I’ve got more to write about from NBTA (tomorrow I’ll feature the battle of the First Class suites), but today I’m going to take a break and talk about Virgin America’s latest. Though I was supposed to meet with Virgin America spokesperson Abby Lunardini at the show, she ended up not being able to make it because it was right after the earthquake and she got stuck at her hotel. Of course, that won’t stop me from talking about their news of the week.

Remember when I posted earlier this month that Virgin America was up to something with their premium coach seats (bulkhead and exit row)? Well, they’ve finally announced what they’re going to do, and um, it’s ok, I guess.

Please excuse my lack of enthusiasm here, but I thought it was going to be something really good. I thought that maybe they would add more First Class seats or possibly create an elite level of their frequent flier program. It was nothing so bold. Instead, they’ve just created Main Cabin Select. If you sit in the bulkhead or the exit rows, you’ll still get a regular coach seat with a little more legroom. But now you’ll also get First Class amenities - free movies and food, premium check-in, etc.

See? Not exactly a huge change. It’s effectively First Class service in a Coach seat. The question is now . . . how much will it cost? They didn’t announce that, but they did say that you can begin purchasing these on September 15 for flights beginning mid-October. Previously, you had to pay between $15 and $50 depending upon the length of the flight to sit in those seats.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think this is a bad idea. I’m just a little lukewarm because my expectations were higher. My guess is that people weren’t paying for the extra legroom before, so Virgin is trying to package things together to get people to find value in that offering. If this does that, then more power to them.

Possibly the more interesting news for Virgin America fliers came in this release about their Virgin Galactic partnership. No, that partnership isn’t very interesting, but it does say way at the bottom that “By Oct. 1, 2008, Elevate members will be able to begin redeeming points for Virgin America flights on-line.”

I’m happy to see that finally happen. The airline has been around for about a year now, and they’re only now getting around to defining the program. This should be good news for those of you who have been stockpiling flight credits with no place to use them.

OpenSkies has been full of news this week. First it was the announcement of Amsterdam - New York flights and then yesterday it was the decision to ditch coach and go with all premium economy and business class. The news was quite literally earth-shaking. In the middle of the press conference, the 5.4 earthquake you probably heard about started to roll through downtown LA.

I was sitting next to my friend Johnny Jet, and we looked at each other and instinctively headed for the doorway. Once it was over, a lot of the people didn’t seem too comfortable with the idea of hanging around and hovered by the door (anyone want to bet how many of them were from the east coast?), but as an LA native, I headed back to my seat without pause. OpenSkies MD Dale Moss seemed a bit rattled, but he picked up where he left off.

Enough about that. So what was it that was so rattling? The Amsterdam news was interesting. Dale said, “I always love to go into a market in which we can make a refreshing change and stir it up a bit.” Uh oh. For those keeping score, that means OpenSkies will now serve the two largest Air France/KLM hub cities from New York effective October 15. How long before AF/KL strikes back with a vengeance? This might be fun to watch.

But I think the bigger news is that only a couple months in, the airline has decided to reconfigure its airplanes. Instead of having 24 seats in business (called Biz), 28 seats in premium economy (called Prem+), and 30 seats in coach, they will now replace those 30 coach seats with 12 more in Prem+.

So now they’ve got a mere 64 seats onboard to cover the costs of an entire 757 flying across the Atlantic. Dale seemed confident that having the backing of BA, codesharing, access to their frequent flier program, fuel hedging, etc is going to make a big difference. I agree, but I wonder if it’s enough. They have what looks like a fantastic product, but their fares don’t seem very high right now.

I asked Dale if this was simply a strategic move or if early demand for the Prem+ seats was driving the change. Dale responded that it was a strategic decision. They’ve always wanted to focus on the premium passenger and even though it was “almost always oversold,” coach was “a distraction.” So now they don’t have to worry about that anymore, I guess. He also noted that the reduction in capacity will help give them longer legs on a full tank of fuel.

He also said that Prem+ demand has been strong, but more interestingly he said, “The closer we got with our friends at L’Avion, it validated that.” So, is it possible that L’Avion gave them such incredible information that paying the costs of reconfiguring only a couple months after the planes were first configured makes sense? I’m skeptical. It sounds like they’re ready to make that jump strategically, something they’ve probably wanted to do since the beginning but for some reason did not.

