Cranky on the Web (August 16-20)

Aug 21, 2010

More Reading on This Topic: Allegiant, BNET, JetBlue, Labor Relations, LATAM, LAX – Los Angeles, Southwest

Weak July Traffic Shows Allegiant Lost Altitude – BNET Headwinds
Allegiant saw weaker traffic numbers in July. It’s not what you expect from an airline that continues to find ways to fill more and more seats.

LAN-TAM Merger: U.S. Carriers Sweat The Fate of Alliance Partners – BNET Headwinds
LAN and TAM are merging, and everyone wants to know which alliance the combination will choose. Could it be both?

how to keep your flight attendant from jumping off the plane – Antibride
Admittedly a fluffy story, but it’s a light-hearted look at how to treat a flight attendant onboard (with some serious points).

JetBlue’s All-You-Can-Jet Turns Back to Twitter to Fill Seats – BNET Headwinds
It’s baaaackk. JetBlue’s All You Can Jet has returned and the airline is relying on Twitter to get the word out.

Flight Attendant Demands May Block Southwest’s Push Toward Bigger Planes – BNET Headwinds
I thought Southwest’s announcement about getting a larger plane was odd, but I then I started looking at the labor angle.

How to Fix LAX By Bringing Alliance Partners Together< - BNET Headwinds
I admit it’s a reach, but LAX won’t be able to spend much money and this could be a big improvement for the customer.

Brett

9 responses to “Cranky on the Web (August 16-20)”

eponymous coward

Aug 21, 2010 at 8:24 am

I think Virgin America would be rightly pissed off at LAWA if they spent a bunch of their IPO cash to fix up their part of LAX T3, and then got kicked out so that Alaska (the company that wasted some of VX’s money in DOT proceedings) could reap the benefit.

It seems to me the airline that has the biggest problem in regards to transferring is AS, which will be fixed once they move to T6- in fact, LAWA has a tunnel connecting T5 with T4, so they can eliminate the AS-AA shuttles AND the AS-DL ones. (FWIW, AA is AS’s biggest codeshare partner, not DL.)

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1. eponymous coward
  
  Aug 21, 2010 at 8:25 am
  
  That should read “startup capital” instead of “IPO cash”.
  
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2. CF
  
  Aug 21, 2010 at 9:21 am
  
  Last I heard, the T4 to T5 tunnel wasn’t open and hadn’t been for years. So unless it’s a very recent change, you can’t get between the two without leaving security.
  
  While Alaska’s move helps their cause, it still doesn’t help people coming in on Air France/KLM who want to connect to Delta. It also doesn’t get the Star Alliance carriers anywhere near each other.
  
  Of course the Virgin airlines would have to be compensated. Much of what’s in T3 can be moved, and for them, they would probably also like the added benefit of being with Virgin Atlantic.
  
  Reply
  1. eponymous coward
    
    Aug 21, 2010 at 1:57 pm
    
    I’m not sure I’d be using LAX as a logical connection point for Skyteam TATL traffic compared to something NOT on the West Coast of the US (which implies at least some backtracking for anything other than SAN/SFO/SJC/PDX/SEA). But even if you do want to connect in the Western US, for AF, you have SEA, not to mention ATL, DTW, JFK, AND you can flow traffic on DL metal to SLC or MSP. All of these have arguably better connectivity on DL’s network (or in SEA’s case, partner networks) than LAX. For KL, if you want a non-KL destination in the US, you’re probably flowing your traffic on DL metal out of AMS to start with, seeing as DL has so much ex-AMS service to the USA.
    
    The argument’s probably stronger on TPAC stuff- except, whoops, VA and DL, not going to be anywhere close to each other on your proposed map. Aren’t they going to be codesharing now on their Australian service?
    
    The other thing is that DL can connect to Asia partners using NRT as opposed to LAX- plus a number of those Asian partners: KE, for example flies to SEA, NRT and ATL.
    
    It just seems to me that with LAX being such a huge O/D market, and the terminals being such huge piles of **** for transfers, you’re better off trying to use other airports for network connectivity than trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. AS really doesn’t have a choice because they run a N/S West Coast US network, but for other carriers… well, you DO have choices.
    
    Reply
    1. CF
      
      Aug 22, 2010 at 12:56 pm
      
      A great point, of course. It’s not the perfect place, but there are some good strategic connecting opportunities. The first, of course, is Tahiti on Air France. Then Delta also can bring people in from places like Vegas and San Francisco. It’s not a huge opportunity as this point, but since Delta decides to build up LA every few years, it might make more sense again in the future.
      
      Yeah, VA and Delta are together. So another good way to do this would be to connect T3 to Bradley behind security (like T4 and Bradley will be connected on the other side) and put the Virgin carriers over there. Then you can still have the unaligned guys over in Bradley and they’ll have great behind security connections to SkyTeam and oneworld carriers as well.
      
      I guess this isn’t mean to be a final blueprint but more of a jumping off point to discuss how to connect this better. Sure, there can be tweaks regarding who goes where, but the idea should be the same – promote better connectivity.
      
      Reply
Dan

Aug 22, 2010 at 8:40 pm

CF,

How would you get Delta to play ball with that move? It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been an LAX regular, but T5 is much nicer than T2. T2 is old, dumpy, has/had few good restaurants, and the NW lounge was terrible.

T5, OTOH, was much bigger, nicer, had better food options, and their Crown Room was far better than the NW lounge.

Delta would need a carrot to move back to T5, so what do you suggest that they be offered?

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Nicholas Barnard

Aug 23, 2010 at 1:09 am

Re: the Anti-Bride Piece. If you lose your cool and do something you shouldn’t, and realize it while that person is still around: APOLOGIZE.

I once let out a four letter word tirade as a College Freshman toward a US Airways Express employee who was doing her damndest to help us through an irregular operation. (The flight attendant didn’t show up.. sigh.) It really ticked her off at the time, but after I cooled down, I apologized which she appreciated.

Having worked in the service industry, I recognize that people do things they don’t intend to do, and I’m always grateful when they apologize, and willing to go more out of my way for them..

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David M

Aug 23, 2010 at 12:39 pm

LAX is such a big O&D market that I’m not sure that there’s a huge benefit to moving carriers around to facilitate intra-alliance connections. Probably what is needed is something similar to DFW’s SkyLink to provide airside connections serving all terminals. But of course this would be a major capital project which LAWA would probably have a difficult time funding after overspending on the Bradley renovations.

And with respect to Terminal 1 in particular, I think I once read a comment on another forum and would suspect that it is true that pretty much much the rest of the industry is quite content to see US Airways stay right where they are and keep Southwest constrained at LAX.

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Hole

Aug 25, 2010 at 10:30 pm

It seems unlikely that TAM and LAN will be able to stay in seperate alliances with a lot of the current restrictions on cross alliance codeshares and status mileage built into alliance charters. It will have to be one or the other, or maybe even SkyTeam if they sweeten the pot the way they did trying to woo JAL.

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