Though I obviously like it better when my fiancée is here in town, it seems to be much better for my blog when she’s traveling. Last time, it was the infamous United dinner roll debacle. This time, there was gum all over the tray table and the seatback pocket. Yep, it was United, and they still haven’t figured out how to clean their planes. But I’m in a good mood, so let’s focus on something positive.

When she went to check-in online last night for her flight today, she was shown this message:


I don’t know how long United has been doing this, but it’s a great idea. Think about it. When you’re already through security, sitting at the gate, you really don’t want to give up your seat. But in the past, that’s the only place they’ve tried to get volunteers when the flight is oversold.

Now think about when you’re sitting at home, the day before your flight. There’s a much better chance you’d be willing to just go on a later flight in exchange for a free ticket if you didn’t have to deal with the airport experience at all until your new flight time. It’s a win-win in most situations, but not all.

I assume United only wants to use this on flights that are significantly oversold. See, if it’s only oversold by a couple of seats, there’s a good chance there will be enough no-shows that they won’t need volunteers at all. So, if they take volunteers that far in advance, it may end up just being an unnecessary cost for the airline. Still, I would think that the customer service benefits and the ability to get more volunteers would make this worthwhile. Nice work, United.

CORRECTION 11/12 @ 920p: Thank you AS and Jonathan Reed (look down in the comments section), for pointing out that I completely misinterpreted this one. This just puts you on the list and you still have to go to your original gate and wait. So, it’s helpful for United, but it does just about nothing for the passengers. Bummer.

BlogWorld was a success for me. I’m going to be making some changes on the site over the next few weeks that I think will benefit all of you, my readers. But first I need to sift through all the different things I learned. As they say, watch this space.

Since I flew Southwest out to the conference, I thought I would fly the other blog-loving airline home – Delta. They’ve been developing their LAX hub with a bunch of RJs, but I was surprised to see they had a 737 flying from Vegas to LAX at just the right time. Giddyup.

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November 9, 2007
Delta #741 Lv Las Vegas (LAS) 625p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 739p
LAS: Gate D40, Runway 25R, Dept :01E
LAX: Gate 50B, Runway 25L, Arr :02L
Aircraft: N3763D, Boeing 737-800, Wavy Gravy Colors, ~95% full
Flight Time: 48m

After my last bad experience flying Delta out of Las Vegas (it’s a long story), I wanted to make sure I was checked in on-time and ready to go. I went on my phone to check-in and had no trouble at all, though I couldn’t see an option to change my seat. When I arrived at the convention center that morning, I was happy to see they had a check-in kiosk that I could use to actually print my boarding pass. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Every time I started, it would just tell me to go see an agent. Riiiiight. Lots of agents at the convention center.

I darted out of the last session at the conference and walked in to the airport at 530p. As you might expect on a Friday, there weren’t too many people in line to leave Vegas. I checked in easily. Security, however, was a different story. The D gates had one line open for the masses and one for the elites. It wasn’t moving. So they started pulling people out into the secondary screening line that had the “puffer” equipment. I jumped at the chance to get out of the main line and made it through in 12 minutes.

I arrived at the gate a few minutes before boarding and everything was on time. When I boarded, I did a quick flip of my head to see if I could catch the registration number over the door (yes, I’m a dork who keeps track of that), but it wasn’t there. The flight attendant saw me and asked if he could help me find something. I told him I was looking for the registration, and he offered to let me go up to the cockpit to find out. Very cool.

Once finished with that, I headed back to my seat. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), this wasn’t the one 737 that has been refitted with in seat video. I took my window seat in the back and looked around to see a nearly full plane. I was surprised how full it was, but I heard a handful of people talking about how they were connecting to New York through LAX. This must have been the cheap option.

We pushed back on time and during the taxi out, someone’s text message alert went off. Two seconds later, the flight attendant gets on the horn and says with her friendly yet stern southern drawl, “Whoever just received a text message on your Nokia phone, you’ll need to turn that off.” Needless to say, we didn’t hear another text message come in after that.

We took off, and headed toward LAX. I was very happy to see that they had airshow on for the entire flight so I could watch our quick progress. The seat belt sign stayed on the whole time since it was a little bumpy, but the flight attendants did a quick service with peanuts and a mini bottle of water. I love the mini bottle because you can stick it in the seatback pocket, and the flight attendants won’t force you to give it to them when they clean up.

Soon, it was time to land and we taxied in to our gate. Overall, Delta did a great job on this short hop. The flight attendants were great, very friendly, and surprisingly attentive. It was the end of their day, so I wouldn’t have expected to see such enthusiasm. Nice work, Delta.

