Regardless of whether or not you’re a believer in big government, can we all agree that the government’s latest effort to regulate carry-on size should be outside their jurisdiction? Somehow I doubt we’ll all agree here, but at least now you know where I stand.

H.R. 2870 has been introduced in the House in order to limit carry-on bag dimensions to no more than 22 inches by 18 inches by 10 inches for a total of 50 inches. It would also make the TSA reinstall those obnoxious bag sizers on the security machines. Is this really necessary? I think not.

The legacy carriers have already standardized themselves at 45 linear inches total. Some airlines, like United and US Airways get more specific and say it can be no more than 22x14x9, but that’s still 45 inches.

The low cost carriers, however, are all over the map. Frontier allows 24×15.5×9.5 which comes out to 49 inches. Southwest, Virgin America, and JetBlue’s Embraer 190s are all locked in at 24x16x10 for a total of 50 inches. AirTran allows 55 inches total, and JetBlue’s A320s are the most generous with a 26x18x12 maximum for a total of 56 inches.

So let’s review exactly what this policy would do. It would let the legacies and Frontier continue to keep their policies of allowing less than 50 inches. Even though Southwest and others have a 50 inch maximum, they would have to reduce the length and increase the width by a couple inches to fit the new rules. And AirTran and JetBlue on their A320s would be forced to be more restrictive than they currently allow.

So what do we have? More restrictive rules to piss off customers and still no actual conformity to make things easier. There are also no weight limits involved, so anyone who argues that it’s a safety issue (I’m looking at you, AFA), seems somewhat disingenuous. The feds need to stay out of this one.

Last month I mentioned that United was testing a new configuration on one of its 757s that included leather slimline seats and power outlets. Well, a friend of mine was recently on the aircraft and sent me some pictures to share with everyone.

At left, you can see the view of the seats looking back. It’s a nice blue leather look, and apparently the legroom feels about the same, maybe a little tighter (if that’s possible). They added another row of seats on the plane, but the seats themselves are thinner so it’s mostly a wash.

Notice that one row with an empty spot where a seat used to be? That’s row 16. If you’re booked in that seat and you get stuck on this one aircraft, you’re going to be unhappy. That seat exists on every other aircraft in the fleet, so you’ll have to be re-seated. But that’s minor – let’s not get bogged down.

At right is another view of the seats from the side. You can see that they’ve also freed up some legroom by relocating the seatback pocket. Now you just have some mesh where your legs go (easy for cleaning), but the magazines and safety card sit up top above the tray.

In case you were wondering, the power outlets are underneath the seats. Not easy to find, but when you know where they are, I imagine the placement is pretty convenient for plugging in your electronics. It does, however, block some of the underseat storage area for the middle seat.

This definitely looks like a step forward for United, though I can’t say for sure until I get a chance to ride the airplane myself. Anyone else been onboard?

Today is a big milestone here at The Cranky Flier. This is my 1,000th post. It has been nearly 3 years since my first post went live on August 15, 2006. It’s incredible to think that I’ve gone from that lame intro post to a site with more than 100,000 page views each month. (There have been 108,936 in the last 30 days.) It has been a great ride, and now it’s time for me to start thinking about what’s next. Hopefully you can help.

But first, let’s take a look at some fun-filled facts from the first 1,000 posts.

• Delta has shown up in the most posts, 112 to be exact. Southwest is second with 95, United third at 92, and US Airways fourth at 91.
• I have written about Alitalia 32 wonderful times. It’s been all too quiet lately, so I hope they screw something up soon.
• I’ve written about LAX 44 times, London/Heathrow 10 times, New York/JFK 9 times, and my personal favorite (now flightless) airport-to-hate, Palmdale, 8 times.
• My most commented-on post was the popular sweepstakes from last year that resulted in 299 comments
• Of the 13 Cranky Jackass awards, United has earned the most with three. (But only US Airways has earned the fire-red-with-anger Cranky Jackass)

Now let’s talk about the future. As you know, I put a lot of time into this blog, and I love every minute of it. That being said, it’s not exactly helping to pay many of the bills. Does that mean I’m stopping? Absolutely not. But it does mean that I need to look at ways of generating some more revenue without compromising the editorial integrity of the blog and without charging for what you already see.

