In 2003, I found myself sitting in the Business Elite cabin on a 767 going from JFK to San Francisco on Delta. It was a very nice ride, but that service was soon discontinued. Delta has tried a few things between New York and LA/SF, but for the most part it has been a standard domestic service. That’s going to change once again.

Flights between JFK and both LA and SF will now be on internationally-configured 757s. That means you’ll get audio/video on demand in the 158 seats in the back of the bus and international Business Elite in the 16 seats up front. LA will be up and running here in early September but it looks like SF won’t be fully outfitted with the new aircraft until late October.

This is not only a product improvement but it’s a capacity increase. Delta has been flying a mix of 757s and 737s on these routes lately, and now they’ll be all 757. So what’s behind this increase in capacity and improvement in product? Remember, they want to “win” New York.

United has ps and American flies its 767-200s between New York and SF/LA, both of which have an international three cabin product. So this enables Delta to try to compete for some of that business, though the product will still be inferior to what the other two are offering. At least it will now be in the same category.

If that’s not good enough, Delta probably has some spare 757s sitting around. As we head into winter, the already bad international travel market is going to start looking even worse. So Delta can pull those 757s off of weak international routes and put them on less weak domestic routes instead. I tend to think this won’t be a winner if you look at the bottom line, but if they want to “win” New York, as they like to say, they need to do something to compete in these markets.

I doubt this will be enough to steal away the corporate business from United and American, but it very well be less of a loss maker than sticking them on Transatlantic routes during the long winter ahead.

The big thing at NBTA seems to be showing off seats. Dozens of airlines seemed to have brought their seats with them to make the travel managers drool. While most simply showed off the best seats onboard, others brought everything from coach all the way up. When I stopped by American, I was particularly interested in their new coach seat which is being installed on new 737-800s and some 757s as well. After all, I spend most of my time in coach, so that’s where I get most interested.

The new seat doesn’t recline like a traditional seat. It now actually slides a little forward and up while reclining less than it used to. This gives a very slight cradling feeling when you’re sitting there. Here’s a short 30 second video I took for those who aren’t familiar with the seat.

I know other airlines have moved this way, but I’ve heard mixed reviews. American’s display was quite misleading because there was no seat in front of you. That meant that when the seat moved slightly forward, you still had a ton of leg and knee room. Obviously, that’s a different story than when you’re on the plane.

Who out there has opinions on this? Is this new design any good or do you prefer the old way of doing things?

(And no, you can’t have it where you get the old seats but the person in front of you gets the new ones that don’t recline very far.)

There was an interesting survey that came out earlier this month showing that people hate the middle seat far more than I could ever imagine. While I usually like to blame the surveyor, I think this is a case of the respondents not telling the truth.

Let’s start with the responses that make sense. Eighty percent of travelers say they try to avoid the middle seat and only 1% say they prefer it. (Who the heck are those 1%?) But those numbers don’t sound too far off. It also says that 56% would rather be stuck in traffic or go on a blind date. Ok, not so bad. Then it runs into trouble.

Apparently 50% of people would take an aisle seat on the next flight over a middle seat on their current flight. And even more astounding, 20% said they would stay overnight if they could avoid a middle seat on their flight. A full 9% said they would outright refuse a middle seat. Are you freakin’ kidding me?!? I can certainly see a few random big and tall folks being willing to stay overnight, but not 20%. That’s insane.

In this case, the surveyor doesn’t really have a skin in the game. It was put out by 3M Privacy Filters. You know those things – they go over your computer screen so that someone sitting close to you can’t look over your shoulder and see what you’re doing. All they care about is that middle seats exist, because that’s when you really need them. They don’t care if you like them or not.

So I think the respondents here aren’t being truthful. This survey was administered online, and it’s really easy to say you’d wait for the next flight when you’re answering from the comfort of your home. You go find me someone with a middle seat boarding pass waiting to board a flight and then you’ll get dramatically different answers.

In fact, let’s throw a survey out here and see what you guys think. Airline employees shouldn’t answer this one. As a former nonrev pro, I know the correct answer for an airline employee is “I will take absolutely any seat you give me as long as it gets me closer to home.”

(If you can’t see the survey, go directly to the post)

By the way, possibly the most disturbing thing in this survey was that only 6% of people said the middle seat gets both armrests. I imagine this may generate the most discussion down below, but that is the correct answer. If you’re stuck in the middle, you get both armrests. It’s a small consolation, yes, but it’s the least you deserve. Just don’t go trying to raise that armrest . . . .

Uh oh. It looks like United has decided to delay its refurbishment of the premium cabins on the 777 once again. Now they won’t even start until February 2010, so the problem of dramatically different premium cabin experiences is bound to continue for quite some time.

The 767s are complete, and the 747s are almost there. They say 18 out of 24 aircraft are done with the full 747 fleet being finished by October this year. But those 777s, well, they’ll continue to limp along with the old product. Here’s how things will look when the 747s are done in a couple months.

So what’s the excuse this time? Money. In an internal memo, they blame two things, but I’m not buying the first.

While our International Premium Travel Experience (IPTE) aircraft continue to double our customer satisfaction scores, and the modifications continue to progress well, the B777 program is more complex than the B767 and B747 programs, given the three different B777 sub-fleets. In addition,
we are facing a challenging year due to the global recession, changing market demand and increasing fuel prices.

Uh huh. This thing has been delayed so many times that I find it hard to believe that the complexity is still causing the problem here. Instead, I’ll put my bet on the little blurb that followed:

The decision to postpone the start of the work also allows us to better control our costs in 2009, helping us maintain a stronger cash flow through the historical trough period of the fourth quarter.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! They say you have to spend money to make money, but how does that work when you don’t have money to spend? Sadly, the 777s make up a bit more than half the fleet, so the cost savings here are likely to turn into revenue pain as people look toward other airlines with better options.

It looks like US Airways is planning on rolling out a new business class seat for its A330-200 aircraft. Runway Girl broke the news last week from the Paris Air Show when she sat in the supposed seat, but I spoke with US Airways and while they admit a new seat is in the works, this might not be it.

US Airways spokesperson Morgan Durrant confirmed for me that they are going to introduce a new international business class seat on the A330-200 from Sicma. But will it be the seat that Runway Girl sat in at the show? Not quite. I couldn’t get many details out of them. In fact, they wouldn’t even confirm that it would be lie-flat, but they did say that as the first customer for whatever seat this may be, not everything is finalized yet.

Let’s assume that it’s similar to the set-up that is being shown in Paris. If that’s the case, it’s pretty awesome. They’re using a reverse herringbone design, which besides sounding like a complicated sexual position is also an interesting idea for seat configuration. The herringbone is what you saw pioneered by Virgin Atlantic where the seats angle the feet toward the aisle. The reverse herringbone has the feet angle away from the aisle. That keeps heads further apart in the middle, and it gives you a better view on the window.

So it’s entirely possible that US Airways will have a pretty cool product here. When will we know more? According to Morgan, hopefully sometime in the Fall. And will we see this on any other airplanes? Staying true to form, he wouldn’t confirm that either. Bummer.

See some more pictures of the alleged new US Airways seat at BusinessTraveller.