I wanted to fly out on Monday midday because I had an appointment in the morning. Sure enough, there was an 1145a flight out of LAX on the 777LR, the one that comes from Sydney. I picked that one and found myself booked into BusinessElite. This was gonna be good.

I headed to the airport a little early and found the terminal bustling even though it was a relatively low time of day. I went over to the SkyPriority area for first class and elites and I checked myself in at the kiosk. Then it was off to security.

Like I said, this wasn’t a peak time, but security was disorganized. I looked for an elite line and didn’t see one (nor did I see any signs at all, really). A lineminder pointed me to a line on the far side and I went there. Then I sat. With only a few people in front of me, it still took more than 10 minutes to get through.

Once through, I headed to the SkyClub. It was set up for me to go in so that I could see the newly-renovated club, and they’ve done a really nice job. The club is quite large with one huge room separate by a snack bar with, of course, ample free liquor. On the other side, there were a couple of small rooms, one for working and one for “quiet.” I’m fairly certain that the entire club was reserved for golfers, actually. Check out this magazine rack.

My flight was leaving from next-door Terminal 6, (Delta doesn’t have enough room to handle all the widebodies in its own Terminal 5) so I realized I had to get a move-on. I came back downstairs and then went into the old underground tunnel to get to the other terminal. That is one long, white, and barren pathway, but it popped me out right on the other side so that’s all that matters.

I walked up to the gate to find a mob of people in the throes of boarding. I looked for the SkyPriority (old Breezeway) lane for First Class boarding but it was mobbed as well. When I finally got to the front of the line, I said, “No SkyPriority line today?” The agent looked at me and said, “No, it’s just too hard to do over here. I’m sorry about that.” At least he was nice about it, I guess. With that, I went onboard.

Most of the airplane had already boarded, though there were still a few behind me. I found my seat, the prime spot at the back of the cabin, and started to explore. The back of the cabin is excellent because you have a tall fixture on the back and side that gives you more privacy. There’s nobody looking in on you, as is often the case with herringbone seats.

The seat itself looked good, but the wear on this new plane was already showing. The blue leather looked a bit tired and the plastic fixtures were chipping a little as well. But the seat itself was comfortable, and I just waited for takeoff. The next thing I saw was actually quite shocking.

I saw flight attendants taking bags from passengers in coach and finding empty spots for them in BusinessElite. No, it’s not shocking that they were using BusinessElite bin space. It was surprising that the flight attendants were doing the heavy lifting. It was great service. What wasn’t great was the dude who sat down, promptly flipped his shoes off, and displayed his dirty bare feet for the world to see.

Soon, it was time to push back but the captain said we were just waiting for more cargo to be loaded. We pushed back about 15 minutes late and then headed toward the runway. The safety demonstration was interesting. Since there are no open monitors allowed on the ground in BusinessElite, we could only hear the video but couldn’t see good ole’ Deltalina. Instead, we just had a couple flight attendants up front doing the demonstration for us.

Then we took to the skies and I sat back to play with the seat. There are 7 different buttons and I found it pretty confusing. I can’t imagine what an older or less tech-savvy person would do with this. I brought my seat down into a relaxing position and then went to pull out the television. It came out and then slammed back shut. Yep, the screw was a little loose and my guess is that it was on the way in from Sydney as well since there were some plastic wrappers shoved in there to try to make it steady. It became less of a problem once we leveled out, of course.

The other problem was with the headset jack. It’s a two-prong jack and they give you a single prong headset with an adapter. Unfortunately, the headset kept popping out of the adapter. It took me awhile to find a magic spot where it would stay still.

The lead flight attendant came by with a very long paper print out from a dot matrix printer. She took my order and wrote it down on the page. I said, “That’s a heck of a long list you have there.” She unrolled it and said, “Yep, take a look at all those precious metals. I’m just kidding, everyone is precious.” It’s amazing how much nicer things can sound with a southern accent.

