When you think of airlines that are technologically forward-thinking, you probably think of someone like Virgin America. But when it comes to legacy airlines, well, you probably don’t think of anyone. Delta has been doing a lot lately to change that opinion. The airline is really pushing forward on a number of tech projects that really show some initiative over there. It’s great to see a legacy carrier really taking an interest in these things (and spending money on them too).

Of all the legacy carriers, Delta is the only one that has embraced wifi in the sky. Yes, American has it some MD-80s (not all) and on the fleet that flies between New York and the west coast, but that’s about it. And since the first announcement was made years ago, American hasn’t done a thing. As for United, well, it’s only on the airplanes flying between New York and California. That’s it. But Delta, as we all know, has been installing wifi on just about every airplane it can find with more than 50 seats. That’s not a sure thing these days, because my guess is usage still doesn’t justify the expense. But Delta’s looking forward and betting that eventually, it will.

But just because you put wifi on an airplane doesn’t mean that you’re a tech leader. You need more than that. One big thing you need is a way to power all those computers that people want to use up high. Putting power on an airplane can be expensive and with ever-increasing battery life, it may eventually become unnecessary, but for now, it’s an absolute necessity that most airlines (except Virgin America) have been unwilling to address.

Now, don’t get excited. Delta is not putting power on its airplanes, at least not any more than it already has, but it’s working on transforming the gate area to provide power all over the place.

You know you’ve done it. You’ve parked yourself on the floor in some far corner of the gate area because you found the only, dusty, hidden power outlet for miles. If you saw the scene from afar, you’d probably wonder why a gaggle of geeks have gathered. But that’s how most airports are set up. Sure, Samsung has sponsored power towers in certain places and Southwest has invested in seats with power in the gates, but others have failed to acknowledge that it’s important. So now, Delta is taking things into its own hands.

Starting with 19 airports, Delta will be putting power outlets in every gate area. It will put two power stations in each gate area. Each station will have six power outlets and 2 USB ports. Where will they be? These will go in all the hubs as well as Boston, Columbus, Hartford, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Norfolk, Omaha, Pittsburgh, Portland, Seattle, and St. Louis. Looking at the motley group of airports here, it makes you wonder if they wanted to do this in all airports but couldn’t get the airport leaders to go along with it for one reason or another. (Yes, airports can be difficult.) But I imagine we’ll see this roll out further as we go.

But Delta is taking this one step further for SkyClub members. In every domestic SkyClub, Delta has installed a recharging pad. There are adapters for a variety of different devices at the desk, and you can just plug in and recharge. There’s room for a ton of devices so there really shouldn’t ever be a shortage. The point is, if you have something that needs to be charged, you can.

If you look at the other ways Delta has tried to integrate technology, whether it’s creating a Facebook application for people to book flights, putting together a Twitter assist team, or putting iPads in gate areas to order food, it’s really starting to create this picture of a legacy airline that’s willing to take chances on newer technology in order to improve the customer experience. I still don’t think the Facebook application is going to do much, but Delta wants to invest in these types of technologies with the realization that they’re going to help people. They may not all be successes in the end, but that’s not a reason to stop trying.

I’m glad to see Delta investing in the customer experience here. Hopefully the new United will do the same. And American? Well, yeah, maybe some day.

Original power strip photo via Flickr user mroach/CC 2.0

While there are a lot of things that are bound to change in the United/Continental merger, one of the most welcome changes will be a shift in how quickly things get done at the combined airline. See, United is shockingly slow at finishing what it starts while Continental gets things done relatively quickly. It all goes back to Gordon Bethune.

When Gordon Bethune took over at Continental in the mid-1990s, he found an airline in complete disarray. The onboard product was miserable and inconsistent, employees were unhappy, and I believe that each airplane had a different paint job.* (*Ever-so-slight exaggeration) So one of the things Gordon did was ensure that the airline was presenting itself in a uniform fashion. Even though the airline had almost no money left, he started painting the airplanes. And in a short period, the entire fleet was done. This may not seem important, but it does mean a lot to employees and helps act as the foundation for a single brand image.

United isn’t quite in the same position as Continental was back then, but the fleet looks like that of a bankrupt airline. While all Continental airplanes are painted in the airline’s livery (except for those that have received new United titles), United only has about half its fleet in the current pre-merger colors. The other half is still in the old battleship gray (aka Malevolent Skies) colors. You know when that livery went away? It was nearly 7 years ago, on February 18, 2004. And half the fleet still wears those outdated colors.

The result is something like this (via Flickr user Ack Ook):

There are a ton of dirty, faded airplanes out there. This may not be a safety issue but that doesn’t mean passengers won’t interpret it as a safety issue. It also confuses the already unclear brand. But really, this should be the least of United’s problems. The inside is probably a bigger issue.

On the domestic fleet, United has theoretically been installing new, slimline leather seats on its airplanes but so far just shy of one third of the airplanes have received the makeover. And internationally, United has been putting new flat bed Business Class seats onboard along with a refreshed First Class. This is a particularly interesting project to compare since Continental has been doing the same thing.

