The Wandering Aramean

American’s new boarding policy, and why it just doesn’t matter

Seth Miller — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:12:17 +0000

A few months ago American Airlines quietly (or so they thought; turns out JohnnyJet was on a test flight so news spread quickly) started testing a new boarding process for their flights. The key change was that passengers with only small carry-on bags (i.e. underseat sized) would be allowed to board following Group 2. The theory is that these passengers are being rewarded for not putting bags in the overhead bins and they aren’t slowing the boarding process so they can board whenever they want (after the elite status passengers). But does it really matter?

One report on the process suggests that the total average time savings is 2-3 minutes per flight. Sure, multiply that out by thousands of daily departures and it sounds like a ton of time “saved” daily, but it really only counts if they change the flight times to account for that supposed savings. At 2-3 minutes on average per flight I’m betting against them adjusting block turn times for the flights.

Beyond that, however, I also cannot help but wonder which passengers are actually happily taking advantage of this benefit. Most of the race to board early is – at least from what I’ve seen – people trying to make sure they have space to stow their bags. If you don’t need overhead space it doesn’t make sense that there would be a great rush to get on the plane and cram yourself into a space just over 17″ wide and ~31-34″ deep, a small space that you’re going to be stuck in for the next many hours.

In other words, unless you absolutely need to be on board, why would you subject yourself to more time on the plane??

Don’t get me wrong – I love flying on a plane. And that means spending a lot of time on planes. But I also don’t go out of my way to be the first person on board. And when I’m traveling very light (which is most of the time these days) I happily board towards the end of the process, tuck my bag wherever it fits (including under my seat sometimes) and get going. Yes, I prefer to have the bag overhead, but that’s not the type of passenger this program is supposed to appeal to. This is for passengers who don’t have much in the way of a bag, for whom the need to get on board to store their stuff is key.

Maybe I’m missing out and there is a huge group of passengers who really, really, really like sitting in coach seats and want to do more of it. I suppose it is fantastic for that group. But it seems unlikely to me that anyone really benefits from this move.

More than that, however, there is also a reasonable concern that this will actually make things worse. Here’s one view which isn’t completely off-base:

If all the small things are put in the overheads because those passengers get on first that means more gate-checked bags, not fewer. Whoopsie.

I’m not completely convinced that it will be a problem, but I’m also not convinced this is a change which makes things better for many passengers. Certainly not enough to justify potentially pissing off a lot of other passengers for it.

What am I missing??

Comments

It really shouldn't matter to most passengers but I can see a ... by RJ Brown

Changes to change fees on JetBlue; Mosaic members win big

Seth Miller — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:43:16 +0000

‘Tis the season for changes to flight change fees, it would seem, and JetBlue got in on the action this week. Yes, the change fees went up 50% ($50->$75 for cheap fares and $100->$150 for more expensive tickets) but the news isn’t all bad. There is now a tiered fee schedule for flight changes which is arguably more fair than most airlines (short of not charging any fees). And, for their Mosaic members the new rules are even more generous – no more fees.

For regular customers there is now a 60 day cut-off point where the fees change in price. Here’s what the schedule looks like now:

For customers who fly JetBlue enough to rate the Mosaic badge elite status, the changes are even better. No fees at all. Ever. Even if you cancel the ticket for a full ~~refund~~ credit.

Beginning with bookings made on May 17, 2013, Members with a valid TrueBlue Mosaic badge will not pay the applicable JetBlue change/cancellation fee when they change or cancel their JetBlue flight or JetBlue Getaways vacation reservation by calling JetBlue. The change/cancel fee will also be waived for any traveler on the same reservation as the Mosaic member…. Mosaic members must call JetBlue to change or cancel their reservation in order to receive the fee waiver benefit; any change or cancellation made online will not qualify for this benefit.

