Reliable sources tell me that Allegiant will announce in the coming days that its new “sun destination” is LAX. With the exception of its original base in Las Vegas, Allegiant has specialized in turning secondary airports into big funnels for people traveling from small towns to resort areas. It appears that strategy is going to see a slight alteration with this move, and I look forward to seeing how it performs.

All Allegiant is saying publicly is that it will open a new base to a “sun destination” with initial service to twelve cities, and they’re running a contest for everyone to guess what destination that may be. The twelve cities are:

• Bellingham (Washington)
• Billings (Montana)
• Des Moines (Iowa)
• Fargo (North Dakota)
• Grand Junction (Colorado)
• McAllen (Texas)
• Medford (Oregon)
• Missoula (Montana)
• Monterey (California)
• Sioux Falls (South Dakota)
• Springfield (Missouri)
• Wichita (Kansas)

My initial thought was that it would be San Diego, but that was proven wrong when the airport manager in Sioux Falls let it slip that it would be to the LA area. At that point, I figured Allegiant would try the currently empty San Bernardino Airport since those guys would likely pay Allegiant to fly there. But recently, I learned that LAX would actually be the chosen airport.

This surprises me, and not for the reasons you might think. Allegiant has shown that it isn’t afraid of flying to larger airports. Obviously Las Vegas is one, but they’ve also recently ventured on to routes like Bellingham to Oakland and San Diego. As long as there’s a smaller airport on one end, it shouldn’t be an issue.

What does surprise me is that flying out of LAX means they’ll be entering routes that already have nonstop service. Monterey is served by United and American and Medford is served by Horizon. Allegiant historically has not liked to go head to head with other airlines, so this is an interesting move, assuming it proves to be true.

There’s no question that bringing people from small towns to LA a couple times a week could be a lucrative business, and I think there’s a very good chance that Allegiant can be successful with this move. Their unique model has shown that it can work with a handful of tweaks to it, and I don’t see why this tweak won’t be successful. I will, however, be closely watching those towns with competing nonstop service to see if the incumbent airlines feel the need to respond or not. That will probably make or break those routes.

It was almost a year ago that JetBlue announced it would begin flying to LAX in addition to its main Southern California operation at Long Beach along with smaller operations at Burbank and Ontario. Once fuel started climbing, they walked away from LAX. But now, a year later, JetBlue is back and ready to begin flights to LAX. Should we bother to believe them this time?

I’d say yes, though if oil spikes again (HIGHLY unlikey considering the state of the economy), then all bets are off. But JetBlue has always wanted to do a better job of serving the LA area. They dropped Ontario last year, so until June, when the first LAX flights start, you’ll only see them in Burbank and Long Beach. That’s not really much coverage.

So LAX makes sense, and the airport’s traffic is so far down this year that finding a gate isn’t the toughest thing around. Unfortunately, they aren’t exactly picking routes that are lacking for competition. On June 18, the airline will start two flights a day to both New York/JFK and Boston. This low frequency is not in any way favorable compared to the rest of the competition in the market. It also doesn’t help that Virgin America only recently announced service from LAX to Boston. So there’s just a ton of service here already. Why are they going into this as the frequency laggard?

I suppose it goes back to the JetBlue strategy. They aren’t going for the business traveler here, and if they were they’d be slaughtered. They’re more interested in the leisure traveler, so this allows the airline to reach a greater audience than just at Long Beach and Burbank. Not a bad plan, but the overabundance of flights in those two markets will make it a tough sell.

There could be another reason here. Right now, JetBlue has more flights scheduled at Long Beach this summer than it has slots. So, there are going to have to be a couple of cuts. Could it be that they’re hoping to shift some people to LAX in order to cut back on long hauls from Long Beach? It’s pure speculation, but something has to give over there.

Either way, I tend to think that JetBlue will actually start LAX service this time around, but just in case, you may want to wait until it gets a little closer before booking.

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]

I know, I know. I’ve had a fair number of posts on LAX lately, and I’m sorry about that for those not impacted by this airport. But I think this should be the last one for a little while.

As we all know, LAX is not exactly the world’s favorite airport. In fact, most people who have to fly through the the place, especially from an international perspective, find it to be a miserable experience. This is definitely not a secret, but after many proposed fixes kept failing to happen, I think most just figured it would never change. I had the chance to attend a reception last week where they unveiled the latest design effort to fix the place up. What do I think? It’s a beautiful design, but it’s a complete and total waste of money.

Let’s start with the good. Here’s a shot of what it will look like. This would be the view if I were looking from the ocean toward the east.

As you can see, it will ultimately add two concourses to the Bradley Terminal with a host of other stuff in there as well. Fentress Architects, the same people that did Denver’s airport, came up with the design, and they were at the reception to explain to everyone how it took the LA environment into account and incorporated the ocean, the mountains, etc. They even said, and I swear I’m not making this up, that they’re trying to change “LAX into LA-Wow.” Now I’m the first to admit that I’m not a design kind of guy, but I suppose I understand what they were trying to do. My problem is that they shouldn’t have been trying to do it.

