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.

What the heck does this have to do with Smurfs? Well, in the airline pricing world, you rarely say the name of a city. Instead, you just sound out the airport code. Even though there’s no “r” in SMF (the airport code for Sacramento), it somehow became known as Smurf.

I had the option of flying out of LAX to Reno and then driving an hour or flying from Long Beach to Sacramento on JetBlue and driving two hours. Needless to say, I chose Sacramento and the tickets were $179.40 roundtrip.

As usual, I left for the airport an hour before the flight and I was sitting around in the boarding lounge (read: double wide trailer) within 20 minutes. For midday flights when the lines are shorter, I may just start leaving home later.

When we started boarding, the friendly gate agent was very careful to tell people where to go, especially since it was a long walk to the plane. He said something like “when you get out there, stay within the metal fences and you’ll get to the plane. It’s the only one out there and it’s called Blue Skies Ahead.” I started smirking, thinking about people wandering aimlessly looking for planes, getting lost, left to die. It’ll be nice when the ramp work is done here.

The flight was completely uneventful and enjoyable. I do have only a couple minor nits that JetBlue might want to think about.

I get that LiveTV is free, and I have no trouble with JetBlue putting ads up to make revenue off the product, but I hate the timing. They let you watch TV on the ground without any issues, but then when you take off, they run ads for a couple minutes. I was in the middle of watching the Daily Show at the time, and I missed the end because of the JetBlue ads.

The other issue is with this “express” service. Once again it was water, Coke, Diet Coke, or Sprite along with Doritos, Munchie Mix, and Animal Crackers. That was it. Since JetBlue has been promoting its new blueberry juice option, I thought I’d give it a try. Not on this flight. Same for my beloved ginger ale. And not even blue chips?

I asked the flight attendant what the cutoff was for a normal service. She said it was an hour, and then looked a bit sheepish after realizing the captain had just told us our flight would be an hour and two minutes. She then said, “Well, it’s really by route. We just don’t have enough time to do a full service on a full flight.”

That excuse was pretty lame since this flight wasn’t nearly full, and the flight attendants had plenty of time to sit in the back of the plane and chat. I know the flight attendants don’t decide if they run a full service or not, so something tells me management might want to look at this policy again.

Other than those minor annoyances, the flight was great. We landed a couple minutes early in the retro Sacramento Terminal B. I was on my way to meet my brother and friends to head up to Lake Tahoe.

It was a fantastic weekend, and after the nine of us caught 27 salmon in the lake, we had a great feast. Tired and a little hungover, we headed back down the mountain. As you would expect, there was traffic on a Sunday afternoon, but we arrived at Sacramento Airport as planned at 430p. I dumped them off for their flight and then I went to return the car before mine.

The shuttle dropped me off again at Terminal B, which lies in the shadows of the massive new Sacramento terminal project. That’ll have to be the subject of another post. For now, I was stuck in a time warp. (Check out the restroom sign.) I sailed through security and popped on to free wifi to do some work before it was time to board.

Although the plane came in on time from Long Beach, it was slow to deplane and we found ourselves pushing up against the departure time. Finally, we started boarding and it started with a bit of bad news.

I saw that we were on N504JB, the second airplane JetBlue took on back in 2000. It looked good for its age, but the insides weren’t keeping up today. They announced that LiveTV wasn’t working. Boo . . . ish. I love LiveTV, but I get a $15 credit (as does everyone else on the flight) since it didn’t work. I’ll take it.

The boarding process was nothing short of awesome. A woman whom I believed to be the station manager started walking the line, making sure everyone had their boarding passes out and even tore off pieces to make sure it would be easy for the gate agent to rip. We boarded very quickly and pushed almost right on time. Great work.

Once onboard, I found a packed flight, and of course, I was the one sitting next to the guy who just had to be farting his way through. On top of that, he was talkative. Without LiveTV to hide behind, I was in trouble.

Fortunately, he did let up as we made a mad dash toward the runway. We launched into the warm evening and headed out toward the Sierras. It was a beautiful ride down as we butted up against the foothills the whole way. We had another express beverage service and I did some work.

We descended in over a smoggy LA. I had a great view of the beach on my left and enjoyed watching airplanes come out of LAX, climbing high as we dropped down.

We came through the thin marine layer before landing in a nice and cool Long Beach.

I decided to take the trip in order to see the Swiss inaugural out of SFO. I was actually offered the opportunity to take the inaugural, but after such a busy travel month I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. But there was a lot to see, as I’ve written already on previous posts, so I snagged a roundtrip on JetBlue for a mere $119.40 and was on my way.

I left home an hour and 10 minutes early because I had to park myself in the remote lot. That was dumb. The shuttle was waiting for me and there wasn’t a soul in the security line. I had time to kill.

The terminal itself was a madhouse, made even worse by the cancellation of a flight to Oakland. Lots of people were in line trying to figure out what to do.

We boarded on time and had a long walk to the airplane. I can’t wait until all this construction work is done. I followed a parade of high school girls on to the plane, armed with their trendy sweatpants and big carry-on pillows. It was a large group of some sort, but I didn’t ask what they were doing.

We took off, I watched TV, we got some drinks, and then we descended. It was an uneventful flight and we had a nice and easy landing.

