First Space Hotel Set to Open in 2012 – Asylum.com
I was asked about travel to space. Fun topic, but I don’t see it anytime soon.

Milwaukee sparks air wars – BusinessRockford.com
A thorough piece on what the low cost carrier expansion into Milwaukee might mean for Rockford. I weighed in (and, as you imagine, I don’t see much hope for the place).

Does Delta Make Atlantic Southeast’s Performance Suffer? We’re About to Find Out – BNET
ASA’s on time and bag handling performances are pretty bad, but is it Delta’s fault? Possibly, and now we’ll find out.

Electronics top splurge gifts for travelers – ABC News/AP
The AP asked what kinds of gifts I would find interesting this holiday season. I’m looking at netbooks these days.

ExpressJet To Fill the 50-Seat Aircraft Void at United – BNET
Looks like United has decided how to replace those Mesa 50 seaters it’s getting rid of. ExpressJet is the winner, but this is a little more complicated than it sounds.

get that dress to your wedding in one piece – antibride.com
I don’t know much about wedding dresses, but I do know how you should get it to your wedding. Don’t check it. There are better ways.

Boingo Bets Passengers Will Engage with Sponsors for Free Wifi in Airports – BNET
Boingo is bringing the sponsor model to airports – watch an ad or do something they want and you’ll get free wifi.

United Listens to Customers, Changes Upgrade Policy – BNET
United is bringing back the regional upgrade due to popular demand. It goes to show that they do listen, sometimes.

Premium Air Traffic Takes and Unexpected Turn for the Worse – BNET
I really thought that September year-over-year comparisons would be much better. I was wrong.

How Much Rest Should Pilots Get? – BNET
Pilot rest rules are being discussed at a fever pitch now. See what the sides are saying.

Talking to IHG’s VP of Loyalty Programs on the Psychology of Point Redemption – BNET
I spoke with IHG’s loyalty guy about their new Flights Anywhere program and ended up digging in to the psychology of point redemption.

Does a Hotel Company Need an Umbrella Brand? – BNET
As an aside to our conversation about psychology of point redemption, we touched on the subject of whether an umbrella brand for hotels even matters.

Fly from Rockford and Shreveport to Branson – BNET
Rockford is always coming up with some hare-brained scheme, but this is one I actually kind of like.

I haven’t commented on the ridiculousness that is Continental #2816 yet, and I’ve received plenty of emails asking me why that hasn’t happened. You know the flight; that’s the one where the passengers got stuck on their little regional jet all night long after diverting from Minneapolis/St Paul to Rochester, Minnesota because of bad weather. I decided to wait to write a post until I could get full information, and I simply couldn’t get it. But now that the initial report is out from the DOT, I’ve got enough to start talking. Surprisingly, it points to Delta Connection carrier Mesaba as the real problem here, though they are denying it.

There’s a lot of finger pointing going on, that’s for sure. Just about everyone originally jumped on ExpressJet (the operator of the Continental Express flight) for not getting people off quickly enough and on Continental for not taking enough responsibility for the flight. Turns out that while they do take some blame, much of it lies on little Mesaba, the regional that’s owned by Delta and the handling agent at the Rochester airport.

In the end, however, the issue not who is at fault in this specific situation but rather the fact that it keeps happening. (There was another one on Sun Country on Friday.) Do we really need a passenger bill of rights to prevent these things? I still say no. Let’s take a look at some of the things people are saying should have happened.

• They were stupid for diverting to Rochester when Continental doesn’t have an operation there. They should have diverted somewhere else.
  
  Sure, that would have made sense. They could have gone elsewhere and handled things their own way, but if you look at the timeline (pdf), they did it for a reason. The original alternate was Madison, Wisconsin, but by switching to Rochester, that would “give the aircraft additional fuel to circle MSP in anticipation of a break in the weather.” It was a gamble that didn’t pay off, but it could have and then everyone would have been happy.




• They should have just left Rochester when they couldn’t get people off the plane.
  
  Easier said than done. They did get refueled in Rochester, so they were ready to takeoff, but the weather just didn’t cooperate. Recordings of the captain (wav) make it sound like she was uncomfortable with flying in that weather even though there might have been a small window. It was the end of a very long day and if she wasn’t comfortable, I wouldn’t have wanted her flying.




• They should have put the passengers on a bus
  
  As we learn in one of the recordings, they tried to get a bus but the bus companies wouldn’t send anything because of flash flooding between Minneapolis and Rochester.




• They should have at least let them into the terminal.
  
