United fliers, rejoice. Your airline has now, finally, announced its comprehensive wifi plan. The result is . . . a little surprising, actually. I like it, to some extent, but it’s also going to create a divided onboard product. We still need more details before I can make a true judgment on this.

The plan is this. United will install wifi from Panasonic on “more than 300″ aircraft in the domestic AND international fleet. That’s really the big news here. United will be the first American airline to put wifi on long haul international flights as well as domestic.

Today, United sadly has wifi only on its tiny fleet of p.s. airplanes that go back and forth between New York and both LA and San Francisco. Oh, and there might be that one 757 still roaming around testing Row 44′s system but I’d be surprised if that was still in service. Starting next year, United will finally play catch up.

You’ll remember that United said it would put wifi on the Continental pre-merger fleet that has LiveTV onboard. That’s not changing, and LiveTV will still be doing it. But the rest of the fleet is going a different way, with Panasonic.

The LiveTV deal uses a Ka band satellite which was just recently put into orbit to cover the US. Ka is notable in that it should be faster and significantly less expensive, but it hasn’t exactly been put into heavy use yet. I believe it also doesn’t have coverage as far-reaching as Ku at this point. Ku band is what Panasonic is going to be installing on the United fleet. I will be very curious to see how pricing comes out. Ku band isn’t very cheap.

We can look across the Pond to United’s partner Lufthansa to see how this might turn out. Lufthansa has been installing what it calls FlyNet on its airplanes where the rate is €10.95 (~$15) for one hour or €19.95 (~$27.50) for 24 hours. Could there be a joint subscription offering that would work on both airlines? That would make sense since people are supposed to be able to interchangeably use Lufthansa and United across the Atlantic, and it would be very welcome. But I’m not holding my breath for that just yet. I will be very curious to see how similar United’s pricing is.

One other piece that’s not exactly clearly is that we don’t know exactly how this is going to work out in terms of which airplanes will get this. The airline says more than 300 aircraft including the A319, A320, 747, 757, 767, 777, and 787 will get the service. Right now, there are 150 A319/A320 aircraft alone and another 140 or so 757s. Add in the 150 747/767/777 aircraft plus whatever 787s will come in the door and you have WAY more than 300 airplanes.

My guess here is that we’ll see a lot of pre-merger United 757s disappear as they get retired. Maybe some of the A319/A320 aircraft will be pushed out when leases expire as well. All we know is that by the end of 2015, the entire mainline fleet will have wifi, but I imagine that means the mainline fleet is going to either a) be smaller than it is today or b) have more 737s come in equipped with LiveTV to even this out. Lots to ponder here.

So is this good? Well sure, in theory. But as I mentioned, Ku band isn’t cheap so I will reserve judgment until I see how it’s going to be priced. Wifi is great, but super-expensive wifi isn’t going to win any friends. I asked Panasonic about the Ku vs Ka decision. The response was that the company “will offer an upgrade that will optimize our existing eXConnect solution for Ka.” I asked a follow-up question to better understand if it was an easy and painless upgrade or not and I received no response.

One last nugge of interest. United was quick to note that “The system will also enable wireless streaming of video content.” Remember that United announced that instead of putting in seat video into the 747s, it would just offer streaming of content. Makes you wonder if the plan for the 787 might be the same. That would be a radical change, especially this early in the game since there are still plenty of travelers without their own devices.

In the end, this means that everyone will get wifi onboard a United mainline aircraft, but that doesn’t mean the offering will be standardized. The domestic Continental airplanes, as with Delta’s fleet, will have LiveTV, movies, wifi, etc. The United domestic fleet, as with Northwest’s fleet, will just have wifi.

All in all, this is good news, but there are plenty of unanswered questions.

Watch out for flight changes, tight connections – CNN Out of the Office
I talk about how to deal with frustrating flight schedule changes.

4 trip-planning services often overlooked – Overhead Bin on MSNBC
Cranky Concierge was lucky enough to be mentioned here as a planning service worth considering. I agree.

In the Trenches: Handling Sensitive Customer Data – Intuit Small Business Blog
Handling sensitive customer data is a huge issue in general, and it’s a nerve-wracking one for many a small business owner.

United, Continental to roll out combined frequent-flier program next year – Chicago Tribune
I was asked to comment on the new MileagePlus, but of course, as readers of this blog, you already know my thoughts.

You might have heard yesterday that United has rolled out its new MileagePlus program which will take effect starting on the first of the year. What’s new about it (besides the fact that MileagePlus is now back to being one word instead of two)? Not much, actually. It’s more of an evolution.