Our gate was still occupied, but the international gates are common-use. So we waited a couple of minutes and then they just did a swap and moved us to another. Nice. We were still a few minutes early and I went off for the Swiss festivities.

A couple days later, it was time to come back home. I had a friend drop me off at the international terminal at SFO and I quickly made a beeline for the kiosk and printed out my boarding pass. The security line wasn’t too long, but it was slow. I had plenty of time, so I wasn’t concerned. After a few minutes at the gate, it was time to board.

The flight was about as empty as I’ve seen in a long time. It was probably little more than half full at most, and I had a row to myself. Nice.

As we boarded, I noticed that we were on BetaBlue, the one JetBlue airplane that had that narrowband wifi product which let you check email for free. I was told it was supposed to still be working, but I couldn’t even find the network on the ground.

Once in the air, we passed through some low clouds and had a nice view looking back at the airport. As usual, the second we took off, the TVs stopped working. These TVs, however, instead of simply showing that it was searching for the signal, just wouldn’t let you flip to channels with no reception. Consequently, we ended up just being able to see the four movie channels (pay per view) and the moving map.

The flight attendants came through with their express beverage service with snacks. I hate the express service because you can’t get ginger ale, but I did like the pack of animal crackers. After that, they reset the TV system but that took a good 10 minutes or so. When it came back on, it still didn’t work.

I tried out the wifi on my smartphone, and was able to connect to the server. Unfortunately, that’s where it stopped. I couldn’t get or send email or go to any websites. It just kept telling me that the website I’m trying to reach isn’t supported. I know that’s not true, because I was trying to go to Yahoo and there’s a huge Yahoo logo billboard painted on the plane. It would be nice to see a better error message, but this is going to be disabled soon anyway, so I’m sure they hardly care about it.

At one point, we made a soft right turn and I wondered if there was traffic ahead. Sure enough, an American bird was speeding by and I snapped it in this shot. Cool, huh?

The TVs came back to us when we were well into our descent. I thought that maybe the wifi would work at that point, but it still didn’t. So, I just watched the marine layer below as we drifted down. We landed early and I was at my car in just a few minutes, heading home.

I opted for Long Beach on the way out, but I went for LAX on the way home. The flight via Denver would have left at 6a, and I had no interest in a flight THAT early. Instead, I took the nonstop out of Milwaukee an hour later.

As usual, I left home for Long Beach Airport an hour before departure. With only one security gate open, it took about 15 minutes to get through. I then sat for a few minutes before we boarded the rare A318.

Frontier schedules a 645a departure, but the noise ordinance doesn’t allow a departure until 7a, so we sat at the end of the runway waiting. Once in the air, it was a quick ride over to Denver, helped by LiveTV (yep, $6 from me since this wasn’t a Classic fare). We had one drink service and that was about it until they cleaned up for landing. What were they doing? One flight attendant was in the back playing solitaire on his laptop.

They cleaned up the plane at the top of descent because it was expected to be a rough ride. Boy, was it. Denver had howling 35 kt gusts, but that was nothing compared to our descent over the front range. At one point, we had a good 10 seconds of at least moderate turbulence if not more where people were screaming.

After that, it was just a normal choppy Denver arrival and we taxied to the gate on time. I had a 25 minute connection and with the gate only a couple doors down, it gave me a couple minutes to catch up on email. Soon we were boarding.

We had one of “those” passengers on taxi out who refused to get off her phone. The flight attendant told her once and she hung up. Then she had the nerve to make another call. Since she was in the exit row and this happened during the safety briefing, the flight attendant stopped the briefing and said, “we’re waiting for you, ma’am.” She finally hung up, though not after getting some scowls from fellow passengers.

The First Officer warned us that it would be a bumpy climb, but after our roller coaster over the front range, I figured it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad. I was right.

I paid for LiveTV again, though it made me realize that they could probably do better by doing a connecting flight bundle – $9 for two flights or something like that.

I had my customary ginger ale and was surprised when they also passed out the warm chocolate chip cookies. I guess this was a Midwest flight. Soon enough, it was time to descend.

This was a much nicer Milwaukee experience than my last one in December. I was on my way quickly and hopped on the city bus into town. (I love public transit.) The convention was a good one.

When it was time to come home, I went to check in and found myself in a world of trouble. I had the same confirmation number as my flight out, but the Frontier website didn’t recognize me. I tried multiple times before giving up and calling Frontier.

A nice agent answered and explained that my flight was actually “operated by Frontier for Midwest.” Um, ok. My flight out was operated by Frontier for Frontier I guess, but I didn’t know it. I had to go to Midwest’s website to check-in. Whew. I can’t wait until this integration is complete.

I checked in but since I was on a cheap ticket, no seat was assigned. They assigned me an aisle. Boo. I’m a window guy. And sadly there were no windows left . . . except up front. So I decided to pay $25 for a few extra inches of legroom in the Stretch seating section. I don’t really care about the extra legroom, but it is nice to be able to get out without making the entire row get up.

The next morning, I woke up early, hopped in a cab to the airport, and made my way through security without any trouble.

The flight boarded as before, with people who didn’t have carry-ons going first and then from the back to the front. It seems to me that Stretch seating people should be able to board first as a perk, but instead, they board last.

I did find an overhead bin spot and took my seat with ample legroom. We took off into the morning sky and winged our way to the west coast. TV was free on the flight, because they needed a software upgrade for the system and it hadn’t been given yet. So they aren’t charging people until the plane makes its way to Denver for the upgrade.

