It’s always fun to watch these games of one-upmanship among the world’s elite airlines.

You may remember this post on Cathay’s new products. It was their new coach class that really caught my eye, but it’s the opposite end of the spectrum that grabbed me with Singapore’s latest announcement.

First of all, check out their new First Class. Actually, before I get into it, just look at this photo taken from their website:

I’m guessing your reaction was the same as mine . . . holy f’in crap! Look at that spread.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was the 23″ LCD screen. That thing has full audio/video on demand, video games, and a full business software system. That means you can create documents, spreadsheets or presentations without bringing your own computer. (Ok, I’m not sure why you’d need that. If you did, you’d have your own computer, but whatever.)

Let’s talk more about the seat. It’s 35″ across giving you only 4″ less than a twin bed. For an airplane seat, that’s incredible, at least 7 or 8″ more than the next best out there and probably 14″ more than most. And of course, it turns into a flat bed. And how about this turndown service:

Ok, so that is first class and most of us won’t get to experience it. How about something more reasonable? Yup, even Business Class (apparently no longer called Raffles Class) is incredible. Here is Exhibit A:

It doesn’t even look real. I keep thinking that’s a normal-sized seat with a midget sitting in it, but in reality, it’s huge. This one is 30″ wide, still an impressive size. And it goes fully flat as well. This one only has a 15.4″ screen, but, um, that’s still pretty good.

The big question that comes to my mind is . . . how can they afford to do this? They say they’ll have only four seats across on a 777 in business class. Right now, they have 7 across, as do most airlines in business. That means a lot fewer seats need to make a lot more revenue per seat to make up for the difference. I’m sure Singapore thought about this and ran plenty of models, so it’s a safe bet that fares are going to go up and they don’t think they’ll have trouble making up the difference. Since premium cabin fares have been lower on the Pacific than on the Atlantic in upper cabins anyway, this isn’t a stretch.

Now, coach is also being redone, but there’s nothing special there. That means there is a huge gulf between coach and business. You would think this would create an opening for them to make a fourth “Premium Economy” cabin, but they haven’t done that yet on these planes.

They say these new cabins go into service in December on the Singapore - Paris/Switzerland routes and then it will continue rolling out from there.

Last year, I went with a group of friends on a trip to Hawai’i for a week. We were amazed that all eight of us could get the same week off last year, but it was even more surprising this year when all but one of us were able to coordinate again. This time, half the group had a wedding in Puerto Vallarta, so we decided to all go early and spend a few days in the sun beforehand.

My girlfriend and I booked the trip back in July for $478.10 per person. Later on, the fare went down by $80, so we were able to take advantage of the Guaranteed Air Fare Rule to get the difference in a voucher. You can read the full saga of that battle here.

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October 14, 2006
US Airways #2952 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 1103a Arr Puerto Vallarta (PVR) 355p
LAX: Gate 11, Runway 24L, Dept ~2h Late
PVR: Gate 7, Runway 4, Arr ~2h10m Late
Aircraft: N907FJ, Bombardier CRJ-900, New white colors, 82 out of 86 seats filled
Flight Time: ~2h37m
Seat: 16F, Coach

US Airways flies a Saturday-only nonstop from LA to Puerto Vallarta so we took it, even if it did mean 2.5 hours on an overgrown regional jet. At least my elite status meant we could reserve the exit row.

Before leaving for the airport, I checked and saw the flight was ontime. Unfortunately, US Airways doesn’t allow online check in for intl flights, so once we got to the airport, we went to the kiosk to check in. (Why is that any different than doing it online?) At that point, an agent tagged our bag and told us we’d be delayed 1:20 since the crew wasn’t able to get in the night before. I was angry, because a crew rest delay is one that could have been updated on the website hours earlier, but annoyingly it was not. I wonder if that’s a communication issue between US Airways and their commuter partner Mesa, who operated our flight.

We went through security quickly and then parked it and waited in the chaotic terminal 1. The soundtrack made life far worse with horrible selections from the 80’s including bands like Erasure. Ugh.

There was also a Mesa flight to Phoenix that was delayed and they were focused on rebooking all the misconnects on that flight. That lent to an even greater feeling of chaos than the usual levels in that terminal. We received periodic updates from the harried gate agents saying that our plane was there, but our crew wasn’t. Finally we were told they wouldn’t arrive until 1230p, 1.5 hours after scheduled
departure.

