I know I said I’d try to only put media mentions on my news page, but when the Queen, Benét Wilson, gives you 10 minutes with her on her podcast, how can you not put that up?

Benét and I have known each other for a long time, since our days living in Phoenix (she working at Mesa and I at America West). So, I’ll try not to hold it against her that she used just about the worst possible picture she could find for the podcast in which we talk about the recent airline schedule changes.

After listening to the piece myself, I had two thoughts:

1. I just kept talking and never shut up. I’m shocked Benét didn’t issue me a verbal beatdown to get me back in line.




2. Anyone else think I sound like Scott Weiland with his megaphone? And that was on a landline, sheesh.

Regular readers of the blog know that I’m not a fan of all these “Best of” surveys. That’s why I haven’t written about JD Power’s boring surveys or anything else like that. But, when a survey has an interesting angle, it certainly catches my eye. This includes a recent British survey showing Palmair as one of the top four airlines in the world. Who?

This year’s Which? Awards (out of the UK) features “the best companies and individuals that seek to serve the interests of consumers.” In the airline category, it’s not surprising to see Air New Zealand, Jet Airways, and Singapore Airlines (the eventual winner) make the list of finalists. But that fourth finalist? Palmair. They ended up tying with Air New Zealand for third place.

I must admit that I’ve never heard of these guys, so I thought I’d dig in a little more. The airline seems like an unlikely hero. Based in Bournemouth, on the Southern coast of England, Palmair has a single 737-200 chartered from European Air Charter. The airplane started life with Sabena nearly 35 years ago, but it’s still going strong.

The airline exists to appear solely as a way to funnel pasty white Brits down to warm and sunny places to try to get a little color. You can’t book online, and it’s recommended that you use a travel agent or call them directly. You get a hot meal, but you won’t get your seat assignment until you arrive at the airport. You can only bring 20 kilos of baggage with you as well. So what is so great about these guys?

There aren’t any reviews on SkyTrax to help us out, but there have been plenty of articles popping up since the airline made it on the list. One from the Telegraph shows that flying with a focus on personal service has really set them apart. Just a sampling of what they do well.

• “Singapore Airlines has 100 planes including the A380 which is the largest plane in service, on-board massages and a choice of dvds. All we can offer is the choice of tea or coffee . . .”
• Until 2006, [founder Peter] Bath made sure he was in the departure lounge for each flight to greet the passengers. He then stood on the Tarmac at Bournemouth Airport in Dorset where the airline is based and waved off every single flight.”
• When Mr Bath passed away, long-standing airport representative Teresia Rossello took over the role. She also ensures each customer can have their choice of seat by drawing out a plan in her kitchen every night.
• Stewardesses place fresh flowers on the plane, including the toilets, every day and the company has removed a row of seats to give customers more room.

Sounds nice, right? I’m sure it is, but it’s easy to do with only one airplane. Good luck finding anyone who can replicate this on a large scale. It really makes you wonder how this tiny airline made it on to such a big list. Apparently, there were 70,000 votes by the general public to pick the winner. Sounds like there was a heck of a write-in campaign on behalf of this airline. It seems that every person who has heard of the airline must have felt compelled to go and vote.

So this doesn’t really change my view of surveys. I don’t find this particularly useful at all, since I highly doubt I’ll ever be in Bournemouth, and if I am, I’m unlikely to be flying to a sun spot. This may be an excellent airline, but if it doesn’t fly anywhere you need to be, is it really helpful? In fact, I’d imagine most people would find this news completely worthless, but I imagine all of us would enjoy flying on an airline like this, if it existed in our own backyard.

I thought about writing about more cuts that were announced by Frontier, Northwest, and Delta, but really, aren’t you getting tired of this? Click the links above if your answer is “no.” Otherwise, keep reading for a little bit of escapism to end the week.

It’s been a long time since I wrote a book report. I mean, throughout school it usually meant finding a way to write paper after paper on books that absolutely drove me insane. It’s safe to say that I haven’t fully recovered from “Ethan Frome.” Of course, this time around it’s a different story. I’m writing about a book about airplanes, well mostly about airplanes, so that’s a good start. This time, I’m writing about “Ruinar: How to be Treated Like Shite in 15 Different Countries . . . and Still Quite Like It.”

