Earlier this week, I had heard rumblings that American would be back on Kayak, and now it appears to have happened. The two have apparently resolved their differences, and that can only be good for Kayak users.

I reached out to Kayak spokesperson Kellie Pelletier and she had the following to say:

Kayak.com is delighted to once again display schedules and fares directly from American Airlines on both Kayak.com and SideStep.com. Users can now compare AA itineraries alongside those from hundreds of leading airlines. Kayak.com remains committed to providing comprehensive and objective results to our millions of users.

They’ll be spreading the word to AAdvantage members and Kayak users later today by tomorrow at the latest. Naturally, the most important question was . . . how will the results be displayed? Sadly, I’m not getting an answer to that one:

AA and Kayak.com have resolved their dispute and have entered into a new agreement. I am unable to discuss the terms of this agreement.

Of course, it only takes a quick search to see that neither Orbitz nor CheapTickets are anywhere to be found on AA results.

So, it would appear that American won the battle to have their flights only shown from AA.com. Is it as good as it used to be for Kayak users? Nope. It’s always better to have results from multiple sites. But Kayak really needed to have AA results to make their comparisons worthwhile. If all they can do is get AA.com, it’s better than nothing.

There was some disturbing news out of the Metroplex last week when American’s pilots announced that the Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) is dead. It would seem that this program contributed greatly to improving safety at the airline, and now, thanks to bickering and stubbornness, it’s gone, and that’s why we’ve got a big fat Cranky Jackass award to be shared by both sides in the fight.

The idea behind ASAP is that it gave pilots a forum for reporting safety issues without fear of landing in hot water. This helped expose safety issues that occurred so that they wouldn’t happen again. It seems that this was a good medium for bringing safety issues to the surface.

Now, it appears that the pilots and American management can’t come to an agreement on how to continue the program, so it’s dead. Way to go. All we can do now is throw out a bunch of blame-bombs to both sides.

From what I can tell, the pilots wanted to have stronger immunity provisions for pilots who report, and American management didn’t like that. In fact, management wanted to have less so that they could take action against pilots who did report reckless behavior. (Would someone really report reckless behavior?) Without a doubt, both of these groups can shoulder the blame to some extent. And it’s naive to think that politics didn’t play a part here.

The pilots and management aren’t exactly holding hands and singing Kumbaya these days. But now everyone is worse off, including passengers. Safety violations will likely go unreported, or at the very least, reported through alternate, less direct channels. That is unfortunate, to say the least, and it shows just how bad labor relations are right now. The fact that the two sides cannot come together for a program that was good for everyone is just downright sad, and it certainly makes me cranky. You’ve both truly earned this Cranky Jackass award.

As I mentioned in my last post, the Qantas A380 came through LAX yesterday on its first scheduled flight between Australia and the US. Regular readers know that I spent time on the Emirates A380 in August, so now it’s time for a battle royale. Let’s compare the Emirates and Qantas products.

First, a little background. While I took the flight with Emirates in August, I ended up not flying with Qantas this time. Instead, I opted for the static display where I spent about an hour checking out the product on the ground. My friend Paul was down for this flight as well, so we both had a chance to kick the tires on both flights. If you really care about the flight itself, I’ve got someone who took it working on a guest post. You can also go check out Today in the Sky where Ben Mutzabaugh has posted some of his pictures. I spoke to Ben for awhile after the flight, and it sounds like the low fly-by of San Francisco was really excellent. Hopefully I’ll have more for you on that soon. But let’s get back to the plane itself.

Economy Class
I figured I’d start in coach since that’s where most of us will end up if we fly this plane. Qantas has coach on the last 3/4 of the lower deck while Emirates has the entire lower deck filled. The seat pitch is one inch less than it is on Emirates, and you can feel it. It was already tight, but when the person in front of me reclined, it really got worse. I didn’t explore the inflight entertainment much, but it appeared to be just as good as Emirates for my purposes.

The big differentiator for Qantas (besides the insignificant fact that each of the three coach cabins had different color fabric) was the “foot net.” I’ve never seen one of these before, but it was effectively an attempt to install a footrest in coach without having it take up any space. The picture at right is a bit tough to decipher, but it’s the best I could do. This net has a hard front to it that sits against the bottom of the seat in front. When you kick it with your foot, it opens up a net that you can put your feet in to rest. With shoes on, it wasn’t very comfortable because it seemed too small. But with shoes off, I can imagine it actually being a nice way to elevate your feet a little and get some relief.

Other than that, the only other thing of note in coach was that there are four snack bars stationed throughout the airplane where they’ll have pre-packaged goodies for people to pick up whenever they’d like. The only (very big) concern for me in coach was legroom, but otherwise, it seemed like a strong product.

