It’s incredible to think about how the title of a post or article really sets the tone for a story. For example, if you saw the recent Dow Jones article entitled “Ryanair To Ban Check-In Baggage And Airport Check-In,” you might be surprised to know that it’s referencing the exact same piece of news that I’m discussing here today. The only difference? I see some good in this idea while Dow Jones is clearly going for the sensational, eye-catching headline.

Now before we get into this, I should start by saying that I doubt it’ll actually happen. Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary loves to spout off about his dreams about the future of Ryanair, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. We’re still waiting to see those pay lavs, right? But I think O’Leary’s head is in the right place here.

Yes, it’s true that O’Leary wants to ban checked baggage. Sounds like a bad plan if you like to bring a lot of stuff, but this wouldn’t really prevent you from doing that. Because while he wants to ditch checked baggage, he’d be happy to let you carry on as much as you can drag to the plane. Are you envisioning overhead bins and aisle packed to the gills with bags? Well if they run out of room, they’ll just start putting the bags in the belly, like they do today on regional jets that can’t handle those rollerboards.

If you think about this from a cost savings perspective, it makes sense. You really don’t need ticket counters or any place to for customers to interact with you outside security in this scheme. You also don’t need the complicated luggage transport systems and baggage carts that currently fill the underbelly of every airport. You then need fewer people working on the ramp as well, because you’re making the passengers do the work instead.

For passengers, they’ll have to drag their own luggage all the way to the plane, and I’m pretty sure this will make security lines even more miserable, but if you’re paying a penny for a flight, then you’ll probably just deal with it. And just imagine – no more checked bag fees! Not happy about schlepping all those bags through the airport? I’m sure Ryanair will offer you a pushcart . . . for a fee.

Despite all the decent possibilities of a system like this, I still don’t think it will happen. Why? The government. Any time a plan touches the security process, the government gets involved, and I’m sure they won’t like this idea at all. Oh, and all those carry-on restrictions mean that a lot of passengers who travel with things like guns and knives, not to mention liquids in large containers, will have to fly someone else.

Then there’s the issue of weight and balance in the belly. With carry-on bags, you won’t know how much luggage you’ll have and how it should be spaced out in the aircraft until people board. That will likely delay aircraft turn times, and it will make for a mess of a situation right before departure.

So I don’t think we’ll see this plan come to fruition, but there certainly are some merits to it. At the very least, it’s a creative way to reduce costs, and this industry can certainly use more creativity.

[Original image from wicho via Flickr]

In last week’s internal company newsletter, US Airways noted that it was switching up its boarding process. They’ve gone back to basics. Instead of trying to figure out the best way to board from a time-saving perspective, they’re just gonna let people fight it out.

The new plan is similar to what Northwest does, though I’m not sure if that’s changed under the Delta regime. In short, important people board first, and then everyone else gets to board together in the back. They’ve actually made it much more complicated than that. Here’s the new hierarchy:

• Slow Pokes (Pre-boarding) – Those who need help boarding (disabled or old) or those with kids under 5




• Really Important – Premium cabin passengers and top tier elite members (excludes Silver)




• Sort of Important – Silver elite members, US Airways credit card holders, and people who paid for premium coach seats (exit row, etc)




• Not Important but Cheaper to Process – those who check-in online




• Not Important and More Expensive to Process – everyone else

Seems like a lot of groups to me. The only major thing here that we haven’t seen before is that those who check-in online get to board ahead of those who don’t. It’s a nice little incentive that I would think might help push people to go online. That’s the goal, of course, since it’s cheaper for the airline.

But what’s significant here is that they’ve completely abandoned any sort of science in trying to board people in the quickest way. The old system was called the “Reverse Pyramid” which, besides being a move you’d probably like to see a cheerleader make, also, according to research performed by ASU, was the fastest way to board. Maybe US Airways has decided that it feels the same way about ASU as the Daily Show does.

More likely, however, is that they’d carved out so many exceptions that it didn’t actually help much anymore. See the reverse pyramid plan starts with windows in the back, then windows in the middle and middles in the back, and then windows up front, middles in the middle, and aisles in the back, etc.

In the last few years, so many exceptions popped up that allowed early boarding that the benefits of using the reverse pyramid have probably disappeared. So now they’ll just scrap the system and let the peons fight it out.

[Original Image from Mauricio Santana (Tux) via Flickr]

So, you’ve been trying to get to Seattle for a few days now, huh? I’m one of the lucky ones this year since I’m not going anywhere for the holidays, but if I were, I’m sure that the nasty weather would have me sitting on the floor at the airport for a long time. For those stuck at LAX, you might want to think about spending some time in the new public-access reLAX Lounge, which I recently had the chance to tour. Let’s hope that public lounges catch on and become more commonplace.

The reLAX Lounge is located in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at the end of the horseshoe that makes up the LAX terminal area. If you aren’t in LA, I know there’s a pay per use lounge in Terminal 4 at JFK, but I’m unaware of any other ones in the US. There must be more in smaller cities, but there definitely are not enough.

Sure, there are plenty of airlines that will sell you a one day pass into their lounge, but it usually costs around $50 or so. The lounge is obviously catering to that airlines’ passengers, so if you’re flying someone else, you might find you have trouble getting flight information or anything else catering to your airline.

The pay per use lounges, however, cater to just about every airline. For example, they have flight status for all airlines using that terminal, and they’ll be able to give you airport-wide information instead of just airline-specific stuff.