The crew showed up and we boarded. The crew apologized to us and said they were supposed to go to Vegas the night before, but they couldn’t get in due to weather. They diverted to Phoenix where they ran out of time and they couldn’t get into LAX until that day at 1230p. Bummer.

Then trying to be lighthearted, the captain said that our delay meant we had great weather in LA now, but unfortunately, it was terrible in Puerto Vallarta with lots of t-storms. Because of that, he said we might have to go to Guadalajara and he was topping off the fuel tanks. That meant we had to kick four people off the flight for weight reasons and then sift through the luggage to pull their bags off.

We finally pushed back but then waited for 15 minutes before departing. The first 2 hours of the flight were uneventful with beautiful views of the Seat of Cortez the entire way down. Then, just as we started our descent, the weather rolled in. The captain expertly avoided the worst bumps through weaving this way and that. Finally, we broke out of the clouds at a very low altitude in the middle of Banderas Bay. Soon after we were on the ground and the sky exploded with rain.

We pulled up to a hardstand and they opened the door so we could hop off the plane onto a bus. After about 20 people, they closed the door again. The captain said it was raining so hard that the water was getting into the cockpit and they were worried about shorting instruments. So we waited for 15 minutes for the rain to let up. It was amazing how loud that rain was hitting the plane while we waited. That gave us time to stare out the window and watch them unload our bags into the wet mess. Uh oh.

We finally got off the plane onto the steamy bus for the short ride to the terminal. I took this picture from the bus right after the rain had let up. It doesn’t really make it clear how bad the rain was, but you get the idea. Once we got to the terminal, we went through immigration, picked up our drenched baggage, and headed toward the condo.

It was a nice few days. The rain and overcast didn’t let up until Monday, but from then on the weather was beautiful. Unfortunately, the trip was way too short and just as I was starting to relax, it was time to come home. At least the trip home was much better.

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October 18, 2006

US Airways #409 Lv Puerto Vallarta (PVR) 248p Arr Phoenix (PHX) 315p
PVR: Gate 5, Runway 22, Dept 7m Early
PHX: Gate B27, Runway 26, Arr 14m Early
Aircraft: N817AW, Airbus A319, New white colors, ~90% Full
Flight Time: ~2h00m
Seat: 7F, Coach

We got to the airport two hours early as instructed, but we definitely didn’t need to do it. We got in line at the elite/first class line, but even though nobody else was in line, the non elites were taken before us. I’m not quite sure why that line existed. It took 15 minutes anyway because the systems went down, but once we got there it was easy. Though we had reserved exit rows on both flights, we weren’t given them on either leg. The first one had us in row 7 for some odd reason. The second one was much better, we were put in first class.

The airport in Puerto Vallarta is nice and new with lots of shops and nice areas to wait. Our plane in the shiny new US Airways colors pulled in early and parked at a hardstand instead of at one of the three translucent jet bridges that looked really cool. Strangely, they decided to hand search everyone’s carry on before boarding. I was angry to find out that the water I purchased past security according to TSA rules apparently wasn’t permitted under Mexican rules. I had to toss it right there.

We took the bus over the plane and boarded to find a very friendly and smiling crew. We took our seats and relaxed. The flight departed over the Bay and we had a spectacular view again all the way up the east coast of the Sea of Cortez. I was surprised to see they played a movie on the short flight, but they did manage to fit the whole thing in. They did numerous beverage passes and sold a $3 snack pack which sold out less than halfway down the aircraft.

I hadn’t realized how long it had been when the captain pointed out the Old Pueblo (Tucson) on the right hand side and we started our descent. It was a beautiful 77 and sunny in PHX, but the winds were gusting pretty well on the descent. We touched down and taxied back to the international gates at terminal 4 ready to go.

Of course, we ended up in the wrong immigration line as one guy was escorted to the side office for further questioning. My girlfriend almost didn’t make it back in the country because the agent in Puerto Vallarta had entered her passport and birthdate incorrectly. It took about 5 minutes before they let her go.

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October 18, 2006
US Airways #308 Lv Phoenix (PHX) 433p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 558p
PHX: Gate A14, Runway 25R, Dept 5m Early
LAX: Gate 11, Runway 24R, Arr 7m Early
Aircraft: N663AW, Airbus A320, New white colors, ~60% Full
Flight Time: 59m
Seat: 3D, First

After claiming the bag, we walked through customs and I realized that we had to go back through security again here in the US. Bummer. I don’t know how long it has been like that, but I remember when you could pop right back up into the concourse in Phoenix. At least it gave us time to wander through the newly-renovated central concourse area outside security. It looks amazing, and as you can see, it looks like a mall now.

