Happy travels.

UPDATE: Unfortunately it seems this coupon code was unique to my eleVAte account! Well, I wasn’t going to use it anyway so its no great loss to me, but you might be out of luck if you try this same code. For those of you with an eleVAte account though, check your inbox and spam blockers for the promotional email. And for those of you who aren’t eleVAte members, joining up (its free) may grant you access to this code. Sorry folks!

Virgin America

Sadly, this service starts after both of Virgin America’s promotion codes expire, so you will have pony up the full retail price in order to get on board.  I’m sure VA will come up with something new to give away before then though, and when they do I’ll be sure to let you know.

This test news puts JetBlue way ahead of other domestic carriers who are also in the market to install WiFi across their fleet.  Virgin America announced earlier this year they intend to use wifi on their entire fleet (though that is considerably easier than equipping JetBlue’s fleet).  JetBlue also said this testing will go on for months, so don’t get your hopes up too much for catching this first of a kind plane.  Either way, sooner or later JetBlue will be forced to open up BetaBlue to the entire internet.  The days of liveblogging my flights are upon us!

UPDATE: Virgin America just sent me another email this morning letting me know that they have extended this promotion through December 21st. This is good news since it was originally going to expire this Friday the 7th. This means you now have a few more weeks to take advantage of this great offer. If you liked this one though, keep Virgin’s free companion ticket offer in mind as well. That one still expires this Friday, so book it soon! The free companion ticket offer has no expired, but the one listed above is still good through 12/21/07!
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This newest route is the latest in a slew of new service announcements from Florida.  It seems that with the delicate political situation around schedules at JFK, JetBlue doesn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire.  The beneficiaries of this have been Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando, which will see six other routes added as well in the coming months.

Also of note in this announcement is the fact the route will be operated using the E190, the first time that aircraft will be used outside the US by JetBlue.  It certainly makes sense to use a smaller aircraft for what will probably be a low volume route for JetBlue, but also indicates they are now more confident in their new aircraft.

Here are the nitty gritty details: service starts on March 6th of next year, with introductory fares starting at $79 each way, then raising to between $99 and $349 each way under normal operation.  For now the flight will operate once daily between MCO and SDQ.

Serving primary airports in each city they serve is actually a stated priority for VA CEO Fred Reid, as he discussed in his interview with Fast Company magazine. This is both good and bad for travelers. Its good for the obvious reason that you will actually fly to the airport you want to go to, unlike Skybus Airlines which sells tickets to “New York” while it actually flies to Newburgh, NY. On the other hand, Skybus wont have to worry about any delays coming out of Newburgh, whereas JFK is one of the most delayed airports in the country. In fact, Virgin operates out of several of the most delayed airports, including its home hub of San Francisco, Washington Dulles and New York JFK (though they aren’t as bad as JetBlue, which flies to 10 of the top 14 delayed airports).

Now when you handle only a handful of flights every day, this may not be such a big deal. As Virgin America grows however they will have to think more and more about the utilization of their aircraft on more than one route per day, and in the low cost carrier world that means quick turn around times at some of these busy airports. Every time a VA plane touches one of these delayed airports, there is a 30% chance (roughly) they wont get back off the ground again in time to make their next scheduled connection. Over time, this will continue to add up. And when your entire network consists of these heavily delayed airports, as Fred Reid would have us believe, the chance of massive delays across the airline increase with every flight.

In theory it’s nice to say you fly to each city’s primary airport, but when you consider the delays and additional headaches that come along with these big boys, you may want to think twice. Virgin has plenty of time to consider their growth strategy, and avoiding delays on their network should be on their list of top priorities.

Via The Airline Hub

We’ve all been wondering when JetBlue would finally get around to flying to our great neighbor to the North – Canada.  Well with this post I’m happy to announce that – we all have to wait a bit longer to find out.  Canada’s Globe And Mail however, has a fairly detailed piece about Big Blue’s attitudes and plans for Canada.  The paper gets a little bit more this time than the usual “Yes we are interested in that destination” and “no we have no firm plans at this time” from JetBlue’s PR man Sebastian White.  Instead he says JetBlue will start charter service to Canada in the spring, but is waiting on starting discussions on regularly scheduled service until it gets “regulatory clearance.”

This news isn’t too surprising, as JetBlue’s founder and recently ex-CEO David Neeleman used to run a little airline up in Canada called WestJet, and so has a lot of experience to lend in the area (although he has lots of experience to lend in every area of the airline industry).  The biggest stumbling block seems to be cost though, as Toronto’s Pearson airport has the highest landing fees in the whole wide world, something that you might consider radioactive in the low cost market.  JetBlue frequently gets airports to lower landing fees in exchange for new service, so I highly doubt they would jump into Toronto without a big reduction in landing fees, or compensation from the airport in some other area.

That doesn’t mean they won’t start service to Canada at all though, since there are a few other cities in the great white north.  I could definitely see JFK-Vancouver flights and Oakland-Vancouver flights, perhaps with a little bit of Calgary and Winnipeg thrown in.  With JetBlue’s big Ft. Lauderdale expansion coming up this winter, they could also add some leisure routes to Florida from Canada.  Leisure routes are JetBlue’s bread and butter, so it would make sense to see them go after this, especially in the high demand winter months.

Finally lets face it, flying to Canada is a great way to make money.  Current round-trips between Toronto and New York can run over $1200!  JetBlue typically can lop off up to 50% of the cost of existing airfare, but that still leaves the cost at around $600, which is a nice little cash cow for such a short route.  Though I sometimes like to think of JetBlue as egalitarian and providing service to everyone for great prices, they are still in this thing to make money after all.  Only time will tell exactly how long it is before they make an announcement for public service, but I suspect it is still several months, if not a full year away.

VA is throwing an extremely Virgineqsue event, without the typically creative Virgin title – Victoria’s Secret Supermodel PJ Party.  Two underwear models (Selita Ebanks and Miranda Kerr) will be on board this flight from New York’s JFK to LAX, and it will only happen once – November 28th on Flight 317.  Since I won’t be able to be on that flight (you know, the whole work thing) I wanted to let all my readers now about it instead.

Other than the beautiful bodies on board – who will most likely stay couped up in first class for the majority of the flight – there will be prizes, PJs and, according to the email, “more.”  Now that sounds exciting.  You can book your tickets to the flight here, last time I checked, it was still on $159 one way, which is a great fare even when there aren’t supermodels on board.

Oh, and don’t get any lofty ideas about joining the mile-high club on this flight, in typical Virgin America fashion this thing will be a media magnet, so there will be plenty of cameras on board to catch you in the act.

More JetBlue news keeps winging its way this direction with some more new service announcements.  After its surprising quarterly earnings, the low cost carrier announced it was adding service between Buffalo, NY (BUF) and Ft. Myers, FL (RSW) as well as between White Plains (HPN) and Ft. Myers.  This service will run during the winter high season and then be discontinued come April, 31st.  JetBlue has been doing quite a few of these announcements recently, which is a departure from their traditional investment in year round markets.  Why the change?

Well I see it more as testing the waters with seasonal service before they make the major announcement of year round service.  This way they can gauge demand for the route, as I’m sure JetBlue knows the change in seasonality in North – South traffic; they do make their living that way after all.  If they project service could be maintained even in the off season, then I’m sure you will see service continue.  If not, then it will be pulled and it can be claimed it was part of the plan all along.

I am actually somewhat confident JetBlue might be able to make the White Plains to Ft. Myers service stick.  HPN is in their home town New York area and RSW’s area is growing like wild fire.  Buffalo would be a stretch though, just in strict terms of the number of people there with access to the airport.