• Intro music — Warmth by Makkina
• Recorded in the St Louis Airport Marriott due to a missed connection courtesy of Southwest Airlines
• This is a pretty big miss by Southwest. It’ll be a while before they see me at Midway again
• Haven’t been doing quite as much travel as usual. Passenger traffic in May was down over 9% , and I personally contributed to that trend
• Bridge Music — Ice Hotel by Mario Grigorov

Following Up

• Thanks to everyone for the best wishes tweets, e-mails and website comments on last month’s 4th anniversary show
• Simon Mikkelsen provided a nice fact-based response to my rant about the mess of in-flight electronics regulations
• The CLEAR registered traveler program replaced its web site with a single white page announced its immediate shutdown. Guess I made the right decision not renewing my membership
• Bridge Music — Giving In by Brad Senne

Can’t I Fly Unplugged?

• Joint American Airlines/HP survey says most ” tech-savvy frequent flyers” think WiFi is more important than food.
• A not-so-surprising coincidence given AA’s recent announcement of their roll-out of the Gogo inflight Internet service.
• I rate airport food availability much higher than WiFi — especially if I’m getting on a flight heading to or from the West Coast.
• I think my productivity increases without inflight WiFi, but that’s because I use a full-featured laptop
• However, the emerging class of netbooks, with their corollary assumption of constant Internet connectivity – the model of a low-powered client leveraging the power and storage of the cloud — would need in-flight WiFi to be productive
• Bridge Music — Traveling Light by Adam Fielding

How I Got Here

• Simon Mikkelsen wrote “I’ve had a question for a long time. What is your job? We’ve heard a bit from time to time, but what requires so much travel?”
• Have tended not put too much of my personal background into TravelCommons. Kind of a corollary tag line – it’s more about the journey than the presenter. But after so many of you have stuck it out through 4 years and now 75 episodes, I thought I owed you a bit of background.
• I’m in consulting now, but traveled a lot even when I had real jobs
• When I joined Deloitte Consulting in Detroit, the real travel began. I made it to Northwest’s top tier in 9 months and had 750,000 miles in 4 years

Closing

• Closing music — iTunes link to Pictures of You by Evangeline
• Bridge music from Magnatune
• Feedback at comments@travelcommons.com or right here in the comments section below
• Follow me on Twitter
• Direct link to the show

In March, American Airlines restarted their program to replace their old gas-guzzling MD-80’s with sparkling new Boeing 737-800’s.  As someone who earned 2+ million American AAdvantage miles, I’ve spent a lot of time in those MD-80’s and I just despise them.  The dark blue interior and short ceiling gives them a cave-like aura, and the short overhead bin on the 2-seat side has led to many pitched battles for carry-on space.  So when I heard that AA is deploying the new 737’s at O’Hare, I started thinking about shifting some of my flying time from United to American.

Until, that is, I read a bit further and saw that American was cramming 2 more rows into the new 737’s for a total seat count of 160 at a 31-inch seat pitch.  Seat Pitch is the distance between two rows of seats and is a shorthand for legroom. I’m not that big of a guy (6 ft, 34-inch waist) and  I feel like I’m shoehorning myself into Southwest’s  seat with a 32-inch pitch.  There’s just no way I’m voluntarily doing a 31-inch seat pitch.

Many commentators say that passengers have brought this upon themselves by making travel choices solely on price.  It’s an oft-repeated claim, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny — at least for frequent fliers.  Five years ago, American had a completely different strategy, differentiating themselves with more leg room — a spacious 34-inch seat pitch.  I flew American every time I could — even when it meant paying a higher price — because, even in those cave-like MD-80’s, it was the most comfortable seat in the air.  Today, one of the main reasons I’m a heavy United Airlines flier is their Economy Plus section, with its 35-36-inch seat pitch in the front half of the plane.  I get Economy Plus seating for free because of my Mileage Plus status, but I know many non-status fliers who gladly pay $350/year for an Economy Plus annual subscription.

While Ryanair’s CEO continues to insist that he’s serious about putting pay toilets in his planes, I expect American’s CEO will soon announce the sale of $15 shoehorns to get in and out of those new seats.

The survey was obviously constructed to provide publicity around the Gogo roll-out, but I have to disagree with two of the key findings.  First, given the dire state of on-board food, I rate airport food availability much higher than WiFi — especially if I’m getting on a flight heading to or from the West Coast.  Between my BlackBerry and iPhone, I can handle almost all my communication needs with cellular data.  But having to make a meal from one of those $6 snack boxes?  That’s a crisis in the making.