The security line wasn’t long at all, but in my tired state, I forgot to remove the liquids ziploc from my carry on bag. Bad move. They called for a bag check, but there was a line of requests. I felt like such an idiot, but the agents were at least nice about it. We had to wait probably 5 to 10 minutes before they could get to my bag.

Once through, we headed to the gate and parked it waiting to board the aircraft again in the new colors. While there, I noticed they’ve made good progress painting the old America West aircraft. I saw one 757 and two 737-300s in the new colors among a sea of Airbus birds. It’s sad seeing fewer and fewer America West birds there.

We boarded the aircraft and grabbed our first class seats at the back of the cabin. We had a predeparture drink and then we were on our way. It was a beautiful day to fly and the service was excellent as well. The flight attendant started in November 1983, only a couple of months after America West started flying. She did a great job, and it was all too soon that we were on our way into LA.

This was one of those days you love living in LA. The Santa Ana winds had blown the smog out to sea, so it was amazingly clear and you could see for miles as the sun set. We landed and made our way to baggage claim quickly shocked to find the bag already rolling off the carousel. Then we hopped in the car and headed home.

Looks like Air Canada has been tinkering again, and this time, the occasional traveler will not be happy.

On the heels of US Airways cutting their mileage expiration time from 3 years to 18 months, Air Canada has gone much deeper than that. Upgrade: Travel Better points out that not only will you now have to earn miles once every twelve months to keep them active, they now have an ultimate expiration date of 7 years from the date of accrual. This starts January 1, 2007 with all previous mileage being given an accrual date of December 31, 2006.

For frequent travelers, this is a non-event, but Air Canada has made some more positive changes for that group. The airline has been big on selling passes for travel during a certain time, and now they have an all-North America pass. Basically, plunk down a flat fee and you can fly as much as you want in the area you purchase during that time. It’s a pretty cool idea for the frequent flier, but this doesn’t work for the lonely casual traveler.

I’ve been pretty quiet today, because we just launched the new travel site here at PriceGrabber. As you can imagine, it’s been a busy day making sure it all works and trying to get in touch with our partners.

I usually refrain from talking about work here, but I’m going to do it today because we have some pretty cool stuff in this version . . .

• Flight Amenities - We are the FIRST website to introduce flight amenity information into the travel purchase/comparison process. You can now find legroom information, inflight entertainment (i.e. live TV versus an overhead screen, etc.), and powerport availability in addition to the on time performance we’ve been providing for the past year.
• Hotel Name Search - Finding specific hotels has become much easier now that you can type in all or part of a name and have it instantly filtered to the top.
• Hotel Reviews - Now in addition to finding expert hotel ratings, you can see what other travelers are saying about specific hotels. Find out strengths and weaknesses as well as overall thoughts on hotels. Leave your own ratings each time you stay somewhere. (For an example, see the Sheraton Petaluma.
• Faster, Cleaner, Easier to Use - This is the overall theme of the new launch. Through the use of AJAX, the site now runs faster and you can start filtering and sorting as soon as the first results appear.

Of course, there will be a few bugs to work through. If you find any, send them my way. Oh, and if you need more reason to go try it out, you can enter a sweepstakes while you’re there to win a trip to Alaska, Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands.

Now back to our regularly scheduled airline dorkiness.

For those who live in the city of Dallas, today was a good day. It marked the first day you could buy a ticket for flights from Dallas/Love Field to 28 new destinations nationwide on Southwest.

For a rundown on the Wright Amendment, go here. Warning: That site is sponsored by Southwest, so it is likely biased, but it at least gets the history correct for educational purposes.

In short, when DFW opened, airlines were prohibited from flying planes and even selling tickets on connecting flights between Dallas/Love Field and most states except for the ones surrounding (and including) Texas. Sure there were a few exceptions - Missouri recently joined the party - but for the most part, the law held for almost 30 years.

There are really two main players in this fight. Southwest is in one corner begging to get rid of the restrictions so they can start flying anywhere from Love. In the other corner is American, saying it will be bad for the consumer in all kinds of ways. Read here to see their arguments.

Fortunately, they came to an agreement that allows connecting flights to be sold immediately from Love with nonstop flights to be allowed in 2014 (yes, it’s strangely distant). That’s why I say this is just the beginning of the end - it’ll take 8 years for it to really disappear.

