Web: www.thetravelstrategist.com -- E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com
2/09/2008 – American Airlines Puts WiFi In The Sky
Last Wednesday, the 27th of August, an American Airlines (AA) Boeing 767-223 (762) closed up its forward cabin door, the jetway pulled away from the AA 762 at JFK International Airport's Terminal 8, in New York. As the ramp-tug slowly pushed the aircraft back from Gate 35 there was a quick stop, the tug disconnected and the American Airlines 762 turned right onto ‘Tango,’ left onto 'Alpha' and slowly made its way to runway 13-Right. As the aircraft started down the runway there were some excited techno-business travelers that were getting giddy, excited about their 6 hour and 19 minute flight to San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
Why were there some excited techno-savvy business travelers onboard? This flight was the day American Airlines launched their in-flight WiFi services for all passengers on-board.
AA launched this service, 'GoGo', on their domestic 767-200 fleet that services the high traffic New York-Los Angeles and New York-San Francisco routes. American Airlines has long since been the industry leader in providing simple business friendly amenities in all classes of service, most notable being in-seat power on all their mainline aircraft (DC power, using a standard automobile cigarette lighter plug), and this launch puts them significantly ahead of Delta Airlines and Virgin America who also service this high traffic route. American AA's primary competitor on this route, United Airlines, has not announced any intention to offer in-flight WiFi on their JFK-LAX/SFO sub-fleet of 757-200 "PS" aircraft.
The cost of the unlimited in-flight WiFi is $12.95. Unlike other airlines that have in-flight e-mail and messaging, this service will allow you to use your laptop or PDA in WiFi mode to work in a normal mode during your flight. VOIP will not be enabled with the service (no airlines intend to allow VOIP)
Back on the 17th of May 2004 Boeing introduced "Connexion" that was installed in both Boeing and Airbus aircraft to allow WiFi to the flying public. The original intention of Boeing Connexion was to primarily service high-traffic North American business routes. Instead of being installed primarily on North American aircraft it was installed by a variety of European and Asian carriers on long-haul international routes, without a single North American carrier picking up this option. With few airlines installing Connexion service, it was discontinued on the 31st of December 2006. Personally, I enjoyed using Boeing Connexion on Lufthansa and Korean Air.......so I am glad to see WiFi return to the skies.
Will this new service sway my airline choice to AA? That remains to be seen, as the WiFi is only on limited routes (although one I fly often) and does not service any of my three local 'home' airports.
So for those of you in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, who enjoy surfing will you fly, you now have an option to be production while in-flight!
Happy Flying!
PS: For those of you who use your travel time to relax....... there are plenty of other airlines that fly these routes
Showing posts with label SFO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SFO. Show all posts
02 September 2008
05 July 2008
Watching The World Go By
Web: www.fishfoto.com -- E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com
5/07/2008 - Watching The World Go By
As I sit here in seat 22A, on a United Airlines red-eye flight between San Francisco (SFO) and Philadelphia (PHL), I often can't help but watch the world go by. It's not because I am forced to sit in a window seat on 99% of my flights, because obviously I usually have the option of choosing my seat.
As I began my journey from the west coast to the east coast tonight (my fourth flight in 3 days and my second transcontinental flight in two days), our plane lifted off into a clear sky, through a dense fog (that blocked many in San Francisco from viewing the evening's fireworks display), and as we climbed out and United Flight 188 was handed off from 'NorCal Departure' to the next Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tower the sky opened up again. Through a clear black sky I can see for hundreds of miles, from small pockets of light indicating a small town surrounded by emptiness to sprawling cities and endless clusters of lights.
The view from an airplane view can be monotonous. On long flights over the oceans you see nothing but water for hours at a time. Sometimes you'll see another plane in and can watch it pace you, pass you, or go in its own direction. However there are scenes of beauty you can never see from the ground, the colours of a sunrise or sunset dancing on the tops of clouds. The view of a full moon over the North Pole is breath taking, as is watching the sunrise and set over the polar ice cap.
The anticipation of flying to a destination near the coast and seeing the first glimpse of land and of course, the best view of watching your hometown come into view.
When I depart certain runways from New York's JFK I still have the same sense of giddiness when I can look down and spot where I grew up on, or the see the beach I was spend all my childhood summers on. On approaches into JFK and LaGuardia (LGA) I can enjoy the skyline I grew up in the shadow of from a vantage point that is unlike any others. I look forward to flying certain routes into Providence (PVD) that hug the Connecticut Shoreline as I can look out and often spot the town I am raising my kids in below me, this lets me know I'll be home soon.
