This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate in Portland International Airport’s “dress rehearsal” for the opening of the newly built main terminal building. The building has been under construction since early 2021 and with this phase, a big portion of the airport will reopen, reducing a lot of the check-in desk congestion that is present today. The dress rehearsal was to help the airport, the airlines, and TSA make sure that things were operating as expected and to work out any major hiccups before the terminal officially opens on August 14. I believe over 1,000 participants signed up.
All participants had to register before entering the space and this process was a bit painful as it meant waiting in the parking garage in a very long line. The bottleneck seemed to be that they were doing a quick orientation of around 75 people before releasing them into the terminal. To me, this seemed problematic from a realism perspective as the waves of people during the morning rush can be well into the 200-300. Each person received a script that let them know what airline they were flying, whether or not they were checking bags, the security line they needed to go through (PreCheck, express, or regular), and how they were checking in (app or website, kiosk, or with an agent).
The Nitty Gritty
The terminal is beautiful, no doubt about it. On the right in this photo is the temporary wall that blocks the current check-in area from the new space. Then there are the new check-in areas. They are long open areas giving plenty of space for travelers to maneuver, even if an airline’s queues are long. Then you reach the wooden floor and a large opening in the ceiling letting a ton of natural light fill the space.
The wooden floors lead to a tiled space and here you are facing west. There are stadium seats (more on that later) that face the area where passengers will exit the secure area after their flights. In the next picture the security checkpoints are to the right and left of the center of the photo.
The security checkpoints are where some of my qualms with the design start to become apparent. Each security lane, or spot where there is a body scanner, has three places where passengers can line up to fill the plastic bins with their luggage, shoes, toiletries, etc. This is marked with the lane number and a letter (5A/B/C in the next photo), but there is zero explanation of what this means. As you can see, people were kind of bunching up. This will speed up people going through the I.D. check but will probably cause some frustration as people try to jockey for the next open bin space. I’m not sure how to solve it but I brought it to the airport staff’s attention as well as the TSA’s, so maybe they’ll come up with something in the next couple of weeks.
After you go through security you are in a new atrium area that will lead to the old terminal hallways, so no big changes there.
But, the good news for travelers is that the secure connector hallway between B/C and D/E terminals will reopen when the terminal reopens! This will be a huge help to passengers who are connecting between some of the airlines that interline and codeshare out of PDX. The downside is that this hallway is now contains the singular exit for all passengers. I’ve been told this is temporary until phase II of the airport is completed, so hopefully that is true. The other downside is that the connector hallway no longer has moving walkways nor the chairs that it used to have. If I had a flight delay I would typically grab a coffee, sit in those chairs, and enjoy the views of the airport operations. My guess is that the hallway is too narrow now and putting chairs in would just impede traffic.
Now, back to those stadium seats. These seats face the single terminal exit. There is going to be a lot of traffic around this area with people waiting for their friends and family to arrive. I’m sure Loyal Legion will do great business but do you notice that glass partition between the booth and the area above the terminal exit? It’s definitely not high enough to prevent a child (or adult) from tossing things down onto the heads of people exiting after their flight.
I also don’t love the lack of backs on the seating in the area but it is an improvement to the current waiting areas for families, which is essentially 5-6 seats at each of the two exits.
Overall the space is a huge improvement. The amount of natural light alone is a massive upgrade to what the old check-in area, security checkpoints, and waiting area were like. This new pre-security departure hall offers lots of open space for passengers and passenger’s family/friends to wait. And the concessions and stores that disappeared during the construction, we’re getting those back and some new ones, like Loyal Legion, outside of security that everyone can enjoy. What do you think of the new terminal?
In a letter to the US Department of Transportation on Thursday, September 21 Delta informed the agency that they will not be restarting their Tokyo service from Portland. The service, which previously operated to Tokyo-Narita was set to restart on October 23, 2023 but to Tokyo-Haneda. This restart was after attempts by Delta to get more flexibility in their Haneda operations from the DOT; They were asking to operate from different US gateways but were told by the DOT that such changes would not be granted.
Pursuant to Condition No. 3 of DOT Order 2023-2-15 (“Dormancy Order”), Delta hereby notifies the Department that it will not launch Portland (PDX) to Tokyo Haneda (HND) flights by the October 29, 2023 deadline specified in the Dormancy Order and, consequently, returns the daily PDX-HND slot pair allocated to Delta by Order 2019-8-6 to the Department.1 Delta plans to resume all other U.S.-Haneda flying by October 29, 2023, consistent with its prior awards.
