A few days ago, I was asked to help someone put together a multi-stop itinerary from Portland, OR to Chicago to NYC to Portland.  A quick check of travel sites revealed a pretty good price of $525 all in from Delta.  The problem was multiple stops at Delta hubs in Minneapolis, Detroit and/or Atlanta.  Each segment had a stop and each stop was a not too short layover, too.

So I started looking for alternatives.  Now, this person wanted to fly into Newark’s airport for the NYC part for convenience and that makes alternatives a bit more difficult.  But they were traveling into NYC on a Saturday night or Sunday morning and that makes La Guardia go from “ugh” to possible.

After a few minutes, I found flights on Southwest Airlines for PDX to Chicago Midway (MDW) that were more than reasonable.  Then I found very reasonable flights from MDW to NYC (La Guardia) on Southwest too.  Finally, Continental offered a nice one-stop to Portland via Seattle for an extremely reasonable price.  All in, those tickets added up to about $530.  Best of all, only one connection was necessary and it was an easy one in Seattle. 

The traveler would also be able to take advantage of SWA’s no bag fee policy saving them about $50 as well.  In fact, by that accounting, suddenly the fare difference was $575 plus taxes for Delta and a bunch of bad flights on bad aircraft vs $530 on SWA and Continental on good flights with nice aircraft.  Their overall travel time was shortened by hours and their convenience and price went up.  It’s good to look for alternatives and it’s very wise to remember Southwest Airlines when you’re planning your trips.

One odd note:  I discovered that Delta really dominated flights from MDW to other destinations such as NYC-LGA and NYC-EWR but only as connections to their hub cities in Minneapolis, Detroit or Atlanta.  At least by price they did.  But the connections ranged from barely OK to “what the hell are they thinking”.  And suddenly it dawned on me why ContiUnited decided to give up those slots at EWR to Southwest. 

ContiUnited doesn’t fly from EWR to MDW non-stop.  In fact, I couldn’t find a connection on either airline to that airport.  They do, however, have a strong schedule to Chicago’s O’Hare airport.  By giving those slots up, they virtually assured that SWA would fly in competition with Delta to Chicago rather than ContiUnited and do it very competitively.  In other words, they got the attack dog to go after their biggest competitor in the NYC area. 

Is there some potential for competition on ContiUnited routes?  Sure but it is pretty limited since SWA flies to secondary airports where they (ContiUnited) are (mostly) strongest.  They’ve already seen that SWA has a limited effect on their pricing under those circumstances.  And, as I’ve already said in an earlier post, they already know how to compete with SWA in the circumstances where they might directly compete.  Best of all, they made the DoT very happy to offering a big chunk of slots to SWA instead of trying to pull a Delta and parcel them out to tiny players.

And that makes me wonder why Airtran never used its EWR slots to fly to Chicago where they already had a presence.  Their business class product would have fit nicely with the value oriented, entrepreneur flier between those two cities and offered great convenience between downtown Chicago and Manhattan.

Filed under: Airline Fees, Airline Service, Airports by ajax
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There is a reason there is a lot of focus on the near mid-west and east coast when it comes to airlines.  That’s where people are.  The population density in our eastern half far exceeds that of our western half.  Even LCC carriers “get it” and if you think otherwise, look at the focus of jetBlue, Airtran and Southwest Airlines.

But I think the opportunity of the west and mid-west is getting ignored.  All one has to do is take a look at routes flown from the DFW, Houston, Kansas City, Salt Lake City and, yes, Las Vegas area and wonder at the possibilities.  Yes, the flights are a bit longer in length and time but they also fly in and out of airports that are far less congested and far less affected by weather. 

Southwest ignores routes from DFW while it waits to fly unrestricted from Love Field in 2014 and I think that is a mistake.  jetBlue has ignored the Dallas market despite the fact that it connects an amazing number of people to areas where it already has a strength:  the east coast and west coast.

Airtran has game in the east and even in the upper-Midwest now but it has ignored the west so far and that puzzles me.  It’s an airline that is clearly ready to go to the next level and be a real national player.  Frontier is playing some in the west via Denver but take a look at the fares it is charging on those western routes.  I think Frontier is more vulnerable than it thinks. 

More importantly, I don’t think there has been the same LCC stimulus in many western markets that we’ve seen elsewhere.  Many LCC’s operating routes in the west seem to have come to some tacit agreement with legacy airlines on competition.  With the exception of the west coast, we don’t see much LCC stimulus going on past 150 miles east of the west coast. 

There is opportunity there and the airline that figures out how to build a better network there is potentially set to earn a great deal of money.  Sure, Southwest is out there and they do have pretty good coverage but even they could stand a little competition these days.  At least outside of California and Arizona.

Filed under: Airline Service, Airports by ajax
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The airline industry is a funny place to work.  Once you’ve worked inside it or lived inside it, it gets into your blood.  It’s hard to walk away from because airlines really are families and one doesn’t walk away from a family very often.  Even the industry is a family.  Two people from different airlines might disagree vociferously on something inside the industry but if an outsider offers a different criticism, you’ll see those two band together like brothers to fight back.  Sound familiar?

Despite the fact that we know most consumers buy on price, there is a strong brand liability that exists out there too.  A customer might choose to fly American Airlines to Europe but if he or she is a Continental fan, you can bet they’ll have nothing but criticisms and comparisons to what they think Continental is.  That customer loyalty, I think, derives from an attraction to the company DNA that was established over 40 years or more. 

American Airlines was always a bit more of a no nonsense airline that appealed to the conservative businessman.  Delta was about southern hospitality.  Northwest Airlines was attractive to that stoic Midwesterner since it mirrored their values.  Continental was always a bit of flash and upstart which attracted the entrepreneur.  Braniff was somewhat similar although there was a certain Texas adventurer to it.  TWA was Hollywood and Pan Am was blue blood.  Those airline personalities attracted similar people and although that has been diluted to a fair degree today, that DNA is still there.

I have to admit that I marveled at how readily people accepted the Delta / Northwest merger.  It was, in my mind, a clash of cultures.  It was as if the Southern Dandy went to Minnesota and married a solid, conservative blonde Swede.  Part of me expected neither family to accept the marriage.  Yet, they made it work.  They not only made it work, they made it look like true love.  I was,  and continue to be,  impressed.   Now and then there is a marriage that works out like that.

But, historically, mergers among airlines don’t often work out like that.  There are still former Republic Airlines employees who will give you a bit of an earful over Northwest Airlines purchase of Republic.   Until TWA’s demise, there were Ozark employees who would still privately confess great irritation at TWA purchasing their home.   Look into Delta and you’ll find Western Airlines employees who feel the same.  It’s usually more a marriage of convenience than a marriage of love. 

Now we have Continental and United marrying.  United, arguably the oldest legacy airline of the United States and certainly of blue blood in the US, is marrying Continental Airlines, a western frontier upstart of a far greater checkered past.  Continental employees are chagrined because they see themselves as proud and independent and the airline who survived the worst and came out of that as one of the best airlines in the world.  United Airlines employees are feeling a sense of loss because despite the fact that their name and headquarters exist, Continental is really the daddy in this union and that just doesn’t seem right to them.  That became clear when John Tague didn’t make the cut in the marriage.  Nor did several other prominent and, quite frankly, strong performing United executives.  It might be United’s name but it’s Continental’s leadership that is going to go forward.

Continental employees wonder why they need United given their success for the past 15 years.  What does United bring to the table that they don’t already have?  United employees speculate that these upstarts are going to be overwhelmed faced with the prospect of running a “real” airline.  The truth is, neither concern is really valid. 

Customers seem to sense the same issues and certainly the home cities of each airlines’ headquarters.  It’s a problem for this merger.  Not an insurmountable problem and I do believe that once the merger is consummated and has time to settle, many of those fears really will go away. 

