last passenger to board the very last departure under the Continental name.
I started the afternoon at JFK, catching a US Airways flight out to Phoenix so that I could meet up with the Phoenix – Cleveland redeye, the last Continental flight. I normally travel light but this trip I had about 30 pounds of candy in my bag. It was separated into little baggies to give away to the ticket and gate agents I ran in to along the way and it included some very important "extra" SHARES training for who were working the migration this weekend.
The crew in JFK was incredibly appreciative, with one of the Newark agents who was supporting the United agents in JFK noting that this was "the first time a customer has EVER done anything nice for me." Putting aside the obvious EWR dig, I was honored.
Once I got to Phoenix the party started to accelerate rather quickly. I had a couple beers in the lounge with one travel mate and then we headed over to the United terminal for check-in and the flight. Out at the ticket counter the agents were awed. One actually came out from behind the counter to give me a hug and thank me. She then insisted that I come back behind the counter and we get one last photo in front of the logo while it was still on the wall.
Thank goodness I was early to the counter; as we were taking the picture the maintenance crew started removing the signage just a couple stations down. I got to keep one of the stickers thanks to her and it is now firmly attached as a "skin" on my laptop lid.
Another relatively local travel junkie had driven down to the airport to join the party and, as a group, we headed through security to really begin the celebration. Part of this included getting photos of the departure board. Last time I was in Phoenix taking pictures of a departure board it was because the flight was headed to Paine Field; this time it was because the screen would never show that CO code again. I wasn’t the only one taking the pictures, and many of the other passengers started to wonder what was going on. As I tried to explain it to them many rolled their eyes, though many others started to get in to the spirit of celebrating the final departure rather than mourning it.
The flight crew came out from the plane to sign one of the temporary signs. All of the logoed stuff was being auctioned off to raise money for the company’s internal employee support fund, a great cause and one I’ve supported in the past. In this case I didn’t get to place a bid but I probably should have tried. Still, the environment was becoming more and more festive in the gate area:
There were a number of photos taken of the whole group of agents working the last flight as well. I may have wandered in to one or two of those.
At one point it was finally time to start boarding the plane. The appropriate announcements were made and passengers started moving down the jetway. I was hanging out towards the back of the group. It had finally dawned on me that I could be last.
During the shmoozing prior to departure I met Ken, a Global Account Manager in the sales team who works out of Phoenix as well. Sure, his job isn’t really "at the airport" but like everyone else at the company he was at a station doing what he could to help make sure that the transition went a smoothly as possible. As I started making my way towards the gate Ken caught my eye and waved me off. "You’re going to be last," was all he had to say. I wanted it to be that way and so did the crew. It was set.
Finally, a few minutes prior to the scheduled departure time, Ken called me over and Susan, the agent who gave me the big hug a couple hours earlier, escorted me down to the airplane. She insisted that I get to meet the pilots, and I’ll never say no to a photo op in the cockpit.
And then I took my seat and they closed the door. We pushed back a few minutes early and had a great flight into Cleveland (putting aside that a 3 hour long redeye is cruel and unusual punishment and may also violate Geneva Convention standards on torture).
I gave out more candy in Cleveland and finished the distribution in LaGuardia when I arrived there. It took me 18 hours to get from JFK to LaGuardia (I’ve heard rumors that I might have beaten some folks who tried to drive it) and I went via Phoenix. Not the most normal routing, but also not the strangest I’ve done. And I got this incredible experience out of it as well.
Farewell, Continental and welcome, United. Just another page turning in this grand travel adventure.
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Posted by Seth on February 24, 2012 under Hotel |
Well, maybe they’re worth mentioning, though it is hard to know some days. Neither is an incredible offer, but both might have some value.
First up, DoubleTree is running a contest to win a trip to Costa Rica as part of a cross-promotion with The Lorax. Register here (DoubleTree.com/TheLorax) and you can win. Stay at a DoubleTree before April 29, 2012 and get an extra entry. And you can mail in a postcard to get more entries, too. Odd of winning are perilously low, but there’s no real work involved in entering (at least the one freebie) so no harm there either.