The other finding I take issue with is their claim that “work efficiency drops dramatically in the air” for lack of voice and data network connectivity.  On the contrary, I think my work efficiency increases without Outlook pinging me with a new e-mail or TweetDeck beeping with the latest tweet or my iPhone vibrating with a new text message or a colleague asking a quick question on IM or somebody calling me to ask how things are going….  I look forward to my 4-hours of enforced solitude on my flights between Chicago and San Francisco.  I get an amazing amount of reading and writing done.  Thank God that Gogo wants to charge $13/flight for their service.  If it was free, I’d never get anything done.

The question that no one seems to want to ask is — is a seat in the business-class cabin worth a 10x price premium?  I flew business class on the three international legs of my recent trip between to Johannesburg, South Africa — South Africa Airlines on the outbound New York-to-Johannesburg leg, and then returned on Lufthansa from Johannesburg to Frankfurt, and United from Frankfurt to Chicago.  It’s a long trip, and so should highlight the value of business class.  But for me, it didn’t — it just reinforced the question.

None of these flights were particularly memorable — the service was marginal, the food was at best just OK, though the wine selection wasn’t bad (SAA was the best).  The big difference was the seat reclines — full flat on SAA, almost flat on Lufthansa, and Lazy-Boy recline on United — which certainly made for a much better night’s sleep than the 3-4 inches of recline provided in coach.  So, the $5-7,000 premium is really about a shorter check-in line, 3-4 free glasses of wine, and a night’s sleep.  Can you justify that in these economic times?  The airlines certainly hope so.

• Intro music — Warmth by Makkina
• Recorded in the business class toilet of a South African Airways A340 and the Rosebank Hotel in Johannesburg
• En route to a week’s business trip in South Africa
• Trips earlier this month saw very empty airports — right up to Spring Break time, when they filled up with families and strollers
• Bridge Music — Stinky Dog by Music Inside

Following Up

• Denrael commented on Twitter that there are at least 5 iPhone apps available to keep track of your hotel room number — free ones like Room and paid ones like Zimmer
• Reached new heights of electronics inconsistency on my JFK-JNB SAA flight. After the stop in Dakar, Senegal, the purser announced that all smart phones – and he specifically named iPhones, Nokia E-series, Blackberries – were not allowed to be used in flight – even when put in Airplane mode
• Returning from SFO, one passenger decided that he was the electronics “hall monitor” and started yelling across the cabin at another passenger to turn off his “crackberry” as we were approaching ORD
• My CLEAR registered traveler card came in handy when in JFK’s Terminal 4, but still haven’t used it enough to justify the $179/yr fee
• Bridge Music — Locovenido by Falik

Eating on the Road

• Eating a great dinner by myself at the bar of Tinto in Philadelphia got me thinking about what makes for a good place to eat solo while on the road
• The sports bar might as well have been created just for solo guy travelers
• Outside the sports bar genre, what makes for a good place for a solo traveler? Taking “good food” and “cleanliness” as table stakes, there are 3 things — availability, small plates, and bar seating
• Two nice-to-haves — ability to make a reservation on Open Table and a web site built with something other than Flash so I can read the menu on my iPhone
• Bridge Music — Just Don’t by Lie Big

More Things You Never Want To Hear

• In last month’s episode, we featured a listener’s question – “What is the one thing you never want to hear on a flight?” and asked for your input
• Dawn Owens offered “God, I should NOT have eaten that!”
• Steve Frick said “I don’t ever want to hear the pilot say ‘I’m so tired I could just crash’”
• Greg B said the “one thing that I never want to hear at any stage of the flight … ‘BRACE FOR IMPACT’”
• Steve F gave two suggestions – “The smoke in the cabin is nothing to be concerned about” and “We have an FAA inspection team riding along with us, so we will doing everything by the book”
• Michael Golden offers a non verbal thing you don’t want to hear – shutting down an engine while taxiing out

Closing

• Closing music — iTunes link to Pictures of You by Evangeline
• Bridge music from Magnatune
• Feedback at comments@travelcommons.com or right here in the comments section below
• Follow me on Twitter
• Direct link to the show

Former screeners claim that the hostile atmosphere detracts TSA employees from effectively screening passengers and luggage.  One current screener who asked not to be identified said “The culture is one that really promotes a lot of underhanded, retaliatory action from people and doesn’t really promote hard work and ethical behavior.” No wonder the TSA is at the bottom (220 out of 222) of the latest Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings.  Next time I get hassled at Denver, I’ll try not to take it personally — apparently it’s just the TSA way.

