There has been a ton of interesting news to write about in the last few days, and I’d been having trouble figuring out with what to lead . . . until yesterday. Turns out that I was voted one of the the world’s 50 most powerful blogs by The Observer in the UK.

Holy crap! That’s kind of scary. But, I’m guessing that means I’ll have a bunch of new visitors from that side of the Pond (welcome, everyone), so I’m going to post Sunday night instead of my usual Monday morning. And, while I’m being accommodating, let’s focus on something that probably causes you newbies pain and suffering more often than not: Heathrow.

Usually, any discussion of Heathrow involves a lot of cursing, rising blood pressure, and possibly some crying. With any luck, we’ll see less of that in the near future, but it’s likely to get worse in the short term. Why?

Well, we’re getting closer to the big terminal move. On March 27, BA will land its first flights at the brand-spanking new Terminal 5 and that begins a long period of transition for the airport as just about everyone save Virgin Atlantic moves locations.

I’ve tried to put together a handy guide on all the terminal moves so you can actually figure out where you’re supposed to go for your next flight. First, we’ll start with oneworld airlines, since they have the most changes happening the earliest.

Now let’s take a look at SkyTeam. In short, when Delta, Northwest, and Continental start flying to Heathrow in March, they’ll be in BA’s old Terminal 4. The rest of the carriers won’t move until early 2009, when a major terminal renovation will have been completed. Anyone who has flown BA out of that terminal lately knows that it is in desperate need of some help.

I’d like to list the Star Alliance changes here as well, but I haven’t been able to find them. In fact, while oneworld and SkyTeam have been on top of the changes, Star Alliance has been silent. I sent the alliance a request and their response left me wondering if they actually meant to insult my intelligence or if they just don’t speak English very well.

We would like to inform you, however, that the Star Alliance is a network of 19 individual airlines. Operational matters are handled by the airlines themselves. Therefore, for more information, you will need to contact the individual Star Alliance member airlines directly.

Really? You guys aren’t an airline yourself? No sh**. Well, I also asked United directly and spokesperson Robin Urbanski told me that the airline will be moving to Terminal 1, but it’s unclear when that might be and that will happen on June 1. Clearly, this alliance is a little less organized, probably because the changes aren’t coming as quickly as with the others.

We know that the airlines in Terminal 1 will stay there for now. Terminal 2 will be demolished starting this year, so those guys have to move somewhere. On March 27, BA moves nearly all of its domestic and European flights out of Terminal 1, so I have to assume that everyone from Terminal 2 will move in before their terminal disappears. Will the Terminal 3 airlines move at the same time or will they stay longer? My guess is that they won’t move immediately because there’s no urgency. Here’s how they stack up right now along with my best guesses as to where they’ll go. The only thing I know for sure is that US Airways will go to Terminal 1 when it starts service to the airport on March 30.

Update 3/25 @ 822a – Star has put out a press release with much more guidance. All Star carriers will be expected to move to Heathrow East in 2012 when the terminal is completed, but I haven’t included those changes in here.

Of course, not all airlines are in alliances. Virgin Atlantic, for example, will stay in Terminal 3, so you won’t see any changes there. All other unaligned airlines (except for former oneworld member Aer Lingus which will be in Terminal 3) will end up in Terminal 4. Again, I’m not entirely sure when that might happen, but one thing is clear . . . there will be a lot of confusion at Heathrow until things settle down, and that could take years.

If you have to go to the airport in the near future, leave plenty of time and bring lots of patience. If you have the misfortune of connecting through Heathrow, especially while these changes are in progress, may God have mercy on your souls.

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Today was a big day for new additions to global alliances. To be fair, these are just the announcements of additions but in the near future oneworld and SkyTeam fliers will have more options for mileage earning and redemption.

First up, SkyTeam. Air Europa, Copa Airlines, and Kenya Airways all signed up as associate members. Air Europa is based in Spain and flies to sun spots around the world so that frozen Europeans can warm up. Copa, formerly partially owned by SkyTeam member Continental, connects North and South America through its hub in Panama. Kenya Airways is probably the most exciting addition because it opens up an entire new continenta. From its Nairobi home in East Africa, the airline flies to Europe, Asia, West Africa, and Southern Africa.

Now, I’m not exaclty sure it was it means to be an associate member, but it probably means they have to get coffee and pick up dry cleaning for the primary members. I imagine the rules for joining as an associate are less strict so it’s easier to join. In the end though, they will have earn/burn ability for frequent flier miles, codesharing, and lounge sharing so the customer will benefit.

