It’s been awhile since I broke out the gold star award. I thought about it yesterday with Delta’s new seat, but that’s still a couple years off from being anything tangible. But when I saw Air Canada’s new On My Way service, I thought it was immediately useful and definitely worthy of a gold star.

So, what is this On My Way thing? Well, it’s pretty simple. As you probably know, if your flight is delayed or canceled due to a mechanical issue or something else within an airline’s control, the airline will do a lot to get you out of town. If there are not flights available on that airline in the near future, they’ll put you on another airline. If they can’t get you out that day, you’ll get a hotel and meals. Pretty good, right?

Unfortunately, if you’re stuck with the common “uncontrollable delay” like weather or air traffic control, the airline generally does nothing for you. Sure, they’ll put you on another flight on that airline but that’s about it. Air Canada has been no different from everyone else in this regard, but now they’ve done something crazy.

They’ll treat uncontrollable delays like ones within their control if you’re willing to pay for it.

Here’s how it works. For $25 each way on itineraries of less than 1,000 miles and $35 each way on itineraries over 1,000 miles (in North America only), you can get that coverage. But for that fee, you won’t have to stand in line for hours to get help. You’ll get access to dedicated agents in the Air Canada call center to actually help you with your arrangements. Looking at the list of airlines on which they’ll rebook you, it appears they have pretty strong coverage. All the US legacy airlines, Alaska/Horizon, and WestJet are covered along with a few other small Canadian airlines.

The beauty of this is that it’s a great service for passengers even if it just ends up being peace-of-mind, but it’s also a good deal for Air Canada. Though they won’t know what percent of people that buy the service actually need to use it until they give it a few months, you have to assume that the bean counters did their homework here. They should be able to make money on this deal. It’s a win-win situation, assuming enough people buy it that don’t actually need to use it.

So would you buy it? For me, it’s entirely dependent upon the trip circumstances. If I have an important meeting, I’d absolutely buy it for the outbound flight. For the return? Only if I had to be home for work or something. But either way, it’s a really nice option to have and it can help take a lot of stress out of what has become a naturally stressful situation for a lot of people. For that, Air Canada gets a gold star.

The Gimli Glider, one of the greatest “feel good” stories in aviation history, was retired by Air Canada yesterday. The plane flew from Montreal to Tucson before heading to Mojave where it will probably meet its fate as a bunch of Molson cans. Actually, there is hope that someone will rescue it, but the future is up in the air right now.

For those who don’t know, you’ll be surprised to hear the the Gimli Glider was not some newfangled type of aircraft. It was just a 767-200. Actually, it was this ship:

What you’ll be amazed to know is that back in 1983, it ran out of fuel at cruising altitude due to an error converting between metric and imperial measurements. The skilled crew was able to glide the airplane down for over 100 miles, line up with an old abandoned military runway that was being used for go-kart races at that instant, and successfully bring the plane back to Earth without killing a single person. Sure the nose gear collapsed, but the plane was to be repaired and fly for 25 more years.

Where is Gimli, you ask? It’s about 55 miles north of Winnipeg. Where is Winnipeg? Find the border between North Dakota and Minnesota and head north.

If you’d like some more reading on this topic, there’s a good article on the retirement here. You can also buy a book and a movie that were made on the subject.

My fiancée and I had back to back wedding weekends with one in Toronto and the next outside Paris. Of course, this got me into flight planning overdrive. With a little help, I was able to put together a Star Alliance itinerary with nonstop flights the whole way around. In the end, it was a great trip, especially after getting an upgrade on the return on Air New Zealand. You’ll have to wait for that one though, because it’ll be in Part 2. Part 1 is all about Air Canada.

The AC flights were a mixed bag. We had the new audio/video on-demand (AVOD) system on our flight to Toronto and it’s a really nice system. I found myself missing it a lot on our flight over the ocean since that hadn’t been upgraded yet from the overhead screens. I knew what I was getting into though, so I can’t complain, and I’d certainly fly them again. Read below for more details.

