For years, Hawaiian had been primarily an airline offering interisland flights and service to the West Coast of the US. There were minor incursions into other parts of the Pacific but the last couple of years have been different. First, Hawaiian has made a big push into Asia with multiple cities in Japan and Korea. Now, Hawaiian is finally going to the East Coast of the US with flights to New York/JFK. Think this will work? Does Hawaiian have a good plan here?

I’ve pulled a controversial story out from the archives today. It’s one that was supposed to run on BNET at the beginning of the year, but after heated back and forth discussion, it was shelved by the higher-ups. (They didn’t like me ripping apart another BNET article, it seems.) I actually meant to publish it here on Cranky after my BNET run ended, but it just sat forgotten, gathering dust in my drafts folder. I was browsing through old drafts the other day and realized it never went live. So, here it is . . . .

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When a Southwest pilot held a plane for a man who was traveling to be with his daughter in the wake of his granddaughter’s murder, the media erupted with joy. Some people even went as far as calling the pilot a hero. I suppose it’s no surprise, though I can only shake my head and grind my teeth at such loose use of the word.

Heartwarming tales like this one gain a power of their own, and simple actions can be turned into insanely overblown feats of awesomeness. In 25 years, they might call this man a saint for what he did; simply holding an airplane for 12 minutes may morph into him deciding to turn an airplane around against all odds after it took off just to pick this man up. Why do I say that? It’s happened before and will happen again.

Case in point. Peter Greenberg wrote about this Southwest pilot here on BNET. He told a tale of a story that he “wrote years ago.” Too bad this one doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Peter recounts that a passenger was flying on the last flight of the day from Minneapolis to Chicago. He stopped the pilot and told him that he was going to Chicago only to spend the night and fly to Rochester, Minnesota in the morning to get his sick son to the Mayo Clinic. I’ll let him take it from there.

“I looked at the route map in your inflight magazine,” the father said, “and noticed you fly right over Rochester on the way to Chicago. Do you think you could just stop and drop us off?”

The pilot thought about it. Then he called air traffic control and explained the situation. Could they possible [sic] route his flight with a stop in Rochester and still get him to Chicago just a little late? After all, it was the last flight of the day and no passengers were connecting to onward flights.

The word from the ATC: Go for it.

In the end, the pilot asked the passengers for permission and they unanimously agreed. And to add a cherry to this sundae, the flight still arrived in Chicago 10 minutes early.

It’s definitely a warm and fuzzy story, but there are so many holes in it that it could double as Swiss cheese.

If this pilot really wanted to help the passenger get to the Mayo Clinic, he should have given him cab fare. The Mayo Clinic is a mere 80 miles on a straight shot from Minneapolis/St Paul Airport. So the idea that someone was taking his sick child to the Mayo Clinic via an overnight in Chicago is downright absurd.

There’s also the issue of why Northwest, an airline with a massive hub in Minneapolis, would route someone via Chicago anyway. The airline did fly from Chicago to Rochester at one point, but it’s been 25 years or more since that happened. Northwest has, however, long had nonstops between Minneapolis and Rochester going all day long. That continues today despite the short distance.

But if that’s not enough, I’ve never heard of anyone asking air traffic control for permission to go somewhere. Sure, if it’s a congested airport and there are weather problems then you may be delayed going into that airport, but I think we can all assume that Rochester has never had that problem. And can we really believe that there was enough schedule padding that long ago that even with a time-consuming stop, the flight would have arrived 10 minutes early? How much of this story could possibly be true?

That’s hard to say, but by now it’s traveled through multiple mouthpieces, likely amplified every single time to get to the point it’s at now. It’s become a tall tale, and Peter ran with it here. (I asked him multiple times for a copy of the original story he wrote, but he was unable to provide one.)

In the end, people simply like to latch on to stories that warm the cockles, and this is certainly one of them. But as time passes, these stories aren’t necessarily closely tied to reality. Should stories like this become reality more often? I doubt it’s even possible, but certainly things like holding a plane for 12 minutes should happen from time to time. Oh wait, it already does happen all the time.