The title had me interested right away. That and the pretty airplane on the cover. So when the author offered to send me a copy, I was more than happy to dive in. It arrived and the first thing that caught my eye was the big red sticker on the front saying, “Only €0.01* - *price excludes fees and charges of €12.98 (full price €12.99)” I love it. The author clearly knows Ryanair well.

So what did I think? It was a fun read without question, but there were a couple of things that seemed to be thrown in just to fill up space and other parts that didn’t seem to fit at all. Overall, it’s a worthwhile read if you’re looking for something light (mostly) with a dry and witty humor.

The premise was simple enough. The author had a bad flight on Ryanair back in the day, and he paid €300 for the privilege. So, he decided to try to fly to every single country in the EU with a couple others thrown in (not counting recent Eastern Europe additions) for the same price and tell his story. You might think (and hope) that the book would focus more on his flying experience, but it seems to be more of a hybrid. While he talks about the flights, he spends an equal or greater amount of time talking about his experiences in the countries themselves. In those chapters that focus on his flying and traveling experiences, the book works quite well.

Possibly the only thing that really bothered me was the intentional misspelling of airline names (Ruinair, EZjet, etc) throughout the book. I’m not quite sure why he had to do it, maybe he was afraid of a lawsuit or maybe there are some funky EU laws that made him change them, but it seemed rather odd to me. He also seems to be a little dusty on his facts sometimes, especially regarding Southwest Airlines. He mentions that Southwest requires you to pay for food and drink (uh, no) and that Southwest doesn’t compete with other airlines, just train transportation. Sounds to me like he picked up a book about Southwest from 1985 and has missed the fairly significant changes since then.

But those are nits, because they are not central to the book. The author’s snarky and dry sense of humor worked well. (”In the recently upgraded Galleria lounge a glorious Bentley GT is parked centre stage. . . . ‘Would you like a car like this?’ he asks. Talk about asking a bleeding obvious question. It’s £200,000 plus. ‘Nah, I already have one.’”)

And yes, it even works when he’s taking his potshots at Americans. For example, “Only 20 per cent of Americans possess passports so we must be grateful for small mercies . . . .” Oh but don’t worry, he’s an equal opportunity insulter. “Greeks are dark, short, stocky, squat and hirsute. And that’s the ladies.”

A warning for those of you like me who are not very familiar with Irish pop culture: he has plenty of references that leave me running to Google to figure out what he’s saying. “Much like the duck at Fawlty Towers I suspect one can have tripe with orange sauce, tripe with cherry sauce, or tripe surprise.” Now, I’ve heard of Fawlty Towers, but that’s about as far as my knowledge goes. Jokes like this are completely lost on me, but it’s easy to read beyond them.

As I said, when he’s writing the chapters on his country trips, it’s really a fun read. Yes, there are some helpful travel tips, “Never eat in a restaurant with a multilingual menu. Never eat in a restaurant with pictures of the food on the place mats. . . .” I couldn’t agree more. He also apparently shares my love of Mars bars (the European kind without nuts, not the second class US version), but there are a couple of times he strays into oddly serious territory. His chapter on the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the horrors of the holocaust seemed out of place with its humorless (obviously) and dark tone. It didn’t belong in this book.

Toward the end, it seemed like the author had a set number of pages to fill but ran out of content. There are a good 25 pages of material copied straight from the internet. Online reviews of the airline at Skytrax, a note from the PPrune board, and an excruciatingly-painful description of a video on YouTube left me skipping further to find more of what I couldn’t find for free online.

In the end, I enjoyed the read. The author certainly has a love-hate relationship with Ryanair, and it’s one that I think many people feel all over Europe. The airline will get you there cheaply and mostly on-time, but when things go wrong, it can be an ugly experience if you’re not prepared for it. It’s worth picking up a copy.

Yesterday, American announced the details of its fall flight cuts and the big surprise to me is how deep New York/LaGuardia flying is going to be cut. Meanwhile, United announced it was pulling out of two fairly large cities, Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as from several international routes. On the flip side, Southwest said it will drop a couple routes but add several as well, mostly in Denver and Florida. Let’s get to it.

