It’s a busy day today and though I can’t wait to comment on the newly agreed upon Open Skies agreement between the US and the European Union, it’ll have to way until tomorrow. So for now, I’ll leave you with some good ole’ airline porn, video style.

What do you get when you combine schmaltzy songs and cheesy powerpoint slide transitions? A rockin’ tribute video, of course. This one is nearly 20 minutes long, and it’s basically a bunch of photos looking back on the history of America West. Unless you have a strange yearning for Dolly Parton’s version of “I Will Always Love You” or “The Morning After” by Maureen McGovern, let me suggest you turn the sound all the way down.

The day has finally arrived. Believe it or not, the Department of Transportation gave Virgin America the go ahead today to start flying . . . with conditions. An early press release from Virgin America (VX) says they’ll take these new conditions to the shareholders for approval.  I’m guessing that they’ll go for it, and once FAA approvals roll in, we should see them in the sky.

Before you start getting too excited, let’s run down the 64-page DOT Order to Show Cause (PDF) issued today. Go ahead, I’ll wait for you to finish. Nevermind, I’ll just summarize for you.

The changes VX (the airline, not the nerve gas) made in their last round of filings are just about sufficient for the DOT to consider them under US control.  But not entirely.  Take it away, DOT:  “. . . there do remain a few areas where the revised application . . . still falls short . . . . Therefore, we are proposing to stipulate further conditions that the applicant must accept (or persuade us not to require) before making its certificate authority effective.”

Oh so close. Well what are the additional conditions (and would dancing girls be enough to “persuade [the DOT] not to require” them)? I can’t answer the latter question, but I can answer the former. I may have missed a few things since a lot of the document is blacked out as confidential, but my understanding is that this is what they have to do.  First, the boring stuff:

• VX has to prove that it will have access to just over $200 million to be able to fund initial operations. This is pretty standard and is based on VX’s own previous cash flow and future projections.
• Foreign investors must be completely walled off from investing in VX going forward and the Board of Directors must be reapproved again by the new re-formed Board.
• The DOT will take VX up on its offer to have the Virgin Group (Sir Richard Branson’s British company and source of all controversy) put all its voting shares with a US-based trustee. Any changes in that trustee will have to be approved by the VX board members that are US citizens. That trustee will have to vote the same way as the US investors when a conflict of interest is determined to exist between the US investors and Virgin Group.
• All executed and signed agreements must be submitted to the DOT before certification.
• Any more money flowing in from the Virgin Group in the way of a loan has to be reported to the DOT.

Now for the more interesting stuff:

• VX will only be allowed to fly 17 aircraft.  If they want to fly more, they’ll have to file with the DOT for further approval.  Anyone know if this is standard for a new airline?
• Virgin Group was proposing to only allow VX to fly within North America and to only permit VX to codeshare with Virgin Atlantic and nobody else while operating under the VX name.   The DOT is saying that isn’t gonna fly (horrible pun intended). VX needs to be allowed to operate under the VX name and codeshare with anyone they want (I think) except on routes that are in direct competition with Virgin Atlantic. On those routes, the airline won’t be allowed to use the VX name but the airline can operate or codeshare under a different name. Also, any operations under a different name than VX will not be subject to royalty payments to Virgin Group since the name isn’t being used.  Oh, and sorry spaceflight fans. Virgin Galactic will be able to keep its monopoly.  The rule of not allowing VX to use their name on flights above 85,000 feet was found to be ok.

And now for the soap opera-style drama:

• Fred Reid, CEO, has to be fired.  He has 90 days after the certificate is issued to get out, though he can stay for another 180 days after that as a consultant.  The DOT says he’s just too close to Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Group to avoid allowing some sort of foreign control.  This is a pretty spiteful move by the DOT, and I bet it’s in response to VX’s snarkiness throughout this process.  VX offered Fred Reid’s head in the last filing as an overly dramatic way of showing how far they’d go.  Apparently the DOT decided to call them on it, though I can’t imagine it’s going to make a difference at all.