As I mentioned briefly, I flew to Vegas yesterday morning on one of the first five flights out of LAX using the new Bingo Seating boarding process. Since I’m actually attending the BlogWorld Expo conference, I figured, hey, why not actually BLOG while I’m here. (And by the way, if anyone else is here, send me a note and I’d be happy to meet up before I head home today.)

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November 8, 2007
Southwest #1669 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 625a Arr Las Vegas (LAS) 730a
LAX: Gate 14, Runway 24L, Dept :01L
LAS: Gate C18, Runway 25L, Arr :04E
Aircraft: N425LV, Boeing 737-700, Canyon Blue Colors, ~70% full
Flight Time: 48m

I was out my door by 5a and at the terminal by 530a. Unfortunately, the lines were long, and I headed outside to wait. It ended up taking 20 minutes, less than I would have guessed. That may be partially because they’ve opened another few lines of security. To get there, you walk up some stairs to the mezzanine level and it pops you out right near gate 1. It may not be ideal, but it’s better than not having the lines.

I was at gate 14 at the end of the concourse, and I walked by a huge balloon ad (at left) for the new SFO service (which they’ve already decided to increase in size by 50% to 12 daily flights). Further down the concourse, I found that they are FINALLY renovating the restrooms at the end of the concourse. Those disgusting, awkwardly shaped bathrooms have had it coming for a long time.

Finally at my gate, I looked around and saw a handful of lettered and numbered poles sticking up and one very confused looking guy trying to figure out where to stand in line (at right).Nothing else was different except that they had moved the chairs around to accommodate the new lineup. That didn’t seem right, so I went up to the empty podium and asked the supervisor at the gate how things were going. She said they were just getting underway but so far so good. I asked about the shabby appearance and she said that it all had to do with airport approvals. The approval for the permanent boarding markers came Monday and they’re still waiting for the new seats with powerports and kids play area to be approved. I don’t have anything else to back up that claim, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to see LAWA acting so slowly.

By the time we were done talking, I turned around to see people milling about. Part of that was because there were no seats left now that everyone wants to sit down (big problem). But the other part is that there were still some people wandering around aimlessly looking for their usual A, B, and C lines. The gate agents weren’t doing a great job of informing people either. There were no announcements about what was happening before boarding.

So at that point, I took a seat. When they decided to board, they did so with no waring. All of a sudden, I hear, “Ok, A 1-30 can now board.” Uh, what? I was A26 and I had been sitting down, just like half the other people. So people jumped up and came at the door from all different areas. As we walked on, I asked, “Did you call for A people to line up?” She said, “No, we don’t need to line up anymore.” If this is how it’s going to be, it’s actually worse. I think that she just needs to be taught that she needs to call the A people to line up a minute before she actually boards them.

Once onboard, there wasn’t much to say. It was my favorite kind of day to fly. There was a low marine layer that made it gloomy on the ground. But a couple minutes after we blasted off, we were through it and into the morning sun. The picture below was the view out my window as we came back over the coast on the way toward Vegas.

They handed out oj and water, but I had my own so I passed. I tried to sleep a little, but the guy next to me was pretty talkative for it being so early in the morning. Fortunately, it was a short flight, and we had a nice tour of Vegas before looping back around to land toward the west.

The conference itself has been fun so far. You get a great mix of people from the fertility doctor I met who just started blogging to the big corporate blogs of the world. Is there an airline tie here? Well, yes. Southwest has signed up as the official airline sponsor, and I think that’s a very smart move. They’re reaching out to a demographic that is being ignored by many others. I stopped by their booth to munch on some honey roasted peanuts and get airline-dorky with them. At left you’ll see SWA bloggers Brian Lusk and Paula Berg waving to the camera.

On Monday, I’ll have the return report.

Today was a big day for Southwest Airlines as they rolled out a bunch of changes to the core parts of their business. I’ll get into each one of them, but overall I like what they’ve done. No point in getting into details overall, so let’s dive right in.

They made five big changes today. Two of them, the new boarding process and the redesigned gate areas, were already announced before so I won’t get into details. They are, however, rolling out the new boarding today everywhere. (I’m actually flying them this morning to Vegas, so I will let you know how it goes.)

The other three changes were the details we’ve been waiting for regarding their long-awaited attempt to woo the business traveler. You can read about them on their website, in their blog, or in their press release. But I’d recommend just reading my summary below and then visiting the website for the best information.

Simplified Fare Choices and Business Select

Let’s start with the ones that will likely impact the largest number of people, the new “Simplified Fare Choices” and “Business Select” options. If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably recognize this image:

This is the standard Southwest fare interface on their website. They have the “Refundable Anytime” fare (also known as the YL for fare basis junkies). Then everything else to the right has a variety of advance purchases and limits on availability. You can see how each flight stands in terms of availability. Now, here’s the new interface:

Pretty spartan, huh?