What airline is a United customer going to be flying after this merger is done?  What airline is a Continental frequent flier going to be a member of when it’s done?  I’ll wager that the average customer just can’t answer that based on the way things have gone so far.  I’m a relatively dispassionate observer to this and I can’t answer that question. 

The problem is that people can sense this fear and they’re reacting to it on many different levels.  It’s a fear that is almost palpable at this point and I think that comes from the somewhat mixed message that the new “brand” is sending.  People see a Continental airplane with a United name and I think that strikes them as an attempt to be all things to all people.  Notice that Delta and Northwest avoided that mixed message. 

You can change the typeface of the name United but you can’t change the mixed message.  Brett Snyder of the Cranky Flier is quoted HERE in the Chicago Tribune as saying:

“I’m a huge fan of making a clean break, unless you’re planning on replicating the service. . . ” and “”I don’t know how you meet expectations from both sides when you’re not really making a clear brand statement.”

Bingo.  He’s dead right.  Expectations aren’t getting met on either side.  This is much more an old school airline merger.  I actually agree that a new brand would have been a far better approach.  Even adopting an old brand that neither had history with would have been better if it set expectations for both sides.  Imagine the reaction if this new union decided to call themselves TWA or Braniff or even National. 

Even a new brand incorporating some elements from both would have sent a better message.  What if they called themselves Flagship Airlines with a new logo designed to evoke the service they intended to deliver?  It would have delivered a much more clear message either way. 

Here is an interesting observation:  Both airlines do have some distant genetic heritage in common.  Walter Varney who founded airlines that were direct ancestors of both United and Continental.  I’m not proposing the name Varney Airlines but I do wonder if there isn’t something in that history that would lend itself to a good name.

The problem is that it’s hard to walk away from the legacies each brand offer.  There are decades of branding invested in the names United and Continental.  There are decades of history behind each name and decades of family history in each name.  Even airline executives have some sort of emotional attachment to their airline and they aren’t immune to being influenced by that despite the belief they are cold blooded people focused on profits.  They just aren’t.  Not even Glenn Tilton who has relatively little history working in the airline industry.

They problem inside each airline is that the employees haven’t been given something to rally around.  How does a Continental employee rally around the idea that their company is losing its headquarters and name?  How does a United employee get excited about seeing his proud airline re-badged in the image of Continental?   A new name would have evoked some rebellion but it would have sent a message about this being a marriage of equals and I think employees and customers might have been vocal about the change but I also think they would have come to accept it relatively quick. . . especially if the new name was a good one that evoked something real. 

You couldn’t introduce a name like “Acura” or “Lexus” or “Lucent”.  That’s why adopting the name of a no longer existing airline might have been better.  It would have given an instant history and acceptance to the name and, yet, signaled a new start.  There are lot of defunct names out there to rally around.  And there are a lot of possibilities when it comes to new names. 

It’s not that I don’t think that this merger will succeed.  I do think it will succeed.  I just don’t think it will go very smoothly and I don’t think people will adjust to it very easily for the next 5 or 6 years.  That leaves them at a disadvantage to Delta and American Airlines. 

The next best thing CEO Jeff Smisek could do is get that entire fleet painted in the new colors faster than anyone could believe possible.  Get those operations consolidated quickly and get the customer facing side of the company unified in appearance asap.  Get something out there that people both inside and out of the company can rally around and accept.  Get the Continental executives up to Chicago as soon as the day of the legal merger and by up to Chicago, I mean have them living there on day one, not commuting.   That’s an important overture to make to the United employees.  Similarly, embed your best Continental managers into United hubs and so that the Continental employees see their influence day to day and don’t feel abandoned. 

This merger is a long way from being done smoothly.  The two entities have to make nice with their union employees and get them to agree on a transition to one contract and none of those employees have a reason to buy into this so far.   One thing is certain:  If the employees don’t buy into this merger and cooperate, this will be a long and painful merger resulting in a huge loss of opportunity in the market place.  The synergies won’t be realized and the financial markets will voice their disapproval fairly quick, too.

Branding is more than just communicating with a customer.  It’s a united front (no pun intended) for employees to work under and without a strong brand to connect to, those employees won’t know who they’re fighting for.

Filed under: Airline History, Airline News, Airline Service, Airlines Alliances by ajax
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Since I started writing this blog, I’ve come to one thought many times:  Airlines, at least most of them, work very hard these days at trying to be all things to all people.  The reason for this is that the airline business, particularly in the United States, is all about market share. 

In other words, to be viable as an airline, particularly a larger airline, you have to have a pretty significant chunk of market share for a set of routes.  Without that share, you won’t average a load factor that earns you a profit.  In fact, it isn’t just about market share of a particular segment.  If you dominate solely in leisure travel, you’ll struggle to survive much less make a profit.  Even Southwest Airlines has learned the value of the business traveler. 

But is that the right direction going forward?  Some variation of that is probably going to remain the truth for some time.  However, I do wonder if airlines aren’t harming themselves by trying too hard to be all things to all people. 

When it comes to domestic service, I do think it would be wise for more airlines to emulate United’s 3 class domestic service of First / Economy Plus / Economy.  Offering more value for more money is a strategy that plainly works although I also understand the perceived risk involved with that.  You can’t easily change the configuration of an aircraft to meet changing seasonal demand for a particular product.  This is an area where aircraft manufacturers could do some work.

However, at the international level, I think many US legacy airlines are trying too hard to be all things to all people.  I’ve always admired Continental’s approach with their BusinessFirst and Economy products.  BusinessFirst is business class and, let’s face it, that’s what is going to sell at the front of the aircraft day in and day out when compared to first class. I think the new ContiUnited (I must come up with a new moniker for that) would be wise to adopt the Continental model BusinessFirst and the United Economy Plus/Economy model.  It’s 3 classes of seating but really 2 classes of service.

Airlines seem to be overstressing themselves in other places as well when it comes to trying to appeal to everyone.  When you’re trying to market to the leisure crowd, the business crowd and the uber-rich crowd, your message gets muddy.  Can you identify who does what best for which crowd in objective or subjective terms? 

You have far less of a problem with that in other parts of the world.  If you want best price in Britain, you’re likely going to fly Ryanair or EasyJet.  If you want a more business oriented service, you’re likely going to pick British Airways.  It’s notable that BMI has more of an American approach and they don’t do so well.   Ryanair specializes in delivering the best price possible and has focused on that goal relentlessly.  British Airways specializes in service and image and focuses on that goal pretty well despite current problems and criticisms. 

We could stand to see a bit more focus out of our airlines.  Isn’t it interesting that when airlines set up “specialty” brands in-house, they usually did pretty well and only went away when the competition in that specialty went away?  I think there is a lesson there.  Does every flight need to meet every need?

I think the key to becoming more adept at specializing in customer needs, we need aircraft that are more easily configurable for particular demands.  It’s interesting to me that business class in Europe is often coach seating with the middle seat “blocked” from use.  Sometimes that same middle seat can be folded down into a “service” area for the aisle and window seats.  What if an airline or seat manufacturer came up with a product that allowed configuration of seat pitch in a manner of minutes with the addition of a row or two of seats in less than half an hour? 

There is nothing wrong with segmenting service for various needs and charging for it.  No objects to those pricing models.  The issue with “fees” is charging for something that had no charge until recently and acting like you are doing someone a favor.   Airlines could create a great deal more value in their product with more specialization towards particular customer needs and wants. 

After 40 years, I think coming up with seating that is configurable “on the fly” shouldn’t necessarily be quite the challenge it’s made out to be.  The industry should be able to meet this challenge and I think when they do, they may find a way to more reliable profitability.