I opted for a ginger ale and the hot chicken sandwich, and I went to pull out my tray table. That’s when I realized you couldn’t do it without getting out of the reclined position. So I did and then pulled the tray out after some difficulty. The tray itself got stuck, so I had to jiggle it out. Then I was ready to go. I had a movie on, I had my tray out, and I was in a semi-comfortable position.

The food was pretty good, and I kept the bag of Ruffles for later. Then I watched a couple movies and settled in. The bed was actually quite comfortable in the flat position. I had plenty of room to stretch out since I’m short, and the width wasn’t a problem.

I had the chance to finally join an exclusive club. Yep, I’m now a laviator. I had a heck of a large lav to work in – on the right side between the two BizElite cabins. There was even a full length mirror in there. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.

Back at my seat I had a nice scotch and watched another movie. Later, the flight attendants came through with a snack basket. Somehow, I was able to pass on the junk food (they had Twix, this requires serious self-restraint) and instead had a really good banana.

As the afternoon grew longer, we made our way into the deep south. Soon we were descending through a high layer of clouds. We had an uneventful landing to the east. After parking at the E gates (the plane was heading on to Dubai), I had a long way before I got back to the terminal.

As I’ve already mentioned in a previous post, the visit was fantastic, but soon it was already time to come home. I arrived at the airport by 620a for a 735a flight, but I didn’t need that much time.

I used the SkyPriority line and it took me a little more than 10 minutes to get through security. I’m actually surprised that there was only one x-ray machine and security gate for SkyPriority in Atlanta. Then I hopped on the train for the long ride out to gate E3.

The gate area looked empty and the flight clearly wasn’t full. They boarded the flight on the early side, so I just hopped on and did some work online. I was determined not to log on in the air despite this airplane having wifi. I like being disconnected up there.

This flight was on a 757 with the regular domestic First Class. As mentioned, it had wifi and it also had individual screens. I was set.

It was a beautiful day in Atlanta, and we had only a short wait before launching into the morning blue. We turned around and started making our way west. Breakfast was served and I opted for cereal, which also came with yogurt, a bagel, and fruit.

I finished a movie from last time, and then I flipped on the Karate Kid. I missed about an hour in the middle when I actually fell asleep. That does’nt happen to me very often, but I was exhausted. When I woke up, we were somewhere over New Mexico and they brought back a snack basket for anyone who wanted. Eventually, we landed at LAX and had to wait a little while for the alleyway to clear. Just a few minutes late, I hopped off and went home.

See, Delta and I had been trying to coordinate a visit for about 6 months, but it never worked for one reason or another. This time, I knew it was last minute, but Delta’s corp comm team went above and beyond to pull the thing together. It was an absolutely fantastic visit, but I’m exhausted. I probably have enough material to fill two weeks worth of posts, but I just don’t have time to get started with details today. Want to know the highlight? Here it is:

Yep, that’s Delta’s Ship 41, the first DC-3 that carried Delta passengers. It was painstakingly restored and now sits in the Delta Museum, which is located in the airline’s original Atlanta hangars. It is only open for employee visits once a month, but Curator Tiffany Meng kindly opened it for me to take a look. I also had the pleasure of finally meeting Archives Manager Marie Force. I could have spent a week in the archives easily.

It’s actually not fair to say this was the highlight, because there were just so many other excellent meetings. I had the chance to tour TechOps (maintenance) and speak with the head of the organization. I did the same with cargo, and I was able to interview the people running eCommerce and SkyMiles. (Yes, I asked about the award calendar and SkyMiles redemption, don’t worry.)

I met with the head of reservations about the new @DeltaAssist effort, and I ended the day with Glen Hauenstein, CMO and EVP Network Planning, Revenue Management and Marketing. I shouldn’t say the day ended there, because we had some good ole’ Southern food afterwards. My arteries are not happy.

They even flew me out in the front of the bus, which was certainly unnecessary. I ended up on the 777 on the way out with the herringbone seats, and I’m riding a 757 home. As you can tell, there’s a lot to share with you after this visit.

Overall, I found the trip to be a good (if very basic) look inside the Delta culture. Seeing a corporate communications group that’s so willing to open up and talk with a blogger individually is rare, but it’s especially surprising when it comes from a legacy carrier.

