I’ve supported the FAA stepping in to cut delays at JFK for awhile now, and it sounds like it’s finally going to happen. They convened a meeting of the big airlines at the airport this week to try to come to a voluntary agreement about reducing schedules. Of course, nobody is happy with the outcome.

The FAA introduced some guidelines for the talks saying that at its peak, they want the airport to have no more than 81 departures scheduled per hour. Right now, they’re averaging around 90 at the peak, but during the summer it was higher than that. So, we have someone coming in and taking charge finally. You know that means that nobody is happy.

The airlines and the Port Authority (which runs JFK) are the most unhappy. Led by the Air Transport Association (ATA), the airlines are saying that “Slashing operations at JFK alone will not solve the congestion problem.” Um, actually, yes it will. But their follow-up point is a valid one.

They say that this will just deny access to NYC even though passengers want it. The airlines aren’t going to be able to meet demand, so the FAA should make operational changes to allow more planes in instead of just cutting them off.

As far as I’m concerned, if the FAA can make changes to increase capacity that will take effect by this summer, they should do it and I’m onboard. But I’m skeptical that anything can happen that quickly.

The Port Authority’s proposal has a lot of capital improvements in it and those won’t happen quickly. If they have any quick hits, I’d hope the FAA would listen very closely. Otherwise, for next summer, the airlines will just have to suck it up and deal with the slot restrictions. It’s not ideal at all, but it’s a lot better than being stuck on a taxiway for 6 hours.

(By the way, the t-shirt image I’m showing actually says “Fly SUX” and is the latest marketing tool from the Sioux City airport. Yup, they have finally decided to embrace their airport code. You can buy your own shirt here.)

It’s been awhile since I’ve checked in on Skybus, but I figured their announcement that they’re finally opening a new base (in Greensboro) meant it was time to check-in.

There’s actually been a lot going on with the airline’s route network recently. First, on September 20, they announced they’d start flying to Chattanooga, Milwaukee, Gulfport/Biloxi, and Punta Gorda. Since most people probably don’t know where most of those cities are, this definitely keeps with their plan of serving places others don’t go very often. (Ok, Milwaukee is an exception.)

In fact, Skybus will have the only commercial service at Punta Gorda, which is outside Ft Myers in Florida. I mean, since when does Ft Myers need a reliever airport!?! Surely it’s because Punta Gorda is cheaper. (Of course it is, and don’t call me Shirley.)

The announcement on Sept 25 was more interesting to me. That’s when they said they’d fly their first non-Columbus routes – Portsmouth (New Hampshire) to both St Augustine and Punta Gorda (Florida). Looks like they’re getting hooked on the Florida snowbird gravy train, and I can’t say I blame them. There’s a lot of money to be had there, especially during the winter.

Then last week it came out that the airline was going to start cutting back on some of its long hauls. Bellingham and San Diego are disappearing while Burbank gets cut in half to only one daily flight. Sounds like the long hauls aren’t carrying their weight right now. It could be lack of demand for those routes in general or it could be lack of demand for the tight, no-frills product that the airline offers over long periods of time. I’d bet it’s a combination of both. So what are they doing with the planes that used to fly those routes?

Well, this week we got the big news that they were going to open a new base. Like Ryanair, they have “bases” meaning that they base a certain number of aircraft and crews in their largest operations. To date, Columbus has been the only base, but now we have . . . Greensboro.

Airline dorks (and Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem residents) will remember that airport as the home of many failed airline experiments. The grandest attempt was Continental’s old low fare division, CALite, which opened up a Greensboro hub in the mid 90’s, back when every airline thought that a low fare division was a good idea. (United still hasn’t figured out that it isn’t.) I actually remember flying through there once connecting from Baltimore to Atlanta on an old 737-100. So what makes Skybus think they can succeed?

What I’m sure the airline sees is an airport that doesn’t have much service at this point and is less than 100 miles away from both Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham. If the fares are low enough, they’re banking that they can fill the planes. Besides, Greensboro is also one of the destinations they already fly from Columbus, so they have an idea of what demand is like. It must doing well for them.

So what routes are they flying from Greensboro?

Besides Columbus, we once again have the Florida gravy train. St Augustine, Punta Gorda, and Ft Lauderdale all get flights, and I bet they’ll do well for them. They’re also serving Gulfport/Biloxi, another town that I bet will do well as the gambling mecca of the south. (I don’t think mecca is the right word for the place.)