  Seriously. They should have. It appears that it wasn’t really ExpressJet’s fault, entirely. There were plenty of communications with the Mesaba people trying to get them off the plane. First Mesaba told them the terminal was closed and they couldn’t send anyone in. Then they said that they couldn’t get a jet bridge and they didn’t have a place for them in the terminal. That’s just awful.




• They should have gone around Mesaba’s local crew and made things happen.
  
  Yes, they should have. The DOT said that it should have been escalated and ExpressJet says the same thing. Senior management should have been alerted so that they could have gotten these people off that plane.




• The passengers should have just gotten off the plane or called 911.
  
  I can’t figure out why this didn’t happen. The door was open, but they couldn’t get any stairs and there was another airplane right nearby. Still, this is only a few feet off the ground, so it would have been a somewhat unsafe drop but not a horrible one. I just would have gotten out of there and taking my chance on getting arrested. I have no idea why everyone sat around all night. Maybe they were all nice Midwesterners.

So did we learn anything? Maybe a little. We definitely learned that crews should escalate the issue as high as possible if it doesn’t get resolved quickly. We also learned that passengers should just walk off the damn plane if they get stuck for that long. But this really was a combination of a bunch of things coming together to screw these poor passengers.

The problem is that this ends up stoking the fire for a government-regulated passenger bill of rights, and I still don’t think that’s going to help. There are plenty of things about this industry that the government doesn’t understand – they’re likely to come up with a bill that makes things worse for everyone. But, if the industry keeps letting crap like this happen, then there isn’t going to be another option.

But what would that have done here? Would Mesaba get fined? That might still happen anyway. Would the passengers magically have been transported off the plane? Not simply because of a law. A federal law probably wouldn’t have changed much here. Continental, for example, already has a policy to get people off the plane after a certain period of time. I think Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said it best.

There was a complete lack of common sense here. It’s no wonder the flying public is so angry and frustrated.

I agree, but can you regulate common sense? I don’t think so. All I know is that the airlines need to take this more seriously.

[Original Images via http://www.flickr.com/photos/madfox/ / CC BY 2.0 and ExpressJet.com]

The New Delta Sees More Complaints in March
March complaints are out, and Delta and its partners saw increases while most others did not. Uh oh.

JetBlue and Others See Higher Complaints in March
I said above that “most” other airlines didn’t have rising complaints. JetBlue, ExpressJet, and Hawaiian, however, did.

Premium Traffic Down 19 Percent, Revenues Down 35 Percent or More
I’m not sure why I keep looking at these IATA premium traffic monitors. The news just keeps getting worse.

American Adds One Way Awards, Cuts Stopovers
American is making their program more flexible for travelers, and I think this is a net positive for both sides.

Continental Starts Flying 737s to Hawai’i
Continental’s first move to fly 737s to Hawai’i highlights the shrinking but still important role of 757s.

AirTran’s Costs Help in the Battle for Milwaukee
At AirTran’s annual meeting, there was one slide that caught my eye. It was a cost comparison, and AirTran looks pretty darn good.

Alaska’s Shows Dropping Demand From H1N1
Alaska’s latest investor update shows some material drops from the flu scare. No surprise, of course.

ExpressJet To Fly 10 Planes for United This Summer
Looks like ExpressJet is flying for United this summer, and it seems like a win-win for everyone considering the circumstances.

Delta Pulls Out of Boston – Baltimore Route
That didn’t take long. Delta is pulling out of the Boston-Baltimore route, but can the remaining three make a living on their own? I doubt it.

Hearings on the Buffalo Q400 Crash Begin Today
The hearings on the downed Q400 begin today, and fingers look to be heading toward Colgan’s training and the pilot onboard.

Virgin America Shows Worse Q4 Numbers Excluding Lower Fuel Prices
Low fuel prices made Q4 look better for Virgin America, but don’t let that fool you. This wasn’t a great quarter.

Virgin America Posts Low January Load Factors
Part 2 of my Virgin America review looks at the low load factors that plagued the airline in January.

Digging in to Virgin America’s Q4 Operational Stats
This is the last post on this for awhile, I promise. But I decided to dig in to operational stats and the results told some interesting tales.

Former America West Pilots Win in Court Ruling Over Legacy US Airways Pilots
We may be one step closer to seeing the US Airways/America West seniority problem solved, but not quite. The old US Airways pilots are going to appeal. *sigh*

Spirit Wants People To Know Who They Are
You know who Spirit is? If so, you might not like them. They’re trying to change that, but not by improving customer service. Just by talking.