When I landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport today, I had one of my easiest, fastest and smoothest international arrival experiences. But I wondered where all those airlines that last year fought and won a fierce battle over the right to fly to Haneda actually were.
It appears the industry overestimated Haneda’s appeal to travelers, and it also might have miscalculated how many passengers remain in Tokyo, as opposed to those who connect to other destinations.
It’s true that the March earthquake and tsunami had a negative impact on travel to Japan in general, but traffic to and from the much bigger Narita Airport has largely recovered.
Haneda’s smaller size and proximity to central Tokyo provide a significant advantage. However, as I first wrote two years ago, most medium- and long-haul flights arrive and depart between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. — not exactly the most preferred time by the majority of travelers. In addition, onward flight connections from Haneda are extremely limited.
That didn’t seem to bother most airlines last year, when the rights to fly from various foreign cities to Haneda were being awarded by the Japanese and other governments. U.S. carriers in particular made rather bold proposals. In the end, the Department of Transportation gave American Airlines the right to fly from New York, Delta from Detroit and Los Angeles, and Hawaiian Airlines from Honolulu.
American’s flights are nowhere to be found in its winder schedule, though they are planned for next summer. The same goes for Delta’s Detroit flights. It does operate the LA flight throughout the year, as does Hawaiian on the Honolulu route. Air Canada has postponed indefinitely its plan for flights from Vancouver, even though it started selling tickets late last year.
The Japanese carriers have trimmed their plans, too. All Nippon Airways has kept only LA in North America, while Japan Airlines serves San Francisco. European and other long-haul routes are also very few.
British Airways is the only foreign carrier outside Asia and the United States that currently flies to Haneda — and not every day. The Asian carriers include Air China, Asiana, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, AirAsia, China Eastern, Eva Airways, Korean Air, Malaysia Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways.
Flights loads to and from Haneda are not what those carriers expected — my Singapore Airlines flight was less than half-full in Economy and about two-thirds full in Business Class, where I had two lie-flat seats to myself, though even one would have been just fine.
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Air India’s entrenched corporate culture and internal Indian politics cost the carrier membership in the global Star Alliance. Although Star’s leadership went out of its way to help the airline meet the group’s more than 200 requirements, it finally gave up the futile effort last week and suspended accession talks.
Not surprisingly, Air India has been trying to assign blame to anyone but itself, pointing a finger at Lufthansa and accusing it of sabotaging the Indian carrier’s potential membership. Regrettably, it appears the airline has learned little from the nearly four-year experience. It needs to do some serious soul-searching if it wants to survive.
Star showed remarkable patience and continued to hope against hope that Air India would live up to its promise and achieve the necessary standards in safety, customer service, on-board experience, operations, etc. The alliance makes decisions based on consensus, and all its members voted to invite Air India in late 2007. The accession process is rather costly for both the candidate and the alliance, so no member voted lightly and fully expected the invitee to become to join the group.
They all underestimated the problems they would encounter. Air India was initially supposed to come on board in March 2009, but Star agreed to extend the qualification period. It really wanted its carriers to gain broader access to the large Indian market.
Star CEO Jaan Albrecht, about whom I’ve written several times, has been saying for years that one of his top priorities is filling the three major “white spots” in the alliance’s network: Brazil, India and Russia. Brazil’s TAM joined in 2010, though its merger with Chile’s LAN has created uncertainty about the new airline’s future allegiance. There is no obvious Russian carrier to be seriously considered at this time.
So it was very important for Star to full the big South Asia “white spot.” Albrecht himself made repeated trips to India in the last year in a tortuous effort to save Air India’s faltering bid.
However, the reality is that Air India never truly had a chance with the oldest and largest global alliance. I felt several times during this process that having Air India as a member anytime soon was more wishful thinking than a realistic expectation. In fact, many frequent travelers feared that Star might lower its standards to accommodate India’s national carrier.
