By now you all know that a Qantas A380 had an engine failure last week that caused enough concern that the airline grounded the entire fleet. Here we are on Monday and the fleet is still not flying, so a lot of people are stuck, waiting for Qantas to get its act together. The airline isn’t giving much information, so the best advice to give is this . . . have patience.

In case you haven’t seen it, one of the engines on the A380 had what’s called an uncontained failure, meaning that pieces came out of the engine and threatened other parts of the airplane. While some flew harmlessly to the ground, others shot up and punctured the wing. Take a look:

As you can imagine, that’s not good. But the airplane flew just fine, the crew dumped fuel, and everyone was safe in the end. Still, there was something so concerning to Qantas that it decided to ground the entire fleet. It remains grounded today and Qantas has apparently found more problems on other airplanes so it could be a few more days.

If you’re booked on an A380, what should you do? Well, keep an eye on flight status updates on the Qantas website. Those seem to be accurate, but just because the flight is running doesn’t mean you’ll actually be on it.

I was trying to help someone this weekend who had flown from Chicago to LA, ready to connect to an A380 on Thursday night after the incident. When she arrived, she was told her flight would be going 24 hours later, and they would put her up for the night. She tried to get more information by calling Qantas, but the wait times were excessively long and she gave up. She went for her flight the next day but when she got there, she was told she wouldn’t be going.

See, the A380 is the largest airplane in the Qantas fleet, so when they find a 747 to substitute for it, they can’t get everyone on that airplane. Apparently they never bothered to tell this to the person I was helping, and when she showed up, they said she wasn’t on it and had no idea when she would be going. Very helpful, right?

Things were a bit more complicated for her, because she was on a codeshare with American Airlines. She had the American confirmation number but not the Qantas one. So if you’re flying, make sure you have the Qantas confirmation number so you can look up your status online. That undoubtedly could have saved some trips to the airport for some people.

If you’re hoping for more specific updates from Qantas, you’re probably out of luck. The only thing Qantas has done on Facebook is link to its website. The @QantasUSA Twitter account has had limited information, but it took more than 24 hours before Qantas even started responding to people via that channel. Your best bet is probably to just rely on what you find on the Qantas website. If you’re feeling stranded, we can, of course, help you via Cranky Concierge.

It’s unfortunate that Qantas’ response has left a lot to be desired here. With any luck, the airplanes will be back in the air within the next week, but we don’t know that for sure just yet. And what if you’re flying an A380 on another airline?

At this point, it looks like the issue is engine-related. Qantas uses a Rolls-Royce engine on its A380s, and Singapore is the only other airline that uses that engine. So if you’re flying on a Singapore A380, you have nothing to worry about just yet. The airline has inspected its airplanes and continues to fly them. But if something is found that requires immediate assistance, it could cause disruptions. On the other hand, if you’re on Emirates, Lufthansa, or Air France, those airlines use different engines and should be unaffected. My mistake, Lufthansa also uses the Rolls engines, however it has very few and likely has the ability to substitute other aircraft without nearly as much pain.

How Southwest Measures the Success of “Bags Fly Free” – BNET Headwinds
Last week at Media Day, Southwest got into survey details on how it measures success of Bags Fly Free.

Airline reviews: Find out if an airline is any good – Budget Travel
Sean over at Budget Travel asked me how to find if an airline is legit or not. Here’s my response.

Southwest: Why It’s Promoting No Change Fees and Its Web Site – BNET Headwinds
Now that Bags Fly Free is working, here’s what’s next. From Media Day, of course.

In the Trenches: The Stress of Exhibiting at a Conference – Intuit Small Business Blog
I have started blogging about my experience as a small businessperson at the Intuit Small Business Blog. My first post was on exhibiting at a conference.

Election 2010: Airlines Lose Key Merger Opponent in the House with Oberstar Defeat – BNET Headwinds
Rep Oberstar, the constant airline merger opponent, has lost in the race for re-election. That’s good and bad news for airlines.

