If you don’t watch the Colbert Report, you’re missing out on some quality, hard-hitting journalism about the airline industry. Case in point: this clip about one man’s belief that there is a giant penis conspiracy at the Denver airport.

This is just too awesome, and it’s by far my favorite of all the many Denver Airport conspiracy theories. What’s yours?

Remember that whole Delta/US Airways slot swap deal? US Airways gave most of its slots at New York’s La Guardia airport to Delta in exchange for most of Delta’s slots at Washington’s National Airport along with a couple of other considerations. As part of that, Delta had to put 24 slot pairs up to auction for new entrants. That happened last week, and now, we know the winners . . . sort of.

At La Guardia, there were two bundles of 8 slot pairs being auctioned off. That means that two airlines will get the right to operate 8 takeoffs and 8 landings per day at good times. The bidders had to be either new entrants or airlines with very small presences at the airport already. One of the winners has been officially announced . . . WestJet.

That’s right. Those crazy Canucks are swooping in to fly 8 daily trips to La Guardia. It’s not a surprise that WestJet was interested. The rumors were that WestJet’s proposed partnership with Southwest ended over something closely related to La Guardia. See, WestJet wanted to be able to partner with multiple airlines in order to help feed its network. This was important at La Guardia, where Southwest couldn’t add much. Southwest supposedly didn’t want to see WestJet partner with anyone else. The partnership ended so that WestJet would be free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment, er, um, multiple partnerships.

Earlier this year, Delta launched an interline partnership with WestJet. I imagine we might see it get a little cozier now that Delta will have so many flights that could feed WestJet. Someone is going to need to fill those 8 flights, most if not all of which are undoubtedly bound for Toronto.

But what about the other eight? That’s a bit more of a mystery. Though it hasn’t officially been announced, Bloomberg reports that JetBlue won that bid. It also is said to have picked up the 8 slot pairs down at Washington/National as well. That’s a big win for the Blue Crew.

JetBlue’s interest should be no surprise. It already runs just shy of a dozen daily flights out of La Guardia to Ft Lauderdale, Orlando, and West Palm Beach. At National, it has nine with flights to Boston, Ft Lauderdale, and Orlando. This will help the airline expand its reach at those airports with a nice chunk of new slots.

So is anything surprising about this whole thing? You bet. The most surprising thing is that Southwest didn’t win anything. It has a gajillion* dollars in the bank (*rough estimate) and certainly could have outbid anyone if it wanted. It has made serving big cities a priority lately as a way to get its customers wherever they need to go in the US.

Southwest fought its way into La Guardia when it got 8 slot pairs there to start flights to Baltimore and Chicago. It gained more when it acquired AirTran, which has about 20 slot pairs. It acquired its first beachhead at National with AirTran’s 12 slots there. So you would think it would have been hungry for more, and in fact, it has expressed great interest in the past. It just somehow got outbid this time.

So, Southwest fans won’t be thrilled, but JetBlue lovers should be. There will be more JetBlue flights coming soon, assuming the deal gets done. And Canadians can rejoice that they will have another option to get to New York.

Now we just have to wait for all the “i’s” to be dotted and “t’s” crossed. Oh yeah, and we’re still waiting for final governmental approval in a couple areas. But things are starting to shape up nicely.

If you want to follow this closely, head on over to Things in the Sky. Dan Webb is keeping a close eye on this.

[Original photo via Flickr user Bob n Renee/CC 2.0]

Should I feel guilty about flying out of Buffalo instead of Toronto? – The Globe and Mail
I was asked why Canadian airports are more expensive. So many reasons, but they only took one.

Wi-Fi coming to international flights – CNN Out of the Office
More talk about what’s happening with United’s decision to put wifi on its international fleet.

First Fine for Tarmac Delays May Not Actually Help You – Conde Nast Daily Traveler
I didn’t write about the tarmac delay fine here, but over on Conde Nast I talked about how it’s not necessarily good news. (Regular readers here won’t be surprised by my stance.)

In the Trenches: Recovering From a Crash – Intuit Small Business Blog
Our web host crashed last week, and that meant we had to revert to a back up plane to keep our clients happy.

