So the Cranky Flier is off on some boondoggle. But rather than give you, his loyal readers, a few days off from his pearls of wisdom on the aviation industry, he called on some of his few friends to fill in as guest bloggers. In my day job, I’m the editrix of Aviation Week’s Towers and Tarmacs blog, covering the wild, wonderful world of airports.

So of course, I’m going to write about what I know best. My sister is a police officer on the West Coast. She really loves her job, and is addicted to all shows law enforcement. But she recently started watching the A&E cable show “Airline,” which covers Southwest Airlines in its larger airports. Sister couldn’t believe how ridiculous people act in airports, and I had to tell her that even in these post-9/11, tight security times, bad behavior still abounds.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) web site is a virtual gold mine of things that screeners catch in passengers’ bags, including guns, a belt buckle knife, a torch lighter, fireworks and assorted drugs. I am amazed that people still try and bring guns through security – or conveniently “forget” that the gun is in there in the first place. And I could write a separate blog just on the escapades of celebrity “incidents” at airports. But let’s just look at a few examples of exactly what’s been going on at airports around the world.

Drugs and rampers don’t mix. How many times have I written about airport and airline ramp employees being caught smuggling drugs, guns and illegal goods, taking advantage of their positions? Our friends at the Gadling blog tell us about 4 baggage handlers at Madrid Barajas Airport who worked with “loaders” to smuggle cocaine into the country.

Get to the airport earlier next time. Next we have an article from the New York Daily News. Rosalinda Baez, described as an executive earning $190,000 a year as a consultant for Dell with homes in Manhattan and Texas, was arrested after she was denied boarding on a JetBlue flight after the jetway was closed. Instead of just waiting for the next flight or making arrangements, Baez instead decided to get the plane to come back by asking what the gate agent would do if there was a bomb in her suitcase, which was on the aircraft she missed. She also raged against TSA and its policies. She was questioned and arrested by the FBI. She was released on $200,000 bond and is banned from flying JetBlue until the matter is resolved.

Drinking and airplanes don’t mix. Boston TV station general manager Randi Goldklank must have been drinking the same water as Baez, because she had her own incident at Logan airport. According to the Boston Globe, Goldklank came off a Delta Air Lines flight smelling of alcohol and was screaming and causing a disturbance at the gate. Airport police were called to try and calm her down. But instead she struck an officer, said she was a “big shot” that would have all the police officers’ jobs. Goldklank was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer, and was placed on leave from the television station.

Snoop Dogg is vindicated. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, Snoop has had his issues at airports. Back in 2006, Snoop and his “posse” were in a brawl in British Airways’ first class lounge at Heathrow (which I’ve been in – sweet) after employees asked some of them to leave. The dust-up caused the rapper to be banned from BA and the government to reject his visa into the UK. But a UK judge has ruled that Snoop can get a visa, since the fight was “precipitated by decisions made by BA staff and police,” according to the Times. The judge said he couldn’t find any evidence that Snoop had even been responsible for the brawl, agreeing with a ruling made by an immigration judge back in January. All’s well that ends well.

And speaking to Heathrow and ending well, I thought I’d end this post with this YouTube link. It’s a hilarious song about the disaster that is the new Terminal 5. Enjoy, and pop over to see me at the Towers and Tarmacs blog anytime!

There were a couple of interesting things to come out of Alaska Air Group’s first quarter earnings last week. The most interesting item? Horizon will drop all of its 20 CRJ-700 aircraft in the next 2 years. That combined with the previously announced ditching of the smaller Q200 aircraft means that the airline will only operate 48 of the 76-seat Q400s. That’s a major downscaling of the airline, but Horizon expects to be able to shrink its workforce through attrition.

It’s a very interesting move for an airline that serves some pretty long routes. What about some of those longer flights that the CR7 flew? Flights like LAX to Portland and Santa Barbara to Seattle? Assuming that’s too far for the Q400 to fly (is that even a fair assumption?), the smallest plane in the Alaska fleet will be the 737-700 which seats 124. Can they justify putting that much more capacity on some of these routes? I’m not sure.

