Last week I wrote about how Delta had cut back on awarding elite qualifying miles. Most notably, travelers who purchase tickets on Korean will no longer be able to earn elite qualifying miles in Delta’s program at all. Delta kept pointing to its email statement saying that each airline determines if it participates with Delta, so I assumed Delta jacked up the compensation it required and Korean balked.

I was wrong. (And apparently Delta is, at best, bending the truth about how these decisions are made.)

I’ve heard from multiple sources now that, in fact, Delta simply shut it off. Korean wasn’t given an option. Airline Weekly suggests that this is a pressure tactic by Delta to try to push Korean to form a joint venture, and I’ve heard others speculate the same.

What do you think is going on here?

I never thought I’d see the day, but United has finally finished outfitting its international fleet with flat beds in business class. This is a truly momentous milestone considering that the process started when I still worked at United and that was more than 8 years ago. But there are still some tricks to what you’ll get when you fly, so let’s go over all those quirks.

Fully Flat in Business Class
This doesn’t really need to be said, but while this announcement is just about Business Class, if you’re flying in First Class internationally, you will also have a flat bed. Anything that’s sold as First Class outside the US will be flat no matter what unless there is some kind of last second aircraft substitution. In that case, you’d be downgraded to business class and have to be unlucky enough to be put on one of the few non-flat beds that aren’t supposed to fly long haul. I’ll just say the chances of that are approaching zero. It’s only First Class seats sold domestically that won’t be flat. Every so often, however, you might get lucky to get a domestic flat bed, especially between the hubs. (And if you’re on JFK to LA or San Francisco, that will be flat.)

Fully Flat Seats
Let’s get to the meat, the seats themselves United has now gone fully flat, but there are two separate types of beds being used depending upon whether it was a pre-merger United seat or a pre-merger Continental seat.

The easiest ones to figure out are the 747, 767-400, and 787 fleets. If you’re flying the 747, you get the pre-merger United seat no matter what. Those are a bit narrower than the Continental seats and have less storage. They also alternate facing forwards and backwards. The 767-400 and the 787 have the pre-merger Continental seats. Easy. Done.

The 757-200 is a little tougher but not much. If you’re flying a 757 to Europe or Latin America, then it has the Continental seats. Otherwise, you’re probably flying it domestically and it will usually have domestic-style seats. If you want to be sure, look at the seat map online and see how many rows of business class there are. If there are 6, that’s domestic-style. Otherwise, you’ll have a flat bed.

The 767-300 fleet gets a bit more complex. (The 767-200 is now gone, so I’m ignoring those.) You will have some kind of flat bed no matter what. If the airplane has 2-2-2 across, it’s the old United seat. If it has 2-1-2 across, then it’s the Continental seat.

Then there’s the 777 fleet, the most complex of them all. If you see a configuration of 2-4-2 across, that’s the very narrow pre-merger United flat bed seat. If it’s 2-2-2 across and goes to row 11, it’s the more comfortable Continental seat. But beware. There are 777s out there that still have domestic-style seats. Those are now confined to Hawai’i and Micronesia, but I would think that if an airplane goes mechanical, they could always sub one of those if needed on shorter international flights. (Those airplanes have limited range.) If you have just 6 rows of 2-2-2, that’s the domestic-style seat. By the way, they say the old cradle seats are gone (2-3-2 configuration), but I see them in service flying SFO to Honolulu today and on to Narita tomorrow. So they’re still out there for now, though the intention must be to keep them on shorter intra-Pacific flights until they’re gone. That doesn’t mean they can’t end up being subbed.

Fully Flat on Long Haul
Of course, we have to differentiate here because only long haul flights are getting the flat bed, but what constitutes long haul? First off, flights within North America and the Caribbean do not count as long haul. Those will mostly be regular domestic-style seats. That even stretches into northern South America as well. If you’re flying from Houston to Bogota or Quito, that’s a domestic seat. Lima, however, is a flat bed. Any flight to Europe or Asia from the continental US will have flat beds. But there are some longer flights within Asia, like Narita to Hong Kong, that are domestic-style. These are easy to find because they are operated primarily by 737-800s. As a general guide, if you are flying internationally and the flight is scheduled to be over 6 hours long, that means you’ll get a flat bed. But there are some exceptions…

Fully Flat from North American Hubs
United was clear to say that flat beds will only be offered from North American hubs and on the outlier Seattle to Narita route. But what else is there in the United system? This one is all about Asia. As mentioned, there are flights from Honolulu to Narita without flat beds. That’s an 8+ hour flight. There are also plenty of flights going to and from Guam on the old Continental Micronesia system. Those won’t have flat beds. Why not? Because those are huge tourist routes that either don’t cater to the business traveler (Honolulu-Narita) or just don’t have enough demand to justify it (Guam routes). That doesn’t mean you won’t get a flat bed at all, so make sure to check out the seat maps using the guidelines above just in case. But the chances of a flat bed on that intra-Pacific flying are pretty slim.

