In 1960, Pan Am built the Worldport at JFK. This terminal, now known just as Terminal 3 (or preferably as the ThirdWorldport), was a gem for the airline, but it quickly showed its obsolescence. It was tired by the 1980s and when Delta took it over in the early 1990s, it was on its last legs. Yet here we are nearly two decades later and Delta still hasn’t done anything about it. That is finally going to change with Delta’s new JFK terminal plans finally being announced.

The biggest problem with replacing the Worldport was simply lack of space and, most importantly, money. You can’t just stop using a terminal, shut it down, and then build a new one on top of it. What do you do with your flights in the meantime? So that means creative solutions are required, and those creative solutions add cost. JetBlue got lucky in New York in that it took over TWA’s vacant terminal and rebuilt it, all while continuing to use its operation next door. But Delta didn’t have that luxury, so it has now kicked off a $1.2 billion project to change it’s presence at JFK, something that’s sorely needed. Here’s the plan on my handy-dandy map:

Right now, Delta uses Terminal 2 primarily for domestic and Terminal 3 for international operations. The airline also uses a couple gates in Terminal 4 as needed. Terminal 2 wasn’t designed with style in mind as Terminal 3 was, so it’s actually relatively functional. It needs a renovation but it can still handle an operation adequately. The big change there? Those makeshift regional jet gates they put together at the end of the terminal will disappear and the end jet bridges will go back into use as regular gates.

As for Terminal 3, well, it will be demolished completely. If you’ve ever flown out of that terminal, you will jump for joy at this project. It simply isn’t capable of handling an airline operation today. The layout is goofy and it doesn’t help that several animals have made their homes in that place. I swear I’m never surprised to see rats or birds over there, though it’s been awhile since I’ve been back. Maybe the Orkin man has done some work since then.

I imagine that most of the cost in this project will be in taking down Terminal 3. It’s probably a toxic waste dump. The EPA is probably looking to see if it should become a Superfund site. Maybe now we’ll discover that Jimmy Hoffa has been buried under there this whole time, finally putting those rumors to rest.

But those disappearing gates in Terminal 3 have to show up somewhere else. And that will be in Terminal 4. Terminal 4 is already a really nice terminal, but it needs to be expanded for Delta’s purposes. Both concourses will be extended. From what I understand, the A concourse will grow so that current airlines in the B concourse can be relocated, and the B concourse will grow so Delta can handle its operation there. Then a connector will be built between the B concourse and Terminal 2 and all will be right again in New York . . . in 5 years, that is. As for the existing airlines in the B concourse? Guess they’ll have to find a new home elsewhere.

I asked for a count on the net gain in gates but I haven’t received an answer yet. I imagine it will at least replace all the existing gates and possibly add more, and it’s zero. But, there will be four more gates that are international-capable, so it does give Delta more flexibility. At the very least, it will put gates in better places so that taxiing in and out becomes much easier. Oh, and the former Terminal 3 site? That’ll be a nice place for Delta to park all those planes in order to avoid getting fined under the 3 hour rule. Hooray!

Now for the bad news. This won’t happen overnight. (Duh.) Delta will move in to the new terminal in 2013. Terminal 3 will be demolished in 2015. So, it’ll be a couple more years of pain for Delta’s New York fliers, but at least there’s now a light at the end of the tunnel.

[You can see pictures at Delta.com]

[Update 8/13 @ 810a: I received a response from Delta that the A gate extension is not in the plan right now. The map has been udpated, as have net gate counts.]

Earlier this week, Delta relaunched its homepage and you know what? They did a great job. It’s incredibly clean, very simple, and now we just have to wait for the design to make its way through the rest of the site. You know what’s most interesting? It’s very similar in idea to the one that Dustin Curtis designed for American Airlines awhile back that caused a big fight. At least Delta was listening.