Southwest Tells Airports to Keep Costs Under Control – BNET Headwinds
Airport costs are skyrocketing, and I asked Southwest about that during a one-on-one interview with EVP Bob Jordan. He said airports do need to keep costs under control.

Qantas Grounds A380s After Engine Failure: There’s More to This Story – BNET Headwinds
The big news at the end of the week was Qantas grounding the A380 fleet. There has to be more to this.

Qantas A380: A History of Problems With the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 Engines – BNET Headwinds
This isn’t the first problem with the Trent 900 engine on the A380. Not sure what’s related at this point, but it’s worth taking a look.

As I mentioned in my last post, the Qantas A380 came through LAX yesterday on its first scheduled flight between Australia and the US. Regular readers know that I spent time on the Emirates A380 in August, so now it’s time for a battle royale. Let’s compare the Emirates and Qantas products.

First, a little background. While I took the flight with Emirates in August, I ended up not flying with Qantas this time. Instead, I opted for the static display where I spent about an hour checking out the product on the ground. My friend Paul was down for this flight as well, so we both had a chance to kick the tires on both flights. If you really care about the flight itself, I’ve got someone who took it working on a guest post. You can also go check out Today in the Sky where Ben Mutzabaugh has posted some of his pictures. I spoke to Ben for awhile after the flight, and it sounds like the low fly-by of San Francisco was really excellent. Hopefully I’ll have more for you on that soon. But let’s get back to the plane itself.

Economy Class
I figured I’d start in coach since that’s where most of us will end up if we fly this plane. Qantas has coach on the last 3/4 of the lower deck while Emirates has the entire lower deck filled. The seat pitch is one inch less than it is on Emirates, and you can feel it. It was already tight, but when the person in front of me reclined, it really got worse. I didn’t explore the inflight entertainment much, but it appeared to be just as good as Emirates for my purposes.

The big differentiator for Qantas (besides the insignificant fact that each of the three coach cabins had different color fabric) was the “foot net.” I’ve never seen one of these before, but it was effectively an attempt to install a footrest in coach without having it take up any space. The picture at right is a bit tough to decipher, but it’s the best I could do. This net has a hard front to it that sits against the bottom of the seat in front. When you kick it with your foot, it opens up a net that you can put your feet in to rest. With shoes on, it wasn’t very comfortable because it seemed too small. But with shoes off, I can imagine it actually being a nice way to elevate your feet a little and get some relief.

Other than that, the only other thing of note in coach was that there are four snack bars stationed throughout the airplane where they’ll have pre-packaged goodies for people to pick up whenever they’d like. The only (very big) concern for me in coach was legroom, but otherwise, it seemed like a strong product.

Premium Economy
I’ll keep this one short because Emirates doesn’t have a Premium Economy for comparison. On this plane, Qantas puts this at the very back of the upper deck in a small, intimate cabin. The seats in the emergency exit row have some incredible legroom, so definitely grab those if you can. In general, it seemed to be a decent premium economy seat, but I had problems making the legrests fit comfortably. It was too short for me, and I am not a tall person. Still, considering the tight pitch in economy, it would probably be worth upgrading for a few hundred dollars more.

Business Class
Business Class takes up the rest of the upper deck. My understanding is that it’s the same seat that Qantas uses as an angled lie-flat seat on its other aircraft, but on the A380 it goes fully flat, as you can see at left. The seat was comfortable, and it felt very private folding back into the shell. In fact, the cabin had a very different feel than on Emirates.

Emirates had very large monuments surrounding the seats – minibars and walls all over. On Qantas it was all about the seat with the individual shells. It seemed more open than on Emirates, yet for some reason it seemed a bit more private as well. It’s hard to explain, I suppose. But if you’re traveling alone, the Emirates setup is certainly superior because you can sit alone. On Qantas, you’ll have a seatmate no matter what. There were certainly merits to both.

First Class
Qantas puts First Class downstairs in the front, unlike Emirates which puts it upstairs. The Qantas suite is really nothing like the Emirates one at all. Emirates has built their seat around the idea of being completely private and separate from the rest of the world. Qantas hasn’t followed this model, and has left it somewhat open instead.

