If approved by the DOT, the initiative will allow JetBlue and Lufthansa to jointly operate service between 12 JetBlue cities in the U.S. into 180 Lufthansa cities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The airlines refer to these cities as “destinations,” but I don’t. Remember, an airplane flies both ways.

The future of air travel is gradually coming into focus. Less capacity and fewer options, for sure. But more interestingly, closer working relationships between U.S. and international carriers, like the one American Airlines and British Airways expect to forge with exemptions from anti-trust law, the one Continental wants to have on certain routes with Star Alliance, and the ones already in place between Delta and Air France-KLM, which inherited the one in place between KLM and Northwest when Delta bought Northwest.

I would argue that this movement portends a later one in which airlines will press hard to have the law changed so that a foreign carrier can buy a domestic one outright. But that’s a ways off.

The keystone on all of the existing international arrangements is antitrust immunity. There’s some opposition in Congress — Rep James. Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee calls these things “immunized mega-alliances.” BUt in general, the trend is going the airlines’ way.

But the trend is clear. The Air Transport Association, the industry’s trade group, is heavily pressuring Congress to grand wide-ranging approval for anti-trust immunity on alliances between U.S. and foreign carriers on specified international routes.

Lufthansa paid $300 million for a 19 percent stake in JetBlue in January 2008, insisting that it was a simple investment in a carrier with a great brand and business model. But a few months later, the Lufthansa chairman, Wolfgang Mayrhuber, told me that JetBlue’s huge presence at Kennedy International Airport, where it is the dominant carrier, was obviously a key part of the investment strategy. All of those JetBlue gates feeding into out of JFK, the most important domestic gateway for international travel.

And remember, an airplane flies both ways.

Here’s the joint JetBlue-Lufthansa statement today. It isn’t yet clear to me whether this planned partnership will require antitrust immunity. Maybe not. Anyone know?

******

“JetBlue Airways and Lufthansa have signed a codeshare agreement under which JetBlue
would be allowed to place the Lufthansa code (LH) on JetBlue flights.

Initially, the airlines plan to offer connecting service between 12 JetBlue
destinations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and Lufthansa’s network of 180
destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The agreement was
filed today for authorization from the U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT).

Once a statement of authorization is issued by the DOT, Lufthansa and JetBlue
plan to offer convenient connections between the airlines’ networks, beginning
first with the following U.S. cities:
– Austin, Texas
– Buffalo, N.Y.
– Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
– Fort Myers, Fla.
– New Orleans
– Pittsburgh
– Raleigh/Durham, N.C.
– Rochester, N.Y.
– San Juan, Puerto Rico
– Syracuse, N.Y.
– Tampa, Fla.
– West Palm Beach, Fla.

Customers traveling from these U.S. cities on JetBlue will be able to connect
via New York/JFK or Boston onto Lufthansa flights bound for destinations
throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Both airlines are looking forward to the commencement of codeshare operations,
which will allow them to provide their customers with an extended route
network and a seamless flight experience. Pending authorization, codeshare
flights will be available for sale by early October, and will be bookable on
Lufthansa.com, via a link on jetblue.com, or through local and online travel
agencies.”

###

The always-nimble TripAdvisor has a survey out today on the potential involvement of Congress in setting a maximum size-limit for airline carry-on bags. According to an unscientific poll of 2,890 respondents conducted this week on TripAdvisor.com, who were asked “Do you think Congress should set a maximum size limit for airline carry-on bags?” — 54 percent said yes and 46 percent said no.

I suggest we think this through.

How would limits be imposed? Theoretically, bags would be measured by length, width and depth to meet a standard size. But who would do the measuring, and where? How much time would this add to the ordeal of boarding an airplane? If a firm, uniform rule were designed and imposed, my guess is that airlines would try to use those ridiculous uniform size-boxes, which, of course, don’t allow for any odd-shaped bags such as backpacks.

I’d be a lot happier if common sense would simply prevail, as if does for the most part now. The carry-on problem is exacerbated by the occasional nitwit lugging on a bag the size of a jukebox, but the problem really is really caused by the fact that more people are toting on board more things that formerly were checked, including some standard-sized carry-on bags, rather than checking them, because airlines are charging to check bags.