This new policy ~~is a step up from~~ matches that of Alaska Airlines, the other carrier with a published policy of fee waivers for top elites. ~~In the Alaska Airlines case it is only a waiver of change fees, not for canceling a trip, too.~~ Even Southwest won’t refund tickets (just no change fee). JetBlue has essentially made every ticket fully refundable for their top elites. That’s huge.

JetBlue continues to respect that change fees more than the fare itself are silly, so that’s a good thing. And the 60-day split is likely a more accurate reflection of the resale challenges of that same space, made a bit more challenging because JetBlue doesn’t overbook as a matter of policy. But the biggest winners here – by far – are the Mosaic members. No more fees ever makes it incredibly easy to justify buying more of their tickets on JetBlue more often.

Also, there is still the free repricing of the same flight for a credit if the fare goes down which is available to all customers.

Comments

By: JetBlue modifies change fees… in a logical way - One Mile at a Time by JetBlue modifies change fees… in a logical way - One Mile at a Time
I still think it is more complicated and will confuse the ... by Seth Miller
Also, Alaska allows the change/cancellation to be done online. ... by jackal
When I suggested this approach a month or so ago to you, I ... by jackal
I mentioned the AS program in there. :p And I did get a ... by Seth Miller
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Might Apple be in the market for a GDS?

Seth Miller — Thu, 16 May 2013 23:09:12 +0000

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that you’re looking to make a splash in the travel market. Sure, you already might have some products which allow your users to display a boarding pass or track flight status, but you are always thinking bigger. You want to have a fully integrated reservations system, not just displaying bookings made elsewhere; you want to fully own the process. You’ve also got a few patents which seem overly broad in some ways, but which should cover the unified booking, management and actual travel process through a single interface. Oh, and you’ve also got more than $145 billion sitting around, looking for a useful outlet. What’s your next move?

The key component to the booking and management process is the Global Distribution System (GDS) platforms which work as the middle-men between travelers and service providers. There aren’t too many players in that space and there are plenty of reasons to be wary of their profit potential, especially from the airline side of things. Still, if you want to build a massive travel solution having your own GDS is a pretty efficient way to approach the situation. Why bother negotiating API integration and fee structures when you can simply own the whole platform? Especially when there are other, ancillary benefits which might come with that purchase?

There are arguably three major players in the online consumer market today: Microsoft, Google and Apple. In April 2008 Microsoft purchased Farecast, integrating the historical fare data and prediction algorithms into their Bing Travel platform. Google made their move a couple years later, snapping up ITA Software in 2010. The ITA platform is much closer to a full GDS than what Farecast offered, though it doesn’t have the direct-to-consumer front-end aspect of things in place. Apple has been competing with Google in many areas recently and getting a leg up in the travel space – a market with huge amounts of money (and customer affinity) in play – is not such a bad idea. The only real company in play right now is Sabre and the company is once again raising the idea of launching their IPO; if Apple wants in on the action now is the time to act.

To be fair, the patent details are mostly focused on how to use NFC or similar technologies for the passengers’ mobile devices to talk with other systems so that check-in and boarding can be handled more smoothly, not about the overall booking process. But making reservations is mentioned several times and, if history is any indicator, Apple’s desire to control the whole process makes this sort of transaction quite feasible. Building a fully integrated booking interface from scratch is a ridiculously complicated undertaking and there is very little up-side to that approach. Apple would still have to negotiate access to all the underlying data, in addition to building out the management and processing systems and user-facing interfaces. That last bit is likely something they would want to redo anyways, but the back-end stuff is major work and buying a functional version in situ is a nice way to get a head start. It is also worth noting that Sabre is a lot more than just the GDS platform. Through its history Sabre has acquired or launched many other businesses, including travel agencies, online communities (IgoUgo) and booking engines (Travelocity). Yes, buying them outright would have a significant cash cost, but getting all the parts at once rather than assembling them piece-meal means the project would be live much sooner.