So as I muse about watching the world go by, and how much I enjoy watching the landscape, the terrain, the awesome beauty of watching the Grand Canton pass by at sunset and the spectacle of the twinkling lights of Las Vegas after dark, one thing stays in the front of my mind.......
..........the best view is that of watching my home come into sight because the best flight is always the one that brings you home.
Happy Flying!
5/07/2008 - Watching The World Go By
As I sit here in seat 22A, on a United Airlines red-eye flight between San Francisco (SFO) and Philadelphia (PHL), I often can't help but watch the world go by. It's not because I am forced to sit in a window seat on 99% of my flights, because obviously I usually have the option of choosing my seat.
As I began my journey from the west coast to the east coast tonight (my fourth flight in 3 days and my second transcontinental flight in two days), our plane lifted off into a clear sky, through a dense fog (that blocked many in San Francisco from viewing the evening's fireworks display), and as we climbed out and United Flight 188 was handed off from 'NorCal Departure' to the next Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tower the sky opened up again. Through a clear black sky I can see for hundreds of miles, from small pockets of light indicating a small town surrounded by emptiness to sprawling cities and endless clusters of lights.
The view from an airplane view can be monotonous. On long flights over the oceans you see nothing but water for hours at a time. Sometimes you'll see another plane in and can watch it pace you, pass you, or go in its own direction. However there are scenes of beauty you can never see from the ground, the colours of a sunrise or sunset dancing on the tops of clouds. The view of a full moon over the North Pole is breath taking, as is watching the sunrise and set over the polar ice cap.
The anticipation of flying to a destination near the coast and seeing the first glimpse of land and of course, the best view of watching your hometown come into view.
When I depart certain runways from New York's JFK I still have the same sense of giddiness when I can look down and spot where I grew up on, or the see the beach I was spend all my childhood summers on. On approaches into JFK and LaGuardia (LGA) I can enjoy the skyline I grew up in the shadow of from a vantage point that is unlike any others. I look forward to flying certain routes into Providence (PVD) that hug the Connecticut Shoreline as I can look out and often spot the town I am raising my kids in below me, this lets me know I'll be home soon.
So as I muse about watching the world go by, and how much I enjoy watching the landscape, the terrain, the awesome beauty of watching the Grand Canton pass by at sunset and the spectacle of the twinkling lights of Las Vegas after dark, one thing stays in the front of my mind.......
..........the best view is that of watching my home come into sight because the best flight is always the one that brings you home.
Happy Flying!
04 July 2008
Why Can't I Fly When I Want To Fly?
Web: www.fishfotoworldwide.com -- E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com
4/07/2008 - Why Can't I Fly When I Want To Fly?
A question commonly asked by travelers is "Why can't I fly when I want to fly?"
As I sit here on a wall, on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, looking out over San Francisco (SFO) Int'l Airport's tandem runways (28L/28R) watching the early morning west coast-to-east coast transcontinental flights line up and depart I decided this was a good time to answer this question.
In the past month I have received a number of e-mails from photographers seeking to find out why they can't fly certain routes at certain times of the day that are convenient to them. I'm not sure why there has been an influx of this question, but clearly this is a question on many people's minds.
In reality there are dozens of answers to this question depending on each individual scenario. But in many cases the reason why people cannot fly when they want to fly has to do with two factor
1) Length of Flight
2) Time-Zone Shifts
When airlines plan their routes they have to account for simple factors such as departure and arrival time. A good example of this is flights between New York's JFK (JFK) and London's Heathrow (LHR). For travelers there are only two times of the day you can fly this route, between 7:30am and 9:00am or between 6:00pm and 11:30pm. Conversely for those seeking to fly from Heathrow back to JFK they can depart nearly all day long from 8:30am until 8:05pm with flight never really more than 90 minutes apart.
Why can you only go to London in the early morning or the evening and return all day? Simple, it involves traveling with the time zones. If you depart JFK at 10:00am you'll arrive at 10:00pm, which is why many business travelers often fly out around 6:00pm or 7:00pm to arrive in the morning at the start of the business day. These times are because you are flying east, which are 'against' the time-zones.