Is that enough for you? As usual, there are 21 days for others to comment and I’m sure all the big US carriers will be ready with a ton of paperwork that requires review. They’ll do anything permissible by law that they can to delay certification (duh).

Meanwhile, when they do get certified, several airlines will be waiting to greet them with open arms. VX’s first route will be San Francisco to New York/JFK.  JetBlue will start that same route on May 3, probably before VX gets airborne.  LA, Vegas, San Diego, and DC will soon follow.  Southwest will start new service to SFO in the fall, so combining that with JetBlue’s routes will mean some good old fashioned competition among the low cost carriers.  Meanwhile, United is by far the biggest airline at SFO and they have a large presence in the other cities VX will fly, so they’ll be ready to throw down as well.

It’s certainly not going to be an easy road for VX, but it’ll be fun to watch the fireworks.  Congrats to them on (almost) getting their certificate.

As I mentioned earlier, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the A380 welcoming event this evening at LAX. You’ll be happy to know that I took almost 70 pictures from just about every angle of the plane you can imagine. Actually, only a few of you will be happy to hear that. The rest will be bored out of your minds. So, if you’d like to see them all, you can browse through them at crankyflier.com/A380. For the rest of you, I’ve taken a handful of cool shots and put them here for you.

They tried to make us feel special early on when our shuttle bus started on its way with a police escort. I have no idea why we had a police escort, because he didn’t flash his lights or run traffic signals or anything fun like that. When we arrived at the Flight Path Learning Center in the old Imperial Terminal, we could see the plane parked just outside with a throng of onlookers trying to get a good view through the chain link fence.

There were a lot of reactions as the plane came into view, but the most common was “Wow, that is really short.” It’s true. it does look short when compared to its incredible height. See for yourself:

We were greeted by what had to have been one of the best looking cabin crews around. Or maybe all Qantas flight attendants look like that in which case I need to fly them more often. I’ve never been to the Flight Path before, and the museum was a great place for LA aviation buffs. It had a ton of memorabilia from LA’s history, but I’ll definitely have to head back another time because my focus for this trip was on the A380.

While many people headed straight for the bar, my friend Paul and I went right for the aircraft. We were initially told we would only be able to see it from a distance, but that proved to be untrue. The Airport Police set up a perimeter around the plane and let us get extremely close. We couldn’t go in, and I wasn’t happy about that. This plane doesn’t have much of an interior – it’s just ballast tanks and test equipment. That made me want to go in even more, but oh well.

I spoke with some of the Qantas representatives, and they were obviously very excited to see the plane out at LAX. When they take delivery next summer (2008), the first route will be LAX to Sydney. The aircraft will see 501 people with First Class at the front of the bottom deck and Business Class at the front of the top deck. Economy will be at the back of both decks. The airline is planning to improve the seating in all classes of service, but naturally they won’t tell anyone what they’re doing before it happens.

Ok, enough of me talking now. Let’s walk through the pictures.

Here’s a closeup of the nose. As you can see, there’s a blank space where I assume Fedex used to be before they canceled. Airbus looks to have hastily prepared this plane for the display. They didn’t bother to remove the UPS logo (they’ve also canceled their order) and the plane was pretty grimy:

This is one of my favorite shots, because it shows it in comparison with the 747 pulling in behind. I’m so used to seeing the cockpit on the upper deck of the 747 that having it down below looked really odd here. It makes it look like a caveman with a really big sloped forehead. I wouldn’t call this the most attractive aircraft around:

You can tell that this truly is a test aircraft. This is on the underside of the wing, just behind the slats on the leading edge. I’m just going to guess that it’s speed tape holding testing equipment and NOT duct tape:

That is one heck of a wing and look at all those wheels. Also, notice the faint rectangular box just underneath the upper deck doors. Anyone know what that is? Is it a slide?:

The horizontal stabilizer looks like big enough to double as a 737 wing:

The curvature of the wing from behind is just incredible:

The size of that wingbox reminds me of a massive Russian transport aircraft. It takes a lot in the middle to support those gigantic wings. Note what I believe is a tailstrike protection device under the rear. (Anyone know better?):

It was tough enough narrowing it down to these few images. If you want to see more, go to crankyflier.com/A380. As you can see, this was a pretty amazing experience. With only around 130 orders for the plane right now and no American carriers placing orders, this could be the closest I get to the plane for a long time.