To the alliance’s credit, that didn’t happen. Rejecting Air India’s application was the right decision, no matter how the carrier tries to spin the outcome. The group’s attention in India is now focused on Jet Airways, which is already a code-share partner of several Star carrier, and possibly Kingfisher Airlines — they both have a much stellar reputation than Air India’s.
Star was founded by United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Scandinavian (SAS) and Thai Airways. Today, it has 27 members from 25 countries, which have more than 4,000 aircraft in their fleets and fly over 600 million passengers a year on 21,000 daily flights to 1,160 airports in 181 countries.
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There are so many travel-industry rankings at year’s end, it’s hard to keep track. It’s even harder to figure out which — if any — of them are credible and meaningful. Looking at some of the results, one has to wonder when some of the respondents last flew on the airlines and through the airports they assessed.
Rankings are usually administered by various magazines — one exception are the new Frequent Traveler Awards. In the last several years, I’ve made it a habit to look at the Global Traveler Magazine‘s so-called Tested Awards, most of which make sense. However, as I was reading this year’s results during a flight last week, I couldn’t help but gasp in astonishment at some of the results.
Many of the categories are certainly subjective, and different people’s experiences could easily be different. For example, the in-flight service on the same airline could vary depending on the cabin crew — or even your particular flight attendant.
Still, Lufthansa’s second place for best First Class is surprising. For comparison, Emirates is fifth, Korean Air sixth, and Singapore Airlines eighth. Seriously? Lufthansa is a great airline and it deserves to be in the top 10 — it came out fifth overall in the “Best Airline in the World” category.
But anyone who has flown in Lufthansa First Class in the last couple of years knows that its hard product lags behind most of its competitors. The most glaring example of that is the tiny TV screen. On the carrier’s Boeing 747 aircraft, First Class is on the upper deck, with 16 seats in a 2-2 configuration, which is the standard for Business Class on most other airlines operating the same aircraft type.
To its credit, Lufthansa has recognized the limits of its product and has undertaken steps to improve it. The above-mentioned 2-2 configuration is about to change to 1-1, which will no doubt disappoint some fliers because it will reduce the number of First Class seats by half, but eight seats is the industry standard and makes a lot of sense.
Lufthansa has finally come out with a new First Class seat on its Airbus 380 planes. Could it be that Global Traveler readers were evaluating those seats? No, because surveys were collected between January and August, and the first Airbus 380 didn’t enter service until late August.
There is one First Class feature on Lufthansa that beats all other airlines to the punch: its First Class Terminal in Frankfurt. But it’s used almost exclusively by Frankfurt-originating passengers, so it’s unlikely its weight in assessing the overall product was predominant for all survey respondents.
Lufthansa was also ranked fifth for best Business Class. Again, if you’ve had a chance to compare its hard product with other Business cabins, you’d probably disagree. One could argue that Lufthansa’s service is better than that of United Airlines, but United’s truly flat seats are among the best in the industry. Lufthansa made the short-sighted decision to install the old Business seats on the Airbus 380, but later announced it would roll out a new hard product next year.
United is the only U.S. carrier in the top 10 of any of the leading overall global categories, taking 10th place for best Business Class and best Business seat design, and fourth place for best First Class design. Its “new” hard product, which was first introduced three years ago, has so far been installed on less than 60 percent of its long-haul fleet.
Deservedly, Lufthansa is missing from the top 10 in any of the best-seat categories. But another perplexing presence in the best Business seat category — ahead of United — is South Korea’s Asiana Airlines. Not only are its current seats not truly flat, but they are less comfortable than comparable products on other carriers, such as Thai Airways. Asiana’s service is, of course, superb, but this is strictly a seat-related category.
In the best global airport category, another surprising result: in third place, Amsterdam has beat out Hong Kong and Munich. In North America, Atlanta came out ahead of San Francisco. Really?
Oh, and did you know that Delta Airlines has the best airport lounges in the world? That’s right, and Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines have been shut out of the top 10 completely. If that’s not madness, I don’t know what is.
