Category: Aviation

Bluetooth Audio on Planes is Real and it’s Spectacular

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I recently flew on a couple of United’s newer planes in the domestic fleet, a 737 MAX 8 and a MAX 9. The MAX 8, tail number N27267, was delivered to United in August and it still had that new plane smell. It also had United’s new inflight entertainment system, including Bluetooth audio for passengers to use to listen to the movies or television that were watching on their screen. I decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked.

Bluetooth Audio Setup

You simply flip the switch for Bluetooth audio and put your device in pairing mode. A few seconds later it is connected and you’re listening wirelessly. For me, the biggest annoyance was that with my Apple Airpods Pro 2 had to be manually set to pair by holding the rear button, essentially wiping out the pairing information with my phone. I am not sure if this is my error or a flaw in how the Airpods pair but it was a small inconvenience.

The audio quality while enjoyable was not high quality. It actually didn’t sound any better than simply plugging wired headphones in. There was a slight static in the background and for scenes with music, it was definitely missing some bass. Part of me thinks this is a result of how the content on these systems is stored, likely highly compressed to save space. It could also be simply an interference issue. With Bluetooth being at every seat, that’s a lot of potential radio interference very close to you. Again, this wasn’t a huge downside for me. Being able to use hardware I already use everyday means I can carry less and it just worked. I’m really glad I got the chance to try it out!

One interesting quirk is that they can’t pipe PA announcements over Bluetooth and specifically ask you to remove the headphones when an announcement comes on.

Have you had a chance to try Bluetooth on United or another carrier? What was your experience like?

United Airlines to suspend service to JFK

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David Shepardson reporting for Reuters:

United Airlines said on Friday it will suspend service in late October to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK).

Earlier this month, United had threatened to take the action if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not grant the air carrier additional flights.

United has been flying just twice daily to San Francisco and Los Angeles from JFK, the busiest New York-area airport, after resuming service in 2021.

United has not been running a large operation at JFK. In fact, they downsized the aircraft flying the route originally, a heavy business class 767-300ER to a 757-200 with just 16 business class seats. This strikes me as a ploy to try and get the FAA to the negotiating table to expand the number of slots at JFK, something I doubt the agency has any desire to do.

PDX Carpet Making a Comeback

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As part of the Portland International Airport modernization and expansion it has been announced that the old carpet will be making a return. From PDX Next:

Truth be told, we love it, too. More than a few of us have the shoe selfies to prove it. We can spot the carpet’s distinctive pattern from across the room, whether it’s on your socks, your keychain, or your T-shirt.

And so, we have a little good news: When the new main terminal opens in 2024, the old carpet is coming back to a few key spaces in the arrivals area.

And continues:

When the expansive, light-filled main terminal opens in 2024, you’ll find PDX’s iconic carpet in the pre-security “meet and greet” areas outside the security exits, along with a few other surprise locations we’ll share along the way.

So it won’t fill the airport again but will be in a few high traffic areas allowing people to get a little nostalgia and the obligatory photo. One small detail that is also noted is that the main areas of the terminal (security, shopping, etc.) will have terrazzo floors while gate areas and wings will have the current carpet.

Of course, the current carpet will remain in the concourses. And the areas of the main terminal that visitors travel through will have gray terrazzo floors—a smoother surface that’s easier for wheelchairs, assistive devices, and roller bags to navigate.

While I understand the use of carpet as a noise dampening agent in the gate areas, when you look at old photos of airports, including PDX, the solid surface floors are just so much nicer looking.

There are some awesome photos on the PDX Next website of the old Portland International Airport, including this gem:

Old Portland International Airport Terminal

Last Chance to Snag Emirates First Class Using Alaska Miles

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Just a quick reminder that starting April 1, 2021, Alaska MileagePlan members will no longer be able to redeem their miles for Emirates First Class. This comes after a late 2020 announcement by Alaska that Emirates was removing the ability for their partners to redeem for the coveted front cabin.

So, if you have some extra Alaska miles gathering dust, it’s a good time to do some searching for that award, you only have two days left. I booked a reward from the US to Malaysia in early 2022 to at least lock in an A380 with the onboard shower. With the uncertainty of Covid restrictions I went as far into the future as I could. I am hopeful that the world will be on its way to a full recovery and reopening by then.

