Asleep at the stick

Well, I know I've been asleep at the stick for a while, but I'm back in the blogging groove, so here's a quick catch up to end the year in style.

Talk about asleep at the stick, this story is amazing and scary. I guess it's true when they say those auto pilots are so sophisticated that the planes can fly themselves!

On the flying and environment front, here's some good news! I'm waiting for the day that we run these things on old Chinese food oil. Imagine 10 hours with the delicious smell of General Tso in your nose.

Believe it or not the Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights is still not moving anywhere in Congress. Continuing to deny flying passengers the right to get off a plane after hours of waiting is insanely stupid and leads to story after story of needless inconvenience and annoyance. I just don't get why the same folks that can figure out how to safely fly millions around the world, can't figure out how to deplane a 100 people over the course of 9 hours. Somethings just not right about that.

Anyway, the blog will be back with more frequent updates in 2009, for all five of you reading!

New York traffic jams

Today's New York Times notes that despite restrictions on take offs and landings at the New York City airports, delays continue through this summer. While much of the article speaks to problems associated with weather and labor disputes, the real problem is buried in the last paragraph of the story. The only way to decrease the traffic jams in New York City is to build additional runways with new approach and departure routes. However, these advances are being blocked by communities worried about the noise. This NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) problem is pretty disgraceful, considering that catering to a few cranky New Yorkers' noise complaints ends up causing massive delays that ripple throughout the entire air traffic system. I like my peace and quiet just as much as the next guy (so much that I moved from New York to Vermont), but New Yorker's can't expect to have a first rate air system that is conveniently located and accessible, without enduring a rumble or two of an airplane every now and again. I mean what's the big deal, I grew up in the flight pattern of Burlington International Airport, and look at how well adjusted I am!

The future?

Interesting little piece about using solar panels on planes to lower fuel costs. This is the type of innovation that we need if we're going to break the strangle hold oil has over the airline industry, our economy and our lives. The sad thing is, we could have been developing innovations like this decades ago if folks had the political will to do it. Sad that it takes an economic crisis to make us realize that we have to look beyond our reliance on a fuel source that will some day run out.

What 30-300 million will get you

Sick of the constant hassles, the nickel and dimming, the old planes, the lack of amenities, the in-flight brawls between airline staff and passengers, well take a looksy at how the super-duper rich do it. We're not talking souped up Cessnas or ticked out Gulfstreams, we're talking entirely retrofitted 737s, 747, 777s, and A-380s! It's pretty incredible to think that any single person could actually own their own 747, and not many do, but as the rich get richer by the day, their toys get bigger and brighter and flashier, and I expect we'll see more and more private ownership of these super jets. In fact, all my google searching, gmail emailing, and blogger postings helped Larry Page and Serge Brin (founders of google) pay for their own Boeing jet. I have to say, I don't really care about getting rich, BUT, I wouldn't be sad at all if one or two of my friends happened to earn a Bill or two allowing me to hitch a ride on their modest 747 every now and again. So c'mon friends, get back to making those Benjamins!

"You never know when they're going to not work right"

That was the quote from American Airline spokeswoman rationalizing why an MD-80 had to make an emergency landing yesterday in Dallas. In an age when passengers are frustrated, annoyed, concerned, angry, basically anything but satisfied and happy travelers, it's not the best PR to tell us that at any time a plane could just stop working. How about something like this: at American we hold the highest standards for the maintenance of our planes, and are committed to doing everything we can to keep the traveling public safe. A simple statement that lets us know that when we strap in, the company has done everything it can to look out for us. Flippant statements like the one made by American really makes me question whether I would fly their airline. Passenger satisfaction has a lot to do with confidence in the airline, and while I'm sure that American and most airlines do a great job on maintenance at the end of the day the failure to let us know the steps they take to keep us safe is a failure unto itself.

Birthplace of aviation?

A week or so ago the New York Times ran an article about foreign airlines increased introduction of economy plus, a hybrid between business and economy class. For almost a decade airlines like Virgin Atlantic have been offering this service, which includes many of the amenities of business class without the soul crushing price. Like the super budget airlines used by European travelers for so long and only recently introduced through the Southwests and JetBlues, U.S. airlines are late in the game when it comes to economy plus or anything really innovative. How could it be that in the birthplace of aviation, we get out hustled, out innovated, out maneuvered at every turn.