American
Let’s start with American since that was much bigger in scope. It appears that Miami comes off unscathed while Dallas/Ft Worth will see 5% of flights go and Chicago/O’Hare will lose more than 12%. That looks good in comparison to St Louis (down 27%) and astoundingly, New York/LaGuardia which will be down 33% from 126 departures a day to only 84.

None of those shock me except for the LaGuardia pulldown. For the longest time, airlines have clamped down on congested airport fortresses like LaGuardia and Washington/National, and have not been willing to let slots and gates go. LaGuardia has always been one of those places that you just assumed wouldn’t see massive cuts from the incumbent carriers, because no matter how bad things got, the value of those slots would always be worth it when things got better . . . or at least that WAS conventional wisdom.

This cut tells me that American has decided that nothing is sacred, and that’s a good thing. They can’t continue to lose money on bad flights in the short term just because they might be better in the long run. This is time to make some serious survival decisions and they’re doing it.

Of course, they’re not going to do it quietly. They’ve now petitioned the government to reduce slots at LaGuardia by 20% in the name of improving operations. Yeah, right. In other words, we want to pull down flights but we don’t want to allow anyone to take our place. Hmm, 42 daily flight openings would make a nice little operation for Southwest, huh?

A quick note about the rest of the cuts. Overall, American will mostly be cutting frequencies, but a few cities will see American disappear completely. We already knew about Oakland, Samana (Dominican Republic) and London/Stansted, but now Barranquilla (Colombia), Albany, Providence, Harrisburg, and San Luis Obispo go as well. San Luis Obispo also loses its maintenance base. I’m guessing that may have been where they maintained the now disappearing Saab 340 fleet, which would make sense.

United
Now let’s look at our other route cutter. First, United will pull out of Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. These aren’t small cities, and it’s really amazing that United’s presence has eroded to the point where the airline ends up dropping places like this. United gave up on Florida a few years ago when it became virtually all-Ted. All the decent money around these areas would have fled to other carriers, if it was even at United in the first place. Besides, United could get you to Dulles, but Florida is a New York kind of market. Oh well, I guess they’ll just have to codeshare with US Airways and Continental now.

The bigger cuts for the airline are coming internationally. The recently launched Denver - London/Heathrow and LAX - Frankfurt flights are gone, so is San Francisco to Taipei and Nagoya. There will be some other schedule shifts as well as United prepares to ditch 6 747-400s and to start Dulles - Moscow and Dubai flights. I think the international pain is just beginning.

Southwest
Lastly, (man this post is long), let’s look at Southwest’s announcement today about its fall schedule. Nothing too crazy or surprising here. I mean, they’re beefing up Florida, as any airline would do once summer is over (uh, except United I guess). Oh, and the Denver onslaught continues. Southwest moves into yet another Frontier market - Denver to Orange County - as well as one that isn’t competitive - Denver to Tulsa. Oh, and eleven of the existing Denver markets get increased frequency, including 3 new flights to Chicago/Midway alone. Wow. I guess they had to do something to replace a lot of the long haul frequencies from Midway that are being cut back. And two routes will go away entirely - Oakland to Tucson and Kansas City to Sacramento.

If you’d like to see more detail, here’s the PDF with all of Southwest’s fall schedule changes.

(Original LaGuardia Tower Image from 10cuidados on Flickr)

LAX announced yesterday that the new center taxiway on the south runway complex has opened for business. There’s lots of talk about how this increases safety, but for the average traveler, I don’t think this really resonates without further explanation of what actually happens at the airport. So I decided to put together a little post to show you why you should care. Below you’ll see NACO airport diagrams from end of 2005/early 2006 (thanks Wikipedia) as well as the brand new one from today (pdf).

Before you walk away cursing this fairly complex-looking map, let me give you a little positioning help. You can see the terminals in the middle at the top of each diagram. Where it says C6 - that’s the ramp between United Terminals 7 and 8. The next one over is Terminal 6 where Continental, Virgin America, and others fly. Then Terminal 5 is Delta’s, Terminal 4 is American’s, and you can see half the Bradley terminal. This map is positioned so that North is straight up and the ocean is to the left.