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Should the new United Airlines have international first class, like the old United, or not, like the old Continental Airlines? Most frequent fliers expect a decision in favor of one of the two models, but why not go with a mixed model? Why not keep first class on routes where it makes business sense, and fly two-cabin planes where it doesn’t?
Since the two carriers’ merger was announced in May, there have been many opinions in online travel forums advocating just coach and business class, but it’s hard to see the world’s largest airline without long-haul first class at all. Continental may call its premium cabin BusinessFirst, but it’s business class.
In addition, United has already installed new first- and business class seats on more than half of its wide-body fleet, and it makes little sense to now remove first class and expand business class.
Regardless of the mechanics, there are routes that can sustain first class and actually make money, especially now that business travel has recovered from the slump during the global recession. Wouldn’t it be a luxury for United to pick and choose the routes on which it operates three-cabin planes and even change them seasonally?
Many foreign airlines have flown both two- and three-cabin aircraft on long-haul international routes for years, including United partners in the global Star Alliance, such as Lufthansa, Thai Airways and Asiana Airlines. In fact, Asiana currently flies one two-cabin and one three-cabin plane daily between Seoul and Los Angeles. In the Oneworld alliance, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas use a mixed model.
If you look at the loads in both first and business class on all those carriers, you will discover that they are selling extremely well — many flights in the next few weeks are actually sold out. As I reported last year, the recession forced some airlines to cut back on first-class service temporarily, but things now are very different.
So let’s not count United’s first class out quite yet.
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Readers’ interest in United Airlines’ practice of massively blocking award seats otherwise made available for mileage redemption by United’s partners in the global Star Alliance doesn’t seem to subside, judging by the feedback I get and the web traffic on this site’s pages dedicated to the issue. So it’s time to clarify some misconceptions about the infamous StarNet blocking.
Earlier this week, I received a complaint from Norma Brandsberg, a reader from Virginia, that United is “blocking an award through Continental” Airlines. “United’s own site is showing availability,” but “Continental is not seeing the open seats in their system,” she wrote.
Brandsberg mistakenly thought that what she discovered was part of StarNet blocking. However, the controversial practice doesn’t involve seats on United flights — only seats on flights operated by other Star carriers, such as Lufthansa, Thai Airways, Singapore Airlines and others. United denies members of its Mileage Plus program access to those seats to avoid paying its partners for them.
What Brandsberg is comparing are two completely different things. First, she looked at award seats United has made available to book with United miles — inventory reserved only for Mileage Plus members. But then she tried to use Continental miles to book those same seats, only to find out that they are not available to members of Continental’s OnePass or any other Star Alliance program.
Every airline in the alliance has the right to set aside certain award inventory only for its own frequent fliers, and it has no obligation to offer that inventory to its Star partners. The seats it decides to provide to partners are published on the common IT platform known as StarNet. So contrary to Brandsberg’s understanding, United wasn’t “blocking an award through Continental” — rather, United wasn’t offering those seats on StarNet to any of its Star partners.
In a related misunderstanding, many travelers wrongly accuse United of blocking partner seats. For example, they call Swiss International Airlines and are told that seats are available on a certain Swiss flight — they can also see those seats on ExpertFlyer. Then they call United, which is not seeing availability, and conclude that “StarNet blocking” is in force.
That conclusion would be correct only if you confirm that Swiss is offering the seats in question on StarNet. The best way to do that is to consult the All Nippon Airways (ANA) website, which has the most comprehensive free online StarNet tool but requires that you have an ANA account with miles in it. The paid KVS tool is another option, and the Continental and Air Canada websites show limited partner inventory. ExpertFlyer tends to display seats offered by an airline only to its own customers and not to partners.
There have been recent reports from United customers that United is less aggressive with StarNet blocking these days, and of course we all hope that the practice will be discontinued after the merger with Continental.
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