Airlines Oppose New Government Airport Fees, but So Should Travelers – BNET
I say airlines should oppose more government fees, but another BNET author disagrees.

Airline Coach Travel Is Back to Its Pre-Recession Levels, Thanks in Part to Premium Cannibalization – BNET
Coach traffic is back where it was before the recession, and that highlights how different coach and premium travel behave.

Inside Delta vs. Mesa: Court Ruling Tells a Tale of Overbilling and Confusion – BNET
If you didn’t see the ruling against Mesa, then I highly recommend looking deeper. This was absolutely fascinating.

Regional Aircraft Manufacturers Pick Their Target Markets – BNET
Turboprops are back in fashion – but different manufacturers are looking at different markets.

Southwest Outperforming JetBlue, AirTran Where They Go Head-to-Head
Boston to Baltimore is a rare route with three low cost carriers fighting it out. Southwest is winning so far.

May has been a really tiring month of travel for me, but the trips have all had good reason. This one was for the Regional Airline Association 2010 convention in Milwaukee. Since I was speaking on a panel, they purchased my tickets for me.

I opted for Long Beach on the way out, but I went for LAX on the way home. The flight via Denver would have left at 6a, and I had no interest in a flight THAT early. Instead, I took the nonstop out of Milwaukee an hour later.

As usual, I left home for Long Beach Airport an hour before departure. With only one security gate open, it took about 15 minutes to get through. I then sat for a few minutes before we boarded the rare A318.

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May 24, 2010
Frontier 196 Lv Long Beach 645a Arr Denver 1005a
Long Beach (LGB): Gate 22, Runway 30, Depart 2m Early
Denver (DEN): Gate A31, Runway 16R, Arrive 4m Early
N804FR, Airbus A318, Mo & Jo the Red Fox Cubs, ~75% Full
Seat 11F
Flight Time 1h52m

Frontier schedules a 645a departure, but the noise ordinance doesn’t allow a departure until 7a, so we sat at the end of the runway waiting. Once in the air, it was a quick ride over to Denver, helped by LiveTV (yep, $6 from me since this wasn’t a Classic fare). We had one drink service and that was about it until they cleaned up for landing. What were they doing? One flight attendant was in the back playing solitaire on his laptop.

They cleaned up the plane at the top of descent because it was expected to be a rough ride. Boy, was it. Denver had howling 35 kt gusts, but that was nothing compared to our descent over the front range. At one point, we had a good 10 seconds of at least moderate turbulence if not more where people were screaming.

After that, it was just a normal choppy Denver arrival and we taxied to the gate on time. I had a 25 minute connection and with the gate only a couple doors down, it gave me a couple minutes to catch up on email. Soon we were boarding.

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May 24, 2010
Frontier 370 Lv Denver 1030a Arr Milwaukee 144p
Denver (DEN): Gate A27, Runway 17L, Depart 3m Early
Milwaukee (MKE): Gate D49, Runway 7R, Arrive 3m Early
N924FR, Airbus A319, Klondike and Snow the Polar Bear Cubs, ~100% Full
Seat 13F
Flight Time 1h53m

We had one of “those” passengers on taxi out who refused to get off her phone. The flight attendant told her once and she hung up. Then she had the nerve to make another call. Since she was in the exit row and this happened during the safety briefing, the flight attendant stopped the briefing and said, “we’re waiting for you, ma’am.” She finally hung up, though not after getting some scowls from fellow passengers.

The First Officer warned us that it would be a bumpy climb, but after our roller coaster over the front range, I figured it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad. I was right.

I paid for LiveTV again, though it made me realize that they could probably do better by doing a connecting flight bundle – $9 for two flights or something like that.

I had my customary ginger ale and was surprised when they also passed out the warm chocolate chip cookies. I guess this was a Midwest flight. Soon enough, it was time to descend.

This was a much nicer Milwaukee experience than my last one in December. I was on my way quickly and hopped on the city bus into town. (I love public transit.) The convention was a good one.

When it was time to come home, I went to check in and found myself in a world of trouble. I had the same confirmation number as my flight out, but the Frontier website didn’t recognize me. I tried multiple times before giving up and calling Frontier.

