Monthly Archive for November, 2009Page 2 of 6

Delta to Start SAN-HNL in June

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 24, 2009
in Delta
. 2 Comments

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.

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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.

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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.

A Chance to Win “Up in the Air” Tickets

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 24, 2009
in Random
. 0 Comments

“Up in the Air” looks like an amazing movie for any airplane geek or frequent traveler. Take a look at the trailer:

YouTube Preview Image

Wendy Perrin and Conde Nast are giving out ten pairs of tickets to a sneak peak of the movie. All one needs to do is comment on this blog post about his or her own biggest mileage dilemma. The top ten commenters will get the tickets will get the tickets and get some help from mileage king Randy Petersen!

More details here.

Air France Gets Creative with “Time to Think”

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 23, 2009
in Air France
. 6 Comments

A little while ago, Air France released some information on some changes to its European/domestic offerings, and I found a new feature, called “Time to Think,” very interesting. Basically, it’s a hedge against fare increases for economy passengers that costs €10. Here’s the example provided in the news release:

A customer who wants to go from Paris to Barcelona in two weeks time but is not yet sure of his travel dates. He finds a particularly good roundtrip fare at 115 euros incl. tax on airfrance.com. For an additional 10 euros, he can keep this fare on hold for 7 days. If he comes back online 7 days later to confirm his flight, he will still benefit from the original fare of 115 euros, whereas the best available fare will have risen to 165 euros.

The big question is (of course) how many passengers will actually try it. There is certainly an element of risk here, as if the fare goes down or if the booking is changed, those €10 are still gone. Nevertheless, this can certainly be handy for passengers who want to take advantage of a fare sale but aren’t ready to confirm a booking.

There aren’t a whole lot of additional details about the service, though it isn’t being rolled out until April. But, I have to give Air France credit for thinking outside the box here, as this is one of the more creative ancillary revenue efforts I have seen.

(EDIT: Commenter dgfpaice notes that Qantas has a similar offering. There are differences between AF/QF though. See the comments for more details.)

Latest ATA Yield Data

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 23, 2009
in Finance
. 0 Comments

Last week, the Air Transport Association released yield data for October, and to be honest, the numbers look kind of encouraging.

First of all, the decrease in yields continues to lessen. Granted, the declines are still in the area of 15%, but it’s progress.  There was improvement in all regions.

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(Click to enlarge)

I also decided to graph a the 12-month moving average of yields in order to help remove seasonality from the data. As you can see, there’s been a steady decline throughout the year:

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(Click to enlarge)

But there’s been improvement in this number as well – for every region, the decrease from September to October was less than the decrease between August and September.

November’s numbers will probably look even  better, thanks to easier year-over-year comparisons (we’re getting to the point where numbers started to look bad a year ago). Plus, Thanksgiving was a bit late last year, putting more holiday travel into the beginning of December. The holiday is two days earlier on the calendar this year, so that might help a bit.

But, the basic message has been the same for the past few months – things are still bad, but there are signs of improvement.

Sunday Video #48

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 22, 2009
in Sunday Video
. 1 Comment

Ah, let’s go back in time ten years this week with this ATA L-1011 safety video from 1999.

YouTube Preview Image

I read in the latest issue of Airways that three ex-ATA L-1011s are now in Jordan doing charters.

Saturday Links #68

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 21, 2009
in Saturday Links
. 0 Comments
  1. CNN has a cool article on “mileage millionaires.”
  2. ANA is upgrading its seating options, and Cranky has the pictures we can all drool over.
  3. Found via Benet Wilson’s famous “Strange But True Aviation News“: a man ended up making his flight divert after stealing a beer and trying to flush the can down the toilet. Really.
  4. Jon Ostrower has some great pictures from the Dubai Air Show.
  5. There is speculation that United will be making an order from either Airbus or Boeing in the next few weeks.

Interviewing Virgin America CEO David Cush

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 20, 2009
in Virgin America
. 3 Comments

On Wednesday, Virgin America launched service to Ft. Lauderdale from Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was invited to attend some of the festivities (awesome!), but unfortunately that wasn’t possible due to my school schedule. So, Abby Lunardini over at Virgin was able to set up an interview with their CEO, David Cush while he was on the inaugural SFO-FLL flight.