I have a theory on what's going on. As a result of deregulation and the public trading of airlines, the only concern airlines have had over the last 20-30 years has been profit margins, quarter by quarter, year by year. Let's just look at what this mentality has done for the industry: old planes, terrible service, bankrupt airlines, safety concerns, little to no innovation, and interestingly enough, very low stock prices and terrible profits. These problems have all come post-deregulation and to deny the connection and wrap ourselves in the cloak of deregulation and unbridled free market innovation, not only denies reality, but will allow competitors across the world to continue to surpass the U.S. airline industry by every conceivable benchmark.

Obama's Plane

Earlier today Obama's plane had to make an "emergency" landing because an emergency slide in the rear cone of the plane deployed during flight. The deployment impacted the pilot's ability to steer. The article about the incident says that he was flying on a 1981 MD-80, the same planes that, in recent days, have been taken out of service because of myriad problems. Call me crazy, but I think that after raising hundreds of millions of dollars the Obama campaign could splurge for a campaign plane that was a little more modern and reliable. Jeesh, I mean it's the future President of the United States we're talking about here! I just find this bizarre. Well at least McCain can't accuse Obama of being elitist. Barack's slumming it on old, crappy planes like the rest of us.

Watch me fly

I'm not sure if it's curiosity, paranoia, concern, interest or what, but I've been increasingly tracking the flights of loved ones, particularly my wife, watching their progress from take off to landing. I'm not sure if it's the healthiest thing to do for someone slightly obsessed with flying, but it's a pretty interesting distraction for a slow day at the office. You can track any flight any time, anywhere in the world. A lot of airlines have flight trackers on their websites, but the best service I've seen is flightaware.com. It takes a bit of fumbling around to get it down, but the level of precision, detail and information available is pretty incredible. Check it out!

Now that's what I'm talkin' about...

Yesterday the new airline "OpenSkies" launched premium service between New York and Paris (they are affiliated with British Airways will be expanding service to Brussels, Milan, Frankfurt and Amsterdam in the future). This follows the trend of other premium airlines like MaxJet, Eos, and SilverJet, although each of those airlines failed to catch on and all quickly folded. The difference with OpenSkies seems to be that normal people (normal defined as those of us that can't pay upwards of $4,000-10,000 for a flight) can actually fly this airline. I did a quick check, and a flight from New York to Paris is about $1000, around or even less than the going rate on most airlines these days. Honestly, even if I could save $100-$200 bucks on another airline I would consider OpenSkies for the mere fact that their goal seems to be to treat passengers with civility, service, respect, and maybe even a little luxury, even for those of us paying the cheapest fares. Certainly this mentality is simply lost on most airlines these days.

The economy service they describe, including nice adjustable leather seats, personal entertainment systems, quality food, and free wine, is similar to the service that I experience on an AirCanada flight to Paris recently (upgraded services has additional perks on both airlines). I got off that flight feeling great about the experience, about AirCanada, about flying, and I'll be an AirCanada passenger for life. It's the simple, yet too often forgotten, proposition that success in the airline industry involves decent service, a little respect, and a reasonable price. Those companies that have figured that out seem to thrive (JetBlue and Southwest domestically), those that don't all teeter on bankruptcy (most major airlines in the U.S.) It sounds like OpenSkies could be a keeper.

Captives of industry

Here's yet another story involving airline travelers being abandoned on an airplane for hours without any good reason or rationale. After a harrowing flight from Denver to Chicago the plane was diverted to Gary, Indiana. Now Gary is basically a suburb of Chicago, located 30 miles southeast. How does it make any sense to force folks that just experienced one of the worst flights of their lives, to sit on a plane for SIX HOURS because of the slight hope that they might be able to take off again, fly 30 miles and attempt another landing in Chicago. It's simply incomprehensible. Let the people off; give them a $50 travel voucher; put them on a bus to Chicago; and they would have all be happy and home (or at O'Hare figuring out their connection flight details) within the hour.

It's amazing to me that we don't have the right to exit a plane that is stuck on the ground for this length of time. I mean ok, maybe an hour or two of sitting there, maybe even three, but anything beyond that seems like false imprisonment to me. Yet, the airline industry has blocked efforts in congress and the courts to allow the implementation of state or federal "Passenger Bill of Rights," that would provide this right. So once again, we, the traveling public, remain captive, literally, to the business decisions of the industry.

Another two bite the dust...almost

UPDATE 2: Another call for re-regulation of the airline industry. Pressure seems to be building.