After that it gets interesting. Portsmouth (New Hampshire) and Chicopee (Massachusetts) both get flights. I’m not convinced that those are going to generate much traffic at all, but I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Then again, I have to think those will look like blockbusters compared to the last route they announced . . . Burbank.

Now, I’m surprised that they can even make this flight happen. Burbank has a short runway and that’s a long haul, so I have to think that an A319 with 156 seats is going to have some weight restrictions. But then again, they probably won’t be able to fill enough seats to worry about that. Delta can’t even support a daily flight from Los Angeles to Raleigh/Durham (it’s down to 5x weekly). I would be amazed if Skybus can find enough demand to fill half this plane.

So this is a lot of change for the young airline. On one hand, it’s good to see that they aren’t wedded to routes that simply aren’t performing. This capacity shift tells me that they probably are seeing success on some routes and they are realigning to better serve those markets.

It’s not entirely surprising to see the longer hauls not working out as well as they’d hoped. I mean, it’s a tougher sell to get people to stuff themselves into those tight seats for that long of a flight. And those routes have less demand overall anyway, so it was a long shot to begin with. It may mean we’ll see less of them out here on the west coast until they decide to open a base for short haul flying out this way, but until then . . . there’s always Florida.

Here it is, part 2 . . . .

After a great few days in France and our second wedding-filled weekend, we took the Eurostar over to London. Now THAT is a fantastic experience. It’s fast now, but in less than a month the station to station time will be down to about 2 hours with the opening of England’s high speed track. Just incredible. After a couple days in London, it was time to come home on our longest flight of the trip.

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October 16, 2007
Air New Zealand #1 Lv London/Heathrow (LHR) 415p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 730p
LHR: Gate 16, Runway 27R, Dept :18L
LAX: Gate 21, Runway 25L, Arr :14L
Aircraft: ZK-SUH, Boeing 747-400, Standard, ~95% full
Flight Time: 10h40m

With such a late departure on a rainy, gloomy day, we had plenty of time to spare so we decided to take the Tube out to Heathrow. Unfortunately, all the work they’re doing in Terminal 3 means that to get to some check-in areas, you have to actually walk outside and around in an uncovered area. We were lucky enough to find a break in the rain when we were outside, so it could have been a lot worse. For us, the discomfort really began when we walked in to find a snaking check-in line (at left).

We had two hours until departure as we stepped in line, and I honestly was afraid we wouldn’t make it. At first there were four agents checking in coach passengers and three working on premium cabins. Slowly, the coach agents kept dropping out until there were only two left. It was a long 50 minutes before we found ourselves first in line. I had predicted we would end up with the one very angry-looking agent, and sure enough I was right . . . almost. The agent looked at us, crossed her hands to signify we weren’t welcome, and just walked off. Did I mention these were United employees?

That was probably fortunate for us, however, because the next agent who came available was very nice. We were happy to hear that we were on the upgrade list, but the agent said we’d have to check with the gate to see if we’d clear. She was nice enough to give us a pass to the lounge, but we didn’t think we’d have time. Sure enough, 20 minutes at the security line (including a strange, random, post-security shoe inspection) meant we had to go straight to the gate.

Once we arrived, the agent took our boarding passes and wrote the magical alphanumeric combination of 1A and 1K on them. Oh happy day! This was my first time sitting in the nose of a 747, and I was excited.

We of course boarded right away and found our seats up front (at right). We were immediately offered water, OJ, or sparkling wine from New Zealand. I was parched from schlepping my bags all over London, so I just opted for water to start. The flight attendant offered to take my coat but got distracted and didn’t do it. Another one came by soon after and took it after she offered newspapers to everyone.

Then a third flight attendant came up and asked if I had been in this seat before. When I said no, she gladly walked me through all the functions of the seat. She also told me, as was emphasized throughout the flight via public announcements, that I could be in any reclined position I wanted during takeoff and landing. That was nice. One thing you’ll be surprised to hear was interesting is the seatbelt.

Since the seat is angled, the half of the seatbelt facing forward has a lot of extra padding on it while the other half is normal. It was bulky but not necessarily uncomfortable. When you’re in the flat bed position, you use a different seatbelt that has no padding on it. Anyway, once she was done, I sat back and played with everything as we waited through our short ATC delay. Right before we left, the flight attendant asked for our pre-dinner drink orders and I chose the Oyster Bay Chardonnay.