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October 5, 2007
Air Canada #790 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 10a Arr Toronto (YYZ) 540p
LAX: Gate 21, Runway 24L, Dept ~OT
YYZ: Gate 155, Runway 24L, Arr ~OT
Aircraft: C-GITP, Airbus A319, New Tail/Old Body, ~80% full
Flight Time: 4h4m

We had checked in online the night before, but we had some pretty heavy packing requirements with three countries, temps ranging from the 50s to the 80s, and two weddings. That meant we had to check our bags at the counter when we arrived two hours prior to departure. The agents were very friendly and it took no time at all. There was no line at security at that time of day either, so we found ourselves sitting at the gate with plenty of time to spare.

We boarded to find very comfortable seats with leather antimacassars and a purty-lookin’ screen at each seat. You can see at left that not only was there a screen, there was also a regular power outlet and a USB port. Nice. We taxied quickly and headed up into the blue sky via the LOOP4 departure. Once we hit 10,000 ft, the seatbelt sign came off, and I started to play with the AVOD system.

Like United, they offer all pre-programmed XM audio onboard. I didn’t spend any time with that and went straight to the movies and tv. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many options on there. The games were unavailable, and there were only 2 “Hollywood” movies, 1 “Classic” movie, 2 “Family” movies, and 1 “Avant Garde” movie. I understand that on the widebodies, they have at least 20 movies loaded, so it’s really a function of the type of plane. I ended up scrolling through tv shows instead and found myself riveted by Planet Earth. Overall, the system was great, especially for a flight within North America.

While I was watching the wonders of the world, this odd lady from a few rows forward stopped in front of our empty aisle seat. She tells us she “has to sit” in that seat. So my fiancée gathers her stuff and the woman sits down, explaining that her seat was broken. Then she went straight to sleep. I just went back to watching tv.

Long after the first and only service had been done, I got hungry. With two sleeping people between me and the aisle, I decided to ring the call button but nobody came. A few minutes later, someone walked by with water but didn’t acknowledge me. Finally, I flagged down a different flight attendant to get some food. I ended up with a really tasty roast beef sandwich (at right) for $6 (US or Canadian, sadly) which I washed down with some Schweppes ginger ale. (How do they not stock CANADA Dry?) After that, the flight attendants disappeared right back behind the curtain in the back and stayed there for the rest of the flight.

About an hour outside of Toronto, the odd woman next to us wakes up, gets up, and goes back to her original seat for the rest of the flight. What the heck? Apparently her seat wasn’t very broken. Not sure what that was all about.

Soon enough, we were on our final approach into a hot and humid Toronto. I found it a bit unnerving when they reminded everyone where the emergency exits were, but it sounds like they do that on all flights over 4 hours block time. Fortunately, we didn’t need to use them and we landed, taxied, and made it through immigration quickly.

After a fun wedding weekend in Toronto, it was time to take the trip to Paris.

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October 7, 2007
Air Canada #880 Lv Toronto (YYZ) 835p Arr Paris/Charles de Gaulle (CDG) 10a
YYZ: Gate 174, Runway 23, Dept :01E
CDG: Gate ??, Runway 27L, Arr :26L
Aircraft: C-GHLM, Airbus A330-300, New Tail/Old Body, ~80% full
Flight Time: 7h33m

I was excited to use the mobile check-in option that would let me flash a barcode on my cell phone to board the plane, but it wasn’t to be. I knew I wasn’t allowed to use mobile check-in for US flights, but this flight to France was eligible. I went on my phone and had no trouble navigating through the process. The last step was to put in my mobile number so they could text me the link. Unfortunately, it said my phone number wasn’t valid. Booooooo! It turns out that they don’t have any arrangements with US mobile providers yet. We headed to the airport.

It was cloudy and misty as we pulled up to the gleaming new airport terminal about 2 1/2 hours early. The check-in area was very large, spacious, and functional (at left). That helps at least partly explain those high landing fees over there.

Security lines were short, and it was nice to be able to keep my shoes on. We had a long walk on top of all the domestic gates before reaching the very nice international area at the end of the concourse (at right). It was a lively terminal with a lot of dining and shopping options. Most importantly, there was plenty of seating but a scarce supply of power outlets.

They called the flight for boarding and a couple of agents scanned everyone’s boarding passes. I was surprised to see the flight attendants take our boarding passes as we boarded the plane. I’m not sure what they did with them.

