American started by ordering a couple of the 777-300ER aircraft awhile back, but it has now grown the order to include 10 airplanes. This will be the new flagship of the international fleet, which currently comprises 777-200s, 767-300s, and some 757-200s. Service starts next year to London, but that’s all we know. What’s so special about this airplane, which will have the most seats and longest range in the fleet?

“Wi-Fi capability to keep customers connected while traveling internationally”
American has domestic wifi, but it hasn’t talked about international wi-fi at all up until now. American wouldn’t comment on who would provide wifi.

“walk-up bar stocked with snacks and refreshments in the premium cabin will be a first for any U.S. airline “
Most US airlines haven’t been able to justify using space for a bar instead of just having more seats, but apparently American now feels otherwise.

“Entertainment options including up to 120 movies, more than 150 TV programs and more than 350 audio selections”
You can get audio/video on demand in the premium cabins, but the 767s and 757s still have overhead screens in coach. The 777s have looping movies in-seat, which is slightly better, but it’s nothing compared to what the new 777-300s will have.

“every seat will feature individual 110 volt AC power outlets and USB jacks”
Today, most of American’s international fleet has those cigarette lighter power ports that require adapters in the premium cabin. In coach, some airplanes have random seats with scattered access to power, but most have nothing.

“feature an updated and enhanced version of the customer-favorite Flagship Suite seat that transforms into a fully lie flat six-foot, eight-inch bed with drop-down armrests that allow for easier access and more sleeping space”
The 757s and 767s don’t have First Class, but the 777s do. This will just be an updated and improved version of that.

“Business Class cabin will also be outfitted with fully lie flat seats – all with aisle access”
Today, American offers that uncomfortable angled lie-flat seat that was obsolete the day it was announced. The airline is finally going to go to what I assume to be a truly flat bed. I say that I assume it’s flat, because the terminology used (“fully lie flat”) is a mix of the traditional “lie flat” (which means angled) and “fully flat” (which means fully flat). I couldn’t get any other information.

“monitor positioned in each Business Class suite”
The angled lie flat beds the airline has today uses a portable unit that’s fitted into a bracket on the seat. So American is getting rid of that and going back to an embedded system.

“Seats throughout Economy Class will have a higher recline pivot, providing increased knee room. The seat bottom will articulate”
This could go one of two ways. Cathay Pacific went with the seat that reclines into itself, and, well, people hate it with a passion. But the idea isn’t a bad one, if it’s done right. Will this be done right?

“American will also offer an Economy Class premium seat product, which will include additional legroom for seats in the forward portion of the cabin”
With United having Economy Plus and Delta having a similar Economy Comfort offering, it’s not a surprise that American is trying this. But will the seat be any different? Will the service be any different? Beats me. No other info was given, though it sounds like it will probably be the same seat.

Reading this, you probably have the same first question I did . . . . Will American roll this out to the rest of the fleet? No clue. I also found out there are no pictures available, and there are really no other details to be had. This announcement, full of tremendously interesting yet incomplete news, has to stand on its own for now. Bummer.

Other than the press release, I did see an email was sent to AAdvantage members, but there hasn’t been much media coverage. Why? No pictures and not a ton of details. Why would you announce such major enhancements like that if you’re American? This is a big deal, and it makes American at least competitive and at best a true leader when compared to its other US competitors. The lack of additional information just seems so strange.

Anyone else have any info about this? Because it sounds fantastic, assuming it happens.

[Hangar photo via Flickr user kevin dooley/CC 2.0]

United and Continental Merger Will Make Flying to Europe Easier – Conde Nast Daily Traveler
United is doing some interesting things with its new combined fleet, and that means new destinations from Dulles that couldn’t be served before.

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.

Flydubai took delivery of the airplane and it was immediately sent over to Paine Field in Everett where it would have the inflight entertainment system installed. You might remember Lumexis from my post a long time ago. That’s the company that introduced a fiber optic system that goes direct to the screen instead of via those bulky boxes that often block your legroom. The capacity of these wires is tremendous in that you can watch on a big screen in high definition. It’s a beautiful sight. The simple system makes it easier to install than a traditional inflight entertainment system, but it still does take time.

When the airplane gets to the installer’s hangar, it sits outside but is pulled forward into a bay where the nose sits (above). This allows the workers to get on and off the airplane inside – it also allows them to keep the seats nice and dry in the perenially-wet Pacific Northwest (below).

You can see the seats are all wrapped up – these are new seats that have the screens installed in them. (flydubai is also proud to say that these are the only seats with a painted seat recline button.)

Before these seats can go into the airplane, they have to install all the wiring. So walking in, we found an airplane that’s not nearly ready for primetime. We were early in the 3 day installation process so there was a lot of exposed area (below) that the customer will never see.

