I must admit that as a reader, I’m not a fan of corporate blogs. Any time a company is in charge, it inevitably restricts what bloggers can say. (As you can tell, I’m clearly not sponsored by anyone.) There are plenty of companies who just put corporate blogs out there, because they don’t know anything about the web except that they need to have a presence. So, you see these crappy corporate blogs put up that tell you very little and are nothing but a marketing tactic.

Sometimes, however, you get a company that sees the value of the blog. Southwest is one of those companies. They’ve learned that a blog can be a very valuable customer feedback tool. Sure the blog is sanitized and you’ll never see a bad word printed about the airline, but there is some good to come out of it that makes it worth reading if you fly the airline.

When they started testing assigned seating last summer, the CEO posted about it and asked for comments. Sure enough, more than 600 comments were posted and I have no doubt that they read each one. They say those comments directly impact decision-making.

Today, another change was made supposedly due to feedback on a previous post. As many of you know, Southwest only keeps their schedule open for a certain period of time in advance of travel. They don’t tell anyone when the next part of the schedule will open, so it becomes a guessing game. You can guess from past experience about when it will happen. Then you either have to keep checking online, keep calling reservations, or wait for the message to show up on Ding! before you can make the booking.

Well now they’ve decided to change the policy due to, at least in part, the nearly 300 replies to that post explaining how they do what they do. Now, according to the post, they will inform their reservations agents and post on their website the dates when they will start selling tickets for future travel.

Is it true that the blog comments directly impact the decision-making process?  I have no idea, but I would bet that it does.  It’s just another form of customer communication but it is from a different target market.  Southwest still doesn’t accept email comments from their website (boooooo), so people writing comments on blogs are probably a lot different than those taking out a piece of paper and writing down their thoughts.  I would think they take the comments just as seriously as they take hand-written letters.

It’s that open pipe of communication that makes a corporate blog so valuable. And even if I don’t enjoy reading the completely sanitized content, I’ll continue to read because I know that I can have an impact on future decisions the airline makes.

It’s tax day here in the US, and even though we got two extra days this year, there is no such thing as a “happy” tax day. If you got a refund, that means you gave the government a no interest loan. Booooo. If you owed tax, well, you had to shell out the cash. So, let’s forget about that and delve into the world of airlines instead.

• Delta Cans the Dress Code - No, don’t worry. There never was a dress code for people who pay for tickets. But you may have noticed the nicely dressed passengers sitting in the worst middle seat on the plane. Yeah, those are the faithful airline employees trying to use their benefits to fly somewhere fun, even if it requires sitting in the middle of the section of five seats. Every airline has a dress code for these people. Generally it requires at least a collared shirt and khakis for guys up front and jeans and closed-toed shoes in the back. Well, Delta has decided that in a world where paying customers have no problem showing up in flip flops and t-shirts, having a dress code for employees makes them stand out like a sore thumb. At least, I’m guessing that was their rationale. Now, nonrevs (that’s non-revenue passengers) can wear anything paying passengers can wear so they can blend in better. Now if we could just get those non-revs to stop wearing their badges when they fly . . . .

• Don’t Like Your Seat? Pay up - American has made the decision to charge customers $15 to change their seat assignment over the phone if they didn’t book the ticket directly through American. They say this brings them in line with other airlines, but I can’t remember hearing of this before. Who else does this? Basically if you don’t book directly, you can only change your seat for free if you do it online or via a touch tone system. If you need to speak to a human, you’ll have to pay. Add this to the growing list of things you can’t do over the phone without paying. Maybe they’ll just get a 900 number to make it easier for billing purposes.

• Delta Goes Heathrow - Delta certainly didn’t waste any time here. Even though European open skies is still a year away, Delta has already gone ahead and secured the slots at London/Heathrow in anticipation. It sounds like they were able to get the slots from Air France/KLM, and I’m sure it cost them a pretty penny. But now they’ll be able to fly twice a day to New York/JFK and once a day to Atlanta. I would imagine the Atlanta flights would do well, but JFK, not so much. Virgin already has four a day, American six a day, and British Airways seven daily. Throw in Air India and Kuwait and you have a pretty full market. Two daily flights from Delta may serve connections to smaller cities in the Northeast US better than anyone else at JFK, but those people could easily go over other airports as well.

• Regular or Lite? - Last week India’s Jet Airways picked up Air Sahara in a takeover deal. Instead of merging them into the Jet operation though, they’re going to keep them separate as a mix between low cost and full service. What’s the name? Jetlite. Now first I thought it was the name of some weird new supermodel like Strangé, but then I realized it was supposed to be pronounced “Jet-light” and not “Jet-leet.” Ah, makes much more sense now.

