I was honored to find out that I am one of the top 5 finalists for two Travvies this year. So, now it’s your turn to help me win. Here’s how you can help.

1) Go over here to vote for Cranky before 6p CST on February 28.

2) Vote for me for both Best Single-Author Travel Blog and Best Informative/Practical Travel Blog. While you’re there, don’t forget to vote for the other categories as well.

3) Check out all the other finalist blogs - there are some great ones in there.

4) Turn off your computer and go to bed. It’s getting late. Do NOT go back and vote again - you can only do it once.

Thanks to everyone who nominated me. Now let’s see if we can win one of these things. Remember, go here to vote for Cranky.

The JetBlue Customer Bill of Rights has now been out there for over a day, and there is a lot of buzz about it. Unfortunately, most of the buzz is on defining the oft-used term “Controllable Irregularity.”

See, JetBlue will give you vouchers if you are delayed or canceled but only if the problem was due to a “Controllable Irregularity.” There has been a lot of speculation about what exactly that means, so I decided to do some more digging.

I spoke with JetBlue’s media relations office, and when I asked what the term meant, I was told that it meant anything that was under JetBlue’s control. Uh, ok. With a little more prodding, I was told that it meant things “other than weather or other than air traffic control.”

I then asked if they planned on updating the contract of carriage with a definition, especially since the term was capitalized in the Customer Bill of Rights. Generally, capitalized terms in legal documents require definition. I was simply told that it was just a JetBlue style to capitalize things and that was all. Wow.

So what exactly do we know now? Let’s use the above handy-dandy graphic as a guide. Maintenance and crew delays will receive compensation. Air traffic control and weather delays are not compensated. What if it’s a canceled flight due to crew delays from weather problems last week? Um, not so sure.

Just going on speculation here, I think we can add dinosaur attacks and military coups as additional events that won’t receive compensation. I mean, if either of those happen, they’re clearly out of JetBlue’s control. Besides, if that happens, we have bigger things to worry about anyway.

We all know that the British government is tax happy when it comes to the airline industry, but thanks to some loopholes, airlines are figuring out ways to help reduce the tax burden.

The Air Passenger Duty rule specifically states that there are two levels of taxation. People traveling in the lowest class of service on an aircraft pay GBP5 for European flights and GBP20 for all other flights. People traveling in any other class of service have to pay double that amount.

This means that customers on all-business class flights on airlines like MAXjet and Eos get to pay the lower level because they are in the lowest class of service. According to this article, bmi’s regional airline has now realized that by removing the dividers between the business class and economy class cabins, they are technically considered the same class under Section 2.5 of the rule since the seats are the same.

BA says they have no plans to follow, but I can tell you as a customer I’d be happy to pay GBP5 less for a short haul flight if all it meant was having no curtain in the aisle.

So, did I miss anything over the long weekend?

From the looks of JetBlue CEO David Neeleman’s face on news shows this morning, I get the feeling it was a sleepless few days for the BlueCrew. Remember how I said before that by not pre-canceling their flights, the airline was helping a lot more people than it hurt? Well I’ll have to take that one back. Continuing to cancel up to a quarter of their flights through the entire holiday weekend most certainly had to have hurt a lot more than pre-canceling would have done.

What happened? Well in short they didn’t have the systems in place to recover from such a mammoth disruption. It has taken days to get everyone in the right place, including customers who may have been stranded. This has turned uglier than anyone could have imagined.

So where do we go from here? Nope, not to a government-mandated Passenger Bill of Rights. Why do that when just the threat of one will get airlines to act?

Remember, the airlines created their Customers First plan after the last threat appeared. That was good enough for 5 years until the recent incidents have thrust it back into the spotlight. So once again, the airlines are reacting.

First, American put a four-hour cap on the amount of time they’d leave a customer on the plane. (Thanks, Global Traveller and Upgrade: Travel Better) They also promised technology upgrades to help prevent the problems from occurring again.

JetBlue took a much stronger approach by introducing its own Customer Bill of Rights this morning. You can read the announcement here, but I’ll summarize myself.

*They’ll notify customers of delays, cancellations, and diversions along with the cause

*They won’t keep customers on board an aircraft on the ground for more than 5 hours

*If a flight lands but can’t taxi to a gate, it pushes back and can’t takeoff, or it is just plain delayed due to circumstances under JetBlue’s control (not weather or ATC), customers will be compensated with vouchers worth $25 to the full price of the roundtrip ticket depending on the length of the delay

*If a flight is canceled due to something under JetBlue’s control (not weather or air traffic control) less than 12 hours before scheduled departure, each customer will get either a full refund or a full credit as well as a voucher for the entire roundtrip cost of the flight

*If a customer is involuntarily denied boarding due to overbooking, they’ll get $1,000. (Don’t get too excited by this one. The airline doesn’t overbook, so this will rarely happen.)