SkyTeam’s US members are Northwest, Continental, and Delta, at least until some merger happens and changes everything around.

Next up is oneworld. They said yesterday that as of April 1, Malev, Royal Jordanian, Japan Airlines (JAL), and all its affiliates will join the group. Also that day, Aer Lingus will leave the alliance and go it alone saying that everything is just fine, they’re at the controls, flying the plane, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.

Malev is based in Budapest (Hungary), Royal Jordanian in Amman (Jordan, duh), and JAL in Tokyo. They all fly to destinations on several continents. American is the US airline in this alliance.

Hong Kong’s Dragonair, along with LAN Ecuador and LAN Argentina will join sometime later this year as well marking a pretty strong expansion by the alliance.

I believe we can now officially declare Delta’s schedule planning announcements to be clear shots at US Airways and not merely coincidence.

On the heels of Delta’s New York/JFK – Phoenix and Salt Lake City – Charlotte announcements which I documented here, we get today’s announcement of new Salt Lake City – Pittsburgh flights. Yup, that’s the same Pittsburgh that US Airways considers a hublet these days.

The airline says it will begin one daily flight on a CRJ-900 regional jet on March 1. That’s right – almost 1,700 miles of good regional jet fun.

As I mentioned before, this appears to be just pure spite for US Airways. Bob Cortelyou, the head of Network Planning for Delta, was quoted in the release as saying “Delta continues to compete on every coast . . . .” This isn’t aimed at the local market – this is supposed to steal traffic between Pittsburgh and the West Coast from US Airways. It is also irresponsible asset utilization at its finest and yet another reason why US Airways could do a better job managing this airline.

And on that front, US Airways put a release out today saying that they hope to begin due diligence soon. I’m not sure why they put the release out. Maybe Delta is dragging its feet in the hopes that US Airways will just forget about it or something, and US Airways wants to point this out for all to see so that they can get things moving again.

One thing I do find very interesting is an article in USA Today which claims that US Airways will not fight for control of Delta if Delta management doesn’t want them to do so. Doug Parker made this statement at a meeting with USA Today reporters and editors yesterday. This seems very strange to me, because Delta management has been clear that they aren’t interested for months now. I’m not sure what would make Doug think that they’re going to change their minds, but maybe he knows more than we do.

The 757 is an aircraft that missed its calling. It was supposed to be a replacement for the 727 back in the 1980s. This meant its mission was for mid to longer-range domestic flights. The longest hauls were still the domain of the widebodies.

Delta seems to be on a neverending quest to spend lots of money to improve the customer experience. With that in mind, today’s announcement should be no surprise.

Beginning early 2008, Delta will install truly lie-flat seat in Business Elite, the airlines premium service on international flights. Not including Eos, which only flies between New York and London, Delta is the first US carrier to go with an all lie-flat product in business class.

They’ve chosen the seat pioneered by Virgin Atlantic in Upper Class a few years ago. Since that time, Air Canada and Air New Zealand have also purchased that seat. The unique feature of this seat is that it doesn’t face forward – it’s in a herringbone format so it’s angled inward. That allows them to fit more seats on the plane while giving a great deal of privacy. Here’s what it will look like:

As you can see, it’s a very nice looking product. Even though the seat has been bought from Virgin, this appears to be a slight change to their product. On Virgin, the seat back flips forward to turn into a bed. That makes a very comfortable bed even though the seat leaves a little to be desired. Upon reviewing Delta’s seat, it appears to work differently.

If you go to the press release, you can see more photos. From those pictures, it appears that this seat reclines into the bed position without flipping over. This may hurt the quality of the bed but the seat itself may be more comfortable. We’ll have to wait and see.

And yes, we’ll be waiting a long time. Early in 2008, only the two new long range 777s get the seats. The rest of the 777s don’t get it until fall 2008 and the 767s, the bulk of the airline’s international fleet, won’t be done until 2010.

Update (at 124p):

Silly me for reading the press release too fast. Delta used a little wordplay here:

“The airline also expects to offer a lie-flat option on its 767 aircraft. These modifications are expected to be complete by 2010.”

I took that to mean that the 767s would get the same lie-flat option, but it appears that they will get just “a lie-flat option.” This means it could be a different seat entirely, but no plans have yet been finalized. For now, it’s just the small fleet of 777s.