On most of my posts, I spend a lot of time picking apart numbers, doing research, and gathering my thoughts before putting together what hopefully ends up being something you enjoy reading. Today, you won’t see any of that. My post today is one of pure airline dork bliss. Yesterday, I took a ride on the A380, and here’s how it went.

Airbus brought their A380 back to LAX this week, but instead of just a static display, they, together with Qantas, decided to have a 2 hour flightseeing trip for about 150 people. When the offer came into my inbox, I obviously jumped at the chance.

The weather has been far from perfect in LA recently. We’ve had a lot of smoke from the fires, gray days thanks to the marine layer, and some hot dry Santa Ana winds to keep things interesting. This morning we’re even seeing rain. But when I woke up yesterday, there was none of that. It was a picture perfect Chamber of Commerce day that’s usually reserved for the Rose Parade every year. Perfect.

Our flight was to depart at 730a, so I arrived early to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The event began at the Flight Path Learning Center museum which resides in the Imperial Terminal building. (If you haven’t been there, go.) I checked in and despite my best efforts to show some skin, ended up with a coach boarding pass. It was blank, so they said just take any coach seat once onboard. Though they said photo ID would be required, they never checked it. But don’t worry. They did make me take my shoes off as I went through security screening.

I milled about the museum eating a continental breakfast and filling up on LAX history until about 645a when they called us for boarding (I think that’s when it was, I was a bit groggy). I jumped to the front and ended up being the second one to head out to the plane. We were guided on to a long red carpet (at left) which led us to the towering stairs up to the beast. The flight attendants at the door took my boarding pass and then I headed onboard eager to look around.

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November 29, 2007
Qantas #380 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 730a Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 930a
LAX: Gate Imperial Terminal, Runway 25L, Dept :11E
LAX: Gate Imperial Terminal, Runway 25L, Arr :33E
Aircraft: F-WWJB, Airbus A380-841, Airbus House Colors, ~150/519
Seat: 7A
Flight Time: 1h17m

You won’t hear me bothering to review the interior of this plane. This the Airbus demo, so the seats aren’t actually seats that any airline has decided to use. This is just what Airbus set up too woo potential buyers (and apparently this trip is the last one before they rip it out and prep it for delivery). What I will talk about is the plane itself.

My first impression was that it would be an awesome place to play hide-and-go-seek. It is just a massive aircraft.That could partially be because there wasn’t anyone else on board, but more likely it’s just because . . . it’s a massive aircraft. On the lower deck, coach seating will be in a 3-4-3 setup, just like on the 747 main deck, but it did seem somewhat bigger. Part of that may be the illusion of big windows. See, the outer glass window doesn’t appear to be too much larger than normal, but the inner plastic window is very large and it funnels down to the outside. It really opened the cabin up.

I started walking back and, assuming we’d takeoff and loop around to the south, took the first non-bulkhead window in coach. That put me just in front of the wing, as you can see by my pictures. After sitting down, the first thing I noticed was the curvature of the cabin walls (at right). When you’re on a 747, the walls seem to go almost straight up and down on the main deck. On this plane, it appears to curve out from the bottom before straightening out. That made it uncomfortable to actually rest my head on the wall. So, if you’re in coach and you’re going to sleep, don’t plan on using the walls.

I walked backwards while everyone else was boarding and went up the spiral stairs. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let anyone sit in coach up there for the flight, but I did have a look around. The upstairs cabin is a more humane 2-4-2 in coach. The slope in the walls is noticeable, and like on the 747’s upper deck, there is a nice little compartment between the window seat and the window (at left). That’s a great feature, and I think it’s clear that unless you’re traveling in a group of three, upper deck seating if the way to go, if you have the choice.

I came back down when we were told to buckle up and get ready for the VIPs. VIPs? Well it was just LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He came on with a gaggle of television cameras, and made his way through the plane. When he got to coach, he exclaimed, “This is where the people sit!” and then proceeded to shake everyone’s hands and ask their names. That took awhile, but when he was done, he left. Weird, right? Well apparently there’s an old California law that prohibits government officials from accepting transportation. I hear this dates back to railroad times to help prevent corruption. So, even though this was a flight that came right back to where it started, he still couldn’t accept the trip.

Once he was off, it was time to go. We pushed back and taxied slowly down to Runway 25L. Right before we took the runway, a Qantas 747 conveniently landed right ahead of us. Cool.

We turned on to the runway and I had my seatback video tuned to the camera in the tail pointing forward. The engines spooled up and we were soon barreling down the runway. (Video of initial takeoff roll) Soon enough we were leaping off the runway. Below is a 16 second video I took as we become airborne. Notice all the helicopters swarming as we go by.

I’ve also uploaded videos of us climbing over the Pacific, encountering a few bumps, and turning.