Now, take a look at the runways. Previously, there was nothing separating them in the middle. Planes usually depart on the top runway and land on the bottom one. So, it would be typical for an airplane to land from the right and take a high speed exit on taxiway J, K, M, or T. It’s rare but not unheard of for an unfamiliar pilot to just keep rolling right on through the departure runway on his/her way to his gate. LAX has one of the worst near-miss rates and this is one of the reasons.

Now look at the new one. There are still some high speed exits that go straight through but not as many. Also, the new procedure will require that the aircraft exit on to the center taxiway before proceeding. So you might hear an aircraft directed to exit on AN and then turn on to AC. At that point, the pilot will have to wait before being cleared across the departure runway.

Hopefully that helps explain why this is good. It will help improve safety, and it’s a good investment. Unfortunately, the northern runways remain close together, and there is an active community protest to prevent the northernmost runway from moving a bit north to make room for a center taxiway. As you can imagine, I support the airport on this one in the name of safety, but then again, I don’t live in the neighborhood.

UPDATE on 6/25 @ 4p: Ian Gregor, FAA Spokesperson tells me that while my explanation is correct, the current NACO map is actually not so current. Apparently the new center taxiway now extends all the way west to where taxiway U lies. So, this is even better. NACO just hasn’t updated the file. This one says it’s good until July 3, so I assume we’ll see a new one next week.

It seems like airlines all around the world are racing to allow passengers to check in for flights using only a mobile phone. I wrote about Air Canada rolling it out last year, and lately both Continental and Delta have put out tests of their own. Delta just put out a blog post on their test as well. It sounds great in theory, but you might want to think twice about it if earning miles is really important to you.

Fellow airline geek and aviation consultant Roy Rosales brought up a good point in an email yesterday. If for some reason miles don’t get credited to your account, you usually have to send in your boarding pass for credit. If you use your cell phone . . . there is no paper boarding pass to send.

In Roy’s case, he flew on a Hawaiian Airlines flight and expected to get Continental miles. They never showed up, and he called Continental to see what happened. Roy was told that an original boarding pass was required in order to get credit. He was curious so he asked what would happen if he had checked-in online and the airline kept the boarding pass, as some do. The agent said it didn’t matter - no pass, no credit.

So, until the airlines decide to somehow alter those policies and email you a PDF that can be used for redemption, you might want to consider keeping a paper record, especially if you’re flying on one airline and trying to earn miles on another.

You likely won’t be surprised to hear that I had a great time at the bachelor party this weekend, but that means I had very little time to write. So, since every travel blogger on earth has written about the announcement that Continental will be leaving SkyTeam, joining Star Alliance, and instituting a very tight partnership with United, I thought I’d just point to a couple of the more interesting posts I’ve seen.

Make no mistake, this is more than just a codeshare and frequent flier mile deal. Continental will join United, Lufthansa, and Air Canada in a joint venture for all transatlantic flying. Latin and Asia joint ventures will be developed as well. There will be broad systems integration as well.

In terms of routes, the rest of the Star Alliance will be happy to finally have a big international presence in New York. Dan Webb takes a look at route compatibility here.

If you’re a member of United’s Mileage Plus or Continental’s OnePass programs, this will certainly mean changes. Take a look at View From the Wing’s effort to breakdown what this may mean, despite the fact that we have very few details so far. His take? Well, it’ll be a good thing for Continental fliers, but it’s a little less clear for United loyalists.

We don’t know what this will mean for US Airways right now. Is three a crowd when it comes to the Star Alliance in the US? They say they aren’t going anywhere, but they also haven’t had talks with Continental about cooperation either. Could they partner with American now that CO/UA and DL/NW are getting together? Maybe. Or maybe they’ll try a different tactic, as Holly suggests here in PlaneBuzz.

For American fliers, this could be decent news as well. Strange, I know, but it could theoretically mean that getting antitrust immunity with British Airways would become easier, as Terri Maxon discusses on the Airline Biz blog.

There are a lot of different angles to this partnership with a ton of potential ramifications throughout the industry when it develops. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more.