UPDATE: And the process of screwing the flying public has begun.

Recently, United and Continental have both made major announcements regarding reductions in their fleets, jobs and the precarious state of their companies. Publicly the reason for these actions is the rising cost of oil prices. However, these announcements raise two important questions about these companies and the airline industry generally:

1) Why haven't these companies and the industry acknowledge that oil is a finite resource and demand will some day soon outpace supply. Why hasn't the industry invested the money and time in researching and developing alternative fuels for airplanes. Like most businesses concerned only with the bottom line, the airline industry has seemed happy to pass the buck on to the next CEO, the next Board of Directors, the next generation of customers. Now we're seeing the costs of such a mentality.

2) Why hasn't the government moved to reverse the insane policy of airline deregulation that started some 30 years ago. The negative consequences of deregulation are coming into full focus, and as these companies struggle to stay financially afloat. Because profit is the ultimate goal of the airlines, a goal which may not necessarily be in line with our goals as customers and a country, we just can't afford to leave it to industry to self-regulate, particularly when it comes to the airlines which play such an important role in our lives and economy. Ultimately it won't be the CEOs, the investors, or top management of these airlines that feel the pain of our misguided deregulation policy. It will be the workers and customers that ultimately bear that burden.

Style matters

This is a great article from this weekend's New York Times. The point of it is that many of us are sick of feeling like flying is just like taking the bus only at 35,000 feet. It speaks to the fact that the Airlines have lost sight of the service, the comfort, the convenience that flying was supposed to stand for. Higher fares because of oil prices, ok we'll take that; no more free crappy food, if you say so; but at the very least, if we're going to be on planes for hours at a time, give us an environment that's comfortable, and maybe even a little comforting. My recent flight on AirCanada on their brand new Boeing 777, with all the bells and whistles, even in economy class, proved to me that such an experience is possible, and reinforced what a difference it makes.

A million reasons why I think you can find me another flight

UPDATE: Even the ever mild mannered super model Naomi Campbell is getting p.o.ed by all the problems with air travel these days.

In a recently flied lawsuit, a New York lawyer is suing Delta for One Million buckaroonies for ruining his family vacation. Now I'm not one to support totally frivolous lawsuits, BUT, while this case seems a little out there, I do think it has some merits, and represents the frustrations of the flying public everywhere. The reason I kinda agree with the guy is the outrageousness of the timing and the airline's response. He and his family left for his trip on December 20th, hoping to get to Argentina for his mom's 80th b-day. After he missed his connecting flight in Atlanta, he was told that Delta could not get him to Argentina until JANUARY 8TH! I mean c'mon, there's absolutely no way that the airline could not have found a few seats on one of their own planes or another carrier for over two weeks.

Again, we come back to the theme of customer service. These airlines are so worried about saving their financial asses in the short term, that they can't see the forest for the trees. I mean if they had put this guy and his family on another flight that day or the next, on a Delta plane or some other airline; or in first class or business class within a day or two, they would have solved the problem and probably gained a customer for life. Instead they screwed him to save a few bucks and in return got a million dollar lawsuit and a crap load of bad press.

Outsourcing our safety

Now I'm not one of those folks that automatically assumes everything outsourced to a foreign country is inferior. However, when it comes to airline safety, it would seem that the folks charged with protecting us, the FAA, should have ready access to those maintaining our planes. However, as the Today Show discussed this morning, airlines outsourcing of plane maintenance abroad makes FAA inspectors virtually powerless to adequately inspect these planes and ensure that proper maintenance practices and procedures occur. Here's a brilliant idea, how about taking the few trillion we've spent on the 6 year war in Iraq, a war that has cost the lives of tens of thousands, and spend a fraction of that money to protect the lives of millions in the traveling public. Radical idea huh?

The rich get richer...the rest of us get screwed

UPDATE 2: United has followed AA in accessing a bag fee to us sorry saps in economy class. It's a matter of time until the rest follow. They keep blaming this on rising fuel costs. If and when fuel prices come down they better give us back our "perks." But I have a suspicion that we'll never see free bag checks again.

UPDATE: According to an American Airlines press release, the fee is $15 for the first bag, EACH WAY of a round trip flight. So it's really $30 for one bag and $50 for the second. So a year ago traveling with two checked bags cost us bubkiss, now it will cost $80.