While I don’t agree with everything Delta has done, I found a very driven group of people that had really already considered every question I asked. They aren’t just sitting still. Sometimes they didn’t know the answer, but other times they just hadn’t been able to implement things yet because they’re trying to do so much.

Sorry I don’t have more to report today, but there’s a lot of digesting left to do. I’ll start writing and posting on this tomorrow. It may take me awhile to get through it all, so please be patient.

You’re probably thinking that B looks best, and there’s no chance anyone is going to pick deal A, right? But that’s exactly what’s just happened now that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has given its approval to United and Continental to merge. All Continental has to do is take United’s 18 daily flights and give those slots (or equivalent) to Southwest. Done deal. Those other two deals? Yeah, that would be the rejected slot swap between Delta and US Airways in Washington (C) and New York (B).

I know, I know. These are totally different things and the approvals came from different branches of government. True, but it also shows how screwy it can be dealing with the feds. I should be clear here. I think the Continental and United deal should be approved. I just think the slot swap should have been approved as well.

Let’s start with the Continental/United deal. Apparently, the Department of Justice (which tends to be more strict than the Department of Transportation) had no concerns about this deal outside of Newark. Newark, of course, is a highly-congested airport with no slots available. So Continental agreed to permanently lease 18 slot pairs (the same number of flights United operates today) to Southwest. In other words, United gives up its slots to Southwest and everything else is fine. Here’s the state of the airport after this deal.

I’m sure Southwest is thrilled to be getting in there, but it’s still a pretty small number of flights in the scheme of things. And of course, everyone else is still frozen out for now. Contrast that with the slot swap deal. First, here’s the Washington/National chart had the deal been allowed to go through.

Here you can see an airport with more balance and greater low cost carrier penetration than Newark, but that’s nothing compared to LaGuardia.

When compared to National, there’s a greater transfer of slots here, but the dominant carrier would still have held a smaller position than at the other airport. Note the even higher LCC penetration of 12.7%. That’s more than double where Newark will be after Southwest gets its 18 slot pairs. So what gives?

Well it’s hard to say exactly what’s going on when you’re dealing with political bodies. Making sense is never the highest priority. But in this case, I would assume it’s simply an issue of looking at current versus potential scenarios. Continental won’t grow in Newark with this transaction while Delta and US Airways would have grown at LaGuardia and National respectively in that deal. Really, that shouldn’t be the issue here.

If the feds want to act like they’re sticking up for the consumer, they have the ability to hold airlines over a barrel. The Department of Justice chose not to do that with Continental and United while the Federal Aviation Administration has apparently gone the opposite route with the slot swap. Go figure. One thing we do know is the feds do seem to love Southwest these days.

You’ll remember that Southwest voiced a large number of objections when it came to the slot swap. The feds came back and agreed with the airline. Remember, Southwest actually said that open auctions were the best outcome. Now it’s gone and done a back-room deal. Not bad for Southwest, and certainly not bad for Continental and United. Then again, it probably just frustrates Delta and US Airways even more. Or maybe not.

Maybe this suggests that the better path for US Airways is to get bought (as they’ve been saying for some time anyway). Then it won’t need to get an FAA waiver to give its LaGuardia slots to another airline. It’ll be that other airline, so the FAA won’t get to ruin the party. If this helps build up US Airways’ efforts to get bought, then that’s good news for the airline.

Never a dull moment inside the Beltway, that’s for sure.

There are far too many reasons for this to simply be a coincidence. For example, US Airways will increase its flying on October 31, the very same day Delta does it in Washington. The new routes are as follows:

US Airways will be adding a net of 17 new flights a day at LaGuardia. And where exactly are these magical slots coming from. According to US Airways, the slots were on a “short-term lease” that has now ended. Hmm, anyone want to guess to whom those were leased? If your guess isn’t Delta, hang your head in shame.