Rather that making this into a federal case, common sense could continue to be enforced by gate agents who know a jukebox when they see one and aren’t ginned up to police sensible carry-ons. And who have the authority to red-flag obvious violations of said common sense.

Common sense prevailing in air travel? Yeah, I know, I know. But hey: It could happen.

###

Virgin America was the first airline to have Wi-Fi installed throughout its fleet, and is the only domestic airline that has power outlets near every seat throughout its fleet. One of the road-blocks in the expansion of in-flight Wi-Fi in general has been the limitations of power supply, with most users on other airlines limited to only the amount of battery time they have.

Virgin America uses the industry-leading Aircell Gogo Wi-Fi system.

In contrast to major domestic carriers, all of whom are reeling from sharp decreases [Note: fixed wording; in original text I inadvertently said "increases" Thanks Oliver] in revenue even as load factors climb on reduced capacity, Virgin said its revenue for the quarter rose 46.9 percent. The load factor — the percentage of available seats occupied by paying customers — rose sharply to 85.3 percent (up 7.7 points over the 2nd quarter of 2008)

Virgin reported a loss of $11.4 million for the quarter, an improvement over last year’s 2nd quarter, when the loss was $62.1 million.

In the 2nd quarter, Virgin started new service to Orange County and added additional flights to its popular Boston to San Francisco route.

It’s interesting that Virgin is even announcing its earnings for the quarter, because it is a privately held company with no obligation to do so. Apparently, the investors are happy with the results.

Virgin, which began operating in August 2007, flies to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Seattle, Las Vegas, San Diego, Boston, Orange County and as of Nov. 18, 2009, Fort Lauderdale.

###

At least two — both Minneapolis-bound, what luck Twin Cities! — sat for longer on Friday — for 5 1/2 and 4 hours respectively. These were Sun Country Flight 242 and Delta Flight 1140.

In both cases, runway work at the Minneapolis airport and bad weather were cited.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

On Aug. 8, in the most infamous recent case, a packed ExpressJet plane sat stranded all night at the airport in Rochester, Minnesota, where it had been diverted from Minneapolis by bad weather. In a blistering preliminary report, the Transportation Department blamed dispatchers from a rival carrier, Mesaba (flying for Delta Connection on behalf of Delta, on a flight coded as Northwest) for inaccurately telling the captain of the Expressjet flight (flying for Continental Connection on behalf of Continental) that the plane couldn’t come to a gate to let suffering passengers off because the airport was closed for the night. It isn’t clear yet what authority Mesaba had to speak for the airport itself. A full report is pending from the DOT.

Again, the Business Travel Coalition, a trade group representing corporate travel buyers, denounced the nearly three-year pattern of “nightmarish” conditions imposed on stranded passengers, some of whom have sat on idled planes for more than 12 hours.

The trade group quoted a former airline board member, “Beyond three hours, the airlines need to fix the problem, and if they are forced to do so, they will.”

They are about to be forced to do so by the Transportation Department and by congressional legislation on passengers rights. It’s going to be very interesting.

###

As passengers became increasingly distressed packed in that cramped regional jet at the Rochester airport all night, the ExpressJet captain, who has not been identified, pleaded, reasoned and cajoled to try to get those passengers into the airport. She was met with a wall of stupidity and near-indifference.

The U.S. Transportation Department jumped on this case with both feet, and is preparing a final report.

I’ve now listened to the transcripts of the conversations between the ExpressJet cockpit and various outsiders, including the dispatcher on duty at the airport for Mesaba Airlines, flying as a Delta Connection flight, and also identified as a flight for Northwest Airlines, which Delta owns.

The ExpressJet captain was stonewalled and blown off, in my opinion, and the plane sat there all night with cabin conditions worsening and babies crying. There was no food and the single toilet was virtually unusable.

You can listen yourself to the audio excerpts released by ExpressJet, and have a look at the timeline. The Transportation Secretary, Ray Lahood, issued an angry statement today (see earlier post) laying the blame on Mesaba and clearing ExpressJet of fault.

Several issues are still unclear to me.