People at Southwest and other airlines decide to hold flights day in and day out for one reason or another. I don’t want to take anything away from the captain at Southwest who made the decision to hold the flight. That was a great thing to do, but a delayed connection, a late customer running through security; these are all things that happen on a daily basis and airline employees rarely get credit for it. I guess the right combination of a heartbreaking story, a great quote, and some media coverage can create a story (real or not) that lasts forever.

Update: Thanks to reader FBKSan who found the original article from Peter Greenberg in 1990! As I responded in the comments, there were a ton of inconsistencies:

Thanks FBKSan!

Nate is back with part two of his trip report. This time, we look in depth at Dubai Airport. If you missed his flight out, see Flying Up Front on Emirates to Dubai.

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After spending a very long and exhausting day in Dubai, I wasn’t looking forward to getting up at 3a for my return trip so I could check-in early and maximize my time in the airport, board a 13 hour flight, then fly 4.5 more hours on 2 additional flights followed by a 3.5 hour drive. In one day. My past life travels would have made Ryan Bingham jealous, so I was ready for the challenge. And it started off with an incredible Dubai airport experience.

I left the hotel at 4a in a Lexus sedan, courtesy of the hotel, and arrived a few minutes later at the “exclusive” First/Business Class terminal for Emirates. An employee and a porter promptly greeted me, and they walked me to the Business Class check-in.

At first glance, the terminal was like customs when I arrived – very open and airy, with tall columns and decorative tile. There weren’t many people up this early, so I walked to an agent who alerted me that I couldn’t check-in for another 15 minutes. Fortunately there were some comfortable chairs nearby as I sat and waited (according to Flyertalk, I should have been able to check-in and check my bags up to 24 hours). When I was able, I took my bags to the same gentleman who checked me in.

I did the “hike” to security and was glad to see there wasn’t a line. My Acer Tablet caught the interest of the security guards. They asked about it and turned it on. At first I thought it was for security, but it was actually because they hadn’t seen one before and wanted to buy one! One good thing about this checkpoint – it is ONLY for First Class & Business Class customers, there is no mixing with economy customers, at all. After 10 minutes, I took the elevators up to the departure level, expecting an empty concourse.

Boy was I wrong.

I could barely walk. This place felt like it housed the entire world population. Of the 115 or so airports I have visited, I don’t think I’ve been on a concourse this busy, EVER.

The airport boasts a massive shopping system, run by Dubai Duty Free, which will sell you everything from Tums to a car (well, there was at least a “lottery” for it). I was very impressed with all of the shopping options, and the food choices (which even included a Burger King) could satisfy every taste bud. Every single restaurant was open, and it was barely 5a – something unheard of in the US. The zen garden was even quite busy, which is touted as a “quiet oasis” in the airport. Sure. Quieter, maybe.

I did discover that each side of the concourse has a corridor behind the shops, which was MUCH quieter and easier to navigate if you knew where you were going. The signs at the airport also showed you how far, in minutes, the gates were – which was a very handy thing to know. I must admit, the airport provides plenty of places to sit, so I never had to walk too far if I wanted to take a break.

Free wifi seemed to be available all over the airport.I It wasn’t very fast, but I was able to check my cranky e-mail and Facebook without a hitch and without having to sign up to Boingo or another annoying service. It was quite slow in the lounges, though, maybe due to high use?

After walking around the zoo concourse for a while, I opted to head upstairs to the First Class lounge. The clubs are accessible by 1 set of escalators or stairs in the middle of the concourse, with the First Class lounge on one side, Business Class on the other, and a hotel/spa above the lounges. Upon entry, I came across the largest floral arrangement I have ever seen and enjoyed the smell. (I’d later find out this cost over $900 and is replaced every 3 days with fresh flowers).

Friendly staff checked my reservation and allowed me in (I was told that Emirates will soon be limiting which lounges passengers can access once the new concourse is built, making things a bit more “exclusive”). To the left was a very nice and quaint water feature/pond with small cushions around it. There was sporadic seating spread about with numerous bars/food stations served by waitresses eager to please. I continued down the hallway and noticed it wasn’t very noisy, despite being able to look down and see the concourse below.