If Apple is going to get into this market they’re already facing an uphill battle. Roughly 75% of the travel agency market (including OTAs) is dominated by 4 key players. To break in to that space would require a disruptive shift, the type of move Apple has embraced in the past. They could play it slow, depending on travel providers to integrate into their Passbook application but the adoption has been somewhat slow. Also, there isn’t a ton of upside for the company for depending on partners to integrate into their ecosystem; Apple likes to control the whole experience. If Apple wants in on the hundreds of billions of dollars in annual online travel revenue, going slow into the market is a bad move.

Is Apple going to buy Sabre? I honestly have no idea. But there are rumors of such circulating (I didn’t come up with all of this all by myself) and, quite frankly, it wouldn’t be the stupidest thing they’ve ever done.

It sure is fun to imagine what they could accomplish if they did, though…

Comments

@Charlie, GDS and PSS are two completely different business ... by Chase
Charlie has the correct analysis in my opinion. Sabre was the ... by jbcarioca
@Chase, if ITA (Google) is such a “young” successful, ... by Charlie
Interesting idea! But Apple has too many other things going on ... by TJ
Having worked for a few GDS' myself, I'm just going to say that ... by Chase
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Mileage earning coming to Norway

Seth Miller — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:21:34 +0000

For nearly the past decade earning points for flights within Norway was not possible thanks to laws designed to encourage competition and prevent one airline from using their loyalty program to unduly attract or retain customers. Apparently (at least according to them) the rule worked and there is now sufficient competition in the market such that the rule has outlived its usefulness. It is not clear when the airlines will start to permit accrual on these flights (or, in the case of SAS, when their Star Alliance partners will update the rules). From the Google translate version of the announcement:

Government shares the concern expressed Competition for competition in the aviation industry, particularly in rural areas, when bonus ban repealed. But today there are two major players in the Norwegian market, and competition is more robust than when regulation was introduced in 2007.

Norwegian Air is the second carrier and they have grown significantly in both the domestic and regional markets. They’re introducing long-haul service this summer to Bangkok and New York City, too.

Also in the same announcement is this bit:

The Government will also examine the possibility of laws on the bonus points earned in employment attributable to the person paying for, normally the employer. The purpose of this study will be to examine whether it can reduce the administrative burden of enforcing taxation of the private use of bonus points earned on business travel as well as any negative competitive effects of repeal regulations.

Apparently letting the traveler keep the points rather than crediting them to the company buying the ticket raises tax issues. Hopefully the IRS doesn’t get any similar ideas.

Comments

The IRS addressed this exact issue with frequent flier miles ... by NYBanker
Wow. It's about time. by Elle
Will they have a credit card? by Gene
That's funny they don't let you accrue miles but they let you ... by Joey
Funny to read this as I just got off my last flight after 16 ... by Carol Margolis

Awesome architecture in Hong Kong

Seth Miller — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:50:59 +0000

One of my favorite things about Hong Kong is the juxtaposition of the old, generic and boring high-rise apartment buildings with the modern construction from the past 20-30 years. Turns out that I’m not the only one who is somewhat obsessed with the old-school buildings there. Pro photographer Michael Wolf also is, and he’s got some awesome photos from around the city in a new book, Architecture of Density.

From bamboo scaffolding going up dozens of stories to awesome colors and crumbling structures, the photos are simply incredible. I’ve tried to take similar pictures from time to time and, needless to say, his are much, much better than mine. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying anytime soon, but I also don’t expect to see a hardcover 128-page photo book published with my name on the front anytime soon.

There’s another review here with some more of the photos in it. Very cool stuff.

Thanks to my wife for sharing the initial review which made me go dig deeper on this

Comments

I have seen that set, schmerj, but only in that they are from ... by Seth Miller
Wow…those are some amazing shots. I was just in HK for the ... by schmerj
All I could think of “no wonder we have bird ... by RJ Brown
Great composition of the shots, I think I saw these a few weeks ... by Mark Jackson
Pretty awesome, I saw it featured on PetaPixel. I try funky ... by Andre

JetBlue, Emirates team up on two-way codeshare

Seth Miller — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:39:39 +0000

Europe and the Middle East are about to become destinations JetBlue flight numbers serve, even if it isn’t JetBlue-operated flights making the trips. The NYC-based carrier is teaming up with Dubai-based Emirates to extend their codesharing agreement to a bilateral one. Currently Emirates has their code on JetBlue-operated flights to 28 destinations; the new agreement will see the JetBlue coded flight numbers on Emirates-operated flights to Milan and Dubai.