Filed under: Aircraft Development, Airline Seating, Airline Service by ajax
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In a month, Frontier will have withdrawn the remaining Bombardier Q400 aircraft from the Lynx fleet and I continue to think that my have been a mistake.

Lynx routes will be operated by Republic Airlines E170 jet aircraft.  I get that “pure jets” remain somewhat attractive but I think the Q400 will have been shown to have earned more profit on those same routes.  I get that Republic needed to find a use for some of their aircraft, too, but I continue to believe that retaining the Q400 would have proven profitable.

Yes, I’m repeating myself.  It was a small fleet but a fleet that fit extremely well.  In addition, the Lynx outfit was one of the things that really caught Southwest Airlines’ eyes during bidding this time last year.  If you’re catching SWA’s eyes, you *must* have something going for you. 

It’s interesting to me that despite the emphasis on finding lower costs, so many airlines continue to ignore the turbo-prop.  Yes, Continental has it for its regional flights on a large(ish) scale but that’s about it if you ignore Horizon Airlines. 

The fact that Alaska/Horizon Airlines is making pretty good money from them and on segments that, frankly, are a bit long for the Q400, should be signaling something to other airlines.  But those airlines remain tone deaf and I think that’s a shame. 

I look at the flights that American Eagle flies regionally from DFW and it makes me cringe to see those old ERJ-140 aircraft going to Texas and Oklahoma and Lousiana destinations that could be served so much more efficiently with a Q400 or ATR-72.  The same is true for the Chicago area. 

I honestly believe that the airlines are the only ones afraid of these aircraft, not the customers.  Imagine how much more competive one might be using them, however.  Low fares are the key, not a jet engine.

Filed under: Airline Fleets, Airline Service by ajax
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Ahh, the jetBlue incident.  The moment that many have fantasized about for years.  A flight attendent delivering a resounding “fuck you” to obstinate and rude passengers somehow strikes a chord in many of us. 

As you can imagine, I’ve had a lot of people privately make comments and ask questions about this over the past 2 days. 

It’s your fault.  The customer, that is.  I’ve long said that there is something odd that happens to people when they get on an airliner.  They just go weird and often do things they would never consider doing anywhere else in their lives.  For instance, would you ordinarily choose to have sex in your dirty bathroom?  Would you ordinarily get so liquored up that you would urinate on the restaurant floor?  Would you argue with subway driver who asked you to sit down  for your safety?

Paying a few hundred dollars to fly from point A to point B really does not grant you an exemption from behaving appropriately in public.   It doesn’t grant you an exception from safety rules and it doesn’t offer you an opportunity to behave like a completely rude jerk just because you feel like it.  When you’re on an aircraft, you are traveling in the public and when a flight attendant asks you to sit down and refrain from grabbing your luggage, be a good boy or girl and just do it.  Contrary to what you think, standing up and grabbing your suitcase so you can rush to the front of the line to exit the aircraft is *not* going to improve your day so much that you just can’t stop yourself. 

Before anyone points a finger at the real problem being leisure travelers or infrequent travelers, I strongly disagree.  I’ve seen plenty of frequent fliers behave just as bad as anyone else.  Remember the woman who decided that she was treated poorly on Southwest Airlines because she was denied a seat on aircraft in favor of seating an overweight child?  She was on standby.  She didn’t have a confirmed seat and it doesn’t matter if the kid was overweight or not.  It lacked class to contact media and act as if she was horribly wronged by the airline.  She wasn’t.  She was being petulant and acting entitled to far greater treatment than she deserved or had paid for. 

It’s your fault.  You, the airline, have caused this.  You have spent the last 80 years teaching the public that they’re always right on your aircraft that *your* airline owns.  You’ve condemned your staff over and over again in favor of someone who spent $200 one time to travel on your airplane and your staff knows just where the line is.  Sadly, that line offers only a small amount of uncomfortable manuevering space. 

The truth is, the customer isn’t always right.  That comes from someone who has spent most of his career in service industries.  The customer is quite capable of being wrong and making that person who chooses to be obnoxiously wrong in charge of your staff’s career isn’t the way to properly run a business.  You have a right to say “this customer broke our rules, behaved boorishly and conducted themselves in a manner which would get them banned from a restaurant so we ban them from our airline.” 

You really do.  I wouldn’t use that power lightly, mind you, but it’s time to re-set some expectations for your customers.  One of those expectations is that $200 is not purchasing them the right to ignore airline regulations, FAA rules or the right to abuse your staff. 

It’s not entirely surprising that the jetBlue flight attendant kind of lost it.  Do I think he’s a hero?  Absolutely not.  Do I think he’s a horrible person?  Absolutely not.  Sadly, he’s most likely a person working a hard job (not unlike most of us) who simply allowed his anger to reach a point that he chose to do something terribly foolish and unprofessional.   He’s neither an absolute sinner nor an absolute saint.  He’s a human being who clearly made a bad mistake. 

Not unlike the many people who do one really stupid thing on aircraft as customers almost every week.

Most telling of all is that I’ve yet to have seen anyone condemn an extremely rude and disruptive passenger for their part in this.

Filed under: Airline News, Airline Service by ajax
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Continental Airlines is testing a new self-boarding process in Houston that is based on the passenger “swiping” or “displaying” their boarding pass at a kiosk and which then allows access to the jetway via turnstile that “unlocks” if the boarding pass is OK.

This test is described as controversial in a time when airlines are decreasing more and more human contact with the passenger.  I actually don’t see it that way.  First, this isn’t something that passengers are going to have trouble with as we already are subject this kind of process elsewhere in our lives.  Second, I’m all for it if the turnstile won’t unlock if YOUR BOARDING GROUP HASN’T BEEN CALLED.  We don’t need a free-for-all at the gates with people attempting to board out of their sequence.

Finally, I”d rather access a live human at the reservations number to give me info I need.  I don’t need someone to smile at me as I enter the jetway.  That is superfluous and unnecessary to a good service experience.

Filed under: Airline News, Airline Service by ajax
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It’s been a bit over a week since American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia (along with Finnair and Royal Jordanian) received anti-trust immunity approvals from both the EU and the DoT.  What it means is that each of those airlines will be able to cooperate closely with each other on a variety flights between the United States and Europe. 

What closely cooperate means is that these airlines will start marketing their respective flights between cities under the various brands but each airline will be responsible for certain flights.  For example, British Airways may begin operating more of the capacity between DFW and London while American Airlines retasks the aircraft they were using for some of those flights to other flights.  Iberia Airlines may begin operating the flight(s) between Miami and Spain.  BA, AA and IB will be selling seats on all of those flights as their own just as you already see done as codeshares.

The difference is that now these airlines will also begin cooperating on scheduling.  In other words, American Airlines might start scheduling its “feed” for a British Airways flight from DFW to London.  American Airlines might do the same for an Iberia flight from Miami to Spain.  On the other side of the ocean, British Airways might schedule its “feed” for London to Chicago to mate up with an AA flight.   These airlines will start acting almost as if they are one company so to speak.

Is that good or bad?  If you ask the airlines, the customer will get to see more choices to more destinations on Oneworld flights and that choice is good.  In most cases, it is good and air fares are likely to be unaffected on many routes because of competition from other alliances such as SkyTeam and Star Alliance. 

However, in some cases, I think this is bad.  For instance, American Airlines already effectively “owned” the DFW to London market and really the DFW to Europe market.  So much so that previously they weren’t allowed to code share with British Airways on such routes at all.  There is very little competition in the DFW market to Europe.  Some exists, yes, in the form of flights by KLM and Lufthansa to Amsterdam and Frankford respectively.  One flight each a day.  Now, with even closer cooperation allowed, I do fear that KLM and Lufthansa may find such flights simply uneconomical.  There is no real Star Alliance and/or SkyTeam presence at DFW anymore. 