American Airlines just announced they will begin charging $15 for the FIRST checked bag on a flight, on top of the previously announced $25 for a second bag. As outrageous as the premise of this announcement is, given that you now have to pay for EVERYTHING on a flight, the fact that they will NOT be charging elite frequent flyer members and those with "premium" tickets is even more insane and insulting. Ok, so the folks that can most afford an extra $15 bucks, the corporate execs., the celebrities, the generally well off, get a pass, while the rest of us, with our credit card debt, our energy costs, our food price increases, must now subsidize an industry that is in a decline of its own making. Typical.

Just when you thought you could relax

The amazing thing about my fear of flying is that I'm only scared while in the air. When I'm on the ground, taxiing, landing, whatever, I'm straight shits and giggles. That's why the most recent story regarding the real "danger zone" of flying being when you're on the GROUND was disturbing to say the least.

I mean seriously, in an age in which I can see, in real time, everything from the weather in Sri Lanka, to the location of an ex-roommate's apartment in San Francisco, to what's on Tuesday's menu at our new favorite restaurant in Paris, we have a lot of technology out there, and yet somehow pilots and air traffic controllers can't see each other on the ground. It's absolutely pathetic. Somehow our government justifies spending 1/2 a trillion a year on the defense budget to keep us "safe", while the real risk to our lives is taxing out on runway 2E at Laguardia. What a country.


P.S. The flying experience on the honeymoon to Paris/Italy lived up to all the hype: AirCanada was amazing, the most relaxing and dignified travel experience of my life; easyjet, no frills but they had the most beautiful (male) flight attendants we've ever seen; and Lufthansa, efficient, orderly, very German.

We Love TV, Chips, and Flying Couches

Well, despite the recent ranking of JetBlue as the best airline for things like, finding lost bags, and being on time, and reasonable prices, I have NO DOUBT in my mind that the real reason for being numero uno is the chips (unlimited on cross country flights) and the free TV. JetBlue has smartly managed to transport us from our living rooms to our meetings, schools, vacations, without every having to leave our living rooms. And now, with all this stuffing our faces with chips, JetBlue allows us to stretch out our girthy bodies by brilliantly offers us more room! (for just an extra 10-20 bucks). Absolutely genius.

Canada Rocks, Orbitz Sucks

So we're off on our delayed honeymoon to Paris/Tuscany next Wednesday. Flying AirCanada from Montreal to Paris, then Easyjet (the JetBlue of Europe) from Paris to Venice, and finally returning from Florence through Paris ending up in Montreal.

However, we got a frantic call yesterday from Orbitz telling us that instead of the nice and easy direct return flight from Paris to Montreal we were going to have to fly to Toronto, sit in the airport for 4 hours then take another flight to Montreal. Not a great way to end a romantic honeymoon in Paris/Tuscany. Orbitz said there was nothing they could do and blamed Air France and Air Canada for the screw up (Air France was flying us from Florence to Paris on the return). "Nothing we can do," is just a not so polite way of saying that if you're stupid enough to try to save 50 bucks on tickets by using Orbitz for complicated travel plans, you deserve whatever delays or hassles you receive.

Luckily for us, the representatives we spoke with at AirCanada had about the same opinion of online "travel agents" like Orbitz as we did...totally useless. I knew that AirCanada flew a direct flight out of Frankfurt to Montreal, and so I called them to try to reroute us. At first they tried to say the ticket couldn't be changed because we booked through Orbitz, after a few minutes of polite conversation they were happy to bend the rules and accommodate us. In the end all the representatives I spoke with (had to speak with three in the end because of technical difficulties) were the friendliest, most polite airline representatives I have ever come across. They even went so far as to get permission from Luftansa to fly us from Florence to Frankfurt, something they didn't have to do. In fact, they didn't have to do any of this, since technically they were right that because the ticket was booked through Orbitz, Orbitz had the ultimate responsibility, although they would never admit it.

The last AirCanada Representative not only finalized our changes, but offered to move us to better seats (although stopped short of a free upgrade), made sure we both had vegetarian meals for all of our flights, and gave some great tips about places to see in Tuscany.

The lesson in all of this is that not only does AirCanada rock, and Orbitz sucks, but if you're flying with complicated travel plans, it makes a lot of sense to book directly through the airline, otherwise you're at the mercy of these online "travel agents" that really just care about that volume and very little about customer service.

"Dude, wait till you hear about last night..."

Update: European regulators allow testing of cellphones on flights over the continent. Wow, that didn't take long.

