China Airlines Boeing 747-400 (B-18210) with blue Boeing livery.
The new full Boeing livery is one of my favorites. Even though I understand why Boeing is not painting all their test Boeing 747-8’s and 787’s with the full livery (cost, time, weight), I wish it was different. At least we have been able to enjoy the livery on the Dreamliner.
All the way back in 2004, Boeing delivered a Boeing 747-400 with a special livery to China Airlines. It has the blue-Boeing livery with the China Airlines tail. It was the first 747 to offer the new Boeing Signature Interior.
Today the aircraft (B-18210) still flies with the same livery. Check out photos of the aircraft on Airliners.net.
Image: Ken Koller
Photos taken in 2010 for the blog
I am not a huge fan of “Top ___” lists nor “Year in Review” stuff, but I was curious how the year went for the blog overall and decided to share. Looking back at my Flickr photos, I am amazed at all the wonderful opportunities I have been able to share in 2010. It seems you enjoy seeing and learning, since traffic in December 2010 compared to December 2009 was up almost 200% and traffic from all of 2009 compared to 2010 is up almost 900% — that is very exciting. As I go through the yearly stats here are some interesting ones I wanted to share:
Top 5 Viewed Blogs
It is difficult to get an exact count and I am a bit too lazy to 100% figure it out. With the Seattle PI syndication, email list and RSS feed, they might change these numbers, but this is what I am going with. Here are the top 5 viewed stories read just on AirlineReporter.com (in order of popularity):
1) PICTURES: Boeing 787 Dreamliner Flying With a Boeing 40C
2) Airline Livery of the Week: Full Allegiant Air Livery on Boeing 757
3) PHOTOS: United Airlines Boeing 747 Buzzes Over the Golden Gate Bridge at FleetWeek
4) VIDEO: United Airlines Boeing 777 Painted in New Livery
5) Checking out Air New Zealand’s New Interior on Their First Boeing 777-300ER
Having a story that spikes in traffic is always a good thing. However, it can be frustrating when I can spend time traveling, my own money and work hard to write up a blog and it gets very little traffic. Then I can post some photos or a video that took me 5 minutes and it turns out to be some of my biggest traffic. Eh, I see it as the high traffic blogs support some of the more interesting blogs. United’s new livery has been very popular and there are a few more of those blogs in the Top 10 for the year.
Top 5 Experiences
Sometimes I have great experiences that might not turn into the most read blogs. Picking only five wasn’t easy. This year, I got to ride in helicopters, see the inside of a Starship, tour Delta, trained with AirTran flight attendants, flew up to the San Juans and much more. I chose these five based on giving me the biggest smile when thinking about the experiences. Here are they are (not in any particular order):
1) Hanging Out at Oshkosh AirVenture 2010 with Southwest Airlines: Being able to fly in on a Southwest Boeing 737 in the middle of Oshkosh was quite the experience. Not to mention all the marvelous airplanes and people I got to meet there as well.
2) Touring Haneda Airport’s New International Terminal: Who doesn’t like a trip to Japan with All Nippon Airways to look at a new terminal, tour some lounges and eat wonderful food?
3) Video: Pushing Back a United Airlines Boeing 757: This was not planned at all and just sort of happened, but it was a unique experience and one I will not quickly forget. Hard to believe some people get to do this every day.
4) The Boeing Archives PART 1: Touring the Archives: What an awesome experience to be able to tour the Boeing archives and talk with the Boeing Historian.
5) My Interior Tour of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner: Being one of the first people to check out the interior of the Boeing 787 was surreal. It also opened my eyes to how being a blogger is different than being a member of legacy media.
Top 5 Cities Reading the Blog
Being based in Seattle, I definitely have a lot of great readers here. But there are also readers from other places in the world. Some of these surprised me (this is just based on my website, not other feeds):
1) Seattle, WA
2) New York, NY
3) London, England
4) Los Angeles
5) San Fransisco
I also want to give a shout out to Sydney, since they are #6. Readership in Australia and New Zealand has grown a lot over the year and is highly appreciated — G’day and Kia Ora. The blog is truly world wide. I have gotten at least one visitor from each country of the world, except from North Korea.