In the short term, I do think there are markets that are going to see much higher air fares for non-stop flights to Europe.  As with all things, those higher air fares may one day drawn in more competition, though.  It is conceivable that if the fares rise considerably, another alliance may target such a market for competition.  For instance, the Star Alliance may decide that Dallas needs some competition and suddenly we may find ContiUnited or US Airways providing some feed to that destination in order for a European carrier such as Lufthansa to justify a route between Dallas and Germany. 

I think such developments are a good 5 years away at least.  Fundamentally, I think these alliances are bad for consumers and bad for the industry but they were instituted a long time ago and that genie is out of the bottle now.  Since it would be nearly impossible to break up those alliances, it is fair that Oneworld be permited to establish their own now.  SkyTeam pioneered such things and Star Alliance is also far ahead of the curve. 

Regrettably, now we have to manage competition between alliances rather than companies.  I think that is bad because those alliances potentially let airlines that would otherwise go out of business remain in the game longer.  We need to see this industry periodically purge itself of the weaker players.  If you think that didn’t happen under regulation, you’re wrong.  It did.  Airlines did file bankruptcy and if they didn’t, they were forced into mergers of convenience by the CAB.  In any case, the weaker players still went away.  All too often, we don’t allow that to happen anymore and that hurts us more than helps.

Filed under: Airline News, Airline Service, Airlines Alliances by ajax
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I know that these days it seems as if I’m at war with American Airlines but the truth is, they just keep running into walls.

ABC News has THIS story about a woman named Danielle Covarrubias who became pretty angry at American Airlines losing her bag.  However, when they also refused to refund her bag fee, she decided to sue American Airlines for $5 million.  The class action lawsuit was filed in Washington state, where Ms. Covarrubias lives.

But after a few days, it’s come to light that, according to American, Ms. Covarrubias wasn’t on the AA flight.  It was cancelled and she was re-booked onto another airline which lost her bag.  That was from Grand Rapids to Chicago.  No one disputes the bag was lost but it appears it was returned to her the following day.

AA says that they do allow a refund claim in these events as a part of a lost bag claim and it is unclear if Ms. Covarrubias filed such a claim.  Regardless, it points up what I’ve been saying for more than a year.  If you’re going to charge a bag fee, be prepared to deliver or refund that fee when you don’t deliver it on time or at all. 

Travelers are enraged and there is enough traction for a class action lawsuit such as this.  Even if this one doesn’t end up in court, I do believe there will be another that does.  When it does, the issue will be over whether or not an airline is entering into a contract to carry that bag with guarantees and I don’t think their fine print will save them.  There is plenty of law to show that there is an implied contract and that breaking the contract means you owe a refund of some sort.

Revenue from ancillary fees such as this looks great to airlines but they haven’t yet really felt the pain of what those fees imply.  To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that it has taken this long to see something like this. 

More important, it’s another case of airlines shooting themselves in the foot.  This problem was easy to solve and even easier to avoid.  Give a refund instantly when you lose or misplace a bag for which a customer has paid a fee. 

That much is a no-brainer.  It isn’t hard to empower an employee to do so.  You only have to ask 2 questions to arrive at an appropriate action:  1) Did the customer pay a checked bag fee and actually check a bag?  2) Did the bag arrive with the customer?   If the answers are Yes and No respectively, make that refund immediately.  Credit it back in exactly the same manner for which it was paid and do it instantly and with sincere regrets over the trouble caused. 

Denying that refund automatically is not only a bad PR strategy, it’s just simply wrong.  In this country, we do not expect people to pay for things they didn’t get.  Airlines are styling these fees as “services” and, in this case, service is exactly what the customer didn’t receive.

Filed under: Airline Fees, Airline News, Airline Service by ajax
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to aggravate, irritate and disappoint customers one customer at a time.

One FlyingColors reader just let me know about yet another American Airlines blunder that occurred yesterday.  This same reader spurred this POST just weeks ago.  This time, the Dear Reader had scheduled a family trip to Connecticut and because he’s an AA Platinum member, he used his miles to get 3 First Class tickets for his wife and 2 daughters and decided to purchase a Coach ticket for himself on the assumption he could readily get an upgrade.

I know, you’re thinking this is about not getting an upgrade, aren’t you?  Wrong.  About a week and a half prior to departure, our Dear Reader tried to confirm their travel via AA online only to discover that, suddenly, his wife didn’t have an assigned seat.  Not only that, the online portal wouldn’t permit him to get another assignment for his wife.

Undaunted, Dear Reader phoned American Airlines at their AAdvantage phone number to get it taken care of.  Once he had a reservations agent on the line (after 15+ minutes of waiting), he was told by this agent that no seat would be assigned until the day of the return trip from Connecticut and would not discuss the reason why.  When probed for more information, the agent simply replied “I’m not at liberty to discuss this further with you.”  All done with a secretive and somewhat hostile tone.

That’s when Dear Reader called me and asked what I thought was going on.  After hearing his account of the cryptic dialog with  the agent, I responded it really could be anything but that it almost sounded like a security problem.  Dear Reader wanted to address that before the trip but I explained that likely no one would address the issue until they decided to address it with his wife.  Indeed, I also advised that it would likely turn out to be not a problem once they arrived and checked in for the flight.

Well, I was kind of right.  It wasn’t a security problem.  It was a First Class is oversold problem.  At check-in, they continued to decline to assign a seat to his wife and spent their time instead offering a rather generous $300 voucher and guaranteed space on the next available flight via Chicago (he was traveling from Connecticut to the DFW area.) 

However, since he was traveling with family and had committments to keep in the DFW area, they declined such a reward and waited.  Only after everyone else was boarded did they assign his wife a seat and they were able to return.   Dear Reader got to ride in Coach and get harrassed by amateur travelers but they got home.

Yes, his wife and kids were traveling on points.  So what?  That’s the reward for spending enough money and flying enough trips on AA to become an AA AAdvantage Platinum member.  Besides, those seats are so hard to come by that, if they do have them and they do guarantee them and issue a ticket, this is one problem that should *not* be presented to a Platinum member.   At the end of the day, American Airlines made up the game and set the rules, let’s not be sympathetic if it doesn’t work out to their AAdvantage.

What’s more, they created a hostile environment for the Dear Reader and his wife by implying it was so much more a problem than it was.  Ironically, if they had been told what the problem was, they would have readily re-booked the flight either for later in the day or the day later.  Yes, American, your customer could have been made happy by just *telling them* what the problem was.  Instead, you chose, once again, to act like information was a golden nugget to be hoarded and induced concern and worry over a flight. 

You did it to one of your best customers.  And people still ask me why I’ve chosen to take my business elsewhere.   Airlines won’t start improving their service and treatment of you, the customers, until you do start taking your business elsewhere.  Remember that.

So, I repeat once more:  Really American Airlines . . . is that the best you’ve got?

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax
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I like to watch the fare prices on various routes that I fly from time to time but none more so than the Dallas to Milwaukee run.  To me, it’s an example of what real competition can do and I’ve written about it before.  You can read my earlier post HERE.

Well, I took some time to see what was going on with that route now by sample fares and flights for mid-week departures between the two cities in August.  First, the good news:  Fares are holding steady at or about $170 for advance purchase tickets. 

Second, the better news:  Airtran is using the Boeing 717 on that route already.  No SkyWest CRJ-200 regional jets, we get the real Airtran on a real aircraft that is really pretty comfortable.  I figured Airtran would move in with the larger aircraft if only to put pressure on Midwest Express.

