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.