A friend of mine passed along a Boeing presentation called “Boeing 787 Dreamliner Flight Deck Safety, Comfort, Efficiency” (also posted here in PDF format). Most of the information in there isn’t going to get the average traveler excited, but this picture was just too cool to pass up:

As you can imagine, this plane will be packed with all kinds of technology to help improve flight safety including dual heads-up displays (where they project the vital instruments in the window so neither pilot has to look down) and an airport moving map so the pilots can figure out where they on on the airfield. This is especially important when visibility is poor, and it could have helped prevent accidents like the Comair one in Kentucky last year. That aircraft took off on the wrong runway which unfortunately happened to be too short.

There’s a lot more than just that, of course, but you get the idea. They’ve also gone and cleaned up the cockpit layout as compared to the 777. What do I mean by that? Well . . .

As you can see, instead of 22 separate instruments/radios on the main control panel, there are now only 12. The ones that remain have bigger screens to make life easier for the pilots. The plane rolls out in less than three months, and the anticipation is building.

It’s incredible to me that the plane has already surpassed 500 orders from 43 companies and it hasn’t even rolled out yet. Boeing has a habit of beating expectations in terms of performance, and I really hope for their sake that’s the case this time. So far, they say all is good.  This is easily one of the most anticipated aircraft of all time.

A few months ago, the powers that be at LAX (that’d be LAWA) decided they were going to raise the rents on the airlines flying out of the airport. It has since become a soap opera with the parties trading barbs back and forth. Now, United has decided to bring customers into the spat, so it’s time to see what exactly is going on here.
LAWA says that the cost of running the airport has gone up significantly since 9/11 (security costs and all) and the airlines need to start paying their fair share. It’s clear that they need more money - according to their annual report (PDF), the year ending June 30, 2006 saw an operating loss of $10m - but I’m not sure who should be responsible for that shortfall.

Predictably, the airlines don’t think it should be their problem, and they started complaining about this 5 seconds after it was announced. Until now it was just a war of words (and lawsuits), but Wednesday United announced they were putting a $10 surcharge on all flights out of LAX to make up for the difference. (US Airways has matched and only Southwest promised they would not.) The airline says that the rent increase will cost them $10m a year, so they need this surcharge to offset that cost.

LAWA quickly shot back at the airline saying that in 2006, United had about 4.9m passengers fly out of LAX. If traffic doesn’t grow at all, they’ll still rake in $49m a year with this surcharge. That’s a lot more than the $10m in increased costs for United, so almost $40m will go to increasing profitability.  (Hey, you have to pay Tilton’s bonus somehow.)  Unfortunately though, LAWA’s math is all wrong.

So what is the story here?

I’ve been digging around the last couple days, and I haven’t found the exact info I wanted, but I think I’m close enough. Back in February, LAWA put out a press release about this issue but only in regards to airlines using Terminals 1 and 3. (United is in Terminals 6, 7, and 8.) In the release, they say that the total costs will increase from $6 per enplaned passenger to $11 per enplaned passenger. For the rest of this analysis, let’s assume United also will see a cost of $11 per enplaned passenger once this increase is in effect.

That is a pretty hefty increase, but the result is hardly out of line with other airports.  This presentation (PDF) shows 2005 airport costs on the second page of the document. Houston/Intercontinental and Chicago/O’Hare appear to be in the same range as LAX. Washington/Dulles, Miami, and San Francisco are well above. (It should be noted that SFO has reduced costs significantly since then - they’re now down under $15 per passenger, still $4 above LAWA’s charge.)

So, LAWA needs the money, and United has decided that they aren’t willing to shoulder the burden so they’re going to pass it on to us travelers. Honestly, I think they’re just trying to make a statement to LAWA here and they have no intention of leaving this out there. My guess is that they just want to get the public angry at LAWA but instead it will backfire against the airline.  BUT, let’s take them at their word here for a second to answer the burning question.

Is that $10 surcharge really going to make up the $10 million United has to pay in additional costs? LAWA’s math is definitely not right on this one, so let’s do some of our own.

LAWA says United had about 4.9m passengers board planes at LAX last year. That number actually appears to be only United mainline flights and NOT Express even though those should be included. United sets fares and takes in the revenue for most of the Express flying, so that needs to be counted.  Including Express, they actually boarded in the neighborhood of 6.2m passengers. Does that mean that United will actually pull in $62m in a year?!? Nope, not at all.