Some of this stuff was interesting to see from the side not usually seen by travelers. Below, you’ll see the back side of the passenger service units. You can see the air conditioning vents, the oxygen masks, and on the right, they’ve put life vests where the space is for a traditional drop-down screen for entertainment. (No need for those on this bird.)

The wiring itself comes from the front of the airplane where the head-end unit is installed. Wires go back through the ceiling so you’ll never see them, but there are surprisingly few wires anyway since fiber optics have a lot of capacity. Below is a shot of the entire bundle toward the front of the airplane. Wires start peeling off to go to each row until there’s nothing left in the bundle at the end of the airplane.

Some of those wires go off to power units in every few rows. These are in the sidewall of the airplane (below). They use electricity from the aircraft to power the entertainment systems. Since they sit in the sidewall, a passenger will never see them. Wires just come out to each row of seats from the unit, but that’s all covered well once the seats are installed.

That’s about it for the cabin. There are some units installed down in the avionics bay under the passenger floor. As you can see (below), they are small and barely take up any room down there.

And that’s really about it, believe it or not. Once they finish with this wiring, they can start putting the cabin back together. The seats will follow and then the system will work like magic, or something like that. This aircraft has certainly already been in Dubai for awhile, flying throughout the system which includes some pretty exotic places, by the way. I didn’t realize how quickly flydubai got big but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

If you want to try the Lumexis system for yourself, flydubai is your best bet right now. Transaero out of Russia is also installing the system and there are more on the way.

Something like Virgin America’s new system could replace wired systems. For the customer, it’s not really any different since there are still seatback screens. But when talking about wireless, most people are talking about providing a connection and maybe some content but then pushing the requirement for having a device on to the customer.

In one of the APEX education sessions, it was even proclaimed that the age of seatback devices would be over in five years. That’s just absurd.

It’s easy for a tech-savvy 20 or 30 something to say that airline provided devices won’t matter in five years, because that group is full of early adopters who already have the equipment needed to take advantage of any connectivity offered on an airplane. But what about the rest of the population? In five years, there will still be a tremendous number of travelers who can’t do it. Will the airlines just ignore them? No.

That doesn’t mean this won’t happen in 30 years, or even 20. As time goes on, there will be fewer people who aren’t connected. Eventually, it seems obvious to me that people will be able to provide their own devices and the airlines and entertainment companies can just focus on content. At most, they can offer some devices for rent while flying for the handful who will live under a rock 30 years from now (yet still fly).

That trend to focus on content is already starting to take hold. Both Gogo and Row 44 used to be pure internet providers. They provided the “pipe” and then travelers could take advantage of the web. But that wasn’t a long term strategy.

Gogo has launched its Gogo Vision offering which American has announced it will roll out on its entire wifi-equipped fleet. You can already try it out if you’re flying between JFK and both LAX and San Francisco on the airline. You’ll find a bunch of movies and TV shows available just like you would on a seatback system. Gogo charges from $.99 to $3.99 as introductory pricing – expect movies to probably settle around $6 or $7 in the long run.

This system doesn’t require signing up for internet access – that’s a separate option.

Meanwhile, Row 44 has also jumped into the content game. It’s a bit earlier for these guys so we don’t know what it’s going to look like yet, but we do know that several studios have signed up to allow Row 44 to stream their stored content to passengers, for a fee of course.

Row 44 has taken it a step further by offering streaming TV signals from the ground via the internet. A few stations including MSNBC, BBC World News, and Bloomberg have agreed to let the airline stream live TV to passengers. And there’s even a deal with Major League Baseball to stream live games.

As aircraft get higher internet bandwidth with newer technologies, these types of things will become even easier to deliver. LiveTV, the company that provides television on JetBlue and Continental, among others, is getting itself ready for this day.

Once it starts rolling out its first wifi-equipped aircraft next year (both JetBlue and the old Continental fleet have been committed to this), you would think it would be easy to just let people watch TV from their own devices. Heck, they don’t even need internet – they already have the pipe to the aircraft with TV so they just need a wireless access point to distribute it.

So what are the big drawbacks to people eventually bringing their own devices? I can think of two.

1. Power – If the airline doesn’t provide power, then passenger-provided devices will still not be ideal. There’s always talk about how batteries are getting better and better, but I don’t buy it. As batteries get better, usage goes up. Why does my phone today last for a shorter time than mine 10 years ago? The battery is better, but it uses a lot more juice. And then there’s the fact that people can’t guarantee that they’re fully charged before a flight. Power is still necessary.
2. The 10,000 foot problem – Airline provided systems can be used at any time, but passenger-provided devices can only be used above 10,000 feet. People really do want their “gate to gate” entertainment. Something will need to be figured out – maybe some sort of clamping device that can fix a personal device to the seatback. I’m not sure.