I slept a little but not much. The last half of the flight was spent talking to a 20 year captain at Continental. That was an interesting discussion and it made the flight go by very quickly. I did a little work on my computer before being barked at to put my electronics away. (This was before the announcement was even made to put stuff away.) We landed in a surprisingly rainy LA and I headed home.

In fact, I woke up the morning of the trip not even sure if I was going to go. I ended up deciding that yes, it was worth taking the trip, so I dragged myself together and called a cab to pick me up an hour before the flight. Yes, that’s the beauty of flying out of Long Beach, and JetBlue’s perfectly-timed mid-morning flight to Chicago fit the bill, especially at $144 one way.

I arrived at the airport, snagged my boarding pass (I couldn’t check in online), and realized I was at the north gates. Ugh. See, JetBlue primarily uses the south gates, but there are a couple random flights that they need to stick up north. The security lines there aren’t really able to handle it, so I sat there for 15 minutes waiting to get through. After I was through, I took a seat for just couple minutes before boarding.

Our plane was parked fairly far away, so we had a nice walk in the pleasant sunshine. The only problem? It was a little warm and I was dressed for chilly Chicago. We pushed back right on time and launched out toward the ocean. After flipping around in the still skies, we pointed east and stayed on a southerly track until we got toward Albuquerque to ride the wind.

I got myself a ginger ale and a meal. Wait, JetBlue doesn’t have meals? I beg to differ. They have a ton of different snacks and you can take as many as you want. I had cashews, plaintain chips, and chocolate chip cookies. It was a pretty good meal, and it was free. Then I sat back and remembered once again why I love LiveTV and don’t care about internet.

If I can go online, I’m going to do work. With LiveTV, I don’t have that choice and I watch things I wouldn’t otherwise watch. I saw a repeat of the previous night’s Stanford – Ohio St volleyball semifinals match. That was excellent.

There were a few cloud layers as we descended, and we headed out over the lake before looping around to land to the west where it was a very hectic week of work and play.

More than a week later, I was so excited to finally come home after being away for 15 of the last 22 nights, and man, was I tired. With such an early morning flight home, I tried to get about 5 hours of sleep, but even those hopes were dashed when the ash cloud rolled over London and I had to help a client out of a jam. (It was a success.)

We got to the airport at 545a for our $175 flight in the darkness with rain starting to fall. Having checked in, we went straight to security where we found a long, disorganized line. We got in the long “expert” line, but after 10 minutes, we were all redirected to the main line. Later, we found that it was still open on the other side so we were just frustrated. It took a whopping 30 minutes to get through security.

There was a long line of people boarding, so we just got in it. When we were about halfway there (with very few people sitting down), they announced that they would now begin general boarding with rows 15 to 23. Huh? There’s no way all those people who had already boarded were preboarders. When the next rows were never called, the remaining few stragglers of us just walked on the plane and nobody said a word.

Once onboard, we had no trouble finding bin space and took our seats, one row behind Stretch seating. Hmm, does that mean we need to start calling the regular seats Squeeze seating? The legroom actually was perfectly fine and the dark green leather seats were quite comfortable.

We launched into the muck (I don’t remember the last time the weather was good flying out of Indiana) and went through several layers of clouds before finally peaking out just above the clouds at 30,000 feet or so. I love flying in the early morning light.

We had purchased Classic fares which meant pre-reserved seats and free TV. On Frontier, everyone gets free TV until you get in the air, so they give you a taste and hope you want to pay to continue your show. But since we were Classic, the flight attendant came by and swiped his card. He had a list of people who had Classic or Classic Plus fares so we didn’t have to show our boarding pass.

I had a glass of water in the air and then watched some TV. This time it was the Jetsons and Saved by the Bell. Of course, I alternated that with just staring out the window as the clouds fell away to reveal a beautiful early morning view.

We descended in blue skies as I drifted in an out of consciousness. We landed and taxied to the gate where we sat for awhile, waiting for the jet bridge operator to figure out how to make it work. No worries, we were still early and got off without any trouble.

We found our connecting gate and to my surprise, we were on a Midwest-liveried airplane. Despite having flown “Midwest” before, this was my first time on a plane that actually said Midwest on the side.

We entered the jet bridge to see a basket of earphones telling people their TV might be free. The people in front of us picked them up, clearly not knowing there were no TVs onboard the E-jet. I knew this was going to be a problem for the airline.

This airplane had the Midwest blue seats along with the old extra-wide Signature seating up front. This really is the closest I’m going to get to flying Midwest, and you know what? Those coach seats were really comfortable. If you’ve never been on an E-jet, the cabin is narrower but it doesn’t feel that way. Here’s a shot I took of both cabins from the same perspective:

We took our seats and it looked like we would be on time, but we weren’t. No explanation was given but I did see a flight attendant messing with the water in the lav.

I was so tired that after pushback, I closed my eyes and drifted in and out of sleep until about halfway through the flight when they came around with their only drink service. I had ginger ale. The flight was uneventful, though I was surprised to see some thick clouds masking a wintry landscape on the way in to Long Beach.

The flight attendant up front was very friendly and put up with some rather obnoxious passengers on board. She also provided some comic relief when every time she tried to make an announcement, the captain would interrupt. The whole plane was laughing.