IdeaWorks, a travel consultancy led by ex-Midwest Airlines executives, took a shot at clearing away just a bit of the smoke by generating some real comparitive data on mileage seat availability.  Looking at the popular transatlantic awards, IdeaWorks “made 6,400 booking queries at the websites of five US-based airlines and five Europe-based airlines during the latter half of January 2009.”  That’s either some good web code or a lot of keyboard banging.

The results?  Iberia, the Spanish carrier, took top honors, offering reward seats for 83% of IdeaWork’s booking attempts.  American Airlines was the best US carrier at 58%, which earned it 4th place in the standings.  Indeed, the oneworld alliance took 3 of the top 4 spots.  The worst was no surprise — US Airways at a Scrooge-like 4% reward seat availability.  The full results are available here.

• Intro music — Warmth by Makkina
• Recorded at the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago
• Enjoying a week off from O’Hare after 6 weeks on the road
• The Monday morning “rush hour” security lines are much easier to handle now that I’ve fully embraced the “line cut” United Airlines provides the Global Services customers in ORD
• Bridge Music — Santa Rosa Shuffle by Seismic Anamoly

Following Up

• Blog posting on the video of a woman melting down after being denied boarding on a Cathay Pacific Hong Kong-to-San Francisco flight generated the most comments
• Most comments expressed amazement. One of the cardinal travel rules – don’t take out your frustrations with the airlines on its employees
• Watching a recent episode of the TV show Amazing Race, saw a team eliminated by breaking one of the top travel rules — always take the direct flight
• Was happy to see some economic stimulus money directed to high-speed rail, though not sure what we’ll get by the time the $8 billion is spread across the 11 gov’t-designated high-speed rail corridors
• Bridge Music — Sproing-A-Dub by Burning Babylon

Things You Never Want To Hear

• A listener suggests asking people “What is the one thing you never want to hear on a flight?”
• There are the two classes of “things you never want to hear” – those coming over the loud speaker and those coming from the passengers around you
• Flying severely compresses our personal space creating two almost completely opposite reactions — a sense of instant intimacy with complete strangers, or total obliviousness to the 5-10 complete strangers who can hear every word of a personal cell phone call
• o Probably the one thing I don’t want to hear from a fellow passenger is – “I gotta get outta here” when I’m still in the air
• if you do manage to “get outta here” at 25-35,000 ft, where do you go?
• Bridge Music — Shinigami by Studio BeBop

Can’t Find a Piece of Quiet

• Tough to avoid the depressing state of the world with TV screens blaring at you everywhere
• CNN Airport News screens seem to be at every gate and an epidemic of flat screen TVs have covered the walls in bars, restaurants, airport clubs, and hotel lounges.
• Mini-trend of putting rocking chairs in airports is some help.
• Other fliers search out airport chapels — no flat screens or PA announcements there
• I cram my noise blocking earphones tightly in my ear and dial up the Amazon rain forest on the White Noise iPhone app

Closing

• Closing music — iTunes link to Pictures of You by Evangeline
• Bridge music from Magnatune
• Feedback at comments@travelcommons.com or right here in the comments section below
• Follow me on Twitter
• Direct link to the show

However, my hassles were nothing compared to a fellow Chicagoan who received a $28,067.31 bill after watching the Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions football game on his PC through his AT&T wireless data card. In the Chicago Sun-Times story, Wayne Burdick said “I was in Miami on Nov. 2 getting ready to go on a Caribbean cruise. I wanted to catch the Bears game before we left port. It was 1 p.m. Florida time. The Bears game was starting. The ship was not leaving Miami until 4 p.m., so I slid in my wireless card and brought up my Slingbox and watched the game on my computer.”

It appears that Burdick’s wireless card associated with the cruise ship’s microcell, which connected to the Internet through a satellite link and billed at international roaming rates.  Even after providing proof that the ship hadn’t left the dock,  the best offer he could get on his own from AT&T was a reduction to $6,000 — still a good bit more than the $220 he normally pays for his unlimited data plan.  When Burdick got The Sun-Times Fixer to shine some media light on the problem, AT&T relented.

As more and more portable devices seamlessly link to cellular data networks, travelers who are even close to an international border need to watch out.