1. There seems to be great confusion about whether the airport was “open” hours after midnight as the ExpressJet plane sat 50 yards from a gate. Two weeks ago the airport manager, Steven W. Leqve, told me in no uncertain terms that it was nonsense to assert that the airport was “closed.” He said, “the bottom line is the airport was open and there was staff available to bring that airplane to the gate” and get the passengers off. Nevertheless, in the recordings you can clearly hear the Mesaba dispatcher telling the ExpressJet captain that the airport was closed. It’s not clear who was speaking for the airport itself (identified as RST) in the recordings, but the ExpressJet timeline released today says that the captain and ExpressJet dispatch in Houston kept requesting access to the terminal “which was being denied by RST Station Operations.” If the airport operations itself was denying access, that contradicts airport manager’s Leqve’s statement.

2. There is a big fat red herring that keeps coming up involving inquiries about getting a charter bus to come from Minneapolis to pick up the ExpressJet passengers and take them to the Minneapolis airport where the flight had been bound before being diverted to Rochester by bad weather. FForget about the damn bus! That was not the issue. The issue was getting the passengers off the stranded plane and into the terminal, where they would have access to rest rooms, benches, vending machines, clean air, etc.

3. The nonsense continues (and is illustrated on the audio tapes) about the TSA not having staff on hand to “re=-screen” the passengers, so therefore the passengers needed to stay on the plane. That is not an issue. Had they been let off, the passengers would have been in a secure part of the airport, just as passengers on any routine connecting flight are.

4. What about that stuff about the ExpressJet crew “timing out” in the middle of the night, which was offered as some vague excuse for them not being able to take the plane to a gate, as a new crew had to be summoned. (That never made the slightest sense to me. A timed-out captain would not have continued sitting on the apron, hoping to take off). The ExpressJet recordings and timeline show clearly that at 5.21 a.m., the captain reported to ExpressJet dispatch in Houston that she and the rest of the crew “would be approaching the crdew critical off (CCO) time.” That is, the crew needed soon to take off for the short flight to Minneapolis or go to a gate soon, under federal law. At 5.58 a.m., the plane was allowed to come to a gate and let the passengers into the terminal.

5. Is this the straw that broke the camel’s proverbial back in terms of enforcement of a passengers bill of rights? I expect it will be.

6. Will this incident galvanize pressure to require the major airlines to be a lot more transparent about what company is actually flying that plane you’re on? Yes.

###

Southwest has been testing the Row44 system — emerging as a major competitor to Aircell’s land-based Gogo service — all year on four of its approximately 530 Boeing 737s. Southwest said that feedback from those tests has been “fantastic” from customers.

[For background, please see my interview with Row44 CEO John Guidon in my post of Aug. 7.]

“We have concluded our testing for inflight Wi-Fi and are very happy with both the technical performance of the system and the response of customers who have used it,” said Dave Ridley, Southwest senior vice president of marketing and revenue management. “We are pleased to be continuing with our plans to offer satellite-enabled broadband access through California-based Row 44.”

Aircell’s Gogo system is currently installed on about 600 aircraft, including msot of Delta’s mainline domestic fleet and all of AirTran’s and Virgin America’s fleets. All of American’s  767-200s and two-thirds of its MD80s are connected with Gogo on domestic flights. US Airways recently announced that it was going with the Gogo system, which United has also tested.

Now that it has bagged the big prize, Southwest, Row44 is expected to concentrate on international airlines, because its system, unlike Gogo, works over oceans. Row44 signed a deal with Norwegian Air Shuttle to install its system on that fast-growing carrier’s fleet.

Of the major U.S. carriers, Continental is the only one that has not yet signaled its intentions on Wi-Fi — and both Aircell and Row44 would obviously like to snare that one.

The Southwest statement quotes Guidon: “Row 44 is thrilled to be the in-flight Wi-Fi service of choice for one of the most customer-focused airlines in the world.

Southwest said, “During the testing phase, customers have been utilizing the service for anything from e-mail to streaming video. Those interested in using the service during the test period have had the opportunity to log on to the service via their own personal Wi-Fi-enabled device (laptops, iPhones, Wi-Fi-enabled smart phones, etc). Additionally, the airline has been testing a variety of price points for the service and will continue testing price points through the end of 2009.”

Aircell sets its own prices. Row44 intends to allow individual airlines to set prices.

###