Of course, they’re also going to be making technological changes to ensure that this meltdown doesn’t happen again. I think this is quite proactive and it goes a long way to address people’s concens. True, they aren’t handing out cash, but they will be handing out a lot of vouchers. If you’d like to hear more about the reasoning straight from the horse’s mouth, watch this YouTube video from David Neeleman.

By the way, all of these policies are retroactive to February 14, the day of the weather debacle, so people on those flights will be receiving compensation. It doesn’t help people get where they’re going right now, but it does at least make an effort. Is it enough? We’ll see if it satisfies people or whether more is necessary. Personally, I’m glad to see airlines responding. It tells me once again that there’s no need for further regulation. Simply the threat will be enough.

(Edited Feb 20 at 226p to add overbooking info)

Oh happy day for members of Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan. Now you can redeem your miles for one way awards for half the mileage of roundtrip awards. That is definitely a development worth of a gold star.

If you’ve never needed to book a one way award, you probably don’t realize that on most airlines you can’t do it. You actually have to book a roundtrip award and throw away the return if you want to fly one way. Seems ridiculous, no? Well it is. But now Alaska is allowing one way redemption and that’s great news. According to this FlyerTalk thread, it happened last week. Let’s hope others follow (but don’t count on it).

I knew it would only be a matter of time.

Today, Northwest announced their response to Frontier’s decision to bring flights to Memphis. First, they beefed up service on the routes that Frontier announced and then they threw a little bit of fun in there as well.

On the Las Vegas route, they added a second daily flight (Frontier will have one). In Orlando, they added a fourth daily flight (Frontier will have one). Lastly, on the Denver route, they’re upgrading all three daily flights from 50 seat CRJs to much larger A319s and A320s. Frontier will only have two flights on this route.

Northwest also added a daily Indianapolis to Denver flight which is clearly a smack back at Frontier. Since Northwest has a mini-hub at Indianapolis, this flight was probably the most rational of all possible Denver flights. And then just for fun, they added a second daily flight from Memphis to Seattle. I’m not quite sure what that one is about. It could be due to aircraft routing, I suppose.

Either way, the fun is just beginning in this fight.

That title is likely to make me pretty unpopular with a lot of people, but it’s my stance. I’ve mentioned it before, when the people stuck on that American flight in Austin formed the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights, and I still feel the same way. So why am I bringing it up again?

Oh, right.

If you’re breathing, you’ve heard about the JetBlue customers who were stuck on a JFK taxiway for up to 11 hours Wednesday. And it wasn’t just JetBlue. There were reports of some problems at other airlines at other airports as well. Why did it happen?

Well, the weather was horrendous. Sure snow can slow things down, but when you get ice and freezing rain like they did the other day, it’s going to cause serious havoc. Airplanes cannot depart with ice on their wings for safety reasons and taxiing in ice isn’t exactly easy, so this causes massive delays and cancellations. JetBlue, as they usually do, tried to operate as many flights as possible instead of pre-canceling as some airlines do. The series of events that followed meant that people were stuck on planes for up to 11 hours without actually going anywhere.

Without question, this is a very painful thing to deal with as a customer. Nobody wants to be stuck on a plane for any longer than necessary, and 11 hours is a nightmare. JetBlue apparently agrees, because they issued an apology, gave full refunds, and handed out free roundtrip vouchers for a future flight. No, those people won’t get their 11 hours back, but they did get what I consider to be pretty fair compensation.

Yet despite that compensation, JetBlue is still getting roasted in the media. Unfortunately, this is also helping fuel the fire for a legally binding Passenger Bill of Rights. This is not a good idea.

I think my perspective is different than many in the general public, because I come from an airline background. Now let’s think about this. Do you think there’s anyone at any airline that would see an airplane sitting on the taxiway for hours and actually want those people to be there? Not even Alitalia would do that on purpose . . . I think.

The reality is that in horrible weather as we saw on Wednesday, things are bound to break down and it’s not just the airline’s fault. The airport needs to take some blame as well. In some cases where airlines share terminals, it can even be an entirely different airline’s fault.

In these situations, airlines have two options. They could effectively shut down and pre-cancel their flights or they could try their best to operate in the weather and get as many people out as they can. Keep in mind that if people didn’t really need to travel, they didn’t have to. Every airline waived change fees for people traveling during the storm, so anyone could have easily just gone home and sat by the fire while the weather rolled in.

Instead, the people who went to the airport were those who really wanted to get to their destination. They knew there would be delays, and they must have prepared themselves mentally. That being said, nothing would prepare someone to sit on a taxiway for 11 hours, so media headlines were born.

