As I said yesterday, nothing has made this blog more successful than the 23,000+ comments that you guys have left. And there are some of you that contribute a lot more than others to the cause. In fact, there are 22 of you who still actively comment and have had more than 100 comments on the blog. You can probably guess the number one commenter . . . male performance enhancers. But for some reason, those comments always seem to be a little off topic. Anyway, there are others who clearly stand at the top of the pack. And now it’s time for me to say thank you by giving a bunch of stuff away.

I dug into my memorabilia box (much smaller than it used to be now that I’m married) and pulled out some things to give out. I also went to airlines to see who might want to participate and Alaska, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest all agreed to join in the party.

If you read the comments, you probably know who the top two commenters are without a hint. David SFeastbay tops the list with over 1,000 while Nicholas Barnard is right behind at just shy of 900. They have both been active on the blog for years, and I’m happy to be able to offer them something to say thank you.

David SFeastbay, to thank you for having the most comments on the blog, I’m excited to be able to send you a retro Delta L1011 model thanks to Delta Air Lines. (I was very tempted to just keep that for myself.) Nicholas Barnard, I’ll be sending you a complimentary Delta Sky Club day pass, also from Delta. In addition, you’ll both receive:

• One free roundtrip Flight Monitoring and Flight Planning service using Cranky Concierge
• A Cranky t-shirt of your choosing
• One complimentary day pass to an Alaska Airlines Board Room lounge and a complimentary wifi pass on an Alaska Airlines flight (thanks to Alaska Airlines)
• One premium Southwest pen and a Southwest thumb drive (thanks to Southwest Airlines)
• Choice of a JetBlue LEGO airplane, JetBlue frisbee, or JetBlue water bottle (thanks to JetBlue)
• First pick from the Cranky memorabilia pile

It’s not just David SFeastbay and Nicholas Barnard who get to share in the fun. There are 20 more of you who have commented more than 100 times and continue to be active (meaning you’ve commented this year). Here are the names in descending order of number of comments:

Oliver
A
Dan
Ron
frank
james
Bill from DC
Bobber
DesertGhost
axelsarki
JayB
David
Jason H
sanjeev M
Yo
Consumer Mike
Dan Webb
DRG
tharanga
David M

Ok, so David M only has 99 comments but come on, close enough, right? You guys will all get the following:

• Your choice of one complimentary day pass to an Alaska Airlines Board Room lounge or a complimentary wifi pass on an Alaska Airlines flight (thanks to Alaska Airlines)
• Your choice of one premium Southwest pen or a Southwest thumb drive (thanks to Southwest Airlines)
• One pick from the Cranky memorabilia pile

I’ve already sent emails to all of you except for “David” who I believe uses a fake address (though it’s consistently the same fake address, so I know it’s you). So David, send me a note and I’ll respond with the details.

For the rest of you, if anything is left over after these guys are done with it (and yes, I believe they’re all guys, ladies), then I might put some kind of contest up to give away the rest of the stuff. And while you’re at it, come on in and join the comment party. Though it can get heated, it’s almost always respectful and the discussion is usually more interesting than the post that kicked it off. Besides, you never know what top commenters will get at the 10 year anniversary.

Thank you to Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, and Southwest Airlines for being willing to contribute to the Cranky celebration.

Exactly five years ago today, I published the first post of The Cranky Flier. Actually, back then I wasn’t on any sort of schedule so I put five posts live. I guess I had a lot more to say. Want to know how much times have changed since then?

• One post was on Delta’s ill-fated effort to build a regional jet hub to Mexico from LA.
• Another post was about getting a snail mail anniversary card from Southwest for my time in the program. (Snail mail? What’s that?)
• A third post was about the Mini car ad promoting a $39 drive cost from LA to San Francisco. I’m guessing it’s not that cheap anymore, but I haven’t done the math.
• A fourth one discussed the hot market for airlines trying to get China rights. (That’s not a problem today.)

Yep, times have changed, but one thing hasn’t. As I said in my very first post, “I have a lot of seemingly useless knowledge about the airline industry that somehow comes in handy sometimes. I’m always getting emails and phone calls from friends asking for advice on buying tickets, getting to the airport, etc. Now I’ve decided to move these conversations to a public forum so others can benefit.” Since then, it’s been a great ride.