Historically, Delta inherited a bunch of routes from Tokyo-Narita as part of their merger with Northwest Airlines in 2009. You can see the extent of their Asia/Oceania presence from Tokyo post-merger in this map. They basically had all of their US routes serving Tokyo itself and onward connections to other places in Asia.
gcmap.com of historic Delta routes out of Tokyo-Narita
As Tokyo-Haneda slot restrictions loosened up all of the major airlines looked to fly into the much more central airport, with the caveat that slots would be limited and intra-Asia or Oceania flying wouldn’t be feasible from Tokyo-Haneda. In 2019 Delta received approval to fly to Tokyo-Haneda from Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Detroit, and Honolulu. This was the beginning of the end of the Portland service in my opinion. There is a decent amount of traffic between Portland and Tokyo but those flights relied on connections at Narita to really justify the 767-300 that Delta was operating. This was even predicted by Delta’s then-chief legal officer Ben Hirst in 2016 who stated:
It’s the loss of the connecting traffic that will kill the [Narita] flights,
Without those connecting flights the justification for some US flights to Tokyo just didn’t make financial sense anymore. Delta announced Portland-Seoul in September of 2021 in the middle of the pandemic. I even wrote about this when the Delta/Korean Air joint venture was announced in 2017. But the 2021 announcement seemed to signal Delta’s plans, they would serve the Asian destinations via connections in Seoul with their partner Korean Air and keep Portland-Tokyo-Haneda for the traffic going directly to Tokyo… Or so we thought.
This most recent letter to the DOT as well as the rumor that Delta will not start Portland-Seoul seems to hint that Delta might not have the planes for the routes they want to fly or that they don’t view the Portland market as strong enough or a mix of both. I tend to think that they don’t value the Portland market enough. Ever since British Airways started their Portland-London flight, Delta has not brought their flight on the same route back into service.
The news of Portland-Tokyo going away is disappointing and while Delta and the Port of Portland can claim that the demand just isn’t there, I think the reality is a bit more complicated. It’s clear that Delta was using the Portland slot as a form of leverage in hopes of getting their flight moved to a different airport.
My hope is that Alaska Airlines and the Port of Portland approach Japan Airlines to work out a deal for a flight, even if it only operates 3-4x/week. The Alaska membership in the Oneworld alliance with Japan Airlines should hold some weight and the port could show that there is still demand. This would serve connecting traffic within Asia as well as give travelers from Asia another connecting option along he west coast (not to mention the tourist traffic between Portland/Tokyo).
In preparing to write this I came across this photo from 2017 of the amenities of a United Global First seat. The whole intention was to write a trip report, give my take on the experience, and create a little traffic on this blog. As you guessed, I never wrote that trip report. I got as far as uploading the photos and then had real work and real life get in the way. But on top of all of that, I don’t know that I am the best person to write trip reports.
I love aviation, flying, and all of the fun amenities that come with the airline experience but I am also someone who loves getting where I am going and being rested and ready to go when I get there. This typically means I may or may not eat the meal on a longhaul flight and usually spend a good chunk of the time sleeping. For example, on a recent British Airways flight in business class from Portland to London and onward to Lisbon I ate part of the dinner and slept right up until our final descent into London. I was only going to be in Europe for 5-6 days and was there for work, so being on the local time and not completely jet-lagged was priority number one.
Even on daytime flights my goal is to adjust to the destination time zone as painlessly as possible and this almost always involves some amount of sleep on the plane. On a recent Denver to Munich flight in business class I slept almost six out of the ten hours. I didn’t even eat the main meal, lunch, right after departure from Munich. Instead I put my seat down and went to bed in the hopes of jumpstarting my return to west coast time.
For me, most trip reports could be broken down into food and sleep and a few questions around those. Did I eat? Was it edible and filling? Did I sleep? Was it restful and comfortable? If the answers to most of those questions is “yes” then the whole trip report could be summarized with “It was fine”.
Most trip reports seem to focus on squeezing the maximum amount of “value” or perks out of a trip where my view of value is whether or not I was able to hit the ground running for work or was I able to return home rested and ready to spend time with family after a long or stressful work trip. I don’t think either view is necessarily wrong but I do believe my experience is very different and also not very compelling to read.
Let’s go back to that trip from 2017. Here is the main course served on that flight. It was fine. Nothing earthshattering or amazing. It was run of the mill airplane food.
Yeah, it was better than economy but definitely wasn’t at restaurant quality. And to be honest, most airplane food is never going to be restaurant quality. Sure you might get a really nice champagne, wine or even caviar but overall most airplane food is just that.