Now some bad news:  Airtran is only flying an early morning and late afternoon flight on the DFW to MKE run.  It’s worse on the MKE to DFW segment with a plain morning departure and late evening departure.  I’m guessing it’s the best they can do for now but they’re going to need at least one more flight to make that really work.  Their current offering via Atlanta is *not* what I meant by needing another flight either.

Midwest  aka Frontier aka Republic is hanging in there.  They have 3 flights using the E-170 Embraer jets and that’s really not a bad aircraft for that route.  With 2×2 seating and a bit bigger cabin, it works for what is essentially a long and thin domestic route.  Well, long-ish anyway.  The bad news is that Midwest  aka Frontier aka Republic has its first flight on the DFW-MKE run after 10am in the morning.  That’s about 2 hours later than necessary.

American Eagle is hanging in there.  This is a route that used to often cost as much as $300 round trip just 3 years ago and that was the best fare you could get.  Often the only tickets to be had were in excess of $500 and the only choice you had was to fly to Chicago and take the bus if you wanted to save money.   But here is the interesting part:  American Eagle has its 5 flights a day and I will say they’re well laid out in terms of departure and arrival times.  However, American Eagle is now using the CRJ700 on 3 of those five flights (the remaining two use the clapped out ERJ-140)  and their fares are as competive as anyone’s. 

And then there is Southwest.  Southwest’s cheapest fares are competitive with everyone else’s and continue to be one-stop flights with no plane changes.   Those flights are now running about 3 hours, 25 minutes however and that’s a bit longer than they were taking earlier this year.   The non-stop flights of the other airlines are doing it in 2 hours, 20 minutes.   Still, they are the bargain choice for 2 reasons.  First, Love Field is cheaper to fly from for more people in the DFW area in that its taxes and fees are slightly cheaper and the travel to Love Field and parking at Love Field is cheaper too.  Second, Southwest still isn’t charging for baggage.  That means for someone checking a bag, the savings could range from $35 to nearly $80 and that’s real savings. 

In practical terms, for me as a passenger to that destination, I probably could save as much as $50 each way in “real” savings by using Southwest.  And I’d do it in the aircraft that had the *most* seat pitch of those serving the routes.  That’s worth the extra hour of transit time on a leisure flight and might just be worth it on a business flight too. Why?  Because my door to door time in the Dallas area is likely to be about the same using Love Field or DFW.  I don’t have to drive as far to Love Field airport, take as long to park and/or transit into the terminal, check in quite as early or frenetically and that amounts to probably as much as an hour gained making the trip from the door of my house to the door of my family’s homes in the MKE area about the same no matter which airport and airline I take. 

But I can save about $100 round trip if I’m flying with checked baggage and that’s a deal. 

If Airtran wants to win Miwaukee, this is an important route for them to succeed on.  They’ve got the right equipment for the route now but they’re going to have to work on their frequencies and departure times a bit to really win.  Right now, their schedule looks like a compromise.

Midwest is probably continuing to do well but let’s see how they do when the brand changes to Frontier.  I’m not saying they’re out of the game.  To the contrary, this whole competition thing on this route could end up being Midwest/Frontier and American Eagle again in a year or two.  Midwest has good frequencies, good flight times (mostly) and good service.   However, Southwest will win this route, I think, when they can start flying it non-stop But that opportunity is still 3 1/2 years away.

Filed under: Airline Fees, Airline Fleets, Airline Service by ajax
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A number of airline and aviation bloggers have been writing posts about the 3 Hour Rule since statistics for on-time departures, arrivals, cancellations and delays came out for the first full month under this rule.   The Cranky Flier feels certain that this rule is inconveniencing more people now.  Dan Webb writing Things In The Sky thinks it might be too early to make a final call on the rule.   PlaneBuzz speculates on whether or not the FAA will send a fine to the airlines who exceeded the 3 Hour Rule in that first full month (There were five 3 Hour Rule “violations” in May). 

For readers of this or any other blog on airlines, there are a few things to keep in mind about this rule and the statistics.  First, this rule wasn’t put into place because of statistics.  If statistics had driven the rule making, we wouldn’t have a rule.   The rule was driven by egregious delays that far exceeded 3 hours and it was far more political than fact driven. 

Second, the first month of statistics on this mean absolutely nothing.  Frankly, if you were going to use statistics to judge this rule, I think you would need, at minimum, 24 months of contiguous data at the least.  A 5 year data set would be far better.   It isn’t just airline decisions driving these statistics.  It’s weather, passenger trends, disrupted airport operations (for non-weather related reasons) and other factors.  The variables in play here are far too many to make a judgement based on statistics. 

Third, airline fans tend to favor airlines or, rather, they favor airline operations.  And that subset of airline fans we know as frequent flier freaks are even more favorably disposed to airline operations.  We’re a biased group because we see things from both the inside and outside and we tend to excuse events that appear to occur because of one-time conditions.  We tend to excuse what isn’t in the norm because of conditions that are outside of an airlines’ control.  While we may think we have far more than average knowledge and therefore better equipped to make that judgement on a 3 hour rule, we really aren’t.  We have the same bias that airlines as a whole have.

A politically driven rule generally occurs because of a general public perception, not statistics.  The general public perception, whether its based on fact or fiction, is really the controlling factor and the public perception of these delays is *bad*.   It’s bad because airlines have done nothing to change that perception and its bad because those who are trying to explain these delays are coming off as apologists for airlines rather than as subject matter experts.  There is a disconnect between the airline industry and the public consumer in that industry. 

In many ways, this problem of delays could have been solved by some saavy marketing.  The defensive posture airlines have taken during these events has done them no good and apologizing profusely and promising to “fix it” going forward now sounds hollow because these events continue to happen and airlines continue to often appear to have no clue about the passengers being affected by it.  

Airlines have received a lot of bounty from the public over the past several years.  Special considerations have been granted to the industry over and over, particularly since the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, and the airline industry has not acted very grateful nor very responsive in that same time period.  To the contrary, airlines have generally responded with acts that, to the public, appear overtly hostile to the customer.  The general public, right or wrong on its facts, is now entirely resentful of the entire industry. 

This is much more an airline marketing and PR problem than it is an airline operations problem. 

The rule isn’t going to go away and anyone who thinks there is a chance that it will is enjoying a nice fantasy.  The rule is a consequence of airlines doing a poor job to fix an admittedly tiny problem and then acting officious with anyone challenging their behaviour.  Failure to self regulate and respond *and* communicate during these problems created the rule.  There is a lack of public trust when it comes to airlines and that will take a decade or more to fix.  The best any airline or the industry itself can ever hope to accomplish is to hold off even more restrictive rules in the future and that will only be done by being better public citizens themselves.

Do I think the 3 Hour Rule is a success or failure?  I have no idea.  I would note that, anecdotally, the public isn’t crying out to the news media about being delayed an extra 12 hours because of a 3 Hour Rule cancellation.  Until they do, I am extremely hesitant to declare the 3 Hour Rule a failure.

Filed under: Air Traffic Control, Airline News, Airline Service, Deregulation, Frequent Flier by ajax
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I’ve thrown a few punches at Virgin America lately and their seeming cowardice when it comes to flying the markets they said they would fly.  Over the past few weeks, each time I’ve done so, I’ve realized that, in many respects, the same applies to jetBlue. 

David Neeleman has been gone for nearly 3 years and I see an airline that is kind of stagnate.  I’ll grant that times have been hard for the past 2 years but it’s notable that the airlines who’ve seen profits even in those times are the ones who have grown, not contracted.  They are the ones who had some vision to risk some new routes, not contract and play it safe. 

jetBlue, as an airline, has always impressed me with their courage and their vision.  They started in markets where there was more than adequate service and they made a difference not just because they were an LCC charging the lowest fair but because they developed an immediate and exceptional reputation for how they treated their customers.  Their amentities were innovative but it was how jetBlue valued you as a customer that won people over.