Next up is a discount promo from one of my favorite small-chain hotel brands. They recently won some award and are celebrating by offering 15% off at a bunch of their hotels for stays through March 31, 2012.
The deal includes their property in New York City, for those who are averse to such awesome destinations as Barcelona, Madrid, Buenos Aires or Mexico City. More details on that promo here.
Like I said, nothing earth-shattering, but worth mentioning.
Posted by Seth on February 16, 2012 under Hotel, News |
Like they do every year, Starwood has assessed the award category rating of their hotels and made changes to a number of the properties. A total of 658 properties are changing their award level. Of those, 287 will be at a lower rate while 371 are seeing their award level increase.
A quick scan through the list doesn’t reveal too many surprises, though there are some interesting trends in the numbers. Nearly every property in New York City is moving up a level, for example. This trend covers everything from the Aloft in Harlem (3->4) to three of the Four Points properties becoming Category 5 hotels and Ws becoming Category 6. Across the river in New Jersey doesn’t find you much salvation; those properties are increasing a category, too.
China is also seeing significant appreciation in award costs with 58 properties increasing one level while 16 are decreasing. Thailand goes the other direction with several properties becoming cheaper while only one gets a bump up.
Nothing particularly shocking or egregious in my initial scan of the list, though I’m sure I’ll be informed of something I missed as folks scour it more closely. Check out the list here (PDF).
Posted by Seth on February 9, 2012 under News |
Since the announcement of the new routes that Delta will be serving from New York City‘s LaGuardia airport a few weeks back it has been clear that the carrier is looking to make a splash in the market and build their share of traffic in a big way. To reach this goal they’ve apparently gone to a rather unusual avenue for marketing domestic air service: Travel Agents.
Airlines have continually cut and cut again on air travel commissions to agents, essentially killing them off outright. But Delta is putting some back out there, at least in the short term, in an effort to drive bookings on their new routes. Here’s what the numbers look like:
I’m not sure how much demand there is going to be for the premium cabin on those routes but even a number of coach fares are getting in on the action. Not too shabby.
It is hard to know if this is Delta responding to soft future bookings on the new routes, trying to raise travel agent awareness of the new routes or something completely different. Regardless of the motivation, it is definitely a blast from the past with the commissions.
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Posted by Seth on January 30, 2012 under Trip Reports |
I had a grand plan for transiting three different cities across Europe on consecutive days. Sure, I’d sleep a couple hours each night, but I was also going to spend most of the 20-ish hours on the ground at each stop exploring the town, eating their food and drinking their booze. It was a grand plan, alright, but the execution was a bit lacking.
My first stop of the hopping was Berlin, a city I’d heard great things about and one I was quite excited to visit. I even sortof knew what I wanted to see while I was there. Sortof. OK, other than the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust memorial, nothing at all. But I’d figure it out, right? After all, I always have.
The bus in from the airport was incredibly easy (except the ticket machines don’t make change for bills larger than 10 Euro) and 20 minutes or so later I was in front of the beautiful, towering, modern Hauptbahnhof. I knew my hotel was just a stop or two away from there so I headed inside. Sure, I spent the next 20 minutes or so wandering around lost in the enormous station, trying to find the appropriate S-Bahn train, but I didn’t mind at all. The station truly is beautiful.
And then, after dropping my bag in the hotel I was back out. I had only an hour before I was due to meet a friend for drinks and dinner and that really isn’t much time in a city as grand as Berlin. But I knew the two things I wanted to see and they were only about a 10 minute walk from the hotel; I was doing fine.
The Gate is pretty. They light it up lovely at night. And I even got a couple photos of it that I don’t particularly hate, which is somewhat impressive given that I had no tripod, the exposures were painfully slow and it was pretty darn cold outside so I was shivering a lot.
From Brandenburg Gate I headed around the corner to see the Holocaust memorial. It is beautiful. It is amazing. It is rather intimidating to walk into when it is dark outside. The photo here is a VERY long exposure, making it appear reasonably light outside. Truth is that the sky was the same darkness as the Brandenburg Gate photos above. Still, thanks to the miracles of modern technology I got the pretty cool picture below.