A Single Flight Conundrum

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Between January and March of this year I flew United quite a bit. When Covid travel restrictions hit in mid-March the airlines started changing their requirements to qualify for their statuses for 2021. In most cases the airlines actually extended a frequent flyer’s status into 2021 carte blanche but with some caveats. In United’s case, to earn their upgrade certificates a flyer still needs to spend a certain amount and fly a specific number of flights in 2020. Due to all of my work travel I had no issues meeting the spend amount (Premier Qualifying Points) but I am one flight short of the needed number to earn the upgrade certificates.

With Covid still ravaging the United States I reached out to United Airlines’ frequent flyer support team to inquire about whether there would be exceptions made for people like myself who came very close but didn’t cross the line for next year’s upgrades. The quick response verbatim was:

You must meet the published criteria for awarding of the PlusPoints.

Besides it being a rather terse, somewhat unfriendly e-mail, United is saying all flights must be flown and no exceptions will be made. For me, this means I need to fly that one flight to earn the upgrade certificates for 2021. But is flying that one flight worth it from a safety perspective?

We’ve been pretty good about social distancing and isolation during Covid so it seems irrational to go fly just to earn the upgrades but at the same time, it’s like throwing the upgrades away. The way I would do this would likely be to fly United to San Francisco or Los Angeles (Los Angeles would require a connection) mid-week as the flights are super cheap and then I’d take Alaska Airlines back home since they are still blocking middle seats when possible. I’d wear an N95 mask the entire time and wouldn’t plan on eating or drinking on the flights.

Now I just have to decide if this is too much of a risk or if I am being paranoid. What would you do?

Is United’s additional Thanksgiving capacity irresponsible?

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United will be adding 1,400 flights for the week of Thanksgiving and plans to use larger aircraft on some flights. From that same Bloomberg article –

Half of its Thanksgiving customers are buying tickets less than 30 days before the holiday, up from about 40% last year, United said. The airline will monitor bookings “in real-time to swap in larger aircraft when needed to accommodate last-minute demand.”

It seems a bit tone deaf for United to add all of this capacity for a holiday week. Yes, they need revenue but at the same time they are enabling behavior that will unfortunately lead to more Covid-19 infections. More people in airports, more people on planes (where Covid can and does spread), and people in their loved one’s homes in close contact. This is amid the U.S. setting new daily records when it comes to coronavirus cases.

United is a business and they are looking out for themselves but their disregard for public health in the name of money is a bad idea right now. I would hope that CEO Scott Kirby would take a moment to think about the company’s actions and the impact they will have on lives across the country.

United may need a dictionary

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You may remember that I posted about United’s refusal to refund tickets for cancelled flights, instead offering passengers ETCs (electronic travel certificates) for future bookings. During the crazy times we are living, United is trying to preserve as much cash as possible. Their recent earnings call statedearnings call stated a first quarter net loss of $639 million or $7.1 million/day. But, United is still partaking in rather peculiar and misleading behavior. Recently, the airline has skirted Department of Transportation rules for refunds by claiming only cancellations where the customer could not be re-accommodated on another flight within 6 hours of the original were due a refund. The DOT website states the following:

In the following situations, passengers are entitled to a refund of the ticket price and/or associated fees.

Cancelled Flight – A passenger is entitled to a refund if the airline cancelled a flight, regardless of the reason, and the passenger chooses not to travel.

Schedule Change/Significant Delay – A passenger is entitled to a refund if the airline made a significant schedule change and/or significantly delays a flight and the passenger chooses not to travel.

That seems pretty straightforward. If your flight gets cancelled, you get a refund. Full stop. Back to my recent experience, United refused to give a refund for multiple flight cancellations on the same itinerary and the only alternative was to spend the night at O’Hare on my way to Montreal. As a result, I filed a DOT complaint, explaining the situation and giving screenshots of the flight cancellations. A few days later I received a reply from a United representative that my complaint was received and that a refund was being processed. Fast forward 17 business days which is the average refund time with United lately and I received the following in my inbox:

Did you catch that? Here it is as plain text (emphasis mine)

Sometimes forces beyond our control make it hard for us to give you the best experience, and your travel doesn’t go to plan. To thank you for your patience, we’ve gone ahead and refunded your ticket.

The Electronic Travel Certificate may be used for future travel on United – and United Express®-operated flights, and it must be redeemed by the expiration date using the PIN number provided.