Coming in to Long Beach was fun with lots of low clouds that broke just as we came in over the city. Here’s a 5 minute video if you’re interested:

I had to get down from Chicago to Indianapolis, so I perused my options. I was hoping to use a friend’s buddy pass to fly United on the short hop, but with the weather rolling in and the flights filling up, I thought it better to change course.

I looked at the train, and man, was it cheap. I could take a ride for only $19, but the train goes once a day and takes over 5 hours, getting in at midnight. That wasn’t going to fly with the in-laws.

I looked at Greyhound, but then someone suggested I look at MegaBus. I forgot they went out of Chicago, but when I looked, I saw they fan out all over the Midwest from there. I decided to go for it. My bus would leave at 6p and arrive a mere 3 hours and 15 minutes later. This seemed like the way to go.

I booked my ticket online and the system gave me a reservation number which I would give to the driver. It said to be at the bus stop 15 minutes before departure. In Chicago, it said the bus left from Union Station. If I needed to make a change, there was in fact a fee . . . $1. Nice.

I arrived at the massive Union Station looking for any sign of MegaBus and I couldn’t find one. I asked one person who told me to go upstairs. Then another person said to go outside and turn left. After wandering around aimlessly, the third person I asked told me the stop was a block south of the station, where I could see others lined up.

The stop was nothing but a sign and empty sidewalk. I sat down and did some work online while waiting for the bus to show. One bus came and picked people up for Iowa City, but the rest of us just sat there waiting.

Six o’clock came and went and there was no bus. In the meantime, an army of panhandlers walked back and forth begging us for change, unused bus transfers, bus passes, you name it. Even when I was on the phone, these guys would interrupt my conversation, and it was incredibly frustrating.

By 630p, I was getting annoyed. I had signed up for text message alerts but I hadn’t received anything about a delay. I called MegaBus reservations and they said they didn’t know anything but they gave me the number for a different customer service line. I called that and sat on hold.

Finally, someone picked up and told me that he would see what was up. He came back with the good news that the bus was only two blocks away. It was still no excuse for not providing that information more easily.

While this was all going on, a group of very drunk Cubs fans showed up and started asking everyone where they were going to sit. I just hoped to be able to sit nowhere near them. I solidified that thought when they ran to the corner drug store to pick up some more alcohol.

So our motley crew of about 30 or so boarded the bus and gave our reservation numbers to the driver. The bus was a double-decker and the drunkards went upstairs, so I stayed on the bottom. I was pleasantly surprised.

The first couple rows were actually lounge style with seats facing each other and a table in the middle with cup holders. Wanting to do work, I sat in one of those areas and had another person sitting on the other side.

The seats were comfortable and the bus had 110V power throughout. There was also wifi, but it was incredibly spotty so I just used my Verizon card instead.

Things started off rough . . . literally. That road getting out of Chicago is brutal and we were bouncing around enough that I couldn’t do any work. I had to wait until we reached Indiana for things to smooth out. But from there, it was smooth sailing.

The downstairs clientele was a good one – they were quiet. The guy across from me was from the UK and was here touring around baseball parks. The guy across was traveling for work. I don’t know about anyone else because they were either asleep or working.

We pulled in to Indy exactly when we were told and that was it. It was a nice ride. So what does this mean for the airlines?

Well, short haul routes can easily be served with a bus or train, but a bus requires a lot less investment. The product onboard this new generation of buses is quite nice, and it might be something that airlines would want to consider as a partner in the future. Multi-modal is the cool thing to do, after all.

I could have flown out of Long Beach, but I made the rare decision to go LAX instead. Why? I’d rather not fly Mesa, and that’s who US Airways uses from Long Beach.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get a ride on the way out. Not wanting to leave my car at LAX for a few days, I just took public transit. Track closures had rail running slow, but I still arrived at the terminal about 1:15 before the flight.

I always like to leave a little buffer when I fly out of LAX Terminal 1 (Southwest and US Airways) but it was completely unnecessary today. There was no security line and I tested the new option to leave your netbook in the bag. Didn’t work. They said it had to be the only thing in the bag, so they made me take it out. Oh well.

After, I went to the gate. This was my first time flying US Airways in a long time, but it brought back memories. My days at America West were spent flying between Phoenix and LA, always taking one of the two midday flights home on Sunday. Here I was, taking the same flight (there’s only one these days) back to Phoenix.

I boarded to find a very nice, new A321 (about a year old). US Airways has done a nice job with leather seats and a bright interior design. The legroom, at 32 inch pitch, actually felt quite roomy for me. I took my seat and waited as we boarded early and pushed a couple minute before schedule.

We taxied out and sat off the runway for about 5 minutes before heading off into the marine layer. It was my favorite kind of departure – a short hop into the marine layer and then out into sparkling sunshine just a minute later. Only this time, the sunshine didn’t last long because we had high clouds that kept us bouncing much of the way to Phoenix.

This is one of the planes equipped with wifi from GoGo, but it was never mentioned by the crew and there weren’t any pamphlets in the seat back. How did I even know? There was a sticker on the door. But I wasn’t about to use it, not for an hour flight. I just did some reading and drank my ginger ale. (If you haven’t seen it, read this great piece from Mark at Upgrade:Travel Better on drinking ginger ale on airplanes.)

