BNET Travel

I opened up my email yesterday to see I had an Implu alert that US Airways President Scott Kirby was joining the board of LodgeNet. That made me wonder if there could be some possible cooperation at work here on a future inflight entertainment system.

You’ve probably used LodgeNet’s offerings in the past. They’re the ones who power many of those hotel in-room entertainment systems. You know what I’m talking about . . . television, guest services, pay per view, etc. They don’t currently have anything in the airline world that I know of, but it does seem like it could be a natural extension of the brand for them.

Of course, it’s not uncommon for executives at one company to sit on the board of another unrelated one, but it seems like there could be a strategic move in here somewhere. With Kirby joining the board, I’d think he could bring some very clear ideas to LodgeNet about what sort of system he’d like to see onboard.

But wait, US Airways just removed their inflight entertainment from domestic flights, right? So why would they care about this at all? It wasn’t that long ago that US Airways was talking about a new seatback inflight entertainment system in the not-too-distant future. So if they can find a system that does what they want and can generate extra revenue, it could be a good fit. There’s no question LodgeNet is now in a good place to win this business.

Labor Day generally signals the unofficial end of the summer travel season, but this year it takes on a very ominous tone. All those massive flight cuts that have been announced over the last few months start to go into effect, and that means that airlines are going to be watching performance very carefully.

It’s one thing to hear about cuts in the news, but it’s another thing to actually experience them first hand. Some of these cuts are deep. For example, see if you can find a US Airways flight out of the entire LA area after 2p on a Saturday. Except for a couple redeyes, there aren’t any. Not to Phoenix and not to Vegas. Heck, the last flight to Vegas the rest of the week is at the very early hour of 730p. Things are a lot different than they used to be.

With that in mind, the airlines are going to need to pay special attention to their bookings during this period. Those big cuts make sense on paper, but that lack of frequency might have further reaching effects. Does the fact that Southwest has three flights to Vegas after the 2 ‘o clock hour on Saturdays matter? What about their 930p or later flights to Vegas the rest of the week? It gives them a competitive advantage, for sure, but will that impact the flights that the other airlines haven’t cut?

These cuts could very well hurt the airlines making them because frequencies and time flexibility go down a lot. It will be interesting to see how consumer behavior impacts their future schedule decisions. Did they go too deep this time around? That’s something that the planning guys will have to feverishly review.

There are a lot of ways to handle an airport expansion, but in general, here’s how it works. Airports decide to build something and the cost gets baked into the airline operating fees. This is a very simplistic way to look at it, and of course there are exceptions (yes, there can be PFCs, etc), but you get the idea. So it caught my eye when I saw that Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport was looking at a very different path.

Gateway was an airport without much service for a long, long time. They had a tiny little terminal, but it was usually empty. Then last year, Allegiant came along and established the airport as a base. Apparently, the airline is happy with what it’s seen, and it’s growing the place. Only one problem: there isn’t enough room in the terminal.

There were plans to address that problem, but recently the Arizona legislature cut the funding for the project, and that left Phoenix-Mesa in a tough spot. What could they do? Well, how about go to your tenant? Allegiant is giving the airport a loan, and that will allow them to expand to serve Allegiant’s growth plans.

It’s a pretty decent deal for everyone. Allegiant gets its new terminal and finds yet another source for ancillary revenue (they’ll earn some pretty hefty interest out of this). Meanwhile Phoenix-Mesa gets the money it needs to expand and basically ensures that Allegiant won’t be going anywhere until that money is repaid.

How will they repay it? The way airlines usually pay airports but in reverse. Allegiant will receive $4.50 for every passenger it boards at the airport. It’s no wonder they consider Allegiant to be the king of ancillary revenue here in the US. They keep finding new and creative ways to make money on the side.

Disclosure: I own a very tiny number of shares in Allegiant (ALGT)

If you find yourself on one of American’s old 767-200 aircraft, you may be a very happy camper. Starting last week, the airlines officially rolled out onboard wireless internet for $12.95 per flight. Could this be a differentiator to help them shift share back from United?

The 767-200 primarily flies between New York/JFK and both San Francisco and LAX. These prime business routes have long seen American as one of the two major players, but United’s launch of p.s. service on those routes helped convince passengers to look toward United for a better experience. By all accounts, United’s p.s. efforts have been a success, but I have to wonder if some of those gains they’ve made are now in jeopardy.