They’ve got what appears to be a very nice product and low fares for what’s being offered. I’d certainly keep them in mind if you’re in New York. Dale also mentioned that Boston and Washington are possibilities for future service in the US with cities like Brussels, Milan, and Barcelona in the EU. They’re going to be expanding, and that’s good for travelers.

It was an action-packed day at NBTA today. I think I talked to enough people and sat in enough seats to really have a couple weeks of posts here. Unfortunately, as you might expect, the focus is almost entirely on the premium cabin experience. So, much of this won’t be useful for many of you (including me), but it’s still fun to see what’s going on. Let’s just forget about how crazy it seems that airlines spend a ton of money on their NBTA booths while they bleed and instead just talk about the news.

The big news from yesterday was Continental’s announcement that it was installing a lie-flat seat in BusinessFirst . . . unless you’re flying on a 767. The 777s will get the new seats first starting in fall of next year. Then they’ll move on to the 757s. And of course, when the 787s show up, they’ll get the new seats as well.

So why not the 767s? It’s a matter of space. On the 777s, they’ll keep 50 seats up front and lose only one row of coach. The 757s won’t lose any seats at all, but the 767s are a different story. CEO Larry Kellner was clearly very proud of the fact that their seats are wide. (This seat is 25″ wide with the armrests down in the fully flat position.) They are currently set up with 2-1-2 abreast on the 767s and they don’t want to go 2-2-2 and reduce space. So, these seats don’t work for them in that configuration. When I asked Larry about it, he said they plan to keep looking, and they expect they’ll find a lie-flat solution soon.

Let’s forget about all the boring stuff and let’s talk about the seat itself. It’s nice. After sitting in United’s seat yesterday as well, I realize that the seats seem similar with a couple differences. First, Continental gives you a little less privacy, but you have a LOT more storage. You can see the Continental seat above left and the United seat at right. Continental also seems to have a bigger screen in the seatback. Oh yes, and half United’s seats face backwards while Continental’s all go the same way.

But back to that storage thing. Behind the headrest, Continental has put a ton of stuff. Besides being a storage area, there is a universal power outlet, a USB port, and the headphone jack. They’re calling it the Tower of Power (at left), and I think it’s a smart place to put everything, because it’s not in your way. Unfortunately, they’re not sure if the storage area will be usable during takeoff and landing yet, but they’re trying to make that happen. I’d say it needs to happen for it to really be useful. At the very least, there is storage underneath the seat in front of you that can be used at all times.

Oh, and about that area in front of you . . . there isn’t much room for your legs (at right). With shoes on, my feet barely fit and I have small size 9 feet, but without them, it should be ok if not a bit cramped. They say that it will accommodate a 6′ 6″ tall person, and apparently CEO Larry Kellner was the model used to make sure it worked.

Larry is not a small man.

They also ran this by a bunch of frequent fliers in Houston and Newark to make sure they liked it. Apparently they did, but I still have one concern. If you see the picture at left, you can see that getting out from the window to the aisle is not easy. You’re going to have to climb over someone, and you better be limber.

The response to that? Mark Bergsrud, SVP of Marketing Programs and Distribution for the airline, said that they weren’t willing to reduce the number of seats, and this was the best solution available considering the constraints. Their customers wanted a lie-flat seat and while it isn’t the easiest thing to climb over, it’s actually easier to get out of than it is to get out of their current BusinessFirst seat. So they’re pretty happy with it despite its drawbacks. It will be interesting to see if that causes a lot of problems in production.

Other than that, the seat was impressive, comfortable, and quite wide. They’ve done a very good job here, considering the constraints.

This weekend, we had a quick trip up north to do some more wedding planning. We took JetBlue up since Long Beach is always our first choice. But we saved over $100 flying back on Southwest, and they had a better schedule for us anyway. Since a friend offered to pick us up at LAX, it was a done deal. Flights were good both ways.

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July 26, 2008
JetBlue #242 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 8a Arr Oakland (OAK) 917a
LGB: Gate 2A, Runway 30, Dept 3m Early
OAK: Gate 9, Runway 29, Arr 2m Early
Aircraft: N566JB, Airbus A320-232, “Blue Suede Shoes”, ~90% Full
Seat: 18F
Flight Time: 52m

We left home at 7a for our 8a flight. Security lines were short, and we had plenty of time to spare. They boarded the front rows of the plane first, strangely. Apparently they hadn’t pulled up the stairs to the back of the plane yet, so they just made us wait. When they did get that ready, we went toward the back and I snapped this great shot of the tail. I love boarding via airstairs.