The one at LAX in particular is also very, very nice. It’s in the old interim First Class lounge at Bradley, and it has all new furniture, computers, printers, scanners, fax machines, etc. You’ll also find free wifi, sodas, coffee, tea, bottles of water, and snacks. They have a snack bar as well that currently sells salads, wraps, etc, and will soon sell alcohol. Oh, and I forgot to mention the absolutely stunning views to the north, west, and south with jumbo jets taxiing right by throughout the day. Take a look for yourself.

The best part of this whole thing? It’s usually $25 for three hours, but they’ve recently introduced a $10 rate for one hour or $35 for five hours as well. That’s a great deal, especially since it includes free wi-fi, something that still costs you in the rest of the airport.

The only problem for this particular lounge? It’s not behind security. So, if you’re catching a flight at Bradley, you’ll still have to cut out a little early to beat the lines. Johnny Jet and I were both touring together, and we both suggested to the lounge manager that he be constantly posting current security wait times. He seemed to like the idea, so hopefully that will make time management easier.

But the good news here is that if you have a long layover in any other terminal, you can come on by and use the lounge. With the great views and free wifi, it’s probably the best place to kill some time in the airport considering the price.

I hope you all have easy travels this year, but from the looks of the weather map, that’s not going to happen for a lot of you. Just hold on and remember that things will be great once you finally get there.

[See all my pictures of the lounge on Flickr]

Details of Delta’s plans to combine facilities with Northwest are starting to leak out, and I’m very happy to see that the most difficult terminal situations are being addressed early.

First up, the LA Times is reporting that Delta has decided to bring Northwest over to Terminal 5 from Terminal 2. This isn’t a surprise, and it’s what I had been hearing. Delta’s Terminal 5, the old Oasis, is not only underutilized, but it’s also one of the nicer facilities at LAX. I couldn’t imagine them going elsewhere from a passenger perspective. With any luck, US Airways will be able to move over to Terminal 2 and give Southwest a few more gates in Terminal 1 for expansion. I won’t hold my breath that it happens, but that’s how it should work.

Over at Chicago/O’Hare, the opposite is happening. Delta will move from its concourse L spot in Terminal 3 over to Northwest’s E gates in Terminal 2. Now I’ve always shuddered at the thought of catching a flight in Third World Terminal 2, because it is way overcrowded.

There is nothing worse than getting stuck in a delay and finding nothing but a little floor space to pass the time. Primitive societies form, wars break out, people hoard scraps of food. Ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But that all happens on the F gates, and Northwest is on the E side so it couldn’t be as bad. Anyone think Virgin America will grab Delta’s old gates?

Lastly, it looks like Delta will win the Boston wars by bringing Northwest over from Terminal E to their new Terminal A facility. If you’re not familiar with Boston, Terminal A is the new terminal built specifically for Delta’s Boston operation. It has plenty of room in there for more flights, but only Continental was willing to pay the price to get into the expensive space. Now they’ll be able to fill it up even more.

It’s good to see some of the most difficult situations for passengers being worked on quickly. The LA move is said to happen by June, but I don’t know about the others just yet.

As I mentioned, the reason I had the chance to interview Virgin America CEO David Cush yesterday was because he was in town for the ribbon-cutting on the airline’s newly renovated space in LAX Terminal 3. They’ve done a great job here, and it really didn’t cost very much at all (about $2.5 million in all, and some of that will be reimbursed by the airport through lease rebates). These are the kind of projects I like to see.

The biggest changes were in the ticketing area where Virgin America and V Australia (which begins flying to LA on February 27) knocked out some offices and pushed the ticket counters further back. This gives a lot more room for travelers, and the way they’ve laid it out makes for a very well-flowing space. I still need to get a bigger memory card for my camera, but until that happens I have to settle for slightly worse video quality than I’d like. Still, it’s worth a view.

I know I said in the video that I would be back with video of the gate areas, but I lied. It turns out that very little had changed since my first visit a couple weeks ago. The biggest change is the podiums sitting in the middle. Virgin America’s facilities guy Len Sloper has years of experience in Terminal 3 since he used to be Alaska’s general manager at LAX. So we were lucky to have him come with us and point out some of the things they want to do in phase two. (None of these things are finalized.)

• The posts in the middle of the terminal would be renovated to fit the Virgin America style
• Mood lighting will be added
• They want to add either a tree or a bamboo plant, or something alive to the middle of the terminal
• The signage layer that rings around the terminal half way up will be removed to open up the views further
• There is a ring around the outside of the terminal with ramp lighting that they want to replace with purple lighting so it glows like the pylons at the entrance to LAX

Some of these things sound kind of wacky, but the artist drawings looked pretty cool. Len kept talking about how this one is the only terminal still in its original form, and it has some of the best views of all the terminals at the airport. He wants to open those up and restore it to being much better than it is today. That’s a great goal, but it sounds like he should be working for the airport instead of Virgin America.

Anyway, what they’ve done so far is taken a relatively poor passenger experience and improved it significantly with a more functional check-in area and better passenger flow around the gate areas. For a couple million dollars (much of which will be reimbursed by the airport) this is a smart move.

On an unrelated note, I didn’t cover the airline’s announcement that it would be starting Boston flights for fear of Virgin America overload, but I like this move. The long haul routes make the onboard product advantage that much more important for the customer, and existing airlines have cut their schedules so much on the route that Virgin has a competitive if not superior schedule compared to just about everyone else. Good stuff.

[See all my pictures of LAX Terminal 3]