We took off into the murk and that’s when I realized that retracting nosegear is really loud when you’re right on top of it. At that point, I pulled out the tv for a long afternoon of movie watching. First up was the amazingly awful Evan Almighty. It took me awhile to get things started because the system is very slow to respond to commands (they actually announced this at the beginning of the flight). But once I got it going, my wine showed up along with the first of two hot towels and all was good. Then they started the meal service with a smoked salmon appetizer and warm bread. The fruit with the appetizer was unfortunately still frozen, but that was really my only complaint about the meal. I had a tasty chicken dish for dinner that came complete with real metal knives (at left). Ooooh. After dinner, my fiancée came over to my seat so we could have dessert together.

After three glasses of wine and a glass of port (yes, I got carried away), I was feeling all warm and fuzzy and ready to fall asleep. Despite my best efforts to fight it, I dozed off only to wake up as the flight attendant was leaning over me to close my window shade. You always see those commercials where the flight attendant pulls down the window shade to demonstrate caring service, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it happen in real life.

At this point, I decided to keep myself awake, so I moved on to a better movie, the really good “Hot Fuzz.” After that, I kept rolling with “License to Wed.” Please, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT see this movie. Not even being trapped on an airplane could make it halfway decent. Don’t even ask me why I watched that one. I feel dumber for having seen it.

With 5 hours left, I couldn’t take another bad flick, so I dove into some of the classics in the AVOD system. That’s when I decided it was the perfect time to finally watch the 3 hour and 45 minute “Gone With the Wind” for the first time. It was a great way to pass the last half of the flight, and I converted the seat into a bed so I could get comfortable.

The Virgin Atlantic-style bed seemed great for sleeping, but I wasn’t trying to sleep on this flight. I really wished there was something in between the slight recline and the fully flat position. That’s the problem with having a bed that flips over. On the other hand, the bed itself was really comfortable. I’m sure it would have been very welcome on an overnight flight.

Most of the way back, there were spectacular views as we flirted with sunset. There was a very light chop most of the way, but nothing that kept the seat belt sign on for more than 10 minutes the whole flight. Does that extremely light chop come with sitting in the nose or was it just the air we were flying through?

As I chugged on through the Civil War, the flight attendants brought another hot towel and then a selection of sandwiches for our pre-arrival snack. The movie finished up, and I then passed the rest of the time by reading a book (at right) and watching the sophisticated airshow map. We passed over Las Vegas before gliding over the lights of LA (at left) and then landing on the south runways.

They held the coach cabin until all premium cabin passengers exited, but they probably didn’t need to do that. I was surprised to see how few people were staying in LAX. I’d say most of them were despondent All Blacks fans heading back home to New Zealand. I was most amazed by the lack of US citizens/residents on the flight. They only had one immigration officer working the US line and there were no more than 15 people there. It still took awhile to get through, but our bags were rolling off just as we passed through and we headed out to the curb for our ride home.

My fiancée and I had back to back wedding weekends with one in Toronto and the next outside Paris. Of course, this got me into flight planning overdrive. With a little help, I was able to put together a Star Alliance itinerary with nonstop flights the whole way around. In the end, it was a great trip, especially after getting an upgrade on the return on Air New Zealand. You’ll have to wait for that one though, because it’ll be in Part 2. Part 1 is all about Air Canada.

The AC flights were a mixed bag. We had the new audio/video on-demand (AVOD) system on our flight to Toronto and it’s a really nice system. I found myself missing it a lot on our flight over the ocean since that hadn’t been upgraded yet from the overhead screens. I knew what I was getting into though, so I can’t complain, and I’d certainly fly them again. Read below for more details.

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October 5, 2007
Air Canada #790 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 10a Arr Toronto (YYZ) 540p
LAX: Gate 21, Runway 24L, Dept ~OT
YYZ: Gate 155, Runway 24L, Arr ~OT
Aircraft: C-GITP, Airbus A319, New Tail/Old Body, ~80% full
Flight Time: 4h4m

We had checked in online the night before, but we had some pretty heavy packing requirements with three countries, temps ranging from the 50s to the 80s, and two weddings. That meant we had to check our bags at the counter when we arrived two hours prior to departure. The agents were very friendly and it took no time at all. There was no line at security at that time of day either, so we found ourselves sitting at the gate with plenty of time to spare.

We boarded to find very comfortable seats with leather antimacassars and a purty-lookin’ screen at each seat. You can see at left that not only was there a screen, there was also a regular power outlet and a USB port. Nice. We taxied quickly and headed up into the blue sky via the LOOP4 departure. Once we hit 10,000 ft, the seatbelt sign came off, and I started to play with the AVOD system.