I wrote about the seat when I saw it at NBTA over the summer, but I knew I couldn’t really decide how it would work until I saw it on a plane. I can now say that if you sit on the sides, it still seems quite good. But if you’re in one of the seats down the middle, it doesn’t really afford enough privacy.

The reason it works on the side is because the seat is oriented to angle toward the window. So you’re kept away from other people unless you really want to see them (you can invite them over to have dinner with you). You don’t have that privacy in the middle, and it’s awkward. Laying down, the bed was very long and comfortable. I really liked the massage function, but the thing that really grabbed me (as dorky as it is) was the automatic window shade. You have two shades – one is opaque and the other allows some light to come through. You can control these from your massive remote control that seems too complicated to function properly for long in the heavy use conditions of the airline world (There are backups in case it breaks.)

The Rest
Qantas decided to put a lounge where Emirates puts one of its showers. The lounge is long and there’s a couch that stretches straight down one side with a TV on the other. Yes, it’s nice, but it’s hard to have any sort of group conversation because of the narrowness of the space. The Emirates lounge, of course, was fantastically large and had plenty of room to congregate. That being said, I have visions of additional seats where they put that lounge on Emirates whereas Qantas is actually making an efficient use of space.

Overall, both airlines offer impressive products onboard the A380, but they have different strengths. Ultimately, the only place these two products are likely to compete is on the Kangaroo Route from London to Sydney. In that case, it would be a very tough decision.

See the rest of my Qantas A380 pictures including a video in Business Class.

I may have spent today at the celebration for Qantas’ first scheduled A380 flight to the US, but as far as I’m concerned this plane stole the show.

Yes, that’s John Travolta’s immaculate 707. John is the Goodwill Ambassador for Qantas, and his 707 is painted in vintage Qantas colors. As he said in the press conference for the A380 today, “When I was 5 years old, I collected airline memorabilia from all airlines. I was . . . an airline geek.” Unlike most of us, however, he was able to buy his own private jet to fly around. I’ll have more on the A380 tomorrow, but I’ll leave you tonight with this great shot of the two aircraft meeting.

Tony France, the Traveling Optimist, is back with another post, and this is a long one. Last time Tony generated a lot of discussion, so let’s hope this does the same.

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Friends of mine were planning on getting married in New Zealand during their down under Summer – Christmas wedding season of October – December. I started shopping the three main carriers from the United States, Air New Zealand, Qantas and United. I discovered that Qantas will introduce the A380 to Los Angeles in late October. Even though it will not operate to Auckland I went to the Qantas website to see if this airborne beast would offer something different enough to capture my attention and pull me off of the nonstop services both they and Air New Zealand provide.

They did. Qantas has translated size in to a rare spaciousness for the three premium cabins. In their highest density, United’s 747s carried 420 in an 18F, 32C and 370Y configuration. Virtually all Qantas and this airplane has done is take those same numbers, increase the size of the Business Class cabin by 40 and put the whole thing upstairs! Even with only one boarding bridge, getting on the plane at least should be fairly smooth thanks to a total of four aisles and two stair cases to distribute the payload and alleviate the herding sensation. Only in standard coach with 332 seats set in the standard 3-4-3 layout will the density feel no different whatsoever between the A380 and the 747.

What I don’t like about the Qantas configuration is easier and faster to explain than what I do like, which is plenty. For those of us who are claustrophobic, not having the enclosed confines of a Singapore Airlines or Emirates First Class Suite is a good thing. No paired seating, though, is sure to be something Virgin Atlantic will make much of when their version of the A380 debuts with Upper Class seating. Also, having the seat so far removed from the side wall to allow for the lie-flat feature to pivot, is unfortunate. According to their seat map the chair itself is a good two, almost three feet in to the cabin area. I’m a sightseer when I fly and, even in the middle of a 15 hour flight, I occasionally like to look out the window to see the stars, clouds, thunderstorms, holiday lights, city lights, fireworks, whatever. I especially like to watch the wing flex a little muscle during take off or turbulence or maybe spot another airplane on a parallel track or something. Maybe I’m supposed to be too busy, pre-occupied and otherwise above such things to care but if they had reversed this set-up I am of the opinion it would be more appealing.

