The release came out this morning saying that Virgin America was starting ticket sales today. Woohoo! I remember over three years ago trying to get a job with the airline out of grad school. It’s hard to believe it’s taken this long for them to actually fly.

Oh, but all is not well in Virginland (no, that’s not the latest land at Disneyland). The center of their sales universe is their website, and it is not doing so well.

Looks like someone didn’t anticipate the huge traffic numbers and now they’re struggling with really slow response times on the javascript-heavy site. I was trying to get more information and potentially book a ticket, but I cannot for the life of me get any further into the reservations process than the initial availability screen without seeing this:

Booooo! You guys should have known better. I know other potential customers are having the same issue. A friend even went over to Orbitz to buy a ticket even though there was a fee attached.

Once I can get onto the website, I’ll write up a lot more about the airline. Flights begin August 8 from San Francisco to both JFK and LAX.

UPDATE 7/19 @ 132p: Well, the site is officially dead now, and they have a pretty picture to prove it. I may be down in LA, but I think I can hear their IT guy getting yelled out from here.

Kind of strange that you won’t be able to call anyone at Virgin America until 8a if you’re on the East Coast, no? That’s especially bad since they have a 7a flight out of JFK.

UPDATE 7/19 @ 420p: Hooray, they’re back up! Not quite sure what’s going on as I seem some funny stuff in the reservations system (showing flights twice, once saying “sold out”), but at least it’s working.

Over the last couple of days, there have been two airline accidents in South America, one of which had a tremendous loss of life.

The first was relatively minor, though the pictures would say otherwise. This plane, operated by AeroRepublica of Colombia, decided to go surfing in the ocean after landing on a slick runway in norther Colombia. Fortunately, there were only seven minor injuries. (Photo credit: AP)

The other accident was far worse and much more difficult to talk about. A TAM A320 was trying to land at Sao Paulo’s close-in domestic Congonhas airport when it ran off the runway and crashed into a TAM office after crossing a major highway. Everyone onboard and some on the ground died. Last I heard, the total was just shy of 200 dead.

As usual, we don’t know what caused this crash just yet but inevitably many different factors will have been involved. There was bad weather at the time, so there’s a good chance that played a part, at least it would have made the pilots’ job harder. We should know what happened soon enough. The black boxes have been found and are on their way to the US for analysis.

Brazil has had a string of aviation problems over the last several months. The Gol accident 10 months ago has created more questions than answers regarding air traffic control and governmental oversight issues. In fact, since that time, there have been major questions about the system’s safety. Air traffic controllers have gone on strike to protest the safety issues and delays have been massive. Whether or not that had anything to do with this accident, we don’t know, but even if not, hopefully this can draw attention to the air traffic control problems down there. (Photo credit: AP)

One thing that likely played some part in this is Congonhas itself. The airport has a short runway at 6,300ft (that’s about 500 feet shorter than Washington/National and Burbank but also 500 feet longer than Orange County). Earlier this year, a judge tried to prevent large aircraft from landing at the airport (the plane that crashed was not in this ban), but he was overruled by an appeals court, so nothing changed. The runway had recently been resurfaced, but the deep grooves to help increase runway stickiness in rain had yet to be carved. There also were not arrestor beds at the end of the runway to help slow the plane if it went too far.

But again, we don’t know if any of this played a part. Certainly a longer runway is more forgiving. Reports say the aircraft was going very fast and may have tried to go around. In that case, none of those things would likely have mattered. We’ll be hearing a lot more about this in the next couple days. Man, I hate this.

If nothing else, Bill O’Reilly is great at stirring up trouble. Unfortunately, he’s terribly misguided just about every time, and this one is no different. O’Reilly’s latest target is JetBlue. The airline is one of the sponsors of the YearlyKos Convention, the annual shindig put on my very left-leaning political website DailyKos. As you’ll see in the 8 minute clip below, O’Reilly has determined that DailyKos is actually “one of the worst examples of hatred America has to offer.” If you can’t see video, read the transcript.

Take a look and then we’ll talk more afterwards.

Fun, huh?

