Am I the only one who thinks this whole boarding pass advertising thing is a little creepy? It’s not the concept that bothers me. You want to throw some ads on my boarding pass? Go ahead. It’s the fact that they’re using my demographics to target ads that makes me nervous.

The basic idea is that right now, when you print your boarding pass at home, it’s just a boarding pass. So, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways have now all partnered with a new company called Sojern that will sell ad spots on your boarding pass and mask it by offering weather information. Of course, the spin is that this makes life easier for the traveler. Whatever. I’ve never had trouble clicking on Weather Underground to get my own weather, but if you want to put it on there . . . fine.

None of that bothers me. What bothers me is something that I haven’t really seen talked about. Yes, the company admits that it’s targeting based upon where you’re going, and others have mentioned that. Well duh, that makes sense, and I don’t mind them sharing that information. But, if you click on the sample boarding pass (PDF), it states “Sojern’s new media delivers tailored advertising messages based on travelers’ unique itineraries and demographics.”

Hold on here. How are you getting my demographic information? Is the airline sharing it with you if I’m logged in to an account when I check in? I don’t like that at all.

It seems like airlines all around the world are racing to allow passengers to check in for flights using only a mobile phone. I wrote about Air Canada rolling it out last year, and lately both Continental and Delta have put out tests of their own. Delta just put out a blog post on their test as well. It sounds great in theory, but you might want to think twice about it if earning miles is really important to you.

Fellow airline geek and aviation consultant Roy Rosales brought up a good point in an email yesterday. If for some reason miles don’t get credited to your account, you usually have to send in your boarding pass for credit. If you use your cell phone . . . there is no paper boarding pass to send.

In Roy’s case, he flew on a Hawaiian Airlines flight and expected to get Continental miles. They never showed up, and he called Continental to see what happened. Roy was told that an original boarding pass was required in order to get credit. He was curious so he asked what would happen if he had checked-in online and the airline kept the boarding pass, as some do. The agent said it didn’t matter - no pass, no credit.

So, until the airlines decide to somehow alter those policies and email you a PDF that can be used for redemption, you might want to consider keeping a paper record, especially if you’re flying on one airline and trying to earn miles on another.

You likely won’t be surprised to hear that I had a great time at the bachelor party this weekend, but that means I had very little time to write. So, since every travel blogger on earth has written about the announcement that Continental will be leaving SkyTeam, joining Star Alliance, and instituting a very tight partnership with United, I thought I’d just point to a couple of the more interesting posts I’ve seen.

Make no mistake, this is more than just a codeshare and frequent flier mile deal. Continental will join United, Lufthansa, and Air Canada in a joint venture for all transatlantic flying. Latin and Asia joint ventures will be developed as well. There will be broad systems integration as well.

In terms of routes, the rest of the Star Alliance will be happy to finally have a big international presence in New York. Dan Webb takes a look at route compatibility here.

If you’re a member of United’s Mileage Plus or Continental’s OnePass programs, this will certainly mean changes. Take a look at View From the Wing’s effort to breakdown what this may mean, despite the fact that we have very few details so far. His take? Well, it’ll be a good thing for Continental fliers, but it’s a little less clear for United loyalists.

We don’t know what this will mean for US Airways right now. Is three a crowd when it comes to the Star Alliance in the US? They say they aren’t going anywhere, but they also haven’t had talks with Continental about cooperation either. Could they partner with American now that CO/UA and DL/NW are getting together? Maybe. Or maybe they’ll try a different tactic, as Holly suggests here in PlaneBuzz.

For American fliers, this could be decent news as well. Strange, I know, but it could theoretically mean that getting antitrust immunity with British Airways would become easier, as Terri Maxon discusses on the Airline Biz blog.

There are a lot of different angles to this partnership with a ton of potential ramifications throughout the industry when it develops. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more.

I would be remiss to not mention the major cuts Continental announced yesterday. The airline will retire 67 aircraft by the end of 2009 that were not previous planned to go. I decided not to write much about that here, because the customer impact is simply fewer flights and I don’t have much other insight. If you’d like to read more, you can see what I wrote over at BNET about the impressive way they’ve gone about dealing with their employees. Over here, however, I’m writing about a situation that’s near and dear to many of my readers’ hearts . . . ExpressJet.

Just a couple days after ExpressJet said it would renegotiate its contract with Continental, the two airlines came to a wide-ranging agreement that has a lot of good news for both sides. Who are the losers here? SkyWest may be since they don’t get to buy the airline, but that may also have been fortuitous. Also, it won’t surprise me at all if the ExpressJet brand loses out completely, but nothing has been announced. Oh, and the shareholders may end up losing since the stock is still well below the $3.50 per share offer.