There were very few passengers in the lounge and at every turn an employee asked if I needed anything. “My pleasure to assist” was said more frequently than at a Four Seasons or Ritz. I came across the restaurant where I sat down and was offered a 3-course breakfast along with buffet. I opted for the buffet as I didn’t want to overeat.

The buffet offered a large variety of hot and cold foods, including eggs, chicken sausage (white, by the way), baked beans (really? for breakfast?), and pastries. Anything I wanted, the server would get or make for me. Behind me was the smoking area/lounge, and I kept smelling the smoke as I ate. As soon as I was done, I discovered the shower room, which had about 8-10 private showers and shower attendant waiting for you, along with the La Croc wine shop, Spa/hair salon, and more sitting areas. What I appreciated was the fact they had real sofas and chairs, not just office furniture, and TVs in most of the sitting areas – perfect if you are traveling with friends and want to watch TV or chat.

First Class passengers are given express treatments, free of charge – they include de-stress back massage, reflexive therapy (leg/feet – this one struck me odd as I thought Islamic law forbade touching or exposing one’s feet?), refresh manicure, hair shaping, and blow dry. Other treatments were available for US$21 to $55 and full spa treatments start around $100 and go up to $200.

The lounge was very spacious and had ample places to charge any electronics. The business center was very nice, with fairly large work stations, nice chairs, and a TV in an enclosed room. The lounge provided many magazines and newspapers from around the world (was surprised to see the Charlotte and Houston papers available!) and the vibe was very relaxing. Someone mentioned I had just missed Kim Kardashian (oh darn), who was in town to launch her overly expensive milkshake store at the Dubai Mall. Apparently her soon-to-be-ex-hubby wasn’t with her.

My next stop was to check the Business Class lounge. Entry was much more chaotic, with twice the welcome staff at the door,. My initial view of the lounge showed that it was very crowded. Like the First Class lounge, it had ample places to sit in a variety of areas that all had different layouts. I didn’t notice a restaurant but found numerous eating areas – the food wasn’t quite the same as found in the First Class lounge.

I noticed a long line for the showers (as noted on FlyerTalk) and the bathrooms were quite busy. The Business Class lounge also had a Timeless Spa, and there didn’t appear to be a wait had I chosen to get a massage or manicure before the flight. Like the First Class lounge, there was an enclosed business center with computers, TV, and leather chairs (not the lazy boy kind, but the nicer office-type chairs). The children’s lounge was also enclosed, keeping screaming kids separated.

Overall, the lounges were very nice. To Emirates’s credit, both lounges were very clean, which was surprising considering the time of day was at their peak use.

Next stop was to see if I could go for a swim. . . . I went up one level and saw the pool in a glass-enclosed room behind the elevators and no one using it. I followed the signs to the Timeless Spa, but found the doors to be closed, and wasn’t even sure if this was the correct entrance. I continued walking down the corridor and was in the hotel. The airport has a 60-some room hotel above the lounges in the concourse.

I tried to research the hotel and came up with almost nothing on the Emirates or Dubai airport websites, including how to make a reservation and rates – nada. I found the staff very welcoming and willing to show me a room, which seemed to be very “acceptable” for $50 an hour or $160 for 4-6 hours. The rates are slightly higher if you occupy a room between 6p and 6a, and the agent showing me the room said that you can get lower rates online (great, but where online?).

24 hours in a room would easily cost you $350, even though you could leave the airport and get a room at Le Meridien for $150 and have the use of 3 outdoor pools and 18 restaurants. The hotel is about as “full service” as you can get, and amazingly you don’t hear any noise at all from inside the rooms.

Considering that Emirates is using the “original” U.S. airline model of hub-and-spoke, they have done a great job of controlling their product offered inflight, on the ground, and in the airport. The airline is using super jumbos like the A380 and larger Boeing 777 models to link the world – connecting big planes to other big planes – as their business model. While at the airport, I saw every nationality and gender represented.

I felt more like I was in the Pittsburgh Airport in the ‘90s (when USAirways had a mega-hub there) than I did in an Arabic country. . . and I think that’s what the UAE is trying to do. They did a great job of it. The airport is already overcrowded, and Concourse 3 is almost completed, which will be exclusive for the A380. Hopefully this will give passengers a bit more breathing room as it was quite crowded.