Top 5 Most Commented Blogs
One of the nice things in 2010 is the increase of comments. I always love it when people give an opinion on something or a conversation starts up. Here is a list of the blogs with the most comments (# of comments as of posting):
1) PHOTOshop: Boeing 747-400 in New United Airlines Livery (50 comments)
2) CONTEST: How many flowers does it take to lei an Hawaiian Airlines Airbus A330? (47 comments)
3) My First Experience with Body Scanners Gets Me in Trouble with the TSA (43 comments)
4) We Do NOT Have All the Same Body Parts and Body Scanners Violates Your Privacy (42 comments)
5) Should Airlines Refund Tickets in Cases of Death, Illness or Running Late? I Say Nay! (41 comments)
I find it interesting there is no overlap with the blogs with the most traffic and those with the most comments.
Honestly, I can’t believe how great this year has been. I flew almost 50,000 miles for the blog, which is a good thing — hope it to be higher for next year.It has been challenging working an almost full-time job (30hrs/week) on top of the blog, but it is all worth it.
A huge thank you to all the readers, because without eyeballs reading what I write, airlines wouldn’t be willing to work with me to provide unique content. I already have a few things planned for 2011, but I can’t wait to see what happens.
View of Allegiant's entrance at their Headquarters in Las Vegas
I always enjoy it when I get the opportunity to check out an airline’s headquarters. It is an inside look at the airline’s culture and of course it is always nice to picture where they work when interacting with them as a media contact or customer.
Allegiant is located in a new business park just outside of downtown Vegas. It is away from the flashing-lights and casinos and in an area that just looks just a few years old.
When pulling up, it was not obvious it was Allegiant’s HQ since there was no signage outside, even though their roof prominently has “Allegiant” on it. However, after stepping into the lobby, there was no question.
Their lobby is two stories with two Allegiant sun’s on the floor. The best part was the replica of an MD-80 tail used as their front desk. Not too shabby. After checking in, I had the opportunity to sit down and wait on some airline seats. They were blue and leather like Allegiant’s, but quite a bit larger. They must have been taken from another airline’s first class or business seat — I wasn’t able to tell which.
Allegiant's MD-80 trainer for flight attendants.
I love walking through an airline’s operations to be reminded how most people there truly enjoy their job and have a smile. I always feel many passengers feel like there are airline people just waiting to screw them over. The nice part of Allegiant’s smaller operation is it didn’t take long to get through all departments. From those who take reservations to President and CEO’s Maurice J. Gallagher, Jr’s desk. Speaking of him, he doesn’t even have an office. All the Allegiant executives work in cubicles out in the open, bettering their interaction with other employees. Of course the executives have a little bigger than others, but they kind of deserve that.
There are also quite a few Allegiant models spread around the facility. Most are MD-80’s, but there were a few Boeing 757’s. The biggest 757 model was located right in the middle of all the executive’s cubicles (photo).
This is probably the coolest front desk ever.
A second building holds Allegiant’s training facility. They have the rear section of an MD-80 used for flight attendants. It is raised above a hole in the floor, where employees can practice evacuations. I need to find one of those for my home.
All through out the facility there was quite a bit of Allegiant spirit. Not only where many walls painted in Allegiant blue, but many desk areas were showing off holiday spirit with a decoration contest. Almost every area had decorations and one thrilled worker actually turned their cubicle into a ginger-bread house.
It is fun to imagine the folks sitting in the operation center while flying back home to Seattle, planning the aircraft’s flight and dealing deicing. I only wish they sold those tables they used as their front desk.
CHECK OUT ADDITIONAL PHOTOS OF ALLEGIANT’S HEAD QUARTERS
Could you imagine having your very own Boeing 787 Boeing Business Jet to fly around the world in? Photo: Liz Matzelle
If you have your own plane I am jealous. Even if it is just an older Cessna 172, having your own plane to fly around in (or be flown around in) makes you rock. Even though any plane is a good thing, some personal planes are better than others. Sure, there are many different aircraft manufacturers that build multi-million dollar private jets for private citizens of the world to be flown around in style, but if you are going to do it, why not go all out? When conducting research, I realized there are currently 12 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 8 Boeing 747-8 Intercontinentals that are on order by private parties. Say what? Who needs such planes? Well normally either charter companies, governments or super dooper VIP’s will purchase these aircraft.