Questions at the other end of the spectrum arose when Horizon decided to ditch its smaller Q200 aircraft. Can Wenatchee, Lewiston, and Pendleton really support flights on planes that seat 76 people? I’d be surprised. I sense some big route changes coming as they rationalize the fleet.

Meanwhile, big brother Alaska has also announced a variety of fee changes that are bound to annoy travelers, no matter how necessary they are.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air plan to raise certain fees to better align them with the current costs of providing added services. These include increasing the charge for booking through reservations and airport sales agents from $10 to $15, raising the fee for overweight baggage from $25 to $50, increasing the charge for transporting pets in the cabin from $75 to $100 one-way, and raising the unaccompanied minor fee from $30 to $75 for one-way nonstop flights and from $60 to $75 for connecting flights. The increases are effective May 21, 2008. By summer, the airlines also will begin charging $25 for a second checked bag. First class and top-tier Mileage Plan members and customers on flights within the state of Alaska will be exempt from the new fee.

That’s a lot of change, but I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures.

An interesting little merger attempt popped up on Friday that, as Holly Hegeman says, looks like a squeeze play. SkyWest has announced that it wants to buy ExpressJet for $3.50 a share.

The airline was hovering just over the $2 a share mark before the announcement, so this is a nice little premium. ExpressJet, however, thinks it’s worth more than that and has turned the offer down. It got more interesting on Friday afternoon when it came out that Continental is also behind this thing.

Continental hasn’t been happy with the relatively hight costs of the ExpressJet contract, and it has apparently told ExpressJet that it will remove 51 of the aircraft under contract beginning in December 2009. At the same time, it went and cut a deal with SkyWest on a broad new deal that will only go into effect if the takeover occurs. So, SkyWest buys ExpressJet and offers to fly for Continental for less. Continental tells ExpressJet that they either do it or they’re going to start walking. Wow, it sucks to be ExpressJet.

I have to think that if SkyWest wins, the ExpressJet standalone operation will probably be toast. That’s really too bad, since I’ve always thought it was a good idea. But with oil where it is right now, those 50 seat jets (and really, any plane in general) don’t look very good anywhere. And SkyWest probably will want to remain focused on the feeder operation, I’d think.

But why does SkyWest want a bunch more 50 seaters? No matter what the reason, I’m sure the ExpressJet guys are feeling very, very somber right now.

Those of you who have been reading Cranky for awhile will remember back in October I asked which airline I should fly to Peru for a trip in the seemingly distant future. Well guess what? It’s time for that trip.

A whopping 59% of you said you’d opt for the LAN nonstop from LAX to Lima, and I have of course decided to listen to you. So, my fiancee and I head out this weekend for a week and a half of relaxation down there.

There’s good news and bad news, of course. The bad news is that I’m not even going to bring a computer with me. That means that when crazy news breaks, I won’t be able to talk about it until I return. Will US Airways buy Aeroflot? Maybe Alitalia will turn around and takeover BA. Could there be a brand new ATC system up and running in the US by the time I return in a couple weeks?. The possibilities are endless, but I won’t write about it while I’m away.

The good news is that I’ve got a full slate of posts ready for you while I’m gone. Some of them are my own, but I’ve also got some guest spots from one or two industry people that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

Now, the other bad news is that comments on this blog are moderated, and I won’t be around to moderate them. I may have some people checking in to approve them, but if not, I promise to approve if I find an internet cafe. At the very least, they’ll be approved when I return.

So, enjoy the next couple weeks. I’ll have a full trip report when I get back.

Poor Frontier. When they look out their windows, they must see Canyon Blue-colored vultures circling the premises. There’s no question that Southwest is going in for the kill. This week, Southwest said it would once again pump up its Denver flying.

First, here are the details. On June 4, Southwest will add an eighth daily nonstop between Denver and Vegas. The airline will also start twice daily service between Denver and both Portland and Indianapolis. On August 23, San Antonio gets a second flight from Denver.

