For those who are local here in Southern California, next Wednesday October 12 is the next quarterly meeting for the Long Beach Aviation Friends group. The meeting starts at 630p at AirFlite (3250 Airflite Way, Long Beach, CA 90807). You should come. Seriously. If you read this blog, then you’re a dork like me. Come on out.

For those who aren’t familiar with the group (and that’s probably just about every single one of you), the goals are to inform people of the history of aviation and the Long Beach Airport, to keep people informed on the airport status, and to assist the airport (tour guides, Ambassadors, archivists, volunteers for city fairs, airport open houses, etc.) (You don’t have to be a volunteer just to come to the meetings.)

This meeting will focus on the first transcontinental flight in the US operated by Cal Rodgers on his airplane, the Vin Fiz. It’s the 100th anniversary and there have been a lot of different events to mark it here in Long Beach, the endpoint of his trip. We’ll have Councilwoman and historian Gerrie Schipske come to talk about the flight in detail. It’s actually quite remarkable since he crashed so many times that it was effectively a different airplane by the time he got to California.

This is my first meeting as “Chief Pilot” (or president) of the group, so if you come, be gentle. Even if this particular event doesn’t interest you, please send me any ideas you have for future programs. We’re working on all sorts of ideas for future programs, which are always the second Wednesday in January, April, July, and October.

Dues are only $12 if you’d like to join, but you don’t have to join just to come to check out a meeting. So come on by and say hello.

I haven’t written about Allegiant in awhile, but I think the time has come. Its decision last week to pull out of Long Beach is just one of a few odd choices that we’ve seen coming from the airline recently. I’m trying to figure out what exactly is going on over there.

Let’s start with Long Beach since my home airport is always top of mind for me. Allegiant just announced it will end flights here in November. The press release gave no reason, and I received no response from Allegiant despite sending a request via email and leaving a voicemail. So all we can do is speculate.

This is a very strange, surprising move. When Allegiant first started flying to Long Beach last year, it didn’t seem like a city that would fit into the Allegiant model . . . until Hawai’i came into focus. With Allegiant acquiring 757s to fly to Hawai’i, Long Beach would be a natural jumping off point for the airline. So the expectation was that Allegiant would just sit on those slots until the 757s got up and running.

Meanwhile, the Hawai’i plans kept getting delayed as the airline realized that introducing a new aircraft type and getting certification to fly over long stretches of water far from land (ETOPS) took a lot longer than expected. The 757 is now flying but Hawai’i still hasn’t started.

In Long Beach, Allegiant struggled to find anything that would work. It began Bellingham along with ill-fated flights to Stockton (which I can’t imagine anyone thought would work) and it moved flights that were going to LAX over to Long Beach from places like Idaho Falls. Nothing really stuck. Had Allegiant given up and decided to cut its losses then, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But in April of this year, when Frontier relinquished its slots, Allegiant ramped up and actually took a third slot. It switched the strategy to send all flights to Las Vegas. JetBlue ramped up to Vegas as well, and that must have been ugly.

But what could Allegiant expect? Flights from the LA Basin to Vegas are plentiful and cheap. It couldn’t have expected much, but again, I assumed it was just an effort to find a better place to park slots until Hawai’i started. Now, after almost a year and a half, Allegiant is scrapping the whole plan and walking away. Other airlines will get slots. (My bet is on JetBlue and Delta, though Alaska would be smart to grab a slot and start Hawai’i itself now that Allegiant is giving up. I bet there’s a market there.)

Let’s read the tea leaves here. Why would Allegiant give up now? There are four reasons that seem possible.

1. Hawai’i is off the table. Maybe Allegiant is seeing success with its 757s on domestic routes to places like Lexington and Knoxville from Vegas and doesn’t want to bother with Hawai’i anymore. Or maybe the 757s aren’t long for this world with the airline now that it’s seen the characteristics of the airplane. That would be a big change in strategy, and it would be a surprise if true.
2. Hawai’i is delayed longer. At last check, I thought Hawai’i was now scheduled for later next year. That’s a lot longer than Allegiant thought it would have to wait when it came into Long Beach, and maybe it’s not comfortable taking the losses anymore just to hold on to slots. But why would that decision be made now and not several months ago when delays were already known? Maybe more delays are in the pipeline and we just don’t know it yet.
3. Long Beach to Hawai’i is no longer interesting. I can’t imagine that this would be the case. I mean, if it was interesting 3 months ago when a 3rd slot was acquired, it shouldn’t be much different now. But, this could be a sign of internal strategy issues at the airline. Maybe there’s a question about how it wants to serve Hawai’i and Long Beach is now the odd man out?
4. Hawai’i was never the plan from Long Beach. What if the airline actually thought it was a good idea to go in there on its merits? That didn’t work, so now it’s pulling out. That seems crazy, of course. I think most people could have told you that Long Beach to Stockton or Idaho Falls wasn’t going to work. That’s why everyone assumed Hawai’i was the plan. Besides, the Long Beach flying was so far removed from the airline’s strategy in general that it wouldn’t have made much sense. Then again, this wouldn’t be the only goofy thing Allegiant has done lately with routes. . . .