I contacted Boeing and turns out that all 8 of the 747-8I’s are for government purchasers. Even though not a bad ride at all, having a government purchase an aircraft is not as impressive as an individual. Out of the 12 VIP Boeing 787 Dreamliners currently on order, 2 are for charters, 4 are for governments and 6 are for private owners. Whoa! Of course Boeing can’t talk about who the owners are, but maybe I can try to talk to them myself. Here is an open letter to the six fine people who have enough taste (and money) to purchase one of these airplanes:
Dear Boeing Business Jet 787 Dreamliner Purchaser:
First of all I want to say congratulations for being at a point in life where you can afford your very own Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. I know myself and many others around the world envy your ability to buy such a machine and I salute your great taste in aircraft. As I am sure you know the Dreamliner is the next generation of airliner and one beautiful machine. I know it probably has been hard waiting to take your first flight with all the delays, but let me assure you, it will be worth it. I am sure you are use to the finest things in life and the VIP 787 Dreamliner will be no different.
If you are a person who loves to share unique experiences with others I would be honored to get a tour, maybe even a ride in your soon-to-be-delivered VIP Boeing aircraft. Sure you might have people from large-named TV shows who want to check out your plane for a show like “Check Out My Expensive Ride,” but they are looking for ratings. I would love to share your passion for beautiful planes with the world in a unique way.
You join only five others around the world to have such an amazing aircraft and I only hope you might want to share a bit of that with others. Thank you for your time and I hope you have an amazing year.
Sincerely,
David Parker Brown
Owner/Founder, AirlineReporter.com
da***@*************er.com
Image: Liz Matzelle
American Airline MD-83 (N594AA) in Detroit
The battle between airlines and travel sites is starting to heat up, but for different reasons.
The relationship between airline and secondary travel sites is interesting. Most have a relationship like travel agents used to, where the site will get a referral fee for making the booking. However any additional money made from hotels or cars is kept by the outside site.
Back in October 2008, American Airlines went to battle with Kayak.com. Kayak.com is pretty darn cool and I don’t mind giving them a plug. You are able to say where and when you want to go somewhere and they will compare fares. They will also let you know if the cheapest fare is on the airline’s website (which I find it almost always is) or on another site like Orbitz or Expedia. Kayak doesn’t actually sell you anything, but just refers you to another site to make the actual purchase. Back in 2008, American was not happy since they wanted Kayak to only link to their site and not to third party sites like Orbitz, Expedia, etc for comparison. It appears that American won, since their site is the only one listed under American fares on Kayak.
More recently American is taking Orbitz head-on. American has required Orbitz to remove all their flights from the site. American is stating this is because Orbitz is not just a third party, but sort of a fourth party. American gives its flight information to another outside company and that company gives it to Orbitz, Expedia, etc. American has been asking Orbitz to work directly with American’s reservation system, cutting out one of the middlemen, but the two companies have not been able to make a deal. Even though that might be more of a public reason why American is cutting out Orbitz, I wouldn’t doubt they might be trying to make a more aggressive move against the third party vendors.
What makes this more interesting is Expedia is jumping in on the fun. Expedia, on their own, has decided to “bury” American’s listings on their website, making them very difficult for customers to find. Kind of like a preemptive “screw you,” for messing with Orbitz and possibly messing with them. American is not taking this without a fight. They have been vocal via their Twitter account telling customers they still have options, “Expedia made AA fares harder to find on Expedia.com. Go to AA.com, Kayak or Priceline for AA fares,” American posted recently on their Twitter account.
Now, Delta is feeling left out and decided to have their listings removed from three travel sites: CheapOAir, OneTravel and BookIt. As of now they still have their full listings on other sites, but this could possibly change.
Airlines like Southwest and Allegiant have not allowed other site to list their prices for a long time. They get the benefit of all passengers booking on their website and getting 100% of the ancillary revenue. Will this continue as other airlines look for ways to increase revenue? Will sites like Expedia and Orbitz be able to change their business model in a way that airlines will still work with them?
Honestly, I am not sure how this will all work out and if, in the end passengers will be better or worse off. I just hope something is figured out. Having to go to each airline’s website to figure out times and costs and compare them to others is not something I really want to go back to.
Image: Chrisl1024