When you fly 'against' a time zone is when you are flying in a direction that adds time to your day. If you depart JFK at 8:30am, it is already 1:30pm at LHR. The average flight time between JFK and LHR is 7hrs 30min (flight times depends on the type of aircraft flown, such as 777-200 takes 7hrs 25min while a 757-200 may take 8hrs, then you factor in the airline's 'blocked flight time', etc etc). So if you're 8:30am departure is really a "1:30pm departure" puts you in at 9:00pm, or approx 12hr 30min after you departed instead of 7hrs 30min after you departed.
If an airline were to offer a 2:00pm flight between JFK and LHR you'd arrive around 2:00am the following day. This would mean passengers would arrive in a closed airport with no service between the airport and the city, leaving passengers stranded for 3 hours waiting for the airport to open again.
The return flights are easier to manage because flights headed west are flying "with the time zone." A flight departing LHR at 8:30am arrives at a reasonable 11:00am and an 8:00pm departure also arrives at a reasonable 10:30pm
If you watch airports departures during the day you see a shift in 'tails' and aircraft routes throughout the day. Yesterday at SFO looking out I noticed the Japan/China/Korea flights all depart in clusters, right around the same time the Paris/Amsterdam/Dublin/Frankfurt/London flights arrive in the afternoon. Around this time you starts watching the north-south traffic and 'mid-continent' flights increase. It is not random that the majority of the airlines flying certain routes operate on very similar schedules. These airline are all fighting the same forces of 'linear time & time-zones." An airline's schedule must not only meet passenger needs, but also the logical need to depart and arrive within a practical time period.
I won't get into the factor of the international dateline combines with time zones but I will say this......I always love flying from Nagoya, Japan (NGO) to Honolulu, Hawaii (HNL) and landing 12 hours before I have taken off (aren't time zones and the international date line fun?).
.................Keep this in mind when you fly from New York's JFK to Los Angeles' LAX on a business trip and have a multitude of options in the morning, but get frustrated when you're trying to book a late afternoon flight from LAX back to JFK and you can't find any flights available.
.........and for no reason at all, at the end of the post is a photo I shot from the wall I am sitting on of a Northwest Airlines Airbus A319 climbing out off of SFO's Runway 28L in front of the San Francisco skyline
Happy Flying!
--Click Image To Enlarge It--
4/07/2008 - Why Can't I Fly When I Want To Fly?
A question commonly asked by travelers is "Why can't I fly when I want to fly?"
As I sit here on a wall, on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, looking out over San Francisco (SFO) Int'l Airport's tandem runways (28L/28R) watching the early morning west coast-to-east coast transcontinental flights line up and depart I decided this was a good time to answer this question.
In the past month I have received a number of e-mails from photographers seeking to find out why they can't fly certain routes at certain times of the day that are convenient to them. I'm not sure why there has been an influx of this question, but clearly this is a question on many people's minds.
In reality there are dozens of answers to this question depending on each individual scenario. But in many cases the reason why people cannot fly when they want to fly has to do with two factor
1) Length of Flight
2) Time-Zone Shifts
When airlines plan their routes they have to account for simple factors such as departure and arrival time. A good example of this is flights between New York's JFK (JFK) and London's Heathrow (LHR). For travelers there are only two times of the day you can fly this route, between 7:30am and 9:00am or between 6:00pm and 11:30pm. Conversely for those seeking to fly from Heathrow back to JFK they can depart nearly all day long from 8:30am until 8:05pm with flight never really more than 90 minutes apart.
Why can you only go to London in the early morning or the evening and return all day? Simple, it involves traveling with the time zones. If you depart JFK at 10:00am you'll arrive at 10:00pm, which is why many business travelers often fly out around 6:00pm or 7:00pm to arrive in the morning at the start of the business day. These times are because you are flying east, which are 'against' the time-zones.
When you fly 'against' a time zone is when you are flying in a direction that adds time to your day. If you depart JFK at 8:30am, it is already 1:30pm at LHR. The average flight time between JFK and LHR is 7hrs 30min (flight times depends on the type of aircraft flown, such as 777-200 takes 7hrs 25min while a 757-200 may take 8hrs, then you factor in the airline's 'blocked flight time', etc etc). So if you're 8:30am departure is really a "1:30pm departure" puts you in at 9:00pm, or approx 12hr 30min after you departed instead of 7hrs 30min after you departed.
