Reason Number 1,423 Why the Essential Air Service Program is a Huge Waste of Taxypayer Funds – BNET
Little Visalia, California is getting a ton of money to maintain air service that nobody uses. Great.

US Airways Pilots Oppose New York Slot Swap with Delta, Defy Logic – BNET
I roast the US Airways pilots for their decision to oppose the slot swap. It makes no sense.

best flying tip: arrive early – antibride.com
If you’re stressed about travels, the best thing you can do is arrive early. Just give yourself some extra time.

Airports in Boston and San Francisco Team Up with Twitter Promo – BNET
You don’t often see two airports getting together for promotional purposes, but that’s exactly what Boston and San Francisco are doing.

ExpressJet CEO Leaves for a Lesser Title at American – BNET
Looks like ExpressJet’s CEO has had enough of the regional biz, he’s heading to American to run maintenance. Hmm.

Airline Year Over Year Unit Revenue Changes Aren’t As Good as They Seem – BNET
Yes, the year-over-year comparisons are good, but that’s because things had fallen off a cliff last year. It’s not time to get excited just yet.

Everyone remember Lumexis? They’re the guys that showed me their new very light and kind of awesome inflight entertainment system that US Airways tested awhile back. Earlier this week, Lumexis announced that they had signed up their first customer, and I’ve been trying to figure out who it is ever since. Let’s see if you guys have any ideas. Here’s what we know.

• That announcement said that they had “been awarded a large order for its FTTS™ (Fiber To The Screen™) Audio-Video-On-Demand, In-Flight Entertainment Systems for installation on the new customer’s fleet of 737-family aircraft.”
• This new customer will have entertainment but will also use the system to “support in-seat purchases by travelers of an array of products and services.”

With this information, Runway Girl started a conversation trying to figure out who it might be. I’ve uncovered an additional piece of info that dramatically narrows the field.

I asked Lumexis for further detail, and while they wouldn’t tell me much, they did say that “it is a full fleet installation.” Aha! So it can’t be an airline with just a large 737 fleet. It has to be an airline with a large fleet made up only of 737s. There are four possible suspects that come to mind.

• Southwest
• Alaska
• Ryanair
• Gol

Of these three, I would say Southwest is least likely. They don’t offer an “array” of products and services to sell onboard, so that seems suspect unless it’s part of a massive change for them. Gol is possible, I suppose, but I don’t have a feeling either way. Alaska and Ryanair, however, both would have good reason.

We know that Alaska likes to offer a good product onboard, and they aren’t shy about charging fees for things. We also know that they’ve been fighting Virgin America really hard, and this would help them get toward product parity. They also have a growing long haul network and a significant Hawai’i presence that can’t use live television because it’s outside of the service area. This would seem like a perfect solution.

On the other hand, nobody knows how to sell like Ryanair. If this system could somehow let them increase their onboard sales, it might be a rock star for them. They can, of course, charge for the entertainment itself, though when they tried to use portable units for sale before, it flopped and they removed them quickly.

Who else has a large 737-only fleet that could be in the running? I eliminated WestJet already since they have LiveTV. What am I missing? Anyone else?

What say you?

Oh sure, there are probably a bunch of different routes that could win the prize of being the most overserved these days, but I think there’s one in particular that deserves the win. Surprisingly, it doesn’t even have that many flights, but even one flight is too many. It’s a route that former President Bush might call the Axis of Evil Express. Any guesses?

That’s right. It’s Caracas, Venezuela to Tehran, Iran. And it’s about to get even more service.

The Chavez to Ahmadinejad connection is 7,315 miles long. That’s only 150 miles shorter than LA to Sydney, in comparison. While they’re both oil countries, it would seem that the biggest reason for operating this flight is because almost nobody else outside of Cuba wants to be their political friends. Having demand for the flight appears to be optional.

The flight first launched in 2007 and today it’s operated weekly by Conviasa, the national airline of Venezuela, on an early model (1993 vintage) A340-200. It’s also codeshared with Iran Air. You might wonder how an A340 can make a flight that far, right? Well I’d think they’d have a shot at making it since there are probably only two people on every flight, but they don’t take the chance. It stops.

Remember how I said that almost nobody wanted to be political friends with these guys? Yeah, well the plane stops in Damascus. Syria is one of the very few exceptions, unsurprisingly.

But now let’s get to the really comical news. Those crazy cats in Venezuela and Iran are at it again. They’ve recently signed an agreement that, among other things, will provide new “direct” flights between Tehran and Caracas thanks to Mahan Air.