I’ve published 1,641 posts since that day, and there have been more than 23,000 comments (not including spam). There have been more than 4.5 million page views from over a million unique visitors in 226 countries from Christmas Island to Niger, French Guiana, you name it. On top of that, there are nearly 7,000 subscribers. (If you want Cranky in your inbox for free, go here.)

Simply put, it’s pretty awesome, and I have you all to thank. Sure, I can write this stuff, but if nobody is commenting, then it’s no fun at all. Where else could you get more than 300 comments on an airline that doesn’t exist and probably never will?

I’m spending the rest of this week like Oprah. No, I’m not giving out cars or anything like that, but I’m giving other stuff away to thank you for coming to the site and for participating. I’ve contacted a handful of airlines to see if they’d be interested in contributing to the celebration, and a few have agreed to contribute some trinkets to the cause. I’ve also dug into my memorabilia stash and decided to give away a few small things. Stay tuned this week for more info on that.

And as I said up top, if you’re in Southern California, mark this Saturday on your calendar. I think it’s time for a Cranky get together, and what better place to do it than at the In ‘n Out at LAX? I’ll be there from 11a to 1p, and my friend Johnny Jet will be joining me. So if you’d like to come by and do some good old-fashioned spotting, swing by and say hello.

Thanks for five excellent years so far. What are some of your favorites posts? Images? What would you like to see more of in the next five years?

In the Trenches: Handling Mt. Everest – Intuit Small Business Blog
With all the CNN articles flying around late last week, my Intuit post got lost in the shuffle. So here it is. We’ve been handling a large (for us) conference this week, and the ramp up has been fun.

In the Trenches: Accounting in the Cloud – Intuit Small Business Blog
I use Quickbooks on my desktop, but I’d like to get others involved and that means considering the cloud. Not sure that it’s worth it.

Delta SkyMiles members seem to be pretty unhappy at the latest move by the airline. If you’re on a frequent flier ticket, you can no longer make any changes or get a refund once you’ve hit 72 hours prior to your departure. You angry about this?

There’s been a lot of talk of supply and demand here on the blog this week, so I figured, why not pile on? Unlike our Monday discussion, however, this one isn’t controversial at all. Alaska has been lowering First Class fares. The result? More people buy First Class seats. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

On its recent earnings call, Alaska said that it had seen its paid First Class loads factor rise by two points in the last year, and revenues went up by 20 percent on an only 7 percent increase in seats. Good news all around. How did they do it?

Some of it is thanks to the more long-haul flying that the airline does. People may not care about First Class for the less than two hour flight from San Francisco to Portland, but they sure care a lot more on a 5+ hour flight to Hawai’i or a long haul from Seattle to Newark. Hawai’i in particular has really ramped up in the last couple years to become a major part of the airline’s route map, so that alone can make a big difference. But it’s more than that.

Alaska President Brad Tilden noted that back in the day, the First Class cabin barely earned its keep even though the fares were really high. Then this happened:

. . . we brought the First Class fares way down, I think our current add-on over the [full coach] fare is $150 in the longest stage length market. I think our customers have really responded to that value. We’ve gone from maybe from 1 to 1.5 [First Class] seats per airplane to four or five [First Class] seats per airplane. And we’ve also done a lot better with the upgrades, the fares that our mileage plan customers are paying to sit in first-class. And if neither of those work, we are selling first-class upgrades at the gate. I think we had a 20% increase in first-class revenue in the second quarter, and we are doing it in a way that our customer, I think, feels like they are getting really good value.

The decrease in fares isn’t a recent thing, but since it was brought up in the call, I thought it was worth discussing.In the end, this has resulted in a big revenue increase for the airline, and that’s great for everyone involved. The airline makes more money by selling more high fares, but the customers win because those “high” fares are lower than they used to be. This was the same kind of thing we did at America West back in 2002, though that was for the entire fare structure and not just First Class. The result, however, was the same.

So why don’t other airlines follow? Well, other airlines have a different passenger mix. Some of the big old legacy carriers actually sell more of those First Class seats, so cutting fares and increasing demand might actually result in dilution. It’s really an airline-specific type of thing, and only those airlines that don’t sell a ton of the high fares can afford to cut them down.

If you’re Alaska and you’re only selling 1 First Class seat per flight, you can cut the fare in half as long as you sell at least two of those tickets. Then everyone’s a winner. And that’s apparently exactly what’s happening here.