So where does that leave me? With a couple options. First, I do offer freelance and consulting services (I have active clients now). If you have any projects that you would like to discuss, please send me a note at cf@crankyflier.com.

Second, I would like to see if I could develop something above and beyond what you see today that you might find to be worth paying for. Yes, it’s the much-heralded “freemium” model at work. But this is where you come in. Is there actually anything you’d like to see from me that you’d also be willing to pay for?

Would you pay for deeper analysis?
Would you pay for email subscriptions that offer greater control over when and how you receive the content?
Would you donate money to support the blog (NPR-style)?
Would you buy a book (or e-book) that I wrote about the industry?
Would you frequent sites that I set up affiliate deals with to get revenue sharing?
Would it bother you if I added more advertising placements to the site?

Just about everything is on the table here, as long as it doesn’t impact the integrity of the content. That means I won’t accept payment for posts, though I’ve certainly been offered. I would like to devote as much time as possible to the site, but with a wife and a mortgage, I need to make more money to be able to justify spending more of my time here.

If you’ve enjoyed the first 1,000 posts, please take a little time to send me your thoughts. Talk to me about what you like, what you don’t, and anything else that comes to mind. The comments section is always open (unless you’re a spammer, then you suck), and my email address is easy to find (cf@crankyflier.com).

Thanks for reading and commenting over the last few years. I hope you enjoy the next 1,000 posts even more.

We had a quick trip this weekend up to San Francisco, and man, was this a lesson in the importance of communication. We flew JetBlue up from Long Beach and had a miserable experience. On the other hand, our flight home to Los Angeles on Southwest was excellent. Both flights were delayed, so what made the difference? Quality communication.

The flight north on JetBlue was booked on May 8 for $59.60 one way per person. I had a $15 voucher from my previous flight where LiveTV didn’t work, so it only cost $44.60 per person in cash. Nice. As usual, we left home an hour before the flight, sailed through security and then went to the holdroom/trailer to wait for our flight.

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June 12, 2009
JetBlue #1436 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 655p Arr San Francisco (SFO) 819p
LGB: Gate 2A, Runway 30, Dept 50m Late
SFO: Gate A10, Runway 28R, Arr 1h13m Late
Aircraft: N579JB, Airbus A320-232, Named Can’t Stop Lovin’ Blue, Two Thirds Full
Seat: 12F
Flight Time: 1h12m

Just as we arrived, I received an email from FLTAdvisor saying that my flight was delayed 25 minutes. Ugh. The holdroom was absolutely jammed as three flights were preparing to leave, so I squeezed my way through the crowd to ask the gate agent what was happening. He looked surprised as well, pulled up the flight information, and flatly said that it would be 25 minutes late because the plane was late. How did they not know this further in advance?

The plane arrived and the gate agent made another announcement that we would board in 15 minutes. Then 25 minutes later, he said we would begin preboarding in 5 minutes. Another 20 minutes later, he finally started preboarding. The misinformation was clearly annoying many in the boarding area as we all hovered around, waiting with less and less patience as each minute went by.

When they finished preboarding, the gate agent called all rows, and it was a mad dash to board from all corners of the trailer, as you can see at left. What a mess. It was made even worse by the gate agent’s lackadaiscal manner that showed absolutely no motivation to get this plane out quickly.

Once we got onboard, people sat down relatively quickly, but then we didn’t move for awhile as ground crew shuffled in and out of the cockpit. To make things worse, the TVs were all stuck on a promo screen so we couldn’t pass the time. The captain made a brief announcement that they were doing paperwork and we’d leave soon. Several minutes later, he came back on and told us that on a previous flight, it had been written up that a TV was broken but now it wasn’t. They needed to get the paperwork straightened out.

I’m sure he was trying to comfort everyone by making it clear that it wasn’t a safety issue, but it just made things worse when we realized that we were waiting for some paperwork on a single TV that wasn’t even broken. Grr.

We finally pushed back and sat through a handful of JetBlue promotions on TV right after the safety briefing. Once those were done, they turned on the TVs, but they didn’t work well on the ground. That wouldn’t have mattered except that as soon as we got to the end of the runway, the captain announced we had been given a 10 minute air traffic control delay by SFO. Could this get any more annoying?