As we continued to climb, I just kept focusing on the massive, heaving wing. It is a truly incredible structure, and probably the thing about the A380 that impresses me the most. Just an amazing work of art.

Anyway, as I said, we got up quickly, and that’s no surprise. With only 150 people on board and a short flight, they didn’t have much weight at all. I found out later that we took off at around 360 (369?) tonnes when the max takeoff weight is actually 560 tonnes. Think about that. That’s 1.2m pounds. Holy crap! I believe the 747-400ER can tip the scales at no more than 910,000 pounds if it wants to get airborne.

The seatbelt sign came off very quickly as we continued heading west along the coast toward Santa Barbara (and eventually Hawai’i - I kept my fingers crossed the pilot would keep going). At that point, it became cocktail hour as everyone got up and started mingling. The champagne came out in glass flutes while flight attendants circulated with appetizers, or as one attendant called them, savories. I just went for a walk.

The first thing I wanted to do was check out the noise. The thing I hear most about this plane is how quiet it is. Maybe it was just over hyped, because from where I was sitting, it certainly seemed quiet, but it wasn’t anything shocking. I mean, you still know you’re on an airplane. I went upstairs and discovered that it was a bit quieter up there. Yet another reason to sit on the upper deck.

On this trip upstairs, I pushed past the coach seats and headed into business class. Everyone was doting on the seats, but I went straight to the front where they had two Airbus engineers set up in their stations. Basically, they had a large area of the bulkhead cut out and outfitted with instruments showing exactly what the pilots were seeing on their gauges (at right). The two men at the station were taking copious notes when they weren’t talking to the growing crowd around them. That’s where I learned what our takeoff weight was along with other interesting technical facts. (Ok, they’re probably only interesting to me, so I’ll leave them out.)

I then walked toward the front and made my way down the main staircase to the lower deck. There was a sitting area and a side bar, but it was very crowded, so I just kept going through. That’s when I decided to visit my office, er, the lav. There are a bunch of lavs on this plane, but the one I picked seemed to be the nicest one. It’s the first time I’ve seen a commercial aircraft with a window (at left), and it’s the largest lav I’ve seen since the 777 handicapped lav. There’s PLENTY of room in there for, oh, say, having a lengthy political discourse with an acquaintance, and you get a view.

At that point, we had made our way up the coast toward Monterey and already started our return. Though I had expected a two hour flight, the flight attendants told us that we would shortly be beginning our descent and we would need to be seated. This time, I decided to park myself in a coach seat on the right side behind the wing so I could get a different view. I had been told that the ailerons really move around during turbulence to offset the flexing wing, so I hoped to see some of that. There were a couple of bumps, but I didn’t really see the ailerons move much.

I’m glad I picked this seat, because I had a nice view of Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands before we passed right over LAX (at right). Then we turned east just north of Long Beach (I tried to pick out my house), and looped around for final approach to runway 25L. The graceful glide toward the runway was shattered when the gear made a very loud noise as it deployed. I hoped we hadn’t dropped something, and apparently we didn’t. We landed with a thud and taxied back to where we started.

As I walked off, I noticed there was a spot where a seat should have been but it wasn’t there. I remembered seeing this on the Singapore seat map and thought it looked strange, so I asked about it. It turns out that is the emergency escape hatch from the underfloor crew rest area. So all A380s will have that missing seat. Of course, that led me to ask to see the crew rest area. They were kind enough to let us go down below to find 12 rather small bunks (at left). Compared to other crew rest areas I’ve seen, it did look pretty nice though. After that, it was time to leave the plane and get to work.

We can talk about economics of the plane, whether it will succeed in various markets, blah, blah, blah, but this isn’t the time for that. Something about flying a brand new airplane just makes me act like a little kid again. I simply, truly, enjoyed the ride and forgot about everything else. I think the smile on my face says it all.

If you’d like to see all my pictures in their original sizes, visit http://images.crankyflier.com/A380_Flight/.

Yesterday, as I was going through my usual morning ritual of scanning airline news and blogs, I came across a press release saying that the “Air Travelers Association” had submitted a “Passengers First” proposal to solve the congestion problems in New York. At first, I thought it was the ATA, but wait, that’s the Air TRANSPORT Association. This is definitely something different.

After reading the release, I became very suspicious. First, the release is very high level and offers no details. A visit to the Association’s website revealed nothing more than a very poorly put together site with a photo of an America West 757 in the original livery that must be at least 10 years old.

So what were “they” suggesting we do?