Thanks to the guys at FareCompare for passing along the fare rules here. In short, the surcharge only applies to people flying from Los Angeles who are NOT connecting. So here are the scenarios:

• Someone goes from LAX to Chicago and back. That’s $10 for the first flight out of LAX.
• Someone comes to LAX from Chicago and goes back. That’s $10 for the return flight from LAX.
• Someone goes from LAX to Chicago one way. That’s also $10 for the one flight out of LAX.
• Someone goes from Chicago one way to LAX. There is no surcharge since no flight left LAX.
• Someone goes from Chicago to Maui connecting in LAX both ways. There is no surcharge because the fare was from Chicago to Maui and the stop in LAX doesn’t count in fare rules.

So even though LAWA wants us all to think that every United passenger departing LAX will pay, that’s clearly not the case. Connecting passengers don’t pay and that’s a big chunk of the people coming through the airport.

That being said, I’m not letting United off that easily. We know they have 6.2m passengers departing, so to generate only $10m from the surcharge, a mere 16% of the passengers flying United would have to be starting or ending their trips at LAX. That’s way too low, so United is in fact going to make a lot more money than they let on.

All this is making my head hurt.  In the end, LAWA wants more money from the airlines to run the airport.  The airlines are passing it on to the customer, which is fine, but they’re raking in a lot more than they need to cover the extra costs, which is not fine.  And as usual, there’s nothing we can do about it.

Any time China announces they’re interested in getting into a market, people perk up and listen. I guess having over 1 billion people will do that for you.

So when China said they wanted to get into the commercial aircraft manufacturing business, I would assume Boeing and Airbus started drawing up battle plans. It may sound crazy now, but think back to the 1970s for a little perspective. At the time, Airbus was just getting started with their first plane, the A300. Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed all scoffed at their attempt. Fast forward and you know the rest of the story. Lockheed pulled out of the commercial market and McDonnell Douglas was swallowed by Boeing. Now the company that was laughed at in the 1970s has proven to be Boeing’s only true competitor.

There’s no reason that same thing can’t happen with China. The country has a very large sphere of influence and could likely sell aircraft through Asia, Africa, and South America with just a little political pressure. If they create a truly impressive plane, low prices and financing deals could make this take off very quickly. The idea of flying on a Chinese-made plane may sound funny now, but let’s see how it sounds in 20 years.

Thanks to the IAG Blog for pointing out this excellent article on JetBlue’s operational issues in February. We’ve all heard the customer stories repeated over and over again, but this piece takes a different view. This looks at the airline’s systems, how they weren’t able to cope with the problems, and what JetBlue is doing to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Hopefully this gives you some perspective on how difficult the situation was for everyone at the airline.  It also shows how hard everyone worked to fix the problem, even if it wasn’t readily apparent to customers stranded at the time.

I saw this Skybus press release announcing their aircraft advertising program today and knew I had to blog about it.

In short, they are going to sell advertising on any white space they can find. This includes the outside of the plane, overhead bins, tray tables, and restroom doors. Nationwide Insurance is the first to do the outside, but I’m going to be the first to do the inside. . . .

Looks good, huh? Hmm, maybe not. I can hear all those naysayers cringing about this “horrible” development (onboard advertising in general, not the picture of my face specifically), but I say . . . bring it. This is a great move for them.

Remember, Skybus is going to have ultra-low fares a la Ryanair. That means you could see fares for a buck or even less (just speculating here). The only way they can offer those low fares is if they can make money elsewhere. Advertising is one great way to do that. That’s how all those free websites, including mine, make money. (Side note: Remember to use those Google links at the bottom of this post if you are genuinely interested so I can start paying to advertise on Skybus.)

Generally all those people who say this is a horrible thing are the same people who complain that airfare is too expensive these days. Well, here’s your tradeoff. If you’re willing to stare at an ad for awhile, you too can fly for cheap.Most airlines aren’t going to match this, and they shouldn’t. The idea of paying for a better product in coach is something that hasn’t really happened on a large scale in some time. If you just want cheap, go ahead and shoehorn yourself into a tight seat and stare at ads all flight long. Buy a cup of water if you want, but don’t complain about it as long as you get there on time. If you want more, then you’ll have to pay more to fly on another airline that won’t put ads up.

It’s all about creating a value proposition that will appeal to different segments of travelers, and I think there is plenty of room for this type of the service at the bottom end of the pricing curve.

Let’s forget about airline meals for a moment (if you haven’t already), and let’s focus on one of the few remaining frills in air travel: the snack.

Back in the blissful days of yore, a plethora of protein-packed peanuts filled hungry stomachs from coast to coast. Many of them were deliciously roasted with honey. Mmmm.

But times have sadly changed. Many airlines have done away with the complimentary snack (as I discovered on American last week). The ones who continue have been crushed under the pressure of the peanut allergy lobby. They have failed to defend the mighty peanut and have instead opted for the carb-filled, completely unsatisfying mini-bag of pretzels.