But let’s get to the interesting stuff. Southwest said that repealing the law would lower fares in the area while American disagreed. President Bush signed the law on October 13 and Southwest quickly announced that you would be able to buy connecting flights to twenty five cities for travel beginning today, October 19. Let’s take a look at a few of those markets to see what happened to fares.

Using FareCompare, you can find excellent historical information for airfare, so let’s dig in. The following is a complete list of American’s fares last week vs. this week in markets that Southwest announced they would start selling connections. As you can see, fares came down dramatically in many markets and at least minimally in almost every market (the last three are markets where Southwest codeshares with ATA so it is less likely that American would match).

Destination	Oct 12	Oct 19
Baltimore	$187	$158
Chicago	$147	$117
Cleveland	$328	$197
Columbus	$367	$197
Denver	$258	$217
Detroit	$217	$187
Ft Lauderdale	$207	$177
Indianapolis	$177	$168
Jacksonville	$197	$187
Las Vegas	$275	$220
Los Angeles	$285	$220
Louisville	$345	$197
Nashville	$340	$217
Oakland	$332	$217
Omaha	$227	$197
Orlando	$177	$158
Philadelphia	$238	$187
Phoenix	$349	$217
Portland	$338	$217
Sacramento	$324	$217
Salt Lake City	$348	$217
San Diego	$342	$217
Seattle	$258	$217
Tampa	$217	$187
Tucson	$287	$217
Honolulu	$890	$890
Kahului	$953	$953
New York	$238	$187

It’s important to remember that this is in no way a long term guarantee that fares will stay low. Southwest launched in intro fare sale in these markets, so American may just be matching in the short term to stay competitive. That being said, I think that it will help keep American’s fares lower than they were before, especially once Southwest is allowed to start flying nonstop from Love in some of these markets. Too bad that’s 8 years away.

You go away for a few days and all kinds of crazy stuff happens. Here’s the latest.

• JetBlue said on Monday that they received approval for four daily flights to Chicago/O’Hare. The flights would have to start by January. They don’t have a gate yet, but US Airways indicated they don’t need an old America West gate in Third World Terminal 2, so that would be the best bet now. I would also guess that all four flights would go to New York/JFK.
• United said today that they’ll return to Rome with nonstop flights from Washington/Dulles beginning April 1. They haven’t flown to Rome (or Milan for that matter) for several years. This flight will run with a 777. They’ve added a good amount of 777 flying lately, so I’m really curious where these planes are coming from.
• Qantas says they will bring back flights between San Francisco and Vancouver for December and January. That flight had previously brought cruise traffic to Vancouver in the northern summer months. Fly in the first 10 days of December and you can go for $119 each way.
• Frontier will continue to add flights in California, away from its main Denver hub so it can diversify. The latest announcement came Tuesday saying that they have applied for three times weekly service from Sacramento and four times weekly service from San Jose to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico starting next March. They will also start one daily flight between San Francisco and Las Vegas on December 14. That flight appears to just take advantage of a plane sitting on the ground in San Francisco. It leaves there at 820p and turns around right away getting back to San Francisco at 1150p.
• It wouldn’t be a route announcement without something from Delta. Starting January 11, the airline will begin three daily flights (two on weekends) between Boston and Chicago/Midway. This one defies all logic, especially since the schedule isn’t very good. The first flight from Chicago isn’t until 9a and the last flight back from Boston is at 435p. This is clearly aimed at the Boston market, but I’m not so sure it’s going to work when American and United basically fly hourly to O’Hare.

Those who have been following my ongoing fight with US Airways (here and here) will be happy to hear that it’s finally over. After returning from my trip to Puerto Vallarta yesterday (trip report coming in the next few days), I found two $80 vouchers for future travel on US Airways in my mailbox.

You can read the old posts for the full details, but here’s the short version of what happened. I bought tickets to Puerto Vallarta and the fare dropped $80. US Airways and many other airlines have a rule that if a fare drops, you can get the difference in fare refunded for a $100 fee or you can get the full amount in the form of a voucher. Now, US Airways said that since the fare was an internet special, it wasn’t eligible for the refund. After reviewing the contract of carriage, I found that while it did say that was true for domestic flights, there was no mention in the international contract so I decided to fight.