1. Eliminate corporate jets from LaGuardia - How many corporate jet flights are there from LGA every day? It can’t be that many. And where else would they go on the east side of the East River?
2. Do not permit “Non-Standard” departures from LaGuardia - This is a very rare occurrence. According to a New York air traffic expert friend of mine, this would have very little impact.
3. Eliminate all published connections at LGA - Why? He says it only accounts for 5% of the traffic at the airport. I can’t imagine that eliminating connections would do anything to relieve air traffic congestion. It would just reduce the number of passengers and not the number of flights. That isn’t the problem.
4. Eliminate the perimeter rule prohibiting flights over 1,500 miles - Huh? Again, this does nothing to reduce air traffic congestion. It just reallocates capacity to different areas. There will still be too many airplanes for the current system set up.
5. Change the definition of a “delay” from not just being 15 minutes - Again, huh? This doesn’t fix congestion. This just tries to convince people that they aren’t delayed. Wow.

That’s a heck of a list that leaves more questions than answers. After I finished reading this morning, I shot an email over to David Stempler, the man who appears to be the entire organization, asking many of the questions I posted above. I said that I was planning on writing this morning, so I asked to hear back by last night. I did not.

I suppose I shouldn’t expect such quick turnaround for a little blog like mine, but if you’re going to put out a press release and you want it to get coverage, I would think you would at least write back asking for more time to make sure you have a say in what happens. Hopefully I’ll hear back from him and can post updates here, but for now, I’ll just hope that someone reading can help fill in the blanks for me. What am I missing?

My biggest question is about who he is trying to support here. In his release, he says, “The Air Travelers Association is the airline passenger/consumer representative on the U.S. DOT’s New York Aviation Rulemaking Committee . . . .” He is clearly connected to someone if he made it on this committee, but as many others have asked, is he really supporting passengers?

Much of this proposal does not seem to address any of the issues passengers face today. Let’s say this does open up a little more space at the already saturated LaGuardia. Is that really going fix the New York area congestion issues? I think not. Flights will fill those holes very quickly. I’m just still trying to figure out the motivation here.

A quick Google search brought up a post from Chris Elliot with links to all sorts of sites that raise questions about the legitimacy of this organization. Hmm. Very questionable.

Christmas trees are going up, shopping season is kicking into high gear, and the weather is getting chillier. Ah yes, it’s time for winter. Now, that doesn’t mean much here in LA where it’s a rare cold night when the temperature heads below freezing, but for the rest of the country, it requires bigger changes.

In places like Denver, it’s time to prepare for snow. And at Denver International Airport, it means hiring seasonal employees to handle the de-icing operation. As you probably know, when airplanes gather ice on their wings, bad things happen because planes lose lift. One of the most infamous icing accidents involved Air Florida flight 90departing Washington/National. Departure delays meant ice built up on the wings, and the pilots mistakenly tried to depart without further de-icing, the plane couldn’t climb and it crashed into the 14th St Bridge in Washington DC.

Obviously, de-icing is a serious business, but the airlines don’t generally handle it themselves. They contract with third parties who handle the seasonal task. So, when channel 4 in Denver starting hearing from “someone inside” Servisair, one of the companies that handles de-icing, that there were improprieties in the hiring process, they had one of their people go under cover and apply for a job.

As you might have guessed, it hasn’t turned out well. The first part included links to videos showing the examiners feeding all the answers to the applicants so that they could pass each airline’s test. Hmm, that doesn’t sound good. There were also other violations discussed in part 2.

Clearly, this is a bad thing. When you’re de-icing, you get up close to aircraft and you have access to the secure part of the airfield, so there needs to be a great deal of training involved. But is it a danger to the aircraft that get de-iced?

It could be. A report from 1993 (yes it’s old) recommended that pilots always double check the wings after de-icing to make sure that they’re clean. The report said that there were cases where pilots did not do that, leading them to depart with some wing contamination. So, if the de-icing crew is not as well-versed in de-icing as they need to be and the pilots don’t check the wings themselves, there could be problems.

This report was in 1993, and I would hope there have been changes since that time, but I don’t know for sure. Any pilots out there who can speak to this?

The company says this is not policy (duh), but I wonder how long this has been going on. Looking back, I couldn’t find a de-icing accident at Denver since a Continental DC-9 crashed on takeoff in November 1987. So even if this has been going on for up to 20 years, it hasn’t caused any de-icing problems in that time. Still, it doesn’t exactly sit well.

No.

Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. It’s once again been a little while since we checked in with our favorite incompetent airline, Alitalia. I hadn’t planned on doing a post on Alitalia today, but I was reading a post in Leif Pettersen’s excellent travel blog Killing Batteries that started out like this:

F*cking Italy!!!
OK, OK… Let’s just calm down and try to discuss this like rational, levelheaded F*CKING ITALY!!!!!

Naturally, that made me think it was time for another post on that airline I love to hate.
So, what IS new with these guys?

