As mentioned yesterday, I had the chance to go visit Delta this week for a visit. While I’m putting together posts from my time there, I figured it would be easiest to just start with a trip report. Remember, these flights were provided by Delta.

I wanted to fly out on Monday midday because I had an appointment in the morning. Sure enough, there was an 1145a flight out of LAX on the 777LR, the one that comes from Sydney. I picked that one and found myself booked into BusinessElite. This was gonna be good.

I headed to the airport a little early and found the terminal bustling even though it was a relatively low time of day. I went over to the SkyPriority area for first class and elites and I checked myself in at the kiosk. Then it was off to security.

Like I said, this wasn’t a peak time, but security was disorganized. I looked for an elite line and didn’t see one (nor did I see any signs at all, really). A lineminder pointed me to a line on the far side and I went there. Then I sat. With only a few people in front of me, it still took more than 10 minutes to get through.

Once through, I headed to the SkyClub. It was set up for me to go in so that I could see the newly-renovated club, and they’ve done a really nice job. The club is quite large with one huge room separate by a snack bar with, of course, ample free liquor. On the other side, there were a couple of small rooms, one for working and one for “quiet.” I’m fairly certain that the entire club was reserved for golfers, actually. Check out this magazine rack.

My flight was leaving from next-door Terminal 6, (Delta doesn’t have enough room to handle all the widebodies in its own Terminal 5) so I realized I had to get a move-on. I came back downstairs and then went into the old underground tunnel to get to the other terminal. That is one long, white, and barren pathway, but it popped me out right on the other side so that’s all that matters.

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August 30, 2010
Delta 1754 Lv Los Angeles 1145a Arr Atlanta
Los Angeles (LAX): Gate 68B, Runway 25R, Depart 13m Late
Atlanta (ATL): Gate E10, Runway 9R, Arrive 9m Early
N701DN, Boeing 777-232LR, Spirit of Delta, ~100% Full
Seat 14D, BusinessElite
Flight Time 3h40m

I walked up to the gate to find a mob of people in the throes of boarding. I looked for the SkyPriority (old Breezeway) lane for First Class boarding but it was mobbed as well. When I finally got to the front of the line, I said, “No SkyPriority line today?” The agent looked at me and said, “No, it’s just too hard to do over here. I’m sorry about that.” At least he was nice about it, I guess. With that, I went onboard.

Most of the airplane had already boarded, though there were still a few behind me. I found my seat, the prime spot at the back of the cabin, and started to explore. The back of the cabin is excellent because you have a tall fixture on the back and side that gives you more privacy. There’s nobody looking in on you, as is often the case with herringbone seats.

The seat itself looked good, but the wear on this new plane was already showing. The blue leather looked a bit tired and the plastic fixtures were chipping a little as well. But the seat itself was comfortable, and I just waited for takeoff. The next thing I saw was actually quite shocking.

I saw flight attendants taking bags from passengers in coach and finding empty spots for them in BusinessElite. No, it’s not shocking that they were using BusinessElite bin space. It was surprising that the flight attendants were doing the heavy lifting. It was great service. What wasn’t great was the dude who sat down, promptly flipped his shoes off, and displayed his dirty bare feet for the world to see.

Soon, it was time to push back but the captain said we were just waiting for more cargo to be loaded. We pushed back about 15 minutes late and then headed toward the runway. The safety demonstration was interesting. Since there are no open monitors allowed on the ground in BusinessElite, we could only hear the video but couldn’t see good ole’ Deltalina. Instead, we just had a couple flight attendants up front doing the demonstration for us.

Then we took to the skies and I sat back to play with the seat. There are 7 different buttons and I found it pretty confusing. I can’t imagine what an older or less tech-savvy person would do with this. I brought my seat down into a relaxing position and then went to pull out the television. It came out and then slammed back shut. Yep, the screw was a little loose and my guess is that it was on the way in from Sydney as well since there were some plastic wrappers shoved in there to try to make it steady. It became less of a problem once we leveled out, of course.

The other problem was with the headset jack. It’s a two-prong jack and they give you a single prong headset with an adapter. Unfortunately, the headset kept popping out of the adapter. It took me awhile to find a magic spot where it would stay still.