—
You can see more of Nate’s photos on Flickr

It looks like Southwest has decided to take a cue from the old school PR handbook by making a big splash over new city and route announcements while quietly slipping in cuts to other cities and routes. There are a lot of changes with the schedule for next summer and we’re really starting to see the AirTran merger impact. Some changes, like the new international flights, will be cheered while others including more small city cuts . . . not so much. Let’s dissect this.

Last Friday, AirTran (not Southwest) put out a press release announcing that it would pull out of five cities by next June. Four of those don’t have Southwest service so they will really be losing out on low fare service. I’m sure the timing of this announcement was not a coincidence – companies put out release on Friday with the hope that the news will be forgotten by Monday.

This strategy became quite clear when Sunday afternoon, Southwest announced it was adding a bunch of new routes to its network, including a lot of international. The talk was all around all the new things that are coming, but the new schedule also slipped in some bad news on some routes, with some big cuts. This wasn’t discussed at all, and while Southwest usually puts out a full PDF file with all changes, it opted not to do it this time. I’m not a fan of the new opaque strategy here.

The story you see picked up most is Southwest going international. I’ve seen headlines like “AirTran to add routes to Mexico, Puerto Rico” or “Southwest’s Airtran Adds New International Routes.” Great news indeed, but it’s too bad that people aren’t really looking at all the changes.

First let’s talk about the cities that AirTran will abandon. Three of those are small cities: Bloomington/Normal (IL), Charleston (WV), and Knoxville (TN). We’ve already seen four other cities lose out from this merger with Asheville (NC), Atlantic City (NJ), Newport News (VA), and Quad Cities/Moline (IL) going away in a previous announcement. I can’t imagine we’re done. I’d imagine that Allentown (PA), Branson (MO), Harrisburg (PA), Huntsville (AL), Lexington (KY), Pensacola (FL), Portland (ME), and Rochester (NY) are all very anxious right now. Hopefully some will stay in the network, but I would be surprised if all did. Southwest’s model just isn’t built to serve small cities the way AirTran’s was.

AirTran will also pull out of Miami and Washington/Dulles. In Miami, it’s a cost issue. That airport is absurdly expensive and has been involved in one debacle after another when it comes to building new infrastructure. AirTran had already cut back there on its own and Southwest is finally just pulling the plug, as it should. With Dulles, that’s a more curious announcement. Southwest will still fly there, but it hasn’t been able to grow the operation much at all over the years. You would think that Atlanta would be a likely connecting point in the new network, but I guess not. Neither of these are huge surprises, that’s for sure.

But all that was forgotten when on Sunday night, Southwest came out with the news about all its summer schedule changes. The big headline is the welcome news that Southwest is using AirTran to expand into Mexico and the Caribbean, as it has said it would all along. Here’s everything that coming into the network (some are seasonal changes). These are all AirTran except where noted.

• Baltimore – Branson (Saturday only), Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle
• Chicago – Oklahoma City (on Southwest)
• Denver – Akron/Canton, Dayton, and New York/LaGuardia
• Ft Lauderdale – San Juan
• Houston – Kansas City, Raleigh/Durham, and Seattle (on Southwest)
• Las Vegas – Norfolk (on Southwest)
• Nashville – Seattle (on Southwest)
• Orange County – Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City
• San Antonio – Cancun and Mexico City
• San Diego – St Louis (on Southwest)

First things first. A hearty congrats to the mighty CAK (Akron/Canton) for not only holding on to AirTran service but seeing new, growing flights from the airport. I’ve always been a big fan of that airport, and this is yet another win. It means even more with other smaller cities losing service entirely in the merger.

Also, the Mexico stuff make a lot of sense in general. It’s about time that Southwest started tapping into that. And with Orange County just opening its customs/immigration facility this month, Southwest can finally serve Cabo from there, a market which should do very well. Not so sure about Mexico City from Orange County, however. I see Orange County as a great place for the rich and plastic to fly down to Mexican beach resorts. It’s not, however a big ethnic market and that’s more of what Mexico City needs. I’ll be interested to see how that goes, and I’ll be interested to see how Volaris, Southwest’s partner, feels about these moves.

