Author: WheresMyChampagne

On a United flight from Houston to Kansas City, a passenger asked the flight attendant to use the bathroom. When the flight attendant pointed out that the seatbelt sign was on, the passenger informed the FA that she had a bladder problem and REALLY needed to go. Still denied, the passenger noted that if not allowed to use the bathroom she would have to go in a cup – and voila! the flight attendant brought over a cup.

This ordeal was documented on Facebook, and follows with notes of being embarrassed by the FA, having to carry the cups to the bathroom, and being told they would have to get a special team to clean the seat. As the details unfold (I bet you cant WAIT!) Im thinking of how I probably couldn’t even move around enough in a coach seat to really actually use a cup for that purpose.

 

 

Also, lets give a shout out to the United PR folks who have clearly been working double shifts lately.

Note : cup pictured is not actual cup used

Delta Airlines

Blade, the helicopter-ride start-up, is partnering with Delta Airlines at JFK to help customers have a quicker, more comfortable ride into Manhattan.

If you enlist Blade’s services when arriving at JFK, you’ll be met on the Jet Bridge by Delta’s Elite services team who will also get any checked luggage you may have, and escorted to a car, which will drive you a short distance to the Blade pad. The helicopter than whisks you to one of 3 pads / lounges in Manhattan (E34th, E23rd, or W30th). If going the other way (departing out of JFK), the service includes a special expedited TSA security area and someone taking you right to your seat on the plane.

Blade normally charges around $200 for the 8-minute one-way lift, depending on times and availability. Booking with Delta and including the extra services that come with the package adds anywhere from $250 – $1000 to that fee. Over the years, similar services have been offered, but either lacked the promotion, technology, or the correct tie-in with the airlines.

“With Delta, BLADE has found a partner that shares the same customer-centric focus to provide a truly unrivaled travel experience,” said BLADE Founder and CEO Rob Wiesenthal. “The integration of BLADE airport transfers into Delta’s core offerings will enable us to remove much of the friction faced by many frequent travelers: the challenge of quickly transferring between Manhattan and JFK.”

It will be interesting to see how this service enhances the Delta One and Business Class experience at JFK, and how popular this service becomes. Also, it would be great to see this somehow tied in to Delta’s medallion program, or to be able to purchase Blade rides with SkyMiles. Blade also has lounges on Long Island – is this a future potential add-on as well? Download the app and stay tuned!

There are many reasons to avoid Fort Lauderdale, such as alligators and humidity and just Florida, but now there is another – fighting in airport terminal over cancelled flights.

On Monday 5/8, Spirit Airlines cancelled a couple of flights, and passengers were so angry they began attacking each other and airline employees.

The reason for cancellations related to ongoing labor disputes with its pilots. The Broward County police dept had to be called in, and reported no major injuries or arrests – however many people were detained.

Spirit Airlines, already a sh*tshow, now has this to add to its PR list.

With April #s in, Delta drops to the bottom of the barrel in on-time performance – an area which it has been a leader for a long time. In fact, the airline brags about its operations and its investment in on-time performance and the lack of cancellations – and the numbers usually do back this up.

On-time is considered within 15 mins of schedule – and in April Delta dropped to just over 77%. This allowed Southwest, United, and American to pull ahead although only by 1-2% points.

These numbers were caused by Delta’s epic IT fail – the technology glitch at its Atlanta headquarters caused thousands of flights to be delayed and cancelled.

The 77% for April is off Delta’s 2016 full-year of 84% – not the highest in the world but outstanding considering it operated the second highest number of flights globally.

Globally, Delta ranks 15th overall in on-time performance – beaten out domestically by Hawaiian & Alaska (who have considerably less flights and don’t operate globally). KLM, Qantas, and Singapore are international big-boys who are in the top 10.

Cause of delays are often blamed on the carrier (4.2%) but can also be attributed to weather (.5%) & Aviation System / Controls (5.5%).

 

Although friendly for many years now, Delta and Aeromexico recently announced coordinated pricing, schedules, operations, and efficiencies. This should, according to the carries, counter their competition and service added destinations. They will also work together on improving the customer experience by investing in airport facilities, lounges, and boarding areas, as well as behind the scenes areas like marketing & sales.