I don’t know, maybe you all want to read about what work travel is really like. Feel free to let me know. In the meantime, there are a numberofbloggers writing really in-depth trip reports. On top of that, there are vloggers creating somegreat tripreports on YouTube.
Let me know what you think, do I write the boring work travel reports?
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.
By now I am sure you are all too familiar with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) but I wanted to write about some of my recent travel experiences and what all of this could mean for the future of aviation and travel. I am not a doctor or epidemiologist so my health expertise is limited to what my doctor friends tell me and what I read from the World Health Organization or CDC.
A lot of corporations have already put restrictions on travel. Some have said no travel to places affected by the virus while others have stopped all non-essential travel. The impact that these travel restrictions will have on the travel industry are already being felt. For example, Lufthansa has announced a 50% cut in capacity. That’s huge.
In addition, the extent to which the entire Airbus A380 fleet (14 aircraft) can be temporarily taken out of service in Frankfurt and Munich is currently being examined.
They are even considering grounding the A380 during the cuts!
Hong Kong’s battered flagship airline will reduce overall flight capacity by about 30 per cent, its chief executive Augustus Tang Kin-wing said on Tuesday.
The carrier, one of Asia’s premium airlines and one of the biggest corporate victims of several months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, has seen passenger numbers collapse by 50 per cent in recent days, sources said, citing comments from a briefing on Monday led by Mark Hoey, the airline’s general manager of operations.
On the United States side of things, all of the major carriers have significantly reduced their amount of flying to Asia. These reductions started with China and Hong Kong but have been expanded to Japan, South Korea, and other Asian destinations. A recently leaked internal memo to United Airlines staff stated that the international flight schedule will be reduced by 20% in April and those cuts will likely last until the end of May. Domestic flying will also see cuts of around 10% in April and it is unclear when that capacity will return to the schedule. You can read the full memo on JonNYC’s Twitter post.
All of these cuts add up to real dollars. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has stated that the coronavirus could impact global airline revenue anywhere between $63 billion and $113 billion. There is not much to say to that except, wow. The landscape of the airlines could drastically change by the time this illness is contained and the number of cases starts to dwindle.
*Update – I have left this post in a draft form as I wrote it. As the news has evolved, I have tried to update the post. Some of the latest news from Delta is that bookings are down 25-30% (worse than expected) and that demand erosion is very evident. Not good times for airlines. That’s the story.
My Recent Travel Experiences
For me, my recent flights and overall travel experiences have been relatively uneventful and normal. What has surprised me the most is that the airports I frequent (O’Hare, Portland, Newark, and Montreal) have been very busy even as airline schedules have been reduced. A lot of travelers are wiping down their seat area with sterile wipes and wearing masks and/or gloves. There is also the strange phenomenon of seeing people leave the restroom without washing their hands, a bizarre choice in these times.
Personally I have tried to be more aware of touching my face. It’s more difficult than it seems, especially while I sit and work on my laptop. I think the best advice is not “No face touching” but to be aware of when you are doing it and to make an effort to correct the behavior. There is no way you’re going to stop it completely so don’t beat yourself up over it.
What should you be doing with your travel plans? Make sure the flights and hotels are still open and operating as expected. If you are worried about travel, all three of the major US carriers (Delta, United, and American) are allowing changes for free for flights until late April. Call your airline and move the trip. If you are still planning to take your trip, wash your hands, be aware of how much you touch your face, and cover your mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing.
The Future
I am generally concerned about the airline industry and the travel industry as a whole. A number of airlines are already struggling, cutting massive numbers of flights yet hoping to stay alive long enough for demand to bounce back. A few more months of depressed travel and the potential for airlines being unable to sustain their operations financial becomes much more real. The same could be said for industries where customers showing up is the whole business (restaurants, brick & mortar stores, etc). Fewer people coming in means less cash while expenses stay the same. That’s what concerns me the most.
A couple of weeks ago I was on my way to Taipei and Hangzhou with Fozz. The goal was to fly United’s last flight between Hangzhou and San Francisco. To do that, we planned to spend a day in Taipei first then head to Hangzhou, where we could transit without visa for another full day before flying back to the US.
On Friday the 13th (very appropriate) I woke up at 7am to catch my Portland-San Francisco flight and saw we were delayed by 55 minutes. No big deal, I had almost two hours to connect. The Santa Rosa wildfires had caused issues the day before as I returned from Las Vegas via San Francisco as well and I figured everything would be delayed. When I got to the airport the delay was 1.5 hours and I decided to talk to one of the gate agents about my options. She stated that there was an EVA flight to Taipei that left at 5:50pm that I would still have plenty of time for so she “protected” me on it, leaving my original United flight in the record should I get to San Francisco in time to make that flight.
