I was home for less than a week before it was time to hit the road again. This time it was for my 5 year business school reunion. Fortunately, that meant just a quick hop up to the Bay Area. Though fares were cheaper out of LAX, I opted for JetBlue just so I could fly out of Long Beach. Total cost for the roundtrip: $149.20.

My flight was at 220p, but I didn’t bother having my friend pick me up from my house until 130p. Twenty minutes later, I was sitting patiently waiting to board. I love flying out of here, especially during the afternoon when the security lines are nonexistent.

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April 30, 2009
JetBlue #1434 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 220p Arr San Francisco (SFO) 344p
LGB: Gate 2, Runway 30, Dept a Couple Minutes Early
SFO: Gate A2, Runway 28L, Arr ~15m Early
Aircraft: N580JB, Airbus A320-232, Named Mo’ Better Blue, Two Thirds Full
Seat: 11F
Flight Time: 58m

We boarded the not-very-full flight early and I was in row 12, right behind the exit row. As I sat down, I quickly realized two things. One, my TV wasn’t working. And two, the guy on the other side of my row was very loud and seemed to be trying to talk to anyone who was around him. Oh boy.

I mentioned to a flight attendant that my TV wasn’t working and she rushed by saying that they were going to do a “major reboot” of the system. That never happened, so a few minutes later, I flagged another flight attendant and asked if I could switch seats to where the TV worked. He said yes, I moved up to row 11 on the right side, an exit row where I had three seats all to myself.

Quickly after that, the third flight attendant came up and handed me a pamphlet saying loudly but very politely that next time I could pay for an upgrade to these seats if I wanted to. I thanked her and, not wanting her to think I just moved on my own, told her that the other flight attendant had allowed me to move up. She said she knew, and then she leaned in and said, “But other people in this area paid for these seats, and I don’t want them to be unhappy about that.” I thought she handled that very well. Excellent job of making sure that the people who paid more get value for it.

We took off and it was a routine flight up north except we had no blue chips today (just other snacks). Just as we started our descent, the loud guy decided to just sit himself in my row on the aisle. I had my earphones on and had just switched to the live map (which is awful – it’s about 75% ads and 25% crappy map) when he leaned over and said, “What are you watching?”

Oh hell no.

Then he leaned over and saw my screen, said, “Wow, we’re going 503 mph now. Awesome, we’ve sped up.” This guy needed to shut up.

Fortunately for me, the first flight attendant came by and said he had to move back. She said he hadn’t been briefed on the exit row operation so it was a violation of FAA rules for him to be there. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I didn’t care. He was gone.

We landed on the Bay runways and taxied over to the international terminal where JetBlue operates. I hopped on the AirTrain and took BART up to the City.

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May 3, 2009
JetBlue #1433 Lv San Francisco (SFO) 100p Arr Long Beach (LGB) 229p
SFO: Gate A10, Runway 1L, Dept 30m Late
LGB: Gate 4A, Runway 30, Arr 15m Late
Aircraft: N563JB, Airbus A320-232, Named Blue Chip, ~99% Full
Seat: 13F
Flight Time: 57m

We showed up at SFO about 2 hours early so we could drop the rental car off that my wife had picked up when she flew in the day after me. It’s a real pain because they make you drop your car, walk all the way downstairs, and then come all the way back up to board the train. Once onboard, it was just a couple minutes before we arrived at the international terminal where we checked in at the kiosks.

I was a little nervous about being on time today since there was some fog and rain around. Being in the international terminal, I saw that Virgin America was seeing was 1 1/2 to 2 hour delays on many flights and another JetBlue flight to New York was 2 hours late. But ours wasn’t too bad. For the first time ever, the fact that our flight was coming from New York was actually a benefit. We were scheduled at 130p, only a half hour late.

It took a good 15 minutes or so to get through security, and then we trudged to the end of the hall to park ourselves for the wait. Thanks to the messy delays, both Virgin America and JetBlue were operating flights right on top of each other out of this gate. Kudos to Virgin America’s agents for being much more proactive than JetBlue’s about putting information out there.

JetBlue’s agents were slow to show up, but when they did, they said it would be 30 minutes late. We waited and our plane showed up at the gate as promised. They boarded us up quickly, and I believe that we made the Virgin America plane wait in the penalty box until we left the gate open for them.

We had a chatty captain who came out front to tell us our route. He said we would be taking off on the 10s which meant a long taxi around the airport. But we pushed back and they must have just turned the airport around. We took off on runway 1L, and that probably cut our taxi time by 10 minutes at least.

It was an incredible takeoff with an AirTran 737 on 1R at the same time. I could see him lifting up behind our wing and it provided a great view. I just wish I had whipped out my BlackBerry to take a picture.

