Upgrades (and downgrades) to the Delta 747 cabin

Posted by Seth on February 15, 2012 under News | 8 Comments to Read

Delta has announced major upgrades to their 747 cabin interiors in both the business and economy cabins. One aircraft is already converted and the company expects all their 747s to be in the new configuration by October, 2012. The changes are significant throughout the plane, mostly for the better, but there are a couple potential negatives that come with the announcement as well.

In the Business cabin the new seats will offer flat beds and direct aisle access for all customers. The seats are from Zodiac Aerospace and are the same as those in place on US Airways A330s and Cathay Pacific’s new business class. American Airlines has also confirmed that they will be using the sets for the new business class product on their 777-300s. The seats are nice and the IFE upgrades that will accompany them – 15" screen, more than 300 films, 88 hours of television programming, nearly 100 hours of premium programming from HBO and Showtime, 27 video games and more than 5,000 digital music tracks – are certainly top notch. The layout of the seats is also nice, with both single and "paired" seats so traveling with a partner in the comfy seats won’t mean being isolated from them.

It is somewhat strange, however, that the company is claiming the seats’ 20.5" width is 20% more than the old seats. That suggests the old seats are 17" wide, which is definitely not the case, or there is some other creative math going on. The other significant downgrade that is coming with the new seats is a sharp decrease in the number available on the planes. The current configuration has 65 seats; the new configuration has only 48. That’s going to hurt folks looking for upgrades or discounted business class seats.

In the economy cabin the best news is that the same IFE system that powers the business class cabin will also be available. Other than that, there will be new, slimline seats installed in the cabin. The general idea behind the slimline seats is to provide additional knee-space for passengers without requiring additional pitch in the cabin. This allows for more customer space without removing seats from the plane. I’ve only had one experience on the slimline seats – with Lufthansa on a short flight in Europe – and they were comfortable enough but I’m not so sure how they’ll fare over a 12-16 hour trip.

Definitely upgrades to the product overall, though, like everything else, a few sacrifices to realize those improvements.

Related Posts:

• A different take on the new American Airlines 777-300ER interior

Searching for SWUable fares on Delta and United

Posted by Seth on February 7, 2012 under frequent flyer, points, Wandering Aramean Travel Tools | 9 Comments to Read

One of the great benefits of top-tier airline elite status is the upgrade certificates the programs issue. While American Airlines offers eVIPs which are valid on all fares, Delta and United Airlines have fare limitations on theirs, making shopping for upgradable fares a bit more difficult. On top of that, comparing the fares from nearby departure points or to nearby destination points can be time consuming and annoying.

Well, it is time for the annoyance and frustration to go away. It is time for an easier search interface. It is time for another update to the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools!

The United SWUable tool has been around for a while now, though it has recently seen a number of updates to get it back online after a short hiatus due to data source issues. The Delta version of the tool is a new addition and has just come out of beta and is ready for action.

Here’s how it works:

• Head to either the United or Delta version of the tool.
• Zoom in on the map to find your departure city or destination airport.
  
• Or scroll down and choose from the airports or price points listed.
  
• Check out the fare data and pick the option that works for you!
  

The fares listed are EXCLUSIVE of taxes and fees. This means that any YQ fuel surcharges are not included. I wish they were, but the GDS from which the data comes doesn’t have them and I cannot just make up the data so I’m publishing what I’ve got. Still better than a poke in the eye. Also, the fares are published fares, not necessarily the lowest available on your specific dates of travel. Not perfect, but a good starting point. And the CPM is point-to-point, so odds are you can do better than that with creative routings on most city pairs.

Not seeing the fare you want, but hoping that it will happen? I’ve got a system set up for that, too. Click on the "Manage My Alerts" link and you can set up email alerts for various cities and price points. Every morning after the fare data is collected the system checks the alert queue and sends out emails if the fares are available.

There’s also fare history (more useful for the United data right now, but the Delta data is building) so you can watch trends.

The fare history page also has the actual numbers so you can see those bits, too. And I’ve fixed the bug that’s causing the multiple daily entries the past couple weeks.

Hopefully the tool can help you better apply the SWUs you’ve earned. Happy flying!!