In the comments on the Delta post, reader David asked why Delta and US Airways didn’t just lease their slots to each other if they couldn’t get permission to sell them. I figured that wouldn’t be allowed at LaGuardia, but apparently that’s not true, at least in small quantity. Then again, who knows what the feds would have done had the airlines tried to go behind their backs on the entire process. You can’t hide that, and I can’t imagine it would have been looked upon favorably, to say the least.

So the story now starts to come together, at least in my mind. Delta and US Airways tried to do the slot swap and set up some slot leases as part of that to ease the transition. Then the deal got shot down. Delta, either not content to wait for the court ruling or simply not expecting to win, took its slots back from US Airways at National and decided to build them up. US Airways, obviously pissed about this, then took its slots back and decided to throw down in New York as well.

Of the 10 markets getting new or increased flying from US Airways at LaGuardia, seven of them are served by Delta. Six are actually only served by Delta right now. The Dulles move is probably an effort to get some Star Alliance connectivity via United’s hub. Then there’s Harrisburg and Hartford. I suppose it’s possible those were the next best markets out there that didn’t have service, but really? Hartford? That’s an easier drive. Maybe they think they can get some good connections via LaGuardia. Or maybe there’s just something really goofy there that I can’t figure out. (Maintenance base, aircraft routing efficiency?)

Either way, the message here is clear. If Delta wants to try and compete in Washington, then US Airways will do the same in New York. With US Airways now actually showing a profit in LaGuardia, this move could make sense . . . until the economy rolls back downhill again. But hey, let’s not let economics get in the way of a good old-fashioned round of fisticuffs. This is a lot more fun.

The biggest problem with replacing the Worldport was simply lack of space and, most importantly, money. You can’t just stop using a terminal, shut it down, and then build a new one on top of it. What do you do with your flights in the meantime? So that means creative solutions are required, and those creative solutions add cost. JetBlue got lucky in New York in that it took over TWA’s vacant terminal and rebuilt it, all while continuing to use its operation next door. But Delta didn’t have that luxury, so it has now kicked off a $1.2 billion project to change it’s presence at JFK, something that’s sorely needed. Here’s the plan on my handy-dandy map:

Right now, Delta uses Terminal 2 primarily for domestic and Terminal 3 for international operations. The airline also uses a couple gates in Terminal 4 as needed. Terminal 2 wasn’t designed with style in mind as Terminal 3 was, so it’s actually relatively functional. It needs a renovation but it can still handle an operation adequately. The big change there? Those makeshift regional jet gates they put together at the end of the terminal will disappear and the end jet bridges will go back into use as regular gates.

As for Terminal 3, well, it will be demolished completely. If you’ve ever flown out of that terminal, you will jump for joy at this project. It simply isn’t capable of handling an airline operation today. The layout is goofy and it doesn’t help that several animals have made their homes in that place. I swear I’m never surprised to see rats or birds over there, though it’s been awhile since I’ve been back. Maybe the Orkin man has done some work since then.

I imagine that most of the cost in this project will be in taking down Terminal 3. It’s probably a toxic waste dump. The EPA is probably looking to see if it should become a Superfund site. Maybe now we’ll discover that Jimmy Hoffa has been buried under there this whole time, finally putting those rumors to rest.

But those disappearing gates in Terminal 3 have to show up somewhere else. And that will be in Terminal 4. Terminal 4 is already a really nice terminal, but it needs to be expanded for Delta’s purposes. Both concourses will be extended. From what I understand, the A concourse will grow so that current airlines in the B concourse can be relocated, and the B concourse will grow so Delta can handle its operation there. Then a connector will be built between the B concourse and Terminal 2 and all will be right again in New York . . . in 5 years, that is. As for the existing airlines in the B concourse? Guess they’ll have to find a new home elsewhere.

I asked for a count on the net gain in gates but I haven’t received an answer yet. I imagine it will at least replace all the existing gates and possibly add more, and it’s zero. But, there will be four more gates that are international-capable, so it does give Delta more flexibility. At the very least, it will put gates in better places so that taxiing in and out becomes much easier. Oh, and the former Terminal 3 site? That’ll be a nice place for Delta to park all those planes in order to avoid getting fined under the 3 hour rule. Hooray!