First, take a look at the new Delta.com homepage:

Forget about the background image which is kind of unnecessary (it pretty much disappears whenever you click on anything) and look at the pieces that Delta makes most prominent. On the left, there are five main categories: Your account (at top), Book a Trip, My Trips, Check In, and Flight Status. What else do you need? There are drop downs in the upper left for other areas which you might be interested in, but those are definitely not the main areas of focus. The airline has done a great job here.

What’s most interesting to me is how it resembles the Dustin Curtis-designed homepage for American. Dustin is just a guy who thought he could improve American’s homepage by making it easier to use, and he put this idea out there. When a contractor who worked for American wrote back explaining why things were the way they were, he was fired. AA.com hasn’t change. But take a look at this.

Remarkably similar, right? The first thing you see is Book Travel. Then the most prominent features at the bottom are Flight Status, Check-in, Your Account, and News. Ok, so Delta left off News and put in My Trips, but the idea is the same. Ease of navigation and finding what’s most important comes first. Great stuff.

Now, if you go to FlyerTalk, you’ll see a lot of angry people. Pages and pages of angry people. Sheesh, chill out. The number one comment? They just put lipstick on a pig. The rest of the site hasn’t changed. That is true, but Delta said in the blog post announcing the change:

We know our homepage looks quite a bit different from the rest of our site, but don’t worry, we’re working on that. Stay tuned in the coming months as we continue to update our site!

Great. They have to start somewhere, and the homepage is going to be the most visited page. Besides, the FlyerTalk crowd is full of power users, super elite members, etc. Most people who go to the website just want one of the big five things on the homepage. They’ll be thrilled.

My only complaint? I have a BlackBerry, and javascript sucks on a BlackBerry. So I’ll just have to stick to the mobile site, which admittedly is quite functional. But hey, that’s a minor complaint. Good job, Delta.

Finally, Virgin America has picked a new city that makes sense. It only took them a few years to get there. Starting in December, the airline will roll into Dallas/Ft Worth from LAX and SFO. Will it be successful? I have no clue. I mean, the Metroplex is littered with carcasses from American’s kills, but hey, it’s worth a shot. If Virgin America is going to work, this is a market that should work for the airline. If it doesn’t work, well, at least we’ll finally know for sure.

So why do I say that Dallas/Ft Worth makes sense? A few reasons.

• It’s a big business market
• There is no nonstop low cost competition to LAX or SFO
• The 3-4 hour flight times means the Virgin America product is more relevant

Now, why would Dallas/Ft Worth not make sense? It’s a short list.

• American

Yep, that’s right. American has killed many a competitor who has tried to come into Dallas. In fact, instead of trying to create a better product and compete that way, American usually goes with the old school, full-on scorched earth strategy.

Remember when Vanguard came to town? No, neither does anyone else, because American destroyed it mercilessly. How about the Legend debacle at Love Field? Legend flew airplanes in executive configurations, and American got nervous. It actually refitted a fleet of airplanes just to go to Love Field and kill Legend. Once that was done, the airplanes were reconfigured and sent back into the main fleet.

We can also look at more recent events at Love. Remember when Missouri got approved for nonstop flights from Love Field? American wasted a ton of money going into the market just to compete with Southwest. Now, winning against Southwest is a hard thing to do, and American failed, but that’s one of the few times that American hasn’t won in Dallas. Is Virgin America up to the task?

It has an advantage over other failed efforts, that’s for sure. The airline has built up a nice little following in San Francisco, so it has a base to pull from. Meanwhile, American has been retrenching in San Francisco, most recently dropping Boston. In LA, it’s going to be tougher. American has called LA a key part of its strategy, but it actually hasn’t done anything new in the city for a long time. Maybe this will kick start American to finally do something there.

But competing with American is going to be virtually impossible for the serious business traveler. Virgin America will have two measly flights per day in each market. American has 16 a day to LA and 9 day to SFO. There’s just no comparison. But United has two a day in each market as well, some on tiny CRJ-700 aircraft. Virgin America should compare quite favorably there.