Last week, it was announced that British Airways parent IAG had won the lottery, so to speak. The group has now reached an “agreement in principle” with Lufthansa to buy its bmi subsidiary. This is all about one thing: slots at Heathrow. We don’t know if this will be completed or not, but if it goes through, it’s a big move. It’s obviously great news for BA, but there are other winners and losers here. Let’s take a look.

The general assumption here is that the purchase will effectively just add slots to the IAG portfolio at Heathrow. IAG (owner of British Airways and Iberia) will see its slot holdings rise from 45 percent to 53 percent. It’s expected that BMI regional will be sold off as will bmiBaby, the low cost airline. That is, however, assuming anyone wants to buy them. If this scenario plays out, here’s who wins and who loses.

bmi – Mixed
Shall we start with the most obvious, bmi itself? The airline has languished for years as a distant second fiddle in the UK behind BA, but people did like the frequent flier program and it gave Star Alliance fans a good base within the UK for travel. Still, there wasn’t much hope that bmi would survive on its own, so having the airline sold off as a whole instead of taking it apart, piece by piece, means there is some hope for those who work at the airline today. Of course, there would have been a much greater outcome for those folks had someone like Virgin Atlantic taken over. This is one of those, “could have been worse, could have been (a lot) better” scenarios.

British Airways – Winner
The most obvious winner here is British Airways. Being based in the anti-aviation UK is not easy, and it can’t grow capacity to save its life because the government is too blind to understand how important it is. BA will now get its hands on a nice chunk of slots at Heathrow so it can finally grow. According to management, BA is eyeballing east Asia destinations like Korea and Vietnam, so that will give BA the ability to better compete with foreign flag carriers. It should be noted that BA will still just have over 50 percent of slots at Heathrow, so it’s hardly a massively dominant position. But it will increase concentration, and that will certainly get some hard scrutiny from the competition authorities.

Virgin Atlantic – Loser
The biggest loser by far is Virgin Atlantic. Virgin had hoped to purchase bmi to give itself some heft and possibly as an easy way in to an alliance partnership with Star. This had the makings a big coup for both sides. Star would gain a stronger player in London, Lufthansa would be rid of the money-losing ownership stake, and Virgin Atlantic would finally have a strategy on how to compete going forward. But it’s not to be. Virgin Atlantic’s bid wasn’t high enough, so instead all those slots will go to Virgin’s arch-rival. I’m sure we can expect to see some slogans painted on the back of Virgin planes, maybe “bmi + BA = no way”? Virgin’s best hope now lies with the regulatory agencies.

Lufthansa – Mixed
I think of bmi like a vampire that’s slowly draining Lufthansa’s blood. After being forced to buy bmi two years ago, the long nightmare is over and Lufthansa will get a nice little payday out of the sale. But it’s also enabling one of its biggest European competitors, BA, to become more effective. With these slots, BA can ramp up and provide better schedule coverage. It can also woo Star Alliance loyalists in the UK away because that simply isn’t much of an option anymore.

Other Star Alliance Airlines – Loser
The impact is not as great for other Star Alliance airlines, but over all, this is bad for them. It helps British Airways to build a bigger and better strategic hub at the expense of a Star Alliance presence in one of the most important cities in the world. It cuts down on options for Star loyalists and makes BA stronger. For that reason, Star members can’t be happy, mostly because they didn’t have a financial interest in that sinking ship. They just wanted to take connecting traffic from the airline and let Lufthansa suck up the losses.

UK Travelers – Mixed
Finally, let’s talk about the traveler. The bad news is that any Brits who liked to fly on Star Alliance airlines will now have their options dramatically reduced. And to make things worse, the next best option is just a bigger and stronger British Airways. For some people, bmi provided a good, more manageable option than BA with a nice little mileage program to boot. Those people will be sorely disappointed by this.

On the other hand, we have people who only flew bmi because they had no choice. For example, if you had to fly to Casablanca or Beirut, BA wasn’t an option. In fact, North Africa, the Middle East and some of the former Soviet republics in the south were bmi territory. Though BA seems to be hoping to do more in the Far East with these slots, I imagine that at least some of the existing bmi cities will be able to hold on to service with BA. That can be good for travelers, though it remains to seen what fares would do.