Not much else to say about this flight. It was good and the flight attendants were friendly. The only thing of note (at least in my warped mind), was the snack selection. Apparently Frito Lay has given up innovating completely and has now decided, “Hey, why don’t we just throw all of our chips into one bag and sell it as something new and cool?” Behold, the Munchies. They also threw in some of those fancy 70% organic cookies. I still think that’s funny.

We landed and grabbed our Budget rent a car (with the awesome 9,999 bonus Delta miles). It was a nice weekend, and we got everything done that we needed to do. The only downside was that it was race weekend in Sonoma, so we ended up paying $150 for a Quality Inn that should have been half that price.

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July 27, 2008
Southwest #1655 Lv Oakland (OAK) 2p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 320p
OAK: Gate 28, Runway 29, Dept 5m Late
LAX: Gate 5, Runway 24R, Arr 5m Early
Aircraft: N455WN, Boeing 737-7H4, Canyon Blue, ~99% Full
Seat: 12E
Flight Time: 54m

We did our work in Napa yesterday morning and then we raced to the airport, hoping we’d make our 2p flight home. We dropped the car off and took the 30 hour shuttle ride back to the terminal. Man, that thing is far. It took 10 minutes to print our boarding pass and get through security, and then we went to the brand new concourse that Oakland probably is now regretting they built (traffic . . . dropping).

One complaint for the folks at OAK. There are some prime airplane watching areas when you’re walking down toward the new concourse (picture above), but they covered it up with art. Give me windows! When you get into the new area, it looks a lot like a nice version of LAX Terminal 8. There are stores on one side and gates on the other. They couldn’t have built gates on both sides, because that’s basically at the perimeter of the airport and planes don’t enjoy parking in the bay.

Southwest has rolled out some parts of its new gate area design here and it’s pretty nice. They had normal gate area seating, but there were a couple rows at each gate with these comfy chairs. The best part? You can see the USB ports and power outlets in there. Nice.

Anyway, boarding worked as well as it should these days. Nobody lined up until the gate agent called for it. And then, plenty of people tried to cheat the system. The gate agent stopped them all and said it happens all the time. Glad to see they’re enforcing it.

For some reason, Southwest couldn’t get their stuff together here and we pushed back 5 minutes late for no good reason. At this point, the captain apparently decided it was time to make up for lost time. I can’t think of a shorter taxi that I’ve had at an airport before. We headed right out to the runway and entered it part of the way in (taxiway U for those who care). I don’t think he used the brakes at all when we taxied and soon enough, we were airborne and through the low cloud layer.

It seemed like we were ascending pretty quickly and my ears were feeling it. It wasn’t long before we settled at the extremely high altitude (for such a short flight) of 41,000 ft. They threw a few peanuts and drinks at us and then it was time to land. We were at the gate 5 minutes early and on our way home in no time.

I’ll have a trip report from my short weekend up in the Bay Area tomorrow morning, and then I’ll be spending the next couple days at the NBTA (National Business Travel Association) convention. If you’re in town for the show, drop me a note (cf@crankyflier.com) and let me know.

The good news is that I have plenty of press conferences to attend and meetings to have, so I should have some good posts this week. Stay tuned.

This week was Small Community Air Service Development Program (SCASDP) week over at BNET. Grant applications for this year’s program are rolling in, and I look at some of the best and worst. The federal government offers up this money to help small airports build up service in their area. Some take better approaches than others, and some come off as downright greedy.

Elko Applies to SCASDP for More Service to Reno
It’s SCASDP week here at BNET Travel. I’ll be looking at a new airport grant request every day. Today, it’s Elko and it’s odd request for more Reno flights.

Escanaba Looks to SCASDP for Marketing Funds
A new airline, new connecting hub, and two months without service. Escanaba wants a SCASDP grant to help tell the community what’s happening.

Dubuque Looks to Expand Its Unique Marketing Plan with SCASDP
An airport with a frequent flier program? That’s the kind of innovation the SCASDP should be supporting.

Midland Applies to SCASDP for More Flights to the West
Midland/Odessa has flights from American, Continental, and Southwest, but apparently that’s not enough. They want more to the West.

Bangor Wants SCASDP Grant for More New York Service
Bangor already has year-round service to the New York area. Why is it trying to get funds for even more?