Not much. The airline continues to bleed money while others are generating loads of cash. They just continue to be the laughing stock of the European industry. (And let’s remember, they have an airline in Europe called Wizz Air so Alitalia has to be bad to wrest the laughing stock title away.) The government is still trying to sell the airline. After the last privatization attempt failed, they went back to the drawing board. I’m pretty sure what they wrote on the board was, “Must privatize airline” and then decided to try it again. Now, they’ve asked for non-binding declaration of interest from potential suitors. It was supposed to be due on Nov 30, but surprise! We found out yesterday that it slipped until Dec 5. But don’t worry. Italy’s transport minister said it won’t slip into 2008. Uh huh.

So which masochists are involved this time around? Italy’s Air One is still in the running. They’ve been the only one to show consistent interest in trying to save this mess. But now, the other two showing interest according to “government officials” are Lufthansa and Air France.

Air France has been rumored for a long time but they’ve really never shown a formal interest. Italian workers would certainly feel at home with the strike-loving French, but they might be frightened away by an airline that actually makes money.

Lufthansa, on the other hand, hasn’t been mentioned very much. This would surely see Alitalia defect into the Star Alliance. Hmm, something about German (Lufthansa), Italian (Alitalia), and Japanese (ANA) interests uniting in an alliance makes me a bit uncomfortable . . . .

Anyway, they keep saying this will be done by Christmas. Who wants to take bets?

It seems like we see new airline surveys and lists every other week. Which airline is best? Which has the highest quality? Which treats their customers best? The media may love to talk about these things, but you know what? They really aren’t worth much at all in my eyes.

Let’s take a look at the recently released Zagat Survey (.pdf) to illustrate my point. We’ll just focus on the domestic airline results for now, since that’s what’s been getting the most press. First, what do we know about the people who took the survey? Not much. From the survey itself, we know they talked to 7,498 frequent fliers and travel professionals (how they define a frequent flier or travel professional, I don’t know). Of those, 40% are women and 60% men. Only 8% are in their 20s, 22% in their 30s, 23% in their 40s, 26% in their 50s, and 21% age 60 or higher.

That’s all we know. I was happy when the company’s PR firm contacted me trying to sell the story, because I figured I could get some more info on how they actually came to these conclusions. Sadly they refused to provide any info above and beyond what’s already published in the survey. Without this information, I find the survey to be mostly unhelpful. Here’s why.

1. Let’s look at the top of the list, since that’s where most of the attention is focused. In the Premium Cabin, Virgin America was #1 and they were tied for #2 in Coach. Whoa, that immediately throws up a red flag. The airline started in August and only recently added its fifth city. How many of those 7,498 could have even had the opportunity to fly Virgin America? We’ll never know since Zagat won’t say, but it can’t be that many. And if it is that many, then this is hardly a random sample. Hmmm.




2. In Coach, Midwest Airlines was the big winner. These guys have historically finished at the top of the pack in most surveys, but the airline really has multiple personalities. There’s the traditional (called “Signature”) Midwest experience which has wide leather seats (four across instead of the usual five). That is what generally gets rave reviews. But then there is the ever-growing “Saver” service that the airline provides which has the usual five across seating. It’s now going to be the largest cabin on all planes with Signature service being only several rows at the front of the plane. So in a way, the traditional Midwest model should be considered Premium now. How many of those taking the survey were in Saver and how many were in the original Signature seat? It’s a very different product that should be rated differently, but it isn’t.




3. And how about Frontier? They get high marks for comfort, but their comfort is changing. The airline will be adding rows of seats to its planes, trimming the seat pitch and probably ending up with a less comfortable product. Even though this was announced long ago, it probably isn’t reflected in these rankings. How many people experienced the new tighter pitch? We don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter. Comfort will be going down.




4. Then there’s the “food” rating. What exactly do people use to rate their impression of food? Midwest got highest marks but you have to pay for it on them. Continental came in a distant fourth, but it’s included for free when you fly them. Some travelers may find that the cost is more important than the actual taste, but a survey won’t give you that information.




5. Let’s also look at the opposite end of the spectrum. US Airways didn’t fare well at all in this survey, and that’s to be expected. They’ve had some well-publicized operational issues this year, but again we’re talking about a tale of two airlines here. The old US Airways passengers (primarily east coast) were used to a higher level of service that the new US Airways is not trying to maintain. Those people are unhappy with a lot of the changes that they’re seeing so they’re probably going to rank the airline much worse. Out in the west, I would bet that the US Airways passengers are happier (or less unhappy) because they’re used to the America West standard of service which is being rolled out throughout the operation. They’re probably getting closer to what they’d expect so ratings should be higher. Of course, we can’t get geographic breakdowns from Zagat so I can’t prove this at all.

So, as you can tell, airline ratings boil something down to a nice media snippet, but they don’t tell enough of the story to be very helpful. While the media will continue to eat up surveys and lists like this, we should all know better than to trust a single one of them. Every person has very different views on what makes a good airline, and only more in-depth personal research can determine what is right for you.