Soon enough we were passing over the Colorado River and beginning our descent. It may not be summer, but the temperature was heading toward the high 90s. If you’ve flown into Phoenix in the summer, you know that it can be a rockin’ ride with the thermals. This trip was no exception and the captain actually had the flight attendants sit down early so nobody would get hurt. We bounced our way into Phoenix and had a long taxi back to the gate.

After the door opened, I stood up and crossed my seat belt, another America West flashback. Seatbelts had to be crossed before boarding back in the day, and as an employee I always crossed it to help out. That’s stuck with me, and I cross it every time I fly.

I was supposed to come home on Saturday at midday, but I decided I just wanted to get home early so I switched to good old flight 24. For as long as I can remember, flight 24 (or previously 2024) has been the morning flight to LAX. I used to take this often, so once again, it was a nice flashback.

I got to the airport an hour early and found a very slow line with a single ID checker. Our line kept backing up as employee after employee kept coming through and cutting in front of us. It took 15 minutes to get through a line that should have taken 5.

Once through, I headed to the gate to find the latest Arizona plane. This is the third one I’ve been on. The first was 757 N916AW. That was returned to the lessor in the 1990s and N901AW was painted in Arizona colors. Then when the merger happened, the 757s all received regular US Airways paint and the theme planes moved to A319s.

I had forgotten I was on a US Airways-provided ticket, so when they called me up to the podium, it threw me off guard. Fortunately, they had called me up to give me a First Class ticket for the ride home.

I boarded after most, but I did find a place to put my carry on just a couple rows behind me. The flight attendants were having a rough start to their day. One was running back and forth trying to help everyone. At one point, the gate agent was on the plane when the flight attendant realized there was a child in the exit row. She asked the gate agent for help and he simply shrugged and said, “What do you want me to do?” If I could only describe the look on her face . . . . She just did it.

We pushed back on time and were told to expect a bumpy ride. Once we got airborne, it turned out to be pretty smooth, and I had a bloody mary to make the ride a little better.

It was a beautifully clear day and the service was excellent onboard. We did end up hitting some turbulence as we descended into LA, but that only prompted the flight attendant to ask me if I wanted another bloody mary. I had no intention of doing so, but hey, why not? I wasn’t driving home.

We came into LAX on a beautiful day and landed nice and early. The captain opened the door at the gate and exclaimed “Welcome to Burbank! Oops.” Those at the front laughed and then we all headed out to find our rides.

It was a great trip on US Airways. It’s been awhile since I last flew them, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

I figured leaving home two hours before my flight would work, and it did but not by much. There was plenty of traffic, the parking shuttle was slow, and by the time I rolled up to Terminal 6 at LAX, it had been an hour and a half since I left. I can’t wait for Frontier to start that Denver flight from Long Beach.

A friend nominated me as Premier Associate on United (1K members can do that) so I thought I’d try it out. I went to the premium line and broke out my super cool mobile boarding pass. I walked right in and the security line was short.

Once through, I headed to the gate. An announcement was made that we would be boarding in 5 minutes. Then 5 minutes later, another announcement was made that they were still servicing the airplane so it would be another 10 minutes. That seemed strange since the plane had been at the gate for two hours. Sure enough, the same guy came on not a minute later and announced that it was time to board. Ok.

I had forgotten that United had segmented boarding so much. First the super fancy cool fliers board, then the moderately cool fliers board. Then Economy Plus boards and so on. As a lowly Premier Associate, I boarded with the Economy Plus crowd. It was very cool just holding my phone up to the scanner for boarding. Look ma, no paper.

Boarding was creeping along very slowly, but when I finally reached the door I saw a flight attendant wearing green accessories for St Patrick’s Day. I figured she was in a good mood, but I was wrong. I looked at her and said “good morning” but she responded with a sarcastic “Here at United we board forward – aft, see how well that works?”

Um ok, I just kept walking. I took my seat and soon heard a stern announcement that every seat on this flight was full so you had to put your bags up in the bin or under your seat quickly. Too bad it wasn’t actually full. The monitor outside showed only a handful of people on the standby list and about 40 open seats. Sounds like she was just using her standard speech to combat the rising bag problems that have been plaguing airlines that charge for checked luggage.

We pushed back a couple minutes early and then rocketed out over the Pacific. There’s nothing like taking off in a 757. Once we were over the San Gabriel mountains, about 10 minutes into the flight, the flight attendants began their service.

They slowly made their way back and when they got to my row, they asked the guy on the aisle if he wanted a drink. He said no and then they just moved on. When I flagged the flight attendant down, she said she thought he had asked me if I wanted something. Weird. At that time, Channel 9 (where you can listen to cockpit communication) wasn’t on so I asked her if she would ask the captain. She said she would.

I never heard back from her and Channel 9 never came on so I have no clue if she even asked. Soon we were on our way in to Denver. It was incredibly smooth on approach, which in Denver terminology means there was *only* light turbulence. It was a quick taxi in and I was off quickly.

After a successful day on the panel at the State of DIA luncheon, I was ready to get out of town. It’s not that I didn’t like Denver but there was a storm coming. The partly cloudy skies and mid-60 degree temps were giving way to a lot of snow and a high of 30.