Now Southwest would like you to think that this is it. No other big changes are happening in the network, but that’s not the case. Along with a roller coaster of frequency increases and decreases in a variety of markets (as usual), there are some routes going away. Some might be seasonal, but I bet not all.

Wondering where those slots are coming from to operate the new Denver – LaGuardia flights? Well, LaGuardia is losing AirTran’s Orlando flights. JetBlue will be happy to hear that one, and it will also be happy to see that Boston to Florida flights on AirTran are gone as well (Ft Myers and Orlando).

We’ll see the relatively recent upstart market of Milwaukee to New Orleans go away in the AirTran network. Southwest is cutting Albuquerque to Salt Lake as well as Midway to Islip. Islip continues to shrink as Southwest gets more traction at New York City airports.

So, while there is some positive news here that shows the direction of this merged airline, there is going to be some pain as well. In particular, the small cities left in the AirTran network should be really feeling nervous about the whole thing.

[Original photo via Flickr user dougtone/CC-SA 2.0]

When I saw Maya Leibman, President of American’s AAdvantage loyalty program, put out a video talking about new benefits for elite members, I knew I wanted to put together an Across the Aisle interview. For those who haven’t seen it, here’s that video.

See, Maya’s video had plenty of corny jokes, and that’s my kind of humor. More importantly, it’s NOT the kind of humor I ever expect from American. (I, uh, don’t expect any humor from that airline.) We virtually sat down last week to talk shop.

Cranky: I expect goofy and corny humor from a lot of airlines but the very last one on my list would be American. So can you talk about the concept and how you decided on it?

Maya: I’d like to say there was all this forethought and it was a statement on our brand’s evolution, but it was really about the fact that we had been planning a lot of really big implementations – the high end credit card, the dynamic air award, million miler. . . . All these really big things were supposed to come out scattered throughout the year. It turns out some things got delayed, some got moved up, so we ended up doing all 5 of them in a month or two month period.

We were sending out emails and I was afraid people weren’t reading them. I think it’s true, email is getting saturated as a channel, so we really wanted to do something to cut through the clutter and hear about all the hard work we’ve done. So that was really the genesis. Then we realized it had to be funny and entertaining because nobody would sit through a 4 minute video that was boring. I certainly wouldn’t. The email had a 50% open rate, and that doesn’t count all the people who viewed the video through the website, FlyerTalk, MilePoint, and it got picked up on local news.

Cranky: Did you say 50%, 5-0, open rate?

Maya: Yeah

Cranky: Wow. So is that your personality?

Maya: Yeah, yes. I mean, I wrote it. I think sometimes at American we take ourselves too seriously.

Cranky: I assume the video is just one piece, or shall we say, cornerstone, of your vision for AAdvantage. Can you get into your high level view of where you want to take the program?

Maya: That’s a big question. Our main objectives this year as we talk internally were first, around attracting and retaining our best customers. Clearly a lot of what we talked about in the video are things we’ve done that are designed to retain loyalty of best customers.

Another was around ensuring that we enhance and better communicate the utility of the mile. We know that we’re competing against not just Mileage Plus or SkyMiles. It’s Starwood Preferred Guest, Membership Rewards, they all have very compelling propostions. One of the things we’ve done recently is really enhance the ability, the way you can use your miles, car and hotel awards, dynamic air option, a couple of things coming up in the next few months.

And the third objective was around harnessing the passion people feel for the program. You know better than most that people feel so utterly passionate about airlines, about frequent flier programs, about everything associated with the business, and it felt to me like there was a better way to tap into that. We’ve done that via social media, AAdvantage Facebook and Twitter accounts, and having much more of a dialog. We did a lot of things around the Super Bowl, and for our 30th anniversary, just choosing a flight and giving everyone miles.

Cranky: What about next year? Are the goals different?

Maya: Good question. We’re crafting our 2012 objectives, these all stay and they evolve a little bit and we’ve added to these a couple other objectives. One is around our alliance partners, around improving our proposition on alliance partners. You know BA just introduced a Ruby tier, their base level tier that allows our Gold elites to have benefits on BA which they didn’t do. We’ve introduced three new partners, Etihad, Air Berlin, and Kingfisher for accrual.

