• Delta’s LAX Hub – Looks like Delta is pulling down some LAX flying. Just after the new year, nonstops to Columbus, Jacksonville, Raleigh/Durham and more disappear. Sure, some of them seem to come back in a few months, but I wouldn’t put money down on that staying put. Interesting that Skybus flies from Columbus and Greensboro to the LA Area. I’m not convinced these are connected, but it could very well be the straw that broke the camel’s back. More likely, Delta’s realizing that LAX isn’t working for them as well as they’d hoped.




• United’s Intra-LA Basin Flying – There’s nothing more fun for an airline/LA dork than flying from Ontario or Orange County to LAX. I’ve flown the latter, and it’s a great ride. You depart Orange County to the south and then make a big backwards “S” before landing at LAX shortly after departing. Sadly, those days are numbered as both routes get the axe from United. Those little Brasilias are going to be phased out, and these short hauls had to get the axe first, especially with fuel prices where they are.




• Icelandair’s Home in North America – Icelandair may still have their US headquarters outside of Baltimore for now, but as of early January, they will no longer actually FLY to Baltimore. In my college days, my friends and I took a far-too-cheap Spring Break trip from BWI to Glasgow for 3 nights and then Reykjavik for three nights. Why was it cheap? Um. Iceland in March? Exactly. The flights were great, but the hostel that doubled as a homeless shelter left much to be desired. BWI will miss you, Icelandair.




• MAXjet – We knew MAXjet was losing a bunch of money, but the recent request to have shares suspended from trading made the situation seem much more dire. Mark over at Upgrade: Travel Better has good coverage of this. Hopefully they’ll keep going . . . I haven’t had a chance to try them yet.




• Emirates Across the Pond – Those Dubai runs may be working well for Emirates (check out Towers and Tarmacs’ coverage of the Houston inaugural), but apparently that one run from New York that goes through Hamburg is getting killed. Don’t worry. The few of you who want to go from New York to Hamburg can still fly from Newark on Continental.

See, lots of doom and gloom. Let’s try to end on a happier note. Delta put out their latest in their Planeguage video series, and this is a great one. Every time I get an empty middle on a full flight, it does seem like divine intervention. Though sadly, the first question I had after watching this video was, “How did they get all those wrapped presents past the TSA?!” Enjoy.

I was surprised myself when I got a hold of the filing (PDF) that was quietly slipped in to the DOT yesterday before the deadline. Quick refresher – MAXjet flies an all-business class operation between several points in the US and London. While the business class seats aren’t the newest lie-flat technology, they are sold at the cost of last minute coach seats, so the value proposition is strong. The service appears to be doing well so far, and clearly they’re looking for new opportunities to expand.

This application proposes a LAX-Seattle-Shanghai flight on their ~100 seat 767s. I’m guessing they would have done LAX-Shanghai nonstop if they had the range, but Seattle will do for now. (787s anyone?)

How do I like their chances? Not so great. As long as demand for flights to China continues to outpace the number of flights permitted, the DOT is going to hesitate to add a flight with only 100 seats onboard when the alternative could be a 200-300 seat option on someone else. So I have to think that this isn’t going to happen this time, though when things start to open up further, it could happen.

What it comes down to, ultimately, is that the DOT is allowed to introduce one new carrier to the China market in 2009. Assuming Delta gets a flight this year, that would leave US Airways and MAXjet as the two new options for 2009, and US Airways will probably have the edge with their larger planes, even though the Philly-Beijing route is hardly inspiring.

From a business perspective, it would be interesting to see if MAXjet could pull this flight off. The value proposition isn’t nearly the same as flying to London because market business class fares are lower in Asia. That means the potential cost savings are less, and it may be harder to woo travelers. But there are no flights between Seattle and China right now, so it could fill a nice niche.

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.

MAXJet to London
MAXJet, the all-business class airline that currently flies from New York/JFK, Washington/Dulles, and Las Vegas to London/Stansted, announced it will begin flights from LAX to London/Stansted four times weekly on August 30. Flights will be out of the Bradley Terminal on Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.

In other news, MAXJet will go from 3 to 4 weekly flights from Vegas to London. Also, Washington/Dulles to London will resume on May 24 and will now be four times a week year-round.

I agree with MAXJet that the longer hauls are the way to go. The business class product becomes even more valuable the longer you stay on the plane. There’s also a decent amount of demand for this type of product. American, Virgin, and BA all fly twice daily. United and Air New Zealand fly it once daily. It will be interesting to see if MAXJet can siphon off just enough to make it work without disturbing the big guys too much.