We heard a lot from Roger Johnson, Deputy Executive Director of LAWA and head of this project, about how this is going to be an airport that people talk about. It’s going to be an airport that when people arrive, they tell their friends and family that they have to go see it. Who the heck cares? I want an airport that’s easy. I don’t care if it’s pretty. If you go for “pretty,” you end up wasting money (at least $6 or 7 billion in this case) on something that ultimately either leads to higher airfares or loss of flights because it’s too expensive to fly there. To make it a little more clear what they’re trying to do, I’ve gone back to Google Maps. First up we have the plans for Phase I.

So, in the first phase, they’re going to build a new concourse to replace the existing one at the Bradley Terminal. The north side will open in Jan 2012 with the south side opening in July of that year. They’re staggered because of the way they need to knock down the old one to keep enough gates operating during construction. You will notice that the current A380 gate on the north side will actually stick around after this is done because it’s grandfathered in and can’t be replaced.

They will also replace the two side security areas with one large one in the middle of the existing facility. All of this should be completed by September 2013 with a price tag of around $2 billion. That’s right. We get 14 gates, 3 more than before, along with a new fire station and some taxiway changes for a mere $2 billion. Keep in mind that JetBlue built an entirely new terminal in New York with 26 gates for $800 million (though they didn’t have to move taxiways around). This money is all being spent on what Roger Johnson admitted was an “expensive concept.”

But the absurdity really doesn’t begin until Phase II. This part hasn’t been funded yet, but it is expected to cost $3 to 4 billion. (I’ll put money down that the costs double by the time it’s done.) Here’s my map of the second phase.

As you can see, they will now build an additional concourse further to the west. The parking lots for Terminals 3/4 will now be razed and replaced with a new “Central Terminal Area” to serve the midfield concourse. There will be underground parking (and the TSA is ok with this?) to replace the existing parking lots. An above ground people mover (high enough to accommodate an A380 underneath) will connect the CTA, existing Bradley, and the new midfield concourse. But the most shocking thing is that the CTA will only serve the midfield concourse while the existing Bradley terminal will continue to have its own check in area. My head hurts.

And the best part of all? This will not expand the number of gates on property. Thanks to an ill-advised agreement with the surrounding communities, the number of gates is fixed at the airport, so they’ll just close down the remote gates at the far west end of the airport when these new ones open.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. There’s a separate project that has yet to be funded that will put a people mover around the airport and connect it out to the parking lots and metro rail. I like that idea, but I hate the idea of spending what will likely exceed $10 billion on a project that could be done for far less if we weren’t trying to dazzle the world.

In my opinion, we could ditch the fancy design and put function over form here. Yes, I’d like to see a nice open airport with lots of light, but does it need to have a roof that looks like waves of the ocean? I would say not. I’d much rather have the user fees stay lower so that we can attract more service. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great things happening in this project that should certainly be happening, such as . . .

• Sterile connectors between Terminal 3, 4, and Bradley will be built so that travelers don’t have to leave security to get between them all. I wish we would see more connectors like that built all around the airport so connections could flow more freely.




• There will be far better shopping and dining options at Bradley. I realize that’s not hard to do since it’s pretty much devoid of everything behind security now, but this is a big deal in terms of passenger convenience.




• This project eliminates the need to use the remote gates. Amen.




• The new concourse will give more space between Bradley and T3 on one side and T4 on the other. That means that planes from each terminal will be able to push back simultaneously and taxi out without having to take turns waiting for the other side to go. This will be a huge productivity gainer for the airport and especially for American and Alaska which sit on the other side of this alleyway.




• They say they’ll redo the customs and immigration facilities so you no longer have to push your heavy luggage up a ramp after you get through the process. There is nothing like watching someone who is exhausted after 12 hours on a plane have to push their luggage up.

If just those things alone were fixed, you’d see a significant increase in user satisfaction at the airport. I’ll say it again, I think the design looks good, but we don’t need a good-looking design to be a functional airport. The more money that gets spent, the more that has to come out of passenger pockets down the line.

See more pictures from the reception

I thought I’d throw out a little Sunday bonus posting this week since I had the chance to stop by LAX Terminal 3 to see how Virgin America’s transformation work was coming along. Things appear to be going well and the move is scheduled to happen in early December. I actually kind of like the idea behind this project now that I think about it. You can watch my video of the area here. (Sorry about the poor quality, but I’m still working on figuring this camera out.)

You might recall that LAX moved out a few airlines on the east side of Terminal 3 so that Virgin America could come in and fix up some of the oldest non-renovated terminal space at the airport. This is actually a very good example of how a little money (maybe $5 to 7 millionit was $2.5 million or so?) can go a long way toward improving the passenger experience. When it’s done, there will be better seating, better lighting, and I’ve heard they’re even discussing turning the former outdoor smoking lounge in the middle of the terminal into a nice patio restaurant. Oh, and they old sports grill is already being replaced with a Gladstone’s local seafood restaurant. In addition, they’ve pushed the ticket counters further back so that there’s more queuing space without sending people out the door.

When I contrast this with the multi-billion dollar project LAX is putting together for the Bradley terminal (I’ll have that one this week as well since I went to a reception discussing the project), I have to shake my head. This is the right way to be improving the passenger experience in a terminal that was formerly not in good shape at all. Whether Virgin America should be spending the money on this kind of thing is highly debatable (there are better uses for a cash-strapped airline), but I still like the frugality of the project.

See a few still shots on the inside

Updated 12/12 @ 1030a to reflect actual cost of the project