Eventually, these will all be worked out and the seatback entertainment device will be a thing of the past. I just think it’s going to take a long longer than the most aggressive proponents predict.

It was just a couple weeks ago that I wrote a column for CNN saying that the future of inflight entertainment might very well be a power outlet and a wifi connection. That’s almost exactly what American is angling for here. (At least, I hope the power outlet is part of the equation eventually.)

The way this works is simple. I spoke with Eric Lemond, GoGo’s VP of Product and Platform Management to get the full details. GoGo has a big server on the airplane with a ton of storage. (I’m told they could store 1,000 movies with what they have now.) Travelers will pop open their laptops and connect to the wireless network just as they would to go online. Then, each traveler can open up the browser to decide whether to purchase internet or whether to purchase the content stored on the airplane. American hasn’t announced pricing yet, so we don’t know what that will look like, but I imagine it will be less expensive than going online.

The initial plan is to have a library of movies and television available for people to stream. The streaming is done in your browser via Flash. You need to download a security plugin (that’s stored on the airplane) to prevent theft but that’s quick and then you’re ready to go. As of now, only laptops are supported. Mobile phone support is on the road map, but I wasn’t given a timeline. With the increasing use of mobiles, that needs to speed up quickly.

One of the biggest problems I see is that in order to watch the movie, you have to be connected to the internet for the payment to process. So if you’re on a flight from, say, Honolulu to LA, then you’re out of luck because there’s no internet access, even at the beginning. If, however, you’re going from, oh, Dallas to San Jose, Costa Rica, then you should have enough internet time at the beginning of the flight to buy the movie and watch it. Eric says that there is a roadmap that would allow people to eventually watch movies without that initial internet connection, but that’s down the line. You can, however, continue to watch a movie on the ground for a certain period of time after your flight, if you’re unable to finish it on the airplane. That’s a nice little bonus.

The other concern, of course, is around the quality of the streaming. If I get a “buffering” message every couple minutes, then this will fail. Eric says that GoGo has that under control. Since the streaming is all happening on the airplane and doesn’t require the air-to-ground connection, it’s a lot easier to make it work. Now, if 150 people all decided to watch the same movie within 5 minutes of each other, then performance might be degraded, but Eric says they can use engineering as necessary to increase capacity as demand grows.

Of course, for this to be worthwhile, American needs to commit to wifi instead of half-committing as it’s done so far. That is changing with this announcement. Today, American has wifi on its fleet of 767-200s that fly between the west coast and east coast. Two of those airplanes will be the ones doing the streaming test. American also has wifi on 150 of its MD-80s and will install it on 50 more. (That will leave less than 50 without wifi, but those will be retired sooner rather than later.)

Today, only 43 of the airline’s 737-800s have wifi, and that’s only about a third of the fleet. I asked American when the 737 fleet would be done, and I was given PR-speak: “American continues to install Wi-Fi service on 737-800 aircraft and the entire fleet is expected to be outfitted overtime.” Um, ok. These installs take very little time at all, so I have no clue why this is taking so long and why an estimate on when the fleet will be done is unavailable.

But the biggest issue for American has been the lack of wifi on the 757 fleet. Now, the 93 757s used for domestic flights (the rest do international like east coast to Europe) will get wifi as well. That should be done by the end of 2012.

The end result is that the entire mainline domestic fleet will have wifi. Unlike Delta, American has no plans to install wifi on its large regional jets (or its small regional jets, for that matter). And international, of course, will continue to not have wifi because GoGo is ground-based.

But as I said, this is just the start. GoGo says that there is the ability to have gaming, audio, and other rich media on the server, so it’s just a matter of figuring out what the airlines want to offer. This definitely seems like the smart way forward to me. Of course, this again makes powerports even more important. When are we gonna hear an announcement about full 110V power throughout the airplane, American? Those cigarette lighter ports in some rows just don’t cut it.

In the Trenches: Making a Pricing Change the Right Way – Intuit Small Business Blog
We’re looking at some pricing changes for Cranky Concierge, and I’m kicking the effort off this week.

The announcement said that United had signed a letter of intent with LiveTV to put wifi onboard more than 200 Continental airplanes. This deal is for Ka band satellite, the super fancy, cheap, and fast version of satellite internet that JetBlue said it would install last year, though it’s not yet operational anywhere. In the past, neither United nor Continental had seen it worthwhile to put internet onboard except on United’s tiny fleet of p.s. airplanes that fly between JFK and both LA and San Francisco. So what’s changed?