But where is that risk and vision and, frankly, customer treatment today?  The Cranky Flier recently had a post on their new food offerings.  You can read that HERE.   It really is illustrative of just exactly how jetBlue has evolved in the past 3 years.  They aren’t competing, they’re now simply matching what other airlines have to offer and holding on to what they have instead of growing themselves into markets where they genuinely have something to offer.

If an airline has the courage to get started in the New York City area and compete on some of the most important routes out of that area (and other major metro areas) and succeed, shouldn’t we see that as a successful model for the future?  jetBlue appears to now be sidestepping any opportunities to compete and instead defend their marketshare.

A partnership with American Airlines is a visionary step?  Really? 

I think it hardly surprises us that the stock price of jetBlue isn’t reflecting its former glory anymore.

How about coming down to DFW airport, setting up shop in Terminal E and going head to head with AA and Southwest.  If you can win in New York, you can win here. 

Instead, I read about “possible” nerd routes between Austin and San Jose.  C’mon jetBlue, you’re on the East Coast and the West Coast and down in the Caribbean.  Is it really possible that you’re afraid to enter into markets like Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, DFW or Houston?  And by enter, I don’t mean a couple of flights to your hub cities.  You have one of the best service products around (although it has been eroded some) and it’s time to find new focus cities and quite ignoring the middle US hub cities.  You can play there if you have some vision and courage.

One thing I’ll say about Southwest over the past 2 years is that they haven’t been afraid to explore opportunities.  Even as they slowed their growth, they still sought out opportunities and took on some risk to make things happen.  I’m not advocating that any airline bet the farm on anything.  I am, however, advocating that LCC’s like jetBlue and VirginAmerica really aren’t engaging where they can play and compete and I wonder what’s holding them back these days. 

I speculate often about that and I do wonder if it isn’t the CEO’s of those two companies.  Both Dave Barger and David Cush have long and significant histories at legacy airlines.  Continental and American Airlines respectively.   It can be very hard to break habits you learn at that kind of airline.  They’re both much more suited to a Chief Operating Officer role than a CEO role in my opinion and the boards of directors at both airlines could stand to start looking for someone who isn’t tied to “that’s how we do it in this business”.  A new David Neeleman or Herb Kelleher is what leads those airlines to the next level.  They’re out there, you just have to find them.

Sean Menke might just be available, it is certainly worth calling him.

Filed under: Airline News, Airline Service by ajax
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Do we need regulation for better passenger service in the airline industry?  Well, I don’t think we need regulation for price or route frequency or food.  We don’t.  We’re fine.  Aircraft are transporting people just fine every day and doing it credibly. 

However, where we could stand some government oversight is in how airlines meet or, rather, don’t meet obligations that are implied in the sale of a seat on a flight.  If airlines are going to charge baggage fees and term it a service, then there is an obligation on their part to transport your baggage as reliably as they are transporting you.  I do think some government regulation on this is appropriate.  For instance, if you don’t transport a customer’s baggage and deliver it back to them upon arrival, you should be required to refund that fee in full and get them their bag as soon as possible. 

Do we need them to regulate how they conduct their flights?  No but we do need a minimum service standard for things like delays on tarmac.  We have the 3 Hour Rule and while I think the jury is still out, there is some strong evidence that this rule is having its intended effect. 

Do we need to insist food be served?  No, not for free certainly.  But providing some kind of food and water in the event of a long delay isn’t unreasonable. 

Should airlines be allowed to set their prices?  Absolutely.  But when they set those prices, we should have a standard that enforces that *all* costs and/or potential costs are displayed *before* the purchase rather than just a base fare with taxes and fees. 

If an airline has to cancel a flight should the be obligated to transport you on another aircraft immediately?  No, they shouldn’t.  Airlines would have to carry tens of replacement aircraft at every major station and that’s unreasonable.  However, should be able to put you on a flight 5 or more days in the future?  No, they shouldn’t.  Once flights commence, 24 hours or less should probably be the standard in most cases. 

Yes, there is a place for regulation but it should be miminum standards and in areas where the airlines make a service promise but write contract language to absolve them of the very obligation they imply that they have.

Filed under: Airline Service, Deregulation by ajax
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I found a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer today that discusses whether the airline should or should not be considered for heavier regulation.  You can read it in its entirety HERE. 

We regulate the airline industry on safety matters (but not without a lot of groaning from the industry at times) and we definitely have found that it is appropriate to regulate interstate commerce on some level.  However, a return to the days of pre-1978 deregulation would, in my opinion, be a mistake. 

People often long for those days in the perception that things were better all the way around and that really isn’t true.  Today, we really do have more choice in most cases when it comes to travel on a particular route.  In the so-called golden years, the CAB decided who got to fly what routes and at what price.  We often forget that those prices were regulated as well and an airlines profit was determined on their costs.  However, so was the price.  Airlines often made a justification for raising prices on routes based on their costs and an appropriate profit level.  Not unlike how many electrical utilities are still regulated today.

Airlines are, if anything, far more safe today than 30 years ago as well.  That’s despite the drum beating going on about airlines sacrificing safety for profit and it is a product of our regulation in that area and its influence on both manufacturers as well as airlines themselves.  I do also believe that safety remains a top concern with airlines today despite the competitive environment because of how much impact on profit there can be as a result of a crash or safety incident. 

But airlines do use a variety of public assets and as a result of that, they should, in my opinion, be subject to some regulation.  For instance, airports are a public asset and, yet, we allow airlines to dominate airports by leasing/purchasing terminal space and holding on to underutilized assets.  In a sense, we allow airlines to bully both airports and other airlines who would make use of those public assets.  I wouldn’t propose that we tightly regulate terminal space but I would propose that these assets should periodically be subject to some sort of competitive bid for them.  That shriek you just heard is the airlines.

The airways are a public asset as well.  How much traffic a particular part of our airspace can withstand is determined by our infrastructure and our airports both of which are public assets as well.  There is, in my opinion, a duty on the part of the government(s) to see that these assets are used as efficiently as possible.  Where airports are slot controlled, those slots should also be subject to a periodic competitive bid for use.  When airlines find it “profitable” in a competitive sense to hold on to those slots by using them for high frequency and/or small regional jet routes, they are potentially being underutilized. 

That means that when there are 20+ frequencies between two cities among 2 or more airlines, there is some indication that those assets (i.e. slots) are being underutilized and with just a few less frequencies, slots could be opened up to provide new or improved service to other destinations and also improve competition on routes being “dominated” by a couple of airlines who are controlling prices via frequency.  If you think this doesn’t happen, just look into how major airlines respond to new competition by “small” competitors on these and non-slot routes.  They add capacity via larger aircraft and or additional flights to “buy” the business.

But does the consumer really benefit from that?  In short term spurts, yes they may benefit.  In the long term, no, they don’t.  If you control the route, you have some influence on the price and losing control of that route could quite possibly mean it turns unprofitable very quickly. 

In pre-deregulation days, it was thought that the nation’s infrastructure couldn’t withstand the loss of a trunk airline via bankruptcy and/or strikes.   So the government regulated price on their behalf and assured a stable system.  During that time, that made sense since those trunk airlines held much more regional segments of the United States.  For instance, in those days Delta might have been perceived as “essential” to the south east and its removal from the system might have meant a major economic loss to the area. 

We think there are fewer airlines and to some extent that is true.  However, our system is also vastly more flexibile today than it was 30 years ago.  A loss of a major legacy airline doesn’t mean the nation’s airline infrastructure becomes paralyzed.  We have enough airlines who are already serving those routes and who already have the flexibility to either serve them with more frequency or more capacity or both.  A correction via the remaining airlines would take days in some cases and mere weeks in others.  Not months and years.   Deregulation has provided that flexibility.