Delta, United, and American now control about 2/3 of the US – Mexico cross-border flights – this is before the official legislation on the Delta / Aeromexico deal. Delta owns 36% of Aeromexico with options to purchase another 13% for a total of 49%.

The JV will utilize the hubs of both carriers to provide passengers flying between the US and Mexico connecting options. Delta has hubs in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York (both LaGuardia and JFK), Salt Lake City and Seattle. Aeromexico has hubs in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara.

Aeromexico is listed as a Tier 1 partner, along with Air France & KLM, so we should expect similar MQM and mileage accruals.

Aeromexico operates over 600 daily flights, and its network includes 44 destinations in Mexico, 19 in the United States, 15 in Latin America, 4 in Canada, 4 in Europe and 3 in Asia.

From Delta’s web page :

Effective May 8, 2017, Medallion Members will receive additional benefits when traveling with Aeromexico, as a part of Delta and Aeromexico’s growing partnership.

• Medallion Members will be eligible for Complimentary Upgrades on all intra-Mexico Aeromexico flights, as well as Aeromexico flights between Mexico and the U.S., Central America, Caribbean, Colombia and Ecuador.
• Medallion Members will now receive Complimentary Upgrades based on their individual Medallion Status (starting with Diamond, then Platinum, Gold, and Silver) instead of SkyTeam Elite status, better recognizing the loyalty of our Medallion Members.
• Medallion Members will be automatically added to the airport standby list for these flights, as long as their SkyMiles number is added to the reservation.
• Medallion Members will be eligible for upgrades after all Club Premier Members have cleared.

There were images going around of what looked like an engine lying on the ground next to a United Airbus A320 at Newark. A lot of people, including myself, were wondering how an engine could just fall off the wing of a plane, and what would have happened if that plane was, you know, flying at the time when the engine fell off.

Although not much information has been released on the incident, it’s safe to now say that the engine didn’t fall off the plane – an axle broke on the right-hand landing gear, causing the plane to tilt to the right, which is why the engine looks like its on the ground. So, its a relief to know the engine didn’t fall off, but not sure of the axle collapsing is really great either.

To my (partial) excitement, I woke up on Sunday to find an email from Delta congratulating me on becoming a Diamond Medallion. Woo hoo! But then I noticed that for whatever reason, my MQM balance had dropped by 40,000. What was going on?

When I called Delta, I was expedited through the Diamond Medallion VIP line, and was then told that there was, in fact, a system-wide glitch going on. For anyone else experiencing this, it will be interesting to see what Delta will do to remedy the fact that, in those 24 hours, you could have used the Diamond benefit gifts – my guess is that they will make you give them back.

It seems like a day later, everything is fixed, but I’m still waiting for a proper Delta PR response. The takeaway here is that Delta IT really needs to step up their game – too many tech issues going on recently.

JFK’s Bay Runway (31L), the second longest runway in the United States, is also a backup space shuttle landing spot. The primary runway for NASA at the Space Shuttle Facility is only 428 feet longer than the Bay Runway.

(Denver International Airport’s 16R/34L runway, measuring 16,000ft long, is the longest commercial runway in North America, and 6^th longest in the world – China’s Qamdo Bamda Airport has the longest in the world at 18,045 ft)

JFK is operated by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, under a lease with the City of New York since June 1, 1947. In 2004, the Port Authority and the City of New York concluded an agreement that ensures the Agency’s continued operation of JFK and LaGuardia airports through 2050.

JFK covers 4,930 acres, including 880 acres in the Central Terminal Area. The airport has more than 30 miles of roads.

About $150 million was expended on original construction. The Port Authority has invested about $7 billion in the airport, not including the recently (2016) approved capital plan.

About 37,000 people are employed at JFK. The airport contributes about $37.3 billion in economic activity to the New York metropolitan region, generating about 256,000 total jobs and $13.4 billion in annual wages and salaries.

JFK has six operating airline terminals, surrounded by a dual ring of peripheral taxiways. The six terminals, containing 128 gates, are numbered 1–8 but skipping terminals 3 (demolished in 2013) and 6 (demolished in 2011).