A nice agent answered and explained that my flight was actually “operated by Frontier for Midwest.” Um, ok. My flight out was operated by Frontier for Frontier I guess, but I didn’t know it. I had to go to Midwest’s website to check-in. Whew. I can’t wait until this integration is complete.

I checked in but since I was on a cheap ticket, no seat was assigned. They assigned me an aisle. Boo. I’m a window guy. And sadly there were no windows left . . . except up front. So I decided to pay $25 for a few extra inches of legroom in the Stretch seating section. I don’t really care about the extra legroom, but it is nice to be able to get out without making the entire row get up.

The next morning, I woke up early, hopped in a cab to the airport, and made my way through security without any trouble.

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May 27, 2010
Frontier 960 Lv Milwaukee 705a Arr Los Angeles 919a
Milwaukee (MKE): Gate D43, Runway 25R, Depart 3m Late
Los Angeles (LAX): Gate 67B, Runway 25L, Arrive On Time
N936FR, Airbus A319, Earl the Walrus, ~100% Full
Seat 2A, Stretch Seating
Flight Time 3h54m

The flight boarded as before, with people who didn’t have carry-ons going first and then from the back to the front. It seems to me that Stretch seating people should be able to board first as a perk, but instead, they board last.

I did find an overhead bin spot and took my seat with ample legroom. We took off into the morning sky and winged our way to the west coast. TV was free on the flight, because they needed a software upgrade for the system and it hadn’t been given yet. So they aren’t charging people until the plane makes its way to Denver for the upgrade.

I slept a little but not much. The last half of the flight was spent talking to a 20 year captain at Continental. That was an interesting discussion and it made the flight go by very quickly. I did a little work on my computer before being barked at to put my electronics away. (This was before the announcement was even made to put stuff away.) We landed in a surprisingly rainy LA and I headed home.

Continental yesterday became the first airline to announce a definitive first route for its 787 aircraft. That route? Houston to Auckland, and it will begin in November 2011. This is just the first example of the new routes that are going to be opened up by the 787.

Flying from Houston to Auckland is not something you’d expect to see from an airline. I mean, Continental’s marriage partner United dropped LA to Auckland years ago, so Houston – Auckland? Sounds insane.

But is it really? Houston is a huge operation for Continental and it provides one stop service to Auckland for many places around the midwest and south that can’t get there today. In addition, as a Star Alliance member, Continental can feed people into the Air New Zealand network in Auckland, so there are good opportunities on both sides.

So if it sounds so good, why wasn’t it flown before? It wasn’t really an option. Sure, you could have slapped a 747 on the route, but that’s a huge airplane and it would have bled badly.

A 767 might be the right size, but you’ll inconveniently run out of gas somewhere over the vast Pacific. That’s probably not a sound business strategy.

Enter the 787. This bad boy gives you 747 range in a 767 body. So routes like Houston to Auckland become possible when they really weren’t an option before.

Now why the heck is Continental announcing this so early? It probably is looking to drum up merger support. After all, it does say in the release:

On May 3, Continental announced that it has agreed to merge with United Airlines in a merger of equals to create the world’s leading airline. The success of the Houston-Auckland route will be enhanced by the additional traffic flows through Houston that are expected to result from the merger.

So I suppose there’s no guarantee that this will ever start, but I’d like to think it will. Hopefully this will be a good example of what we can look forward to when more 787s start flying. Smaller cities will be able to have nonstop flights to cities that previously wouldn’t have been considered or even possible. That’s a great thing.

[Original photo via Flickr user geoftheref]

Let’s say you want to buy a single aisle airplane between 100 and 150 seats. Where do you go? If you’re that rich, you probably have someone take care of it for you, so where does that person go?

Right now, your choices are Boeing or Airbus. That’s it. And they’ve done a good job of competing against each other, but they continue to hem and haw on a replacement for their current offerings, which are getting a bit long in the tooth. That opens the door for another competitor to come in, assuming that they can actually pull off a meaningful improvement in efficiency. Bombardier’s C Series may have the best shot.

We’ve talked about the C Series here before, but after listening to Bombardier yesterday at the Regional Airline Association (RAA) 2010 convention in Milwaukee, I thought it was worth revisiting.