Now, “Refundable Anytime” becomes “Business.” It’s still refundable and changeable and all that good stuff, but it will no longer be the highest fare. That is reserved for the new “Business Select” fare which will be a bit higher (not sure exactly what that means yet). The difference here is that you’ll get a free drink (big deal), an automatic A boarding pass (that really IS a big deal), and more frequent flier credit (a nice bonus). While other fares get 1 credit per flight, these customers will get 1.25 for a flight under 750 miles and 2 for a flight over 750 miles. If it is truly a $10 to $30 bump, I’d say it’s worth it.

That’s a good way to get more revenue out of their passengers while still providing a good value. I like it, even if the name is lame.

But then we have the other end of the spectrum. Now, all those fare classes that were separated out will be bundled up into one “Wanna Get Away” fare class. It’s not that those fares are going away, they’re just becoming more opaque, more like a legacy airline display. This category will show you the lowest fare available in that class. But what if I’m right at 14 days in advance and want to know what it will be if I wait a day? Sorry, no dice. You can’t find it out, I’d assume. I’ll know for sure once I can test it out live.

This is the one thing they’ve done that I really don’t like. It makes the booking process more opaque and that’s not a good thing. It’s not like they’re making their fare structure less complicated. They’re just showing you less of it. It’s like they say on their website, “We’ve done the shopping for you. . . .” But I don’t want them to do the shopping for me. I want to see all my options.

Rapid Rewards Changes

The last piece of the puzzle here involves changes to the Rapid Rewards program. Most interesting is the creation of the new A-List. If you fly 32 flights in a 12 month period (and yes, you have to fly each one, no double credits or anything like that), then you will automatically get an A boarding pass on every flight during the next 12 months, even if it’s on a Rapid Rewards free ticket. They’ve basically created an elite level for their frequent flier program. In theory I like it, but on heavy business travel routes, it’s possible that there could be so many A-Listers (or people buying Business Select) that even someone who checks in 24 hours in advance could end up with a B boarding pass. That would be a bummer, but I guess you get what you pay for.

The other change to the program is the addition of Freedom Awards. You may remember that before recent times, each free ticket could be used for any seat on any flight except on a handful of blackout dates around peak holiday times. Then they changed the program to be more like those of other airlines. The blackout dates went away, but you couldn’t use the awards for every seat anymore. They became capacity-controlled.

Well, now the (mostly) unrestricted award is back as the Freedom Award. The difference is that it costs you twice as much as it did in the good old days. Now you can convert two standard awards into a Freedom Award which you can use any day except around Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is pretty much how legacy carrier programs operate. I have to say, it’s nice to have that option. There are frequent fliers out there who cannot use their awards fast enough, so for them this will be most helpful, especially if they’re trying to fly during a busy time.

As you can see, these changes are all focused on improving the experience of the business traveler. I realize Southwest had to figure out a way to improve their revenues, keep business travelers happy, and not drive the core leisure travelers away from the airline. I think what they’ve done is about as close as they can get to achieving those goals.

They’ve kept the core of the airline the same. There is still only one class of service onboard, there is still open seating, and there are still no change fees. To me, that’s the heart of the matter. As a more infrequent, generally price-sensitive Southwest flier, the only thing I don’t like is that there will be a bunch of A boarding passes ahead of me no matter what I do. We’ll see how much of a problem that becomes. If it makes getting a good seat just about impossible, then I will most likely start flying someone else. But if that’s not the case, then I won’t change a thing.

It’s been awhile since my last airline interview, so I’m happy to have another one to post. I started talking to ExpressJet about doing an interview a couple of months back, but I was only able to get enough information to justify a post recently.

See, they’re being quite guarded with their information these days, as you may have heard. I sent off a variety of questions and when I heard back from spokesperson Kristy Nicholas, most of them were answered with a “no comment” type of response. I did follow up with a phone conversation this week that gave me some more info, and that’s why I’m posting now.

For customers of the airline, there wasn’t too much to take from this exchange. A couple questions, however, did give a little insight.

Cranky: Your branded operation load factor ended up at 63.8% in August. That’s excellent growth from the first days of the operation, but it helped that it was the summer season. How are forward bookings looking through the Fall?

ExpressJet: We released traffic statistics on Thursday, October 11th that showed a decrease in branded flying load factor for September. However, we have recently implemented some system solutions that should enable travel agents more flexibility when booking ExpressJet. We are currently doing road shows in each city to educate them on these updates. We believe that these improvements will help generate a larger percentage of travel agent bookings in the fourth quarter.