The lone holdout has always been Southwest, the shining beacon of the pro-peanut movement. They continue to hand out bags of peanuts for all to enjoy. Their peanut leadership took a step back in 2005 when they stopped serving the honey-roasted kind due to higher costs. Fortunately, news is out today that the decision has been reversed. Today in the Sky reports that the honey-roasted peanut will return!

A thank you is in order for Southwest’s nut supplier. They have found a way to bring the cost of the honey-roasted nuts down the to levels of the dry-roasted ones. The airline will go back to its alternating schedule. In even-numbered years, dry-roasted nuts will be served. In odd-numbered years (starting in 2009), the honey roasted nuts will be back.

Let this be heard as a strong message to all other airlines. Honey-roasted peanuts are back. Now I know the arguments from the peanut allergy-sufferers.

“We can’t be around peanuts or we’ll die.”

Let the airline know in advance and they’ll create a peanut-free zone around you.

“But I can’t even be anywhere where peanuts may have been at some point in the past.”

How are you still alive? Peanuts are everywhere. Bring your EpiPen and hope for the best.

When most people think of a Delta airplane, they probably still think of the livery that was introduced back in 1959. Those colors adorned Delta’s aircraft for almost 40 years (38 to be exact), and they served the airline through many different phases.
According to Delta’s corporate history, the “widget” was introduced in 1959. I’m not sure if the familiar colors came about right away, but I know that by the early 1960’s, they were there. At the time, Delta was just a southern airline with grand plans. By the early 60’s they had started flights to the west coast but everything connected into their southern operation.

In 1972, Delta acquired Northeast, and that gave them a foothold in the northeastern US. This was a big change for the airline, but it did not prompt anyone to come up with a new color scheme.

In 1987, Delta again expanded by purchasing Western Airlines. This gave the airline a solid footing in the West with hubs in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Now a truly nationwide carrier, they still didn’t feel the need to change their colors.

Fast forward to 1991. Delta purchased Pan Am’s European route network and that made the airline a global player. Once again no change in colors was seen as necessary.

Now, we get to 1997. Management decides that they need a new, updated look. Well, Ron Allen’s ill-fated regime ended and a mere 3 years later, new management thought that the colors were too reminiscent of the old leadership. So, in 2000, they changed again. You can read the press release here to get some laughs. Some of my favorite quotes. . . .

Fred Reid, Delta’s CMO at the time (and now soon-to-be-former CEO of Virgin America), said that “Ultimately, we are evolving as an airline, and our look has to evolve with it.”

Design-agency Landor’s executive creative director Richard Ford said “Over recent years, Delta has been an airline in transition; it is now the top-performing major U.S. airline in customer service, and its visual identity and more colloquial brand name reflect the confidence they have in their future. The new identity is a strong visual statement that reinforces this leadership position within the airline industry.”

And from the press release text itself, “The refinement of the logo, along with simple, clean and solid typography, contributes to a more timeless image for Delta.”

Timeless? Um, guess not. Because now it’s time for another livery, even though the Landor quote is still exactly what Delta is trying to be today. That’s three new liveries in 10 years, and that’s if you don’t count Delta Express, Delta Shuttle, Song, and some slight variations on the design over the years. So why now?

Well, they’re exiting bankruptcy, and they’ve decided that it’s time for another change. The old look isn’t fitting for the airline anymore and blah, blah, blah. Whatever.

The photos of the new livery have been making the rounds, and I first saw them at Holly Hegeman’s PlaneBuzz. Apparently, these pictures were taken of the model that’s being used for advertising purposes. That’s why I picked up shots of the other colors on models as well. (credit: Gemini Jets). Head over to PlaneBuzz to see a close-up of the new tail.

Do I like the colors? They’re fine. Not inspiring or anything like that, but to be honest, it doesn’t matter. It’s just another thing that will take the airline’s focus off of important matters in the first crucial months after bankruptcy. I fully understand the idea of updating a dated livery, but this is the third one in ten years.  If the same livery could take the airline from a small southern carrier to a global giant, I don’t see why they feel the need to allocate resourced to yet another one so soon.

For some crazy reason, Josh Marks, SVP Planning & Development for MAXjet, was willing to sit down (at his computer) and talk (email) with me about the latest news at the airline. I’m hoping this is the first of many chats I can post here, so I’ve even decided to create a logo for my new “Across the Aisle” series.

For those who don’t know MAXjet, I’ll let Josh explain it in his own words. The interview is below, and I have a few comments at the bottom. Take it away, Josh.