If an airline were to offer a 2:00pm flight between JFK and LHR you'd arrive around 2:00am the following day. This would mean passengers would arrive in a closed airport with no service between the airport and the city, leaving passengers stranded for 3 hours waiting for the airport to open again.
The return flights are easier to manage because flights headed west are flying "with the time zone." A flight departing LHR at 8:30am arrives at a reasonable 11:00am and an 8:00pm departure also arrives at a reasonable 10:30pm
If you watch airports departures during the day you see a shift in 'tails' and aircraft routes throughout the day. Yesterday at SFO looking out I noticed the Japan/China/Korea flights all depart in clusters, right around the same time the Paris/Amsterdam/Dublin/Frankfurt/London flights arrive in the afternoon. Around this time you starts watching the north-south traffic and 'mid-continent' flights increase. It is not random that the majority of the airlines flying certain routes operate on very similar schedules. These airline are all fighting the same forces of 'linear time & time-zones." An airline's schedule must not only meet passenger needs, but also the logical need to depart and arrive within a practical time period.
I won't get into the factor of the international dateline combines with time zones but I will say this......I always love flying from Nagoya, Japan (NGO) to Honolulu, Hawaii (HNL) and landing 12 hours before I have taken off (aren't time zones and the international date line fun?).
.................Keep this in mind when you fly from New York's JFK to Los Angeles' LAX on a business trip and have a multitude of options in the morning, but get frustrated when you're trying to book a late afternoon flight from LAX back to JFK and you can't find any flights available.
.........and for no reason at all, at the end of the post is a photo I shot from the wall I am sitting on of a Northwest Airlines Airbus A319 climbing out off of SFO's Runway 28L in front of the San Francisco skyline
Happy Flying!
--Click Image To Enlarge It--
16 June 2008
TSA Agents Get A Badge : Should TSA Screeners Have 'Law Enforcement' Shields?
Web: www.fishfotoworldwide.com -- E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com
16/6/2008 - TSA Agents Get A Badge : Should TSA Screeners Have 'Law Enforcement' Shields?
This morning as passengers lined up for security screening at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) they were greeted by TSA Screeners wearing badges.
I rarely speak negatively about the TSA. I see the TSA as being an agency tasked with a very difficult job, and being forced to navigate the political waters as such a 'young agency.' However in this instance my words may come off negatively. My negativity is not aimed at the front line TSA screeners who do an excellent job day-in-and-day out in securing the traveling public. My issue is with those who will use the new TSA uniform in an manner unfitting of someone wearing a badge and those in the upper levels of the TSA who decided this was a valid solution. These upper-level officials would rather change the uniform, and add a badge, than fixing well documented problems within the front line screening personnel and their interaction with the traveling public.
The new TSA badges are not the yellow patches sewn onto a white shirt or maroon sweater we have grown accustomed to (although the TSA at BWI has been wear a new blue uniform for a few weeks now), these are actual 'law enforcement' style metal badges. In the eyes of many frequent travelers, as well as bona-fide law enforcement officers, there are inherent problems with TSA Screeners wearing badges.
While TSA screeners are required to attend a two-day training program on how to speak with passenger in a 'calm manner' and other related issues before being issued their badges, screeners will not be allowed to wear or display their badges off duty. With the TSA employing well over 45,000 uniformed screeners, and the agency having a current turnover rate of approximately 21.2% for a variety of reasons, this leaves a lot of potential 'federally issued' badges out on the streets being possessed by those who are not actually law enforcement agents.
The TSA hopes that the badges will give the front line screeners more respect from the traveling public. The TSA should probably address its pre-hire screening process and screener training before placing its front line 'public face' into the field if it wishes to gain more respect. There are many (thousands) of documented cases of TSA screeners making up rules on the spot, no matter how incorrect, which in turn leads to misinformation and in-turn a confusing security process for travelers. When confronted by a 'federal agent' in uniform most passengers back down, now with a badge in place I'm sure the cases of intimidation with rise as well.
The many documented cases of under trained screeners, misinformed screeners, screeners who perform 'retaliatory secondary screenings' and the common complaints of 'intimidation,' are what lead to a lack of respect for the TSA's front line. There are many outstanding TSA screeners, but overall the image of the TSA's front line is in need of more professional training rather than a change of uniform.
Aside from the general objections to TSA screeners being issued badges, there are larger implications. What happens when there is a legitimate law enforcement problem in an airport and civilians turn to TSA agents for assistance where they are unable to help? What happens when TSA screeners are commonly mistaken for uniformed law enforcement while walking through an airport or other public area?