We went into the clouds quickly and stayed there for more than half the flight. There were just a couple bumps, but the seatbelt sign went off quickly. My only complaint? When we boarded, maybe half the channels said “searching for signal.” As we took off, that jumped to about two thirds, and then quickly, no channels worked on the plane. This was true even when we broke out into blue skies as we headed south and didn’t let up until the last 10 minutes of the flight when some channels came back online.

A quick turn over Catalina and we were lined up for landing. I actually send a couple tweets about the flight including one about the TVs not working. JetBlue picked up on it, and soon enough I had a $15 credit tweeted back to me for a future flight. Great stuff.

In last week’s internal company newsletter, US Airways noted that it was switching up its boarding process. They’ve gone back to basics. Instead of trying to figure out the best way to board from a time-saving perspective, they’re just gonna let people fight it out.

The new plan is similar to what Northwest does, though I’m not sure if that’s changed under the Delta regime. In short, important people board first, and then everyone else gets to board together in the back. They’ve actually made it much more complicated than that. Here’s the new hierarchy:

• Slow Pokes (Pre-boarding) – Those who need help boarding (disabled or old) or those with kids under 5




• Really Important – Premium cabin passengers and top tier elite members (excludes Silver)




• Sort of Important – Silver elite members, US Airways credit card holders, and people who paid for premium coach seats (exit row, etc)




• Not Important but Cheaper to Process – those who check-in online




• Not Important and More Expensive to Process – everyone else

Seems like a lot of groups to me. The only major thing here that we haven’t seen before is that those who check-in online get to board ahead of those who don’t. It’s a nice little incentive that I would think might help push people to go online. That’s the goal, of course, since it’s cheaper for the airline.

But what’s significant here is that they’ve completely abandoned any sort of science in trying to board people in the quickest way. The old system was called the “Reverse Pyramid” which, besides being a move you’d probably like to see a cheerleader make, also, according to research performed by ASU, was the fastest way to board. Maybe US Airways has decided that it feels the same way about ASU as the Daily Show does.

More likely, however, is that they’d carved out so many exceptions that it didn’t actually help much anymore. See the reverse pyramid plan starts with windows in the back, then windows in the middle and middles in the back, and then windows up front, middles in the middle, and aisles in the back, etc.

In the last few years, so many exceptions popped up that allowed early boarding that the benefits of using the reverse pyramid have probably disappeared. So now they’ll just scrap the system and let the peons fight it out.

[Original Image from Mauricio Santana (Tux) via Flickr]

Last week, I had the chance to chat with Patrick Brannelly, Emirates VP Passenger Communications and Visual Services. The topic? Onboard mobile phone use. This should spark some pretty interesting debate.

Patrick was very encouraged by what he’s seeing on Emirates so far, and he thinks much of the anti-phone hype is just that . . . hype. Does that mean that the rest of the world should adopt it? It’s obviously quite a complicated subject, but I must admit that seeing how it’s being used in real life makes me less averse to the idea in general.

You can decide for yourself.

Cranky: Hi Patrick, thanks for taking the time to talk with me about mobile phone usage onboard today. I understand that you’re seeing some very good response to the program.

Patrick: Yes, we are. We now have it on 37 or 38 aircraft and we launched it over a year ago. We’re seeing about 35% of people switch their phones on – sometimes as high as 65% of known passengers. These are people who switch their phones on. Some who switch it on can’t roam or don’t have roaming agreements, so not all can use it. In the last year since we launched, over a quarter of a million people switched a phone on on an Emirates flight. We’ve never had a single complaint. People like to message. There’s been a lot of use of SMS.

Cranky: What aircraft types are those 37 or 38 aircraft?

Patrick: The Aeromobile system is on a number of aircraft types – the A330, A340-300, and also the 777s. I believe it’s on 5 aircraft types and we’re installing about one a week.

Cranky: Will it be on the entire fleet?

Patrick: That’s the plan. We have seen some complaints of people not being able to use their mobile phone on the plane, so we want to make sure they have the service.

Cranky: But you say you haven’t seen any complaints from passengers about people using their phones?

Patrick: No. I think it’s a little bit of journalistic hysteria. Nobody likes to be sitting next to someone who is jabbering away, but there are a lot of natural self limiters to prevent that.

1. It is roaming. People speak less when the price is a little bit higher. These calls are still via satellite so it does cost more.




2. At any time on a long haul aircraft, roughly about one third of the people you’re trying to call are asleep. We are seeing almost zero calls on night flights.




3. It is only allowed five calls on an aircraft at a time. I heard a US Senator or someone say he didn’t want to hear 100 calls on a plane at the same time. That wouldn’t happen; it’s impossible right now.




4. We have TVs on every seat, so passengers are watching programs with their headphones on and not listening to phone conversations.

Cranky: Are you seeing certain geographic areas getting more usage than others?