Chances are that you’ve been on a Bombardier airplane. They make the CRJ 50 seat jet, CRJ-700, and CRJ-900. They also make the Q400 turboprop. Now, they’re going upmarket again and looking at the 100-149 seat market, competing against Boeing and Airbus.

The plan right now is for two models. The CS100 will seat 100 people in a two class configuration while the CS300 will seat 120 in the same configuration (or 138 in the all coach configuration that Frontier will have). This will compete with Boeing’s 737-600/700 and the Airbus A318/A319. But why would someone stray from Boeing or Airbus to fill this need when they have to stick with them for the bigger narrowbodies?

Well, the Boeing and Airbus entries aren’t particularly compelling in this area. The A318 and 737-600 are slow sellers, primarily because when you shrink a plane, the economics just aren’t there. So Bombardier is going to tackle this segment head-on.

But the most compelling reason that this can work? If the numbers as promised hold up, then this plane will be a rock star. The airplane uses the Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engine, something that they continue to claim will deliver a 20% reduction in fuel burn and 15% decrease in cash operating costs. That’s huge.

The plane will also be very comfortable as a passenger. Seats will be in a 2-3 across configuration and each seat will be about a half inch wider than on an Airbus and more than an inch wider than a 737. The overhead bins will be big enough to accommodate roller bags for 90% of the passengers onboard, which is ample room.

Sounds great, right? And with a first delivery in 2013, this plane will be years ahead of whatever Boeing and Airbus decide to do.

So why wouldn’t this be a complete rock star? Two reasons.

1) It needs to live up to its promises. Geared turbofans are complicated and it’s not clear that they’ll be able to reach the level of reliability that needs to be delivered. Also, we don’t know if the savings will be exactly as advertised, and we won’t know until the plane takes to the skies.

2) Who will fly it? This smaller airplane is undoubtedly something that legacy airlines would like to hand off to their regional partners, but there’s no union that’s going to allow that. This is a mainline airplane, but can they come to an agreement on who should fly it and for how much? Admittedly, this is less of an issue in my eyes, but it’s still an issue.

So far, the only order in the US is Republic (Frontier), which is fitting since they don’t have to worry about number two above. My guess is that if this plane performs as advertised, it’s going to be a strong seller. We’ll have to wait a couple of years before we know if it’s going to live up to its promises.

When it comes to bag fees, Southwest is always fighting an uphill battle. Yes, customers love the fact that they don’t charge fees for the first two checked bags, but those pesky Wall Street-types have long believed that they’re leaving money on the table. Now, Southwest is committing itself even more by getting a tattoo. Seriously. (Sort of.)

The rumors have long been out there that Southwest would have to give in and start charging bag fees. For the longest time, Southwest said it was the right thing to do, but the airline didn’t promote it much and couldn’t really show any gain. In recent months, the marketing team has really ramped up the Bags Fly Free campaign to beat it into people, and it’s worked. Southwest now says it has gained share, and its stellar unit revenue gains shows some real strength. Much of this is from better scheduling, but, I think the halo off the marketing campaign has undoubtedly helped.

Now, like a teenager who wants to prove his commitment to something, Southwest has decided to get a tattoo showing that it remains even more committed than ever. Take a look:

That’s right. At least 50 airplanes will get this decal (ok, so it’s not really permanent) with an arrow pointing to the belly promoting free bags. There will also be 1,000 bag carts to remind people that bags fly free. (Fortunately, the shirtless dudes will not be deployed to every airport.)

I like this move. It’s cheap and easy advertising that hits people right when they’re angriest. Sure, at places like Dallas/Love and Chicago/Midway where Southwest nearly has a monopoly, there won’t be very many people on other airlines who will see this, but at all the other airports in the system, it will target anyone who looks out the terminal window or the window from their airplane.

For many people, that’s the time when they are most unhappy about having had to pay bag fees, because it’s fresh in their minds. So something like this can have more of an impact at that point. Whether it turns into more business for Southwest is unclear, but does it really matter? This isn’t an expensive campaign and it certainly helps hammer home the airline’s commitment to its promise.