I’m going to be nowhere near the internet today, and actually I’m probably sleeping right now. Why, you ask? Well this weekend is my bachelor party, and things kicked off last night. Of course, I didn’t want to leave you without anything today, so I’ve got a great guest post for you from Tony France, The Traveling Optimist.

I hope you enjoy the read, and I’ll approve any comments that need to be approved when I get back on Sunday.

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In the earliest days of air travel the skies were the purview of the rich and the foolhardy. The train was the chic, convenient and classy way to travel, all in one. It stayed on the ground, traveled at speeds the human mind could understand and the Pullman services, since they had all week to reach New York, Chicago or Boston, were second to none. Crisp linens, sumptuous meals, porter service for every whim.

C. R. Smith in 1934 wanted some of that Pullman business for his fledgling American Airlines and called up Donald Douglas about an airplane that could convert to the first sleeper seats for overnight service. Thus with a phone call arose the DC-3. Needing an edge of its own, TWA made a phone call to Boeing about something larger and faster with the first pressurized cabin, the Stratoliner. After the Second World War the even larger Stratocruiser gave us private lounges reached by the first circular staircase to an alternate level on a double-deck airliner. These three silver birds would be combined in to one almighty aircraft, again, seemingly out of little more than a phone call between Juan Trippe at Pan Am and Bill Allen at Boeing:

“If I buy it will you build it?”

“If I build it will you buy it??”

All hail the 747, the first wide-body and featuring a First Class cabin (nose configuration) that arguably remains unsurpassed to this day.

Right up to the mid- and late-eighties the seat in First Class was never more than a large Barcalounger, wide enough for fat-cat hips with a deep enough recline to attempt some sleep on a flight rarely more than 10 hours in length. It was the food as well as the human touch that made First Class what it was.

I joined American in 1986 as a “B-Scale” baggage handler for American Airlines in 1987, thankful to have a job. My first vacation as a nonrev traveler was to Paris the following April to visit a friend from college. I was lucky enough to get a seat in First Class on the redoubtable “AA-#48” and what happened over the next eight hours lingers blissfully on my mind to this very day.

Leather and lambs’ wool covered the seat, American’s signature upholstery at the time. After take-off, the 767-200 we flew was transformed in to a Michelin rated restaurant. Linen carts to set the table, each set piece hand presented as if setting the stage for a magnificent culinary performance. Drink orders were taken and returned with the ubiquitous warm mixed nut offering. An appetizer followed – salmon in dill with capers and hard breads. A crust scraper was deftly deployed after every course.

The full caviar service was a first for me and it came with gracious assistance and a knowing smile from the flight attendant on how to prepare the treat to my liking since I’d never done it before! She enjoyed sharing in my first experience as much as I was enjoying sampling a world far beyond my means and imagination at the time. The salad cart followed, generously tossed with flourish and cracked pepper while we were somewhere over Tennessee.

“Sorbet?” “Don’t you mean sherbert?” The flight attendant chuckled softly as I contemplated another first, sorbet, of the grapefruit variety. I just stared at this unheard of frozen concoction and tiny little spoon in a fluted glass. “Savor it, let it linger so it will cleanse the palate,” my flight attendant advised. Wow, all this just to prepare for the main course? Was this only because we were flying to Paris, a local market thing, or was this on every long haul international flight American operated? Heck, what were the other airlines doing compared to this?

The main course followed, an exquisite filet in Madeira wine, followed by coffee or tea. Next came a cheeseboard with at least six varieties of English, Dutch and French cheeses along with grapes and accompanying port wines but the meal was hardly finished. The dessert cart appeared, offering something fancy and something simple; I settled for the simple – vanilla and chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and whipped cream. Aperitifs appeared to finish it all off, all traces of an elaborate production removed and I was left in the dark with a single glass of water, fantasy over, back to reality. I looked out the window at Cape Cod drifting into the indigo night behind me, open ocean, about three hours of sleep and Paris ahead of me.

Two hours before landing and the onboard crew is at it again. Hand set trays of linens and silver, hot towels and orange juice, warm croissants to start. A yogurt service was followed by a choice of cold cereals or a “Dutch” breakfast of breads and cold meats with butter and select jams. I’m well tucked in to my Euro-food when my flight attendant stops by and asks how I would like my eggs cooked. A small dribble of milk runs down my bulging cheek as my bewilderment takes in the question put to me.