By the time I boarded the plane in Portland, our flight was 2.5 hours delayed and I knew there was no way I would make my original connection but I was confident in making the EVA flight and stayed on the plane. Landing in San Francisco was uneventful and as I chatted with Fozz on the phone, the plane to Taipei was still at the gate with the door open. I might just make it! But it wasn’t to be. I arrived at the gate only to be sternly told that they were not taking anymore passengers. As I was told this, another person who was connecting was allowed to board. The only thing I can figure is that they had spoken to her previously or she was a standby passenger.
I still was not stressed, as I had an EVA flight confirmed, so I went to look for an EVA agent who could get me a boarding pass. Unfortunately, the EVA gate did not yet have an agent present and there was no one at the transfer desk. I also learned that both EVA’s and Singapore’s lounges at SFO had recently closed to make room for United’s new Polaris lounge. This left me in a position where my only option was to exit security and go to EVA’s ticket counter.
The agents at the EVA counter were very friendly and politely told me that they had no ticket for me and that I would need to talk to United to have them send the ticket over again. 45 minutes later and I was speaking with a United ticket agent who told me that the Portland agent should not have reissued the ticket the way she did and that it had been rejected by EVA. Due to the fires everything was full the next day but during this time Fozz had texted me to say that his plane was returning to the gate. The thought popped into my head that I might just be able to get back on that flight…
An aside, I still do not know why the United ticket agent at SFO did not offer to reissue a coach ticket on EVA. The original ticket was coach that was upgraded via a GPU, so my expectation was that she would at least offer coach on EVA. Maybe EVA was sold out in the back cabin due to the fires and misconnects?
Anyway, I went back through security using my original SFO-Taipei boarding pass and met Fozz at the gate. We asked an agent to relist me for the flight and she told us she could only do it after they had boarded, so we waited.
To make a long story short, the offer was to put me in coach in a middle seat (rather than downgrade the passenger they had upgraded into my seat) or to perform a carry over/carry back, essentially a trip-in-vain. At this point I was super tired and decided to just head back to Portland. Fozz was in agreement and decided to trip-in-vain as well.
I eventually made it back to Portland at midnight after dealing with multiple agents to get the tickets properly notated and reissued. It was a mess getting home, but in my mind, was the right decision. The Taipei flight landed nearly six hours late and would have completely burned our time in the city as we would have spent most of that getting to the hotel and back to the airport. I was bummed to miss the last Hangzhou-San Francisco flight, but at least I got an interesting blog post out of it.
Another day, another incident on an airplane involving passengers and violence. This time it took place on an ANA flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles. Thankfully the plane had not left the gate yet and the passenger who instigated the fight was arrested and charged with assault. Some reports state that alcohol was a factor and while that doesn’t surprise me, there is something else going on. This is the fifth or so widely circulated incident of violence among or against airline passengers.
Some people want to blame the airlines for this. They’re an easy target and in some instances, they are absolutely to blame but the general trend of people simply resorting to violence in simple instances of misunderstanding is taking place more and more often lately.
I think it’s a mix of lack of patience, an unwillingness to forgive or admit fault, and a general feeling of frustration. Life is moving so fast that people forget that they aren’t the only ones with stress or difficult circumstances and are quick dole out their anger on others.
We need patience and understanding now more than ever. As I pointed out on a recent episode of Dots, Lines and Destinations, we need to be peacemakers rather than those who encourage this violent behavior.
Michael Hohl, the groom, said he and his fiancé, Amber Maxwell, were the last to board the plane.
According to Hohl, they noticed a man was spread across their row napping when they approached their seats, 24 B and C.
Not wanting to wake the man, Hohl said they decided to sit a three rows up in seats 21 B and C. He said they didn’t think it would matter because the flight was half full with multiple empty rows.
21 B and C are exit row seats on United planes and considered Economy Plus because of the extra legroom.
After sitting, Hohl said a flight attendant approached and asked if they were in their ticketed seats. The couple explained they weren’t and asked if they could get an upgrade, but instead they were told they needed to return to their assigned seats.
So then they tried to finagle their way into the seats by asking for the upgrade.
“I think customer service and the airlines has gone real downhill,” said Hohl. “The way United Airlines handled this was really absurd.”