Being the big dork I am, I was excited for my first A330 ride. It’s just too bad that those planes haven’t been upgraded with the AVOD system yet. In fact, to make things worse, the airplane taunted us with hints of seatback video. It had the frame of an in-seat video screen, but there was just a pillow in the middle (at left), good for nothing more than resting my head. The flight attendant told us that it was for a previous system that had to be pulled out. Ugh. We’d have to settle for the overhead screen instead.

After taxiing for awhile, we powered off into the mist and headed east on a very southerly route that would take us over Nova Scotia and eventually south of the British Isles.

I skipped dinner to help my body get onto European time and I settled back to try to sleep. Unfortunately, despite the relatively comfortable seat, the bumps kept me awake, so I watched the two movies shown above. First up was the not-so-good Ocean’s 13. Then they took the wayback machine out and showed Beetlejuice. It may be old, but it’s a good one.

Bleary-eyed, I looked out the window to see the sun starting to rise and we were served a cold breakfast about 1:45 outside of Paris. At least, we thought we were 1:45 outside until the fog at the airport forced us to circle for about 30 minutes. That was the only time I slept during the flight.

We finally landed as the fog burned off and taxied for awhile before pulling into the funny-looking round end of de Gaulle terminal 2A. I’m not sure who designed this terminal, but after a sleepless flight, I was convinced they should be shot.

The corridor down to immigration is crossed every few feet by people boarding their planes. To solve this problem, they have revolving doors that rotate in a way that allows people to enter only certain parts of the door. They get stuck a lot and huge backups develop each time (at right). Once you make it through that mess, they dump you into a huge funnel that squeezes everyone into an immigration line. The immigration officer could hardly be bothered to even open my passport and simple waved us through. Our bags were off quickly and then we headed to the RER.

Our upgraded return on Air New Zealand will be posted in Part 2.

In another, “Why is the US so far behind?” moment, Air Canada announced last week that you can now go straight to the gate without a paper boarding pass. Just check in on your mobile phone and show the barcode on the screen to the gate agent for boarding. How cool.

The way it works is pretty simple. You go to the Air Canada mobile site on your phone and check in for your flight just like you would online. They then send you two SMS messages - one with your flight info and another with a link to your boarding pass. Click the link and it will open the image of a barcode in your mobile browser. You can use that to get through security. Then the gate agent will scan it and you can board the plane without a single piece of paper.

Of course, there are restrictions on where you can use this. You may not be surprised to find out that you can’t use this on US flights. Nope. Only flights within Canada or flights departing from Canada and going to any other country as long as it isn’t the US. I’m sure there’s some silly TSA restriction preventing this from happening, and that’s unfortunate. I can’t see why this is any different than a regular boarding pass except that this version saves trees.

Now, Air Canada isn’t the first to do this, but I believe they’re doing it best right now. A company called Mobiqa (image at left) has something similar that will be used by Nok Air of Thailand and Spanair of Spain. The way Mobiqa works is a bit different. A big negative is that you have to check in online. You can’t use your phone. But once you’re checked in, they send you an MMS message with the boarding pass. That’s easier than having to click on a link, but not being able to check in using the phone is a big downfall. This is also the way WestJet does it. (Updated 9/25 @ 1019a)

The good news for me is that I’m flying Air Canada in a couple weeks from Canada to Europe, so I am hoping I’ll be able to try this out. I’ll report back and let you know how it goes.

American announced yesterday that they’ll being offering a hybrid price/schedule search on the website that looks quite similar to what we’ve already seen at Southwest, Air Canada, Alaska, and Hawaiian. Though it’s not live yet (and there is no announced date), they’ve put up a demo on the website that shows what it will look like.

This is the first true legacy carrier in the US to start displaying fares in categories. Southwest has done this for as long as I can remember, but they’ve never differentiated the actual product received by people who buy in different categories.

Air Canada was really the first to begin “productizing” their fares. In other words, you receive a different onboard product, different number of miles, and different levels of fees, etc. depending upon what type of fare you buy. American hasn’t announced they’ll be moving to this type of model, but I have to think that it’s likely the main driver for an enhancement like this.

That’s a good thing for everyone involved, and it’s why I’ve given them a gold star for the effort. It’s sort of a gold star-in-waiting so we can see what they actually do with this technology, but I have high hopes.