Easy and FREE access to Korean Air award inventory

Posted by Seth on February 4, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, points | 21 Comments to Read

One of the more notable stories in frequent flyer land this week was that award inventory for Korean Air is being published into the GDSes, meaning that it is publicly visible and searchable. Both Gary and Ben mentioned it earlier today and both of them also note that folks can sign up for an ExpertFlyer account to search the inventory and setup email alerts for it. I’m a big fan of ExpertFlyer and I love the access they have to a lot of otherwise private inventory and fare data, but I’m also a big fan of free access to free data, and in the case of Korean Air awards and upgrades, getting the information for free is absolutely possible.

One of my many travel-related projects is the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools website. It includes, among other things, award inventory information for a bunch of airlines. And now that the data is accessible, Korean Air is part of that collection. You can search for award or upgrade inventory for free. And there’s even an email alert function that can be set, allowing you to get a message if the award inventory opens up.

Yes, you have to register to gain access to the data, but it is free and no strings attached.

Here’s a snip of what the search page looks like:

Not particularly pretty, but quite functional. Also of note is that sometimes the system will provide options that don’t quite get you where you’re going, but to an intermediate connecting point instead. On the above Seoul to Singapore search there are two non-stop flights (KE 641 and 643) that are both available, but there is also KE 683 to SGN, from which you might be able to pick up a connection on SkyTeam partner Vietnam Airlines, another of the carriers searchable in the tool collection. Displaying more than just the non-stop options should help folks with flexibility to better find awards that work.

Coach award inventory is not currently available in the system and first class isn’t available to partners, but otherwise the data should be accurate for redemptions.

Give the tools a try and let me know what you think.

In flight: Newark to Stockholm in United BusinessFirst

Posted by Seth on January 20, 2012 under Dining, Flying, Review, Trip Reports | 7 Comments to Read

Any trip that starts with a dozen folks hanging out in the lounge, enjoying a few drinks before the flight, has strong potential. That I had already been in the lounge 2+ hours when the others started to arrive didn’t hurt the situation either. And the fact that my upgrade into the BusinessFirst cabin on the 757-200 had cleared at the time of booking made things even better. So it was slightly lubricated that I made my way down to the duty free shop and then to the gate for a flight from Newark to Stockholm.

Boarding was a bit of a mess, even though we arrived at the gate towards the end of the process. We were awaiting the last of the duty free deliveries which took us precariously close to departure time and my mobile boarding pass failed, causing me to hunt down a printed one while the gate agent dealt with some other issues which involved the police. Still, I had sufficient time to stow my bags in the overhead and settle in to 1E with a glass of champagne prior to departure.

I also was able to find the International Concierge working the flight, despite his best efforts to remain invisible in the cabin. Somewhat critical to the success of our first day in Stockholm, I requested access to the arrivals facility that the BusinessFirst service provides. In Stockholm this is a day room at the Radisson Blu hotel in the airport. There were four of us in the forward cabin so four rooms were requested. And he actually followed through on the request; the agent meeting the flight knew that we needed the rooms and was ready for us (sortof).

I chatted with my seatmate a bit during our short taxi out to Runway 22R and the ~7.5 hour flight to Sweden began.

It turns out that there are only two bottles of Heidsieck Monopole catered in the forward cabin on a 752. Those went pretty quickly, starting with the warmed nuts service and lasting part of the way through the appetizer service. The nuts were not particularly memorable but the apps were. Both the cold seafood soup and the beef empanada were quite nice. There was a salad, too.

I took a risk when ordering dinner: I chose the miSteak. It is a complete crap-shoot taking that route. Sometimes the meat is horribly overcooked and miserable. For this flight, however, it was cooked to a reasonable medium doneness (still way overcooked for my tastes, but at least edible) and actually tasted pretty good. The accompanying sides (creamed spinach, asparagus and a potato patty of some sort) were not particularly memorable, either for being good or bad.

And then there is the hour-long foodgasm that is dessert on the BF flights. First was the cheese plate, served with a reasonable glass of Port. Not particularly great cheeses, but the flavors were where they should be for the types served. Next up was the ice cream sundaes. I only had one (caramel and chocolate, thank you very much), but there were extras making their way back to the galley which may have been waylaid by a couple of the other guys. And then there were the pastries. They’ve got nothing on Austrian, to be sure, but they were pretty tasty.

And then it was time to try for some much needed sleep. I actually managed to get 3-4 hours which is pretty good for an eastbound redeye; it helps that this is one of the longer flights being run out of Newark to Europe. Plus, I managed to sleep through the relatively poor breakfast offering which was a good plan based on the reports I got from the others.

