I didn’t expect my first wifi flight to be on a 1950s era Grumman Albatross, but sure enough, here I am. Here at NBTA, Row 44 (the guys doing wifi for Southwest and Alaska) took me up for a flight thanks to the Southwest guys. What a beautiful evening here in San Diego.
I’ll have more tomorrow.
I’m at the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) conference this week, and I spent awhile chatting with the folks at AirCell (provider of wifi fun) yesterday. That made me think it was a good time for a wifi update, especially since there has been so much news lately.
Delta and American continue to make progress while Southwest has announced it’s outfitting the full fleet. But the fleet coverage numbers that airlines throw out can be misleading, so I thought I’d break it down further.
Let’s start with this chart showing what percent of the fleet currently has wifi installed by airline.
You’ll notice that these numbers look WAY different from what the airlines tell you. For example, Delta just announced that it was north of 70% but I’m showing 16%. What gives? Well, Delta has it installed on 70% of the pre-merger mainline fleet. In this number, I’ve included the Northwest fleet and the vast fleet of Delta Connection regional jets and props that have no wifi at all. While the regional fleet probably won’t see wifi, the first Northwest aircraft goes in for modification on 10/1.
AirTran and Virgin America remain the only airlines with 100% completion, though it was a lot easier for Virgin America with only 28 planes than it was for AirTran with 136 planes. Oh, and remember, Virgin America has power outlets so they already have a leg up.
American has just passed 100 MD-80s with the system along with the 15 767-200s flying across the country. talking to AirCell today, I was told that they’re doing 1 or 2 a day, so they keep marching quickly. They will have 150 MD-80s, and I believe that’s the only plan so far.
Alaska is still just in test mode, but they have indicated that they want to go fleetwide eventually.
Southwest is also still in test mode, but they just announced that they would be rolling this out fleetwide beginning in 2010. There is no timeline for completion, but hopefully they can install this quicker than they can paint airplanes in their new colors.
Continental and JetBlue are in the same boat. They are both tied to the LiveTV inflight entertainment system, and that can include narrow-band access for free onboard. That means you can check email, use IM, and visit a couple websites but that’s about it. JetBlue still only has it on one airplane but they’ll begin rolling it out soon throughout the fleet. I know Continental has LiveTV on most of its 737-900s now, but they don’t have wifi of any kind yet.
United had announced that its flights from New York to LA and San Francisco will have internet but that hasn’t happened yet. US Airways will put it on their A321 fleet as well, but that hasn’t begun either.
So if you want wifi, AirTran and Virgin America are your best bet with Delta and American following. Of course, it remains to be seen how many people want wifi and more importantly, are willing to pay for it. I asked AirCell for usage numbers, but of course, they couldn’t provide that. Bummer.
I haven’t commented on the ridiculousness that is Continental #2816 yet, and I’ve received plenty of emails asking me why that hasn’t happened. You know the flight; that’s the one where the passengers got stuck on their little regional jet all night long after diverting from Minneapolis/St Paul to Rochester, Minnesota because of bad weather. I decided to wait to write a post until I could get full information, and I simply couldn’t get it. But now that the initial report is out from the DOT, I’ve got enough to start talking. Surprisingly, it points to Delta Connection carrier Mesaba as the real problem here, though they are denying it.
There’s a lot of finger pointing going on, that’s for sure. Just about everyone originally jumped on ExpressJet (the operator of the Continental Express flight) for not getting people off quickly enough and on Continental for not taking enough responsibility for the flight. Turns out that while they do take some blame, much of it lies on little Mesaba, the regional that’s owned by Delta and the handling agent at the Rochester airport.
In the end, however, the issue not who is at fault in this specific situation but rather the fact that it keeps happening. (There was another one on Sun Country on Friday.) Do we really need a passenger bill of rights to prevent these things? I still say no. Let’s take a look at some of the things people are saying should have happened.
So did we learn anything? Maybe a little. We definitely learned that crews should escalate the issue as high as possible if it doesn’t get resolved quickly. We also learned that passengers should just walk off the damn plane if they get stuck for that long. But this really was a combination of a bunch of things coming together to screw these poor passengers.
The problem is that this ends up stoking the fire for a government-regulated passenger bill of rights, and I still don’t think that’s going to help. There are plenty of things about this industry that the government doesn’t understand – they’re likely to come up with a bill that makes things worse for everyone. But, if the industry keeps letting crap like this happen, then there isn’t going to be another option.
But what would that have done here? Would Mesaba get fined? That might still happen anyway. Would the passengers magically have been transported off the plane? Not simply because of a law. A federal law probably wouldn’t have changed much here. Continental, for example, already has a policy to get people off the plane after a certain period of time. I think Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said it best.
There was a complete lack of common sense here. It’s no wonder the flying public is so angry and frustrated.
I agree, but can you regulate common sense? I don’t think so. All I know is that the airlines need to take this more seriously.
[Original Images via http://www.flickr.com/photos/madfox/ / CC BY 2.0 and ExpressJet.com]
Just a little heads up before we get to the weekly links … I’ll be at the National Business Travel Association NBTA conference next week so my posting schedule may be a little off. I will do my best to keep a regular schedule. If you’ll be at the show, let me know!
Labor Issues Thwart Southwest’s Efforts to Buy Frontier – BNET
Southwest lost its chance to buy Frontier thanks to labor issues. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but it still is.
LAX Rent Increase Ruled Not Discriminatory, But Fight Continues – BNET
LAX tried to increase its rent for those airline not under long term lease, and they just won the first round of the battle. But there’s more to come.
In Search of the Elusive Power Port – NileGuide
I wrote this guest post for NileGuide about which airlines have power outlets and where you can find them. It ain’t easy.
Air Traffic Controller Union, FAA Agree on Labor Deal – BNET
It’s taken years, but the new administration has finally started working with the air traffic controllers. They have a tentative agreement.
June Premium Traffic Drops “Only” 21.3 Percent – BNET
It’s premium traffic monitor time again, and it’s ugly . . . again. But things are getting a bit less bad.
Delta’s Partnership with Virgin Blue Causes Pain for United in Australia – BNET
Virgin Blue is walking away from its United codeshare down under.
Think of it as a new airline within an airplane. While many airlines in the past have really liked the idea of starting a low cost carrier, El Al has decided to do it on its existing fleet. There will now be a low-cost class of service on European flights on the airline. Though this may sound unique, and I’ve heard some say it is, it’s really what Air Canada pioneered long ago.
El Al is about to face some serious low cost competition into Europe. Air Berlin started serving Israel on July 7 and easyJet starts in November, so El Al is trying to figure out how to compete. The idea was to come up with a low cost carrier but put it on the same airplane as their existing service. The seats are the same, but if you’re in regular coach class, you get frills. If you’re in the low cost coach class, everything else comes for a price. So just to make sure we’re clear, let’s get graphical. This is not what’s happening:
The seats are the same. This is the same type of bundling that Air Canada uses with its fare products. Frontier does it as well now. The cheapest fares get very little in the way of frills and the more expensive fares get more. But since the physical product isn’t any different, it’s not really a new class of service. It’s just fare bundling.
So El Al can call it whatever it wants, but it’s nothing new. It is, however, a good idea because it lets people pick and choose what’s important to them.
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