JFK-LAX/SFO are heavily traveled business routes, and the people on those planes have probably been drooling over the thought of onboard internet for a long time. For some people, spending 5 to 6 hours cut off from the rest of the world sounds enticing, but for many, it’s a burden. American can now connect you for a mere $12.95 per flight and United . . . can’t.

It will be interesting to see if there is any share shift on these flights in the near future as United no doubt scrambles to find something to compete (though I don’t recall hearing about any plans from them for years). While this is likely going to be an important onboard amenity systemwide, on these heavily-traveled business routes, it should be an even bigger deal.

Being in public relations for an airline has to be one of the toughest jobs around, but that’s no excuse for not doing it well. It came out last week that United would start charging for meals on some transatlantic flights along with a handful of other changes not likely to be well-received by the public. You would think that a change like this would result in a carefully coordinated PR effort, but you’d be wrong. It was one mistake after another, as explored on the Things with Wings blog.

See, they had to know this would not be well-received. Every time a benefit that was previously included for free becomes an extra charge, people get angry. And when word got out that United had been surveying about charging for meals internationally, the public feedback was almost universally negative. So why is it that when it came time for the change to be made, it wasn’t officially announced by the airline for a long time after the news leaked?

It first broke when some operational employees at United received a bulletin with the details on August 19. As you might expect, that bulletin got leaked to me and to several other outlets. As things always work in the new real-time world of media, this was out in the public eye and causing reactions almost immediately. My post went live on Cranky Flier on the morning of August 20.

As the day went by, we heard nothing publicly from United. Non-operational employees had said they still hadn’t seen anything official from the company, and the public outcry became louder. Finally, on August 21 at 620p, United put out a press release calling the changes “a test.” Why were they not out in front of this in the first place trying to position it as a test? Probably because they really didn’t think that it would be this big of a deal. That is shocking, if true. But it shows that United has a long way to go in managing public opinion.

The reality is that calling it a “test” is really just PR spin. Everything is a test. If it doesn’t work, the airline can always change its mind. But the fact that it took so long for United to respond means they lost many opportunities to try and minimize the impact of the change, and that was a mistake.

I thought this was a strange story when I first saw it, but now I find it downright scary. Apparently, a TSA agent decided to do some airfield security inspections. As part of his inspections, he decided to pull himself up on to 9 American Eagle aircraft using sensors on the aircraft that are clearly not supposed to be used to support a person’s weight. An Eagle employee caught the guy, and you’d think the TSA would be doing everything it could to fix this situation, right? Wrong. Now they’re threatening Eagle with fines.

The scariest part about this is that the only reason this was caught was because an employee saw the inspector doing it. How many times has this happened before when nobody saw? Is the TSA’s training really so poor that its inspector didn’t know not to step on a highly sensitive part of the aircraft that actually says not to step on it? For their part, they say that they will “re-enforce education about sensitive equipment located on the exterior of a plane.”

You would think that the TSA should be on the hook for damages here. I mean, that seems like clear negligence to me. I would expect American Eagle probably wants to go after them aggressively, but they probably can’t. The TSA appears to be drunk on power here. Instead of admitting that this was a very serious problem, they’ve instead tried to turn it back on American Eagle, as they’ve shown in their blog post yesterday.

The Inspector was following through on regulatory inspection activity. The Inspector was able to gain access to the interior of seven of the nine aircraft inspected, which is an apparent violation of the airline’s security program. TSA is reviewing the inspection results and depending on the conclusion, could take action with the airline, up to and including levying of civil penalties.

What’s wrong with this picture? Security of the airplane on the ground doesn’t matter if YOU DAMAGE SOMETHING THAT IS CRITICAL TO FLIGHT and it doesn’t get caught. American Eagle has responded with a relatively non-threatening press release but I imagine they had to use a lot of restraint to keep it like that.

As far as I can see, the TSA has not apologized nor has it offered to pay for damages. Instead, it’s acting defensively and seems to be trying to deflect criticism by throwing out blame on to American Eagle here. This is very disturbing to see such a flippant attitude from the government. They made a very big mistake and they need to own up to it. Instead, I can see airlines becoming more and more afraid to push back on serious issues like this for fear of retaliation. This is not a good situation at all.

Normally, a route announcement isn’t noteworthy. But I figured that in these troubled times, it’s such a rare event that it’s worth taking a second look. Yesterday, AirTran announced it would start its first flights to both Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) and Columbus (Ohio).