The Southwest route map from Denver is starting to look quite similar to the Frontier map. Really, the big cities are mostly covered and now Southwest is getting into the secondary ones. To compound the problem, Frontier also announced this week that it would be terminating its contract with Republic to do some regional flying for them. That means they will no longer serve Missoula, Sioux City, Jacksonville, Little Rock, Tulsa, and former mini-hub Memphis. None of those are cities to which Southwest flies nonstop from Denver, so that means Frontier will only have even MORE exposure to the airline. The Republic service must have been an unbelievably poor performer for Frontier to want to ditch it that quickly.

This effectively leaves Lynx and its small fleet of Q400s (they launched Durango the same day this Southwest release came out) to keep the airline away from Southwest, but that’s not going to really cut it. Sadly, Frontier’s time may be up soon.

The airline is in bankruptcy, very low on cash, and looking for funding. With Southwest moving in heavily on Frontier’s only stronghold, I think it’s going to be tough to find someone willing to pour money into the airline. It’s sad, because I really like flying Frontier, but I just don’t know how they can get out of this mess.

I know this happened last week, but I haven’t had the chance to write about it until now. The DOT announced that it was going to increase the compensation for passengers who are involuntarily denied boarding. Is this a big deal? Well it could be. It certainly won’t make Robert Stack and the other volunteer bumpees happy, because they’ll probably have fewer chances.

First of all, let me explain exactly what’s happening here. In the fourth quarter of last year, out of 138 million passengers, there were about 125,000 that were denied boarding (pdf - page 33). Of those, nearly 114,000 were voluntarily denied boarding. In other words, the flight was oversold, the airline offered compensation in exchange for someone taking a later flight, and it was a done deal. People who take advantage of that won’t see more money in their pocket.

It’s the slightly more than 11,000 people who were involuntarily denied boarding who will get more. Those people wanted to be on that flight, but the airline couldn’t get enough volunteers. So, they had to deny boarding to someone who wanted to be on that flight. In the past, these people received the remaining value of their ticket to their next stopover with a cap of $200 if they arrived at their destination within 2 hours (4 hours internationally) of their original arrival time. If it’s later than that, passengers were entitled to double the value of what remains on their ticket to the next stopover with a cap of $400. Those caps will now become $400 and $800. Also, the number of seats on planes covered by this rule was reduced from 60 to 30. I had no idea it was 60 before. I’ve seen plenty of 50-seaters go out while still paying the usual compensation, so I’m not sure if this will make much of a difference practically.

So will this matter? If you love volunteering, it probably will reduce your chances. Airlines consider the expected cost of a denied boarding in their overbooking decisions. Now that the cost has gone up, the willingness to overbook will go down. So, those who love getting bumped won’t be happy. On the other hand, the .008% of people who have had the terrible frustration of being bumped involuntarily will be happy-ish to receive more money. I say happy-ish because they won’t actually get to their destination any faster.

Ultimately, this is just a way to discourage the airlines from overbooking. It may work, but it will end up reducing revenues for the airlines. You can expect to see more fare increases to help cover the costs.

Edited @ 1149a on Apr 23: Changed compensation to note that the dollar amounts are caps, but the compensation is based on the value of the ticket.

It’s been awhile since I put up some good airplane porn, huh? Well, let’s break that streak. Southwest has a long history of painting airplanes to look like the state flags of its biggest operation locations. Texas, Arizona, and California, for example, have them, but there’s been a gaping hole for some time . . . Illinois.

So now they’ve painted a plane to look like the state flag of Illinois. Since Southwest took over ATA’s space at Chicago/Midway, they’ve really grown like a weed, so this seems appropriate. And speaking of weed . . .

Am I the only one thinks this Eagle looks like he’s got a pot leaf in one claw while he tears through someone’s artery with his beak? Ok, maybe I am the only one. Southwest’s PR team sent this to me, and I must admit that the eagle hanging out in front of the plane is a little intimidating.

In case you wondered what the Illinois state flag actually looks like . . .

Hmm, it definitely is a little easier to see what’s going on when you see the flag. That’s not an easy one to put on to a plane, but it’s a lot better than, oh, Maryland.

