Yesterday, Alaska rolled out a “virtual assistant” named Jenn for its website, and you know what? She’s kind of hot.

The idea behind a virtual assistant is that instead of just searching through the help section when you have a question, you bring up the assistant’s window and ask her the question directly. She’s not a person at all but just a program that can respond to questions verbally and in writing, assuming the programmers have anticipated the questions you might ask.

I had a few questions of my own, so I decided to sit down with Jenn and have a chat in the latest “Across the Aisle” interview. (Yes, my fiancée knows about it.)

Cranky: Hey good lookin’ – what’s your name?
Jenn: My name is Jenn.

Cranky: Nice to meet you Jenn. I’m Brett.
Jenn: Thanks, I try!

Cranky: OK, that’s weird – how old are you?
Jenn: I am rather young, or as we say in the virtual world – new. But I like to think I have the experience of someone much older. How can I help you?


Cranky: Experience is good . . . hey, this isn’t one of those Dateline NBC exposés on child molesters, is it?
Jenn: Is your child traveling alone, or will they be accompanied by an adult?

Cranky: Not quite what I was asking, but oh well. So, what’s your job?
Jenn: I am a virtual assistant, here to help you navigate our Web site.

Cranky: Ah yes, so who do you work for?
Jenn: Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, along with a cutting edge company called NextIT, created me. I’m the first of my kind in the airline industry, here to help you quickly navigate our Web site, while answering your questions. What can I help you with?

Cranky: Interesting – tell me about this “Alaska Airlines”
Jenn: Good question. I’m not sure how to answer that. Please try rewording your question. I understand simple questions best.

Cranky: You’re pushy – what does Alaska Airlines do?
Jenn: I am not positive that I understand what you are asking. Please try rephrasing your question.

Cranky: Nevermind – where does Alaska fly?
Jenn: Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air offer a wide range of flight destinations. Browse this page to see where we fly.

Cranky: I’m more of a visual person. Do you have a route map?
Jenn: Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air serve more than 80 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. You can view or download the latest Alaska and Horizon route maps here.

Cranky: Mexico, nice – want to go to Cabo with me?
Jenn: Reservations can be made for up to 7 travelers and a maximum of 330 days in advance. I can answer general questions you may have while booking.

Cranky: Alright, let’s go to Cabo in April
Jenn: Please fill in the remaining fields to continue your search. Next time you shop, you can go directly to the available flights page by providing me with the cities you are traveling between, departure and return dates. For example: Seattle to Denver on May 4 and return May 10.

Cranky: Wait a second. Are you married?
Jenn: I am not married, but you never know what my inventors are working on now.

Cranky: Um, inventors? You’re not a Scientologist are you?
Jenn: We know that it is important for parents to have all the information when their child travels alone. As you go through the booking process for a child traveling alone, you will be presented with a contact information form that must be filled out for the child to travel. Additional information is provided on this page.

Cranky: Why do you keep talking about kids? That’s really a turn off.
Jenn: I know quite a bit about traveling with Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. What can I help you with?

Cranky: I get it. You won’t talk until we finish planning that Mexico trip. Next you’ll want me to pay you, huh?
Jenn: I would love to help you, but I am not sure I understand your question. Could you please rephrase that for me?

Cranky: Fine. How much do you charge?
Jenn: We have several types of fares available. The easiest way to view our fares is to enter the city pairs and dates you would like to travel, click “continue,” and you will receive a fare display based on the requested information. Here you can view fares and rules by clicking on the fare categories.

Cranky: This is really complicated. I bet you even have conditions of contract.
Jenn: Air transportation is subject to the Contract of Carriage. For more information, see this page.

Cranky: If you weren’t so hot, I would just walk away right now.
Jenn: I would love to help you, but I am not sure I understand your question. Could you please rephrase that for me?

Cranky: Arrrrrrgh, I give up. I’ll see you in Cabo in April.

So there you have it. Maybe not the most informative chat, but it was certainly one of the most entertaining for me.

Actually, if you ask questions related to Alaska Airlines, regardless of how NOT fun that is, you do seem to get pretty good answers. Go check her out for yourself.

It’s been in the planning stages for awhile, and now Delta has finally started to firm up details for the new BusinessElite (premium cabin) seats going forward. They had already announced they’d be using the Virgin Atlantic/Air New Zealand-style diagonal 6 foot, 3 inch beds (picture)for their brand new 777-200LRs, but they hadn’t said a word about the rest of the fleet.

Now we know that the 767-400s will have a completely different type of seat (picture), but it will still be flat. This one will be 77 inches (they can’t even standardize their units of measurement, that’s 6 foot, 5 inches.) But wait, there’s more.

The 757s will have a different seat still. These will be cradle seats that might be like the current BizElite seat. Confusing? Here’s a handy chart for you to keep in your pocket so you can figure out exactly what type of seat you might have.

Notice those question marks. They already have three different seat types planned for the fleet, but they still don’t know what they’re doing on the 767-300 and the regular 777-200. I thought it was interesting that they carefully worded the press release to say “Eventually, all of Delta’s international Boeing 767 aircraft will feature a full-flat seat.” Notice it says “a” full-flat seat, and not “this” full-flat seat.

