For the first time since 1998, AirTran will be serving Des Moines – that city was announced with the SkyWest announcement from a couple of weeks ago, but AirTran said on Friday that they would start service to Orlando with service starting March 6. The service will be operated with 717 aircraft. What’s interesting is the competition with Allegiant in the market, and the potential advantage that AirTran might have thanks to SkyWest.
Photo credit: Chris Weyer.
This announcement goes along with AirTran’s recent moves. Continue reading ‘Why AirTran’s Move in Des Moines Is Interesting’
Last week, bmi announced some restructuring moves as the airline and the whole industry face “the challenges of a downturn in demand and the worst recession in the UK since records began.” The airline will be cutting its fleet, and as a result, some routes will be cut.
The mainline fleet is dropping from 39 to 30 aircraft, here’s how the fleet will look after these changes:
Continue reading ‘bmi to Trim Fleet, Routes’
Well, I blogged about Virgin Atlantic’s new Gatwick lounge, and I noticed they also uploaded a YouTube video about it, so I figured it would be worth posting:
I wasn’t planning to provide much commentary at the end of this week, as I’m taking it a bit easy after the holiday
Fortunately, Virgin Atlantic sent over some pictures of its Clubhouse at Gatwick to drool over – the 130-seat lounge has just re-opened after a renovation. The lounge has some interesting features, including a Cowshed Spa (like the one at Heathrow), an Entertainment Lounge and Business Area (complete with a Wii!) , and an area dedicated to families, which I’m sure will be appreciated by both families and those who don’t want to deal with loud families. 
I’d love to explore the lounge in person – too bad my college student budget doesn’t allow for Upper Class tickets!
You can explore the lounge here. Take a look at some pictures after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Virgin Atlantic’s New Gatwick Clubhouse’
Remember that KLM custom luggage tag promotion I blogged about over a month ago? Well, the tags came a couple of weeks ago, and I pretty much forgot about them until I saw this post on The Gate announcing the promotion. So, here they are:
The tags don’t come with any way to attach them to your bag, so you’ll have to take care of that yourself, but that’s really not a big deal. It’s pretty cool get some custom printed tags for free, and I’m happy that airline employees won’t have to try to read my crappy handwriting if my bag is ever lost.
You can still design your tags here.
Well, no post today since I’m taking the day off for Thanksgiving. But I did want to post and say THANK YOU to all of the readers. This whole blogging thing has more successful than I ever expected – and that’s because you keep coming back. For the heck of it, I was playing around with Google Analytics, and decided to compare traffic from last year. For October, pageviews were up 580% year-over-year. So, thank you!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
I thought it would be a boring week for news with Thanksgiving this week, but apparently I was wrong. Yesterday, US Airways announced some changes to its fleet plan. What does that mean for passengers? Basically, some older aircraft, like the 737s and the 767s (pictured below), will probably be hanging around a bit longer.
Photo credit: US Airways.
The company announced that it would be deferring the delivery of 54 Airbus aircraft that were scheduled to be delivered between 2010 and 2012. Now, the airline will only be receiving four aircraft next year – two A320s and two A330-200s. Between 2011 and 2012, 24 A320 family will be delivered.
That really cuts down on the expansion of the A330-200 fleet – US Airways has just started to receive those aircraft, but now won’t be receiving any more until 2013 or later. In addition, the delivery of the A350 has been pushed back to 2017 from 2015. US Airways currently has 18 A350-800s and 4 A350-900s on order. Continue reading ‘US Airways Defers 54 Airbus Deliveries; Other Fleet Moves’
Air Canada announced last week that it has begun a ten-week trial of inflight Wi-Fi provided by Aircell’s Gogo service, which will be available on some flights to Los Angeles from Montreal and Toronto. Two A319s have been equipped for the trial period, which lasts until January 29. After that, Air Canada will evaluate rolling out the service to other aircraft and routes.
Photo credit: Chris Weyer.
So, why pick those flights? Well, right now the service will be turned on once the flights cross the United States border. As you can see on this Gogo coverage map* (I decided to add on some estimated routes), both of these flights spend a lot of time over U.S. airspace. Plus, take rates are generally higher on long routes like these.
The plan is to eventually have the service throughout Canada, and Flight reports that “Aircell is in negotiations with the Canadian ATG licensee, SkySurf Canada Communications, to provide connectivity in Canadian airspace.”
The service is available for laptop users for $9.95 in US dollars, which is cheap considering that Wi-Fi for flights of that length usually costs $12.95. Apparently that price was chosen due to the exchange rate. Aircell tells me that “we opted to launch this initial phase at our USD 9.95 price point rather than $12.95 – which would convert to approximately $13.75 in Canadian dollars. We intend to ultimately provide the product in Canadian dollars with pricing in line with our U.S. market pricing structure.” The price for users of mobile devices is $7.95, which is the same amount a traveler on a domestic U.S. flight would be paying.
So let’s see if Air Canada decides to expand the service. The big question is how many people will actually use the service. Mary Kirby had a very interesting blog post on that subject earlier this week.
*Original map can be found here.
United announced yesterday that all 14 p.s. aircraft (757s) have been outfitted with Aircell’s Gogo service. United has joined other carriers in offering a Wi-Fi promotion. Through December 31, first-time users of Gogo will get a free session.
A p.s. 757 arrives at LAX. Photo credit: Chris Weyer.
It makes sense for United to install Gogo on these aircraft as generally “take rates” are higher on longer flights (p.s. is all transcon: JFK-LAX/SFO), there is power at every p.s. seat, and the service is geared toward the business traveler. But it’s a competitive move as well as American, Delta, and Virgin America have Wi-Fi aircraft on these routes. Each airline also has in-seat power, though only United and Virgin have it throughout the cabin.
The Hawaiian market has been fun to watch of late, with moves from Alaska, Continental, and Hawaiian. Now it appears that Delta is making a move as a new nonstop between San Diego and Honolulu has been loaded into the airline’s schedule, with daily service beginning on June 3rd. The flight will be operated by 757-200 aircraft.
Photo credit: Chris Weyer.
Here are the flight details. The flight leaves San Diego in the early evening (5:45 PM) and comes back as a red-eye. That early arrival allows for the aircraft to be utilized for other flights during the day.
The new service will be competing with 767 service from Hawaiian.
From the West Coast, Delta already serves Honolulu from Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco.
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