It’s Memorial Day, and I’m not up for doing a full post today. We had a barbecue last night with a bunch of friends, and I’m exhausted. So instead, I thought I’d offer a slight twist on an old favorite. This time, instead of airplane porn, we have Zeppelin porn.

That’s right. Airship Ventures brought their Zeppelin down to Long Beach this past week for flightseeing tours and I was able to hitch a ride on one. What an incredibly cool experience. I’ll have more on it tomorrow, but for now, I’ll leave you with this shot of the Zeppelin (advertising Pixar’s new movie, Up) flying away at the end of our trip.

The New Delta Sees More Complaints in March
March complaints are out, and Delta and its partners saw increases while most others did not. Uh oh.

JetBlue and Others See Higher Complaints in March
I said above that “most” other airlines didn’t have rising complaints. JetBlue, ExpressJet, and Hawaiian, however, did.

Premium Traffic Down 19 Percent, Revenues Down 35 Percent or More
I’m not sure why I keep looking at these IATA premium traffic monitors. The news just keeps getting worse.

American Adds One Way Awards, Cuts Stopovers
American is making their program more flexible for travelers, and I think this is a net positive for both sides.

Continental Starts Flying 737s to Hawai’i
Continental’s first move to fly 737s to Hawai’i highlights the shrinking but still important role of 757s.

AirTran’s Costs Help in the Battle for Milwaukee
At AirTran’s annual meeting, there was one slide that caught my eye. It was a cost comparison, and AirTran looks pretty darn good.

Alaska’s Shows Dropping Demand From H1N1
Alaska’s latest investor update shows some material drops from the flu scare. No surprise, of course.

I’m happy to report that I did find someone to use my $32.40 voucher on United before it expired tomorrow. Hooray! And here’s proof:

Christian has been reading Cranky for about two years, and he just happened to be flying out of LAX on Korean this morning. I had a lunch meeting near the airport, so we met up at Terminal 7 before his flight to make it happen. We waited a few minutes in line while they found an agent to handle ticketing, and then it took only a couple minutes to issue Christian’s ticket to Tucson for less than he would have paid on Southwest. And yes, the ticketing fee was waived since this was the only way to issue a ticket using the voucher.

I’m very glad someone was able to put this to good use.

The TSA is finally transitioning from airline handling of the watch lists to the long-delayed and oft-criticized Secure Flight program, and that means there will be some changes in the way you book your flight. Last week we saw the first change, and now you better be careful what name you use.

I’ll just go ahead and assume that most people here book under their actual names and not some random name just for fun, especially since that’s not exactly permissible. But this rule does say that you have to book your tickets under the exact name that you have on the ID you plan on using.

What? You were doing that already? Maybe, but maybe not. If you have your middle name on your license and that’s the ID you want to use, you have to put your middle name on the ticket. Just have a middle initial on your license? Then that’s what you should put on there. Are you like many airline executives who use their first initial and then middle name (W Douglas Parker and J Scott Kirby come to mind)? Book it that way.

Don’t worry if things aren’t exactly right in the beginning. The TSA says:

For the near future, small differences between ID and reservation information, such as the use of a middle initial instead of a full middle name or no middle name/initial at all, should not cause a problem for the passenger.

Note the first four words of that quote. This leniency will apparently be temporary, so you might as well start booking it this way now to avoid whatever might be in store. Since they don’t give an end date for the more relaxed restrictions, you should just assume that it could end at any time. And remember, if you have your name listed differently on your license and your passport, you’ll need to remember which piece of ID you’ll be using for that particular trip.

What if your airline doesn’t have a box for middle name? Eh, I’d just throw it in with the first name. What if your name is too long to fit? (Yes, I’m talking to you, Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff.) I’d just squeeze as much in there as you can and hope for the best.

You’ve got a few months to get used to this before the next change. On August 15, you’ll have to provide your birth date and gender as well if you’re on a domestic airline. (Presumably, privacy rules in other countries have foiled their plans to roll this out everywhere?)