The real question, however, is how will American react? There’s no question that fares will be matched, if not undercut. I would assume there will be some huge frequent flier promotion and probably a bulking up of schedules. American will do anything to protect DFW. This may even push it to fight in other markets as well.

So, this puts us in a good place for seeing if Virgin America can actually make a go of things. The airline is finally entering a market that it should be serving, considering its previous strategy of big city business markets. It offers a much better product than American, which doesn’t even offer an overhead screen on half the flights in these markets. But can it survive American’s scorched earth tactics? We’ll finally find out.

Why the heck am I writing about TAROM, you ask? Good question. In a lot of ways, TAROM, the national airline of Romania, is your typical small European flag carrier. It had grand plans, lost a ton of money, and now is looking for comfort under one of the big three (in this case, Air France/KLM). And that’s what it should be doing. But I’m really writing about this, because, well, I was asked to. The gauntlet was thrown down, and I’m not one to back away. Can I make a post about TAROM interesting? Let’s see.

Let’s start with the basics. This is Romania:

My worldly readers may scoff at the need to throw a map out there, but my guess is that most Americans couldn’t find it. (I mean, most Americans can’t find Iowa, so it’s a safe bet.) As you can probably figure out, Romania was firmly behind the Iron Curtain. (Pay attention, kids. Back when the Soviets were our mortal enemies, the Iron Curtain was the western extent of their political influence into Europe.) So it won’t surprise you to know that most of TAROM’s history is filled with old Soviet aircraft.

The airline was actually started as a joint venture between the Soviets and the Romanians after World War II. In 1954, the Romanians bought out the Russians to make it their own. But in reality, nothing was their own. It was still under heavy Russian influence.

From there, the airline’s trajectory followed that of many others. It started by growing its European operation and then, in the 1970s, decided to plant the flag by flying regular service to New York. Throw in some far east and middle east destinations and you’ve got your typical small-country European airline at the time.

One of the more interesting things about TAROM is that it operated a fleet of BAC 1-11s. How the heck did that happen? Well, in one of the more spectacular failures in aircraft manufacturing, Romania’s government decided to effectively buy the BAC 1-11 production line and move it to Bucharest. Seriously. The BAC 1-11 was first delivered in the mid-1960s, but it was running out of steam in the late 1970s. So, Romania had grand plans and brought the production of the soon-to-be-restyled ROMBAC 1-11 to Romania.

The expectation was for up to 80 airplanes to be built. Wanna guess how close they got? Nine. That’s right. A total of nine airplanes were finished with another two that never quite made it that far. Want to guess where the vast majority of those 1-11s went? TAROM. By the 1980s when they were going into service, they were obsolete, however. Good times.

Once communism collapsed throughout Eastern Europe, TAROM, like other airlines in the region, was faced with one question. What the heck do we do now? Every Eastern European country was trying to find its place, and that usually meant nationalism was strong. The airlines were there to fly the flag around the world, usually regardless of economic relevance.

If you’re in TAROM in the early 1990s, where do you go? How about Montreal and Bangkok. I mean, can you imagine Montreal to Bucharest being a barn-burner? Yikes. But hey, it happened . . . for a year or two.

Mercifully, over the next 10 years, TAROM realized that long haul operations just simply weren’t going to work. The last long haul destination, the all-important New York market, went away in 2003. Not coincidentally, TAROM finally made a profit in 2004.

In the last decade, TAROM did what every small-country European airline should do. It learned its place. There’s not enough demand from most of these places to justify long haul nonstop service. Even Delta’s attempt at Bucharest service failed, and today you won’t see any flights out of Europe from Bucharest except for the Middle East.

At the same time, the low cost carriers began their assault. Blue Air is one that’s actually based in Romania and has grown rapidly. There’s also the hilariously-named Wizz Air growing around the country. Even easyJet and Ryanair fly around the edges, putting the squeeze on TAROM. So how could TAROM survive?