I first saw the news on TechCrunch a couple days ago. Once I noticed Kayak’s Keith Melnick and Steve Hafner confirm it in the comments section, I figured it was true. American has decided to stop participation in Kayak. After reading the blog post and many of the misinformed comments that followed, I figured I’d give a little primer on how Kayak works and why this move shouldn’t change your opinion of whether to use it or not.

Kayak, Sidestep, Mobissimo, and PriceGrabber Travel, the site I ran until we shut it down last year, are (were) all metasearch sites, or aggregators. (Yes, there are more out there as well.) The basic idea is like that of any shopping comparison site. Kayak (and the others, but I’ll stick with Kayak from now on) doesn’t sell anything itself. It aggregates fares from a variety of sources. Here’s an example of a result I just pulled up on Kayak (the AA relationship doesn’t end until August 1).

When the user finds the flights that he wants, he picks the “seller” he wants to buy from and Kayak sends him over to that seller. In this case, it’s either AA.com or Orbitz, but Kayak works with a bunch of them. (I believe Orbitz/CheapTickets are the only big air providers other than airlines, but that’s a story for another day.)

Anyway, in this case AA.com looks cheaper because the fee includes all booking fees, and the airline site almost always has none (excluding US Airways). Of course, the online travel agent (OTA) usually has one (except for Priceline).

How does Kayak make money? They get paid a little bit when they send you over to the seller or they get paid more when the purchase is actually completed (like a traditional commission). They also make money off advertising, but that’s not relevant to this discussion. (I’ve really got to stop using so many parentheses.)

Now, according to American (via BudgetTravel):

Kayak/Sidestep has advised American Airlines that they will no longer display our content.

We are disappointed and hopeful that this issue can be resolved in the near future so that American Airlines will again display on the Kayak/Sidestep sites.

Hmm, this doesn’t sound right. But then I noticed Kayak chief Steve Hafner’s comment on TechCrunch and it makes sense of what’s going on. He said:

American asked us to suppress search results from competing websites as a condition to displaying their fares. This is simply not something that Kayak will do. Imagine Sony telling Best Buy that they couldn’t sell Panasonic?

Now this quote is hardly using an apples-to-apples comparison. It would be like Sony telling Best Buy that they couldn’t sell Sony products provided by third party resellers. But the point I take from this is that American says it will participate in Kayak only if no results from OTAs are displayed for their flights. Kayak told them to take a hike.

Why does Kayak want results from Orbitz or other online travel agents in the first place? Backfill. It’s hard to develop a relationship with every airline, and some don’t ever want to participate, so Kayak would have an incomplete offering if it couldn’t fill in the blanks with an online travel agent. In some cases, this means that results from multiple sellers will be displayed. American doesn’t like that so they’re walking away.

TechCrunch inaccurately states that “American Airlines has a particular beef with Kayak because it tends to show AA flights through its partnership with Orbitz instead of directly from American. That means American has to pay a double tax, once to Kayak and once to Orbitz.”

It is possible that some flights are being shown through Orbitz and not AA.com, but my last search showed the opposite was true. The reality is that American and Orbitz have different connections with different data transfer speeds to Kayak, so different numbers of flights results get returned. So you will have some occasions when one seller shows up and not the other, but ideally they would both show up on each flight. This is good for you, because sometimes you can find one site happens to be cheaper than the rest.

If Kayak is, in fact, suppressing results from AA.com and only showing Orbitz because they can make more off Orbitz, then that is absolutely inexcusable. I would be surprised to see that happening.

One thing that seems certain is that American would never pay a double fee, unless Kayak has instituted some sort of listing fee and that would surprise me. Payment historically hasn’t been upon display but rather when the click occurs or when the purchase occurs. AA will either pay Kayak directly or Orbitz will pay Kayak and American will pay Orbitz its usual commission. Those are the only options. Maybe the Kayak guys will read this and can offer some clarification if that’s not true.

Whichever “CEO of a competing travel site” leaked this information to TechCrunch appears to have an axe to grind with Kayak. Just remember this. If you go to Kayak, you may not see AA.com, but you’ll still see those flights from Orbitz. Save $6 and go directly to AA.com to book, but don’t think that the Kayak results will now be incomplete. If you liked shopping there before (and I know there are mixed feelings on that one), this shouldn’t change your mind.

