I do my best to get a thoughtful post out for you every weekday, so I apologize that today is a very light one. See, I spent yesterday with Southwest Airlines, and I’m just now sitting down to do some writing. As I write this, it’s 10pm, I have an early flight out, and I’m tired. Tomorrow I head to Phoenix for the Aviation Symposium, so I will have plenty of good material coming up. It’s just going to be tough keeping my regular schedule this week.

So, come back tomorrow and hopefully I’ll do better. Until then, I’ll leave you with this picture.

Yep, that’s me and Southwest’s legendary founder Herb Kelleher. As you can see from the grin on my face, this was like a teenage girl meeting Miley Cyrus. I was definitely star-struck, and that doesn’t really happen often.

I’ll have more about our discussion and the rest of my visit to Southwest (including my time flying the simulator) as soon as I can get it together.

Long-time readers may vaguely remember my “who the f***” series of posts, but it’s been quite awhile since my last one. When I saw “Air Azul” pop up on my radar for the second time, I figured it was time to bring it back. So who the f*** is Air Azul?

First let’s clear the air. This is not the Spanish version of JetBlue. Nor is it related to David Neeleman’s Azul venture down in Brazil. And no, it has nothing to do with Pakistan’s AirBlue. It’s just another airline trying to ride on the “coolness” that was “blue” when JetBlue took flight.

It’s first semi-scheduled route connected Nashville with Somerset, Lake Cumberland Regional Airport (Kentucky) four times a week with little Metro props. The service started on December 27, 2008 under a $1m grant, but if you believe the website, it’s ending May 1. Nice. But the airline doesn’t actually operate any aircraft – it just leases the planes from Locair to fly as a public charter. (That’s why I say it’s semi-scheduled.) So if those flights are ending, why the heck am I even writing about this airline?

Air Azul has a new plan. They’re going to continue doing public charters like so many other failed airlines before (Remember SkyValue?), but now they’re going big. You can read all about it at FlytheNewBlue.com. Yes, apparently they have decided that JetBlue is old news, and now they’ll be so much better. What exactly is going to differentiate them?

My guess is that their biggest differentiator will be their empty planes. They’re using 737-800s from Sun Country. Those planes have a lot of seats, 162 to be exact, so you’d think they’d be flying to places with decent demand, right? Not so fast. How do these routes sound?

• Baltimore to Lansing (three times weekly)
• Baltimore to Rockford (twice weekly)
• Newark to Lansing (three times weekly)
• Newark to Melbourne (Florida) (twice weekly)
• Newark to Rockford (three times weekly)
• Newark to South Bend (three times weekly)
• Newark to Toledo (three times weekly)

Something tells me that now is not the time to be betting on secondary airports in the suffering Rust Belt, but that appears to be the plan. They seem to be trying to channel Allegiant but instead of sun destinations, they’re going for New York and Baltimore. Could it work? Maybe in theory to New York, but Baltimore? I wouldn’t bet on it.

I also wouldn’t want to be flying expensive 737-800 aircraft around for this kind of operation. Let’s just say that they have an uphill battle, and that’s being kind. I’ll be particularly interested in seeing how they do with their on-time performance since their plane flies through Newark at least once a day.

I’m not quite sure what these guys are thinking, but apparently they think they’ve got something here. Anyone want to take bets?

The growing popularity of the premium economy cabin continues as Air France has decided that the time has come to roll out “Premium Voyageur” on their widebodies. Upon first glance, it looks like a strong entry.

Premium Voyageur just sounds fancy, right? I mean, without that last “u” in there, it’s just plain, old “Premium Voyager,” and that would have been boring. Of course I’m kidding. I don’t care what you call it as long as the product is good. Take a look:

They’ve gone with a shell seat that will apparently recline into itself (up to 123 degrees). The seat is about an inch or two wider than average – about 19 inches – and the armrests are wider so you don’t have to fight your neighbor. A 38 inch seat pitch seems to be about standard for premium economy. (Note: I’m talking about a real premium economy class and not United’s Economy Plus.) Some amenities come from business (now branded Affaires) class. You get a little travel kit when you fly, and you’ll get a bottle of water, noise-reducing headphones, and a better pillow and blanket. The food, however, is strictly coach class.

As you would probably hope, the benefit isn’t just on the aircraft. You get priority check-in at the airport, priority baggage delivery, and all that other fun stuff that comes with being a premium traveler.

Overall, it looks like they’ve done a nice job As budgets tighten, many business class travelers may look at this as a decent option. They gave some sample pricing of about $1,400 on a roundtrip from Paris to New York, so that can save thousands over a higher class of service.

But I’d bet they’re really looking at this as an opportunity for coach passengers to buy up. At least, that’s how the seat map looks. The business and first class cabins are keeping the same number of seats while the coach cabin loses. On a 777, coach loses 50 seats in coach and gains 28 Premium Voyageur instead.

These seats will be up for sale on some routes on April 1 with installations starting soon after. Looks like Paris to New York, Tokyo, and Osaka will get outfitted first.

Hawaiian Still Having Major On-Time Problems
On the surface, Hawaiian appears to be doing well in the world of on-time performance, but when you dig down, you see that’s not the case.

News and Notes from Continental’s 10-K
Digging through Continental’s 10-K, there is plenty to talk about including all kinds of fun notes about the fleet, distribution channels, and more.

More On Premium Traffic’s Steep Decline
The IATA Premium Traffic Monitor is out, and will it surprise you to hear that things keep getting worse? I thought not.

JetBlue Launches Smart Campaign to Become the Airline for Bigwigs
JetBlue has put out a hilarious couple of spots supporting its campaign to be the replacement for the CEOs corporate jet.

Continental Reports “Significant” Yield Degradation, US Airways Doesn’t
The news from Continental is ugly this March, and it’s enough to scare anyone. But US Airways isn’t feeling the pinch nearly as much.

Branson Announces Fourth Destination, Still Short of Plan
Sun Country has recently announced service from the new Branson Airport to both Minneapolis and Dallas. It’s good news for the airport, but they still need more.

Virgin America’s Ownership Question
I thought this would be a good time to dive deeper into Virgin America’s ownership issues. What exactly is going on and how will it turn out?

And now for something completely different. Today, we’re going to forget about commercial aviation and talk about Air Force One. I had the chance to see it up close yesterday, and I’ve got plenty of pics.

Some of you may know that I volunteer at my home airport, Long Beach Airport. On Wednesday night, I received a note saying that volunteers had been invited to go see Air Force One the following morning since it was using Long Beach for the President’s visit to California this week. It took me about 3 seconds to respond that I’d be there. And here it is:

Ok, so technically it wasn’t Air Force One because the President wasn’t onboard. When the President isn’t on the plane, it’s just a VC-25A (military-speak for the 747-200s assigned to this duty) with the registration 28000. But that didn’t make it any less cool.

It’s a beautiful bird, isn’t it? If you haven’t seen it, the National Geographic Channel did an hour long special on the plane that’s worth watching.

It’s a bummer that the marine layer was out in full force yesterday morning, but it didn’t ruin the experience at all. Just seeing that big flag on the tail makes you proud to be an American.

Kudos to the Long Beach Airport for actively getting several people out to see the plane and to President Obama’s team for allowing people to actually get this close.

See the rest of my pictures of Air Force One including one video.