It’s incredible to think about how the title of a post or article really sets the tone for a story. For example, if you saw the recent Dow Jones article entitled “Ryanair To Ban Check-In Baggage And Airport Check-In,” you might be surprised to know that it’s referencing the exact same piece of news that I’m discussing here today. The only difference? I see some good in this idea while Dow Jones is clearly going for the sensational, eye-catching headline.

Now before we get into this, I should start by saying that I doubt it’ll actually happen. Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary loves to spout off about his dreams about the future of Ryanair, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. We’re still waiting to see those pay lavs, right? But I think O’Leary’s head is in the right place here.

Yes, it’s true that O’Leary wants to ban checked baggage. Sounds like a bad plan if you like to bring a lot of stuff, but this wouldn’t really prevent you from doing that. Because while he wants to ditch checked baggage, he’d be happy to let you carry on as much as you can drag to the plane. Are you envisioning overhead bins and aisle packed to the gills with bags? Well if they run out of room, they’ll just start putting the bags in the belly, like they do today on regional jets that can’t handle those rollerboards.

If you think about this from a cost savings perspective, it makes sense. You really don’t need ticket counters or any place to for customers to interact with you outside security in this scheme. You also don’t need the complicated luggage transport systems and baggage carts that currently fill the underbelly of every airport. You then need fewer people working on the ramp as well, because you’re making the passengers do the work instead.

For passengers, they’ll have to drag their own luggage all the way to the plane, and I’m pretty sure this will make security lines even more miserable, but if you’re paying a penny for a flight, then you’ll probably just deal with it. And just imagine – no more checked bag fees! Not happy about schlepping all those bags through the airport? I’m sure Ryanair will offer you a pushcart . . . for a fee.

Despite all the decent possibilities of a system like this, I still don’t think it will happen. Why? The government. Any time a plan touches the security process, the government gets involved, and I’m sure they won’t like this idea at all. Oh, and all those carry-on restrictions mean that a lot of passengers who travel with things like guns and knives, not to mention liquids in large containers, will have to fly someone else.

Then there’s the issue of weight and balance in the belly. With carry-on bags, you won’t know how much luggage you’ll have and how it should be spaced out in the aircraft until people board. That will likely delay aircraft turn times, and it will make for a mess of a situation right before departure.

So I don’t think we’ll see this plan come to fruition, but there certainly are some merits to it. At the very least, it’s a creative way to reduce costs, and this industry can certainly use more creativity.

[Original image from wicho via Flickr]

Awhile ago, the discussion came up about how much more I would be willing to pay to fly out of Long Beach than out of LAX. For this trip to Jackson Hole, the answer was roughly $60 per person. For $441.40 per person, we were able to get excellently-timed flights out of Long Beach via Salt Lake on Delta.

We could have paid about $380 to fly United out of LAX via Denver, but it was worth the extra money to fly out of my home airport and to avoid having to fly all the way to Denver and then back to Jackson Hole.

The trip itself was fantastic, though it was spent mostly on regional jets. Flying into Jackson Hole is a real trip (here’s the video of our landing at left) – it’s the only commercial airport in the US within a national park (so I’m told), and it makes for a beautiful arrival. Jackson Hole itself is an incredible place. I can’t believe I’ve never been before, and I can’t wait to return again.

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June 24, 2009
Delta #4716 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 645a Arr Salt Lake City (SLC) 940a
LGB: Gate 23, Runway 30, Dept 9m Late
SLC: Door E22, Runway 16R, Arr 9m Early
Aircraft: N368CA, Bombardier CRJ-700, Wavy Gravy Colors, Mostly Full
Seat: 8A
Flight Time: 1h20m

There is nothing like a pre-7a departure to really get things going in the morning. Seriously, I like early flights, and since our 645a flight was out of Long Beach, we didn’t even bother leaving home until 550a. After parking, it took us about 15 minutes before we were through security and waiting to board.

Once boarded, we were ready to go on-time but the captain, apparently unfamiliar with Long Beach, came on to tell us that the airport didn’t open for flights until 7a, so we would sit at the gate for 10 minutes. Nice scheduling work, Delta. When we did push back, the US Airways and Alaska early flights had beat us to the punch so we didn’t get airborne until a few minutes after 7.

It was my favorite kind of day to fly. We punched through the low marine layer and burst into brilliant sunshine quickly. Then the captain pointed the nose toward Salt Lake and we were off. The air was very still and I drifted in and out of sleep as we sped over the desert floor.