If you’re transgender, you’re probably dreading that day. But that’s probably a topic for another post.

You would think that adding service to Minneapolis/St Paul, Boston, and New York/La Guardia would be enough for Southwest this year, but you’d be wrong. At the airline’s annual meeting yesterday, CEO Gary Kelly announced that Southwest will head to Milwaukee this fall. This is an old school, traditional move for Southwest, though there is a lot of competition awaiting their arrival.

Back before Southwest started flying into the heart of big congested airports, they used to like bracketing cities. Boston, for example, was served by Providence in the south and Manchester in the north. When they first went to Chicago’s Midway airport on the south side of town many years ago, it was just assumed that they would bracket the city by going into Milwaukee on the north some day. It took them long enough, but it’s finally happened.

For Southwest, this gives them access to many of the rich, northern Chicago suburbs that shudder at the thought of heading down traffic-choked roads to Midway. They prefer O’Hare, but Milwaukee isn’t too bad for some of them. North Chicago, for example, is 30 miles from O’Hare but only 45 miles from Milwaukee.

Of course, it’s not just about the northern suburbs of Chicago. There are the lovable cheeseheads in Wisconsin as well, and they must be jumping up and down at this bounty of new air service they’ve been receiving lately. It looked pretty bleak for Milwaukee when Midwest started its death spiral, but AirTran quickly came in and started building it up. Now to have Southwest too? It’s time for a polka party for the locals, but maybe not so much for the airlines. This could be like a mini-Denver situation where you have one legacy and two low cost carriers fighting it out. Only there’s a lot less demand here than in Denver.

I lump Delta, Northwest, and Midwest all into the legacy role held by United in Denver. Midwest is basically irrelevant. It’s a brand name with a couple of airplanes that basically exists as an arm of Delta. So let’s just say that Delta needs to decide what it wants to do in Milwaukee. Is it worth fighting? We’ll see.

But the real action is on the LCC-side of the house. Southwest started stepping on AirTran’s toes in Boston recently, and now this is a full frontal assault. It’s time for war. AirTran already serves most of the likely suspects for Southwest’s first routes (Phoenix, Vegas, Baltimore, Florida, etc). In fact, the only place where AirTran has a real hole that Southwest might like to fill is Texas. Of course, AirTran has limited frequency to most of these places (Phoenix is only seasonal), so Southwest would probably come in with a lot more firepower.

This also doesn’t look like it’s going to be a slow rollout. According to the press release, they will serve “multiple destinations from the airport of choice for business and leisure travelers who work and live across the vibrant and growing region.”

AirTran has to be pissed. They’ve been trying to secure Milwaukee as a good Midwestern base for some time. After their failed attempt to buy Midwest (Midwest’s loss, AirTran’s gain), they’ve been slowly building up their own operation as Midwest shrinks. Do they really plan to fight? Just after Southwest’s announcement, they thought it would be a good idea to remind people that they’re growing rapidly at the airport. And then this morning, they put out ANOTHER release about some Milwaukee flights that are launching. It’s on like Donkey Kong.

Meanwhile, this has to be the happiest group of airport folks on earth right now. Getting Southwest is a big win for Milwaukee which has tried to roll out the barrel for the airline for many, many years. To have both Southwest and AirTran fighting for supremacy is music to their ears. I imagine they’ve cracked open the champagne (of beers, naturally) to celebrate this one.

It’s good to see Southwest return to their roots a little bit here, but it’s not going to be easy. They’re trying to use some old-fashioned market stimulation in a mid-size city with a large metro catchment area to spark some growth. Only problem is that AirTran is there waiting for them, and they’ve got a lower cost structure.

I must admit I was initially really surprised to see Southwest open four cities this year alone, but I understand why they’ve done it. By adding cities, they can cut capacity elsewhere in the system without having to lay people off. In the past, Southwest could always grow themselves out of a jam, but now it takes a little more creativity. We’ll see how this fight goes.

[Original photo from Philgarlic via Flickr]