I’ve always thought of a refund as a return of my payment back to me. If I pay with cash, the vendor gives me cash back (or a debit card that I can use anywhere). If I pay with a credit card the vendor returns the payment back to the credit card. Apparently, United thinks “refund” means “Electronic Travel Certificate”. Again, they are likely trying to preserve cash but this is not just disingenuous, it’s lying. This is not a refund, it is a credit that you have to use with United. You can’t use that money for something else, like food. All I can think of is a family planning on a taking a vacation when all of the Covid-19 shutdowns begin. Their flights cancel and they call United and are told that they’ll get a refund, then they receive an e-mail like what I got and now they believe they’re out that cash. It is not right that United is playing with words to try and keep as much cash as they can as the airline industry suffers.

All I can think of is Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. United keeps using “refund” in their language but I do not think it means what they think it means.

My advice to you, the traveler, is to be persistent. I followed up with United after receiving this email and after a lengthy back and forth, I clearly explained that I did not cancel the flights voluntarily and that the offered alternative flights were not acceptable. I have since been told that I will receive a refund to my original form of payment in 21 business days… It seems United has a single intern processing all refunds.

United Really Doesn’t Want to Give Refunds

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I had a flight scheduled for work travel, heading to Montreal on March 16 and back to Portland on March 19. Due to Covid-19 restrictions I moved that flight to March 30 with a return on April 2. After rebooking, United made a number of route network changes, including get rid of Washington-Dulles to Portland, which made up part of my return from Montreal. I was rebooked via Chicago and thought that was the end of it. I would have a five hour connection and it would be fine.

Yesterday United announced they would stop all flying to Canada on April 1. A few hours later I received another schedule change e-mail from the carrier saying I would now leave Montreal on April 1 at 9:30am and arrive in Portland at 10pm on April 2. This involved a 32 hour connection in Chicago.

To me this type of connection seems unreasonable, so I called United to ask for a refund. I know that their policies have seen a number of changes, including one that said only schedule changes with a 24-hour impact can be refunded. Their latest policy is even more harsh than that.

United International Refunds Policy

So, any flight that is impacted more than six hours can be cancelled but can’t be refunded until after a year has passed. Seems crazy right? I’ve given United money for a flight that no longer flies. So I called United. I was told that there were no options for me to receive a refund. I asked who was going to pay for the hotel bill at O’Hare, or did they expect me to sleep on the floor? This agent was just doing her job and did call a supervisor who also denied my request for a refund.

There is no reason that my money should not be returned to me. Sure, the world is in crisis but if you the airline can’t actually deliver a customer from point A to point B, then it is unreasonable to hold onto their cash until the customer decides to go somewhere else. There is no guarantee that United will be around in a year. What happens to my cash then?

My plan is to dispute the transaction with my credit card provider, file a DOT complaint, and write a note to my Senator. The note will be a summary of the situation and that my belief is that the US government shouldn’t hand out any bailout money to the airlines until this type of stuff is stopped.

If you are facing a similar situation, I’d love for you to comment. Or better yet, write your Senator.

Airlines have still not perfected “spend”

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Ever since a number of airlines have implemented a dollars or “spend” calculation into their elite statuses there have been complaints. The complaints have escalated as the required amount of spending has gone up for most levels over the last couple of years. My complaint is a little different in that I understand a need for dollars spent to be used in the awarding of elite status on the carriers, however, the systems that do the calculation are finicky and you, the traveler, have to be diligent in tracking the amount you have spent and what the airline has awarded you.

A few dollars here or there may not seem like a big impact but when you are traveling every week and maybe live in an area that sees frequent fare wars (lower fares), then those few dollars add up over time. A few of my coworkers are in this exact situation. They live in a location where there is a lot of competition and fares frequently reflect that. They also travel every week but even with easily earning elite status with miles flown, they are struggling to meet their airline’s spend requirements.

I recently had a work trip overseas. I was set to fly Portland-San Francisco-Munich-Prague. After arriving in San Francisco my connection to Munich was delayed and I would miss the final leg to Prague. I asked to be moved to San Francisco-Zurich-Prague and was accommodated, making it to my final destination only a little later than planned. After the trip, I was looking at my account activity on United and noticed that I received significantly fewer PQDs (Premier Qualifying Dollars) than what was on my receipt for the trip. I contacted United and they did “correct” the number but it still does not match what I would have originally earned. Knowing that I will earn the needed spend for elite status, I am not going to pursue this any further with United as it really isn’t worth my time, but without looking closely I would not have noticed that I was shorted.