One argument many legacy airlines make for being allowed more dominance at hubs is that they serve the public good with flights to small, outlying areas in regions that no one else would serve if they were gone.  In a few cases, they’re telling the truth.  In most cases, they serve those areas with very high prices and very low frequency and they do little to stimulate commerce in those areas.  This is because those airlines serve those areas inefficiently with the wrong aircraft and schedules so that they may “feed” their hub systems.  Hub systems have to grow to remain profitable.  They are the animal that simply grows hungrier every year.

Should a place like Abilene, Texas have 3 or 4 direct flights to hubs like Dallas or Houston?  I’d argue that it isn’t really justified.  However, you could justify it as a whistle stop on a multi-city route being served by a turboprop as opposed to a regional jet.   Does service suffer as a result of that?  In most cases, no.  Airlines would earn more profit, service the same number of passengers or possibly more due to lower prices and the cities themselves wouldn’t suffer any economic impact.  

Abilene, Texas is served by no less than 7 flights a day to DFW all on ERJ-140 aircraft.  2 pair of those flights have departure times that separate them by less than an hour.   Does an isolated city in West Texas with a population of 120, 000 really justify that kind of frequency?  Probably not.  There are larger city pairs that don’t have that kind of frequency.  Could the 5:50am and 6:35am departures be combined into a single 6:00am flight?  Absolutely.   Would those passengers be impacted if the flight originated in Midland-Odessa at 5:50am and made a simple whistle stop in Abilene on its way to DFW?  No, not at all.  Would the Midland-Odessa passengers be impacted by a flight that was, at best, 20 minutes longer?  No, they wouldn’t.

We hurt the public by not regulating the industry for more competition and by the public, I mean the greater good for all, not just the 2 bankers in Abilene who get in a snit if they don’t have 4 morning flight choices.  Promoting competition by regulating access to our public assets isn’t a bad thing and there are decades of evidence to show that this is an area where the government can regulate very successfully and profitably. 

Do I think the airlines service levels should be regulated?  Let’s take a look at that tomorrow.

Filed under: Air Traffic Control, Airline Service, Airports by ajax
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As an owner of an iPhone, I’ve become very interested in web sites developed specifically for the smart phone users and even more interested in travel related apps as well as travel specific mobile websites.  As much as social networking is becoming important for airlines, I think having a mobile website is even more important.  

It’s kind of cool to be able to complain by Twitter or some other social networking media but the busy traveler is even better served by being able to access his airline of choice via a mobile website.  I may be wrong but I believe that Continental Airlines had one of the first mobile websites available and that comes as little surprise to me given their popularity with the business traveler.  

I wrote about that Continental website more than a year ago.  Since then, a number of airlines and travel related websites have now also gone mobile.  Now that we have a quorum of companies participating, I’ve added a new section of links titled, oddly enough, Mobile Sites. 

It isn’t comprehensive but it is a good slice of what we in the United States would use.  Interestingly enough, I think many of these sites were rolled out with little or no fanfare and that seems strange to me. 

Midwest Airlines has a site but Frontier, it’s sister airline under Republic Airways, does not.  That doesn’t surprise me as I think Midwest Airlines was doing a much better job than many when it comes to technology and social networking.  I do hope that that feature will be adopted over to Frontier in the near future. 

Virgin America doesn’t have one either and I think I know why.  Those folks have used an excessive amount of Flash programming on their sites and that won’t fly on many mobiles including the iPhone.  For a company that has positioned itself in the way Virgin America has, I think this is bad for the airline.  (Just like I think opening new routes to leisure destinations is bad, too.)  Virgin was an early adopter of GoGo Wireless and has its “Red” system onboard for entertainment and food/beverage ordering.  They don’t, however, appear to be embracing social networking or mobile apps yet.   It is an area that a young, agile airline should be leading in.

Are you listening Mr. Cush?  You need someone working on this as of last year!

The various sites available are robust in some cases and some offer pretty limited capability.  I expect that that playing field will level out over time and result in a reasonably consistent group of offerings. 

Quite a few airlines have offered iPhone apps and I do hope to talk about those in the future sometimes but they’re only relevant to the iPhone and while it is an amazingly popular phone, the Blackberry is the businesman’s mobile phone still. 

Web sites that are mobile capable are the way to go both because it serves the busy person with a smart phone but also because it delivers a consistent look and feel to customers who may move from, say, a Blackberry to an iPhone or an Android based smartphone to a Blackberry.   Apps, on the other hand, are either phone or phone OS specific and that means maintaining a growing collection of software. 

I’ve added a couple of flight services mobile sites as well.  Each works from OK to good and, again, I think these will be updated to offer more functionality over time.  They’re all linked on the FlyingColors blog but fair warning:  a few don’t launch to the mobile site unless you’re browsing from a mobile smartphone. 

Got an app you like or another mobile site I haven’t found?  Offer it up in the comments section and I’ll add it along with the others.

Update:  Virgin America has dumped Flash from its site and is apparently working on a mobile site to be rolled out this year.  See this PC World story.  That’s good but they’re still behind the curve on mobile sites and, from what I can tell, social networking as well.  So much for being a hip airline.

Filed under: Airline Service, Travel Hints by ajax
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For the past 3 years or more, we’ve heard virtually every airline CEO talk about the need for consolidation and the problem of too many seats chasing too many passengers.  Now we have Northwest Airlines fully consolidated into Delta and we’re about to see United and Continetal merge together as well.  But does that really solve the long term problems in this industry?

One the one hand, I admire how the airlines are using their dire straits to argue for greater dominance in their industry.  It’s the legacies doing this and their “poor me” story is working very well among the public as well as among their own employees. 

I would argue that, if anything, we need even stronger competiton in the industry for the long term.  The greater dominance we allow isn’t necessarily going to raise prices all that much but what it will do is make it ever more cost prohibitive for new entrants into the market.  That’s the ultimate goal of consolidation:  keep the new guys out and keep the current competition neutralized as much as possible.

Quite honestly, what we really need is for a legacy airline to go out of business and liquidate.  I had long hoped it would be United who had to do this but, sadly, they scrapped by and made it to the other side.  US Airways is often pointed to as a candidate and while I’ll agree they are potentially the most vulnerable, I’m not sure I want to see them go.

I’d like to see one of our behemoths leave. 

Yes, it would put a lot of people out of work for while.  It would lead higher fares in the short term.  It would also allow room for new entrants who’ll bring fresher ideas, staff, aircraft and, wait for it . . . , lower fares.

It will help break the stranglehold that unionization has on this industry. 

What I’m really proposing is that we need a revolution in the US airline indudstry rather than an evolution of the legacy carriers one more time. 

We need airports to have room for new airlines to enter their markets and establish footholds that result in lower fares.  That means someone has to go.

This country needs to quite looking at each individual airline as an essential industry to our economy.  They aren’t.  Not anymore.  If one legacy went out of business and liquidated, the other airlines would move so fast to establish new business in those markets that it would make our head spin. 

In other words, they would grow the old fashioned way:  through competition.

It’s interesting to me that the airlines who have managed to weather the economic recession so well also happen to be the airlines who didn’t contract but, rather, grew themselves as legacies withdrew from unprofitable routes. 

It is often claimed that we need the legacies because they serve the small communities.  I wonder how the small communities feel about paying a disproportionately high fare in the current systems.  The truth is, there are lot of markets that I question the need for air service in many areas.

Does Waco, TX really need flights from Dallas and Houston?  Probably not.  Those residents should probably be driving to Dallas or Houston for their flights.  It costs about $30 to drive to Dallas from Waco.  Air fares between those two cities are currently advertised from $130 to $600 one way at present.  It’s economically wasteful to take that flight.