US Airways of course did not admit defeat here. They said it’s just a “courtesy to a valued customer” and that’s a bit disappointing, but I’m happy to read between the lines. I commend US Airways for being so responsive on this and I hope they will now have the contract of carriage changed to reflect the rules stated on the website. More importantly, they should probably review the rule entirely. Since it says that no sales fares apply, it would seem to be better to just get rid of the rule instead of disappointing most people who try to use it.

There are two lessons here.

• Airlines should make sure that their rules are reflected in their contracts of carriage correctly. If they aren’t, they will continue to find problems like these.
• If you’re a customer, you should always look to the contract of carriage in a dispute. If you can prove your case using that document (which can be found on any airline website), you should win.

Here is the full text of the letter:

Thank you for contacting Customer Relations at US Airways. We
apologize for your disappointment with the fare for your recent travel, and
appreciate the chance to offer an explanation.

The Guaranteed Air Fare Rule applies to tickets purchased through US
Airways Reservations or through www.usairways.com . As with most fare
rules, certain restrictions and exceptions apply.

The original ticket must be fully unused and the reissued ticket (to the
decreased or new fare) must reflect the exact itinerary with no changes made to
dates, times, cities, or passenger name. Additionally, all conditions of
the new fare must be met, including booking code, advance reservations and
ticketing requirements. If the decreased or new fare is a fare for sale
for a limited period of time only, this rule does not apply. If the fare
is limited to Internet booking only, the rule does not apply, as this type of
fare is not a filed/published fare with industry reservation systems. In
other words, a Reservations agent must be able to view the decresaed fare or new
fare in our booking system.

When a fare qualifies for the Guaranteed Air Fare Rule, the customer may
request a refund of the fare difference. A $100 change fee per ticket will
be assessed; however, a customer may choose to receive the difference in fares
in voucher form. In that instance, the change fee would be waived.

As a courtesy to a valued customer, I have enclosed two $80 Transportation
Vouchers which may be applied toward future travel with US Airways.
Although the document has the America West name, you may apply it toward travel
on any US Airways operated flight.

Again, thank you for contacting US Airways. We’re confident and
excited about our future. Your patience and understanding is appreciate,
and we look forward to exceeding your expectations on a future flight.

I’m taking off for a few days of R&R south of the border this week, so I won’t be posting again until I return. You can expect to see my next post on Thursday when I’m back in town. Don’t cry, it’s not that long. Talk to you again next week.

As they say in Chicago, vote early and vote often.

I really thought that after last year’s transatlantic expansion to place like Kiev (Ukraine), Delta would have started to let up a little.

Guess not.

This morning, they announced another seemingly crazy expansion plan. Let’s dig in one by one:

• Atlanta - Prague starts May 2

This one makes a lot of sense actually. SkyTeam partner Czech already flies it out of JFK. It seems a natural for them to connect their biggest hub with the hub of a partner. It makes a lot more sense than some other routes.

• Atlanta - Vienna starts May 21

Vienna is not a big aviation market, but if they can make other smaller European cities work, this might not be too bad. Previous rumors of Austrian’s defection from Star Alliance to SkyTeam would have made this an easier choice, but those seem to have quieted down recently.

• Atlanta - Dubai starts May 31

Well, this is probably going to be a good one. Dubai is growing by leaps and bounds. I mean, Emirates can support three daily flights out of JFK alone right now! Imagine what the Atlanta hub can feed here.

• Atlanta - Seoul/Incheon starts June 4

This one falls into the same category as the Prague flight. Korean is a member of SkyTeam, so this allows Delta to send people through Korean’s hub in Seoul. The difference is that Korean already flies this one daily year round with more flights during the summer. Is there enough demand?

• New York/JFK - Pisa starts April 1

Huh? Well, they clearly think there’s a market to tap in Florence, because they’re marketing this as “Pisa/Florence” on the press release. At first I thought this would be to feed an Alitalia hub, but that airline has a very small presence there and they only fly to Milan and Rome. This one just boggles the mind.

• New York/JFK - Bucharest starts June 5

I’ve heard Bucharest is going to be the next place to go in Europe, but it’s certainly not there yet. Again, this one seems really, really odd.

There are a couple other changes like double daily flights on New York/JFK - London/Gatwick, nonstop JFK - Shannon (instead of coupling it with Dublin), and a second daily New York/JFK - Sao Paulo during the next northern summer.

All the Europe flights will be on 767s while the Asia flights (including Dubai, I assume) will be on 777s. They only have 8 777s in the fleet right now, so I’m not sure where all this extra capacity is coming from.