The new bilateral codeshare is in addition to the frequent flyer reciprocity that the two programs already share. There is no elite reciprocity but members of either program can earn ~~and redeem~~ for flights on the other.

Back when Emirates announced the timing of their Milan-JFK flight it seemed likely that feed to and from JetBlue flights would be a big part of making that flight work. This announcement plays into that theory. There are still only a limited number of onward flights late-night after the Emirates flight arrives from Milan but it is better than nothing.

Comments

That took only a few years! EK has had their code on jetblue ... by Joey
My bad…I got a bit ahead of myself on the reciprocity thing. ... by Seth Miller
Is it possible to redeem true blue points on Emirate flights? by Lily
I still do not see any spending reciprocity through Jetblue ... by Narayana S

I’ve never been happier to be in seat 37E

Seth Miller — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:13:34 +0000

Yes, 37E is a middle seat. Yes, it also happens to be in the last row of the United Airlines A320, which means limited recline. In just about every situation it is the least desirable seat on that plane (though I’d say 37B is worse because of the lav on that side, but only by a small margin). It is simply not where you want to be sitting. And yet I was incredibly happy to be there.

Do you want to sit here??

I was on my way home from Colorado and really wanted to get home in time for a reasonable dinner at home. Alas, the flight which let me do that meant a 28 minute connection in Denver and – not surprisingly – they don’t let you book those normally. So I booked the cruddy connection and planned to just run for it when I made it to Denver. Of course, when booking the cruddy connection I didn’t actually mean to book the REALLY bad one which would get me home near midnight but apparently that’s what I actually did. All of a sudden this SDC/standby game became much more important for my sanity. We landed on time into Denver and I checked the flight on mobile.united.com and it said seats were available. I was off to the races, from B69 to B37 (about half a mile, at altitude with a rocking hangover and people to dodge).

I made it to the new gate at T-12 minutes, and that’s when the agent told me there were no more seats available. Ughhh. The cutoff for passengers to be on-board is T-10 minutes and there were two not yet on-board so I had a chance. She added me to the list and told me I was first in line. They paged the passengers again and one showed up. Then the other showed up. Not good news for me. Except that apparently one of the passengers was intent on playing shenanigans.

It seems that one of the two was a non-rev, looking to fly on her pass benefits. She gave her name to the agent and a BP was printed and then, as the passenger was getting on board, the agent called out to stop the boarding. Apparently there were two people on the flight with the same name, one male and one female, and the non-rev accidentally got the paid guy’s BP. I’m not 100% certain that they were playing games with refundable bookings and trying to block a seat for the non-rev, but it sure seemed that way to me. Either way, it was now T-10 and the one passenger hadn’t shown up. The gate agent printed my new boarding pass and I was off down the jetway as the last passenger to be loaded on the flight.

View from all the way down the back of the plane

So, yeah, not the most comfortable place to spend 3.5 hours, but I got home in time for a late dinner and I even managed to sleep a bit in that middle seat with limited recline. I’m not going out of my way to choose it again for next time, but it turns out I survived just fine.

Comments

To be fair, guy, I have top elite status and that's what got me ... by Seth Miller
[...] The Wandering Aramean might have Stockholm Syndrome. ... by News from Other Travel Blogs
Seth, Just discovered your blog, and I'm a fan. I'm ... by guy
Been there playing the game out of LGA trying to get home to ... by gobluetwo
I once had the confusing experience of having someone with my ... by JP Traveler
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No, really, I’m transiting Myanmar without a visa

Seth Miller — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:08:09 +0000

This is the room where I sat for an hour, more or less stuck while waiting to figure out if I’d get out of Yangon. No passport (the agents took it from me), no refreshments and no idea how long I was going to be there or if the agents actually understood what I was doing. Not the most relaxing hour of my life, to say the least. And just getting to that point wasn’t so easy.

