Travel - Stephan Segraves

Is the Port of Portland focused on the right things?

May 10, 2025 ssegraves

From a recent post on BikePortland the Port of Portland is gearing up to start a project on Northeast Airport Way and Northeast 82nd Avenue that would create a flyover of the 82nd Avenue for the majority of traffic to the airport from I-205. The project will cost $100 million.

The whole idea of the project is to remove a conflict light at the intersection that causes the majority of traffic to stop to allow crossing traffic access the road. I understand the goal but I don’t know that this should be on the top of the priority list for the airport. For one, traveler numbers at PDX have still not returned to their pre-Covid levels; They’re getting closer to those numbers but it will probably be another six months before they are fully recovered. The other issue is that the terminal roadway, where passengers are dropped off and picked up are more of a nightmare than the intersection in question. If you are using the departures roadway on the upper level, just getting through to drop someone off can be a 30-minute ordeal. Pickups on the lower deck during the busiest times are extremely chaotic as well and take just as long.

The Port would be well served to spend some time and money to fix the actual terminal drop-off and pick-up issues before addressing a slowdown in traffic further away. They have a number of conflicts on both decks with pedestrians needing to cross multiple lanes of traffic to get to and from the terminal with only stop signs to slow down cars and those stop signs are frequently ignored.

Port of Portland could also work with TriMet to expand the number of public transportation options into the airport. Currently the MAX Red Line is the only option to the airport, serving Gateway Transit Center, the I-84 corridor and downtown. They have made service from downtown leave a bit earlier so you can catch the 6:30am departures but anything before that and you are cutting it close on the train. If you live any distance from the train outside of downtown then the only options are to take a bus and connect to the train which can 45 minutes or more to your journey. The airport and TriMet could focus on a few different areas of town and offer express type bus services from these areas and drop off right at the terminal similar to how the MAX drops off. Start it with regular buses and upgrade to ones made for luggage later if the ridership is big enough. There are large swaths of the city that want easy and frequent service to the airport and would absolutely not drive and park if they could avoid it. Where I live in the city my options are a nearly 1.5 hour bus and train commute, a $40 Lyft ride, or I drive myself and park. None of those are great options for an airport that is 8 miles from my house.

The overall passenger experience at pick-up and drop-off could be greatly improved if the Port of Portland spent time thinking about the overall transit options rather than focusing on a single intersection to invest $100M on. It really calls into question their goals and motivations.

*Article image from Oregon Department of Transportation Flickr

Alaska Airlines and Philippine Airlines announce partnership

May 2, 2025May 2, 2025 ssegraves

From Alaska Airlines —

Alaska Airlines is celebrating the addition of our newest global airline partner, Philippine Airlines, the flag carrier of the Philippines and the oldest operating commercial airline in Asia. With our new frequent flyer partnership, Alaska becomes Philippine Airlines’ first loyalty partner in North America, opening the door for our guests to book travel to exotic, once-in-a-lifetime destinations such as Palawan and Boracay in the Philippines.

In the coming months, our guests will be able to book flights on Philippine Airlines directly at alaskaair.com, earn Mileage Plan miles for their travel and redeem Mileage Plan miles for Philippine Airlines flights.

I have to hand it to Alaska Airlines for continuing to grow their partnership portfolio. Manila seems to be a quickly growing market, with United now offering two non-stops a day from San Francisco. What remains to be seen with this announced Alaska-Philippine partnership is whether or not onward flights will actually be sold via Alaska’s website. In my experience, the IT aspects of Alaska when booking partner flights on their website leaves a lot of be desired. For example, try to book something like Seattle-Frankfurt, a simple itinerary where Alaska could offer Seattle-London-Frankfurt or even Seattle-Helsinki-Frankfurt, but Alaska will only offer Seattle-Dublin-Frankfurt. Other itineraries are similar, all over the world.

This is particularly frustrating as Alaska promises even more miles on partners when booking through their website. If you book a partner on a partner’s website and credit to Alaska you receive fewer miles; A business class fare on British Airways purchased on ba.com earns only 125% elite miles on Alaska. If you were able to book the ticket on Alaska’s website, it would earn 250% elite miles.

