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.