Yes, it could. We did finally take off and it was a beautiful flight as the setting sun filled the partly cloudy sky with beams of red and orange (at right). We started our descent, and we were told that we were on final approach. Not so much. We took a left turn and headed out to sea before turning around and coming back to get in line to land.

Finally, well over an hour after schedule, we landed and headed off to a very late dinner with extremely patient friends. The delays were annoying as they always are, but the misleading information and lack of communication at times made it ten times worse.

After a really nice weekend, including a stay at the excellent Hotel Vitale (my first Joie de Vivre hotel – I’ll be back), we hopped on the BART and went back to SFO for our flight home.

We opted to fly Southwest home because we had credits that were going to expire, and we were able to get rides from friends. It was even better when we found seats for $48.60 a person.

We arrived early and meandered from the BART station in the international terminal over to Southwest’s Terminal 1 location. On the way, my wife stopped at the SFMOMA museum shop, and I insisted on stopping at the aviation museum. It’s a fantastic space with a library on the second floor (at left). Stop in if you get a chance – it’s in the southeast corner of the international terminal, outside security, on the departures level.

Security lines were short but slow, but we had plenty of time. This was my first time flying Southwest out of SFO since they returned to the airport, and I noticed we were flying out of an old Air Canada gate instead of at the end of the concourse where Southwest used to be.

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June 14, 2009
Southwest #2282 Lv San Francisco (SFO) 1145a Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 110p
SFO: Gate 23, Runway 1L, Dept 12m Late
LAX: Gate 14, Runway 24R, Arr 21m Late
Aircraft: N783SW, Boeing 737-7H4, Canyon Blue Colors, 100% Full
Seat: 9F
Flight Time: 56m

We were told at the gate that our plane would be arriving late and we’d have to work to turn the plane quickly. Sure enough, it arrived when they said, and by that time, they had lined the A group (we were A26/27) up so we were ready to board asap. They kept pushing everyone to hustle throughout the boarding process, and kept reminding us how close we were to departure time.

Unfortunately, people weren’t as quick as they could have been, and departure time came and went. Despite the proactive measures, we still left a few minutes late. Once the door was closed, we pushed back quickly and started taxiing out to the runway. Then we sat there. Oh no, not again.

The captain came on and alerted us that we were going to have to wait 8 to 12 minutes to take off. Ok, that’s fair. Twelve minutes later, he came on the horn and said that we had been “penalized” further by air traffic control and we would leave at 1230p (in 10 minutes) because of traffic flow control in the LA area. (You don’t see that very often.)

Sure enough, at 1230p, our wheels were lifting off the ground and we were passing through a low, broken layer of clouds. The rest of the flight was uneventful, and I was very happy to see a cloud-free day in LA for the first time in weeks. June Gloom has been living up to its name lately.

As we landed, the flight attendants decided to kick in some good old-fashioned Southwest humor. One flight attendant said, “If you’re connecting on another Southwest flight, check the monitors in the terminal. If you’re connecting on another airline, we simply don’t care.” Love it.

Though the JetBlue delay was longer than the Southwest one, it still wouldn’t have bothered me nearly as much had the communication been accurate and more frequent. Every airline has its good and bad days, and I’m willing to assume that this was just a bad day for the JetBlue crew.

United Removes Website Hold Feature
United is no longer allowing you to hold reservations booked online. Did they really need to ditch that?

Skepticism Surrounds Potential United Aircraft Order
United is talking about ordering new airplanes, but few believe the airline is revealing its true motivation. There are plenty of theories that make a lot of sense.

May 2009 Airline Traffic Numbers
Raise your hand if you think traffic looked good in May. If you raised your hand, put it down. You’re wrong.

Allegiant’s Low Aircraft Ownership Costs Allow Schedule Flexibility
In a recent presentation, Allegiant showed just how unique their model is. Some months, they cut capacity by more than a third. Not many airlines can pull that off.

Hawaiian Finally Showing Improvement in Mainland On Time Performance
You may think Hawaiian has great on time performance, but that’s definitely not true on their mainland flights. Fortunately, in April they finally showed some improvement.

Lower Demand and Higher Oil Prices Lead to Fall Capacity Cuts
Oil is going up and demand isn’t getting any better. That means it’s time to cut capacity once again.

Virgin America Cash Levels Plunge in the First Quarter
Virgin America released first quarter results today and cash is a concern.