Why is this a good thing? As airline continue to feel downward pricing pressure (look at how much a flight cost 20 years ago, you’ll be surprised how much it was), they’ve had to adapt to charging for every little additional thing. Most people don’t like this, but then again, most people aren’t willing to pay more in their base fare either.

The problem is that the airlines don’t have the ability to really upsell you, so even if you would pay more, you aren’t given the option. For example, let’s say American’s lowest fare class has no frequent flier miles, no meal, and a $100 change fee. The next fare class up may cost $50 more but it includes miles, a meal, and a $50 change fee. Is it worth it? To some, it might be. In the current set up, there’s no way for American to try to push that option to the customer. This new functionality allows them to do that.

This gives the airline an opportunity to earn more money at the time of sale instead of nickel-and-diming throughout the travel experience, and it gives the customer more options when they’re purchasing flights. Again, this hasn’t actually happened for American yet, but the new booking interface is the first and most crucial step in making it a reality.

Buying a plane ticket can be a frustrating experience. As a former airline pricer, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people complain about how often fares change and how there seems to be no logic involved. Why do they pay more than another person for the same seat?

It makes perfect sense to me, of course. Airlines price their seats based on supply and demand, so if you book early when the plane is empty (high supply) and you travel on an uncrowded day (low demand), you’ll likely find the best price. I’m simplifying, of course, but you get the idea. People hate the lack of transparency and the fact that they don’t seem to get more for paying more.

It certainly doesn’t help that airlines use the same systems to sell tickets that they used 30 years ago. Those systems are very rigid in what they can and cannot do, so even though there are plenty of great ideas out there, very few can be implemented without major changes.

That’s where Air Canada has excelled.

Why Air Canada? Well, it probably helps that they have the lion’s share of the market up in Canada, so they can experiment without nearly as much consequence as someone down in the US. Still, they’ve done some very innovative things that have made them a model in terms of revenue generation.

First, start with their new tiered fare structure. They have five different fare groupings. The lowest, called Tango, is bare bones. You only earn 50% of the miles you fly, there are change fees for everything, and you have to pay $12 just to get an advance seat assignment. That is followed by Tango Plus, Latitude, Latitude Plus, and finally Executive Class (which is their premium cabin). For a full explanation of the difference in classes, go here.

It’s rare in the airline world, but with these fare groupings, you can now see what you’re getting by paying more. Of course, this only works if you have the right interface for customers, so Air Canada did a major makeover on their website. If you searched for a flight from Vancouver to Toronto, for example, here is what you would see.

The first thing you might notice is that it looks a lot like the Southwest website. It shows you every available flight and then which fare classes are open for sale on those flights. Even better than that, they have tabs at the top showing the lowest fares for five days on either side of your chosen date, just in case you’re flexible. It makes it very easy to get a good picture of the fare landscape.

One thing I like as a former revenue guy is that they change fares within each fare group. You may have to squint, but look at the first flight as compared to the second flight. In Tango, you’ll pay $168 for the first one, but $194 for the second. Even within each category, they’re looking to match supply with demand. It may still hearken back to the black box idea of revenue management from the customer perspective, but it’s a good middle-ground that offers good transparency for the customer as well as the ability to revenue manage for the airline.

Now, in their latest move, Air Canada has taken things one step further to actually creating a world of a la carte pricing. So now, let’s say you want the Tango fare. When you select it, you’ll go to this screen.

This was just launched last week, and I think it’s great. The idea is to get to the point where every person can pay a different fare and actually feel good about doing so.

You don’t care about earning miles? Well, save $3. Air Canada will give you the discount so they don’t get the liability of those miles on their books.

You don’t need to check bags? Great, save $4 for not using the resources to get your bag in the belly of the plane.

Do you know you won’t change your flight? Excellent, save $6 on that one as well.

The best part about this is the presentation. US carriers will often tack on fees for various things. Air Canada could easily have said that there is a $4 fee for checking bags, but instead, they give you a $4 discount for not checking bags. It’s the same thing (assuming they can bump the base fare up $4 - something they can probably do in Canada), but the customer ends up feeling good about it.

So is this the future of ticket sales? I really hope so. It makes a lot of sense to tailor tickets to each person’s needs if you can. Let each person choose what they want and the buying process becomes much more pleasant as well as transparent.