The flight attendants handed out peanuts, biscoff cookies, and drinks and they made a couple of passes for refills. Soon, we were descending into a sunny Salt Lake. We had a great view of the lake (at left) and then we looped around and landed from the north at ghetto Terminal E.

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June 24, 2009
Delta #4510 Lv Salt Lake City (SLC) 1040a Arr Jackson Hole (JAC) 1141a
SLC: Gate E71/Door E21, Runway 16R, Dept 2m Late
JAC: Gate A3, Runway 19, Arr 9m Early
Aircraft: N611SK, Bombardier CRJ-700, Wavy Gravy Colors, Mostly Full
Seat: 13D
Flight Time: 35m

We had walked all the way back to the main gate area where we found it was time to board our connection after just a few minutes. They took our boarding passes and told us to walk to door 21, all the way back where we had landed earlier. Terminal E has a cramped central gate area. Once they take your boarding pass, you walk down very long, spartan hallways (at left) with a couple dozen doors leading to different aircraft. It’s really not fun.

We were originally on a 757 at 1120a but when I looked the other day, I noticed they now had a regional jet going at 1040a. I called Delta and since there was a schedule change, they moved us for free and gave us the only two seats left together – exit row.

When we boarded, I remembered why I didn’t like the exit row. The legroom was great but the cushion was hard, it was much louder than up front, and most importantly, the window was offset. On a flight like this, you want the window for the beautiful scenery.

We lifted off to the south and came around over the lake before heading northeast on this very short flight. There was no service onboard since it was only half an hour, and it seemed like just as we finished climbing, we were heading back down.

The view coming in was beautiful. We came in from the south and then circled around through the canyons surrounded by snow-topped mountains before landing from the north. A short taxi in and we were on our way for a fun weekend.

Jackson Hole is absolutely amazing, and I had no idea how spectacular the Grand Tetons were until I saw them jutting into the clear blue sky. We ended up taking a couple of day trips with Taylor at Jackson Hole Eco Tour Adventures. I can’t say enough about how much better our trip was when armed with his vast knowledge of the area. One hike off the beaten path took us to this place, at right. It was unreal.

Most of the time we were there, the weather was great, but Friday evening a storm came roaring down the mountain. There were sustained 50+ kt winds, hail, and a lot of trees coming down. I can’t describe how amazing it was to see the power of nature in this place. I’m looking forward to going back one day.

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June 28, 2009
Delta #1265 Lv Jackson Hole (JAC) 115p Arr Salt Lake City (SLC) 225p
JAC: Gate 3, Runway 19, Dept 4m Early
SLC: Gate D10, Runway 34L, Arr 18m Early
Aircraft: N617DL, Boeing 757-200, Wavy Gravy Colors, ~85% Full
Seat: 24F
Flight Time: 37m

We arrived at the airport an hour ahead of our flight, boarding passes in hand. We had about a 10 minute wait at security but soon enough we were through to the fairly cramped holding area. It probably was made a lot worse thanks to two 757s loading up, including ours.

This was our only mainline jet of the entire trip, and it pulled up right on time, if not looking a little in need of paint. We were more than happy to board, though many people were watching the soccer finals until they absolutely had to go.

There’s nothing like boarding a big jet from stairs, and the 757 is one big jet when looking up from the ramp. As we boarded I noticed a wifi sticker at the door, my very first wifi aircraft. This plane had the nice blue leather seats but they were dirty. There weren’t any TVs, but I didn’t care for such a short flight.

We took off like a rocket and zig-zagged our way out of the valley. As soon as that 10,000 foot chime went off, I decided to play around with the wifi. That didn’t get very far. By the time I had connected my BlackBerry to the network, we were at cruise. I went to the sign up page and it took me a couple of tries to register a new account. Just as that happened, I got to the last page where you have to pay $7.95 to use a mobile device, and the flight attendant announced we had begun our initial descent. I wasn’t about to waste my money just so I could send a quick Tweet from 30,000 feet, but at least I was able to see that the system does, in fact, work.

Soon enough the Great Salt Lake appeared on the right and we landed after coming around to the north. We got off and remembered how nice Salt Lake City airport can be when flying in on big jets before we had to head down to the dungeon that is SkyWest Terminal E. It was a very crowded day down there with constant PA announcements for a ton of oversold flights looking for volunteers. Ours was not one of them, and after a few minutes, it was time to board.