Josh: When MAXjet started all Business Class service between New York and London Stansted in 2005, we had a clear value proposition. We offered the perks of international Business Class (fast check-in and security clearance, spacious departure lounges, deep-recline leather seats, 60” seat pitch, on-demand entertainment and gourmet meals) at a flexible Economy fare. After establishing service in New York, we added flights from London Stansted to Washington and Las Vegas.

Cranky: You recently seasonally canceled your Washington DC flights. What as the impetus behind that move? Were the flights not performing well or was it due to opportunities elsewhere?

Josh: Washington is a great summer market but turned out to be quite seasonal. So we changed Dulles to seasonal service and we will be back this May.

Cranky: There have been rumors about high front line employee turnover. Is that something you’re seeing? If so, what do you attribute it to? Are you concerned about it?

Josh: Our voluntary turnover has been very low. We pay our pilots and flight attendants an annual salary and we don’t have a seniority system. It’s a different kind of environment with a unique appeal. We’re now opening a crew base in London and we’re excited about having international crews on board.

Cranky: The annual salary for the front line is a really interesting concept. How does that work? Is there a baseline number of hours they fly and then if they go over they get paid overtime?

Josh: Annual salaries work for crews when paired with a line-allocation concept called fair assignment. Essentially lines are assigned by computer to employees in order to maximize equality. Employees have some ability to express preferences. So the number of hours a given crew will fly in a month can vary, but we guarantee them a salary number regardless. In our system there’s no concept of overtime or baseline hours. Similarly, there’s no seniority system (since there’s no bidding for lines).

Cranky: How are the Las Vegas flights performing? Do you see additional opportunities for growth there?

Josh: We’ve been surprised by the mix of business and leisure travelers. People assume we draw business traffic, and we do - many take our flight to Vegas and connect on Southwest to points like San Diego, Orange County, Burbank, San Jose and Sacramento. But we also draw a lot of leisure traffic – not surprising given how many families want Business Class but aren’t willing to pay exorbitant published fares.

Cranky: Are there any plans to begin flying to new cities in the US? Which ones?

Josh: We’ll be announcing new markets shortly as we’re already overhauling our next two aircraft. We like the B767-200ER because it offers a unique combination of trip cost, widebody spaciousness and usable range. Stansted has a long runway so the aircraft is really limited only by fuel. With our payloads (100 passengers on a plane built for 250) we can top the tanks and that means markets like London to Los Angeles or San Francisco are within our capabilities. We’re finding in Las Vegas that the longer the haul, the more our value proposition increases.

Cranky: Have you considered flying to other European destinations from the US or are you focusing solely on Stansted for now?

Josh: We’re just looking at Stansted for coming years. Open Skies dramatically increases the routes we can serve out of Stansted. That said, if the right opportunity comes along, we’ll consider it.

Cranky: You still haven’t submitted financial data to the DOT for the first half of 2006. Why has that been delayed and can we expect to see it soon?

Josh: We filed the DOT data; however it’s clearly not showing. We are investigating what happened.

Cranky: Do you have statistics about on time performance and canceled flights that you can pass along?

Josh: We had some rough periods last year due to both aircraft and weather events. By redesigning our schedule and designating a spare aircraft, we’ve become one of the best operations across the Atlantic. In the past 60 days we’ve had one flight cancellation (weather-related) and more than 90% of our flights were within 30 minutes of schedule.

So there you have it. Thank you Josh for taking the time here. And now for a couple comments.

There have been a lot of rumblings about MAXjet’s reliability in the last few months, and a look at Skytrax passenger opinions clearly shows problems. What you will notice, though, is that there haven’t been any really bad reviews over there in well over a month. (No, I don’t count the complaint that the flight attendants weren’t smiling as a really bad review.) With only one cancellation and a 90% arrival rate within 30 minutes of schedule over the last 60 days, it sounds like they may have their ship in order now, and that is crucial.

From the sound of it, we could see some more longer haul markets in the future from Stansted. I wouldn’t be surprised to see West Coast markets pop up soon. Will they go for the big airports or maybe try for a place like San Jose instead of San Francisco? For their product, I think they need to go straight for the big ones.  San Jose might work because of the business base there, but a place like Ontario instead of LA probably would not.

I like the idea of west coast flights. As Josh mentions, people find more value in the product when the flight is longer. So even if there are fewer people traveling from the West Coast to London than from New York, a higher percentage of people flying those routes may be willing to pay up for the product.

It seems to me that the MAXjet model of business class at an economy fare has a lot of growth potential. That being said, there will be plenty of competitors, and MAXjet needs to make sure they keep their operation running smoothly. The more people pay, the more they expect.