Hours after I wrote my scathing review of the new JetBlue snack boxes last week, I just happened to be at an event with the local JetBlue crew here in Long Beach. The station manager invited me to come on out to the airport and he would set me up with each of the five boxes so I could do a taste test. Did you think there was any way I’d turn that down? Nope. I taped it and condensed it down to under eight minutes with clever (read:awful) editing. (Brownie points for anyone who knows where that music is from.)

Yep, there were some decent things in there, but honestly, anything I tasted after that sugary pretzel dip was written in a haze.

Was I too harsh on JetBlue last week? If they weren’t JetBlue yes, but since they are JetBlue, no. I think most of us have come to expect more from the airline and this offering is more worthy of one of the other guys that everyone likes to beat up. I had my hopes up that they would come up with something better when they finally started offering grub. Maybe they’ll get there eventually.

Maybe I should blame humanity rather than JetBlue. After all, people are buying this crap, and if they weren’t, JetBlue wouldn’t be selling it. Regardless, I really hope that JetBlue comes up with something better.

They can keep that pretzel dip though.

There’s a glimmer of hope out there for British Airways fliers. It appears that the airline and its flight attendants are getting very close to an agreement that would finally end all these on and off strikes. I think I speak for just about everyone when I say “It’s about damn time.”

If you’ve flown BA in the last few months, you undoubtedly know about this issue. The flight attendants and management have been butting heads over a new contract. BA wants to reduce its costs, and the flight attendants are fine with that . . . as long as management does it the way the flight attendants want. As you can imagine, that hasn’t exactly worked.

So there have been a series of strikes which have screwed fliers over the past few months and more were expected. This has to be hurting BA’s advance bookings, so you’d think there would be tremendous pressure to settle on both sides. Apparently not. Management is holding strong (with the approval of most of the public, as far as I can tell) as are the flight attendants.

Regardless, everyone wants to see this thing end, and we might be getting close. BA has put a “peace offer” on the table, and the union is letting membership take a look and then vote on it. That means that we’re unlikely to see more strikes until at least after the summer.

So will this last offer be accepted and the fight finally end? It’s unclear. One thing that is clear is that the union will not be recommending this:

The fact that the travel is not back in full makes the possibility of a recommendation nil. It makes the certainty of a yes uncertain.

The union also put out a press release slamming this offer.

Ah yes, the travel benefits. It seems like a matter of pride at this point. Before the first strike, BA CEO Willie Walsh told flight attendants that they would lose their flight benefits if they struck. Sure enough, they lost them as soon as they went on strike.

Since that time, BA has held firm. The flight attendants were told what would happen, and it did. My guess is that BA will keep holding firm on this. The rest of the offer seems to be something new and an improvement for the crews over previous offers, despite some of the things union leaders may be saying. But if they vote no, then I’m not sure they’ll have jobs in the long run.

At least we can all rest easy that flights should go as scheduled for the rest of the peak travel season. That’s saying something, I guess.

Original photo via Flickr user Tony the Misfit

Another airline has given in to the powers of Twitter. This time, it’s Delta that has brought its customer service to Twitter in a big way, and that’s great news. It’s not quite where it needs to be, but hopefully they’ll realize that quickly and fix it.

When you have travel problems, you can now Tweet them to @DeltaAssist. The airline says this is a pilot program, but it’s pretty robust for being just that. There are five people monitoring the account and responding to all sorts of issues. Sounds great, right? One problem. It’s not manned 24/7.

For now, the account is active only Monday through Friday from 8a to 930p Eastern Time. That’s not good enough. This is the largest airline in the world, and it runs 24 hours a day. To not have anyone on the weekend is a tremendous issue. Not having someone in the overnight hours fails to recognize that there are a lot of flights operating around the world during that time. To ultimately be successful, they’re going to need to be on the ball all day, every day.

But how have they been doing so far when they are on the clock? Let’s take a look.

I looked at last Friday, June 25. There were a total of 90 tweets sent by the @DeltaAssist account between the time they signed on at 758a and the time they signed off at 953p. I tracked as many of the conversations as I could to see how the response time stacked up. Overall, it was pretty good (though there could have been some that they never responded to that I didn’t see).