Like United, they offer all pre-programmed XM audio onboard. I didn’t spend any time with that and went straight to the movies and tv. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many options on there. The games were unavailable, and there were only 2 “Hollywood” movies, 1 “Classic” movie, 2 “Family” movies, and 1 “Avant Garde” movie. I understand that on the widebodies, they have at least 20 movies loaded, so it’s really a function of the type of plane. I ended up scrolling through tv shows instead and found myself riveted by Planet Earth. Overall, the system was great, especially for a flight within North America.

While I was watching the wonders of the world, this odd lady from a few rows forward stopped in front of our empty aisle seat. She tells us she “has to sit” in that seat. So my fiancée gathers her stuff and the woman sits down, explaining that her seat was broken. Then she went straight to sleep. I just went back to watching tv.

Long after the first and only service had been done, I got hungry. With two sleeping people between me and the aisle, I decided to ring the call button but nobody came. A few minutes later, someone walked by with water but didn’t acknowledge me. Finally, I flagged down a different flight attendant to get some food. I ended up with a really tasty roast beef sandwich (at right) for $6 (US or Canadian, sadly) which I washed down with some Schweppes ginger ale. (How do they not stock CANADA Dry?) After that, the flight attendants disappeared right back behind the curtain in the back and stayed there for the rest of the flight.

About an hour outside of Toronto, the odd woman next to us wakes up, gets up, and goes back to her original seat for the rest of the flight. What the heck? Apparently her seat wasn’t very broken. Not sure what that was all about.

Soon enough, we were on our final approach into a hot and humid Toronto. I found it a bit unnerving when they reminded everyone where the emergency exits were, but it sounds like they do that on all flights over 4 hours block time. Fortunately, we didn’t need to use them and we landed, taxied, and made it through immigration quickly.

After a fun wedding weekend in Toronto, it was time to take the trip to Paris.

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October 7, 2007
Air Canada #880 Lv Toronto (YYZ) 835p Arr Paris/Charles de Gaulle (CDG) 10a
YYZ: Gate 174, Runway 23, Dept :01E
CDG: Gate ??, Runway 27L, Arr :26L
Aircraft: C-GHLM, Airbus A330-300, New Tail/Old Body, ~80% full
Flight Time: 7h33m

I was excited to use the mobile check-in option that would let me flash a barcode on my cell phone to board the plane, but it wasn’t to be. I knew I wasn’t allowed to use mobile check-in for US flights, but this flight to France was eligible. I went on my phone and had no trouble navigating through the process. The last step was to put in my mobile number so they could text me the link. Unfortunately, it said my phone number wasn’t valid. Booooooo! It turns out that they don’t have any arrangements with US mobile providers yet. We headed to the airport.

It was cloudy and misty as we pulled up to the gleaming new airport terminal about 2 1/2 hours early. The check-in area was very large, spacious, and functional (at left). That helps at least partly explain those high landing fees over there.

Security lines were short, and it was nice to be able to keep my shoes on. We had a long walk on top of all the domestic gates before reaching the very nice international area at the end of the concourse (at right). It was a lively terminal with a lot of dining and shopping options. Most importantly, there was plenty of seating but a scarce supply of power outlets.

They called the flight for boarding and a couple of agents scanned everyone’s boarding passes. I was surprised to see the flight attendants take our boarding passes as we boarded the plane. I’m not sure what they did with them.

Being the big dork I am, I was excited for my first A330 ride. It’s just too bad that those planes haven’t been upgraded with the AVOD system yet. In fact, to make things worse, the airplane taunted us with hints of seatback video. It had the frame of an in-seat video screen, but there was just a pillow in the middle (at left), good for nothing more than resting my head. The flight attendant told us that it was for a previous system that had to be pulled out. Ugh. We’d have to settle for the overhead screen instead.

After taxiing for awhile, we powered off into the mist and headed east on a very southerly route that would take us over Nova Scotia and eventually south of the British Isles.

I skipped dinner to help my body get onto European time and I settled back to try to sleep. Unfortunately, despite the relatively comfortable seat, the bumps kept me awake, so I watched the two movies shown above. First up was the not-so-good Ocean’s 13. Then they took the wayback machine out and showed Beetlejuice. It may be old, but it’s a good one.