It’s hard to know whether this is intentional or if it is just a lack of IT capabilities. My guess is that there is a huge backlog of technical functionality that needs to be looked at and changed as part of the merger with Hawaiian Airlines and this is taking priority over needs, including partner integration issues.

Another part of this announcement that I find intriguing is that Alaska is actively seeking partners even after the integration into oneworld. It speaks to the fact that the alliances don’t reach everywhere but such connectivity is needed. It might also hint at Philippine Airlines being interested in eventually joining oneworld, kind of like Starlux has hinted at.

In any case, I think this is great news for frequent travelers and we might see some great reward availability open up to southeast Asia so keep an eye out for that! What are your thoughts on the Alaska/Philippine Airlines partnership?

Photo from Glenn Beltz on Flickr.

JetBlue-United Partnership Rumors

May 1, 2025May 1, 2025 ssegraves

From Reuters —

JetBlue Airways (JBLU.O), opens new tab and United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab have been negotiating a partnership, three industry sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The partnership with United is envisioned as quite different from the NEA, the sources said. While the alliance is expected to focus on providing greater connectivity to customers and allowing them to earn and burn frequent-flier miles, the two carriers will not coordinate on schedules and pricing, they added.

Another rumor, from Corriere, an Italian news outlet, is that United would receive 20 slots at JFK in the partnership.

United Airlines, one of the largest carriers in the world and a longtime ally of Lufthansa (soon also of ITA Airways), is turning its attention to low-cost carrier JetBlue in an attempt to challenge Delta Air Lines at one of its key hubs: New York’s JFK Airport. The Chicago-based airline — which currently operates from Newark, across the Hudson River in New Jersey — is exploring various options ranging from a commercial alliance to a full acquisition. United wants to return to JFK operations as soon as possible by taking over 20 slot pairs (allowing for 40 daily flights, between arrivals and departures) and access to 2 boarding gates from JetBlue. This is according to four U.S. sources familiar with the internal talks, speaking to Corriere.

With 20 slots at JFK, United would certainly look to bring back service to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Back in 2022, United CEO Scott Kirby told Bloomberg as much.

“Well certainly the place that we, whether it’s through JetBlue or somewhere else, we would like to get back into JFK in a big way, particularly in the transcon market. So getting enough slots at JFK that we can get back to serving San Francisco and Los Angeles, particularly for business customers, and having another real option for business customers in those markets that would be our number one priority.”

If these rumors are true and a partnership between JetBlue and United is really coming, it will definitely shake things up at JFK and could present some interesting frequent flyer opportunities. Since none of the rumors state a timeline for the partnership, we will have to wait and see for this to all fall into place.

A little travel photography

February 22, 2025 ssegraves

In January I had a work trip to Lisbon and at the end of that trip I met up with a few friends in Glasgow to explore the city and fly on a route that is famous in aviation geek circles, the Glasgow to Barra route where the runway in Barra is the low tide sand of the island. On the way home I had a half day in London and spent those hours walking around enjoying the people watching. These are a few of the photos I took and I’ve embedded a video of our departure from Glasgow and landing in Barra for your enjoyment.

I always enjoy walking around London. My mission on this trip was a visit to a couple of specific coffee shops and I was not disappointed.

The time in Glasgow was a little less rushed with the only commitment being the flight to Barra. I visited a few coffee shops, with a couple being fantastic and one being not so great.

Lastly, the video of the flight to Barra. The highlight of the trip.

Port of Portland plans to meet with Korean Air on service to Asia

December 12, 2024January 2, 2025 ssegraves

The Port of Portland held a boarding meeting on December 11, 2024 and during that meeting they discussed the lack of transpacific flights. They went through some slides on the rebound of Asia travel and how it is still below 2019 levels, but, they also mentioned that some of the board was headed to Atlanta next week to have discussions with SkyTeam and Korean Air Lines. The discussion goes on to highlight how good the connections are out of Seoul-Incheon Airport to the rest of Asia.