Regular readers of DailyKos (and there are a lot - more than 500,000 per day) had to see this coming. I mean, the site is blatantly liberal. The About Us section starts off with “Markos Moulitsas — a.k.a. “kos” — created Daily Kos on May 26, 2002, in those dark days when an oppressive and war-crazed administration suppressed all dissent as unpatriotic and treasonous. As a veteran, Moulitsas was offended that the freedoms he pledged his life for were so carelessly being tossed aside by the reckless and destructive Republican administration.”

So right away it’s going to be a target for conservative Bill O’Reilly and Fox News. What about his allegations of hate? Well, it’s not like there’s one person behind the site pulling the strings. Stories are posted by the founder as well as 15 contributing editors, but diaries and comments are posted by anyone and everyone including prominent politicians like Jimmy Carter and Harry Reid. Sure, some of those comments and diaries may have some pretty strong, potentially hate-filled comments, but that’s what happens with sites that rely on user-generated content. The whole point of the site is to have people exchange ideas freely, and that’s why these things can happen. When it does, other users are usually quick to jump on that poster.

But O’Reilly could have at least gotten all his criticisms correct. For example, he bemoans how the Pope was called a primate, but guess what? He IS a primate. All humans are part of the order of Primate, but more importantly, a primate is defined as “an archbishop or bishop ranking first among the bishops of a province or country.” (Thanks, Dictionary.com) By the way, the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, in case there was any confusion.

This attack should really be a non-story, like all of O’Reilly’s attacks, but Dave Barger’s stumbling interview when ambushed outside his home probably helped fuel the fire. That awkward situation, caught on tape, made Barger seem guilty even though he probably knew nothing about the whole sponsorship in the first place. It most likely came from levels lower than his. Too bad for him that he wasn’t able to think quickly enough in that situation to come off well.

You can read more from the other side in this thread on DailyKos. Kos was kind enough to post some of the real hate mail he received from O’Reilly supporters. Oh, the irony. At last check, there were 369 comments about the issue. That’s the type of user participation that makes the site successful, even though it sometimes results in some pretty inappropriate comments. But that’s freedom, and O’Reilly hates it unless it serves his purpose.

With all this mind, it’s funny that as this was breaking, JetBlue rolled out their Simpsons plane in support of the upcoming movie. And who is it that’s putting that movie together? Oh right, Fox. Ah, the tangled business relationships that make life complicated.

Bottom line, is it a problem that JetBlue sponsors the YearlyKos convention? Not in my eyes. Reaching a young, liberal, politically active demographic probably fits quite nicely into their overall customer-base. And having Bill O’Reilly call them out for it may even make them heroes to this group of people. But, when you get involved with politics, you always run the risk of angering the other side, so it’s not always the smartest move. A smart business will try to play both sides of the aisle, and for all I know, JetBlue might also sponsor a Young Republicans convention somewhere. If they don’t, they might want to really consider it after this.

Alitalia just loves being in the news, but not in a good way. I just don’t get it. Someone please put this old dog out of its misery.

You may remember that Aeroflot and TPG both pulled out of the running to buy the airline, but TPG’s former partner, MatlinPatterson, went back in on its own. Besides MatlinPatterson, Air One was the only other bidder left.

Well, now Air One has pulled out as well and according to Reuters, “Transport Minister Alessandro Bianchi has said [MatlinPatterson] has shown few ’signs of life.’”

Looks like it’s back to the drawing board for this sad, sad airline. Someone, please pull the plug.

Yesterday was the deadline for airlines to get their applications in for seven new flights coming available between the US and China over the next three years. Conventional wisdom says Delta will get this year’s award with Atlanta-Shanghai flights. Next year, United is expected to get San Francisco-Guangzhou while the other spot, which can only be used to second tier airports in China, will likely remain unfilled.

But in 2009, the big competition heats up when four additional daily flights between the US and China come available. All the usual competitors are there (see below), but one that really stands out is . . . MAXjet?!?