In July 2008, Continental announced it would start installing flat beds in business class. The first one went into service in November 2009, as planned, and Continental has just announced that all of the 777s are finished. The 757s are about two-thirds of the way there and the 767s haven’t started yet, also as planned. So in about a year, Continental has outfitted just shy of 50 airplanes and has lived up to most expectations.

Contrast that with United. That airline announced its new business class seat in July 2007, one year earlier than Continental. It said at the time that the entire international fleet would be done by the end of 2009. The first airplane didn’t get done until April 2008, and the 767s were finished about one year after that, a similar path as Continental has taken. But here we are one year after the original deadline and there are still forty 777s flying around with the old seats. The 777s weren’t even started until early 2010, after they were all supposed to be done.

Don’t even get me started on inflight entertainment. Every traveler on the Continental international fleet has a personal screen with nearly all of them having audio/video on demand. (The 767s that don’t will be updated.) United will have audio/video on demand in the premium cabins when the upgrade work is done, but the back is all of the place. In coach, the 777s will have audio/video on demand, the 767s will have personal screens with looping movies, and the 747s will still have the overhead video screens that are exceedingly rare these days.

I imagine that under Continental’s leadership, this process to bring toward a consistent product will speed up dramatically. That will go a long way in the airline’s effort to present a single brand, because right now, United presents a whole lot of different ones.

¡Viva México! The spat between the US and Mexican governments is over (surprisingly quickly), and Mexico has once again been elevated to Category 1 status by the FAA. What does that mean? Look for more flights from Mexico coming soon. In fact, Aeromexico is leading the charge.

This past summer, the FAA downgraded Mexico from Category 1 to Category 2. Why? They didn’t give details, but it’s usually because the country’s safety or security infrastructure isn’t quite up to snuff. The FAA uses this downgrade to put pressure on the country to fix the problem. What kind of pressure does it add? A lot.

When a country is downgraded to Category 2, a few really painful things happen. First, US-based airlines are not allowed to codeshare with airlines from that country. So Delta, which is in SkyTeam with Aeromexico, was not allowed to sell any codeshare flights on Aeromexico. Second, airlines based in that country are not allowed to add any new flights into the US. They can continue to fly what they have, but they can’t add anything new. That’s difficult at any time, but it was particularly difficult for Mexican airlines since Mexicana shut down in the middle of this and nobody could fill the hole.

It’s particularly frustrating because this doesn’t reflect on the airlines themselves. They could be the safest and best in the world, but as long as there’s a political spat between Mexico and the US over infrastructure, the airlines suffer. So how could concerns about a country’s infrastructure be resolved in a mere 3 or 4 months? Uh, they can’t. So there’s some crazy political backstory here, I’m sure. And the airlines (and passengers) are the hostages.

As we all know by now, Mexicana went into its death throes in August and September. When it finally shut down, that pulled a ton of capacity out between Mexico and the US and no Mexican airline could step in to fill that gap. Sure, United and American, among others in the US, added some flights from their hubs to Mexico but the Mexican airlines themselves had to sit and watch the opportunity go by. Really annoying.

Now that Mexico is once again in Category 1 status, Mexican airlines are free to expand, and codeshare as well. The Delta/Aeromexico codeshare goes back into place on December 11. Aeromexico is also permanently adding 1 new daily flight from Mexico City to New York, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. On January 11, the airline will add two daily flights from Mexico City to San Antonio.

Then there’s Volaris. That airline did finally get its relationship with Southwest up and running, so I would think that we could expect additional expansion soon. Right now, it’s only LA, Oakland, and San Jose in the mix. But could Chicago be far behind? Maybe Denver? Eventually, Atlanta?

And then there’s Mexicana. Though the airline has been dead for several months, efforts are underway to revive the corpse. Who knows what that will look like (if anything) at this point, but it will certainly be a lot smaller than it was.

So, stay tuned over the next few weeks as airlines look to make up for lost time here. I’m sure everyone is glad this spat is over.

[Original photo via Flickr user Omar Omar/CC 2.0]

Don’t forget to take the 2010 Cranky Reader Survey – http://surveymonkey.com/s/cranky

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When I get hit with a lull, I turn to my dream lists to make sure I’m not wasting time.

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Can the Airbus A320neo Can Meet Its Promise to Boost Fuel Efficiency? – BNET Headwinds
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For the first time ever, I’m doing a reader survey. The main goal of this is to learn more about what you like and what you don’t so I can tweak the blog to make it better. Please go in and answer every question honestly. Here’s the link:

The Cranky Flier 2010 Reader Survey

http://surveymonkey.com/s/cranky

Thanks for doing this. I’ll keep it open for a week (and will remind you on every post next week). Hopefully the results will lead to a better Cranky.

Oh, and if you want to talk about something down below, how about the Zagat Survey which came out this week?