Well, the A380 has now arrived at LAX and I’ve got the video to prove it. I went out to the airport this morning to watch it arrive. When I got there at just after 8a, there were already a good number of people waiting, as you can see down below.

In ‘n Out decided to open at 8a, 2 1/2 hours earlier than normal to help feed the crowd. They even put out a big tank of water for everyone to keep hydrated. They can now add “airline dork-friendly” to their title as the greatest burger place around.

At about 845a, the area really started to fill up, but there weren’t as many people as I expected. A lot of people were listening to the tower frequency and they said the controller told an arriving aircraft that the A380 would be landing around 910a. Of course, that got everyone up looking around but there was nothing to be seen. I moved out to the corner of Sepulveda and Lincoln becasue

By 915a, many more people had arrived (including a friend of mine who just flew in from San Francisco) but again, still not as packed as I would have guessed. Lincoln was closed by the police and you can see that people started trickling into the road. There were people standing on the roof of a rental car shop on Sepulveda as well as people standing on top of a bus. The police were out in force but they weren’t hassling anyone. Everyone was in a great mood.

As the time approached, you could feel the buzz building. Thanks to a relatively low marine layer, the arriving aircraft blended in to the clouds until they were a couple minutes out. People were just waiting anxiously with one hand on their cameras. Finally, we saw a four engine aircraft approach in the distance. As it got closer, we realized it was a United 747-400. At first, everyone was disappointed, but I realized later that it would provide great perspective for the A380 which approached right after. So, I took video of the United 747 arriving. Here it is:

And don’t get angry, United fans. The “Stupid, United” comment was only because it wasn’t the A380. I always like watching a 747 land. So then right after that, we saw what had to be the A380 lining up. It’s definitely not the best looking plane around, but man is it big. Here’s the video you’ve been waiting for:

So there it is. The plane was surprisingly quiet, but it’s size was incredible. It’s probably tough to get that feeling from the video, but when you’re right underneath it, it’s pretty cool.

I’ll be at the special event tonight for invited guests only, so hopefully I’ll get some great still shots out of that one.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a small dinner with ExpressJet President and CEO Jim Ream as well as VP of Marketing Trish Winebrenner on Monday night. The small group setting meant that I had plenty of time to poke and prod, and I must admit I like what I heard.

If you don’t remember my previous posts on ExpressJet, let me refresh your memory and give you a little more of the story. The airline was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Continental and flew only as Continental Express for years. They’ve since been spun off and are now branching out. Besides a new contract to fly as Delta Connection, they’ve also started a corporate aviation operation. Most interesting is the standalone operation under the ExpressJet brand that takes flight on April 2. This standalone airline (which is what I’ll be talking about below) will fly point to point services between smaller cities that don’t have service currently. You can catch my previous posts here and here for more details.

According to Jim and Trish every city that will see the new flights under the ExpressJet name has employees assigned to be evangelists for the airline. I guess that since Ontario is going to be their biggest operation, they sent the big guns out here. That’s good news for me, because I really enjoyed the dinner and had the chance to learn a lot. Let’s get down to business.

Flying on the RJ

I was happy to hear that they do understand that people don’t like flying regional jets for long flights. My longest on the plane these guys fly, an ERJ, was 850 butt-numbing miles of pure pain. And that was actually on an ExpressJet flight for Continental Express. Looking at their new routes, I see the longest appears to be Sacramento to San Antonio clocking in at just shy of 1,500 miles. Yikes! That’s about 75% further than my longest flight and the thought scares me.

With that in mind, I asked them what they were going to do to make this a better experience so people didn’t run away screaming. They responded with all kinds of plans, but the most interesting is that they’ve added memory foam padding to all the seats.

