3 Links I Love: Airline Dorks, Santa Barbara Struggles, JetBlue Marketing Win

Oct 28, 2016

More Reading on This Topic: Airports, JetBlue, Links I Love

This week’s featured link:
Eyes Aloft – The Sublime Obsession of Plane Spotting – VQR
This is good long look at the airline dorks of the world. You know, AvGeeks, spotters, enthusiasts, etc. I always love when there’s an outside look at something many of us know so well. As an added bonus, there are some photos by Mike Kelley. If you don’t know Mike Kelley’s stunning work, you should.

Links I Love

Two for the road:
Stiff Headwinds for Santa Barbara Airport – Santa Barbara Independent
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A small to mid-size airport builds a fancy new terminal and it sits way under-utilized. Oh, you have heard it before? Well, here’s another article tackling the issue; this time in Santa Barbara.

JetBlue’s Elizabeth Windram Wins Adweek’s 2016 Grand Brand Genius Award – AdWeek
Here’s a spotlight on JetBlue’s great marketing work under its head of brand and advertising. I’m not sure how I missed the FlyBabies one highlighted in here, but it was brilliant.

Brett

15 responses to “3 Links I Love: Airline Dorks, Santa Barbara Struggles, JetBlue Marketing Win”

GringoLoco

Oct 28, 2016 at 4:53 am

The link to the Eyes Aloft article does not work here nor in the email. Proper link:

http://www.vqronline.org/reporting-articles/2016/10/eyes-aloft

Happy Weekend!

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1. CF
  
  Oct 28, 2016 at 7:56 am
  
  Yes thank you. I’ve fixed in the post.
  
  Reply
LT_DT

Oct 28, 2016 at 7:58 am

Cranky – If you like Mike Kelley’s aviation art, check out Jeffrey Milstein. He has a book that’s very cool, but appears to be out of print.

https://www.amazon.com/AirCraft-Jet-Art-Jeffrey-Milstein/dp/081099285X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268332833&sr=8-1

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James

Oct 28, 2016 at 9:56 am

Here’s another good article on planespotters https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewmcmillen/things-are-looking-up-for-planespotters-the-worlds-most-obse

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Georjet

Oct 28, 2016 at 10:02 am

I have been plane spotting since I was old enough to recognize an airliner. Just like a moth to a flame….I live in a small mountain town with an “International Airport” that has about 15 flights a day. I used to live in the bay area and spent countless hours at SFO and SJC. My favorite was an Aeroflot IL-62 departing San Francisco sometime back in 1997 or so. I could hear it before I could see it come around the bend at the international terminal. Most recently at my small “International Airport” which isn’t exactly a plane spotters heaven, there was a Qatar Airways A330-300 parked remotely. Thank god for you tube…..I spend a regular amount of time each day checking out the great spotters who post.

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syvjeff

Oct 28, 2016 at 10:16 am

There are two sides of the Santa Barbara Airport story released over the last week or so. The Independent caters to the readers who fear change and the building of a new terminal is one of the regular targets. KEYT Television who is a SB Chamber of Commerce Cheerleader, just reported a couple days ago the airport’s numbers increased this Summer.

The old terminal was “quaint” to say the least and TSA was literally shoved in there post 9/11. It needed to be replaced but they did build it bigger than I expected while taking advantage of low municipal interest rates and a slow construction economy.

However Santa Barbara is a tertiary market and with the airlines being careful with their pennies, a pilot shortage and changes of equipment being flown into airports like this, total numbers will dip from an airline high a decade ago. Santa Barbara does benefit of a well-off clientele, decent sized college only steps away and a good tourism base.

I live 30 minutes North of Santa Barbara and 30 Minutes South of Santa Maria and Santa Barbara’s ticket prices are usually $200-$300 more than LAX. I’m writing this while sitting at LAX waiting for a Mokulele flight to Santa Maria giving that a try.

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Miss Informed

Oct 28, 2016 at 11:48 am

Syvjeff’s comment makes me wonder how many times I’ve seen people in airports who appeared to be busy working but were actually commenting here. Maybe there should be a club beanie with a propeller on top and little plastic jet exhausts on the side. Not sure what the color should be — maybe orange like a black box?

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syvjeff

Oct 28, 2016 at 12:01 pm

Miss Informed – You caught me :-) Luckily I’m self employed so no boss to look busy for while I pound thoughts away on my laptop on AV Geek blogs.

Other than my bright yellow Redoxx Skytrain carry on, I have the look of a “I wanna get home on a Friday” guy.

Btw – I wanna get home. Weather today delayed Mokulele flight 2 hours. They are very helpful and I find the Caravan to be more comfortable than an EMB-120 or RJ50.

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Frankie

Oct 28, 2016 at 1:13 pm

So Cranky, how do you feel then about Burbank’s proposed expansion (more of a replacement rebuild, really, since number of gates is intended to be the same)? An unnecessarily costly project for little benefit? A basically federally mandated rebuild? A good idea for modernization purposes?

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1. CF
  
  Oct 28, 2016 at 3:43 pm
  
  Frankie – I don’t know the details of the plan, but I’m completely behind the idea of building a new terminal. The current one is dangerously close to the runway and the holdrooms are too small. I’m not against building.
  I’m against building more than is needed.
  
  Reply
Dave

Oct 28, 2016 at 1:56 pm

Cranky, you gotta realize that building airports does not make a city a better tourist attraction. Unfortunately Santa Barbara hasn’t figured that out yet. Nor has such far-flung places as Duluth, Marion, IL and a host of others.

In Illinois, flushed with cash that we are, we built an airport near St. Louis hoping we’d grapple away the regional airport from Missouri. Guess how that one worked out? The state tried to do the same thing in the lovely close-in to Chicago burg of Peotone, Wiser heads prevailed and raw political power quashed Peotone and made it the cornfield it is.

This overbuilding of airports deserves a Cranky Jackass award with several turd clusters! What do you think?

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1. CF
  
  Oct 28, 2016 at 3:45 pm
  
  There are too many bad airport projects out there. Can’t award the Cranky Jackass to them all! There are some good ones as well, which should get awards. JetBlue’s T5 is probably my favorite example.
  
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  1. Dave
    
    Oct 28, 2016 at 9:01 pm
    
    I suppose you are right. We don’t want doofusness deflation in the airline industry. Awarding a Cranky to every overbuilt, underutilized airport I’ve been in during the past three years along would exponentially increase the number of Cranky Jackasses.
    
    As Wayne and Garth once said, “We’re not worthy…”
    
    Reply
2. SingBlue
  
  Oct 29, 2016 at 11:07 pm
  
  There was an issue of over-building airports many years ago in South Korea. In fact, I recall way-back when I sent a link to Cranky, as I was living and working in Asia at the time. Could never figure out what the strategy was, but here’s an old link from CBS debating it (and drawing amusing parallels with the situation States-side).
  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-many-korean-airports-are-being-built/
  
  Reply
Bill Hough

Oct 28, 2016 at 2:16 pm

The expression “ETTS” (everything turns to …) applies to Santa Barbara. For a look back to the good olde days at SBA see https://airwaysmag.com/magazine/santa-barbara-early-1980s/

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