Back in early March, I decided it was time to fly Virgin America. Now you know that I’ve been critical of the airline, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to give them a try. So when I saw that fares up to San Francisco were running less than the price of a barrel of oil ($109 roundtrip each) for a planned trip up north, my fiancee and I decided to give them a shot. So what did I think? It was good. Regardless of whether I think there’s a place for them in the world or not, there’s no denying that it was a nice experience for the most part, but not entirely.

Unfortunately, the whole thing started off very poorly. On Thursday evening, I received this email:

Due to delays in the modification of our new planes, the inflight entertainment and select other in-seat services will not be available on your upcoming Virgin America flight. This includes the Red Inflight Entertainment system, which normally features satellite TV, movies, games, Google Maps and a food ordering system. In addition, the plugs at every seat for electronic gear will not be operational for the flight. Why are we sending you this message? We want you to be prepared to have your laptop or iPod fully charged, and ensure you have the latest magazines or newspapers to read while onboard your flight. We’ll do our best to provide some reading material onboard in case you forget.

Are you friggin’ kidding me?!? Not only are you telling me that it won’t be available, but you’re trying to show off exactly what I’ll be missing by describing it in detail. So not cool.

Even worse, the email didn’t say which flight was affected. It just referred to our confirmation number, and that’s annoying. Of course, I don’t care about all these bells and whistles on a one hour flight, but the point was to check out what they offered. If I didn’t get it on either flight, I was going to be really pissed.

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April 19, 2008
Virgin America #848 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 840a Arr San Francisco (SFO) 1000a
LAX: Gate 67B, Runway 24L, Dept :12L
SFO: Gate A1B, Runway 28R, Arr :31L
Aircraft: N628VA, Airbus A320-214, White/Red, ~67% Full
Seat: 11A
Flight Time: 1h15m

The drive to the airport was aggravating. No, there wasn’t any traffic on the 405. There were just three separate Virgin America billboards taunting me with the messages like “Everybody needs an outlet.” That is, unless you’re flying one of their dark planes that hasn’t been outfitted yet, I suppose. These guys spend so much on branding, you’d think that they’d at least try to deliver consistently.

Anyway, parking was easy, and the TSA only gave us a small hassle for having our boarding passes on the same sheet of paper. (Kudos to VX for not wasting a ton of paper printing a little boarding pass.) Soon enough we were at our gate.

The gate areas look really nice, and there was a smiling gate agent waiting to greet us. I asked if the flight was full. She looked and excitedly said, “wow, it’s really full today - booked 113 out of 149.” Um, that’s not really full for any other airline but this one.

They called for boarding, and maybe 20 people fell into the first four groups. Then they called our group and most other people got up. Strange. We made our way down the jet bridge and were greeted by the warm purplish glow of a strip club new airplane with mood lighting.

We grabbed our seats right behind the exit rows and found that this flight did, in fact, have everything working as it should. The seats are a nice looking black leather with a hard shell back in white. The white is not a good idea, because though this airplane wasn’t that old, there was a fair number of visible dirt and scratches on each seat back.

Each seat has a little cup holder that comes down from the back of the seat. I love that feature, but this one was flimsy, and one of the ones in our row was already broken off (as you can see in the picture).

After a short catering delay (catering? really?), we taxied around LAX (had to go all the way from Terminal 6 to the north runways), and then we headed up into the marine layer for a nice flight to SFO. The inflight entertainment system seems like it will be pretty nice when it’s built out, but there are a lot of options that are unavailable for now. My biggest complaint about it? It’s very slow to respond to commands. At least, mine was. Then again, everything was slow. The Google Maps display seemed to be a few minutes behind when showing our position, so it was somewhat frustrating. The system also crashed on me twice during the flight. I just had to wait it out until it reset itself and brought up the home screen again.

The flight attendants were all friendly and came through the cabin handing out drinks but nothing else. When I asked for water, they gave me a little bottle. Score! I know it’s not a big thing, but I really like the little water bottle because I can throw it into the seatback pocket and keep it with me through landing.