Still, I must admit, I’m surprised to see that ExpressJet has found its way out from between a rock and a hard place. How did they do it? Well, here’s what happens now:

• Continental guarantees to keep the same amount of planes (205) that ExpressJet currently flies for the airline for one year, and they get it for a lot cheaper (after one year, they can ditch 15 planes)




• Continental will take back 39 of ExpressJet’s 50-seaters that currently don’t fly for Continental and replace the more costly (on a per seat basis) 37-seaters, which will be grounded




• ExpressJet gets more flexibility in being purchased and in flying for other carriers




• Continental loses the right to terminate the agreement without cause




• All outstanding disputes between the two are settled

So, where does this leave us? Well, for Continental customers, nothing changes. You won’t have any more of those 37 seaters to fly around, but you’ll still be on ExpressJet for most of the Continental Express flights you take. For the customers that fly on the ExpressJet brand, however, it’s much less clear.

Currently, the airline flies 205 aircraft for Continental, 23 for Delta, 23 in Corporate Aviation, and 23 for the ExpressJet brand, according to an employee communication reposted here. ExpressJet will now return 39 of those non-Continental aircraft to Continental. So where will they cut? Where things aren’t performing well, of course. ExpressJet assumes all the risk of flying those 23 ExpressJet aircraft as well as 13 of the Delta planes. I have to think those will go away while the remainder will come from the Corporate Aviation group. In case you were wondering, at the end of 2007, there were . . . 39 planes flying under the ExpressJet brand.

From the airline perspective, Continental will save a bunch of money and be able to eliminate flying on jets with less than 50 seats, but they haven’t quite eliminated as many 50 seaters as they might like here. ExpressJet lives to see another day as an independent company and gets some security, but with the share price closing yesterday at only $1.95 (well below SkyWest’s $3.50 offer), shareholders may not be so thrilled. The airline is free to pursue deals with other airlines now, but unless someone else shuts down, I’m not sure who would really be looking for more 50 seaters right now.

My guess is that we won’t see any big changes until the Fall, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear an announcement about their plans in the very near future. Expressjet is going to have to prove that this was, in fact, the right decision for everyone involved.

An interesting little merger attempt popped up on Friday that, as Holly Hegeman says, looks like a squeeze play. SkyWest has announced that it wants to buy ExpressJet for $3.50 a share.

The airline was hovering just over the $2 a share mark before the announcement, so this is a nice little premium. ExpressJet, however, thinks it’s worth more than that and has turned the offer down. It got more interesting on Friday afternoon when it came out that Continental is also behind this thing.

Continental hasn’t been happy with the relatively hight costs of the ExpressJet contract, and it has apparently told ExpressJet that it will remove 51 of the aircraft under contract beginning in December 2009. At the same time, it went and cut a deal with SkyWest on a broad new deal that will only go into effect if the takeover occurs. So, SkyWest buys ExpressJet and offers to fly for Continental for less. Continental tells ExpressJet that they either do it or they’re going to start walking. Wow, it sucks to be ExpressJet.

I have to think that if SkyWest wins, the ExpressJet standalone operation will probably be toast. That’s really too bad, since I’ve always thought it was a good idea. But with oil where it is right now, those 50 seat jets (and really, any plane in general) don’t look very good anywhere. And SkyWest probably will want to remain focused on the feeder operation, I’d think.

But why does SkyWest want a bunch more 50 seaters? No matter what the reason, I’m sure the ExpressJet guys are feeling very, very somber right now.

. . . they’re just here to do the terminal shuffle.

Ok, maybe that joke is about 20 years too late, but someone out there will get it.

Anyway, thanks to Today in the Sky for pointing out that Continental has announced that they’ll be doing a little terminal shifting over at their Newark hub. Here you can see the current layout.

Between now and June, all those Continental flights in Terminal A going to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Ft Worth, and DC will come back into Terminal C. Meanwhile, all the Continental Express flying in Terminal C will come over to Terminal A.

Wait, that doesn’t seem balanced does it? How can all those little CoEx flights move into a spot that seems like it would be much smaller. Did they get a bigger chunk of Terminal A? Anyone have a clue?

No matter what, it should open up some more gates for Continental in C, assuming they hold on to all those C gates for themselves. Between now and June, it’s anybody’s guess where your flight may actually be. Just remember two things. If you’re outside security and need to switch terminals, head to the AirTrain. If you’re beyond security, definitely take the bus between gates C71 and A28.