The food was fine, as was the seat and the sleep. What truly made the flight for me, however, was the crew. It is usually easy to tell at the beginning of a flight if the crew is enjoying themselves or not, and that generally translates into a better in flight experience. This crew was having a great time from the get go and it really did play out through the rest of the flight. It really is great to fly with a crew that enjoys their job.

Overall the trip was a very good one. Most of that is attributable to the crew, combined with having a bunch of friends on board, but I’m not so sure the reasoning matters as much as the fact that it was a nice flight. Even with the very recent surprisingly nice flight on Lufthansa, I have to say that the legacy Continental product that United is offering these days tops it, both in food and seat. It is one of the better business products across the pond.

So, Virgin America is coming to Philly

Posted by Seth on January 18, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, News | 7 Comments to Read

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.

US Airways completes first class upgrades

Posted by Seth on January 10, 2012 under frequent flyer, News | 5 Comments to Read

A few months ago US Airways announced their intentions to retrofit their larger regional jets with first class cabins. It appears that work has now been completed, making upgrades available now for passengers on an additional 640 flights daily.

There are a lot of reasons that this sort of fleet conversion makes sense, both for customers and for the companies; I wrote about it a bit when this change was first announced back in April but it seems worth revisiting now that the conversion is complete. Customers – particularly the folks with elite status, arguably the folks contributing the most to the margins – are happy because they have access to first class capacity. Whether through upgrades or through purchasing directly, the first class cabin is great for those customers.

At the same time, airlines are working hard to maintain capacity discipline. And the regional fleets offer some of the highest costs per seat and generally operates in more marginal markets where capacity controls are more needed. By cutting ~7.5% of the seats on the fleet they’ve removed a whole lot of available seat miles (ASMs) from the market. Plus, they made the cuts without needed to kill frequencies, the other means that is normally employed to reduce ASMs.

Wins all around indeed.

Here’s the breakdown on the new cabin configurations:

Related Posts:

• First Class coming to US Airways regional jets

How do you split that upgrade?

Posted by Seth on December 9, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, Trip Reports | Be the First to Comment

Sure, it is a good problem to have. Two passengers traveling together and only one upgrade clears. It has the potential to be an awkward situation, so what do you do (keeping in mind that you’re in an airport so shooting the hostage probably isn’t a viable solution)?

For me the answer is an easy one. I’ve always tried to give the seat away. Heck, I even give it away some times when I don’t know the other person. The hard part of giving the seat away, however, can be convincing the other person to take it.

One of my fellow BoardingArea.com bloggers was in a pretty awful car crash a few weeks ago and the rest of us are pitching in to help keep the content flowing on his blog while he recuperates. My guest post on MilesQuest is up today and tells the story of the very first time my wife actually agreed to take the one upgrade we had to share. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

The Spouse and Upgrades debate, take 3

Delta expands Economy Comfort deployment

Posted by Seth on October 20, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, News | 6 Comments to Read

Just months after reconfiguring their long-haul fleet with Economy Comfort – additional legroom in the coach cabin – Delta Airlines announced today that they are expanding the deployment fleet-wide to all mainline aircraft as well as all two-cabin regional aircraft. This move brings the carrier into direct competition with United Airlines and their EconomyPlus product offering.

The product will be installed in the first three-to-five rows of the Economy cabin by removing a negligible number of seats from the current cabin configuration on all of Delta’s domestic Boeing 767, 757, 737, MD88, MD90, DC9, Airbus A320 and A319 aircraft, and all two-class regional jets including the CRJ900, CRJ700, E170 and E175 aircraft types by summer 2012. The breadth of this installation means flights to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and northern South America will also offer the Economy Comfort product. The first of these converted aircraft will be a Boeing 757 which will enter service in November.

The Economy Comfort will be priced between $19-99 per segment on the domestic flights and will include priority boarding. The domestic Economy Comfort product will be free for Diamond, Platinum and Gold Medallion elites as well as full-fare customers. Silver Medallion elites will have the option of purchasing the seats for 50% off at time of booking or for free during the check-in process.