Hushed conversations, smooth jazz leaking from foam headphones, a sniffling baby, the dings and bells of the airplane communication systems. Those sounds were what we the air traveling public could depend on being soothed or annoyed by for the last 30 years or so. With most "electronic devices" interfering with navigational instruments, the airline industry forced us to keep the noisiest amongst our gadgets off for most of our flights.

That was then (as in last week) and this is now. Emirates Airlines has taken a bold new step in air travel etiquette by allowing the first ever cellphone service during a commercial flight. It's just a matter of time until the rest follow. I mean, I love my cellphone as much as the next schmo, but even for me flying was really one of the last bastions of cellphone sanity. We knew that from wheels up to wheels down we were free from being forced into other peoples lives, their problems, their worries, their jobs, their insecurities, their humor, their inanity. We knew that we could spend an hour, or three, or sixteen, reading, sleeping, eating, thinking, staring, puking, crying, or anything else deemed acceptable behavior within the confines of that metallic tube at 35,000 feet.

I'm sad to have lost that space, the freedom to do nothing, to just sit on my ass (in my case, stare out the window for most of the flight). Maybe the airline industry can turn it into a marketing ploy as they have everything else. Now for just $10 extra you can sit in the newly minted "cellphone free zone". Honestly, I think I'd pay for it (as I am for the chips and nuts offered a $5 a pop on most flights). It beats being forced to hear the yammering from her, him, me and you.

Aloha, Aloha

For those of you that have flown to Hawaii it was kinda great that this tiny little chain of islands in the middle of a vast expanse of the Pacific ocean had its own airline. You don't see a lot of "Alabama Airs" or "North Carolina Flyers" or "Green Mountain Expresses" these days. Sadly one of Hawaii's two airlines (the other being Hawaiian Airlines) is going into Chapter 11 and suspending services. The thing that sucks about this is that Aloha was awesome. I flew Aloha in once in 1997 on a family vacation (and yes I still go on family vacations to this day, why is that weird?) you really got a feeling of a locally operated airline that reflected the laid back, beautiful atmosphere of the place the airline was born from (not to mention the most beautiful flight attendants and pilots I have EVER seen). Most domestic airlines today are so corporate, so homogenized, so impersonal, sucked dry by the bottom line of profits.

The really sad thing is, that one of the primary reasons that Aloha is going out of business is the cost of fuel. And wanna know why fuel costs are so high? Not because we don't have enough oil, but it's because speculators are betting on oil and getting rich off those bets. The more they bet the higher the price, the more money they make. The rest of us end up dropping 20% of our weekly paychecks filling up our tanks, while oil speculators, drop the millions they earn on 5th houses, 10th cars, and $7,000 call girls.

I'm sad to see Aloha go, but apparently other peoples greed got the better of them, not an uncommon refrain these days.

Old ass planes: Airlines ground hundreds

Update: A good column in the NYT today re: airplane maintenance.

Have you ever sat down on an American flight to Chicago, or an Alaskan flight to Seattle, or a Southwest flight to Albany, and been like I'm riding in a bucket of rusty bolts, broken seat backs, with ashtrays filled with gum? For those of us with intense fears of flying, our first thought is, "shit we're done for." Then you start cruising, get your tomato juice, settle back into the suspension of disbelief that in fact everything is ok. And, 99.9% of the time it is. However, that initial instinct of that MD-80, Boeing 737, or Boeing 757 being old and rusty and junky, well it turns out, you were right! In the last two weeks American, Delta, U.S. Air and Southwest, have had major problems with their aging fleets. They've been fined for not inspecting planes for cracks, had to cancel flights to check for faulting wiring, and grounded planes for loose wing panels. I mean damn, it's scary enough to be in an aluminum tube going 400 MPH, at 35,000 feet, please don't make us start worrying that you're actually NOT keeping the airplanes in tip-top shape maintenance-wise.

The airline industry has now asked us to do with less leg room, no peanuts, long delays, jam packed planes, on top of ever increasing higher prices. At the very least we thought y'all were keeping us safe. The latest developments challenges this faith.

One thing that would help restore our confidence they are looking out for our lives: NEW PLANES. It's time for American, U.S. Air, Southwest and others to follow the leads of the JetBlue's, the Continentals, the AirTrans, the British Airways, and other airlines committed to newer fleets. At the end of the day it's worth it, the investment you make in new planes you'll get back double in passengers wanting to fly on airlines they feel confident are safe.