Will the US carriers try this? Probably not in the near future, at least not the big guys. First, it requires a big change on the tech side. More importantly though, if competitors don’t go along with it, there is a lot of risk involved. If there was one big airline I’d expect to give something like this a shot, it’s US Airways since they have been known to take risks, but most of the others are probably too conservative to do it right.

In the meantime, Air Canada will continue to innovate. They’ve announced that they’ve signed on with ITA Software to replace their reservation system internally. That new generation software can only open up additional opportunity to improve the purchase process for everyone.

Looks like Air Canada has been tinkering again, and this time, the occasional traveler will not be happy.

On the heels of US Airways cutting their mileage expiration time from 3 years to 18 months, Air Canada has gone much deeper than that. Upgrade: Travel Better points out that not only will you now have to earn miles once every twelve months to keep them active, they now have an ultimate expiration date of 7 years from the date of accrual. This starts January 1, 2007 with all previous mileage being given an accrual date of December 31, 2006.

For frequent travelers, this is a non-event, but Air Canada has made some more positive changes for that group. The airline has been big on selling passes for travel during a certain time, and now they have an all-North America pass. Basically, plunk down a flat fee and you can fly as much as you want in the area you purchase during that time. It’s a pretty cool idea for the frequent flier, but this doesn’t work for the lonely casual traveler.

Airlines should do this more often.

Today in the Sky reports that Air Canada billed an unruly passenger for causing a 27 minute delay for one of their flights. Basically, the guy was in the wrong seat and got into an argument when they tried to make him move to the right one. It ended with him being escorted off the plane by police.

The airline refunded the amount of the ticket for his transatlantic flight since he wasn’t allowed to take that flight, but he was then billed $1,350 for the costs incurred by the airline to deal with him.

I absolutely think this is the right thing to do. And this is one of the more benign cases because it only involved a delay. Think of all the diversions that occur because someone gets out of hand. A diversion is extremely expensive because the airline has to pay the additional fuel required for the extra flight, landing fees at the second airport, extra crew time, late arriving aircraft that can cause delays on future flights. It gets expensive quickly, and the passenger should pay.

A more gray area is when there is a medical diversion. In an ideal world, I would think health insurance should pay for something like this, but I’m also realistic so it probably won’t happen. If a passenger takes a risk by flying and doesn’t disclose it to the airline, for instance if he’s diabetic and doesn’t bring insulin, then I’d say the passenger should pay. On the other hand, if something unexpected happens and insurance won’t pay, I don’t know who else could pony up the cash.

I know I’m a little late on this one, but . . . It turns out that it’s not just Muslims being singled out on planes these days.

A flight attendant for Air Canada asked an Orthodox Jew who was praying to leave the flight. It sounds like the real problem was that the man spoke neither English or French, so they couldn’t communicate their concerns to him. Who knows what would have happened had he spoken English, but this is just another example of overreaction.

Oy vey.

Air Canada announced some time ago that they’d be installing in-seat audio/video on demand on all their aircraft (even the small 70 seaters), and it’s now coming to fruition.

The Toronto Sun has a “review” of the new system on its website. I put “review” in quotes because they don’t actually have much to say about it other than this gem of a quote:

“I don’t find that the navigation is very good at all when you get into watching the video programming,” says MacArthur, who tried out the system during a recent flight to New York.

Yeah, that’s helpful.

What we do find out is that the new system has “16 to 24 movies, various TV shows and 50 music CDs. Later this summer it will include up to 10 interactive games and an interactive moving map with flight-path information.” Sounds to me to be a little light on the number of movies when compared to other airlines, but really, how many do you need?

Oh, and this is cool. “A USB port next to the monitor will allow passengers to upload games, while each seat will be equipped with a power outlet, says McKenven.” Can’t say I’ve ever seen that before.

Unfortunately, it’s only on 27 planes right now, but it should be done sometime next year fleetwide. This will help it compete internationally with just about every non-North American airline and domestically with WestJet. That airline currently offers Live TV.

This will try to answer the age old question of whether or not people are willing to pay for this. I know that I personally am happy to shell out a few bucks for that kind of entertainment and even more than that if it’s a really long flight. On the long hauls, this is becoming standard issue. (Yes, United, that means your 747s with big projector screens need to be updated.) But on the short hauls, this is still a rarity. I do hope it becomes the new standard.