Cranky: I’m very interested in the Alaska announcement the other day, which I ended up writing about. Can you talk about the decision to do that? Are you looking to strengthen the relationship with other non-oneworld partners?

Maya: Our first focus is with oneworld, but we have a bunch of non-oneworld partners that are also very valuable: Alaska, JetBlue, WestJet. So we’re also focused on ways that we can strengthen those relationships.

Cranky: A reader wanted to know specifically about JetBlue. Any chance of earning elite qualifying miles? How do you view that partnership?

Maya: I can’t say what we’re gonna do but that’s obviously – New York is a cornerstone for us – so JetBlue is an important component of our alliance partnership. It’s hard when airlines aren’t in oneworld to figure out the sweeet spot but we’re looking at ways to strengthen it.

Cranky: Obviously a lot of airlines look at their elites as the key to success and focus energy on them. How do you look at general program members? What, if anything, do you do to try to make the program more attractive to them?

Maya: It’s very important. As important as elites are, they’re a very small component. Everything that we do, for what we do for regular members and elites, they both equally come into the equation.

I think one of the biggest things we’ve done is really just make it easier to earn miles and redeem them. The number of partners, the number of ways you can earn miles, the number of partners you can earn them with is just staggering. I think one of the things is the general AAdvantage member cares about maximizing earning potential and then being able to use those miles. On the air miles, we’re proud that we carry a larger percent of award traffic and we’ve developed all these non-air ways to use their miles – to bid on auctions for example.

Cranky: At least one of my readers appreciates the options. He sent this tweet:

@crankyflier No questions, just thank them for having so many retail partners to shop and get miles on. Did xmas shopping via their website

You probably love hearing things like that?

Maya: Yeah, the shopping platform and dining platforms are great. It’s a no brainer way to earn miles. If you’re already dining or shopping, there’s no extra spend required.

Cranky: That’s why I think it’s so funny that people get angry when their miles expire. It’s so easy to keep them active.

Maya: Yes, but the other thing that’s a benefit to a regular member is that we make it not so difficult to reactivate. Just show some re-engagement and we’ll give ‘em back to you. There are a couple of things they have to go through and it can depend upon how many miles they want to reactivate, but it’s not unreasonable to ask.

Cranky: With everyone else going though mergers right now and seeing massive program changes, what kind of opportunities do you see coming available? I was at the MegaDO launch and there was a lot of talk from United elites expressing unhappiness with the program.

Maya: You know, having gone through mergers ourselves, you know that it’s easy for those companies to take their eye off the ball because there’s just so much involved trying to bring two giant entities together. We see this as an oportunity to reinforce our proposition, show those areas where we think we have a competitive advantage.

Cranky: So are you actively targeting these customers?

Maya: We’re always looking for ways to attract and retain our best customers. We’re looking for oppotunities to bring more into the fold. I think you saw with the MegaDO with the launch party, with the status challenge which is certainly doable for that crowd.

Cranky: How much time do you spend looking at big picture changes? I mean, the idea of trying to better align the program so it rewards profitable customers (maybe via more revenue components). Is that something that you constantly look at or is it too difficult to make the change?

Maya: We certainly look at it. We look at what all the options are. Right now we’re thinking about what loyalty looks like 5 years from now, the future of the loyalty program. It’s a very competitive industry so you don’t want to do something that’s so out of the realm that it’s going to put you at a competitive disadvantage. So you strike a balance trying to make incremental enhancements to improve the position and at the same time you’re ready to capitalize if the industry moves in a different direction.

Cranky: But in terms of shifting the program to one that probably does more of what you want, encourage additional spend, reward people for buying higher?

Maya: There are things you can do on the edges, like the elite rewards program which is based on points instead of miles. It doesn’t penalize those who earn on miles because you still make the same progress but on higher value fares you earn more quickly.

Cranky: Thanks for taking the time to chat, Maya. I appreciate it.

————
After we finished, Maya had questions for me. She asked about my post on Alaska’s program, really trying to get a sense for how it would impact American. It’s great to see someone running a loyalty program who is so interested in customer behavior. I look forward to seeing more from Maya in the years to come.