And then my hour as a tourist was up. I had to race to the U-Bahn to meet up with my friend. I found the station, figured out which track and caught the next train going my way. I was rather confused 2 stops later when they made the "Last Stop" announcement (though at least they repeated it in English). Apparently there were track works in progress and I was supposed to find a replacement bus to the next major station. At this point I became acutely aware of just how hard it must be for the tourists in New York City who are forced to navigate the constantly changing construction projects we have, all without the benefit of any communication in their native language. Even with the little bits of English on the signs it was a challenge. I made it, eventually, but it wasn’t easy.
I also had grand plans for the morning, to see more of town before my noon-ish flight onward to Munich and then Ljubljana. Alas, when I awoke I discovered that there had been a schedule change at some point previously and I was now faced with a 5 minute connection in Munich rather than the originally booked 30 minutes. The airport is easy, but not that easy. A panicked phone call to the folks at Continental (this was an award ticket) got me booked on the next earlier Berlin-Munich flight which meant I’d make my connection. It also meant scrapping my plans for a morning in Berlin.
And so, the entirety of my tourist time in town was an hour (plus an awesome dinner with an old friend). I definitely saw a lot in that hour and had a blast, but it also would be a disservice to Berlin to say that I saw the city. Guess I’ll just have to go back.
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Posted by Seth on January 26, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, News |
Today’s quarterly earnings conference call from JetBlue had a few interesting bits of information that was unveiled, giving insight into future developments that can be expected from the carrier. The company reported a profit for both Q4 2011 and the full year, but there are also some very real challenges that the company is facing in 2012. As one person said on the call, "The honeymoon we enjoyed prior to this period is over."
A lot of the news which I found most interesting was around the "Even More" products that the company sells. What started with Even More Legroom seats offering additional pitch in the cabin has expanded to Even More Space (offering pre-boarding to ensure overhead bin space) and Even More Speed for access to priority security lines in many airports. This service started in 15 airports and recently expanded to 9 more. And selling the service resulted in $120MM of incremental revenue for the company in 2011. That’s a huge number, more than 20% of the total incremental that the company saw in the year.
Given the high revenue realized from the offering, it is not surprising that the company is expanding the number of seats for which it can be purchased. Specifically, the company confirmed that they will be adding 8 more seats to their Embraer E90 planes in the Q2/Q3 timeframe this year. Full details aren’t yet available on the announcement (seems to be a bit of a pattern there lately) but a quick review of the seat map suggests that they can get away with sliding a couple rows behind the exit row around and not really have to change too much else around, so long as they’re willing to keep the 34" pitch that the E90 has. If they go for the 38" that the A320s have they could also do that behind the exit row with minimal impact to customers, changing the other seats in that section from 33" to 32" pitch. Either way, it looks to be a positive change for the company to make more EML seats available.
Beyond the Even More bits, the honeymoon comment piqued my curiosity. The company had a huge growth spurt a few years back, taking on a bunch of new airplanes in a very short timeframe. Those acquisitions are now hitting the magic point in the life of an airplane known as a "C-Check." The maintenance costs for the C-Check and engine restorations on the aircraft are significant and the number of planes the company has going through that process in the next couple years is quite high. The result is a spike in maintenance costs. JetBlue has worked with their maintenance suppliers to mitigate the costs somewhat, but it will still be a challenge for the company in the coming years. And that’s all with a fleet that is still only 6.1 years old on average with a maximum age of 12 years.
There was mention of the new Hawaiian Airlines partnership, but no additional details shared there. And it was suggested that 5-7 new partners will be coming online in 2012, with links at Boston and Orlando likely rather than just at New York City. I’m betting on JAL being a partner via Boston with their new service there starting soon, but who knows.
Other than those bits, not a whole lot of interest. Plenty of accounting mumbo jumbo but nothing that seems especially significant at this point. And there are still a number of open questions, like where the company stands on rolling out additional benefits for their most frequent customers or many of the partnership details with Hawaiian. I guess patience will have to suffice.
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