With that in mind, I sent a note to a contact at Delta’s PR firm, and she promised to get a response for me quickly. She did, but it was pretty cryptic. “At this time, Delta is still evaluating all opportunities and suppliers to retrofit the rest of its international fleet with a full-flat seat product.”

There’s that “a full-flat” wording again. You’d think that with 3 different seat types already, they would have had plenty of opportunity to evaluate every seat under the sun, but I guess not.

Why are they doing this? Well, it’s probably all about how things fit on the plane. Each cabin has a different width and length, so they’re apparently going to pick the one that fits best on each fleet.

So as a Delta passenger, you do know that once this conversion is done, you can be assured of getting “a” fully flat seat in BizElite unless you’re on a 757. Got it?

The DOT Air Travel Consumer Report is out with December numbers, and US Airways landed the best on-time performance of all mainland carriers. (I always leave those Hawaiian carriers and their good weather out of the mix.) US Airways? Really?!? That may sound incredible, but there’s actually a lot more to this story.

How well did they do? They finished the month with 74.5% of flights arriving with 15 minutes of scheduled arrival time. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you see that the rest of the industry fell of a cliff.

Pretty ugly stuff, huh? US Airways did a very good job of holding their own here, but they really benefited from their hub locations. For once, the Northeast wasn’t the big problem, well, except for New York/LaGuardia which was terrible as usual. Really, Chicago/O’Hare, Minneapolis/St Paul, and Denver were the hardest hit by weather that month, and they took the biggest hit in on-time performance. It’s no coincidence that American (with a hub at O’Hare), Northwest (with a hub at Minneapolis), and United (with hubs at Denver and O’Hare) fell to the bottom of the pack and dragged the average down with them.

But let’s not completely take away the achievement by US Airways here. They’ve dramatically improved their on-time percentage against the industry over the last year. This next graph charts the difference between US Airways and the industry in a way that makes it easier to see how well they’ve actually done.

You can tell that February is where things really started to nosedive. It wasn’t until July or August that they were back in the same ballpark as the rest of the industry. But November and December actually had them finish above the average, and that’s something worth celebrating. Since they finished at the top, employees will each get a $50 bonus check. That’s enough to pay the hidden usairways.com booking fee on 10 whole tickets.

Seriously though, this is a nice trend to see. If they can keep this up (they’ve said January domestic numbers at at 79.5%) and get their baggage numbers in shape, maybe they’ll finally be able to pull out of the cellar of the complaints category.

If you live in one of the 22 states (and yes, American Samoa) voting today, step away from the computer and head to your polling place. My blog will still be here when you get back.

I went first thing this morning, and since we use Inkavote, I don’t have to worry about hanging chads or corruptable electronic voting machines. I just get to enjoy camping out in front of the TV tonight and watching the returns.

Time and time again, United has proven over the last few years that they really don’t want your business unless you fly a lot, and you want to use them every time. They’ve eliminated Economy Plus access to everyone but elite members of Mileage Plus. Not even elites of Star Alliance partner programs can get it anymore, nor can someone who pays a full fare to fly. The latest knock against non-elites involves a brand-spanking new $25 fee to check a second bag on domestic flights. Oh, where should we start on this one?

I suppose the good news here is that if you do buy an expensive refundable ticket, you may not get Economy Plus, but you won’t have to pay the fee for that second bag. Let’s be honest though, how many of those full fare business travelers are checking two bags anyway? Not many.

This is aimed squarely at the leisure traveler bringing presents home to grandma for the holidays. Or maybe it’s the college kid lugging his stuff out to school for the year. In other words, it’s the people who are likely price sensitive and pay in advance. For United, it’s just another possible revenue stream without any regard for the consequences of implementing such a fee. See, it’s not the $25 that bothers me but rather the added inconvenience that this brings. You can bet United wasn’t concerned about that.

Without question, this is going to make lines worse at the airport. Remember, it only applies to non-refundable fares. So now if you check a second bag, the already underpaid and overworked ticket counter agent will have to check to see what type of ticket you’re flying on in order to determine whether to charge you the fee or not. What’s the chance the airline has invested in automation to automatically make that call? I think it’s a safe bet to say that’s not happening. Turns out, it’s pretty good. United spokesperson Robin Urbanski says that yes, “the system will be automated to determine whether the fee applies to the ticket. This automation will be integrated into the system that the customer service representatives use and the check-in kiosks.” I’m pleasantly surprised. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but this is just going to create more work for someone who won’t get a single extra dime for doing it. You think they’re motivated to do it right or quickly?

So life goes on for the elite members of Mileage Plus who can sail through their own lines, but what about the non-elites like me? Why would I ever fly this airline? If the fares are the lowest, maybe, but I haven’t seen United at the low end of fares in a long time.

If I’m not an elite, this just pushes me further toward Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier, Continental or even Virgin America, because they aren’t going to make my life miserable as a second class citizen. Sure, other airlines are likely to match this, but those will the usual suspects like American, Northwest, and Delta (and yes, maybe Continental). You know how those lemmings are.

United is definitely leading the way here in making its overall customer offering one of the worst around . . . if you aren’t an elite. They’re making it clear that they have more seats than their elites can fill, so they need you to pay up until they can find more elites. How else would they fund their next shareholder dividend?

Edited 12/18 @ 826a to reflect that United will be automating the process.