It’s now official, Delta is out of bankruptcy and on its own again. Let’s just hope they fare better than United has in its first year out. So how is the airline marking the occasion? Well, how about a “week-long celebration of emergence into a new era“?

In normal-person speak, they actually are doing something. Today is the official emergence and with it comes the new brand and logo. As you can see on the logo at left, they’re ditching the blue and red widget for a two-tone red one instead. The font is now all caps and more block-y (we’ll just pretend that’s an accepted way of describing a font). Delta’s media site has now been updated with the new look, but apparently someone forgot to change the site where CUSTOMERS actually go. Oops.

Of course, with a new logo comes another new livery. I talked about this one recently when photos of the new colors were supposedly leaked. Well, those photos were correct. Here is the new livery on a 777 for your viewing pleasure.

It definitely looks better than the dark photos of that model in my previous post (duh), but I still don’t think I’m a fan. The body is too white, especially when compared to the very dark blue of the tail and engines. The red widget on the tail (which I like far less than the old blue/red one) isn’t even fully there. Why is it so trendy to have your logo not fit entirely on the tail? United did it and so did Northwest.

That being said, I’m glad they kept cost-savings (PDF) in mind with this livery. That’s probably most important of all. This new livery reduces the number of colors used from 8 to 4. It also reduces the number of time required to paint a plane by one calendar day and 20 20% fewer man-hours.

The airline says that all airport signage will be up to date by the end of the year, but it will take four years to fully paint the fleet. So, that’s day one of the emergence. Can’t wait to see what the rest of this week long fiesta brings.

It seems like just yesterday Richard Branson was touting how his (Virgin Atlantic’s) planes were better because they all had four engines, unlike those British Airways 777s. He even painted it on his planes. You might recognize the picture on the left as a former integral part of the livery on the 4 engine A340-600.

Well, apparently he’s changed his mind.

Earlier this week, Branson entered into the environmentally (and pocketbook) friendly agreement with Boeing to order 15 787-9s with options for 8 more and purchase rights for 20 more. The 787 is going to theoretically be a rock star when it comes to fuel consumption, so Branson just couldn’t keep justifying the A340 “4 engine” thing any longer. I say theoretically because we haven’t actually seen the thing fly yet.

But being the shrewd businessman that he is, he’s not just calling this an aircraft order. Nay. It’s an environmental partnership.

Huh?

Well, I suppose you could say that just ordering the highly fuel-efficient aircraft is environmentally friendly, but he’s doing another couple of things as well. First, next year there will be a demonstration of biofuels in one of the Virgin 747s. I’m not sure how this is a partnership with Boeing because it’s the GE engines that really need to run on the fuels, but whatever.

Second, he’s still pushing ways to cut fuel burn on the ground. Boeing will now join Branson in his quest to get aircraft towed to “starting gates” near the end of the runway. That way they don’t need to turn on the engines until they’re ready to go. Again, I’m not sure what this has to do with Boeing since last time I checked, Boeing didn’t run any airports. Maybe they’re going to help modify the aircraft to make this easier?

No matter what, Branson is a very shrewd businessman. He knows that calling something environmentally friendly is going to get big press coverage these days. In reality, this is one of the glorious times where doing what’s right for the environment is also doing what’s right for the bank account. When that happens, it’s good news all around.

I’m guessing that most of you who read this blog know about Southwest’s “Ding!” application. In short, you download a program that stays open on your computer. If you’re connected to the internet, you will receive an alert when Southwest publishes special sale fares. These can sometimes be up for only a couple of hours, and you’ll only be able to access them by clicking on a link in the application. The last couple of weeks, Southwest has made a splash with a lot of $25 to $50 one way fares throughout the US and you could only find them on Ding!.

It’s a great program because it enables Southwest to keep in constant contact with its customers. If they keep it up with compelling content, they have a very captive audience that acts like Pavlov’s dog any time they hear the ding alert. So it was only a matter of time before others followed the same strategy. I just didn’t know it would be such a blatant rip-off. Behold, Ryanair’s Bing! application.

Um, yeah. It’s the one on the left, looking eerily similar to Ding! over on the right. And it works the same way too.

The application sits in your system tray (in your start bar on Windows) and then a little envelope shows up when deals arrive. Click it and it opens those windows with a link to see the deals.

It’s definitely unreal how little effort Ryanair put into this thing in terms of creativity. Nice work, Southwest, for creating a program others want to steal so badly that they can’t even be bothered to tweak it.

Ok, ok. I know I sometimes talk too much about aviation in Southern California, but I’ve been trying to cut back. This time though, I have to comment.

It’s not LAX that’s causing problems this time. Nope, it’s a mere 375 hours down the 405 (20 minutes on those rare occasions with no traffic) at Long Beach Airport.

Now, this airport is great. Easy in and out, cheap parking (long term is $6 a day), and no airport-related delays. This airport has plenty of room for more flights in theory. There is a nice long 10,000 foot runway that used to see Douglas-produced aircraft departing for test flights. Now, it lies underutilized. How is this possible in a region which is screaming for more airport capacity?

Thank you, Long Beach residents.