I was surprised myself when I got a hold of the filing (PDF) that was quietly slipped in to the DOT yesterday before the deadline. Quick refresher - MAXjet flies an all-business class operation between several points in the US and London. While the business class seats aren’t the newest lie-flat technology, they are sold at the cost of last minute coach seats, so the value proposition is strong. The service appears to be doing well so far, and clearly they’re looking for new opportunities to expand.

This application proposes a LAX-Seattle-Shanghai flight on their ~100 seat 767s. I’m guessing they would have done LAX-Shanghai nonstop if they had the range, but Seattle will do for now. (787s anyone?)

How do I like their chances? Not so great. As long as demand for flights to China continues to outpace the number of flights permitted, the DOT is going to hesitate to add a flight with only 100 seats onboard when the alternative could be a 200-300 seat option on someone else. So I have to think that this isn’t going to happen this time, though when things start to open up further, it could happen.

What it comes down to, ultimately, is that the DOT is allowed to introduce one new carrier to the China market in 2009. Assuming Delta gets a flight this year, that would leave US Airways and MAXjet as the two new options for 2009, and US Airways will probably have the edge with their larger planes, even though the Philly-Beijing route is hardly inspiring.

From a business perspective, it would be interesting to see if MAXjet could pull this flight off. The value proposition isn’t nearly the same as flying to London because market business class fares are lower in Asia. That means the potential cost savings are less, and it may be harder to woo travelers. But there are no flights between Seattle and China right now, so it could fill a nice niche.

If I had to put money down, I’d say Continental (Newark-Shanghai), United (LAX-Shanghai), and US Airways (Philadelphia-Beijing) pick up three slots for 2009 with Delta (Atlanta-Beijing) and American (Chicago/O’Hare-Beijing) fighting for the last one.

Anyone catch the significance in American’s latest announcement last week? I suppose it’s not really “significant” in any way. It’s more of the same old crap. Yup, legacy carrier tries to fight a low cost carrier in a market that they have no business being in.

This time, American is going after Spirit down in South Florida. It’s no secret that Spirit has been growing their presence out of Ft Lauderdale to a bunch of Caribbean and Latin American destinations lately. American, of course, has the huge Latin presence out of Miami, and they’ve apparently decided to try to knock Spirit down a couple notches.

So now, American is starting up Ft Lauderdale to San Jose (Costa Rica), and Santo Domingo. They’ll also beef up the number of seats from the airport to San Juan and Port-au-Prince.

Raise your hand if you think there’s really enough demand for two carriers in the market? Nobody?

It’s just the same tired old story. American probably has planned it this way . . . . Big legacy carrier moves into a market where it really doesn’t need to be. They’ll fight for awhile, potentially get the little guy out, and then they’ll pull all service out. As usual, the consumer is worse off and has to go back to paying really high fares out of Miami with no other options. But hey, American is happy!

The problem is that it doesn’t seem to work that way as well as it used to. Now, American will just waste a lot of money trying to put the little guy out of business, not succeed, quietly pull out of the markets, and go on making different dumb, revenue negative decisions. Glad I’m not a shareholder.

You’ve seen the news. A “small, innocent” baby was forced off a flight for making too much noise. I’ve seen plenty of outrage in most articles and blogs, but I’ve got a different perspective.

This heroic flight attendant saved us from a deadly terrorist attack.

Oh, you think it couldn’t be true? The baby is only 19 months old? Come on. Those are excuses. This baby’s comments give us insight into the mind of a dangerous suicide bomber. What did he say? “Bye bye plane.” That’s right. He was ready to do his duty and destroy the flight for his cause. They may have only had moments left to live.

It’s a good thing this flight attendant caught this clue before the plane departed. I encourage the TSA to start profiling all babies under 2 years old immediately. There are millions of potential terrorists fitting this profile within our borders today. Clearly, the threat level needs to be raised to red and everyone must pay closer attention.

This flight attendant is a hero. Hopefully we can all follow her lead in protecting America from dangerous terrorists. If not, we may have another 9/11 on our hands.

First there was Southwest’s Ding!, then there was Ryanair’s Bing!, now there’s . . . American’s Dang!? Enough with the ridiculous punctuation, please!*!@#)&*%)!!!