Delta used to fly Portland to Tokyo-Narita but in the latter half of 2023 they ended that route. Since then, there have not been any non-stop passenger flights to Asia from Portland. Korean Air Lines is a Delta partner and is a member of the SkyTeam alliance. Having flights going through Seoul makes a ton of sense to connect passengers to the rest of the continent and would be a huge gain for PDX. Even if Korean only ran these flights 3-4x/week I believe there is enough traffic (based on the slide shared at the board meeting) to make it profitable. I’ve posted the full video below, starting when the discussion about Asia begins. They discuss their meeting Korean around 39:12.

There is also mention of discussions with JAL (Japan Airlines) in Tokyo sometime soon though no details were shared. There was also a very short bit about pursuing summer seasonal service to Dublin, Paris, and Munich. Of those, Paris seems the most likely because of Air France’s ties to Delta and existing service to Amsterdam on KLM.

In any case, a super interesting developments for Portland and PDX, hopefully we see more flights and service around the world!

United’s 2025 route announcement

October 12, 2024October 14, 2024 ssegraves

The Announcement

On October 10, United Airlines announced eight new destinations and a few other new routes. I had predicted, because of my own selfish desire that United fly the routes, San Francisco-Hanoi and San Francisco-Bangkok as well as Newark-Palermo. The only one I predicted accurately was Newark-Palermo. The full list of new destinations are:

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – United will serve Ulaanbaatar from Tokyo-Narita on a 737 starting May 1, 2025.
Kaohsiung, Taiwan – United will serve this southern Taiwan destination from Tokyo-Narita on a 737 starting July 11, 2025.
Dakar, Senegal – This will be flown from Washington-Dulles starting May 23, 2025. I’m guessing this will be flown on a 787-8 but that info is not confirmed yet.
Nuuk, Greenland – From Newark, this route will start on June 14, 2025. The speculation is that this will be flown on a 737 MAX 8, but no confirmation from United yet.
Palermo, Italy – United will fly to this destination from Newark and the route will start on May 21, 2025. This route was originally planned for summer of 2020 but the Covid lockdowns prevented it from happening. The route will be operated by a 767-400ER.
Bilbao, Spain – Starting May 31, 2025, United will fly to Bilbao out of Newark. United didn’t state what plane they will be flying on the route but my guess would be a 767-300ER or a 757-200.
Madeira Island, Portugal – United will operate a 3-times weekly flight to the Portuguese island out of Newark. This is another route that might be operated by a 737 MAX 8, but we don’t yet know for sure.
Faro, Portugal – This Portuguese beach destination will start out of Newark four times a week on May 16. This is another flight I think could be a 757-200.

A few other items were announced as well, including year-round service from Tokyo-Narita to Palau. This service is in addition to the flights on United between Palau and Manila and Palau and Guam. There will also be a new daily flight between Houston and Puerto Escondido, Mexico on an Embraer E-175. San Francisco will see a new service to San Jose, Costa Rica once daily. And lastly, United will fly Washington-Dulles to Venice, Italy and Nice, France in summer of 2025 in addition to the Newark flights to those destinations.

My Thoughts

It is nice that United is adding some new routes and I think a few of them really stand out. Their announcement in summary was, “people are bored going to Rome” and that sentiment doesn’t necessarily sit well with me. Yes, people want new destinations and there are travelers who want to go to these new destinations but I wouldn’t define most of what they announced as popular tourist destination.

The exciting routes to me are Nuuk, Ulaanbaatar, and Palermo, with Palermo being interesting because it is in Sicily and directly competes with Delta’s newly announced route to Catania. The most exciting to me is Ulaanbaatar; I would love to visit Mongolia and spend some time on steppe exploring. It is not an easy place to reach on Star Alliance with transit of China, South Korea, or Turkey being the only way to get there until this United flight starts.