If you don’t know what memory foam is, think Tempurpedic. Or you can just look at the picture on the left and you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. I’m guessing it won’t be as cushy as that picture. As someone said at work, “no offense, but I don’t want to sit in your ass-print if I fly right after you.” Fair enough. I’ve been assured that the seats are extremely comfortable, but I will have to report back in May when I take a flight for myself.

Beyond just seat comfort, they’ve decided to make a higher service level part of their brand. XM radio will be added to every seat. I took one flight on AirTran after they installed XM and listening to ESPN radio definitely made the time fly, so I like this idea. They’ll also begin offering meals on longer flights (for purchase, I believe). There aren’t any ovens on these planes so they’ll be cold meals, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Jim proudly announced that he came up with this extremely important service enhancement . . . a buck a beer. That’s right, there will be a whole selection of beers including domestics and imports and they’ll all cost $1. Wine is only $3. That’s definitely not as cheap as Horizon Air’s freebies, but it’s a lot cheaper than you’ll find anywhere else.

None of these things increase the size of the small cabin, but they could help bring the RJ experience closer to a mainline one. I’ll have plenty to report when I fly them in May.

The Business

As I mentioned in a previous post, the route map seemed to be full of some good decisions and other questionable ones. Jim was ready to admit that it’s unlikely that every single route will work. While on the whole they think they have a good network, they also reached for some longshots that they hope do pan out. If not, maybe the flights will work once a day instead of twice. If that doesn’t work and they feel they’ve given it their best shot, they’ll move on to something that works better. There are no sacred cows, and that’s a good thing.

This doesn’t, however, mean they plan on giving up easily if things aren’t working out. I also asked why they thought they could make a go out of routes from San Antonio that United has just tried under the Express banner and quickly ended. Jim said that they’re really putting a strong focus on marketing all of these flights in the local markets. While it’s difficult for someone like United (or express partner Trans States) to put a significant marketing effort into that small of a market, ExpressJet has the resources to do so. I don’t know if that will be enough, but I look forward to finding out.

One way they’re hoping to acquire traffic throughout the system is to be travel agent-friendly. You’ll currently find them listed in Orbitz and on the Worldspan global distribution system. They’re working on the other reservation systems as well. I was really surprised that in the little collateral packet they gave out to us, there was a paper sign-up form for the frequent flier program. It had specific instructions for travel agents to help sign clients up. You don’t see that too often anymore.

The Wrap

Ultimately, there are two things that concern me most about ExpressJet’s prospects.

First, I worry about their lack of frequency. It’s true that you can fly ExpressJet twice a day from Ontario to Kansas City nonstop and once with a single stop, but you can also fly with one stop on Southwest 7 times a day. Having that many more options, even when a stop is required, is likely to make it difficult for ExpressJet to get a large share of traffic. Jim countered by saying that it’s all about having flights at the right times. Knowing the market can’t support multiple daily nonstops means you have to pick and choose the times that are going to best serve the market.

With that in mind, I decided to break down Ontario to Kansas City even further to see what I thought about the strategy. Here is a schedule comparison of Southwest and ExpressJet for random Wednesdays in May.

It’s really interesting to note that ExpressJet’s flights stack up well in all but one time slot throughout the day. Southwest may have many more flights, but ExpressJet seems to have done a good job of lining up each of its flights to be viable options against two or more of Southwest’s flights.

My second concern is about the frequent flier program. These guys have a simple program modeled on Southwest’s program, but it won’t be enough to compete against the big guys’ programs. To make the program truly valuable, they’d need to start partnering with other carriers to offer stronger benefits to frequent fliers. Trish tells me that they’re discussing partnerships as we speak, so hopefully this concern will go away with future developments.

In short, I like what these guys are doing. It’s really a different type of model than we’ve seen in recent memory, and it provides a lot of great new air options to people in smaller cities. Since most of their fleet is still in profitable relationships with Continental and Delta, they really will be able to take some time to turn this into a success. If they can keep up the high service standard and run a good on-time operation, this could really pay off.