What exactly would a Passenger Bill of Rights do? Well there are different versions floating around, but most of them involve hefty compensation for long delays. Of course, airlines today don’t compensate you for weather delays by rule. For massive delays, enlightened airlines like JetBlue understand the value of handing out vouchers, and they do it on their own.

But what if government-mandated rules were put into place requiring cash compensation? What if people by law couldn’t be held on an aircraft over a certain amount of time? Well, airlines would just pre-cancel a lot more flights. And with flights as full as they are, it’s going to be impossible to reaccommodate those people quickly once the weather has passed. That means all those people who really need to travel would be out of luck for several days.

One thing to remember here is that not everyone was stuck on the taxiway for 11 hours. JetBlue still managed to operate about half their flights systemwide, and that’s no small feat when most of your network involves hard-hit Boston, New York, and Washington. With a Passenger Bill of Rights, JetBlue probably would have pre-canceled a lot of those flights to avoid having a couple of flights get stuck on the taxiway. That would have angered a lot more people than it would have helped.

These guys at Frontier are just gluttons for punishment. Yesterday, the airline asked Memphis to “be their Valentine” by announcing flights to the city from Memphis, Orlando, and Las Vegas. What they really should have done is gotten on their knees and begged Northwest to not lay the smack down.

As you probably know, Memphis is the smallest hub for Northwest Airlines, but Northwest still protects it fiercely. While low cost carriers have flourished in other cities, Northwest hubs have been barren wastelands. Memphis is a great example. It’s a good-sized city that could support low cost flights, but AirTran is the only one that flies there (unless you count US Airways). AirTran only has six daily flights to Atlanta. That’s the extent of low cost carrier competition in Memphis.

How does this happen? Well, Northwest always gives a giant “Northwest Welcome” to any new carrier in its hubs. You’d think Frontier would know this, because last time they entered a Northwest market they got the beat down.

On December 18, 2003, Frontier announced two daily nonstop flights between Minneapolis and Los Angeles beginning April 11. Within a couple of hours, Northwest had already put out a press release announcing two additional daily flights between Minneapolis and Los Angeles as well as two daily flights between Frontier’s home in Denver and Los Angeles. Of course, they matched all fares as well. As you can imagine, that didn’t last very long for Frontier.

So why are they trying this in Memphis now? I have no idea. It’s possible they’re just getting more aggressive in trying to develop flying that doesn’t depend on the Denver hub. It’s becoming increasingly important for them to prove they can do that, and this might be their best option right now. No matter what, you can be sure that Northwest is planning a big ole’ welcome party, so keep your eyes open.

If that’s not enough, AirTran is also not happy about this. They’ve decided to start nonstops between Memphis and Orlando as well. Giddyup!

I must admit that JetBlue is doing some fairly uncharacteristic things lately, and that’s a good thing. It appears that the airline is beginning to evolve and today they took another step by announcing its first codeshare operation (Aer Lingus isn’t a codeshare) as well as summer service from JFK to Nantucket, a favorite summer vacation island off Boston.

So who is the codeshare with? Well none other than Cape Air. Of course, you know these guys. They’re the ones that are run by Joe and Brian. You know, the airline that Roy over at Aeromass is always trying to run out of business? Helen’s at the lunch counter, Antonio’s driving the cab. . . . Oh yeah, that’s just a tv show. Cape Air is actually a pretty cool not-so-little airline based outside of Boston.

If you take a look at their website, you’ll be amazed at how large they are. They have more than 50 Cessna 402 aircraft. Those little guys hold 9 passengers at best, so it’s a niche that most other airlines have grown out of. On their routes in the Caribbean, Florida, and Micronesia, they fly as Continental Connection. In their original New England markets, however, they’ve flown solo until now.

Beginning March 19, JetBlue and Cape Air customers will be able to take advantage of a codeshare that will connect JetBlue flights to Boston with Cape Air flights to Hyannis, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Provincetown, all in Massachusetts.

The partnership is a big deal for JetBlue, because involves codesharing, interline baggage, and frequent flier points redemption on another airline for the very first time. This certainly appears to be a test for the airline, and if it does well I’d expect to see more.

Sort of lost in the shuffle but still a nice move is the announcement that JetBlue will fly nonstop on Embraer 190s from New York/JFK to Nantucket from May 24 through September 24. They’re really going to take advantage of the summer season there, and it seems like a smart move. Personally, I’m still bitter that I didn’t win the limerick contest sponsored by Nantucket Airlines (owned by Cape Air), but I’m trying to forgive and move on.

This significantly enhances JetBlue’s position in Boston. I would imagine the other airlines are going to pay more attention now, if they hadn’t been already.

It’s a good week for airplane porn. Alaska has finally released this computer-generated picture of its new 75th anniversary retro livery.

That is one good looking aircraft. I can’t wait to see it in person.