Sure, there have been a bunch of tweaks here and there, but this was far from the major dollar-based changes that had been circulated around recently. In those rumors, it was expected that United would make people spend a minimum amount of money with the airline instead of just flying miles to earn status. That might have been a smart move for the airline, but it isn’t happening. . . at least not now. You will, however, have to fly four flights on United (or Continental or COPA) during the year instead of just earning status by flying partners.

The reaction on FlyerTalk has been largely positive, and that probably means the program is being too generous. That is one group that’s not shy about complaining when things don’t come out favorably. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some negatives in the program here. There are. But really it’s the entry level elite members who will be the least happy. The higher up you go, the happier people will be. That’s probably how it should work. You can get the full details anywhere, so let’s just give a broad brush to see what’s going on in general.

If you’re a regular MileagePlus program member, then you won’t notice a difference. That’s the biggest takeaway here for the general traveling public. The changes are really focused around the elite levels in the program – for the truly frequent fliers.

The first level of elite status is Premier Silver, which awkwardly combines United’s Premier with Continental’s Silver moniker. To get to this base level, you need to earn 25,000 miles or fly 30 flight segments. There are a lot of people who fall into this group, many barely qualifying. The benefits really aren’t huge, but they’re getting smaller in this change. In fact, the Silver level is taking the biggest hit.

United offers free upgrades to elite members on domestic flights, but it’s already nearly impossible to get an upgrade as an entry level Premier because of the sheer volume of people trying. Those people could, however, always fall back on the fact that they could reserve a seat in Economy Plus without additional charge. That perk is gone. Now, Premier Silver members can only get Economy Plus without charge at the time of check-in. Otherwise, they’ll have to pay in advance like everyone else.

That’s a big hit to Silvers since that perk was a big selling point for flying United, but I can absolutely understand why United’s doing it. You get a lot of people in that Silver level, even more with the combined United and Continental pool of people, and that means that your more frequent fliers might not be able to get that Economy Plus seat they wanted. This way, United culls the demand until travel time and the “more important” elites get their pick of seats in advance. Still, Premier Silvers won’t be happy. (In general, I’ve found it’s harder to make an entry level elite happy than anyone else so this might have been a lost cause anyway.)

But that’s not the only reduction for Silvers. Today, you can check two bags for free. That goes down to one. Not a big deal for many people, but it’s still something that Silvers will undoubtedly be unhappy about.

The next tier up is Premier Gold at 50,000 miles, followed by a new Premier Platinum tier at 75,000 miles, and then Premier 1K at 100,000 miles. In case you were wondering, yes, 1K is really a misnomer. 1K still means 1,000 and not 100,000 in the real world, so why is United using this nomenclature? My understanding is that back in the day, this was an internal code for the top status level. It stuck and made it in the public lexicon. Now it’s a name so synonymous with top status that United is keeping it around even though it sticks out in the new naming convention like a sore thumb.

On top of that, there will still be the Global Services program which is based on the amount of money you spend when you fly. There is no public qualification threshold for this program, but if you’re awesome, you’ll be invited.

As you go up the ladder, the benefits generally get better. But much of the real benefit is just where you sit in the pecking order and not necessarily a different benefit. In other words, a 1K gets upgraded before the other elites. So the benefit is technically the same, but 1Ks get first crack.

The higher up you are on the food chain, then the more goodies you get. Silver members get 25 percent bonus miles when they fly while 1K members get 100 percent bonuses. There are also bonuses for buying more expensive tickets in order to give some sort of additional incentive to pay up.

There’s a new enhanced million miler program as well. Basically, if you’ve had the unfortunate need to fly over a million miles in your life, then United rewards you with permanent elite status. Each additional million miles gets you higher up the ladder with more goodies along the way. I guess if you’ve truly flown that much, then you deserve something to keep you from wanting to jump off a cliff. That’s a LOT of flying.

So those are the basics. In the end, this isn’t a huge change, and it’s not really a bad change either . . . unless you’re a Silver. Then you aren’t happy, but you can probably understand why these changes are being made, right?

This week is the GBTA Convention (formerly known as NBTA until it decided to go “global,” or something like that), and the new United is taking a page from the old Continental playbook by making a bunch of announcements. See, GBTA is the big event for corporate/business travel, and Continental has long treated it as important. It rolled out its flat beds in business class there a few years ago, and now it’s focusing on other product enhancements. What’s the verdict?