We, as a country, should be looking to create more opportunities for new airlines as well as existing LCC carriers who want to enter markets but are bullied away from them at present by the established legacy carriers dominance.

Filed under: Airline Service, Death Watch, Deregulation by ajax
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Now that more than a week has passed, I want to revisit my first post about the Virgin Atlantic flight diversion to Bradley International Airport last week.  You can read my original post HERE.

First, I think both Congressional and administration officials have grossly overreacted to this event.  This was not a 6 or 7 hour event.  It was a 4 hour event.   And the primary cause of keeping people contained on the aircraft was weather and then no available customs and immigrations officers to process passengers.  You see, it might be called Bradley *International* Airport but it’s “international” aspect derives from relatively short flights to Canada.

Now we have Senators and Secretaries demanding that we impose a 3 Hour rule on international carriers and decrying the inhumanity of what those poor people experienced.   Indeed, the more these people pound desktops, the more they reveal their ignorance.

Folks, I’ve sat in an aircraft waiting 4 hours to take off a number of times.  It’s boring.  It’s tedious but it isn’t inhumane.  The same is true of a flight that likely took about 7 hours from London to the NYC area.  

The real issue here is what we allow when it comes to a diversion and the reason for that diversion.  I said it in my first post and I’ll say it again:  Virgin Atlantic’s chief mistake was in putting themselves into a position to have to use Bradley or choosing Bradley for its relatively low cost to land, refuel and take-off again.  There were plenty of better alternatives and VA didn’t choose one. 

If we presume a 200 nautical mile diversion capability, let’s look at what was in range from Newark (EWR).  Click THIS MAP to see what was available.

This flight could have made Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, any of the NYC airports, Washington Dulles and maybe even Pittsburg.  Short of a real fuel emergency, this flight should have made for one of those major airports that has full facilities for a widebody jet carry international passengers. 

The fact that we don’t distinguish what is and isn’t a legal diversion in a non-emergency event is a bigger part of the problem for international flights.  We make any airport that has the ability to land the aircraft a legal airport for diversion and I’m not so sure we should.  Perhaps a better rule would be to insist on the ability to divert (for non-emergency reasons and weather ain’t an emergency in most cases) to a *capable* airport designated as such for an international flight. 

Regardless, one of the reasons given for the delays was lack of customs officials.  The airport would not dis-embark the passengers until they had staff.  I may be wrong but I believe they could have allowed them off the aircraft *if* they were kept in a sterile area until customs officials arrived.  Whether or not they had a sterile area large enough is another question but also reinforces the need for diverting to airports that are properly equipped for these events. 

Who is at fault?  Virgin!  Bradley!  The FAA!  The passengers! No one!

The better question is how do we fix this so that passengers can reasonable expect reasonable treatment in a reasonable time period in non-emergency diversions.  And reasonable really is probably some amount of time between 3 and 4 hours.  

Look, no reasonable passenger is going to be outraged by many hours of delay when the aircraft engine shuts down and the flight has to divert to the first and best available airport during a real emergency.   Sure, there is always the chance of a crank or arrogant passenger being outraged no matter what but in those events, they just don’t count and virtually all passengers understand the nature of a real emergency.

The real failures are in events like these where the pilots gambled (on circling and hoping they could land too long), the airline and pilots choosing a poor airport, the FAA not distinguishing what is and isn’t an appropriate diversion airport in an event like this (and the FAA has no right to be “outraged” at VA since they themselves make an airport like Bradley legal for this kind of diversion) and where airlines continue to be ill prepared to respond to passenger needs during such events.  Might I point out that I would find it extremely hard to believe that someone couldn’t deliver a little food or attach ground air conditioning (if that airport has it) or a ground power unit (which I’m sure they have) to help provide power for air conditioning?

Filed under: Air Traffic Control, Airline News, Airline Service, Airports, security by ajax
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My post from yesterday spurred an off-line response from a frequent reader of the FlyingColors blog.  This reader is a national IT director for a multi-billion dollar, multi-national company and he flies American Airlines a lot.  Here is his email to me in whole:

Friday, while boarding in Chicago for a flight home after a very exhausting week,three flight attendants decided to begin grousing about the trouble they have every flight finding overhead bin space for the final passengers.  As they were standing less than two feet from where I was sitting, I decided I needed to interject in to the conversation that I would be fine with charging for carry-on luggage (not a personal carry-on bag which can fit under my seat) as long as AA stopped charging for checked baggage.  I went on to state that AA could not have it both ways and that the problem with a lack of overhead bin space was a result of exorbitant checked baggage fees.  The three stopped their conversation, looked briefly at me and then marched off to the back of the plane.

Later, during beverage service, they asked both passengers to my right what they would like to drink and served them without ever acknowledging me.  After serving both passengers, I quietly stated, “I would like a coffee please.”  The attendant never acknowledged me but unlocked the wheels on the cart and moved further down the aisle.  I leaned out into the aisle, raised my hand and repeated my request only to have her turn her back on me again.  I asked one last time slightly louder and was, yet again, ignored.  At this point, the lady across the aisle commented on my being ignored, as did the gentlemen sitting to my right.  At no point during the flight would any flight attendant acknowledge my existence.

I contacted AA via their website to complain.  I received a response in less than two hours.  I received a vague e-mail stating my complaint would be addressed and I was credited with 5,000 AAdvantage miles.  I was not looking for miles but was looking for someone to address the bigger issue.  Baggage fees and the problems they create along with poor employee relations with the rank and file.  In 14 years of flying regularly with AA I have never complained before but could not let this go unaddressed.

A lot of enthusiasts would call this a one time or occasional incident.  I don’t.  This kind of behaviour is exactly the reason I work very hard to stay away from AA flights now.  There are really two issues at play here.

First, employee morale, lethargy and hostility.   For what was probably 3 very senior flight attendants to adopt that attitude towards any customer, much less an extremely frequent flier, for any reason short of illegal behaviour is bad.  It’s bad that the flight attendants feel they can get away with it.  It’s bad that the other customers have to see that appalling display of behaviour.  It’s bad that management lacks the will to make that the exception rather than the rule.

I won’t make excuses for their behaviour but I will point out that this has a lot to do with not establishing a cooperative relationship with your front line employees and not coming to a timely agreement on their contract.  There is, quite simply, nothing to lose (from the employee perspective) when these employees behave this way.  

However, it is inexecusable to behave this way in any job where you are the front line service provider.  I don’t care what problems the flight crew has going on with management.  This isn’t just a small morale problem, this is an extreme lack of professional conduct.  If you are going to do a job at all, do it right. 

Second, let’s take a look at AA’s response to the complaint.  It stands in stark contrast to the post I made about another frequent reader’s experience with Delta just weeks ago.  You can read that post HERE.  Go ahead, click the link, take a few moments to read that experience.  I’ll wait.

All done?  Great.  Ultimately, the “compensation” response was quite similar.  Let’s pay the customer something for his trouble.  I’m not entirely against that although I do believe the best response is to not let those experiences happen in the first place.  But there is something that stands out in stark contrast.  It’s the difference in how the customer was addressed with the problem.  In the earlier post, the Delta customer service people investigated, indicated that the investigated and provided a satisfactory response to the complaint as well as a sincere apology for the experience.

In this new case, AA managed a timely response that was entirely canned and vague and which has had no follow up. 

Lazy, lazy, lazy. 

Ultimately, the points or other compensation don’t matter nearly as much as providing a sincere response of some kind when it comes to making a customer feel satisfied. 

So I’ll ask the question again:  American Airlines, is that really the best you’ve got?

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax
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Adding further shame to American Airlines, look who has revamped their website for full disclosure of fares and fees.

Spirit Airlines. Read the story HERE.

Filed under: Airline News, Airline Service by ajax
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