Upgrade List Tension

I had some drama at the airport this morning, there was no traffic, Pre-Check was a breeze, and my aircraft was at the gate two hours early, but I was #1 on the upgrade list with zero seats remaining.  Then I looked again and one seat was available.  The upgrade cleared just before boarding started and I grabbed a window seat too.  A good start to my travel day.

Upgrade List Tension

Slow News Day

It's a slow news day, no mergers, no smoking deals, and I don't have any flights booked until mid April.  All that aside, a Untied 747 can still create some excitement.  It looks great and is going somewhere far away and interesting.

United Airlines 747-400 White Over Blue

Japanese Airlines Work A Little Different

Japanese carriers work a little different than American and European carriers.  They seem to enjoy flight more than anyone else.  Two examples are the ground crew waiving (after a respectful bow) to their departing 777.  I also spotted a Panda colored 767 (ANA also did a Pokemon 747 that has since been repainted in normal colors).

Bow Then Waive After Push Back

ANA's 767-Panda

Fun Picture

Sunrise at the airport is always a great time, too bad you have to leave two hours before sunrise to enjoy the view.

Denver Morning

Milwaukee Airport's Deserted D Terminal

Milwaukee's Mitchel Airport has a creepy deserted terminal that I never knew about until I flew through it last week.  Since Frontier changed their hub operation in Milwaukee to a lonely outpost, there are just two flights to Denver and a less than daily one to Mexico.  For this minor operation, Frontier has 26 gates and an entire terminal to themselves. There were several restaurants, but only one is open.  The closed ones still had all the fixtures and supplies to open any day, but are deserted.  The ground level gates with zero flights a day sill had a moving walkway and escalators running. It is an airport ghost town 

Moving Walkway to Nowhere

I'm surprised the airport authority doesn't move Frontier to an unused gate (they only need one or could share even) in another terminal and close the D terminal until traffic picks up enough to necessitate it.  The costs to keep a terminal up and running must be exorbitant and Frontier's landing fees don't cover the operation.  It would also remove a creepy ghost town, it was seriously disturbing (Omega Man?).

View On The Way Into Milwaukee

MKE still has a cool airport museum, I enjoyed browsing through it again.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Enjoy a photo from the LUV airline.

New Southwest Airlines Logo.

Southwest started flying out of Love Field in Dallas (LUV airport code) and their NYSE ticker is LUV.  They also are loved their customers (or so their marketing tells me).

US Airways & American Airlines Merger Thoughts

I originally though US Airways was talking about buying American Airlines to thwart AA's restructuring process then pull out last minute and create a very weak AA. I was very excited to see this fun way to cripple a competitor in action.  US suggested better terms than AA to unions and creditors throughout the process.  Then at the last minute US signed the dotted line and overpaid for an expensive operation.  Not quite as I expected.  But what does this mean to frequent flyers?

These Jets Will Need New Paint Soon

US Airways will be folded into American Airlines and the new airline will be a oneworld (still better than Skyteam) member.  This is bad news for me because I am a loyal Star Alliance flyer and soon (but not sure when) will not be able to fly US for cheap EQMs.  The merger will take a while to happen, so I'll sill get EQMs for my US flight in April.

Star Alliance Quote

Once the merger is completed, CLT and PHX will probably lose out to DFW and MIA (even though MIA is stupidly expensive and out of the way) for hub traffic, PHL should be fine.  Dividend Miles will be transferred 1:1 to AAdvantage Miles and the AAdvantage award chart will be devalued slightly.  The US award chart, with it's cheap around the world awards, will vanish.  I also won't fly the new airline if a United option exists, so none of this will bother me and I'm not interested in the on board experience.

American Jet at CLT