Ok, so it’s not actually called Dang!, but according to Sky Talk, some people internally referred to it as just that. It’s actually called DealFinder. So guess what it does? Um, finds deals? Right!

But it’s not really much like Ding! at all. There’s actually more to it than that, and despite it’s slowness on my machine, I still like what they’re doing. Like Ding!, DealFinder sits in your system tray, usually at the bottom right hand corner of your Windows-based computer. You’ll see a little AA logo there. When you click it, you’ll see the application come up on your screen. It looks like this:

The main part of the application is the “saved searches,” which are nothing like Ding! and more like the Orbitz DealDetector. You pick routes that you want to fly and set a maximum price. It will alert you when you get below that level. As you can see, my quick trip to Hawai’i for under $500 isn’t looking likely, but the sub-$500 Christmas run to Indianapolis is available now.

The other, potentially more interesting piece of this application is the RSS reader they’ve built in. If you aren’t sure what RSS is, this quick summary from Wikipedia will help. I know RSS readers are gaining in popularity, but I’d guess that many people who book travel at aa.com don’t use them yet. That’s why this is a good idea.

First, they have feeds from American that offer deals and news from the airline. That can be helpful, of course. But you can also subscribe to your own RSS feeds in here. As you can see, I subscribed to the Cranky Flier (great blog, I hear) and it loaded my most recent posts on the left. Just below the saved searches, you can see a small window that has the text of that post for you to read.

Now, this isn’t a full-featured RSS reader. You can’t see pictures and it truncates long posts, so if you use Google, My Yahoo, or anyone else, this won’t replace it well. But if you don’t have a reader, this could be a good way to get quick news updates, sports scores, anything else you might want to catch at a glance.

This may have nothing to do with American Airlines, but that’s why it’s a good idea. If American can get you checking the application for your news and sports throughout the day, that’s more opportunity for them to get your attention and potentially get you thinking about taking a trip. That’s why I like it, because there are plenty of people who don’t have an RSS reader and might find this to be an interesting way to get started with one.

So the RSS reader is nifty, but what is going to draw people in? Low fares, of course. If my Hawaiian trip still shows the same fares I can find anywhere else, I’m more likely to use Orbitz DealDetector, because at least then I can check other airlines as well. But, if American starts telling you that they’ve found a low fare that you can only get through DealFinder, then it’s going to do very well.

Can the airline do that? I’d think that the GDS contracts might prevent them from posting fares there that they don’t post with the reservations systems, but there could be a loophole. If anyone knows more, please write a comment below.

A Note to Virgin America . . .

Yesterday was a huge day for you guys. You must be ecstatic to have received oral approval from the DOT to begin selling tickets.

So why aren’t you selling tickets RIGHT NOW?!?

All you say in your press release is that you plan “to begin service this August, with specific dates for tickets sales and first flights to be announced in the weeks ahead.”

August is NOT very far away. You’ve had years to plan this thing and now you get approval but you aren’t ready yet?!? What’s holding you up? Let’s get this show on the road.

When are you starting? What route are you flying next after JFK-SFO? The more time you have in advance of the launch next month to sell tickets, the better chance you’ll have of making money on those flights. I really don’t need to tell you this, do I? So, what’s the hold up?

Back to the story. Now, where were we again? Ah yes, Denver airport. Sitting and waiting and sitting and waiting. And yes, I was still hungover.

THE UGLY
July 8, 2007
Frontier #413 Lv Denver (DEN) 405p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 525p
DEN: Gate A51, Runway 17L, Dept 21m Late
LAX: Gate 38, Runway 24R, Arr 48m Late
Aircraft: N808FR, Airbus A318, Fawn tail, 100% full
Flight Time: 2h9m

The flight before ours was at the gate about 30 minutes past departure time, so when it finally pulled out, our flight was able to pull in. This plane was the short and stubby looking A318. Maybe the low number of seats confused people into thinking they were on a private plane and there was no reason to hurry, but every passenger acted as if they were taking a Sunday stroll through the jet bridge. It took forever to get them off the plane. It was another 15 minutes after that before the plane was clean, by which time the scheduled departure time was rapidly approaching.