I did my research before the trip regarding the transit process at RGN and I was pretty sure that I didn’t need a visa. Alas, the Thai Airways check-in agent at BKK had a different view of the situation. She started flipping through my passport, looking for my visa. I knew there wasn’t one there and told her such. At that point she was pretty much ready to send me away; I was not happy. Her version of the rules said transit without visa was only valid if remaining on the same plane passing through RGN; changing planes was not valid. I protested strongly (even though I wasn’t actually 100% certain I was correct) and she walked away from the counter, carrying my passport with her. About 15 minutes later – mostly spent by me pacing back and forth in the premium check-in area trying to figure out how I was going to save the trip – she came back to the counter and started printing boarding passes. I’m not entirely sure where she went or what she saw or why she changed her mind. But she did. I won’t look that gift-horse in the mouth.

A few hours later, following what will likely be my last flight on an Airbus A300 (yes, I booked the itinerary to get that), we arrived in Yangon and it was time for the part of the transit which I expected to be more stressful. I saw the sign for transit passengers as I walked off the plane so I headed towards that door rather than to the regular immigration queue. That freaked them out quite a bit.

Pretty soon I had three agents crowded around, trying to usher me towards the regular immigration queues. I had a printout of my onward itinerary and kept pointing out the flight details, hoping they’d figure it out. After 15 or so minutes I was escorted back towards the gates, through the gate lounge and backwards through the security check-point. The agent escorted me into a room labeled “International Transit” which is, I’m pretty sure, mostly used for storage.

The agent took my itinerary printout, my passport and my inbound boarding pass and walked away, asking me to wait in the lounge. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Having someone walk away with my passport is never something I’m happy about. Sitting in this room with no facilities other than the few chairs for an hour, waiting for the agent to come back with my passport had me rather frazzled. Turns out I’m not all that good at sitting still with no distractions.

Ultimately they returned with the boarding passes and escorted me to the Royal Jade lounge (not really all that great, but better than sitting in the other room on my own) to wait for my flight.

In the end the transit wasn’t all that bad. Not without some stress along the way and Myanmar is going to remain low on my list of desired transit countries given an option, but I eventually made my way on to Singapore and beyond.

Comments

I was familiar with the transit visa option, Matthew; I even ... by Seth Miller
Bad way to do Myanmar, but you at least had a good outcome. The ... by AlohaDaveKennedy
We did exactly the same thing as you in January – Singapore ... by John
Burma is an amazingly beautiful country. Instead of transit I ... by Missy H
Its actually very easy to transit in Myanmar without a visa. I ... by Nic
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Finding an award seat from here to anywhere

Seth Miller — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:07:00 +0000

Ever find yourself thinking about a trip and not really caring about where you’re going, so long as you can get somewhere across the ocean? Me, too. Of course, finding that seat is often an iterative process, figuring out what routes to check and plugging them all in to your favorite award search engine, hoping to get back a hit. I figured there was probably a better way and, leveraging the data I’ve been compiling about what non-stop routes are available across the Atlantic, I’ve managed to put something together which I think is a pretty cool award alert option. In short, you pick one of the 60 Star Alliance TATL gateways and a date and it will search all the options for you.

Here’s what my search parameters look like (figure a couple weeks in Europe for Christmas/New Years):

And here are the results I got for my query

Not necessarily flights I’d go out of my way to book, but it definitely gets me closer to figuring out where to visit and what to check for the local positioning flights to make it happen.