As you can see, there was a lag between the time I asked the question and the time it was answered, so I hadn’t see October traffic numbers or 3rd quarter earnings when I asked the question. I think it’s interesting to see that they’ve really put a priority on marketing to the travel agent to get more bookings. That’s certainly different from what other carriers have done, and I tend to think this is a smart move for them. On less traveled routes like these, the travel agent community will probably be the most effective way to get the word out about their service. It may cost a bit more to acquire that traffic, but it’s worth it. So, if you use a travel agent, you might actually hear them mention ExpressJet’s name.

Cranky: After an initial burst of print and radio advertising, you’ve been relatively quiet, at least in the LA area. Can you talk about your current marketing strategy?

ExpressJet: We were busy developing our fall campaign that launched on October 9th. It includes radio, print and outdoor ads with catchy tag lines, including “get over stopovers”. The ads focus is our destinations and differentiating onboard product offerings, such as “no middle seats”, food and complimentary XM Satellite Radio®. Ultimately the message of the ads will remain the same – ExpressJet offers travelers time savings, comfort and convenience.

I also asked what sort of enhancements we’d see in their frequent flier program in the near future. It seems to me that they need to find some airline partners to make their program relevant in the world. It would be even better if they could get someone like to Continental to allow ExpressJet customers to earn OnePass miles. They weren’t able to give me any new information in that direction, but they say they are working on it.

Cranky: Lastly, it seems that participation in other frequent flier programs might help improve your ability to attract customers. Are there any plans to allow people to earn miles in other programs while flying ExpressJet?
ExpressJet: We are working on adding partners to our JetSet™ program and recently announced a Joy Ride Sweepstakes with Budget. We will continue to look for opportunities to offer travelers more choices that will make travel more convenient.

Other than that, most of our conversation revolved around the airline trying to petition the DOT to keep their traffic information private. I first asked this:

Cranky: On the flip side, what routes have surprised you by performing better than expectations?

ExpressJet: We don’t provide specific route information for competitive reasons and, as I’m sure you
know, we are in the process of requesting confidential treatment from the Department of Transportation to protect this information. So, probably prudent for me to stay “mum” on your question.

That led me down the road trying to find out more about this request, and that’s what my followup phone conversation was about. As Kristy noted during our conversation, this request is “unprecedented.” So far, the request has been turned down, but they are in an appeals process.

I couldn’t understand how they could make an argument that their data should be kept private when nobody else has that luxury. So, I asked them about their rationale here.

Kristy said that they wanted to keep the data private for “12 to 18 months” from the time they started up in order to “give time to develop the markets.” But that’s what every airline would want and nobody gets it, so why are they different?

Well, they say that their business strategy has been to “stay out of [other airlines'] hubs” and they are going into markets that have not interested other airlines in the past. She also pointed out that they had to start up all their new routes at once since they already had the airplanes, and that is not how they would have liked to do it. My interpretation of this is that they expect it to take longer for the routes to mature than normal and they don’t want competitors to see what routes are working for them just yet.

If I take this a step further (again, these are my thoughts only and NOT ExpressJet’s), they think that competitors will cherry pick the best routes and start flying them themselves. That would likely eventually drive ExpressJet out of the market, so they need time to build a strong enough brand that they could survive the onslaught.

I have to admit, I’m not surprised this has yet to sway the DOT. Nobody likes to share their data, but everybody likes to get the benefit of seeing data from other airlines. I can’t see how ExpressJet is going to get away with not participating just like everyone else.

The rest of the interview was more of the “no comment” types of answers I mentioned earlier, so I won’t bore you with it. Instead I’ll bore you with more of my thoughts.

Personally, I still like what they’re doing here as an airline. Some of these routes are going to work, but it does take time to figure out which ones those will be. We’ve seen some tweaking of the schedule already with Louisville and Corpus Christi disappearing and my home airport Long Beach, Reno, and Santa Barbara starting up. I can’t imagine they figured all these routes would work, and now is the time to start tweaking it. I just hope their shareholders either give them more time to make it work or they decide to go private.

I still don’t understand those people who compare this airline to Independence Air. They are so far from being alike, it’s ridiculous. Independence took their entire fleet and put it into a major airline hub in direction competition with that airline. They had ultra-frequent flights on routes that couldn’t support it, and they collapsed under their own weight.

ExpressJet has taken 42 planes, only 15% of its fleet, and put them into markets that have no nonstop competition. Most of the rest of the fleet is happily paying for itself with Continental. In addition, they are going with a low frequency model. I never thought Independence had a chance, but as I said, I still think ExpressJet is on to something here.