Speaking of the wing, I have seen some videos of the A380 on takeoff from the passenger’s perspective. Particularly the view taken during Cranky Flier’s visitor flight on Emirates out of Los Angeles (below), I strongly advise any sightseer like myself to make sure they are seated either behind or in front of this massive construction. Impressive it is but if it could block out the sun it would because it surely obstructs the passenger view of everything else and will make a 15 hour flight even more challenging that it is already.

As for the back of the bus, fear not, coach flyer; despite the aforementioned density of 332 seats in 3-4-3 layout the one HUGE upgrade to this cabin is the introduction of 110v power ports to each bank of seats. Finally even coach customers are acknowledged for needing and wanting to use their laptops for work or their own entertainment in flight. This simple, phenomenal offering has instantly rendered anything by United and Air New Zealand both dead in the water…air. Who needs 160 channels of film and music when my own library can boast several thousand titles of songs, movies and games, completely unedited, personally selected and on a laptop screen up to 17 inches across without PA interruptions? Heaven!

With all respect to Coach for that is certainly where much of my personal flying takes place, I would not have placed First and Economy so close together on the same level. Even with priority boarding I would not necessarily want such a divergence in my customer base to mingle on the jet bridge. Neither would I want economy sized traffic traipsing through the refinements of First Class on the way back to Steerage even if they are, to borrow a line from “Titanic,” quite good on this ship. Moreover, placing Premium Economy above standard coach and just behind Business Class works for an illusion of exclusivity during the flight until it is time to deplane and there is only one jet bridge for the aircraft. That puts Premium Economy waiting to come down the back stairs and deplane behind standard coach. Through the galley. And past the lavatories. After 16 hours. Ew.

The biggest concern is having the entire Business Class cabin placed on the upper deck. For customers with physical disabilities how will a Business Class customer in a motorized chair board an aircraft through a single, main-level jet bridge and get to his seat upstairs? I saw no accommodation for an elevator, chair lift or other powered device to transit such a passenger from the main level. The 747 rarely ever had that problem because at least one cabin for each class was always on the main floor.

If the Business Class passenger cannot navigate stairs will they receive a complimentary upgrade to First Class? I doubt any Business Class passenger for any reason will accept a downgrade to steerage without a loud and long fight right then and there.

I like, no LOVE the 747-400. Economically the airplane may be nearing the end of its useful life but an airline with deep pockets can put an onboard product into the older aircraft to match Qantas’ investment with the A380. Air New Zealand is a solid service oriented airline that well knows the challenges of ultra-long international service. It has nonetheless gone two-cabin in its configurations and, as a classic example of a long-and-thin airline, is in no need of something as big as the A380. As a 747 replacement the 777 works just fine, thank you very much and, like a top notch gridiron quarterback, can “make all the throws” (fly every international route) this peppy little carrier needs to succeed.

Despite recent stories to the contrary, United is not again bankrupt but is in severely tight straits regarding fleet replenishment such as would be needed to go toe-to-toe with Qantas, Singapore, Emirates and Company. If United cannot afford or does not need the A380 then that’s fine but their announced upgrades have the overall affect of the emperor’s new clothes. Sadly for United, however, it appears old Mrs. Haversham will ply the friendly skies to Australia and Hong Kong, their two longest nonstop routes, for some years to come, pining for the customers with whom she once was one.

So, ultimately, my issues with the Qantas product are all about physical placement on and within the aircraft and not towards what appears to be magnificent creature comforts in all classes. The seats in each cabin look gorgeous and the food and amenities thoughtfully created and well appointed. None of my issues detract from the physical comfort or culinary standards Qantas has set. It’s clearly and simply a case of coming just within a hair of perfection – I like being able to get to my preferred seat without obstruction and, once settled in, I like to see where I’m going and what the world looks like around me. Qantas, I eagerly look forward to your A380 experience.