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June 28, 2009
Delta #4723 Lv Salt Lake City (SLC) 3p Arr Long Beach (LGB) 352p
SLC: Gate E76/Door 24, Runway 34L, Dept 4m Late
LGB: Gate 23, Runway 30, Arr 2m Early
Aircraft: N445SW, Bombardier CRJ-200, Wavy Gravy Colors, 100% Full
Seat: 10D
Flight Time: 1h30m

It was a full flight, and we pushed back only a couple minutes late. The captain was talkative and said that it would be a little bumpy at first but it would smooth out quickly. He was right. We took off to the north, had a couple bounces, and then we were on our way. The single flight attendant did one service and then asked if anyone needed refills on her way back up the aisle.

Soon, we passed just southeast of Vegas and had a great view of the Strip. We came in over the High Desert, went south, came west over Orange County and then over Huntington Beach on our way in.

We landed on time and so ended a long stretch of traveling – 24 flights in the last three months. My goal is not to touch an airplane during the month of July.

US Airways’ Charlotte to Honolulu Flight Might Just Work
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Alaska Fills the Void in the Austin to San Jose Market
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Continental’s Biofuel Test Results are Good
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Frontier to Become Subsidiary of Republic
Frontier announced yesterday that it plans to come out of bankruptcy as a full subsidiary of Republic.

What is Republic’s Strategy?
Now that Republic has stepped out in a big way with its Frontier purchase, what exactly is its strategy?

787 First Flight Delayed . . . Again
Did you hear that scream from airline exec offices around the world? The 787 is delayed once again.

United Pilots Prepare for Scope Battle
Pilot negotiations at United are heating up and Scope is about to take center stage.

Malev Orders Sukhoi Superjets
The Superjet got a big order, but is this the start of something big?

It looks like US Airways is planning on rolling out a new business class seat for its A330-200 aircraft. Runway Girl broke the news last week from the Paris Air Show when she sat in the supposed seat, but I spoke with US Airways and while they admit a new seat is in the works, this might not be it.

US Airways spokesperson Morgan Durrant confirmed for me that they are going to introduce a new international business class seat on the A330-200 from Sicma. But will it be the seat that Runway Girl sat in at the show? Not quite. I couldn’t get many details out of them. In fact, they wouldn’t even confirm that it would be lie-flat, but they did say that as the first customer for whatever seat this may be, not everything is finalized yet.

Let’s assume that it’s similar to the set-up that is being shown in Paris. If that’s the case, it’s pretty awesome. They’re using a reverse herringbone design, which besides sounding like a complicated sexual position is also an interesting idea for seat configuration. The herringbone is what you saw pioneered by Virgin Atlantic where the seats angle the feet toward the aisle. The reverse herringbone has the feet angle away from the aisle. That keeps heads further apart in the middle, and it gives you a better view on the window.

So it’s entirely possible that US Airways will have a pretty cool product here. When will we know more? According to Morgan, hopefully sometime in the Fall. And will we see this on any other airplanes? Staying true to form, he wouldn’t confirm that either. Bummer.

See some more pictures of the alleged new US Airways seat at BusinessTraveller.

When we last saw “The Cardinal” he commented on Virgin America, stirring up a lot of emotions in the process. This time he tackles something I bet will be less controversial — today The Cardinal proposes that Delta CEO Richard Anderson should buy Alaska (the airline, not the state) as soon as it possibly can. He benefits from discussions with “The Rabbi”, another pseudonymous source who I know is well-informed. All mistakes remain the responsibility of The Cardinal.
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Delta is in the middle of digesting Northwest, quite a meal. For dessert, we suggest Alaska Airlines, which should be sweeter for Delta than for any other airline in the US.

Alaska Airlines theoretically makes sense as a merger partner to just about all the major US airlines with the exception of Southwest and United. Southwest is out because a lot of what Alaska does is outside of Southwest’s mission (and Southwest has only truly merged once in its lifetime — with Morris Air — plus it took over, re-branded and then shut down Muse Air) and United is out because it would probably cause anti-trust issues, given United and Alaska’s overlapping networks on the west coast.

US Airways would probably love to merge with Alaska (any port in a storm) but there’s no way it could afford it. It might make sense for AirTran too — giving AirTran geographic reach it simply does not have at the moment. Again, AirTran probably can’t afford it. Neither of these is likely to be a serious bidder if Alaska was ever in play.

But Alaska’s value is really to the legacy majors with international systems — American, Continental and especially Delta. The value is Seattle.