If you missed it, Allegiant is now going to start flying six times a week between its two bases in Las Vegas and Phoenix/Mesa. This is a big departure from the airline’s strategy of trying to avoid big routes with competition. Sure, Phoenix/Mesa is a different airport, but it has a much smaller catchment area compared to the much larger operation of Southwest and US Airways at Phoenix’s main airport. This isn’t the usual small city to big city route that has made Allegiant the winner that it is.

Even stranger is the schedule. Allegiant will be running two daily flights on Friday and Sunday tying up an airplane from 250p in the afternoon until 930p at night. That’s certainly a good peak time to fly to Vegas on Friday and back on Sunday, but these airplanes are doing roundtrips. I can’t imagine the Friday out of Vegas and Sunday back is going to be a winner. This use of an airplane during primetime is a little concerning. Shouldn’t Allegiant have better ways to use an airplane on those prime travel days? Apparently not.

Oh sure Allegiant continues to churn out new routes in its typical pattern of connecting small cities to big cities, some that work and some that don’t. Some don’t even get off the ground. Just last week, a planned announcement for service to Gary, Indiana was called off at the last minute when Allegiant informed the airport that the runway wasn’t long enough. Allegiant says that an announcement of a deal was “premature” but clearly at best there are some major communication issues on service plans.

It’s been an interesting few months at Allegiant. If only I could be a fly on the wall at that place.

While I was up in Seattle, I had the chance to sneak away from the APEX expo to go meet with the good people of Alaska Airlines. You already read about my visit to the Seattle airport, but I was also able to go over to headquarters and meet with a variety of people.

The headquarters itself really seems fitting for Alaska. It’s an unassuming building in a business area just south of the airport. The main entrance is just a tiny little room with a receptionist there waiting to help. Apparently there used to be a different entrance, but security procedures in recent years required them to lock it down in to this “cozy” spot.

The building is actually two buildings brought together by a long corridor (with awesomely large models of airplanes). The buildings use a very open floor plan with everything facing a large atrium in the middle of each – both have fountains that provide nice soothing background noise while you work. There are plenty of skylights and windows, likely to take advantage of the stray rays of sunlight that rarely find their way to Seattle. Surrounding the building, however, is dense jungle-like foliage giving it a very green feeling. It feels like the Pacific Northwest.

It was in this setting that I was able to meet with a bunch of different people in several areas at the airline. Led by Bobbie Egan, Manager of Media Relations, I spent time with Joe Sprague, Vice President of Marketing; Caroline Boren, Managing Director of Loyalty Marketing & Customer Advocacy; Andrew Harrison, Vice President of Planning & Revenue Management; Torque Zubeck, Managing Director of Alaska Air Cargo; Megan Lawrence, Managing Director of Governement and Community Relations; Paul McElroy, Managing Director of Strategic & Corporate Communications; and I even had the chance for a quick talk with President Brad Tilden and CEO Bill Ayer. It was an action-packed couple hours.

I’ll do my best to just stick to the more interesting parts of our conversation.

On the Mileage Plan frequent flier program
Joe Sprague explained that the program starts with the premise that Alaska is a small airline, so partnerships are important. Award redemption options are key, and Alaska has worked to maximize those opportunities by partnering with Air France/KLM, Air Pacific, American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta, Era, Icelandair, Kenmore Air, Korean Air, LAN, PenAir, and Qantas. You see a lot of SkyTeam and oneworld airlines in there – a nice perk that can’t be found in many other programs.

So the airline really focuses on providing options for frequent fliers and giving them reasons to keep coming back. Last year’s introduction of the new MVP Gold 75k level is an effort to keep people flying Alaska, giving the more reasons to stick around.