Mahan does have a 747-400, so I imagine this could actually be flown nonstop. I guess that will help take the pressure of Conviasa so they can carry more local traffic between Caracas and Damascus. I’m sure they’re just bursting at the seams trying to carry everyone right now.

So congratulations (or shall I say Mazel Tov?), Venezuela and Iran. You are the proud owners of the award for the Most Overserved Route in the World. (And my condolences to those at the airlines who are forced to run this ridiculous route.)

For years we’ve heard Allegiant proclaim that they don’t really like competition. They’ve often boasted about how few of their routes have competitors, and they’ve had no qualms about walking away from a route that suddenly performs poorly thanks to new entrants (Greensboro comes to mind). Now, Allegiant has had enough. They’ve found some competition from AirTran that they aren’t willing to shy away from. They’re moving some flights from Orlando/Sanford to Orlando International next year. It’s war.

Allegiant has a substantial base in Orlando, but the flights go from little-used Sanford Airport on the northeast side of town. The airport is a really cheap place to operate, and that’s always good, but there’s a problem. The tourist attractions are southwest of town, much closer to the main Orlando International airport. Now you can understand why Sanford is cheap.

It’s 50 miles right through downtown Orlando and at least an hour from Sanford to Disney World. It’s 25 miles from Orlando International to Disney World and that avoids downtown entirely. When you have 4 screaming kids in the back wanting to meet Mickey, every few minutes helps.

So now, beginning on Feb 1, they will move flights to 10 of their 31 destinations from Sanford over to Orlando International Airport. The cities that will be moving?

• Knoxville
• Lexington
• Allentown (Feb 8)
• Greenville/Spartanburg (Feb 8)
• Grand Rapids (Feb 12)
• Springfield, Missouri (Feb 15)
• Tri-Cities, Tennessee/Virginia (Feb 15)
• Huntington, West Virginia (Feb 16)
• Youngstown, Ohio (Mar 4)
• Des Moines, Iowa (Mar 5)

So how did they pick these markets? Well, see those lines in bold? Those are markets where AirTran flies nonstop from Orlando. I took a couple liberties. AirTran flies to Branson, not Springfield. They also fly to Charleston, not Huntington; Akron/Canton, not Youngstown; and Asheville, not Tri-Cities or Greenville/Spartanburg. But those are all within 100 miles of each other so they are certainly competitive when it comes to leisure travel.

Oh, and that Des Moines flight? AirTran just announced it would begin March 6. Allegiant now starts one day earlier.

Still need more proof that this is a fight against AirTran? How about this quote from a message sent to the Allegiant employees the night before the public announcement? (MCO is Orlando International’s code.)

This project has been underway for several months, driven by the activity of a competitor which as you know began serving a number of our Orlando markets to and from MCO. We believe they view their MCO service provides them with a competitive advantage. Our MCO offering will level the playing field. We have developed our Orlando routes over the past five years and as such will react appropriately to provide our customers a service equal to or better than the competitor’s proposed offering.

Wow, we don’t hear things like this from Allegiant, but I like it. It’s one thing to pull out of routes here and there if competition is around, but AirTran is effectively trying to tackle Allegiant’s routes out of Orlando on the whole. Allegiant has better flexibility with its airplanes than AirTran thanks to low fixed costs, and it has a strong network of packaging options available to help it get the advantage. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be defending this.

And really, this move to the main airport in Orlando isn’t out of character. They already fly to the main airport in Vegas, Ft Lauderdale, and LA. Yes, Sanford is a cheaper place to operate, but when that family of four wants to go to Disney, that extra drive may be enough to help AirTran succeed. Allegiant is going to fight that and try to prevent that from happening.

For those of you who subscribe to Cranky via email (1,500 strong and growing), I’ve made some changes starting today that should be for the good.

There have been reports recently that my emails are ending up in some of your spam folders, and that’s obviously not a good thing. To combat this, I’ve made some changes on the back-end that should help your email clients understand it’s not spam. I’ve also changed the email address that will be sending the emails from cf@crankyflier.com to dailycranky@crankyflier.com.

If you’re an email subscriber, please add dailycranky@crankyflier.com as a contact or whitelist the email address to help make sure emails end up in your inbox.

If you’re not an email subscriber, well, why not? It’s free, so you really don’t have a good excuse. Head to this link to sign up. You can always cancel any time:
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Thanks. Now back to airlines.