Speaking of the seat pocket . . . it’s weird. There’s a hard shell of a pocket meant for magazines and papers, etc. Then there’s a mesh pocket that sits outside of that where you can put anything bulkier. Unfortunately, that just takes away some of your legroom, because I didn’t need the hard pocket for anything, so my water bottle stuck out further than it needed to.

The legroom itself was fine for me. It wasn’t anything amazing, but it was better than Economy Minus on United by a good amount. For me, it was a non-issue, but I’m only 5′ 8″ tall.

Soon enough we were descending, but I wasn’t done playing with everything. Fortunately, the captain knew I needed more time and decided to circle around Monterey Bay for awhile. Ok, so maybe ATC made him circle since the winds were starting to back things up, but it was welcome. If you look at the flight path for this trip, you’d think the pilot was drunk. (I’m kidding, I’m kidding.) After circling, for those who know the Bay Area, we came up over Woodside before turning southeast to follow the Bay down toward San Jose. Then we turned around again and lined up for a landing over the Bay on the 28s. It was very strange.

After a fantastic 24 hours in the Bay Area full of lunch at the Elephant Bar in Burlingame, wine tasting, and then a Passover seder with friends (see the picture from their balcony), we turned around to come back home. We didn’t have a chance to print out a boarding pass beforehand, so we got to the airport and went straight to the kiosks.

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April 20, 2008
Virgin America #847 Lv San Francisco (SFO) 125p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 250p
SFO: Gate A1B, Runway 1L, Dept :03E
LAX: Gate 67A, Runway 24R, Arr :10E
Aircraft: N524VA, Airbus A319-112, White/Red, ~95% Full
Seat: 11F
Flight Time: 1h0m

The check-in area is one place that I think Virgin has done a really nice job. There are tables with flowers and screens on top of them that allow you to check in in a comfortable setting. We swiped a credit card to check in and it worked quickly. The boarding passes printed out one at a time through a small slot in the table. I’ve never seen a boarding pass this size before. It looks kind of like the size of the boarding pass that the gate agent keeps after giving you the stub. Since they just scan the pass, there’s no need for anything bigger. Again, nice way to save paper.

Virgin America flies out of the international terminal at SFO, so I was worried that the midday Asian flights would make for a long line at security. Fortunately, I was wrong, and we were through security quickly. Then we just waited.

It turns out that THIS was the dark plane we had been warned about. The gate agent said that this was the only aircraft that didn’t have the system outfitted and that it would be finished in July. I have to say, for an airline that focuses so much on its image, this is a really stupid move. They just started service to Seattle in the last month. Maybe they should have delayed that for a week so they could fix this plane up.

We boarded the plane and the first thing I noticed is that not only does it lack inflight entertainment, but it also has no bulkheads. What a strange sight to see an open galley with the row 1 passengers looking right at them. I asked a flight attendant about the plane, and he said that they isolate this to flying short haul routes along the west coast. If that’s true, it makes it better, but it’s still really inexcusable for these guys.

Before we pushed back, the pilot came out and grabbed the mike for a short chat on the PA system. He apologized for the inflight entertainment system being out and then proceeded to tell us about the flight. It was a very nice touch. I just wish I could have heard him better over the screaming college kids behind me.

We took off and turned southeast for the short trip back home. It was a very hazy day all over California, so I couldn’t see much. Without inflight entertainment, I had no idea what to do. Oh wait, yes I did. I read a magazine.

After the flight attendants handed out a granola bar and drinks, I decided to check out the lav. There was nothing special to see there except for a sticker advertising Method soap onboard.

It was only a few minutes before we started descending. Once we dropped down into the haze layer, we bounced, dipped, dropped, and porpoised our way into LAX. It was actually bouncy enough that I found myself getting nauseous and that’s a rare event on a plane.

Once on the ground, we taxied back to the terminal, and I asked the captain if we had been behind a heavy jet creating some wake. He said with a friendly smile that no, it was just rough air and he was kind of surprised himself. Oh well, no big deal. We grabbed our car and went home.