So the couple could have simply asked the flight attendants to ask the man in their row to sit up (which he would have been required to do for takeoff anyway), but they opted to seat themselves in a better seat.
In January I took a trip to Europe to meet up with some friends and tour the Airbus factory in Hamburg, Germany. Also on the agenda was a trip to Miniatur Wunderland, a model/RC world that has multiple regions, including an airport. Right around the time I was planning this trip was when United announced that their Newark-Hamburg flight would be changing to a seasonal schedule. The flight would disappear from the winter rotations two days before my departure.
My backup plan was to fly Portland-Chicago-Munich-Hamburg. For the return, we would be riding with a friend to Berlin and I would take Berlin-Newark-Chicago-Portland as my routing home. I put Chicago in on the return because it got me home a few hours earlier, though it turned out to almost be a really bad decision (more on that later).
United recently started rolling out their Polaris “soft product”, or their onboard service, and even more recently have had their plane with the new seats flying some domestic routes. I had the opportunity to try both the Global First version of the Polaris soft product as well as the business version.
The day before I was set to leave, Portland experienced a record snowfall, making the city come to a hault. Worried that there would be no way for me to get to the airport, I called United and asked if they could put me on the same flights a day later. After a brief hold I was confirmed in business class a day later. I would miss the Airbus tour with my friends, but at least I would get there. One little quirk was the fact I was rebooked not in R-class, the fare bucket reserved for GPU upgrades, but D, a full fare business class bucket, which allowed me to apply another upgrade certificate for United’s Global First product.
I woke up on the morning of my flight to find that the train I typically take to PDX was only running part of the route due to a derailment of another train. I rushed to get ready and get on the streetcar to the closest stop that would connect me to the airport. After a bit of waiting of sub-20 degree weather a train showed up, taking me to the transfer station for the airport. Lots of people looked confused as they were using two trains to go back and forth between the airport but because of that they were using a platform that isn’t well marked and rarely sees action.
Arriving at the airport about two hours after I left home, I had about an hour until my flight boarded so I printed out my boarding passes, because United’s printers at PDX still print on cardstock rather than heat paper, making this aviation geek very happy. I went through TSA PreCheck in a few minutes and was buying a cup of coffee just moments later. I walked up to my gate right as boarding was starting. No de-icing was needed but we did have a delay getting out of PDX for some reason. My original plan was to visit the new Polaris lounge in Chicago but that plan was quickly dashed with what turned out to be a tight connection.
Finally up in the air, I settled in for the four hour flight to Chicago O’Hare. The flight attendants were friendly and lunch service was started shortly after we reached our cruising altitude. I chose the beef option and I’ll let the picture do the talking. It was barely edible. I ended up having a few bites and avoiding the rest, figuring I would eat when I got into Chicago.
Saddest inflight lunch to date.
After the meal service I got a little bit of work done and read before we landed in Chicago. As we taxied to the gate I checked my connection and noted it was on time still, giving me 15 minutes to get to the gate. I made it off the plane, through O’Hare’s neon tunnel, and up to my next gate in about 10 minutes and realized there was no plane parked at our gate, even with a huge line of people already queued for boarding. Turns out we were going to take an hour delay in Chicago but United never posted it until 10 minutes after our scheduled departure. Guess I did have time for a visit to the Polaris lounge. Instead I chatted in the gate area with a friend who happened to be traveling on the same flight but was continuing on to Budapest.
We finally boarded and I made my way to seat 1K, a window seat in front of the pilot rest seat, where I found this.
Yep, a storage compartment was non-functioning. And that wasn’t the only “inoperative” sticker on the seat, another bin did not work in the storage area closest to the window. Disappointing but not a deal breaker.
The new Polaris inflight amenities were stacked on the seat and my first conundrum was figuring out where to put it all. I settled on the foot rest.
After settling into my seat a flight attendant presented the flight’s menu and an amenity kit and asked what I would like to drink.
I asked for a glass of champagne and it was presented a short time later with a chocolate on the side, which is a nice touch. The setup for the plastic champagne cup does seem like it could be easy to knock over with the slightest bump, so United may want to take a look at making it a little more stable on the base.
Since we were delayed quite a bit, I decided I would eat a regular dinner, figuring the entire service would take around two hours. The flight attendant came around to take orders and I decided to have the beef option, a braised short rib with grits and fava beans in a bordelaise sauce. It sounded interesting and slightly different than what United has previously offered in business class. I know, from what I’ve read, the Asian Fusion Chicken Soup is pretty good, but my goal was to see how previous entrees had been spruced up.