Now for the bad news. This won’t happen overnight. (Duh.) Delta will move in to the new terminal in 2013. Terminal 3 will be demolished in 2015. So, it’ll be a couple more years of pain for Delta’s New York fliers, but at least there’s now a light at the end of the tunnel.

[You can see pictures at Delta.com]

[Update 8/13 @ 810a: I received a response from Delta that the A gate extension is not in the plan right now. The map has been udpated, as have net gate counts.]

First, take a look at the new Delta.com homepage:

Forget about the background image which is kind of unnecessary (it pretty much disappears whenever you click on anything) and look at the pieces that Delta makes most prominent. On the left, there are five main categories: Your account (at top), Book a Trip, My Trips, Check In, and Flight Status. What else do you need? There are drop downs in the upper left for other areas which you might be interested in, but those are definitely not the main areas of focus. The airline has done a great job here.

What’s most interesting to me is how it resembles the Dustin Curtis-designed homepage for American. Dustin is just a guy who thought he could improve American’s homepage by making it easier to use, and he put this idea out there. When a contractor who worked for American wrote back explaining why things were the way they were, he was fired. AA.com hasn’t change. But take a look at this.

Remarkably similar, right? The first thing you see is Book Travel. Then the most prominent features at the bottom are Flight Status, Check-in, Your Account, and News. Ok, so Delta left off News and put in My Trips, but the idea is the same. Ease of navigation and finding what’s most important comes first. Great stuff.

Now, if you go to FlyerTalk, you’ll see a lot of angry people. Pages and pages of angry people. Sheesh, chill out. The number one comment? They just put lipstick on a pig. The rest of the site hasn’t changed. That is true, but Delta said in the blog post announcing the change:

We know our homepage looks quite a bit different from the rest of our site, but don’t worry, we’re working on that. Stay tuned in the coming months as we continue to update our site!

Great. They have to start somewhere, and the homepage is going to be the most visited page. Besides, the FlyerTalk crowd is full of power users, super elite members, etc. Most people who go to the website just want one of the big five things on the homepage. They’ll be thrilled.

My only complaint? I have a BlackBerry, and javascript sucks on a BlackBerry. So I’ll just have to stick to the mobile site, which admittedly is quite functional. But hey, that’s a minor complaint. Good job, Delta.

So make sure you update your bookmarks. The old industry.bnet.com/travel site is so 2009. Start using this link from now on:
http://www.bnet.com/blog/airline-business
And the new RSS feed is:
http://www.bnet.com/blog/airline-business?mode=rss

Southwest’s Chronic Flight Delays Are Getting Worrisome – BNET Headwinds
Southwest had another month with a fair number of flights delayed more than 70 percent of the time. With the DOT’s increasing focus, they’re going to need to work on this.

Delta Woos N.Y. Fliers as Chicago Shuttle Targets UAL, AMR – Bloomberg
Bloomberg ran a piece about Delta moving into the LaGuardia-O’Hare market with full force. I see this as an attempt to “win” New York, so it’s targeting American more than anyone else.

How Southwest Made Hay With “Bags Fly Free” – BNET Headwinds
Southwest keeps getting more creative with selling its bags fly free prop. This time, it’s a ground ops agent getting in on it.

US Airways Pilot Dilemma Spills Into the Courts -BNET Headwinds
The US Airways pilot brawl is heating up, and management has been dragged in. Now the airline want clarification on what the heck it’s supposed to do.

United-Continental Merger: Suspicions Confirmed as Exec Team Leans Toward Continental – BNET Headwinds
John Tague is out, and Continental is starting to take over.

How Social Media Can Save Airlines Time and Money – BNET Headwinds
There’s a lot of debate about whether or not social media is worth. I say yes, and the benefit can be quantifiable.