JetBlue lovers rejoice! In addition to their existing service, you can now fly JetBlue to hundreds of new destinations all across the US. When you get to the airport, it may look like you’re flying Continental on the outside, but it’ll be all JetBlue on the inside. Um, ok not really. What the heck am I talking about?

Continental announced yesterday that they’d begin equipping their domestic fleet with the same live television that JetBlue has. In addition, they’re going to roll out the somewhat-lame-but-still-useful-for-somebody Yahoo/Blackberry Email/IM service that JetBlue is testing on one aircraft right now. Ok, maybe this isn’t JetBlue, but it’s pretty close, and in some ways even better, as you can see below.

You won’t have JetBlue legroom, and you will have to pay $6 to watch TV (free in First Class), but you will get the best onboard product of any network carrier in the US. And yes, Continental will still serve you a meal on the long hauls. Take that, JetBlue.

Of course, this move isn’t squarely aimed at JetBlue, even though they do have a great deal of overlap in the New York area. At least, JetBlue must not think this is a direct shot at them, because they own the company that’s selling the technology to Continental. They must think that Continental is more focused on continuing in their role as the undisputed leader among network carriers in terms of overall experience. Continental usually wins awards for being the best (though we know how much I hate vague awards like that), and this should only help cement their standing.

The details of this are pretty simple. Unlike Delta, which is only outfitting some of each aircraft type with their live television system, Continental will put it on all next generation 737s (-700, -800, -900) and on the 757-300s. Since the 757-200s are now part of the international fleet, they will not have this product and neither will the 777 and 767 aircraft. That’s good, because this only works over land, so it would be a useless box over water. I believe the overwater fleet is getting audio/video on demand at some point.

Besides the Express fleet, the only ones left out are the 737-300s and -500s. To be fair, that’s a pretty big chunk of the fleet. Airfleets.net says that they have 108 that won’t be outfitted with the new system and 170 that will. Of course, the old generation 737s are used primarily on shorter routes while the next generation ones go on the longer runs, so that makes sense. The good news is that you will be able to look at your aircraft type when you book, and barring a substitution, you’ll know if you get it or not. At least, that’ll be the case by next January. Until then, it’ll be luck of the draw as they work to outfit the entire fleet.Actually, you won’t have to worry about it until a year from now when they start installation.

I assume that the email/IM capabilities will be installed at the same time. It’s unfortunate that they haven’t decided to go with a full internet solution, but that’s what happens when you go with LiveTV. At least it’ll be free.

Really, the worst part of this whole announcement is that Continental doesn’t fly to very many places from LA, so we don’t get much of a chance to try them often. This definitely widens Continental’s lead at the top of the standings from a customer point of view. Nice work.

As promised, here’s how those same airlines from yesterday fare when it comes to international baggage check-in times (except Southwest, which doesn’t fly internationally). The situation here is much cleaner than domestic.

As you can see, most airlines say you must check bags 60 minutes prior to departure regardless of airport. United gets the gold star for actually have a flat 45 minute rule instead. And then there’s Delta.

Delta easily gets the award for most painful rules here. They actually have five different times here, and two of the airports (Bogotá and Nassau) have different rules depending upon whether you use the contract of carriage or the website. Ugh. Why does Delta require two (or three) hours in Bogotá when American only requires 1 hour? No idea. This should really be cleaned up.

• If you don’t know these airport codes, you can look them up here.




• Anything that is bold in the table means that the airline has differing rules for that airport on its website when compared to its contract of carriage. I would recommend obeying the more strict of the two, but if you find yourself stuck, you can try to fight for compensation from customer relations after the fact. (You’ll never get anything resolved at the airport.)




• International travel includes all flights going from the US to another country or vice versa. Flights between the US and Canada do not count as international.




• American and Northwest are the two airlines for which I could not find the contract of carriage. American has their conditions of carriage, but Northwest has nothing for international other than guidelines on the website.




• Neither United nor US Airways actually specify this information in their contract of carriage. It looks like United just forgot to include international information in their combined Domestic/International tariff.

Whew. I’m glad I’m done with this exercise.

Is there anything more ridiculous than the various baggage check-in time cutoffs that airlines impose? It’s not the idea that bothers me; it’s the hodge-podge execution that drives me crazy. Delta added to the fun by changing JFK’s cutoff from 30 to 45 minutes before departure, all in the name of improving customer service. Please, give me a break. Yes, it improves customer service in that they’ll hopefully lose fewer bags, but it hurts customer service by requiring people to show up earlier.