Continental signed up long ago to put LiveTV on most of its domestic fleet. There are already 165 airplanes with this onboard and another 53 scheduled to get it. That means a total of 218 airplanes, or the “more than 200″ that will get wifi per the announcement. I assume every airplane with LiveTV will end up with wifi as part of this deal.

So has United seen the light and decided that, like Delta, it thinks wifi is important for the future? I’m not so sure. One of the big questions surrounding this merger is what will happen to the onboard product on the domestic fleet. It seems that the TVs on the Continental fleet are safe for now, but did LiveTV have to pony up to make that happen? While JetBlue has signed up for this internet offering already (as it should since it owns LiveTV), it’s not operational anywhere yet. But LiveTV is high on this, and it was also probably quite concerned about the possibility of losing its TV contract with the new United.

So did LiveTV give United a sweetheart deal on internet to a) keep its TVs onboard and b) help build the buzz around the internet offering? It seems quite possible to me. And that’s probably a smart business move on LiveTV’s part. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that United is sold on internet. If it was, I imagine that we would have seen a complete announcement about the domestic fleet and not just a partial one.

What does this mean for the future of entertainment on United? It does seem clear that TV is going to stay for now, but whether it will be expanded or not is entirely unclear. The incompleteness of this announcement is why I figure that LiveTV made United and offer it couldn’t refuse. And since this is an LOI, there’s no guarantee that even this will happen. Hopefully the coming months will bring us more on the direction that United is going to take.

It’s no surprise that the different product standards emerged. Regional airlines were originally meant to fly short hops into small towns. Would you have expected First Class on that 19-seat prop flying 30 minutes from Dubuque? Probably not. But regionals changed.

The invention of the 50-seat jet started to push airlines to use them on longer routes. I remember seeing 50-seaters on routes like Cincinnati to Colorado Springs, routes that are over 1,000 miles and certainly in need mainline comfort levels. But the 50-seat jets were tiny and spartan and not much was going to change since they still predominantly flew shorter haul flights anyway.

When the regionals started flying 70- and 90-seat jets under the big airline brands, that was the breaking point. The line became too blurry between mainline and regionals on the route map but the product still lagged. Sometimes, airlines thought that was good. America West even went as far as putting First Class on its 70-seat jets and then later opting to fly 90-seat jets instead with an all-coach configuration (something that lives on today with US Airways). Two airlines, however, have worked to bring the standard of flying on larger regional jets up, United and Delta. It’s no surprise that these two would be the leaders since they have the biggest fleets of 70- and 90-seat jets.

For United, the integration was an awkward effort. Instead of trying to bring it up to a mainline standard, the airline invented a new brand called explus. Then again, this was around the time when United thought it was fun to brand everything different (Ted, p.s., etc). I don’t know if the brand is even still used, but the product differentiation is still there. The 70-seaters do offer First Class, but it’s not what you’ll get on mainline flights. You will, for example, get a meal on flights over 2 hours as on mainline, but your “meal” will be a snack box. Not quite the same.

The differences also exist in the back of the bus. While you can buy a snack box on mainline flights, you won’t have that option on United Express. You’ll also get no inflight entertainment at all no matter where you’re sitting. It’s just not the same experience.

Delta, however, is trying to bring the products together closer. As with United, all of the 70- and 90-seat jets will have First Class, but on Delta, those travelers now get meals on china with linens and silverware. It may not be the same food (I don’t actually know) as on mainline but it will be a similar experience. And now, Delta will be putting wireless internet on all of the 70- and 90-seat jets flying the Delta brand.

Over the years, the introduction of 70- and 90-seat jets has pushed most of the 50-seat jets back on to smaller, shorter routes. Cincinnati-Colorado Springs is no longer operated as part of the incredible shrinking hub, but Cincinnati to Denver is on a 70-seat jet. Since the 50-seaters are moving back to where they belong (though arguably, you can say they belong parked in the desert), that lets Delta set a service standard.

Delta has previously said that it wanted to have individual screens at each seat on flights over 4 hours in length. No regional jet is currently flying that far, so it’s not an issue. But now, Delta is saying that any flight longer than 2.5 hours will have First Class and wireless internet available. Anything less than 2.5 hours and the bet is off, but really, it doesn’t matter on the short flights. Delta realizes it’s not worth outfitting a bunch of 50-seaters with wifi because the flights are too short.

So now, the regional experience is creeping ever closer to the mainline experience. Mainline pilots will likely tell you that you aren’t getting the same level of safety when you fly on a regional, but that’s a topic for another time. In terms of onboard product, the two are finally heading towards one.

[Original photos via Wikimedia Commons user Craig/CC-BY-SA-3.0 and Flickr user cliff1066™/CC 2.0]