Seth recently visited Greenland on the new Air Greenland service to Canada and I think he raises some very practical questions on the ability of Greenland to handle a large influx of tourists. The route is super cool though and I do hope to experience it and explore Greenland.

I am sure Bilbao, Spain will perform well for United but I do wonder what United will run the route on. The runway at Bilbao is 8,500 feet and surrounded by hills and mountains so it will need to be a performant aircraft, making me lean toward a 757-200.

Faro, Portugal makes some sense because of the large Portuguese population in New Jersey and Faro being a well regarded beach/coastal locale.

The Kaohsiung route is an interesting addition out of Tokyo. My understanding is that there is a ton of demand to Taiwan and this is another option where United can route traffic to the country on their metal with a single stop in Japan. With slots at Narita fairly easy to come by I could see United continuing to explore options out of the airport to tertiary cities in Asia.

Overall I was relatively unimpressed by the announcement. It almost feels like United hired a British stag/hen party planner and just went with whatever destinations they recommended. Maybe folks really want to go to places on the Mediterranean for the Instagram novelty but that doesn’t excite me very much. We’ll have to see how the routes perform, especially as year-over-year travel numbers start to decline.

Exploring the new terminal at PDX

August 5, 2024August 6, 2024 ssegraves

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?

Fear and Traveling

February 17, 2022 ssegraves

From Live and Let’s Fly:

In the years to come, we will only begin to understand the devastation our overreaction to the pandemic inflicted upon the most vulnerable among us: the children who were kept out of school, the elderly and hospital patients who were separated from loved ones and made to endure pain alone, and those who were forced to live in isolation for a “public emergency” that still has not ended.

We will return to “normal” because we want to return to normal. That should actually unite us, even if we disagree on how fast it should be. The last two years taught us the amazing spirit of human ingenuity that so quickly developed a vaccine. It also taught us that we need one another and those who have been at the forefront of rolling back restrictions cannot simply be dismissed as selfish miscreants, but humans who recognize our need for one another in every area of life.

I don’t disagree that we need to start making moves to return to normal, but I don’t think the new normal will be anything like it was 3 years ago. At the same time it’s a bit of a cop-out to state that “we should want to return to normal” but that it can be over a timeline that we can disagree on. I don’t know of anyone in the United States who really wants to keep things as they are. Even in the article quoted it seems like the author is more concerned about the speed of the return to normal rather than what normal means.

As someone who has lost a family member to COVID-19 (who caught it at another family event) the cost of normal seems too high. Would I love to go out and eat at restaurants or travel freely around the world again? Sure. Is it worth the loss of another family member? Absolutely not. People are tired of being cooped up or limiting their interactions due to COVID but a lot of that is because there is a real risk. We don’t fully understand the impact that the disease has on young children or even healthy adults. We don’t know what long COVID will mean for people who are still struggling from a disease they caught months ago. But sure, let’s just act like none of that is happening and get back to normal.

Also, the use of quotes in the above post carry a tinge of sarcasm. Is 900k+ dead in the United States not a public emergency? Is it only a real problem if we see death in the streets?

Honestly, I think the return to normal is a choice that each person is going to have to make for themselves. I know people who are traveling now and following all of the country protocols of the places they visit. I also know people who are immunocompromised and are staying home for their own safety. I don’t think there is some simple formula we can apply as a society and say “we’re back to what we were” overnight. There is a calculus that people are having to work out for themselves on what they are comfortable with and when.

As far as masks on airplanes and in airports, I’m fine with it; Every airport I’ve visited in the last year or so have been jam packed with people. I would rather the United States end the mandatory testing to enter the country or at least remove it for vaccinated people. I am not sure the policy is actually helping us keep COVID at bay but it is certainly putting a financial burden on people who do test positive after being overseas. For me, I am looking for international travel later in 2022. I hope by then we’ll be at a place where COVID is less prevalent and more people have had the opportunity for vaccination.

Is United’s additional Thanksgiving capacity irresponsible?

November 9, 2020 ssegraves

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.

Something doesn’t add up with this unaccompanied minor story

July 2, 2019 ssegraves

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.