I walked into the airport and, with my mobile boarding pass in hand, headed straight to security. A TSA agent was standing there directing people to use a further line that had fewer people in it.

I went there and expected to have to flash my boarding pass at the elite line showing my premier associate status but the lineminder couldn’t have been less interested. He didn’t even look and just waved me on.

The next stop was the ID check. You’re probably wondering how the mobile boarding pass works there. Well, you just show them your ID and they have the same scanners that United has at the gate (at right). Once they see it’s valid and the name matches, they let you through. Seems much more secure than a regular paper boarding pass to me.

I made it through security in 5 minutes and hopped on the train. I saw there was a slightly delayed earlier flight so I tried to make it but the door was closed when I got there. My flight was going out of gate B47 and I was happy to find B45 empty with plenty of open seats facing the ramp.

I parked myself there and went through emails to pass the time. Soon, our plane pulled up, and man did it need a paint job. It was in the older colors but it was so faded that it made me cringe. The nosecone was painted in the old gray scheme as well but it was much brighter, giving a contrast that was far from flattering.

They boarded us up quickly and the flight attendants seemed to be in a better mood this time. I was bummed to see the old cloth interior on this A320. I’ve been hearing really good things about the new interior and I wanted to test it out. At least the plane was clean, though my seat kept reclining on its own and you had to basically punch the channel and volume controls to get them to work.

We took off to the north and before we even hit the Rockies, the seat belt sign was off. We went under, through, and eventually above some scenic high clouds with great views all around. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. I got a glass of water and watched a rerun of The Office that I’d seen before.

When we first boarded, Channel 9 had been on and I was hearing communication between air traffic control and the airplanes, but it was shut off before we left. I asked the flight attendant if she would mind asking the captain if he would turn it on, and she quickly replied that he wouldn’t be doing that. Man, 0 for 2. That’s my favorite thing about United too. So, I just sat back and stared out the window, drifting in and out of an uncomfortable half-sleep.

The descent in to LAX was very hazy so it was hard to see much, but we put down and taxied across the airport back to our terminal. I headed to the parking lot so I could go fight my way home through rush hour traffic.

[More photos via Flickr]
[Video of Flying over the Rockies (~30 secs)]
[Video of Landing in Denver (~4 mins)]

My flight home was at 715p, but I was able to arrange a visit to the domestic terminal at Auckland first. When I interviewed CEO Rob Fyfe back in May, he explained that their new check-in process for domestic flights would allow people to arrive only 15 minutes before their flight. I had to see for myself.

The airline arranged for John Whittaker, the man in charge of the domestic operation, to take me out there. He set up a booking for me so I could go through the process myself. It lived up to its billing, for the most part, though security slowed me down to make 15 minutes a little too tight. Here’s a 2 minute video of me walking through the check-in process.

This process really eliminates lines almost entirely. Sure, if people have complicated changes or problems that need addressing, they have to see an agent, but the vast majority of people don’t need that. They just need to drop a bag off and get checked in. If you don’t have a bag, you really don’t even need to go to the kiosk. You can print out a confirmation page at home or you can pull up a barcode on your phone and just walk through security. At the gate, you can scan your pass and it will spit out a receipt for you. Then you’re on your way. You only need to check in at the kiosk if you have a bag to drop.

Now, the only problem with an arrival 15 minutes before departure here is the security line. I was there at the absolute peak of the afternoon and it took about 10 minutes to get through. Domestic security is much easier – no shoes off, and heck, they don’t even check your ID, but it did make a 15 minute door to plane timeline pretty difficult during the afternoon rush. Still, you could easily have made it in 30 minutes.

Once through, there’s a really nice lounge that has food and showers, but the gate is where it got interesting for me. Instead of having a big podium for check-in, the focus is really on the gate reader. That’s where the work gets done. There is just one employee, a turn manager, who handles the flight on the ground, but a flight attendant comes off the plane to board the flight as well.

On the ramp, only one person pushes the airplane back. He has a remote that controls the unmanned pushback tug which works on a rear wheel (at right). Then he stands at the front of the plane and walks it back. Pretty slick operation.

Once I was done getting the tour, it was time to head to the international terminal. Unfortunately, they aren’t connected in Auckland. I could walk it, but there were thunderstorms around, so John drove me over on his way out.

The check-in area is enormous, but I went to a small private room on the side set aside for premium cabin check-in. It’s a more intimate setting with a few desks of people to check you in. Up to this point, my efforts to snag a window in premium economy had failed. The flight was full, and I was only willing to take a window so I could rest my head. So, I checked in and got my boarding pass for the upper deck in business and then headed to security.

Immigration lines were about 15 minutes long, and then security took 10 seconds. On the other side, I went up to the relatively newly renovated Air New Zealand lounge. The place was massive and had all kinds of areas – kid zones, no cell phone zones, massage areas, etc. I settled in for a few minutes of email checking before our concierge Brigitte came to meet us. She said that they were able to arrange a premium economy seat downstairs if I’d like, but I cracked.

I had gotten lost hiking on Waiheke Island (at left) earlier in the day and missed my ferry. My feet were cut up from what I believe was a rogue blackberry bush, and I was a little sunburned. The thought of giving up a flat bed right then was too much. Sorry guys. I’ll just have to find a way to review the new premium economy when it rolls out later this year.