There are a few good nuggets of info in here, but there’s also a lot of repeat announcements. One you get through the noise, the announcements are mostly great news. The team is finally fixing up the United fleet while bringing over some old favorites to Continental. Let’s go over them. (I’ve saved my favorite for last.)

• New: United Will Convert Interiors on 14 Previously-Domestic 767s
  United has long had a sizable fleet of 767-300s that it split in two. Some were outfitted with three-cabins and flew internationally while the others were domestic birds with a domestic-style first class and a sea of coach. Now the 14 previously domestic birds will get a hybrid international configuration with only two classes (actually 30 in biz, 49 in Economy Plus, and 135 in coach), but they’ll get the well-liked Continental flat bed up front. New seats will be put in, but it’s unclear if the old, tiny overhead bins will be replaced. I like this – gives some flexibility to the United fleet, but it will be interesting to see what airplanes replace that capacity on the domestic runs.
• Old: United Will Put Flat Beds on Continental 767-400 Fleet
  This was supposed to be done by next summer anyway, and now it’s apparently being reaffirmed. The twelve 767-400s in the Continental fleet will get flat beds. No surprise there. Here’s the chart of what the fleet does and will look like. United says it will have 185 birds with flat beds, but I count 193. Are there some retirements that I’m missing?

  Aircraft	Flat Beds Current	Flat Beds Planned	Pct Complete
  CO 757-200	41	41	100%
  CO 767-200	0	0	100%
  CO 767-400	0	12	0%
  CO 777-200	22	22	100%
  UA 757-200 p.s.	0	13	0%
  UA 767-300	21	35	60%
  UA 777-200	17	46	37%
  UA 747-400	24	24	100%

• Old: United 777s Will Keep Getting Flat Beds
  United was painfully slow at putting flat beds on its 777s, and now it’s only at 17 of the 46 in the international fleet. Sounds like the process is starting up again, and I’ve confirmed that these airplanes will all get the current United flat bed, not the Continental one.
• Old: Continental Fleet Will Get Economy Plus
  This is old news, but I guess it gives a little more color on the timing. Economy Plus will start being installed on Continental airplanes this fall with 38 done by year-end and 100 by the end of March next year. Economy Plus seats will come from current coach seating while premium cabins will remain unchanged in size. It’s not just mainline but also any aircraft with more than 50 seats, per the United standard. That means the Q400 props will get Economy Plus and First Class. We had a Twitter discussion on this awhile ago trying to remember the last prop that had First Class. It’s been awhile.
• New: United Will Expand Overhead Bins and “Refresh” Interiors on the Airbus Fleet
  Try boarding a United A319 and you’ll probably run out of bin space before general boarding even begins. So, the new United is nearly doubling the size of the bins to make them more functional. This will help the onboard experience, probably to the dismay of those who thought that problem was bad enough that it would convince United not to keep charging bag fees. Plus, the new United will “refresh” the interiors to give them a better appearance. This is long overdue on much of that fleet.
• New: Streaming Movies on 747-400s
  It wasn’t long ago that CEO Jeff Smisek said the product on the 747s wasn’t acceptable. To fix it, he’s committing to put a wireless streaming offering on the airplane. It’s like what American is doing on its 767-200s today with Gogo. You can log on and pay to watch movies or TV shows, etc on your own device. That’s great, but there’s one problem. This wasn’t accompanied by an announcement about putting power outlets in coach. Considering the long haul flights that the 747s operate, without power, this is useless. Let’s hope that announcement comes soon.
• Old: United Will Put Wifi on the Legacy Continental Fleet
  Those airplanes that have LiveTV on them (old Continental domestic planes) will also get wifi eventually. The timeline says next year, but I’ll believe it when I see it. This is old news.
• Old and New: United Will Redo p.s. Airplanes
  Jeff said before that United’s p.s. fleet that flies between LA/SF and JFK will get flat beds. This repeats that claim, but there’s more. p.s. will have 26 of the current Continental flat beds installed along with 70 Economy Plus seats, 44 in coach, power in every row, on demand audio/video and wifi. That means it won’t be the same configuration that Continental has on its 757s today. Continental today has only 16 beds on its 757s, so this will continue to be a separate fleet.
• New: Channel 9 Will Be Offered on Continental Aircraft
  I saved my favorite piece of news for last. Channel 9 will not only be kept on the United fleet, as previously stated, but it will be expanded to the Continental fleet. This is great news for those of us who like to listen to the conversation between the cockpit and air traffic control.