There’s no other option. TAROM had to go for the business traveler crowd. The low cost carriers in Europe have generally gone for the low frequency, no frills type of operation. That means business travelers aren’t well-served. But business travelers need to travel all over with ease, so TAROM did what any smart airline would do – align itself with one of the big three in Europe.

For TAROM, it went with Air France. This has now blown into a full-blown relationship where TAROM adopted the Flying Blue frequent flier program and has now become a full member of SkyTeam. With this move, TAROM can bring Romanians all over the world and it can benefit from those elsewhere in the world who come to Romania. It is, effectively, a regional specialist, focusing on moving people from around Eastern Europe and the Middle East into Bucharest where it can now funnel them into the global SkyTeam network. That’s a good thing.

This doesn’t mean that TAROM is completely out of the woods. It still has an oddball fleet with two old A310s and a few of the black sheep A318s to complement its 737s and ATRs, but I’m sure that can be worked out eventually. I wouldn’t be surprise to see TAROM one day become a subsidiary of Air France, just as others around Europe have done under Lufthansa.

But for now, TAROM is on its own, just hiding under the wing of Air France. Other national carriers in similar situations should probably follow this model if they hope to survive.

[Original photo via Flickr user slasher-fun]

I was supposed to be winging my way north on my first trip on Allegiant to Bellingham this weekend for a short visit with some family. Unfortunately, a lot came up for them and they called the trip off. On most airlines, I would just have to take my losses (the ticket cost less than the change fee), but on Allegiant, there is the unique option for a name change.

In fact, if you’re interested in using these tickets (from Long Beach to Bellingham on Thursday, back Sunday), send me a note at cf@crankyflier.com.

As you know, almost no airline allows you to change your name. Allegiant, however, is different. Its business model means that name changes make sense. For me, this means that my absurdly cheap $40 ticket won’t necessarily go to waste, despite the fact that the $50 change fee costs more than the ticket itself.

So why is it that this works for Allegiant and not others? It’s all about the nature of the people onboard. Allegiant is a pure leisure airline and it sells nearly all of its seats (usually over 90% filled each month). By nature, most of these leisure travelers show up for their flights, so Allegiant can’t gain a ton by overbooking. With most people booking further in advance, Allegiant also doesn’t see a big spread in airfare. Allegiant also makes a ton of money via ancillary revenue. So, if Allegiant lets someone else take over a ticket for $50, it’s probably worth another $30 or so in ancillary revenue that it wouldn’t get if the original traveler just didn’t show up.

For the traditional airlines, it’s a different story. The business traveler is more likely to no-show (or change plans at the last minute) than most, so those airlines with a biz traveler focus can consistently overbook more. Those last minute tickets on traditional carriers cost a lot more than a mere $50 name change fee, so for them to allow it would be a revenue-negative move.

The biggest concern for airlines is, of course, that a secondary market gets created and the airlines won’t be able to take a cut. Think about it. The scalper business could be huge. You buy a bunch of cheap tickets for Thanksgiving the day they go on sale and then resell them at 5 times the price once flights start filling up. It would require some pretty serious process work to make sure that the system doesn’t get taken advantage of. For most, it’s easier to just not allow it at all.

From Allegiant’s perspective, they’ve spelled things out in their terms and conditions:

The purchase and resale of any or all Allegiant Air products including, but not limited to, travel, hotel, auto, activities or services, packages, promotions, convenience fees and taxes, baggage fees and/or seat fees by any individual, entity or company is strictly prohibited unless you are an authorized agent of Allegiant Air.

In other words, I can’t charge anyone who might want my ticket. I can have them pay the name change fee, I think, but that’s it. (Maybe I can encourage a donation to Equitas Academy. I sit on the board and our big fundraiser is coming up.) But I can’t make any money off this. The hard part for Allegiant and anyone else, however, is that this is likely to be incredibly hard to enforce.

I remain convinced that there’s a way to make something like this work on a wider scale, but I don’t have access to the internal data you’d need to really figure out if it could work or not. At least for Allegiant, it seems like a much easier case to make.