The light-rail service AirTrain connects JFK with the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and New York City subway and bus lines. At the airport, AirTrain provides fast, free connections between terminals, rental car facilities, hotel shuttle areas, and parking lots. In 2012, 5.7 million passengers used AirTrain JFK. Through the end of 2014, more than 53.2 million paid riders have used the airport rail system, along with tens of millions more riders who’ve used it to connect between JFK’s passenger terminals, long-term parking, and the rental car areas. Recent improvements include digital signage; expanded closed-circuit televisions; track, switch, and third-rail heaters to improve reliability in cold weather; and a digital audio recording system for monitoring critical communications in real time.

AirTrain JFK opened on December 17, 2003. It wasn’t a random date. It also happened to be the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

JFK’s 321-foot tower, which opened in 1994, includes state-of-the-art communications, radar and wind-shear alert systems. At the time of its completion, the JFK tower was the world’s tallest control tower. It was subsequently displaced from that position by towers at other airports in both the United States and overseas, including those at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, currently the tallest tower at any U.S. airport, at 398 feet and at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, currently the world’s tallest control tower at 434 feet.

The airport offers customers over 15,000 parking-spaces in a variety of places, including: multi-level parking garages, surface spaces in the Central Terminal Area, a long-term parking and a cell phone lot. A reservation system was introduced in 2011.

JFK is one of the world’s leading international air cargo centers. The airport offers nearly 4 million sq ft of modern, state-of-the-art cargo warehouse and office space. The entire air cargo area is designated as a Foreign-Trade-Zone. JFK serves the world’s key air cargo markets though a strong mix of long-haul, direct and nonstop all-cargo aircraft and wide-body passenger aircraft flights. When ranked by the value of shipments passing through it, JFK is the number three freight gateway in the United States (after the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of New York and New Jersey), and the number one international air freight gateway in the United States. Almost 21% of all U.S. international air freight by value and 9.6% by tonnage moved through JFK in 2008.

Total runway length is nine miles. Taxiways total 25 miles in length. All runways have high-intensity runway edge lighting, centerline and taxiway exit lighting and are grooved to improve skid resistance and minimize hydroplaning. A 500-foot by 150-foot aircraft arrestor bed has been installed at the end of Runway 4R, the first such arrestor bed in the world. In addition, the Bay Runway reconstruction project expanded 13R-31L from 150 to 200 feet wide in 2011.

A Peruvian International Airways’ DC-4 arriving from Santiago, Chile, was the first regularly scheduled airliner to arrive at the airport, touching down on July 9, 1948.

Over 90 airlines operate out of the airport, with non-stop or direct flights to destinations in all six inhabited continents. It serves as a hub for American Airlines and Delta Air Lines and is the primary operating base for JetBlue Airways. In the past, JFK served as a hub for Eastern, National, Pan Am, and TWA.

JFK opened with six runways and a seventh under construction; runways 1L and 7L were held in reserve and never came into use as runways. Runway 31R (originally 8,000 ft) is still in use; runway 31L (originally 9,500 ft) opened soon after the rest of the airport and is still in use; runway 1R closed in 1957 and runway 7R closed around 1966. Runway 4 (originally 8,000 ft, now runway 4L) opened June 1949 and runway 4R was added ten years later.

The airport was designed for aircraft up to 300,000-pound gross weight and had to be modified in the late 1960s to accommodate Boeing 747s.

On August 1, 2008, JFK received the first regularly scheduled commercial A380 flight to the United States, on Emirates’ New York–Dubai route using Terminal 4. Other airlines that operate the A380 to JFK include Singapore Airlines on the New York–Frankfurt – Singapore route, Air France on the New York – Paris route, Lufthansa on the New York – Frankfurt route, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines on the New York – Seoul route and Etihad on the New York – Abu Dhabi route. On December 8, 2015, JFK also became the first U.S. airport to receive a commercial Airbus A350 flight when Qatar Airways began operating the aircraft on its New York – Doha route.

Another United shit-show : A paying first class passenger (not an upgrade) was asked to move to coach when a customer with higher status couldn’t get into an overbooked first class cabin. When the paying passenger, who was having a drink in his first class seat, was asked to move, he refused until the flight attendant told him he would be handcuffed. He was offered a refund of the difference in fares.

Let’s see what else happens with the on-going United debacle this week!