They announced in the lounge that everyone had to leave for our flight early for the extra-special TSA-mandated patdown. Joy. So we went down to find a couple of gates isolated from the rest of the concourse with a makeshift partition. First, we waited in a 10 minute line just to talk to someone. They checked our passports again and made sure it matched the name on the boarding pass. Then they checked some magic list. I wasn’t on it, so I thought that was bad news, but now I think it was the opposite. I moved up to the next person who checked my boarding pass and sent me through a corridor that dumped me out at the gate. Others had to get the full pat down and search and that took a very long time.

The partitioned gate area was too small, so everyone was standing around like sardines waiting to board. Brigitte circulated around the room answering questions while the rest of us watched boarding time come and go. Security had managed to delay our flight by about half an hour, and the staff looked to be a bit frustrated that there was nothing they could do.

We did finally board and I took my seat upstairs with two other journalists. An older American woman boarded right behind us and the flight attendant said to her, “It looks like you’ll be sharing the cabin with these gentlemen.” The woman looked startled and said, “What?!” After repeating it, the woman breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought you said ‘Germans’.” We couldn’t help but laugh.

We took off and passed by some beautiful storm clouds before pointing northeast toward LA. I passed on dinner, flipped my bed down, popped some Ambien, and woke up 7 hours later. I was up for good at that point, so I tried to flip my bed back, but I was struggling with it a little. Nobody came to help. My glass of water also remained empty all night. The service during the middle of the flight wasn’t quite up to the level of the service on the way down, but the service at the beginning and the end when most people were awake was excellent.

I had a bacon roll once again, but this time it was more like the English-style of bacon. Delicious. (No bubble and squeak was offered, by the way.) Brigitte came up to chat with me as part of her rounds, and I found out she had only been doing this for a couple months. She used to be a journalist. So I asked what she recommended that people do in LA, and she said that she doesn’t usually get many requests for that. But when she does, it’s usually for long layovers, so she’ll point them to a beach or Santa Monica; something close by. She said that each time she travels, she tries to explore a new area so she can recommend it.

Then she went above and beyond.

Brigitte handed me her card and said that she had spoken with our concierge on the way down and he told her that I asked him for the registration of the aircraft. So she got the registration for me and wrote it down without me having to ask. Wow.

I naturally assumed that this was some sort of special treatment and she said that no, they talk like this all the time. If a couple is on a honeymoon, for example, the outbound concierge will tell the inbound concierge so she can ask specifically how the trip went and offer them a celebratory drink or something along those lines. Fantastic service.

Though we had light chop for the first two-thirds of the flight, the last third was pleasantly smooth after the sun came up. We landed just a few minutes late, and immigration was quick and painless. I didn’t have a ride, so it took me 2 hours to take public transit home. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but maybe LA will get its public transit act together one of these days. Nah, probably not.

[See More New Zealand Pics]
[See New Zealand Videos (some better than others)]

But today, let’s talk about the existing product and the flight down from LA. It was absolutely stellar. Comparing Air NZ to my Air France flight to Tahiti last year is like comparing Singapore Airlines to Alitalia. There isn’t a comparison.

Air New Zealand provided the ticket down to Auckland and yes, they flew me in business class. Despite some people telling me I’m insane, I’m actually trying to get downgraded to premium economy for the flight home so I can give you a report on that, but the flight is full and they say it may not be possible. I’ll keep you posted.

Back to this flight. I got to the airport at 530p, two hours before departure. I figured I didn’t need to be there that early, but there were a few of us on this trip together so I thought it would be nice to meet them in the airport for a little bit. I was also a little concerned since you aren’t allowed to check-in online. (I’m told they’re considering that for the future.)

I walked up to the premium check-in area and they instantly gave me my boarding pass and asked if I was happy with a window on the upper deck. No problems there, of course, since I had snagged my seat a few days earlier online. Then, the agent came around from behind the counter and escorted me to the lounge.

Wait, that didn’t sound right. I double-checked to see if this was something they did for all their premium customers and he said no. He was just given instructions to escort our group. Ah, I see. Not a fan of that. That’s not exactly helpful for me to give an opinion on what other customers will see now is it? If you were traveling outside our group, you had to face a roughly 30 minute line which I skipped. Once Northwest left Terminal 2 at LAX, they took away the premium security line, so the experience has gotten a bit worse in that regard.

After cutting in line at security (grr), I went up to the lounge. I had only been in the tired, worn old Northwest lounge in Terminal 2 at LAX, so seeing the much larger, nicer Air New Zealand lounge was a good surprise.

There was not only a large area with cold cuts and other snacks, but it looked newly redone with plenty of room and even some showers. I later found out that while we had to use the old Northwest lounge when we flew Air France business class to Tahiti last year, Air France First Class passengers get to come here.

Once again, the special treatment continued, much to my dismay, with a corner of the lounge blocked off for our group to get together. I met the other writers would be joining me down to NZ along with Kathryn Gregory, Air NZ’s Marketing head in the US and Roger Poulton, a 40 year Air NZ employee who is now Vice President of the Americas. He came to see us off while Kathryn was flying with us.

In the lounge, we got to know each other and I wandered around to take it all in. Then, the inflight concierge Aaron Nelson came through. I’ve written about Air New Zealand’s concierge program before and how I think it’s a great idea. Now, I had the chance to dig in and try it out.