Life could be much easier. “Bags must be checked in 30 minutes or more for domestic flights and 60 minutes or more for international.” That’s easy to understand and to communicate, right? But of course, a policy that starts out that way turns into a nightmare as carve-outs occur.

I understand that some airports could benefit from more time. In that case, I’d suggest standardizing around the more strict cutoff systemwide. I’d much rather know that it’s a 45 minute cutoff at every airport. Instead, airlines decide to make little exceptions all over the place. The worst offender is easily American Airlines. They have an unbelievable 4 different cutoff times for domestic flights depending upon from which airport you depart. How are you supposed to keep that straight? If your standard is 30 minutes, does Minneapolis/St Paul really need to be 35 minutes? Come on.

And if that’s not confusing enough, some airlines have different rules on their website than they do in their contract of carriage. The contract of carriage is the document with the final say, so stick to your guns if you met the guidelines in that document but not on the website.

Who is the best at making this easy? Well, JetBlue has a flat 30 minutes domestic and 60 international. And they fly to some of the most painful airports around, so the temptation to make JFK earlier than Portland (Maine) has to be there. While they get thumbs up for making the policy simple, they get thumbs down for making it extremely hard to find this info on their website. I’ve linked to it (as well as the others) below. Here are the baggage cutoffs for domestic travel on select carriers.

*Edited 2/4/08 to add RNO/SMF for United website policy

• If you don’t know these airport codes, you can look them up here.




• Anything that is bold in the table means that the airline has differing rules for that airport on its website when compared to its contract of carriage. I would recommend obeying the more strict of the two, but if you find yourself stuck, you can try to fight for compensation from customer relations after the fact. (You’ll never get anything resolved at the airport.)




• US states and territories as well as Canada count as domestic here




• American is the only airline for which I couldn’t find the full contract of carriage. The conditions of carriage are close enough for this purpose.




• US Airways does not actually specify this information in their contract of carriage, and that is strange. What it does mention is that “If a customer with a seat assignment on US Airways does not obtain a boarding pass at least 30 minutes (60 minutes international) before the scheduled departure time, the customer’s seat assignment (including those seat assignments on continuing or returning flights) may be subject to cancellation. This policy does not apply to US Airways Shuttle flights.
  Passengers departing ATL/DEN/DFW/HNL/IAD/LAS/OGG/PHL/PIT/SEA must present themselves at the US Airways ticket counter no later than 45 minutes prior to departure. Passengers failing to comply will be re-accommodated on the next available US Airways flight.” That’s not the same thing.

You thought this was fun, just wait until tomorrow when I show the international policies for these airlines.

Last time, the suspense was great. Who would win the China flight awards? It had all the drama of a good telenovela. (Um, ok, without the attractive people and infidelity.) This time around, however, it wasn’t nearly as much fun.

The announcements came out yesterday for 2008 and 2009 flights and they were mostly as expected. Let’s look back at my post from July 17 to see how I did with my guesses.

Conventional wisdom says Delta will get this year’s award with Atlanta-Shanghai flights. Next year, United is expected to get San Francisco-Guangzhou while the other spot, which can only be used to second tier airports in China, will likely remain unfilled.

I was right about those. Delta and United both got their flights for next year. My luck wasn’t quite as good on the 2009 awards.

If I had to put money down, I’d say Continental (Newark-Shanghai), United (LAX-Shanghai), and US Airways (Philadelphia-Beijing) pick up three slots for 2009 with Delta (Atlanta-Beijing) and American (Chicago/O’Hare-Beijing) fighting for the last one.

Yes, US Airways and Continental won their flights and so did American. But I missed on United getting LAX-Shanghai. Northwest actually snuck in there and won Detroit - Shanghai instead. Maybe the DOT was being sensitive to the fact that they kept giving United awards while Northwest walked away with nothing. I suppose it was about time they got one.

But they tried for Detroit - Beijing as well and didn’t get that one. You know what happened? A day later, China Southern announced they’d begin Detroit - Beijing flying in 2009 with a 787. Since they’re both SkyTeam members, I imagine this is a good opportunity to feed traffic to each other. I was surprised to see China Southern running out of Beijing though. They’ve generally focused on Guangzhou in the past.

So, now we have just about every airline flying to China that wants to be there, with the exception of MAXjet, who really didn’t have a shot this time around anyway. See, not nearly as much fun.

Enjoy the weekend, that is, unless you’re a Colorado Rockies fan. If you are, I hope you have a miserable one. Yes, I’m a Diamondbacks fan. Who could have guessed at the beginning of the season that this Rockies-Dbacks series would be such a big one.