Patrick: Asia is turning out to have a lot more text messages as a percentage. If you go to Asia, a place like Japan, the use of a phone in a public place is very persona non grata. They like to text.

Cranky: But are there certain flights where you’re seeing more usage than others?

Patrick: Oddly enough, we’re seeing a lot of voice traffic before you get into countries that are more expensive to roam into. People are trying to make the call before they land. But one thing to note, even on the most heavy use flight, we’ve only seen three concurrent calls at one time. We rarely see two concurrent calls, but we do.

Cranky: Really? So you’ve never even hit the limit. Interesting. What about specifically on flights to the US? What has usage looked like?

Patrick: I don’t believe we have actually flown the system to the US. The reason for that is that the US is served with very specific aircraft types. None of the 777LR or A380s have that yet.

Cranky: But you could use it on US flights if you wanted to, right?

Patrick: It would be switched off on US flights. Even if we wanted to use it over the US, it would have to be disabled because the US uses a different system. It can’t be used without additional equipment and we haven’t installed that.

Cranky: But you could use it for the rest of the flight that isn’t over US airspace?

Patrick: Well, we could for part of it, but it doesn’t work above 82 degrees latitude, over the poles where some of our US flights go. We would like to be able to use it to and from flights from America but there has been talk that it may be prohibited, but we’ll resist that.

Patrick: One thing that’s being missed here is why has Emirates done this. We’ve had phones on the seatbacks and they have been used over the years. We see sometimes 40 to 50 phone calls on a flight to New York and never a single complaint. What this is about is more convenience. Passengers know the numbers, they can get billed to their phone and it might be cheaper than using the seatback phone. It’s about freedom. They have the freedom to choose more things. Some people will speak on the phone and speak loudly, but they’ll do that today on a seatback phone.

Cranky: Do you think this will work on flights anywhere on any airline or do you think it’s success is specific to Emirates which flies longer haul flights to countries that may have more expensive calling agreements?

Patrick: I think over time it’s bound to come down in price. Even if it stays at the same price, it’s deflationary. That’s given us tremendous freedom. I think this will work on any flight. People don’t just speak on their phones; they text, they email, they download applications on their iPhone, etc. This is all about allowing people to live normally when they’re traveling anywhere.

One of the most important things is if you’re traveling in an emergency – maybe you’re traveling with someone who is not very well – you’re on a 7 hour flight and you’re stressing about that. Having the freedom to diffuse the situation and calm you down is very important. It’s almost a human right. You should be able to communicate.

Cranky: Wait, did you say you can download applications? Do you have internet access via phones now or is it just voice and text?

Patrick: At the moment, it’s SMS and voice. We need to upgrade some of the other avionics on the aircraft, and very soon we’ll be offering GPRS data. I have GPRS data on my BlackBerry, and I can surf the internet. I can’t watch YouTube, but it keeps me in touch. I know what’s going on in the world. We’ll have that working on some planes within a year. Whether or not you can download an app, I’m not really sure.

You should be connected at the airport, you should be getting wi-fi for free, like airlines like JetBlue give. This is what it’s all about. In the future, people will be 100% connected 20 years from now. This is just about what happens in between.

Cranky: So what about onboard internet. Are you looking at putting a system onboard?

Patrick: There are a number of solutions out there. In terrestrial America, you have the GoGo product which has been well received. But you need to have a lot on the ground and that’s not possible over water or probably in Europe. We want them to have free, or very cheap, we want them to have free internet. It has to be easy to use. You don’t have to swipe credit cards and all that stuff. I don’t think travelers are prepared to pay $24 for a two hour session. We’ve done things like free wi-fi in lounges worldwide. People say, “you could make money, you could charge with this,” but that rubs us the wrong way. This is a service.

Cranky: Back to onboard mobile, let’s talk details of how this works. Do you or does Aeromobile (the mobile provider onboard) charge a fee for use or is it just what the networks charge?

Patrick: The way it works – it’s just like another country. Aeromobile has roaming agreements with about 150 operators worldwide – there are 900 total – and that determines how much the phone company is charged. The phone company can charge the customer whatever they want. We know one phone company that’s charging less than they’re paying and another that’s charging a 300% markup. Check with your operator. If you get ripped off, you’re likely to change service providers. Emirates are not in this. We will not make profit out of this. This is a service and we are not interested in making a profit out of it.

Cranky: So then you get one bill from your mobile phone provider at the end. But do you know if Aeromobile has agreements with US carriers?

Patrick: I don’t believe they have agreements with the major US carriers. [Further research found that no US carriers currently have an agreement with Aeromobile. I understand that Aeromobile simply isn't prioritizing US carriers because this doesn't operate on US flights, but they will get there eventually. Apparently, there is some demand. More than 400 US carrier subscribers tried to turn on their phone last month.]