Bleary-eyed, I looked out the window to see the sun starting to rise and we were served a cold breakfast about 1:45 outside of Paris. At least, we thought we were 1:45 outside until the fog at the airport forced us to circle for about 30 minutes. That was the only time I slept during the flight.

We finally landed as the fog burned off and taxied for awhile before pulling into the funny-looking round end of de Gaulle terminal 2A. I’m not sure who designed this terminal, but after a sleepless flight, I was convinced they should be shot.

The corridor down to immigration is crossed every few feet by people boarding their planes. To solve this problem, they have revolving doors that rotate in a way that allows people to enter only certain parts of the door. They get stuck a lot and huge backups develop each time (at right). Once you make it through that mess, they dump you into a huge funnel that squeezes everyone into an immigration line. The immigration officer could hardly be bothered to even open my passport and simple waved us through. Our bags were off quickly and then we headed to the RER.

Our upgraded return on Air New Zealand will be posted in Part 2.

When I first heard about Carol Anne Gotbaum’s sad death at the Phoenix airport last month, I didn’t plan on writing about it. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read about it here.) It’s not that I didn’t find it newsworthy, but it seemed pretty straightforward to me and I didn’t think there was much I could add.

But after reading this opinion piece in the Washington Post yesterday and getting comments about it on another post, I decided to say something.

See, you can blame airlines for a lot of things, but blaming them for this woman’s death is absolutely ridiculous. But let me back up. There are actually two issues here.

First, we have the question about who is responsible for Ms Gotbaum’s death. The author of this article actually has the gall to blame US Airways’ overbooking policies for her death. Now, I can point out all the inaccuracies myself, but instead I’d recommend reading the US Airways response that was published in the Washington Post.

This had nothing to do with overbooking and instead had to do with some strangely erratic actions of a woman clearly in trouble. But let’s move beyond this ridiculousness and get to the meat of the article.

See, I think the author thought that this would be a good incident to help her advance the cause of saying that US Airways is a horrible airline because they bumped her off a flight awhile ago. It’s pretty poor journalism, but we can still try and examine her arguments.

. . . few reports have focused on the fact that the airlines involved, US Airways and its subcontractor, Mesa Airlines, are notorious for overbooked flights.

It’s important to know that almost every airline overbooks (JetBlue not included). The government knows about it and even tracks the number of people who were involuntarily denied boarding. So, let’s look it up. The most recent report shows second quarter 2007 results. Of the 18 airlines reporting, Mesa ranked 9th and US Airways 12th, both actually slightly better than the industry average. In the first quarter, US Airways was still 12th, but Mesa was 14th. This time they were worse than the industry average but hardly the worst offenders. The fourth quarter of last year saw the airlines finish 11th and 12th respectively (out of 19 airlines) and we can go on and on.

Does US Airways overbook? Yes. Do they have denied boardings? Yes. Are they notorious for it? Only if several other airlines are considered notorious for it as well. I don’t see why they should be singled out here. What else you got?

. . . to increase profitability, Mesa understaffs all its sales counters, baggage staff and other personnel and slashed health care and pensions, while US Air overbooks all flights and often issues duplicate seat assignments.

Guilty as charged. But so is every other airline. Why the personal vendetta against US Airways? Oh right, it’s because the author was bumped once.

The pilot told us they were terribly underpaid and overworked and that flying conditions were unsafe.

I have never met a pilot who would willingly fly an unsafe aircraft with passengers on it. This sounds like someone who wanted to get management in trouble because they’re unhappy about their pay. I understand the frustration – regional pilots in general don’t make much money – but if there are truly unsafe conditions, I would assume this pilot would not be flying those planes and would report it.

Other staffers told us that many US Air/Mesa personnel were dispirited and overworked, which often led them to vent their frustration on passengers, in a sort of “kick the dog” syndrome

Again, I don’t see why this is limited to Mesa and US Airways (not US Air). Just about everyone in the industry is overworked and dispirited. Sad but true.

We can go on and on here, but it’s all more of the same. The way I see it, the author has long had a grudge against US Airways and incredibly thought that she could use this woman’s death to nail them. She interviewed a bunch of angry employees to get some more ammo, and there you have it. What I don’t see is any effort to actually check facts and get opposing viewpoints from US Airways’ management.

There have been plenty of intelligent arguments about the bigger question of what is wrong with US Airways, Mesa, and this industry overall (answer: a lot), but this is clearly not one of them. This is just a poor attempt at a smear job.