The lead flight attendant came by with a very long paper print out from a dot matrix printer. She took my order and wrote it down on the page. I said, “That’s a heck of a long list you have there.” She unrolled it and said, “Yep, take a look at all those precious metals. I’m just kidding, everyone is precious.” It’s amazing how much nicer things can sound with a southern accent.

I opted for a ginger ale and the hot chicken sandwich, and I went to pull out my tray table. That’s when I realized you couldn’t do it without getting out of the reclined position. So I did and then pulled the tray out after some difficulty. The tray itself got stuck, so I had to jiggle it out. Then I was ready to go. I had a movie on, I had my tray out, and I was in a semi-comfortable position.

The food was pretty good, and I kept the bag of Ruffles for later. Then I watched a couple movies and settled in. The bed was actually quite comfortable in the flat position. I had plenty of room to stretch out since I’m short, and the width wasn’t a problem.

I had the chance to finally join an exclusive club. Yep, I’m now a laviator. I had a heck of a large lav to work in – on the right side between the two BizElite cabins. There was even a full length mirror in there. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.

Back at my seat I had a nice scotch and watched another movie. Later, the flight attendants came through with a snack basket. Somehow, I was able to pass on the junk food (they had Twix, this requires serious self-restraint) and instead had a really good banana.

As the afternoon grew longer, we made our way into the deep south. Soon we were descending through a high layer of clouds. We had an uneventful landing to the east. After parking at the E gates (the plane was heading on to Dubai), I had a long way before I got back to the terminal.

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September 1, 2010
Delta 110 Lv Atlanta 735a Arr LAX 914a
Atlanta (ATL): Gate E3, Runway 8R, Depart 1m Early
Los Angeles (LAX): Gate 53A, Runway 25L, Arrive 6m Late
N648DL, Boeing 757-232, Red Widget, ~70% Full
Seat 2A, First Class
Flight Time 4h7m

As I’ve already mentioned in a previous post, the visit was fantastic, but soon it was already time to come home. I arrived at the airport by 620a for a 735a flight, but I didn’t need that much time.

I used the SkyPriority line and it took me a little more than 10 minutes to get through security. I’m actually surprised that there was only one x-ray machine and security gate for SkyPriority in Atlanta. Then I hopped on the train for the long ride out to gate E3.

The gate area looked empty and the flight clearly wasn’t full. They boarded the flight on the early side, so I just hopped on and did some work online. I was determined not to log on in the air despite this airplane having wifi. I like being disconnected up there.

This flight was on a 757 with the regular domestic First Class. As mentioned, it had wifi and it also had individual screens. I was set.

It was a beautiful day in Atlanta, and we had only a short wait before launching into the morning blue. We turned around and started making our way west. Breakfast was served and I opted for cereal, which also came with yogurt, a bagel, and fruit.

I finished a movie from last time, and then I flipped on the Karate Kid. I missed about an hour in the middle when I actually fell asleep. That does’nt happen to me very often, but I was exhausted. When I woke up, we were somewhere over New Mexico and they brought back a snack basket for anyone who wanted. Eventually, we landed at LAX and had to wait a little while for the alleyway to clear. Just a few minutes late, I hopped off and went home.

Late last week I was sitting at home taking care of three dogs, helping concierge clients, and realizing that my wife wouldn’t be back home for a week. I looked at my calendar to see what this week held, and sure enough, it was pretty light. I decided to come visit Delta in Atlanta.

See, Delta and I had been trying to coordinate a visit for about 6 months, but it never worked for one reason or another. This time, I knew it was last minute, but Delta’s corp comm team went above and beyond to pull the thing together. It was an absolutely fantastic visit, but I’m exhausted. I probably have enough material to fill two weeks worth of posts, but I just don’t have time to get started with details today. Want to know the highlight? Here it is:

Yep, that’s Delta’s Ship 41, the first DC-3 that carried Delta passengers. It was painstakingly restored and now sits in the Delta Museum, which is located in the airline’s original Atlanta hangars. It is only open for employee visits once a month, but Curator Tiffany Meng kindly opened it for me to take a look. I also had the pleasure of finally meeting Archives Manager Marie Force. I could have spent a week in the archives easily.

It’s actually not fair to say this was the highlight, because there were just so many other excellent meetings. I had the chance to tour TechOps (maintenance) and speak with the head of the organization. I did the same with cargo, and I was able to interview the people running eCommerce and SkyMiles. (Yes, I asked about the award calendar and SkyMiles redemption, don’t worry.)