Related Posts:

• Delta launches Economy Comfort product

Decoding fare buckets on the new United

Posted by Seth on October 13, 2011 under frequent flyer, points | 29 Comments to Read

Like nearly everything associated with the merger between Continental and United Airlines there are adjustments being made in the fare buckets that are used for bookings. There are changes from both the legacy Continental and United systems, resulting in an alphabet soup that is pretty convoluted to parse through. Even more confusing is that some of the changes are already creeping into the system while others (namely on the earning rates) are not going to take effect for a few weeks yet. Still, getting to the bottom of the new fare buckets is a useful exercise.

At least I hope it is, because I just did it.

Perhaps the most challenging in all of this will be tweaking all the various award monitoring and alert systems to help ensure that folks looking for award seats are getting the correct information in a timely manner.

Going forward I’ll be maintaining this information in a wiki rather than here as the wiki format is much more conducive to sharing and editing this sort of stuff, but I figured that the initial share wouldn’t hurt in both. You can find the wiki here.

Here’s what the new buckets look like:

Revenue Fare Buckets

*Most fares in the “Deep Discounted” buckets are ineligible for MileagePlus promotions. They are also not eligible for GPU (formerly known as SWU) upgrades on longhaul routes marketed with a premium cabin.
** The N fare bucket is currently flagged as unused in the system; it is the only letter as yet unused.

Award Fare Buckets

Upgrade Fare Buckets

*This includes Complimentary Premium Upgrades (CPUs) which were formerly known as UDU or EUA.

Insta-Upgrade Fare Buckets

Buying a round of drinks in flight

Posted by Seth on September 12, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, Mileage Run, Trip Reports | 13 Comments to Read

Anyone ever tried to buy a round of drinks for an entire airplane? I did today and the logistics were surprisingly complicated. Maybe that’s because no one ever does this sort of thing. Or because it is ridiculous. But that mostly just describes me so I gave it a go.

American Express offers a $200 credit to platinum charge cardholders to offset the various fees airlines will hit you with these days. The catch is that it can only be used against one airline and once you choose the carrier you’re stuck with that choice for the whole year. Most of my flying is on airlines where I have status and I rarely check a bag, even when I don’t have status. Plus I get upgraded a fair amount so food and booze are often part of the deal. Nearly a year into the program’s existence I haven’t figured out a scenario where I could reasonably spend that $200.

Sitting a lunch with a friend in Anchorage I decided that today would be the day. I was going to commit my $200 in "fees" credit to Alaska Airlines and get my money’s worth. It is my first flight ever on Alaska and probably my last for the year so committing to spending the $200 on my own is too tall a task. But with a little help it shouldn’t be much of an issue. After all, it is a flight to Honolulu and folks should mostly be pretty happy about that, right? A free drink should make it even better.

After stowing my bag in the overhead bin I made my way back to the galley to explain my plan to the flight attendants.

Me: Hi there! I’ve got a strange situation here. I want to buy drinks. A lot of them.

FA: Huh?

Me: I want to buy the first round for the whole plane. That’s probably 40-50 drinks, right?

FA: Huh?

OK, so the quotes aren’t entirely verbatim, but the confusion expressed by the FAs was pretty close. We spent the next 10 minutes chatting about my scheme and trying to figure out the best way to handle the logistics. One option was for her to run the card 30+ times and have me hand the receipts to the lucky drinkers. We threw that one out pretty quickly as way too much work. Eventually we agreed that they’d just do a normal beverage service but rather than charge everyone they would just tally the total drinks consumed and I’d pay the bill at the end of the service.

Because the offer was only revealed after the drink was ordered the initial damage was actually rather limited. We didn’t quite get to the $200 threshold on the first pass. This, of course, raised another issue of trying to figure out how to spend the rest of the credit on board. I made a sign, figuring I’d walk through the cabin offering up the drinks that way.

Ultimately, however, that seemed less friendly. So I just started asking folks if they wanted a drink. I’m wearing a Hawaiian shirt that is similar in color to that of the flight attendants so A few people confused me for that; I even had one ask how to fill out the agricultural declaration form. But once I explained that I’m just a guy buying drinks for anyone who wanted one I did manage to get a few takers. Pretty soon my sales efforts were rewarded and the $200 credit (and a few dollars more) was over. I was willing to keep going (a bit) but the third beverage service is about to start and that means free mai tais for everyone!

I had entirely too much fun on this flight. I don’t know why but flights to Hawaii make me want to have more fun than most. Also, a special thanks to the crew from Alaska Airlines who were willing to help me out on this ridiculous bit of entertainment.

Related Posts:

• Did I really just downgrade myself on a long haul flight?!?