United to Hong Kong
I have to admit, this one really caught me off-guard. After ignoring LAX for quite some time, United has decided to begin daily flights between LAX and Hong Kong in October. They tried this before and it didn’t work. My guess now is that the Hong Kong-Ho Chi Minh City flight makes it more attractive. Actually, that’s not much of a guess. It basically says as much in the release. It could also be an attempt at trying to jump in before Delta does. Delta has made it quite clear they want to build up Asian flights from LAX in the future.

United also said they’ll start Washington/Dulles – Rio de Janeiro flights in October. This flight is only for the southern summer season, and it replaces the one stop flight through Sao Paulo that operates now.

Jet Airways to Brussels
In what could be characterized as another very interesting move, India’s Jet Airways has announced that they’ll build a hub in Brussels to connect North America with India. From the Indian side, they’ll fly Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai (Madras), and Ahmedabad. From the North American side, they’ll fly to LAX, New York/JFK, Toronto, and Chicago/O’Hare. They’ll also be able to carry local passengers between North America and Brussels. The CEO of Jet quipped, “Now the people of Belgium no longer have to feel they can’t have their own long-haul carrier without having to subsidize it.” Ouch.

Meanwhile, Jet’s competitor, Kingfisher, is up to some snarky marketing tricks. Check out this picture.

This has made its way to Digg, so definitely head over there and Digg It. Pretty funny stuff.

So, good news for LA today. The only bad news is that Frontier has decided to drop LAX-SFO flights in July, according to PlaneBuzz. That leaves United and American with a token presence by Alaska. Talk about rolling out the welcome mat for Southwest and Virgin America. . . .

For those who don’t know MAXjet, I’ll let Josh explain it in his own words. The interview is below, and I have a few comments at the bottom. Take it away, Josh.

Josh: When MAXjet started all Business Class service between New York and London Stansted in 2005, we had a clear value proposition. We offered the perks of international Business Class (fast check-in and security clearance, spacious departure lounges, deep-recline leather seats, 60” seat pitch, on-demand entertainment and gourmet meals) at a flexible Economy fare. After establishing service in New York, we added flights from London Stansted to Washington and Las Vegas.

Cranky: You recently seasonally canceled your Washington DC flights. What as the impetus behind that move? Were the flights not performing well or was it due to opportunities elsewhere?

Josh: Washington is a great summer market but turned out to be quite seasonal. So we changed Dulles to seasonal service and we will be back this May.

Cranky: There have been rumors about high front line employee turnover. Is that something you’re seeing? If so, what do you attribute it to? Are you concerned about it?

Josh: Our voluntary turnover has been very low. We pay our pilots and flight attendants an annual salary and we don’t have a seniority system. It’s a different kind of environment with a unique appeal. We’re now opening a crew base in London and we’re excited about having international crews on board.

Cranky: The annual salary for the front line is a really interesting concept. How does that work? Is there a baseline number of hours they fly and then if they go over they get paid overtime?

Josh: Annual salaries work for crews when paired with a line-allocation concept called fair assignment. Essentially lines are assigned by computer to employees in order to maximize equality. Employees have some ability to express preferences. So the number of hours a given crew will fly in a month can vary, but we guarantee them a salary number regardless. In our system there’s no concept of overtime or baseline hours. Similarly, there’s no seniority system (since there’s no bidding for lines).

Cranky: How are the Las Vegas flights performing? Do you see additional opportunities for growth there?

Josh: We’ve been surprised by the mix of business and leisure travelers. People assume we draw business traffic, and we do – many take our flight to Vegas and connect on Southwest to points like San Diego, Orange County, Burbank, San Jose and Sacramento. But we also draw a lot of leisure traffic – not surprising given how many families want Business Class but aren’t willing to pay exorbitant published fares.

Cranky: Are there any plans to begin flying to new cities in the US? Which ones?

Josh: We’ll be announcing new markets shortly as we’re already overhauling our next two aircraft. We like the B767-200ER because it offers a unique combination of trip cost, widebody spaciousness and usable range. Stansted has a long runway so the aircraft is really limited only by fuel. With our payloads (100 passengers on a plane built for 250) we can top the tanks and that means markets like London to Los Angeles or San Francisco are within our capabilities. We’re finding in Las Vegas that the longer the haul, the more our value proposition increases.

Cranky: Have you considered flying to other European destinations from the US or are you focusing solely on Stansted for now?

Josh: We’re just looking at Stansted for coming years. Open Skies dramatically increases the routes we can serve out of Stansted. That said, if the right opportunity comes along, we’ll consider it.

Cranky: You still haven’t submitted financial data to the DOT for the first half of 2006. Why has that been delayed and can we expect to see it soon?

Josh: We filed the DOT data; however it’s clearly not showing. We are investigating what happened.