I met with the head of reservations about the new @DeltaAssist effort, and I ended the day with Glen Hauenstein, CMO and EVP Network Planning, Revenue Management and Marketing. I shouldn’t say the day ended there, because we had some good ole’ Southern food afterwards. My arteries are not happy.

They even flew me out in the front of the bus, which was certainly unnecessary. I ended up on the 777 on the way out with the herringbone seats, and I’m riding a 757 home. As you can tell, there’s a lot to share with you after this visit.

Overall, I found the trip to be a good (if very basic) look inside the Delta culture. Seeing a corporate communications group that’s so willing to open up and talk with a blogger individually is rare, but it’s especially surprising when it comes from a legacy carrier.

While I don’t agree with everything Delta has done, I found a very driven group of people that had really already considered every question I asked. They aren’t just sitting still. Sometimes they didn’t know the answer, but other times they just hadn’t been able to implement things yet because they’re trying to do so much.

Sorry I don’t have more to report today, but there’s a lot of digesting left to do. I’ll start writing and posting on this tomorrow. It may take me awhile to get through it all, so please be patient.

In the immortal words of Dennis Hopper (rest in peace, you crazy bastard) . . . pop quiz, hotshot. Let’s say that you’ve been presented three deals impacting the most dominant airline at a highly-congested airport. You can approve one. Which would it be? Here’s what the airport will look like after the deal is approved:

You’re probably thinking that B looks best, and there’s no chance anyone is going to pick deal A, right? But that’s exactly what’s just happened now that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has given its approval to United and Continental to merge. All Continental has to do is take United’s 18 daily flights and give those slots (or equivalent) to Southwest. Done deal. Those other two deals? Yeah, that would be the rejected slot swap between Delta and US Airways in Washington (C) and New York (B).

I know, I know. These are totally different things and the approvals came from different branches of government. True, but it also shows how screwy it can be dealing with the feds. I should be clear here. I think the Continental and United deal should be approved. I just think the slot swap should have been approved as well.

Let’s start with the Continental/United deal. Apparently, the Department of Justice (which tends to be more strict than the Department of Transportation) had no concerns about this deal outside of Newark. Newark, of course, is a highly-congested airport with no slots available. So Continental agreed to permanently lease 18 slot pairs (the same number of flights United operates today) to Southwest. In other words, United gives up its slots to Southwest and everything else is fine. Here’s the state of the airport after this deal.

I’m sure Southwest is thrilled to be getting in there, but it’s still a pretty small number of flights in the scheme of things. And of course, everyone else is still frozen out for now. Contrast that with the slot swap deal. First, here’s the Washington/National chart had the deal been allowed to go through.

Here you can see an airport with more balance and greater low cost carrier penetration than Newark, but that’s nothing compared to LaGuardia.

When compared to National, there’s a greater transfer of slots here, but the dominant carrier would still have held a smaller position than at the other airport. Note the even higher LCC penetration of 12.7%. That’s more than double where Newark will be after Southwest gets its 18 slot pairs. So what gives?

Well it’s hard to say exactly what’s going on when you’re dealing with political bodies. Making sense is never the highest priority. But in this case, I would assume it’s simply an issue of looking at current versus potential scenarios. Continental won’t grow in Newark with this transaction while Delta and US Airways would have grown at LaGuardia and National respectively in that deal. Really, that shouldn’t be the issue here.

If the feds want to act like they’re sticking up for the consumer, they have the ability to hold airlines over a barrel. The Department of Justice chose not to do that with Continental and United while the Federal Aviation Administration has apparently gone the opposite route with the slot swap. Go figure. One thing we do know is the feds do seem to love Southwest these days.

You’ll remember that Southwest voiced a large number of objections when it came to the slot swap. The feds came back and agreed with the airline. Remember, Southwest actually said that open auctions were the best outcome. Now it’s gone and done a back-room deal. Not bad for Southwest, and certainly not bad for Continental and United. Then again, it probably just frustrates Delta and US Airways even more. Or maybe not.