This is something of a strange announcement. The airline has curtailed growth (but not eliminated it). I figured we’d see more growth that connects the dots between existing cities instead of starting new ones altogether, but I guess I was wrong.

The Harrisburg announcement is particularly strange because the airline will only have one, lonely, daily flight down to Orlando. In fact, the residents of Harrisburg will see the plane on the ground for 36 minutes a day and that’s it. So can AirTran really justify hiring a station manager and contracting with support personnel just for this one flight? Apparently they think they can. Or at least they don’t have a better place to put that airplane during the winter. Flights begin November 20.

Columbus, on the other hand, gets a bigger operation. There will be two daily to Atlanta, one to Ft Myers, and one to Orlando. The times here are wacky. The first flight from Atlanta doesn’t leave until 2p in the afternoon, for example. It’s almost as if the airline had some extra aircraft time and decided this was the best way to plug those holes. Still, Columbus has seen a decrease in capacity lately, especially with the demise of Skybus, so there probably is a chance of capturing some pent-up demand.

Still, isn’t it sad that this is the only route announcement worth talking about right now?

If you thought advertising couldn’t get any more intrusive, I think it’s safe to say that you were wrong. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has sent a note to DFW saying that they “are sorry to hear that the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is experiencing financial difficulties, but I have a proposal that might help.” How about ads in the bathroom?

That’s right. PETA wants to put this obnoxious ad on the stall doors in DFW airport restrooms.

Now, I’m not a fan of PETA by any stretch, so my opinion may be a bit biased here. But I have no interest in staring at something that tells me my colon is rotting because I eat tasty, delicious, scrumptious, yummy meat. Mmmm, meat. Sorry, where was I?

Oh yeah, I understand that airports are short on revenues these days with all the airline cutbacks in service, but how far are they willing to go to recoup these losses? I suppose the money has to come from somewhere, so while I’d prefer not to see bathroom ads at all, I’d feel much better about an electronic version of a newspaper or something useful. Even Pepto Bismol would be more appealing than these appalling ads from PETA.

From the looks of it, DFW doesn’t have any plans to take PETA up on their offer, but these are desperate times for airports as they try to cover revenue shortfalls. That means proposals like these might not be completely ignored as they may have been before.

(See more at Airline Biz blog)

Yesterday I wrote about how Southwest had started filing its fares via ATPCO again, and thanks to Rick Seaney over at FareCompare.com, I now have some more info to pass along about this.

Apparently Southwest requires what’s called a G30 release. I’m told this isn’t normal since the fares are still filed in the regular public tariff, but they’re doing it nonetheless. So as of now, the only distribution systems that have access are Sabre and Galileo while the others do not. Oddly enough, any airline that requested to see Southwest’s fares back when they started filing them was granted access by Southwest as well. Maybe that was a condition of allowing them to be restricted from some distribution systems.

Thanks, Rick, for the additional info.

If you heard the sounds of wild screams of joy in United hubs last Friday, it was likely United employees reacting to the announcement that Jake Brace would be retiring from his post as the airline’s CFO. Kathryn Mikells will take over on November 1.

Why would employees be so excited about a bean counter leaving the airline? Jake Brace has been one of the most polarizing figures at the airline this decade. (He’s actually been with the airline for 20 years.) He served as the chief restructuring officer during United’s long (and I mean long) bankruptcy. Often, you would hear cries for his head as front line employees were faced with tremendous cuts in pay and benefits.

For that reason alone, I figured that he would depart after taking a fat payday upon exit from bankruptcy in order to begin healing the wounds that were inflicted with his name attached during the bankruptcy process. Whether the cuts were necessary or not is irrelevant. These were still deep cuts that had a major impact on the lives of the front line employees, and healing was necessary. Surprisingly, he continued with the airline long past bankruptcy exit, and I’d argue that his days as union enemy #1 have long passed. All of labor’s focus is on CEO Glenn Tilton now, so I’m not sure that this does much to placate them, though clearly it’s a move that most employees will welcome.

Why is he leaving? We could speculate about it all day. Maybe he got tired of waiting for the next payday. Maybe he thought there wasn’t any more he could do at United. Or maybe he just wanted to get out. No matter what, this does help the airline inch toward closing a very painful chapter in United’s history. It just should have come sooner.