Seattle ought to be a substantial international gateway, but it’s not, because the dominant hub carrier (Alaska) has no intercontinental flights. Seattle, in fact, is potentially the best hub to Asia in the whole lower 48, simply because it’s closer to Asia than any other large lower 48 city. It also results in shorter connections to many (perhaps most) US mainland points. Check it out for yourself on the Great Circle Mapper. Try a bunch of connecting itineraries from say, Tokyo (NRT) or Seoul (ICN) via Seattle (SEA) or San Francisco (SFO) to some interior point, like Kansas City (MCI) (put “NRT-SEA-MCI, NRT-SFO-MCI” in the “Paths” box and hit the “Display Map” button to compare the lengths of the paths from Tokyo to Kansas City via Seattle and San Francisco).

Buying Alaska is one of the rare situations where a merger with a largely domestic airline would yield substantial benefits to the international side of the purchaser.

Alaska’s operations would also give greater access the US west coast to each of Continental, American and Delta. But Alaska is worth more, by far, to Delta. Why?

First of all, Delta has a big Tokyo operation inherited from Northwest, so like United it has a powerful Asian operation. What Delta lacks, however, is a west coast hub/gateway to anchor its Asian operation. Delta is in the unusual position of having a lot of ways to bring people to the US from Asia but not having a good distribution system on the part of the US mainland which is closest to Asia — namely the west coast. Compare to United with its big San Francisco hub/gateway.

Continental and American also lack west coast hubs/gateways, so Alaska would be valuable to them too. However, their Asian systems are not as powerful as that of Delta, so Delta could leverage Alaska’s Seattle hub far more than either Continental and American.

Seattle has another feature that matches up well with Delta. Delta’s fleet is unusually heavy in small widebodies — it probably has too many 767s. The interesting thing about Seattle is that it’s the one large potential US hub from which the 767 has sufficient range to reach useful parts of Asia,including Japan and Korea. In other words, a Seattle hub would give Delta’s probably underemployed 767s something to do — imagine 767 nonstops from Seattle to most of the significant Japanese cities, plus Korea, plus maybe parts of northeast China, especially as Delta is adding winglets to some of its 767s to give them more range.

But wait, there’s more. Seattle would do some great things for Delta on the domestic side as well. In particular, it would fix a long-time problem in the Delta network, namely the relative weakness of its Salt Lake City hub against United’s Denver hub.

Denver has always been, and will likely always be, a far better place for a hub than Salt Lake City. Denver’s a larger city, it’s placed better for domestic traffic flows, flights from Denver are allowed to fly into New York LaGuardia airport (as opposed to those in Salt Lake City, which are not, because of the idiotic perimeter rules of the Port Authority) and so forth.

Delta has struggled for years to make Salt Lake City work in the shadow of Denver. Really the main thing Salt Lake City has going for it is that it’s the only other plausible city for a hub in the Mountain West other than Denver. It ain’t much, but it’s something.

The merger with Northwest has already helped a little bit. Delta is now more relevant to a section of the Great Plains/Upper Midwest/Montana, etc, because it can provide access from two directions with the combination of Salt Lake City and Minneapolis. It’s not as good as United’s Denver + Chicago, but it’s better than Salt Lake City by itself. The new Delta is already to likely see some market shift in its favor because of the Salt Lake City/Minneapolis combination.

Imagine, however, the influence Delta+Northwest+Alaska would exert over basically the entire northwest quadrant of the lower 48 from the combination of Seattle, Salt Lake City and Minneapolis. Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North & South Dakota, Wyoming & Nebraska would all find the combination of Delta’s services to be a powerful competitor to United’s San Francisco + Denver + Chicago hub combination.

Neither Continental nor American would benefit the same way. Neither of them has hubs that are close enough Seattle to have a similar effect.

Lastly, it’s worthwhile noting that Alaska and Delta have similar pilot pay structures these days. You can check that out for yourselves by looking at rates at Airline Pilot Central. You can see that Delta & Alaska have similar 737 pay rates. This is important — prior to 9/11, Alaska’s rates were a lot lower than those of the “big ugly” airlines like Delta, meaning that a merger of Alaska with an airline like Delta would instantly impose significant additional costs on the Alaska route structure. That’s nowhere near the problem it once would have been.

Given the extraordinary benefits to Delta, we’d even go so far as to say that Delta would be nuts not to pursue a takeover with Alaska as soon as it is able. There are few occasions where a “fill-in” acquisition like Alaska could yield such benefits.

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The Cardinal is a long time industry observer, who is currently a [redacted] at [redacted]. Prior to working at [redacted], he worked at [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted]. He resides in [redacted] and in his spare time enjoys [redacted with extreme prejudice].