“Uh, scrambled, please?”

Fresh, scrambled eggs, breakfast meats and potatoes with onions and peppers are placed before me with another flight attendant right behind pouring out yet another cup of tea to wash it all down. Amazing! No sorbet this time, but fresh fruit to take the garlic edge off and then, the telltale droning from outside the window. The engines were idling down, announcing we are beginning our vectors to land. One last glass of ice water, the immigration landing card, all window shades up and my Michelin rated restaurant was for the second time merely a cabin in a plane as if nothing special at all had happened. Rather, something special had indeed just happened and to probably the most impressionable passenger on board that night.

Rumblings were beginning even then, however, that the glamour was going out of air travel as carriers struggled to re-invent themselves. Bitter labor fights over B-scale wages, seriously fuel hungry fleets of 707s, 727s, dying airlines and the rise of fortress hubs dominated the headlines. The bottom line was coming in to ever sharper focus as airline realities changed from high-end travel options to complex economic engines where costs and profits were measured in pennies per mile. The big picture visionaries with outsized personalities who kept one eye on the future and did business with a handshake were slowly, inevitably replaced with Ivy League micro-managers who knew only P&L and ROI. Atmosphere is not quantifiable ergo luxury inevitably loses out to utility and optimization. Glamour, even my first fleeting taste of it, wasn’t to remain on the scene for much longer.

The caviar went first, a victim of conservationist activities as well as the most obvious “waste” on board the plane. One by one, everything almost down to the steak itself was removed and cost cut. Fresh eggs died an omelette with red sauce death long ago. Today’s premium passengers are essentially left to feel lucky they receive a meal at all. The entrees have become “lighter, healthier” and cheaper. The carved roasts and Maine lobsters are all in your dreams if you’re old enough to remember them at all.

Today’s First Class is not about the food at all; Robert Crandall himself once said as much. It’s the seat. As flights have gotten longer and markets more competitive it is the onboard hardware, a combination of a Borg energy pod and a spa cubicle that allegedly drives the customer’s decision. Like both of these entities, however, regardless of all the push-button gadgetry, the seat is neutral, impersonal and designed for isolation (except the double bed on Virgin Atlantic). Comfy but cold.

After the AirMap some airlines boast 600 titles of films, shows, music and games via “on demand” entertainment technology. What a waste. I used to think my own personal library of 1800 CDs and 600 DVDs was impressive until some of my more savvy friends corrected me. The iPod and the laptop each obviate the need for massive onboard libraries. Savvy, techie, family and busy travelers alike will have all they need with them in their own unedited hard drives so long as they can access onboard power.

The cabin real estate and cost to the airlines for these contraptions explains retail fares surpassing $12,000 one way (Qantas.com, LA to Sydney, First Class). Whether or not anyone actually pays that much, I feel the airlines have missed the point of what true First Class was, should and could be - the seat, the atmosphere and the food, in balance, to create the world discerning passengers want and airlines need to truly distinguish themselves. For $800/hour, at least Qantas brought back the caviar!

So keep all the movies and shows, fellas, my laptop screen offers a larger and better picture. Better yet, send that huge library of stuff back to the masses in coach since they don’t have onboard power but for the most part have individual screens. Do something with the walls other than the usual mood-neutral blues and beiges. How about a world mural, like TWA used to have, or commemorative artwork like Pan Am once gave away? Could Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” as a bulkhead piece help turn Alitalia around? Italian art, Italian food and hospitality, Italian wines and leathers? How could they go wrong? But I digress - at least it would be something, anything, to evoke the old romance and glamour of flying, of discovering new destinations, even if the guy in Seat 1K is a million-miler who has seen it all before.

Bring back the food, plain and simple. It’s been 21 years and numerous premium cabin experiences since that first time on American, but give me the complete experience I had again on that first, First Class flight to Paris. Carpeted walls textured the cabin and each course was a sequence of events in a grand adventure expertly guided by an inflight crew that exuded pride in their role while being willing to initiate the neophyte through the finer points of their rarefied world.