That’s it for now. As you can see, it was an announcement full of a lot of things we’ve heard before, but there are some encouraging nuggets of awesomeness (like Channel 9) in there as well. In short, Continental is fixing up the neglected United fleet while bringing over some old favorites to the Continental fleet. These are all great things, and the direction of the announcements is quite promising. It’s good to see some real investment in the passenger experience for everyone instead of just the premium travelers as had been United’s sole focus before the merger.

I have a wedding coming up in September, and I was faced with a unique situation on the way back. Five different airlines were similarly priced, all requiring a single stop. I know that what’s important varies from person to person, but I thought this would be a fun look at what makes me tick and what I imagine others might consider as well.

First of all, I should note that my wife and I will be meeting in NYC a few days beforehand coming from different places, so we booked those separately. This was just a look at the return flight, and we only wanted White Plains. As long-time readers know, we always prefer Long Beach over LAX, but Long Beach required two stops coming back from White Plains and the times weren’t great, so we opted for LAX. One last caveat – for some, the frequent flier program is what matters, but I couldn’t care less. I mean, I’ll earn miles when I fly, but I don’t ever make a decision based on the program.

With that out of the way, we found flights ranging from $141 to $190 on these five different airlines. The price difference in that range didn’t matter to me, so we just focused on what would work best. Here’s how our thinking went from least interesting to most.

5. AirTran via Atlanta, leave 629p, arrive 1159p
   In my mind, AirTran is (or should I say “was” since it’ll be Southwest soon enough) never a serious contender for my business. I like the XM radio and the wifi, and I love the 717 (or any Douglas-built airplane). But the knee-crunching legroom on the 717 (which would take us to Atlanta) is just too much. Last time I flew AirTran was in December 2005 from Indianapolis to Ft Lauderdale, and my legs were angry. I’m not a tall man, but even on that 2 hour flight it was painful. Plus, the very late arrival time in LA just wasn’t going to work well for us.
4. United via Chicago, leave 1202p, arrive 436p
   I’ll admit that this one started out strong. With the shortest total duration of any flight, it seemed attractive, but then I looked under the surface. That first flight is on a Bombardier CRJ. That’s not comfy for 2+ hours either. Then it was on to an A319 with no internet and only overhead screens. But beyond that, the short 53 minute connection time made me anxious, especially going from Express to mainline. If you land on the F concourse and have to fly out of C in Chicago, that’s a hike. And if there’s a delay, there’s no room for error. Not worth it, even though this was the cheapest at $141.
3. American via Chicago, leave 1240p, arrive 525p
   On the surface, this looks good. It’s a short (but not too short) 1h10m layover in Chicago and we get to ride on a 767 to LA. It’s hard to turn down a widebody on a domestic flight, unless the widebody provides a substandard experience. First off, we would have had 2 hours on an Embraer Regional Jet to get to Chicago. That airplane is somewhat tolerable for a single traveler on the side but not for two people sitting together. I mean, not for that long of a flight. And then we’d be rewarded with one of American’s old 767s which have no internet and just overhead screens showing movies. Why would I want to subject myself to that if I had other options?
2. US Airways via Philadelphia, leave 305p, arrive 845p
   It may sound strange to some, but US Airways provided a compelling option. First of all, it was a short hop down to Philly on a Dash-8 prop. If the weather was good, that would be a beautiful ride. Then we’d ride a nice A321 home with wifi onboard to keep us busy. A 1h45m layover sounded good for notoriously crowded Philly, and this almost made the cut. The holdback? The 845p arrival was later than either one of us liked. Also, we would be ready to go earlier in the day and it would have just been a waste of time stick around until 305p. Otherwise, this was a good option.
1. Delta via Atlanta, leave 1030a, arrive 454p
   This may seem like an odd choice since Atlanta isn’t exactly on the way to LA and the 2+ hour layover may not be ideal, but for us, this was the best option. A longer layover never bothers me if I’m not in a time crunch, because it just builds in some nice slack to the process in case something goes wrong. The flight to Atlanta is also on an regional jet, but it’s the more comfortable CRJ-700. And the flight back from Atlanta will have wifi and live TV onboard. That will make this trip go much quicker. I’ve said in the past that I prefer to be unplugged, and that’s true. But the concierge business means that I need to be in touch at all times just in case something goes wrong. Wifi becomes more and more important.

So that’s that. It’s funny that the decision-making process is so different than it would have been just a few years ago. The thought that internet would even be a factor is new, but it’s becoming more important. Usage is still low, but I have to assume it’s going to change over time.

I know everyone has different criteria for choosing flights, so what would you have picked?