To set up such a search you can use the new Star Alliance (ANA) search method I’ve added to the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools site this week. Just leave the to or from city blank for the wildcard search to work. Note that you must pick a gateway city and it will only search the routes served TATL from that gateway. If you pick a non-gateway city and leave the other half blank you’ll get an error.

You can also use it as an alert option for other routes by specifying both ends of the trip; that functionality is obviously a bit different but it should be working as well.

These new features are very much in beta right now and I know there are a couple things which aren’t 100%, mostly with respect to searching specific carriers or flight numbers. I hope to have that addressed in the next few days. In the meantime, however, I figured this was worth getting out there so people could start to play with it a bit.

One other thing about these new searches: They are much more resource-intensive versus the other Star Alliance searches/alerts. Because of that I have to limit the use. For regular subscribers that means a maximum of 2 ANA-based alerts active at any time. For First Class members the limit is 10. I’ll keep an eye on the system performance and see about upping the allowance if things are running OK but that’s where I’ve got to be for right now.

If you’ve got any questions feel free to ask. And if you find any bugs please do share.

Comments

TATL means transatlantic. TPAC is transpacific. by Seth Miller
Sorry but what does TATL stand for? by Geoff Stuart
By: Travel Tidbits For Wednesday, May 15th 2013 | Pizza In Motion by Travel Tidbits For Wednesday, May 15th 2013 | Pizza In Motion
[...] [...] by Is there any way to search for UA award travel from a specific airport/date? - FlyerTalk Forums
No live searching yet, Vince (and it probably won't ever ... by Seth Miller
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New slimline seats on United: not the crappiest option!

Seth Miller — Fri, 10 May 2013 00:34:33 +0000

When United Airlines announced last August that they’d be changing the seats on their Airbus A319 and A320 planes there was a bit of concern among their customers. The Recaro Slimline seat is a VERY basic product. It has been widely deployed in Europe (the Lufthansa Group of airlines has made it their default for narrow-body planes) and it is not particularly comfortable for flights of more than an hour or two. That can work in Europe where the hubs are more central and the flights are generally shorter. For the US market, however, it would have been a potentially unpleasant ride. A United official announced today that the carrier will be including the "comfort package" in their version of the seats. That should have many passengers quite relieved.

The new seats are manufactured by RECARO, and you may recognize the specific model from several European carriers, who feature it on many of their mainline narrow-body aircraft. However, because we fly our Airbuses over longer stage lengths than the typical intra-Europe segment, our version of the seat will have several upgraded comfort features over the base model. These include multi-directional headrests, added lumbar support, and a different seat bottom cushion with more padding and multiple layers of soft memory foam. The literature seat pocket has been moved higher, which facilitates the above increase in knee space, and there’s a new amenity pocket specifically for personal items.

The Recaro Slimline seat in service on a Lufthansa narrow-body plane; the middle seat is blocked for 'business class' service.

As part of the same announcement a scant few details on the streaming media offering were made public:

Along with Wi-Fi, the addition of on-demand streaming video will become the standard for our Airbus fleet. As a result, when these aircraft go in to have the new seats installed, the traditional audio/video system with dropdown monitors will be removed. However, these aircraft won’t “go dark”—Wi-Fi will be available on all aircraft that have the new seats. In any case, like Wi-Fi the streaming product will eventually have pricing attached to it, although we do plan to offer a limited range of complimentary content until we finalize these plans.

The 747s are also getting the streaming media option and it was previously stated that the content would be free on those planes; it is interesting to see the slightly different tack being taken with the short-haul fleet.

Finally, for the Channel 9 lovers, the IFE retrofit means that offering will disappear. That’s definitely a bummer.

Comments

While I'm not much of a United flier, I have to say Channel 9 ... by Marshall Jackson
I love Ch 9. I always try to make it a point to thank the pilot ... by Bob
That's great news on the seats!! And generally the IFE on the ... by Ryan
I really wish more pilots would turn on Ch 9 by Chris
I love Channel 9 and most of the time the pilots will turn it ... by Carl
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The Wandering Aramean

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