This is really the only complaint I have about Frontier. There was no urgency to board at all. They leisurely called rows up, the flight attendants didn’t help with bags, etc. You’d think they’d take a little more interest in pushing on time.

So, now past departure time, we got into the jet bridge and of course were backed up due to some passenger who probably couldn’t figure out why their 10 foot by 10 foot bag wouldn’t fit into the overhead bin. While I sat in there sweating, I kept hearing this voice repeating the same thing over and over again but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Sure enough, it was a girl equivalent of Rain Man. Seriously, she must have been autistic. I shrugged it off and just kept trudging toward the plane.

At this point, I thought it was going to be smooth sailing. I got to my seat and broke out the free tv card we were given on the flight out, ready to just sit there and enjoy some mindless entertainment on the way home. Bzzt. Wrong. Not gonna happen.

My tv decided it would be better to assume the identity of a black box instead of actually showing me anything. Great. So after activating my girlfriend’s tv, the flight attendant apologized and gave both cards back to me. A nice gesture, sure, but it wasn’t going to help at all.

At this point, my girlfriend blissfully fell into an HGTV-induced happiness, and I begrudgingly picked up a magazine and started reading. That’s when the Denver Babies Choir decided it would be a good time to practice their screaming sessions. And this was no small choir. We’re talking a lot of babies. This was not good.

As if that weren’t enough, remember the girl with autism? Yeah, she was only a couple rows behind. She kept yelling gibberish over and over but sometimes I could actually make out what she was saying. I heard her same something about “lots of bubbles” 20 times in a row and then something about “Christmas pequins” (piquants? penguins? what is it?!?!) later on.

At one point, after saying “Mrs. Robbins” for the 150th time in a row, I kid you not that a woman in between us actually yelled “broken record,” as if the girl was doing it on purpose. I really thought a fight was going to break out, and I didn’t relish the thought of being delayed once again just so the police could come arrest her. So when we pushed back, I considered it a small victory.

As we taxied, I could see the remains of a thunderstorm over the south and west parts of the airport. Fortunately, it was nothing but blue skies to the west, so it wouldn’t affect us. Oh wait, yes it did. They stopped all departures for some reason even though arrivals were proceeding as normal. After a 20 minute wait, we were off into the choppy Rocky Mountain air. I passed the time watching the cloud formations, reading a magazine and trying to ignore the noises penetrating the cabin which were mercifully muted by the roar of the engine.

Again, service was good and the flight passed relatively quickly . . . until we started descending. One of the members of the Denver Babies Choir must have had a stuffed up ear, because as soon as we started descending, he started screaming. And this was no normal baby scream. This was a piercing, painful cry of suffering so loud and awful that the idea of ripping my ears off my head somehow sounded pleasant.

Thirty minutes straight of screaming babies led to a nice, soft landing at LAX. Since we were in the exit row, I pondered the idea of pulling it right there and jumping out of the plane, but I changed my mind at the last minute. That was probably a good idea since I’m pretty sure jail is not a good place for me.

I figured a two minute taxi and we’d be back at the gate, but of course, I was wrong. We had to wait for what seemed like hours (probably 5 minutes) before they cleared us to cross the departure runway, and then we lumbered into the gate about 12 hours after we had first left Vail that morning. That couldn’t be the end of it, could it? Of course not.

It took them awhile to get the door open, so we just sat. The pilots decided to start shutting down, but they failed to turn off the power transfer unit. Airbus fliers know where this is going. As if the screaming babies, Christmas pequins, and blank tv screen weren’t enough, now we had the delightful sound of the PTU, something I liken to a ninja repeatedly kicking a seal in the head.

I can’t express in words how happy I was to get off that plane. The funny thing is that as miserable as the flight was, it wasn’t really Frontier’s fault (except for the tv technician, I suppose). I actually really enjoyed all my dealings with their people and wouldn’t hesitate to fly them again . . . as long as the Denver Babies Choir isn’t onboard.