Unfortunately, the residents hate the airport with all their might. Look at these angry, unhappy people. I’d say if they stopped hating the airport, they might find some more happiness in their lives (Photo credit: presstelegram.com).

But over the years, the number of flights has been capped at Long Beach and they’re at their limit for jet flights. (Yes, there’s room for some regionals, but not that much.) When JetBlue came in a few years ago, they filled the place up. Now, along with a couple US Airways flights to Phoenix, Delta flights to Salt Lake, and Alaska flights to Seattle, the airport is “full” ish.

Anyone who has flown through LGB knows that the terminal situation is not ideal. If not, let me try to help you visualize. You drive up to see a cool art deco terminal building that looks very small. Check in is easy in the cramped building, but then you have to walk to one of two departure areas. These areas are basically double-wide trailers. They’re cramped due to the number of flights running through them, and there is just about nothing in the way of amenities. You’ll find a bathroom and a little snack/gift kiosk and that’s it. At peak times, it’s like a refugee camp where people just look for any place to rest.

So JetBlue and others have given up on trying to expand flights further for now, but they would like to provide a better environment for those people who are taking the existing flights. Plans have been in the works for a new terminal for a long time, but the City of Long Beach has done everything possible to make life difficult.

As noted here, the City Council finally took a vote the other day on which terminal plan to approve. Currently, there are 56,000 sq ft in the terminal area. Plans were floated to expand to anywhere from 67,000 to 118,000 sq ft. In the end, they went with 90,000 sq ft but not without a fight.

Now keep in mind, this only expands the terminal, not the number of flights. The limit will still remain the same, and with the exception of those regional flight slots, no future expansion can occur in that area. Yet even with that, the community is fighting this project tooth and nail. For example, the school district says that if they want to build the terminal, they have to soundproof their schools.

One woman showed up to protest because all the new flights in the last six years have caused her to develop asthma. She’d move if she could. My personal favorite is the woman who says there’s “soot raining down on [her] house.” And yes, her cat has asthma now. Arrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Let’s get something straight here, champs. The flight limits have been in place for years. If you moved in without doing the research on what was allowed, that’s your own fault. And more importantly, this new terminal does NOT mean an increase in flights. It just makes for a better travel experience. Go home!

In the end, a plan did pass despite the cat’s asthma, but the terminal won’t be done until April 2011 anyway. The City Council has to give final approval as do the Planning Commission and, yes, the Cultural Heritage Commission. And now you know why this region is facing a crisis in airport capacity.

No, Amtrak did not have an airborne derailment as far as I know. The subject is actually referring to the increasing number of travelers bypassing airplanes for trains. Unfortunately, that is VERY rare in the world of Amtrak, but in Europe it’s happening all the time.

Why is it happening more in Europe than in the US? It’s all about speed. You may have seen the news that a train in France last week broke the speed record by going just more than 357 mph. Sweet! But that’s not realistic for every day travel.

What is realistic is this. Let’s take a look at two popular routes supposedly on “high speed” trains:

Now can you see why European trains are taking off? The Acela Express route between Boston, New York, and Washington is the only “high speed” train in the US. Well, when your high speed train takes twice as long to go 50 fewer miles for 50% more cost, you’re in trouble.

Meanwhile, things keep getting better in Europe for train travelers. When London moves the Eurostar to its newly redone St Pancras station, the travel time between London and Paris will shrink to just over 2 hours. Apparently, according to this article, new rail lines will allow you go the 709 miles (as the crow flies) between London and Barcelona in a mere 6 hours! That’s astounding to those of us in the US who couldn’t even hop a slow train from LA to Vegas if we wanted to.

As you can imagine, ridership over there is certainly going through the roof as well. This release says that in the London-Paris market, the Eurostar train has captured 70% of the total travel market. It’s been such a poor air market that bmi recently dropped flights between the two cities entirely. The same is happening in many short haul markets throughout Europe. Does this mean airlines are screwed?

Nah. It just means that they’re going to require fewer resources to serve short haul markets. In London - Paris, only Air France and British Airways are flying the route. You think they’re flying it for the local traffic? I’d bet not.  Those flights have to be there to connect those cities into their respective networks. If this were to happen in the US, you’d see a lot fewer flights in short haul markets that would be timed to feed into the big connecting banks.

So will we see it in the US? I wish, but probably not. First of all, in the west I’d imagine these big ole’ mountains would be problematic for creating straight, flat track. Sure we could run a train straight up the San Joaquin Valley for 500 miles here in California, but getting into San Francisco or LA is another thing. Oh, and it’s not like buying land is cheap or easy for a project like this. Just imagine how expensive it would be to get enough land to run your high speed train between two major cities. It’s definitely no small feat.  Besides, the US government has made sure that Amtrak stays busy maintaining the transcontinental lines that have very little value instead of focusing on high speed corridors.

And of course, don’t forget the airline and oil lobbies. (Not that anyone has ever underestimated the oil lobby.) Airlines want to keep flying those short haul routes and oil companies want to keep filling those planes with liquid gold. They aren’t big fans of electric-powered trains.

So while the Europeans can ride in style, we’ll still be stuck in security lines waiting for our flight to leave when the weather finally clears out.