I tracked 64 conversations based on the tweets that they sent out on the 25th and divided them into three categories: negative, positive, and questions.

As you can see, Delta did a good job of responding to some tweets very quickly. There were some that didn’t receive a response for a very long time, but to be fair most of those were not urgent. On top of that, it appears that they’re still trying to find their footing. They were responding to questions and complaints written to all Delta Twitter accounts, so I have no doubt there was a large volume of stuff to get through.

Many of those long response times were responded to in the early afternoon, so it’s almost as if they just found a bunch of old tweets. My guess is that there are a bunch of different Delta teams responding to each account (that sounds like Delta to me), so someone probably forwarded a bunch over to the Assist team in the afternoon. They’ll need to get that squared away.

Most importantly, I hope you’ll notice, Delta, that a simple search brought up more than 20 tweets citing “DeltaAssist” between the time you signed off on Friday and Sunday afternoon when I’m writing this. And this is just a couple days after you officially launched it. It’s only going to grow.

The airline is off to a very good start here. Welcome to the world of Twitter customer service, Delta. Now get to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and you’ll be in serious business.

Horizon Air Backs Out of California and Into a Box of Its Own Making – BNET
Horizon has made some big schedule changes this past week, and it shows they’re in a corner, trying to figure out what to do to make things work.

Airline Passenger Bumping in U.S. May Be Highest Since 2001 – Bloomberg
I don’t think this is a big story, but I was quoted regarding the mechanics of overbooking.

Re-Regulation Talk Heats Up, and Airlines Should Think About Supporting It – BNET
Here’s a fun, controversial one. It’s mostly tongue-in-cheek, but the way things are going, the airlines should think about this one.

Virgin America Teams with Klout to Give Freebies to Social Media Stars – BNET
I like what Virgin America is doing here to target social media influencers. Smart move.

Regional Airline Association Annual Convention Video
The videos are up from the RAA convention, and here’s my intro speech (about 5 minutes):

If you’d like to know the Tweet that I talk about not responding to, it’s right here.

You can also see part of the panel discussion with Benet Wilson and Mary Kirby here.

Spirit Airlines Loves That You Hate Their Ads (and They Should) – BNET
Every time Spirit launches a tacky sale, they’re counting on the media to pick it up and give them free ads. They do, every time.

Virgin Atlantic Says U.S. Authorities Held Passengers on Diverted Plane – Bloomberg
Bloomberg has picked up the Virgin Atlantic ground delay story, and they asked me to comment.

Virgin Atlantic’s Three Hour Tarmac Delay Whips Up Irrational Anger – BNET
Another long delay and another reaction that doesn’t make sense. *sigh*

Remember long ago when I asked you all for information on what you’d be willing to pay for here? Many of you said a book, and now I’ve got one. Let me introduce “Where the Hell Am I Going?” It will be available for purchase in the next couple of weeks for a mere $14.99.

You might be surprised to find that this book doesn’t center around the airlines. (That’s another book I’m working on.) Instead it’s a combination of two things.

On one hand, it’s a travelogue on the trip around the country that I took after getting laid off from my job in 2008. On the other hand, it’s a look at what runs through the head of a guy who just got married and just lost his job. As the title says, I was trying to figure out where I was going.

Don’t worry, it’s still funny and snarky, or so those who’ve read it have told me. And yes, there is some airplane talk in there. Here’s how I’m explaining it on the back cover:

In September 2008, right before his wedding, Brett Snyder lost his job. Instead of jumping back into the job pool like a responsible new husband, he hit the road for a three week adventure. In “Where the Hell Am I Going?” Brett Combines his snarky wit with introspection to create a truly funny and heartfelt read. Follow along as he circles around the country and literally and figuratively tries to figure out where the hell he is, in fact, going.

This book has been in progress for awhile, and I now think it’s the right time to get it out there. A lot of people have lost their jobs in the last couple of years and gone through the same thought process that I had to go through. But I make it funny. And I throw in some good stories. At least, I think they’re good.

So, watch this space, as they say. I’ll put up a post when it’s ready to go.