Customers will also pay the price in terms of the Heathrow operation. BA squeezes as much as it can into its Terminal 5 at Heathrow with the rest along with its oneworld partners stuck in Terminal 3. With all these new flights, BA will likely once again be spread across the airport, making connections more annoying for travelers once again. Will they need to keep a presence in Terminal 1 where bmi is today? Ugh, that would be a pain.

Now we just sit back and wait to see if this actually goes through. Will the UK require massive slot divestitures that make this deal a no-go? It wouldn’t shock me. If that happens, then maybe Virgin Atlantic can step back in and make a go at it. I anticipate there will be a lot of fighting before this whole thing is said and done.

Earlier this week, I was on a panel at the Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) conference down in San Diego talking about airports. The panel was called “The Air Travel Experience-Is This As Good As It Gets?” The general answer was “no” but everyone talked about different aspects of the experience. What do people care about when it comes to airports? Here’s what I told them.

Though I had my own ideas, I decided to head to Twitter to get opinions, and you guys delivered. There were more than 60 responses, so thank you very much. If you had to guess what the top two responses were from a tech-savvy, Twitter-using crowd, what do you think they would be? You probably guessed wi-fi and power outlets, and you’re right. Those were the most popular requests.

For many, the wi-fi request was really for FREE wi-fi, of course. Someone from Boingo, a provider of paid (and other) wi-fi services, came up after to discuss. He talked about all the technical issues and the fact that the free wi-fi experience isn’t as good and tends to be slow due to all the users. That may be true, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still what people want, so the airports need to figure it out.

When it comes to power outlets, that’s even more important now as many airlines have continued to refuse to install power on airplanes. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that travelers would be happy to see airport carpet replaced with wall-to-wall power outlets just to make grabbing a quick charge easy.

The third biggest issue was a broader one: food. People want good, healthy, and cheap dining options. I don’t think by “cheap,” that means the dollar value meal but rather having it closer to street pricing. If the food is better, people will pay for it. They just don’t want a $20 turkey sandwich. Food becomes even more important now with airlines offering buy-on-board. You never know if they’ll have what you want, or if they do, whether they’ll run out before they get to your row on the airplane. Many people prefer to play it safe and buy grub in the airport.

Food is a good story because some airlines and airports are getting it right. I look at Delta’s efforts at JFK and La Guardia as perfect examples of how this should work. They’ve put food right into the gate areas without reducing the seat count. Now there are plenty of seats that have power outlets and iPad ordering stations so you can wait for your flight and order food from where you sit. That’s the kind of thing that benefits everyone.

Of course, many of the things that you guys want aren’t really something the airport can control. People want shorter security lines, but that requires the TSA to provide more security staff. And you don’t want rude gate agents, but that’s controlled more by the airline than the airport in most cases. Still, there are things airports can do to help in those situations.

But let’s back up here. Sure, you want wi-fi and you want good food, but those are little things. What do you really want from your airport? You want to get out of it as quickly as you can. If you’re flying into a city, you want to get in your car, bus, train, whatever as quickly as you can so you can get to your destination. That’s why people hate those big rental car facilities that require long bus or train rides from the terminal. It just takes up time.

If you’re flying out of a city, you want your flights to be on time and frequently departing for the city to which you need to go. Airports can help with the on time piece by having a good runway/taxiway design (for new airports, as few as there are today) and by clearing snow quickly to keep things moving.

But to ensure that there are frequent flights to as many destinations as possible, it’s important for airports to keep their costs down. I’ve said it many times before (and I can already guess some of the comments that will come in, as usual), but a lot of airports throw money away on things that don’t really matter to the passenger experience. If you’re going to spend money, spend it on things that really improve the travel experience like spacious gate areas with ample seating and power along with short walking distances and good food outlets. Save the architectural flair for something else, some place where it won’t negatively impact the ability of the airport to keep a full schedule flights, just as people want.

[SMF photo via Sacramento Airport]
[LAX photo via Los Angeles World Airports]
[Goldilocks image via Hiro Sheridan/CC 2.0]