Delta is adding flights in New York, but that’s not a surprise. It’s the increase at Washington/National that has me perplexed. As we all know by now, Delta and US Airways were trying to arrange a slot swap where Delta would give most of its slots to US Airways at National in exchange for US Airways slots at LaGuardia. That was shot down, and now the airlines are fighting the feds in court for permission. You would think that Delta would stick with the status quo pending the court outcome (even if it is a long way away), but that’s not the case. Delta will be adding 27 daily flights to nine cities from National while only killing off service to one city.

Which cities? Here’s the list:

All these changes happen on October 31, but where the heck is the net increase of 25 slots coming from each way? Delta is, as usual, being tight-lipped about the whole thing, but I did get spokesperson Trebor Banstetter to say:

Our slot portfolio at [National] includes slots that had been subleased to other airlines and are now available for Delta’s use, which is how we’re able to add the additional flights without making reductions other than [Huntsville].

Hmm, the plot thickens. Now, who would have been leasing a big chunk of slots from Delta? Trebor wouldn’t tell me, but come on. How many options are there? I mean, it has to be US Airways, right? Nobody else has that big of a chunk of slots that it would be able to hand back and still maintain a viable operation. Delta must have had these slots leased out to US Airways on a longer term deal, and now Delta wants them back. That’s very interesting if true. It means that besides not getting the rest of Delta’s slots that it was giving away in the deal, US Airways may have lost even more slots than that.

This gets even more interesting when looking at planned service changes. I tried to see if US Airways was cutting flights, and I found some. US Airways had previously said that it would begin flying from National to Ottawa, Montreal, Tallahassee, and Birmingham in October. I no longer see those anywhere in the schedule. That would account for some of the slots. I find myself wondering where the rest are coming from.

The strange thing is that these flights were announced fairly recently. So either US Airways was counting on the slot swap going through or it was expecting to be able to use the existing leased slots for that purpose. But US Airways isn’t talking about this either. I suppose I’m not surprised. It probably wouldn’t be something that US Airways would want to publicize. Delta’s the one who blew this up into a big announcement.

One thing that does seem clear is that by killing the slot swap, the feds have made things worse for Washington fliers. No low cost carriers are coming in to the market (other than JetBlue via its separate American swap), and instead, Delta is just putting slots on competitive routes.

Delta is not starting service on any routes that are unserved today. These all at least have one nonstop airline and some have two or even three without Delta in the mix. Most of the routes overlap with US Airways. It’s almost as if Delta is now trying to pick a fight. Meanwhile, cities like Tallahassee and Birmingham will continue to only have connections now that US Airways seems to have pulled the flights. Those towns must be really angry.

There’s still a lot more to this story. What is the deal with these leases? Why is Delta now somehow thinking that it’ll be a big player in Washington? What’s the end game? Could this just be a political ploy to add service to key senatorial markets? I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface on this one.

JetBlue and American: Why Frequent-Flier Sharing Makes Sense – BNET
JetBlue and American have gotten one step closer to each other by starting frequent flier earning on select flights.

Delta Earnings: Outlook Weak Despite Strong Industry Premium Traffic Trends – BNET
Lots of conflicting information out this week. Huge profits but weaker outlook = confusion.

LA World Airports Smartly Reconsiders Regionalization Strategy – BNET
Interesting words from the LA airport folks – they’re thinking twice about the regionalization strategy now that traffic is so far down at LAX itself. Good.

Continental and Wired: How Not to Do a Promotional Partnership – BNET
Continental has teamed up with Wired to do a pretty awful job of promotion.

Pinnacle Acquires Mesaba — and Can’t Wait to Erase the Tarnished Colgan Brand – BNET
Delta sold off two subsidiaries last week. The first is Compass, and that’s not a surprise.

Trans States Wants to Join the Big Leagues of Regional Airlines – BNET
And here’s the other sell-off, which was a much bigger surprise. Trans States buys Compass?!

Bad News: United, Continental Merger Already Seeing Pilot Unrest – BNET
That didn’t take long. The pilots and management are already fighting at the merging airlines.

Spring Thaw: American’s Pilots Turn Toward Reconciliation with Management – BNET
More pilot fun! American’s pilots are looking to talk to management again. It’s a change for the better.