With their reputation for engineering, I can well believe that, back in the day, Lufthansa had better seats but it was a no-brainer that Air France had better food! Thanks to mergers and acquisitions, economics and alliances, the unique touches once offered in the front cabins of the flag carriers of the world seem all to have sadly gone to ground with the great luminaries who created the great planes that introduced them all to begin with. Varig, I barely knew ye.

Shampag-knee, anyone?

Looks like United has given in and agreed to modify its Palmdale flying schedule. Beginning in September, instead of two daily CRJs to SFO, there will be four daily Brasilias, the 30 seat turboprop that United has slowly been phasing out. Anyone want to bet that this will work? Anyone? Bueller?

If you read my post earlier this month on the subject, you’ll know that I’ve been critical of LAWA’s efforts to pour time and money into Palmdale. And if you haven’t read the comments section, I’d highly recommend it. I apparently hit quite a nerve with someone doing work for LAWA, and it’s an entertaining read to say the least.

But my position hasn’t changed. I still don’t see this working right now. Let’s look at the fundamentals. Palmdale is in the heart of the Antelope Valley, an area that has seen rapid growth over the years because of its relatively affordable housing. But guess what? It’s an exurb, and those distant communities are taking the biggest hit in the current economic downturn. If you’d like to do a little reading, you can see this article from the LA Times in April 2007. Things have only gotten worse since then.

So it’s a probable that Palmdale alone isn’t going to be supporting major flights. There has been an effort to get people from the Santa Clarita area, the next major popular center, to use the airport by establishing bus service. Now if you don’t know where that is, it doesn’t really matter, but you can see it on the map at left. What matters is that it’s about 20 miles further to go from Santa Clarita to Palmdale than it is to go to Burbank. Even with the traffic, why would you go to Palmdale from there?

You wouldn’t. If you want to go to the Bay Area, you can fly Southwest or United from Burbank for less money and on more frequent flights than out of Palmdale. And it’s not like we’re talking LAX here. Burbank is a nice, small, and easy airport to navigate.

So can service work in Palmdale? Eventually. However, I don’t think San Francisco is going to be sustainable for a long, long time, even with more frequency. My guess is that any sustainable service at all is a few years off still at best. That’s why LAWA, the federal government, and others have had to pour $4.6m into this new service just to see if it can work. So far, the results haven’t been good.

Admittedly, the schedule will greatly improve with these new flights. Instead of northbound departures at only 6a and 11a, there will now be flights at 6a, 1015a, 1220p, and 645p. And instead of southbound flights at only 918a and 925p, there will be flights at 830a, 1035a, 5p, and 1020p. That being said, the flights will now take 18 to 33% longer on the northbound flight in the slow Brasilias. Block time increases from 1h9m to 1h32m northbound and from 1h13m to 1h26m southbound. That gives the Santa Clarita residents yet another reason to drive to Burbank.

I just have to wonder why United has decided to honor this request. They must still have a bunch of Brasilias under contract that are sitting around in the desert somewhere so they figured they’d give it a shot. All I know is that in May, the airline filled 42% of its seats. That means 42 out of the 100 seats flown each way per day were filled on average. Now there will be 120 seats in the market, and even if you can stimulate traffic by 50% because of this new glorious schedule, you’ll still only have a 52.5% seat factor. That seems quite optimistic to me, and it’s not going to cut it unless you’re getting some fairly incredible fares.

You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as time goes by. I’m heading out of town this afternoon and won’t have email access again until Sunday, so please write comments and I will approve them (if necessary) when I return.

Stay with me here. Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s fearless leader and king of publicity, has announced his plans for a transatlantic airline. And yes, it will apparently include blowjobs.

His plan? A bunch of economy class seats that will sell for 10 euros or something really cheap like that as well as a business class that’ll run you 4,000 to 5,000 euros. Why would you pay that much? “Beds and blowjobs.” Now THAT’s a value proposition. Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself (sorry, but the video is blowjob free):

I’m actually surprised that he gets that you need to have a premium cabin to make this work, but it’s his spin on the product that makes this blogworthy. Will it happen? Probably not, but he’ll get all kinds of people to write about it. Heck who knows if he’ll ever get this thing off the ground at all, but who cares? Just watching his translator squirm is worth the post.