When it comes to technology, Alaska tends to be ahead of the curve when compared to other airlines. Their latest release? They now have a low fare calendar that shows you the lowest fares for an entire month for both your outbound and return.

This isn’t exactly a new idea; British Airways, for example, has had it for quite a long time and Southwest has had its “Shortcut” for some time as well, but anything that can be done to improve the booking process is a welcome addition.

You enter your search criteria just as you would on any site. Then when you select the low fare calendar, it brings up this view:

Pretty easy, and if your dates are flexible, it can save you good money. But your dates have to be really flexible for this to matter. I mean, if you’re putting together a weeklong summer vacation, you might be able to switch weeks, but I don’t know how helpful it is for the majority of people. That’s probably why it’s not the default search on their website.

For me, there are better ways to do this. I think you can get a lot of the benefit by using the implementation that JetBlue and Virgin America use. They show you the flights for the days you chose, but at the top they have tabs with the lowest price on the three days on either side of your date, like this.

But hey, this IS an improvement over what they have now, and I would like to commend them for actually showing the price including taxes on that first page. My only real complaint is that when you choose your flights, it takes you to the old page that shows the roundtrip flights by price. Personally, I prefer the search by schedule that shows lowest fares on all the outbound and then return flights. It’s easier to put options together. Fortunately, you can still get there by clicking again from the search by price page, but that takes yet another click.

So, nice work by Alaska, but nothing revolutionary here. I’d like to see something with more filtering options than just First Class so you can really find the lowest fare on flights that would work for you on each day. One of these days, we’ll get there.

I saw this post from Gulliver noting that Emirates has decided to remove all paper from the seatback pockets of its A380 to save weight, and I couldn’t stop laughing. It seems to me that if the airline was really that concerned about fuel burn, it could probably do without the onboard showers for First Class passengers.

The plane has 489 seats, and this moves apparently saves 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) per seat. So that means they’ll save about 2,100 pounds per plane. In case you were wondering, the plane weighs just over 1.2 million pounds at its max takeoff weight, so this isn’t much. But that being said, it will save something, and every little bit counts.

Now, I understand that they’re planning on offering all that paper content on the video screen instead, so it does make sense, but I still can’t get past the whole shower thing. In case you missed it, Emirates will be offering showers for First Class passengers. It is said that the airline will have to bring 1 tonne of water for this purpose, and guess what? One tonne is 2,200 pounds. That’s effectively the weight of all those paper products that are being removed.

So, if you’ve crammed yourself into coach and your seatback video doesn’t work, you can take comfort in the fact that at least First Class passengers can shower onboard. Or not.

Once again, it appears that those north of the border have figured out a better way to raise money . . . charge for new services instead of ones that are currently free. The latest comes from WestJet, which has announced it will begin offering seat assignments for a fee.

WestJet currently uses a model we don’t see much of here in the US. You can’t reserve a seat at the time of booking on WestJet. But, when you check-in, you can pick your seat. This is different from Southwest which doesn’t ever assign a seat and just has you pick when you get onboard. Of course, check-in behavior for both airlines is the same. People try to check in as early as possible so they can get the best seats.

Now on WestJet, you will be able to reserve a seat any time prior to after booking for $10 (I assume that’s US or Canadian money.) For $15, you can reserve an exit row seat. Not a bad deal, huh? It’s funny how perspective changes how you view a fee.

If an airline currently offers me a seat assignment for free (or a first bag, or really anything), it makes it a lot more annoying when they take that away. It’s a reduction in value, and that doesn’t go over well. On the other hand, when an airline offers me something that previously wasn’t available, I think it’s great.

Legacy carriers in the US have a problem in that a lot more stuff used to be included in the fare than is the case with someone like WestJet. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Air Canada has done a great job of adding value by charging for things that previously weren’t available. Yes, they’ve charged for things that were free as well, but at least they’ve tried to add value.

So, is there anything bad about this? Well, I had one reader say that if you buy a sale fare, you can’t pay to reserve a seat. That doesn’t make sense. Charge more for sale fares if you’d like, but why turn away money? I’m not sure what the full story is there.

Other than that, if I fly WestJet, I’m probably happy about this, because I’d rather be able to select my seat ahead of time for that nominal fee. If someone doesn’t want to pay the fee, however, that person is probably not so happy because now all those people that pay the fee will take away seats that could have previously been had by checking in early. Still, it’s a net positive for the airline’s customers, and it’s a net positive for the income statement as well.