The width is a bit wider, and the header is a bit smaller. I’ve switched fonts around and made colors a bit softer. I also have some new flexibility with the sidebars that should come in handy at some point. Overall, I think it’s a good look that’s just an update on what already worked well. So why’d I change?

Well, the last version broke. Seriously. I couldn’t fix the single post pages, so I just started over with a new theme that’s been heavily modified.

The one potentially controversial move is the addition of threaded comments. Now you’ll be able to reply directly to a specific comment and have it appear directly beneath that. In fact, you can go up to 5 layers deep, so I think this will help facilitate conversation. Others may disagree.

Take a look around, press buttons, and then let me know what you like or you don’t like. If you really hate it, well, you can always become a subscriber instead.

Send the good, bad, and the broken to cf@crankyflier.com. Hope you like it.

At last check, all pricing was the same so that’s not a consideration. I won’t have bags, so bag fees don’t matter either. A friend nominated me for Premier Associate on United, so I could sit in Economy Plus, but I’m short so that’s not a requirement. I don’t care about miles.

So, who would you fly? Vote and leave comments with your rationale below.

[Update 2/12 @ 406p - My decision has been made (though it's actually been made for me). I'll be flying United - see my entire thought process in my detailed comment.]

I’ll be going up against my friend Henry Harteveldt from Forrester Research as well as Phil Derner from NYCAviation. The host? None other than the queen, Benet Wilson of Aviation Week fame. This is going to be a lot of fun for us, but it will probably be more fun if you watch and heckle us mercilessly.

Actually, I have no idea if you can heckle on this thing, but it’s easy if you want to follow along. Here are the full instructions:

http://www.airplanegeeks.com/aviation-jetpardy/

Come join us to see the best man win. (That’s me.)

As promised, I have also given it a prominent place on the site. You will see it in the menu bar at the top of every single page. I take this seriously, as you can tell.

You’ll see that some things have been revised from the original round. You guys told me that the most important thing was to have full disclosure and to write the complete truth. I’ve made those the central tenets of the code.

I’ve also decided to disclose all offers of free and/or discounted products and services, so you can scroll through that page to see what I’ve been offered and what I’ve accepted.

As always, feedback is welcome.

See, I’ve always had what I consider to be a strong code of ethics when it comes to the blog (and in life as well, but that’s a different story), but I’ve never bothered to put it out there in writing. Why? No reason. I just didn’t do it. But now that I’ve seen more interest in this subject, and the feds have started to regulate disclosures, I thought it was a good to put this out there. I’ve also decided to strengthen it a bit, so if you’re looking to get me to write about your product, I’d recommend reading this first.

But before I put it up, I want to discuss it with you guys, my readers. Take a look at what I have so far, and please share your ideas in the comments section. I’d like to have this up with a link from the homepage within the next week. So here’s what I have:

For the purpose of this code, “free and/or discounted products and services” refers to anything offered to me for free or for a discount simply because of my status as a blogger.

• I will never trade favorable press for free and/or discounted products and services. I will always write the truth, and that may or may not be good for your product/service.
• I will only accept free and/or discounted products and services if they come from someone with whom I have an existing relationship. I can only feel comfortable accepting free and/or discounted products and services from organizations which I know understand the rules that I’ve set. If they haven’t spent time building a relationship, then there isn’t enough trust built up for me to accept anything.
• Providing me with free and/or discounted products and services doesn’t mean I will write about them. If you ask before giving anything, I will do my best to let you know if I think I will write about it or not, but that’s still not a guarantee.
• Please do not provide unsolicited free and/or discounted products and services. Contact me first to avoid wasting your time.
• I will not accept free or discounted transportation for a personal trip.
• When I write about free and/or discounted products and services, I will always disclose who gave them to me, what the discount was, and when they were given to me.

That’s what I have so far. Now let’s hear what you have to say.

Please keep in mind that I am going for something realistic here. Would I like to turn away every offer of something free and/or discounted? Absolutely, but nobody is paying to read this site, and the ad revenue hardly covers the cost of a ticket. Without these opportunities, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to cover things that I want to cover for you.

So, let’s try and create a good, solid code of ethics that is also realistic. Leave your comments below.

There have been reports recently that my emails are ending up in some of your spam folders, and that’s obviously not a good thing. To combat this, I’ve made some changes on the back-end that should help your email clients understand it’s not spam. I’ve also changed the email address that will be sending the emails from cf@crankyflier.com to dailycranky@crankyflier.com.

If you’re an email subscriber, please add dailycranky@crankyflier.com as a contact or whitelist the email address to help make sure emails end up in your inbox.

If you’re not an email subscriber, well, why not? It’s free, so you really don’t have a good excuse. Head to this link to sign up. You can always cancel any time:
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=1392450&loc=en_US

Thanks. Now back to airlines.

So how do you get this magical book of joy? Send me your best tribute to timetables. Video? Sounds good to me. Music? Excellent. Pictures? That’ll work. How about a poem? Delightful. Just get creative and submit your best. Got pictures of you as a pudgy pre-teen? That’ll work as well . . .

Just put your masterpiece together and send it to me at cf@crankyflier.com by 1159p Pacific Time on November 15. That’ll give you two weekends to work on this. I’ll go through the entries and pick the winner within a week of the end of the contest. I’m the only judge, so this is rather informal.

Oh, and if you have a file that’s too big to send, feel free to upload to your favorite file sharing site and send me a link. Or, I can pull it down from your site (if you have one) using FTP if that’s better.

I realize this seems like a big task, so I’m curious to see how many, if any, entries I get. We’ll see how much you guys really do love timetables.

This event is attended by industry people – the same people who are responsible for making changes to their frequent flier programs. Most of the events so far have been about how companies have successfully extracted more money from customers while “improving the customer experience” or something like that. But tomorrow, I will be joining up with Nicholas Kralev from the Washington Times for this discussion:

Listening to your customers- what are customers saying about loyalty programs?

So we’ll have the ears of many decision makers tomorrow on the subject that I know you all love to talk about. Let’s have it. What would you like me to say to them?

I see some familiar needs on the speaking roster, and I imagine some other readers will be attending as well. If anyone is interested in meeting up, just shoot me an email at cf@crankyflier.com.