Premium Economy
I’ll keep this one short because Emirates doesn’t have a Premium Economy for comparison. On this plane, Qantas puts this at the very back of the upper deck in a small, intimate cabin. The seats in the emergency exit row have some incredible legroom, so definitely grab those if you can. In general, it seemed to be a decent premium economy seat, but I had problems making the legrests fit comfortably. It was too short for me, and I am not a tall person. Still, considering the tight pitch in economy, it would probably be worth upgrading for a few hundred dollars more.

Business Class
Business Class takes up the rest of the upper deck. My understanding is that it’s the same seat that Qantas uses as an angled lie-flat seat on its other aircraft, but on the A380 it goes fully flat, as you can see at left. The seat was comfortable, and it felt very private folding back into the shell. In fact, the cabin had a very different feel than on Emirates.

Emirates had very large monuments surrounding the seats – minibars and walls all over. On Qantas it was all about the seat with the individual shells. It seemed more open than on Emirates, yet for some reason it seemed a bit more private as well. It’s hard to explain, I suppose. But if you’re traveling alone, the Emirates setup is certainly superior because you can sit alone. On Qantas, you’ll have a seatmate no matter what. There were certainly merits to both.

First Class
Qantas puts First Class downstairs in the front, unlike Emirates which puts it upstairs. The Qantas suite is really nothing like the Emirates one at all. Emirates has built their seat around the idea of being completely private and separate from the rest of the world. Qantas hasn’t followed this model, and has left it somewhat open instead.

I wrote about the seat when I saw it at NBTA over the summer, but I knew I couldn’t really decide how it would work until I saw it on a plane. I can now say that if you sit on the sides, it still seems quite good. But if you’re in one of the seats down the middle, it doesn’t really afford enough privacy.

The reason it works on the side is because the seat is oriented to angle toward the window. So you’re kept away from other people unless you really want to see them (you can invite them over to have dinner with you). You don’t have that privacy in the middle, and it’s awkward. Laying down, the bed was very long and comfortable. I really liked the massage function, but the thing that really grabbed me (as dorky as it is) was the automatic window shade. You have two shades – one is opaque and the other allows some light to come through. You can control these from your massive remote control that seems too complicated to function properly for long in the heavy use conditions of the airline world (There are backups in case it breaks.)

The Rest
Qantas decided to put a lounge where Emirates puts one of its showers. The lounge is long and there’s a couch that stretches straight down one side with a TV on the other. Yes, it’s nice, but it’s hard to have any sort of group conversation because of the narrowness of the space. The Emirates lounge, of course, was fantastically large and had plenty of room to congregate. That being said, I have visions of additional seats where they put that lounge on Emirates whereas Qantas is actually making an efficient use of space.

Overall, both airlines offer impressive products onboard the A380, but they have different strengths. Ultimately, the only place these two products are likely to compete is on the Kangaroo Route from London to Sydney. In that case, it would be a very tough decision.

See the rest of my Qantas A380 pictures including a video in Business Class.

I may have spent today at the celebration for Qantas’ first scheduled A380 flight to the US, but as far as I’m concerned this plane stole the show.

Yes, that’s John Travolta’s immaculate 707. John is the Goodwill Ambassador for Qantas, and his 707 is painted in vintage Qantas colors. As he said in the press conference for the A380 today, “When I was 5 years old, I collected airline memorabilia from all airlines. I was . . . an airline geek.” Unlike most of us, however, he was able to buy his own private jet to fly around. I’ll have more on the A380 tomorrow, but I’ll leave you tonight with this great shot of the two aircraft meeting.

How did I miss this news earlier this month? I suppose it did coincide with my wedding, but still . . . . There is now hope that the liquid ban will disappear in the not-too-distant future.

Kip Hawley, head of the TSA, said that he expects the liquid ban to be lifted by next year at this time. Hello? Are you ok? Don’t forget to breathe. Ok, try to compose yourself after hearing such shocking news, and let’s talk more about it.

To be precise, Mr Hawley said, “I think realistically in one year we, the TSA and foreign colleagues, will be [in] a position to relax liquids restrictions.” Why? Apparently, the technology for liquid detection is getting better. They are rolling out the x-ray machines they need to make this happen as we speak, and now all they have to do is make sure the software works.

Is anyone else concerned that we’re throwing a bunch of expensive machines out there before we know if they’ll work? Hmm, let’s just forget about that and focus on the positive. The liquid ban might actually be gone soon. Let’s talk again in a year and see if this actually happens. In fact, let’s throw a poll out there right now.

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