Aaron had actually been working as an account exec with the airline before he decided to apply to become a concierge. Right now, concierges are based in Auckland and London and only operate on the North American routes. They arrive about 1.5 to 2 hours before the flight and immediately start looking for any problems to solve. I asked Aaron how they measure the success of the program and he said it’s all about complaint reduction. Air NZ has a zero complaint policy, and routes with concierges have seen complaints down by more than 20% while other routes haven’t seen that drop.

So he wanders the gate area looking for anyone who needs help. He introduces himself to everyone and offers his assistance throughout the flight. He’s not a flight attendant, so he doesn’t have the same rest rules. He is responsible for helping anyone who asks throughout the entire flight. When he wasn’t helping, I saw him constantly roaming the aisles to reach out to people.

After monopolizing his time, I told him I would come and bother him on the airplane again so he could do his duties before we boarded. They started boarding the flight but we waited until the end to get on. We left the lounge and got on the plane about 10 minutes before departure.

Immediately after boarding, I headed upstairs to my seat. I was instantly greeted by name by Marian our flight attendant (as were all the other business class passengers, I checked) and was asked if I’d like a tour of the seat so that I could know where everything was. Having flown in this seat once a couple years ago, I didn’t feel the need for the tour, but I let them do it anyway.

Soon enough, Aaron the concierge had come up as well to check on our cabin and see if we needed anything. Soon, we were buckled up and ready to push back one minute early. Unfortunately, they routed us around to the south runways so we had to taxi for quite awhile. The good news is that Air NZ lets you use your inflight entertainment the second you board, so I just fired up a movie.

We launched peacefully into the beautifully clear night, the first one we’d had in LA in a week, and pointed the nose south toward NZ. It was a straight shot over nothing for about 12 hours.

I had been offered a pre-departure drink and my order had been taken for a drink right after takeoff as well. Determined to get a good sleep, I stuck with water. Soon enough, they started coming around with dinner service. I was actually drifting in and out of sleep, so I woke up to find my tray out with a tablecloth on and a glass of water waiting. I’m not sure how they did all that without waking me up, but they did.

I just wasn’t hungry and instead was more concerned about trying to get sleep, something that is nearly impossible for me on an airplane. The flight attendant offered me a light dinner or simply just an appetizer and dessert after I turned down the full meal, but I told her that I thought I would pass. She had that look of a concerned mother but she obliged.

I decided that I would watch a couple movies and then go for about 8 hours of sleep, if I could. A 12 hour flight is just about right for that. So, toward the end of my second movie, the lights were dimming and others had gone to bed. Marian and Aaron both came back asking me if I would like to have my bed made up. See, this is the same seat Virgin uses where they flip the seat over so you have a flat bed on the back.

I told them I would do it once the movie finished. As soon as it finished, I had another flight attendant come up and ask if I needed my bed made. I went back to the lav, got ready for bed, came back out, and sure enough I had my bed made waiting for me.

Aaron the concierge came by once again to ask if there was anything else I needed, and we got into a brief discussion about how I could spend my single free day in Auckland. I purposefully didn’t do any research because I wanted to see what the concierge could do. He asked me what type of things I liked, and after a few minutes, he promised he would have a great itinerary ready for me when I woke up.

With that, I laid down and popped an Ambien. I now love Ambien. I went to bed around 8p Auckland time. Though I woke up briefly a couple times (the last row of biz upstairs is right next to a little self-serve bar, so it’s a little annoying), I didn’t wake up for good until about 315a when they started waking the cabin up for breakfast. Unreal. I simply can’t sleep on airplanes like that, and I was thrilled.

Marian came through gently offering to turn beds back into seats for those who were ready. I took her up on it, feeling fantastic after getting so much sleep. And now I was hungry.

Marian brought a cart through with a variety of morning drinks. I opted for a delicious strawberry smoothie. Then she came by with fresh fruit and cereal to start.

Aaron dropped by while I was eating to give me my personalized packet with suggestions of how to spend my time in Auckland. I asked him if he did this often, and he said on this flight he had put together about 10 itineraries. It’s usually between 10 and 15.

While some of the materials were pre-made, some he actually typed up in his workstation and printed out for me. He also included a card with his email address and a general Air NZ concierge email address if I needed any further help. Apparently, if someone is having flight problems or other issues, he can radio ahead to take care of them. If they ever get inflight internet onboard, I can only imagine what he’ll be able to do.

Before he left, I asked if he could find the aircraft registration for me. Within a couple minutes, he was back with it. (This was one of Air NZ’s vintage 747s – nearly 20 years old.) Then it was time for more breakfast – this time I took a croissant but passed on the vegemite. Ugh, nasty stuff.

Then Marian came through offering bubble and squeak (pass) or a bacon sandwich. Clearly I opted for the latter. I was expecting a bacon sandwich to be more like what you get in Europe – more of a ham/pork sandwich, but no. This was the bacon we know and love in the US, and it hit the spot.

Soon enough, we were descending into Auckland. It was nice to finally see land after a dozen hours over water. We landed and I paid particularly close attention to the people sitting around me to hear if they said anything about the flight. I heard things like “incredible service” and “just a fantastic seat.” There were a lot of happy passengers, and I was one of them.

We headed off to the hotel to relax and more importantly, shower. I’ll have reports tomorrow from today’s interior reveal.