I found David’s answers to be very interesting, especially when he mentioned how many partners Virgin is planning to add next year. Here’s the interview:

So, you’re launching Ft. Lauderdale today, and yesterday JetBlue started SFO-FLL service. What would you tell a traveler trying to decide between JetBlue and Virgin?

I would tell them that they are choosing between the two highest quality airlines in the skies.  The people of San Francisco and Fort Lauderdale are very fortunate to have gone from no nonstop service to competition between our two carriers in basically a single day.  As an airline executive and as an avid traveler, I recognize what JetBlue and its innovative service has done for all of us.  We like to believe we have taken it a step further—in addition to live TV, we have fleet wide wifi, power outlets under each seat, full meals and drinks on demand via seatback ordering and other entertainment options.  We also offer premium economy and first class, something that you can’t get on JetBlue or other discount carriers.

In the end, you can’t go wrong with either, but we think we are doing something a bit different.

I know the DOT won’t be releasing third quarter financial results for a couple of more weeks, but any hints as to how the quarter was for Virgin? How are you working to maintain your cash balance?

We had a good quarter and I believe most will be positively surprised by the numbers we release—both in relative terms and in a significant improvement year over year.  We are pretty comfortable with our cash balance as it stands but, of course, are conserving it on the operating level and in capital expenditures.

Recently you’ve started a partnership with South African Airways and have had a partnership with V Australia in place for a few months. How are those performing, and what’s the plan for future international partnerships?

They are both performing well.  It takes time for traffic to build on these links, but they are performing ahead of plan.  We plan on introducing one more this year and then 6-8 next year. (Ed. note – David later confirmed that these partnerships were “all international.”)

How many destinations might you add next year? What markets are you investigating? On a related note, what’s the fleet plan for next year?

We are looking at adding one or two destinations next year, depending on how many aircraft we add.  Depending on availability of aircraft and financing, we are realistically looking at 4-8 additional aircraft next year.  Chicago remains at the top of the list with Dallas or Austin near the top also.

Before coming to Virgin, you were with American for many years. Could you compare the cultures of the two companies?

The cultures are very different.  American is a big, global airline and lots of history and lots of experienced employees.  We are a small, scrappy startup with lots of folks new to the business.  So while they have lots of experience and lots of analytical discipline, they do not have the entrepreneurial spirit, creativity or energy of Virgin America.

Many thanks to David for answering my questions!

Double A+ Credits on AirTran MKE Nonstops

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 20, 2009
in AirTran
. 0 Comments

Ah, Milwaukee’s been a fun market to watch with AirTran and Midwest duking it out, and now Southwest has joined the party. So with that extra competition, it’s not surprising that AirTran is launching a promotion for bonus credits. I got this e-mail yesterday:

To celebrate our expanded low-fare service into and out of Milwaukee, we are awarding double A+ Rewards credits for every flight between November 19, 2009, and February 10, 2010. That means you earn 2 A+ credits for every one-way flight you take instead of the usual 1 A+ credit.

You can register for the promotion here.

IATA’s Latest Data on Premium Traffic

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 19, 2009
in IATA
. 0 Comments

IATA just released its latest update on premium traffic with data from September, and the results aren’t the best. Premium traffic was down 13.9%, which is worse than last year. As the report notes, “The question is whether this setback is just the usual volatility – upturns are never smooth – or a change in the previously improving trend.”

I guess one bit of decent news was that revenues were relatively flat – down an estimated 27%, which compares favorably to the estimated 30% decline in the report for August. IATA notes that “Load factors are now back to pre-recession levels which is slowly improving fares and yields.” Take a look at the graph for volume (purple columns) and revenues (blue line):

nov19

Let’s just hope this drop in passengers isn’t a reversal in trend.

You can see the whole report here.

Continental to Start EWR-MUC in March

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 19, 2009
in Continental
. 0 Comments

According to this thread on airliners.net, Continental will begin serving Munich from Newark (again) this March with a daily flight starting on March 27. The author of the thread mentions service with both 767-200s and -400s, though I’ve only been able to find the former in the timetable.

Meanwhile, on the same day, Lufthansa will be upgrading its EWR-MUC flight from an A340-300 to an A340-600.

Anyway, just another route that provides for connections to Lufthansa’s European network, like the recently launched Houston-Frankfurt route.

(Edit 11:16 AM – Press release just came out.)