Cranky: Great, thanks for taking the time to chat, Patrick.

For months, we’ve heard airlines go back and forth with wifi announcements. One airline says it’ll test wifi. Another says it’ll put it on the entire domestic fleet. Another says it’ll test it on aircraft made in odd-numbered years (or not). But you get the point. Airlines like talking about this a lot . . . except for AirTran. They hadn’t said a word about wifi until today. Now they say the entire fleet will be outfitted by the end of July.

How are they doing it so quickly? Well, they started doing this stealthily about a month ago. Now I guess they have enough critical mass that they’re ready to start talking about it. And they’ve made a heck of a splash – if you saw the Today Show this morning, they were broadcasting live from above, taking a page from the Virgin America playbook.

Delta has to be a little pissed off right now. They’ve been the most proactive of all and it was just yesterday that they announced they were nearly half done with their installation on their domestic fleet. They’ll finish up in September, and I bet they hoped they’d at least have a short competitive advantage over their chief competitor in Atlanta. (That’s AirTran.) They won’t since AirTran will be done with their fleet in July.

But let’s be honest. None of these competitive advantages are going to last very long. We’re in the transition phase where airlines are jumping all over each other to try to make the biggest PR splash. Broadcasting from above is just one example of the lengths airlines are willing to go to get it stuck in the public’s heads that they have wifi onboard. But this phase won’t last very long.

I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of planes flying domestically will have some form of internet up and running in short order. American, Delta, AirTran, and Virgin America will all have wifi on their whole domestic fleets soon. Southwest and Alaska are testing it. United will be soon. JetBlue and Continental are both sticking with narrow band email solutions for now, but I wonder how long it’ll be until we see that change.

So while some airlines will get a nice PR jump now, a year from now it’ll be standard equipment, and only then will this actually be good for the customer. I don’t know anyone who enjoys the guessing game right now. Will my plane have wifi or not? You won’t know until you get onboard, unless you’re flying Virgin America which does tell you in advance. Soon, we won’t have to worry about that. Every plane will have it.

But back to AirTran. I have to say that it’s nice to see an airline not talking about this until they actually had something to show for it. The compressed timeline for installation means their customers are not going to have to suffer with the guessing game as long as they have with other carriers. There is still, however, one problem.

On AirTran’s wifi PR flight this morning, there were a lot of dead batteries. (Remember, I brought this up recently.) Benet Wilson was twittering until her laptop died. (Then she switched to her iPod Touch.) And Ben Mutzabaugh at USA Today saw his battery die as well. He asked AirTran about power outlets, and they said “it’s a priority to address, but concedes it likely won’t happen soon.”

So a year from now, I’m hoping that wifi will be standard and the next race will be for power outlets.

I really should avoid booking flights at all costs, because if I can’t do it online, it ends up being incredibly difficult. This time, it was Southwest making my life difficult, and man, do they have a problem in the way they process unused credits.

We were looking at a simple one way flight in June that was going to cost us just shy of $98. I had two different confirmation numbers on unused tickets that I wanted to apply to cover the total cost of the ticket. Of course, Southwest lets you do this online, and I’ve always found that they’ve made this easier than anyone else. Not this time.

One of the credits had about $90 from one ticket and it expires in September. The other one had about $115 and expires next April. Naturally, I wanted to use up all the funds that expire in September and pull the remaining $8 or so out of the one that wouldn’t expire for a year. But when I went online, it didn’t let me. I put the $90 credit in first and that worked. But then when I went in to put the other confirmation #, it then pulled all the credit from the newer one and wouldn’t let me use the one that expire soon.

I tried it a few different ways, so I called Southwest for help. They weren’t very helpful. It’s not that they didn’t try, but the system apparently has some screwy logic that wouldn’t let them help me. Here’s how it works, according to the reservation agents I spoke with.

The $90 credit that expires in September is a partial credit. It used to be around $200, but we had used the balance for another set of flights previously. So the system views that as a partial credit which is a lower class of credit in the hierarchy. The $115 credit was actually two credits. There was one full ticket intact for $111 and then another $3 or $4 as a partial credit from a second ticket on the same itinerary. The full ticket is a higher class of credit, for some reason. Confused? Me too. I just wanted to use my f*&(ing credits.

Here’s the bottom line. The system will force you to use full credits that are on a ticket before you can use partial credits. So I had a choice. I could either pull the full amount out of the $111 or I could combine the $90 credit with the $3 credit and pay the rest on my credit card. I opted for the latter because I didn’t want to take a chance that we wouldn’t use that credit before it expired. Yes, it only cost me $4 or $5 on my credit card, but that’s not the point.

Clearly, this is a very bad setup. Southwest should let you choose which credits you want to apply instead of forcing some arbitrary logic that makes no sense for the customer.