The systems the airlines use for tracking all of their data are complex and the integration between those systems is even more complex, so as one system receives or creates incorrect data it is sent to other systems and the disparity becomes harder to track. For example, elite spend is calculated without fees or taxes associated to the fare. A $500 ticket may only generate $400 of elite spend. If that is somehow miscalculated as $340 then you missed out on $60 that now has to be reconciled in some manner. In some cases the airlines can manually correct the elite spend directly but in others they have to manipulate the underlying ticket.

For my ticket, what I believe happened is that when I was moved to San Francisco-Zurich, my ticket had to be refared, meaning they had to recalculate the value of the ticket and in doing so, moved me to a lower fare than my original ticket. I doubt this was intentional, they were just trying to get me on the flight, but the point is, in changing the ticket, the amount I paid for the ticket was no longer calculated correctly.

The moral of the story: pay attention to your accounts and don’t hesitate to contact the airlines when you see a discrepancy. If the airlines want to enforce spend as an elite qualifying criteria then you need to be diligent in making sure the values are correct.

Something doesn’t add up with this unaccompanied minor story

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United at Newark
There is a story coming out today on a number of different news sites stating that United put a 14-year-old passenger on the wrong connecting flight. He was set to go to Stockholm on SAS but ended up on a Eurowings flight to Düsseldorf. Those two flights board next to each other and the gate agents are the same contract staff for both airlines

However, when I read through them, something does not add up.

From the Yahoo News! story:

A parent is blaming “the idiots” at United Airlines for putting his 14-year-old son on the wrong international flight, which would have taken him to Germany, instead of his intended destination, Sweden.

The young boy, Anton Berg, flew as an “unaccompanied minor” on June 30 with United Airlines from Raleigh, Durham, N.C. to Newark, N.J. From there, his connecting flight was supposed to take him directly to his destination, Stockholm, with Scandinavian Airlines, but he got on a flight to Dusseldorf, operated by Eurowings, instead.

So a 14-year-old traveling alone as an unaccompanied minor was put on the wrong connecting flight. Per the same article, United has apologized:

United Airlines has since refunded the $150 fee charged for directing the unaccompanied minor. In a statement provided to Yahoo Lifestyle, a representative said that the airline has “been in frequent contact with the young man’s family to confirm his safety and to apologize for this issue.”

What doesn’t add up is that the story and United’s unaccompanied minor policy don’t match. Add on top of that, the child was connecting onto a partner flight that was being serviced by a contract set of agents and things really get complicated.

From United’s website:

Our unaccompanied minor service is for children who are 5-14 years old and traveling without a parent, legal guardian or someone who is at least 18 years old. These young travelers also need to follow certain requirements for their safety:

  • Unaccompanied minors can only travel on nonstop United or United Express® flights. They can’t use our unaccompanied minor service on codeshare flights and other flights operated by our partner airlines.
  • United does not offer unaccompanied minor service connecting to or from other airlines’ flights.
  • Children younger than 5 can’t travel as unaccompanied minors, even if they’re flying with an older unaccompanied child.
  • Unaccompanied minor service is not available for children older than 14. Young adults ages 15 to 17 can travel alone on any United- or United Express®-operated flight.
  • It costs $150 each way for every two children traveling using the unaccompanied minor service.

The unaccompanied minor “service” is really a fee to make sure that your child makes it from your care to the care of whoever is picking them up from their destination. It is not an escort/babysitting service making sure your kid gets on the correct flight. In this particular case, it sounds like the parents skirted the rules of the program to try and get United to connect their son onto an SAS flight, which is not permitted for an unaccompanied minor (it says so directly in the policy). In fact, part of the reason the airlines don’t offer connections anymore is exactly this scenario, a potentially lost child somewhere in the process.

Once the minor was in the care of the contract agents for SAS and Eurowings, there was another breakdown where it was not understood what flight the child should be on. He was inadvertently directed to the Eurowings flight by their staff, not United’s.

The whole story comes down to the parents trying to be slick and skirt the unaccompanied minor rules and having it backfire. Rather than just roll with the punches they blame the airlines (and really focus on the wrong one in my opinion). The contract staff for the two European carriers screwed up and they need to fix whatever flaw they have that let them issue a boarding pass for the wrong flight.