As I mentioned above, it was a very nice experience. The flight attendants were all very good, friendly, and attentive. I wouldn’t hesitate to fly them again, but I’m not sure I’d go out of my way either.

I know you guys have been champing at the bit, waiting for an update on the latest with Alitalia. I’ve actually been wanting to write about this for a little while, but I figured I’d wait until I went to last night’s launch party at LAX for the new LAX-Rome service. It was a surreal event; like hanging out on the Titanic while half the ship is already under water.

As for the event itself, it was a relatively nice and simple affair over at the always fantastic Flight Path Learning Center. The food and Peroni were good, and they handed out a few freebie tickets on the new LAX nonstop. I think the highlight was when Alitalia’s North America head said that the current situation made it seem like Alitalia should be on Jerry Springer. At least he has a sense of humor about it. I actually felt sorry for some of these guys. So what exactly is the latest?

When we left off last time, Alitalia had accepted the AF/KL bid and even the government had gotten behind it. But, they still needed to get the unions to back the bid. Um, that didn’t happen. And even worse, the Italian government fell apart. Without the approvals they needed, AF/KL walked away, but I’m sure they’d come back if all the other parties decided to stop acting like children.

In the election for the new government, Alitalia, the symbol of national pride (what a horrible symbol), was one of the top campaign issues. Silvio Berlusconi, the man that the Economist called “unfit to lead a modern democracy“, campaigned on the idea that he could prevent Alitalia from falling into non-Italian hands.

Sadly, he won.

So now, not only are the unions against AF/KL, but so is the government. Let’s be clear here. Berlusconi talks a big game. He’s said:

Many businesses, including big ones, have come forward to guarantee the necessary capital for a completely Italian team which, once it knows the accounts of Alitalia, will be able to present a bid.

Um, no. Or, somebody will come forward, but it won’t be even close to being as attractive of a bid as the one from AF/KL. Really, AF/KL is the only true hope for this company to survive, and Berlusconi is beating his chest, acting proud, and sounding like a complete idiot. Of course, he has to cave, but not until he can save some face. Just yesterday, he said:

As concerns the Air France hypothesis, if we went back to the initial project for Alitalia which gave the same weight to Alitalia as the other two airlines as well as being Italian orientated, I would be happy to discuss the possibility and once I take office I will speak about this subject with President Sarkozy.

See, he’s starting to change his tune. You know what’ll happen next. He’ll get a couple of concessions and then he’ll let AF/KL buy the airline. Then he’ll try and look like a hero even though he’s doing nothing good.

I guess I should be happy about this. When AF/KL is allowed to take them over, it’ll probably mean I’ll have to find another “Worst Airline Ever” to pick on. I’m just going to enjoy this for now.

Another day, another dollar . . . of ancillary revenue that US Airways is hoping to get out of you. While you’re likely to hear the usual chorus of “boo’s” from the peanut gallery, this isn’t really a bad move for the airline or for passengers.

Here’s the deal. Right now, US Airways blocks off exit rows as well as windows and aisles at the front of the plane for advance booking by elite customers only. Actually, most airlines do this. So what they’re going to do now is allow non-elites to pay to reserve the seats up front (but not the exit rows) at the time of check-in if they’d like. Pretty simple concept.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Right now, those elite seats open for anyone to book at 1201a on the day of departure. So, if you check-in online before midnight, this is just going to be an added bonus for you that you can pay to reserve the seats. If you check-in on the actual day of your departure, well, then you’re going to have to pay for what was once free.

How much? According to US Airways, it’s “per segment, lowest will be $5 and at least $30 on the high end, subject to change.” So would you ever pay for this? It’s unlikely that I would. I mean, if I’m traveling with a family and we can’t get seat assignments together, this will save a lot of the hassle of shifting around at the airport, but I don’t have kids, so this isn’t a big issue for me.

But that hardly makes it a bad idea. It’s all about paying extra for added value these days. If people think this is worthwhile, then they’ll pay for it. If not, well, then they won’t. My guess is that US Airways isn’t expecting a ton of revenue out of this, but assuming there was minimal tech work involved, even a handful of takers will make it a profitable move.