Did I confuse you enough? The reality is that the basic premise of having a flat bed is pretty straightforward. But now you have a little more info to figure out which flat bed you’ll have.

[Original Continental seat photo via United]
[Original United seat photo via Flickr user Alan Light/CC 2.0]

Yesterday, American announced its new post-US Airways merger senior management team, and the result is pretty much as I had expected. Actually, scratch that. It’s as I had hoped it would be. Let me explain what I mean by that.

See, I figured that the new team would look a lot like US Airways today, but I wasn’t sure how many of the quality existing American folks could be convinced to stick around. With this announcement, we see that some of the best in American’s senior ranks have decided to stay. That says to me that they are buying into the merger plan and want to be a part of it, and that is a good sign.

Some of the early headlines screamed how there were 5 people from US Airways and 3 from American, so it was a more balanced approach. But all you need to do is look at the positions to see that’s not true. The top leadership positions are all filled by US Airways people. Here’s the org chart they posted in a company newsletter yesterday.

Looking at this chart, it looks a lot like America West back before it took over US Airways. You have Doug Parker at the top (which we already knew) and Scott Kirby as President. Robert Isom will run operations, Steve Johnson will be on top of corporate affairs, Derek Kerr will head finance, and Elise Eberwein will be in charge of the HR and communications groups. The team that made US Airways what it is today will continue to lead the new American.

What about on the American side? Well, Bev Goulet is going to be in charge of the integration, but that’s obviously not an ongoing position. I would assume she’ll stick around for a couple of years to facilitate the process and then retire. Then again, that company newsletter said Bev flew 50 flights between Dallas and New York last year alone as part of her restructuring role. How she isn’t sick of all this and dreaming of sitting on a beach with a fruity drink in hand is beyond me. That’s dedication to the cause.

The one American employee who will report to Doug Parker on a permanent basis is Maya Leibman as Chief Information Officer. Readers of the blog know that I’m a fan, so I’m really glad to see that she decided to join the new team. I think US Airways and American have somewhat different views on the role of IT, so it will be very interesting to see what this organization looks like a year down the line. I would like to think that it will be a good thing.

Lastly, we have the legendary Will Ris running government affairs. (He’ll report to Steve Johnson.) Will has been with American for over 15 years, and he knows his way around Washington extremely well. Will is a regular at the Phoenix Aviation Symposium, and he cracked everyone up this year. When Doug Parker snuck in the room before his panel, Will was on stage and immediately started commenting on how Doug Parker was the best looking CEO in the industry. He knows how to work a room, and he’s been a huge asset for American over the years. Great move getting him to join as well.

All of this means that very few US Airways folks are out at the top (though that’s probably not comforting to current US Airways CIO Brad Jensen). On the American side, however, it’s a major house-cleaning. Of course, Horton is out as soon as the next board meeting occurs. Chief Financial Officer Bella Goren is gone, as are Denise Lynn (SVP People), Gary Kennedy (SVP, General Counsel), Jim Ream (SVP Ops), and Virasb Vahidi (Chief Commercial Officer). We also know that longtime American exec and current president of American Eagle Dan Garton is losing his job.

While I would imagine that most of these people weren’t offered roles in the new airline, that’s not true for everyone. Jon Snook, VP of Customer Service for American was offered a job in the new organization and walked away. In the letter he wrote to his team, he said he had an offer “to take a different role,” but he didn’t want it.

So now the top management team is set, and it’s time to start rolling this down to lower levels. I’m particularly interested to see what they decide for Scott Kirby’s direct reports. US Airways doesn’t really do much marketing at all, and both airlines duke it out for least-liked sales organization. Those are roles that I’m particularly interested in seeing filled. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see people come in from the outside.

Once we get to middle management levels, I would assume we’ll start to see a lot more people coming from both airlines. The top leadership sets the tone, and people underneath will have the opportunity to follow, regardless of which side they’re on today. But at the top, the vision is clear, and it’s coming from Arizona.