The recent changes in the route network have given the airline more to think about. Hawai’i, in particular is, as Caroline Boren suggested, a “key aspirational destination.” A lot of people want to redeem there, so it has provided new options to make the program more valuable. It has added to the utility of the program in the key markets of Portland, Seattle, and Alaska, but it’s also opened up new opportunities. It has built up more interest in the airline throughout California, where there are now 4 cities with nonstop service to Hawai’i. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more coming.

Because of that, fliers are showing more interest in Mileage Plan as they start flying Alaska. So far, that strategy has worked well. The focus has been on bringing people to Hawai’i but not necessarily on those who are in Hawai’i already. That’s changing a bit – they’ve just hired a local sales and marketing person there.

On the Eskimo
I posed a reader question about the relevance of the Eskimo on the tail these days, and Joe explained that the question has been raised for about 25 years at least – ever since expansion went into Southern California and Mexico. But the company identifies with the Eskimo and “there is no ignoring how important the State of Alaska is to our company.” That doesn’t mean it won’t get a refresh to appeal to younger generations if needed at some point, but he “would be surprised if the Eskimo came off the tail.”

On Technology
Alaska is working hard to appeal to younger generations via technology. Part of that is technology – a redesign of the website, a mobile redesign coming, new apps for smartphones (Android coming soon), and yes, wifi on airplanes. When I asked about wifi usage, I was told it was “similar to every other airline.” Translation: not much. But Joe did say that routes like Seattle to Newark and Washington had 3 times the usage because of their length and business-focus.

I asked about the all-important question of onboard power. It’s debated a lot internally, but I heard some of the same refrains I hear elsewhere – battery life is improving, etc. I’m not getting my hopes up despite my belief that it’s essential. Instead, it sounds like we might see more effort to have charging stations on the ground to make it less necessary in the air but that’s about it for now.

On Partnering with Delta and American
Andrew Harrison was very clear in saying that it’s a huge advantage for Alaska to have partnerships with both those Delta and American. It gives Alaska the national reach it needs for its frequent fliers, and it also gives American and Delta a stronger west coast presence where they wouldn’t otherwise have one.

But how does he keep the peace while managing relationships with two rivals? He at one point compared it to an airline providing feed as an Express carrier. Airlines like SkyWest and Republic work with rival mainline airlines, and Alaska is providing the same utility in that sense. Of course, the branding is very different from an Express operation, but the idea is the same. Alaska fills a need for both airlines, and Andrew and the rest of the Alaska Airlines team make it work.

On Codesharing
I mentioned the issues that exist with codesharing and asked if Alaska was trying to fix some of those problems. Andrew affirmed that he thinks codesharing provides great benefit, but there are issues. With that in mind, Alaska is actively working with partners to make it a better experience. He said a classic example is when you get to AlaskaAir.com to check in but it’s a codeshare flight and you can’t. Those are the kind of things they need to resolve, and it sounds like there is a lot of effort going toward that in the next year.

On the Fleet
There really wasn’t much to say about the fleet. The airline is pretty happy these days. Horizon’s turboprop fleet is working well and now with the CRJ-700s at SkyWest, Horizon can focus on what it does best. For Alaska mainline, the airline loves the 737-800 and is excited for the 737-900ERs. But what about MAX, the new 737 derivative. Nothing to report just yet. “We’re waiting to hear more.”

On Cargo
I really enjoyed speaking with Torque Zubeck about cargo since it’s so important to the airline. Beyond cargo in the belly, there are 5 737-400 Combi aircraft that seat 72 in the back with cargo space up front. (A normal 737-400 for Alaska seats 144.) There is also 1 dedicated 737-400 freighter. As you can imagine, most of these get their workouts up in Alaska, where cargo and people often have little choice but to go by air. Those 737s are soliders up in the north. They’ve only been in service as combis and freighters for a couple years, replacing the old 737-200 Combis, but there has already been discussion about what will replace them when the time comes. I don’t expect to see that soon, however.

Those were the broad points, but I do have one or two more posts on individual topics in the hopper. Look for those in the next few weeks. If you have any specific questions about one of these topics, drop it in the comments and I’ll do my best to expand upon our conversations.

Snyder: Padded flight times a reasonable buffer – CNN Out of the Office
Some people love to suggest that airlines pad flight schedules just to make it look like they’re on time. That’s not really how it works.

The New Boeing 787 – Right This Minute
This was a video interview about the 787. It was chopped up into a short segment so some of things are a little out of context, but it was fun to do.

In the Trenches: Sweating the Small Stuff – Intuit Small Business Blog
I naturally worry when things go wrong, even if minor. That’s just not a good way to be as we keep growing.