After takeoff the single flight attendant serving the first class cabin (five seats occupied with passengers, one by a pilot) came around to offer beverages and he seemed a little disappointed that I only wanted another glass of champagne and sparkling water. The addition of San Pellegrino to the Polaris menu is definitely a welcome change. A short time later the linens were set and a starter of black pepper tuna was offered. It was rather flavorless and the side of quinoa was a confusing addition.
Next up was the carrot ginger soup, which I passed on. I was not really in the mood for soup and was hoping by skipping it the service would speed up a little bit. It did not.
The salad course was next and it was full of fresh greens and carrots. A nice change from previous salads I had tried on United which tended to be less than fresh and in some cases, still frozen.
My main course was delivered shortly after my salad plate had been picked up and another round of wine and drinks was on offer. The short rib was cooked pretty well and the grits had decent flavor to them but the dish overall seemed bland. The fava beans were flavorless and the sauce on top of everything just did not seem to hold up to the altitude.
By this point we were almost three hours into the flight and realized that business class had been completely served while first class still had the cheese and dessert courses to go. I opted for the cheese course because after reading reports, I wanted to see just how much of a downgrade it was and wow, it was disappointing. On pre-merger United planes there was not enough space for the cheese serving dishes so the cheese service had always been lackluster. Served on a single plate with a single serving of crackers and maybe a piece of fruit, I frequently skipped it. On pre-merger Continental the cheese service was actually pretty good. There was usually a nice selection of cheeses, decent fruit options, and an ample serving of crackers. The Polaris service is definitely in the vain of the pre-merger United way of presenting the cheese course. Three types of cheese, none with enough flavor to really warrant a second bite, a sad pile of grapes, and a single package of crackers were put on the tray table. After a few bites I decided I was done.
I skipped dessert, hoping to at least get a few hours of sleep. I asked for one of the new gel pillows and hit the button to put the seat down into a lie-flat position. I really like the new, bigger pillow in tandem with the gel pillow. And the new duvet is a definite welcome addition. I ended up sleeping through breakfast and woke up feeling pretty good. Ironically, there was a blizzard hitting Munich as we approached and ended up holding for another 45 minutes before finally touching down.
My connection in Munich was tight but because the snow had closed the airport temporarily I walked through immigration and straight onto my connection to Hamburg. No time for a shower, but at least I wasn’t stuck.
Overall I think the soft product that United is offering onboard now is an improvement to what they used to have. The new diningware and glassware was a needed change, so I am glad they opted to go with something a little more modern and simple. Besides there being just a ton of stuff on the seat when you arrive, the bedding is a fantastic change. I value sleep the most on long flights so improving the pillows and blankets makes sleeping a little easier. On the ultra longhaul flights United is even offering pajamas now, so I’ll write an update when I get a chance to try those. Lastly is the food. I think it was a mixed bag. The service took way too long and I don’t know if that was because the flight attendants were new at it or if it is intended to take that long. It also seemed odd that the entire first class cabin was served by a single flight attendant. He seemed to do everything, between prepping the food and serving it, he seemed like he was simply trying to keep up. From now on I will opt to eat in the Polaris lounge or in the airport terminal rather than sitting through a 3+ hour meal service when I could be sleeping. Food quality was decent and I think the meal I was served out of Berlin on my flight home (which I will cover in part two) was better. Reading other reports, some people receive great meals while a lot of folks have similar experiences to mine, mediocre food with rather bland flavors. Rotation of menus is something United has promised though and that’s definitely a welcome change.
Delta Airlines announced that they would be rolling out new uniforms for 60,000 frontline employees. The new uniforms are for check-in and gate agents, flight attendants, and below the wing employees such as cargo and ramp staff.
The uniforms have been described as “high class” and “elegant” by Delta and reporters. And yes, the uniforms are a very nice change, but the hype around them seems a little over the top. I think it gets to me because it simply seems like a distraction from the fact that travel on U.S. airlines in economy has become a rather bleak affair. It is an illusion of fancy in an industry that has become anything but; Basic economy fares and less legroom has become the norm. Yes, I know, fare prices are on the decline domestically, but that comes with the added expense of the ancillary fares, which airlines are attempting to increase.
I think the fancy new uniforms speak to a larger trend in modern consumerism. I don’t mean to go existential but it feels like we’re giving up what matters for what looks good, not just in airplane amenities but in everyday life. Maybe it is time to take a step back and realize that the substance of what we enjoy and cherish is more important than the window dressing.