Cranky: Do you have statistics about on time performance and canceled flights that you can pass along?

Josh: We had some rough periods last year due to both aircraft and weather events. By redesigning our schedule and designating a spare aircraft, we’ve become one of the best operations across the Atlantic. In the past 60 days we’ve had one flight cancellation (weather-related) and more than 90% of our flights were within 30 minutes of schedule.

So there you have it. Thank you Josh for taking the time here. And now for a couple comments.

There have been a lot of rumblings about MAXjet’s reliability in the last few months, and a look at Skytrax passenger opinions clearly shows problems. What you will notice, though, is that there haven’t been any really bad reviews over there in well over a month. (No, I don’t count the complaint that the flight attendants weren’t smiling as a really bad review.) With only one cancellation and a 90% arrival rate within 30 minutes of schedule over the last 60 days, it sounds like they may have their ship in order now, and that is crucial.

From the sound of it, we could see some more longer haul markets in the future from Stansted. I wouldn’t be surprised to see West Coast markets pop up soon. Will they go for the big airports or maybe try for a place like San Jose instead of San Francisco? For their product, I think they need to go straight for the big ones.  San Jose might work because of the business base there, but a place like Ontario instead of LA probably would not.

I like the idea of west coast flights. As Josh mentions, people find more value in the product when the flight is longer. So even if there are fewer people traveling from the West Coast to London than from New York, a higher percentage of people flying those routes may be willing to pay up for the product.

It seems to me that the MAXjet model of business class at an economy fare has a lot of growth potential. That being said, there will be plenty of competitors, and MAXjet needs to make sure they keep their operation running smoothly. The more people pay, the more they expect.

L’Avion (which means “The Airplane” in French), is going to begin daily all business-class flights between Paris/Orly and Newark with 100 seat 757s (that’s about half the normal capacity). I’d love to tell you more about it, but, well, there isn’t anything else to tell right now.

The amazing thing about these guys is that according to the press release, they plan on starting flights on December 27. That’s a mere 16 days away, so you’d think that you could buy your ticket right now, right? Wrong again. It seems that they’ll begin business on December 27, but thanks to what probably was not the best translation around, that probably means they’ll begin selling tickets, not actually begin flying. Go to the website and you’ll see a pretty picture and absolutely nothing else.

In fact, they can’t even update the website entirely with the current name. (Look at the page title in your browser.) The airline used to be called Elysair, but after a very scientific process, they’ve discovered that people related better to “L’Avion” so they changed it. Okeydokey.

Somehow, my hopes are not that high that we’ll see these guys flying in the near future.

• Remember AirTran’s promotion to let customers vote on their next city? Well, the results are in, and it looks like Phoenix is the big winner. AirTran says that service from Atlanta starts on Feb 15 with one daily flight. A second flight will begin on Feb 22 and a third flight on Mar 6. As the Arizona Republic notes, both US Airways and Delta fly the route five times a day currently.
• Frontier is also adding a new city to its route map with daily service from Denver to Hartford starting Mar 2. It’s an eastbound redeye with an early morning westbound return, so this appears to be utilization flying for the airline.
• Technically this is a new route, but in reality it’s an entirely new airline. As if MAXjet and Eos don’t provide enough premium-only service between New York and London, now Silverjet is going to join the mix on Jan 25. While MAXjet and Eos fly from New York/JFK to London/Stansted, this UK-based operation will go between Newark and London/Luton. They say they’ll have 100 flat beds on a 767-200, but considering MAXjet has 102 seats that don’t go flat on the same aircraft, I’m not sure how they’re going to pull it off. No pictures are available. You can see their website here.

If you live in New York, Washington, or London, there’s a good chance you know of them. Otherwise, well, maybe not. mAxJeT is one of the new business-class only airlines that started up in the last year. They fly 767s with a product that won’t rival British Airways’ business class, but it certainly beats flying coach. With fares comparable to full coach, they’ve started to build a nice little niche for themselves. Flights currently run between London/Stansted and both Washington/Dulles and New York/JFK.

Today, maxJET announced that on November 2, they will begin twice weekly flights between London/Stansted and Las Vegas. Now at first glance this looks like a very odd route for an all-business class airline. Flying only twice a week is not a business schedule, so who is going to pay for it?

I think it has to be the casinos.

MAXJET has scheduled flights on Thursdays and Mondays – that’s a perfect long weekend for a UK gambler. The casinos can fly their high rollers out in style, make obscene amounts of money off them, and then send them home. With only 102 seats per flight, it doesn’t take much to make that route work.

If there is actually a contract with a casino, this seems like a great move for MaxjET.