How will the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) respond when cases of TSA screeners’ flashing-their-badges start becoming a frequent issue, despite screeners not being allowed to display their badge off duty?
Will the TSA be issuing badges to screeners at airports such as San Francisco International Airport (SFO) where the security checkpoints are not operated by the TSA and the screeners are not TSA employees?
This morning USA Today reported that A.J. Castilla, a spokesman for a TSA Screeners Union, appeared eager to get a badge and is quoted him as saying "It'll go a long way to enhance the respect of this workforce."
Unfortunately I believe that the addition of a badge to the TSA uniform will not bring the screeners more respect. I see the addition of a badge to the TSA uniform as something that will not only bring confusion to the role of a TSA screener to the flying public, but also bring significant resentment aimed at TSA screeners from 'legitimate' law enforcement officers.
Happy Flying!
16/6/2008 - TSA Agents Get A Badge : Should TSA Screeners Have 'Law Enforcement' Shields?
This morning as passengers lined up for security screening at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) they were greeted by TSA Screeners wearing badges.
I rarely speak negatively about the TSA. I see the TSA as being an agency tasked with a very difficult job, and being forced to navigate the political waters as such a 'young agency.' However in this instance my words may come off negatively. My negativity is not aimed at the front line TSA screeners who do an excellent job day-in-and-day out in securing the traveling public. My issue is with those who will use the new TSA uniform in an manner unfitting of someone wearing a badge and those in the upper levels of the TSA who decided this was a valid solution. These upper-level officials would rather change the uniform, and add a badge, than fixing well documented problems within the front line screening personnel and their interaction with the traveling public.
The new TSA badges are not the yellow patches sewn onto a white shirt or maroon sweater we have grown accustomed to (although the TSA at BWI has been wear a new blue uniform for a few weeks now), these are actual 'law enforcement' style metal badges. In the eyes of many frequent travelers, as well as bona-fide law enforcement officers, there are inherent problems with TSA Screeners wearing badges.
While TSA screeners are required to attend a two-day training program on how to speak with passenger in a 'calm manner' and other related issues before being issued their badges, screeners will not be allowed to wear or display their badges off duty. With the TSA employing well over 45,000 uniformed screeners, and the agency having a current turnover rate of approximately 21.2% for a variety of reasons, this leaves a lot of potential 'federally issued' badges out on the streets being possessed by those who are not actually law enforcement agents.
The TSA hopes that the badges will give the front line screeners more respect from the traveling public. The TSA should probably address its pre-hire screening process and screener training before placing its front line 'public face' into the field if it wishes to gain more respect. There are many (thousands) of documented cases of TSA screeners making up rules on the spot, no matter how incorrect, which in turn leads to misinformation and in-turn a confusing security process for travelers. When confronted by a 'federal agent' in uniform most passengers back down, now with a badge in place I'm sure the cases of intimidation with rise as well.
The many documented cases of under trained screeners, misinformed screeners, screeners who perform 'retaliatory secondary screenings' and the common complaints of 'intimidation,' are what lead to a lack of respect for the TSA's front line. There are many outstanding TSA screeners, but overall the image of the TSA's front line is in need of more professional training rather than a change of uniform.
Aside from the general objections to TSA screeners being issued badges, there are larger implications. What happens when there is a legitimate law enforcement problem in an airport and civilians turn to TSA agents for assistance where they are unable to help? What happens when TSA screeners are commonly mistaken for uniformed law enforcement while walking through an airport or other public area?
How will the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) respond when cases of TSA screeners’ flashing-their-badges start becoming a frequent issue, despite screeners not being allowed to display their badge off duty?
Will the TSA be issuing badges to screeners at airports such as San Francisco International Airport (SFO) where the security checkpoints are not operated by the TSA and the screeners are not TSA employees?
This morning USA Today reported that A.J. Castilla, a spokesman for a TSA Screeners Union, appeared eager to get a badge and is quoted him as saying "It'll go a long way to enhance the respect of this workforce."
Unfortunately I believe that the addition of a badge to the TSA uniform will not bring the screeners more respect. I see the addition of a badge to the TSA uniform as something that will not only bring confusion to the role of a TSA screener to the flying public, but also bring significant resentment aimed at TSA screeners from 'legitimate' law enforcement officers.
Happy Flying!
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