Maybe this suggests that the better path for US Airways is to get bought (as they’ve been saying for some time anyway). Then it won’t need to get an FAA waiver to give its LaGuardia slots to another airline. It’ll be that other airline, so the FAA won’t get to ruin the party. If this helps build up US Airways’ efforts to get bought, then that’s good news for the airline.

Never a dull moment inside the Beltway, that’s for sure.

On Friday afternoon, Southwest announced it came to an agreement with Continental to lease 36 slots at Newark. Holy crap. Has hell frozen over? Nah. Just two hours later, Continental and United announced that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has found no antitrust issues with the merger. Ahhhh, I get it. That was easy.

I’m talking more about this from the Continental/United perspective at BNET, but here I want to focus on Southwest. An airline that used to consider Islip a New York City airport will now be serving two of the biggest and most congested airports serving New York. Crazy.

This slot deal will allow Southwest to have 18 flights in and 18 flights out per day, unless they figure out some magical way to have more departures than arrivals. I’m gonna guess that physics makes that a tough sell. The first flights will begin next March with the full amount of slots going into Southwest’s possession by June.

This move is really funny when you think about it. It’s old-school Southwest meets new-school Southwest. Yes, the airline is flying into one of the most crowded, delay-filled airports in the US. You never would have seen that 10 years ago. But it’s also the tried and true Southwest strategy of bracketing a big metro area. You now have LaGuardia on the east (along with Islip on the waaaaay east) and Newark on the west. (It also conveniently brackets New Jersey with Philly on the South. That’s about as close as you’d want to get to NJ anyway.)

So what is Southwest gonna do with this? Well, 18 flights is a lot. It’s more than double the measly 8 flights they were able to squeeze into LaGuardia. At LaGuardia, there are five daily flights to Chicago/Midway and 3 down to Baltimore. But for Newark, we have some good guidance. Take a look at what the DOJ had to say about this:

The proposed merger would combine the airlines’ largely complementary networks, which would result in overlap on a limited number of routes where United and Continental offer competing nonstop service. The largest such routes are between United’s hub airports and Continental’s hub at Newark airport, where Continental has a high share of service and where there is limited availability of slots, making entry by other airlines particularly difficult.

In other words, Chicago/Midway, Denver, and Houston/Hobby have to be a lock. Baltimore? Probably. (And, as I talk about on BNET today, Continental and United must be happy not to have exact airport competition on these routes.) You could probably fill a schedule with that pretty easily, but there could be other cities as well.

Unlike from LaGuardia, Southwest can run Phoenix or Vegas from Newark, if it so chooses. The reality is that with Southwest’s focus on business travelers, Florida might not make as much sense. Sure, you can always fill those airplanes, but with scarce slots, that doesn’t seem like the best plan. Then again, maybe we’ll see Florida at some off-peak times.

Southwest has to be thrilled to have benefited from the merger here. Apparently the feds were happy with this deal as well. It may not seem like a huge number of slots, and really, it isn’t. For United and Continental’s nearly 450 flights per day, this is a drop in a bucket. Then again, Southwest does know how to make a drop in the bucket feel like a tidal wave.

Some feel blue as United, Continental wedding mixes old, new – Chicago Tribune
The Trib looks at the United/Continental branding efforts, and I chime in with why I’m not a fan of what I’ve seen so far.

American’s Express Seats: How Not to Introduce New Fees to Customers – BNET Headwinds
American has a new fee, and while it could be relatively straightforward, the way American released it was anything but.

US Airways Positions Itself as a Takeover Target with New York Moves – BNET Headwinds
The US Airways build-up in New York seems goofy, but it could actually be a smart play to get itself bought.

Passengers shocked by new touchy-feely TSA screening – Boston Herald
I didn’t even know that the TSA was tightening its screening process until I was contacted for this article. Sounds like a cheap way to get felt up to me.

Hmm. Alaska Air Group May Be Looking to Sell Horizon Air – BNET Headwinds
Horizon Air has changed its business model, and that has me wondering if Alaska is looking to sell.

Mammoth Mountain Lures United to Bring Bay Area Folks to Ski – BNET Headwinds
Another small town getting new air service. But this one makes more sense than many.

American Mechanics Shoot Down Tentative Agreement, Move Closer to Strike – BNET Headwinds
Unsurprisingly, American’s mechanics voted against the tentative agreement that had been presented. They’re moving toward a strike, but I doubt they’ll ever get there.