How to Choose Your Mileage Run Airline

How do you choose the airline for your mileage runs?

Kats asked me that question in a comment posted on HappyFlier: "Any reason why you chose AA over UA? I struggled with the decision and ended up with UA (there's a tiny airport close to my home and all flights are UA). But once every 3 or 4 trips I end up stuck with AA and I learned to hate to fly when I don't have elite status..."

It's important to choose one airline and fly with that one as much as possible. The worst thing you can do is build up 20,000 miles on each of four different airlines. Those miles won't pay for a trip, but do all that traveling on one airline and you'll have 80K miles in your account and can use them towards a very nice trip.

There are many things to consider when choosing an airline. I can't tell you which is the best for your, but I can share with you how I made my choice.

I was looking for several things in an airline.

• It needed to provide flexible scheduling from my home airport, Austin-Bergstrom International
• It needed to offer overseas service and be part of a worldwide alliance of airlines so that I could use a partner airline to get to a destination if my main airline did not fly there. And,
• It needed to offer a credit card that I could use to help build my miles.

My local airport is Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS). At the time I started to do mileage runs, Austin was served by American, America West, Continental, Delta, Frontier, Northwest, Southwest, United Airlines, and US Airways. (The following airlines provide service now, but they were not flying from Austin several years ago, so I could not consider them: Aeromexico, Air Canada, Express Jet, Jet Blue, Midwest, and vivaAerobus.)

Southwest offers the most flights from Austin, followed by American. However, Southwest does not offer overseas service and is not part of a major worldwide alliance, so it fell off my list.

The best airlines for overseas service were American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, and United.

Is one of those airlines better than the other? I don't think so. They are all good airlines. They basically fly the same aircraft. They have all felt pressure from competition with discount airlines. They are all part of a global alliance, so they offer service to the same major cities around the world. And you can get a credit card from them all.

So, the final question was "Which one offers the most flights to and from Austin?" The answer to that is American Airlines, so AA was my choice.

If you live in Atlanta, Delta, with its large hub, is your obvious choice. Minneapolis? You'll go with Northwest. Phoenix residents may choose US Air. Someone in Seattle should consider looking at Alaska Airlines, a member of the Oneworld Alliance with American Airlines.

I now fly almost exclusively on AA. I've taken advantage of its membership in the Oneworld Alliance to fly on other partner airlines (Alaska Airlines, Finnair, Cathay Pacific, and JAL) and earned credit towards my account. I am also able to use my AAdvantage miles to pay for flights on those airlines.

I also have an account with United. Two years ago I had to fly to Bismarck, North Dakota. American does not offer service on that route, so I flew United. Last year Mrs. HappyFlier and I flew from Bangkok Thailand to Phuket. At that time, none of the Oneworld Alliance members flew that route, so I chose Thai Airways and earned credit on my United account. I'll keep that account open and may eventually earn enough miles for a free flight on United, but American is where I will put the majority of my miles.

And that, my friends, is how I ended up as a member of the American AAdvantage program. Choose your program, and enjoy the flying!

American Airlines Cancels Over 300 Flights for Maintenance Inspections

American Airlines canceled 325 flights on Wednesday to conduct maintenance inspections on its MD-80 aircraft.

American Airlines MD-80s at Chicago O'Hare Airport

The Kansas City Star reported that "The grounding of the planes occurred following a joint audit conducted by American and Federal Aviation Administration officials, according to the airline."

Maintenance teams examined the aircraft at the gates to check the distance between two insulated wire bundles. Fortunately, it was not necessary for the aircraft to go to American's maintenance facility for the inspection. Virtually all of the 298 aircraft are expected to be back in service today.

American has an outstanding safety record on the MD-80, an aircraft that entered service in 1980. Every four years, each MD-80 goes to American's maintenance facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma where it is torn apart and rebuilt with the latest equipment. (See the CNBC video below to watch them tear apart an aircraft.)



The MD-80 has been the workhorse of the American fleet. My home airport is Austin, Texas, and the MD-80 is American's most widely used aircraft at this location, offering non-stop service to cities as distant as Chicago, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Seattle. However, it is also one of the least fuel efficient aircraft in the fleet, a definite liability in this time of surging fuel costs. American will eventually replace its 298 MD-80s with more fuel efficient aircraft, but until then, they will continue to be the most widely used aircraft in its fleet.

Will Open Skies Mean Lower Air Fares?

We may all be pleased to know that with the implementation of the Open Skies treaty (see post below) American Airlines will now offer increased service to Heathrow instead of Gatwick. (Good news if you are an American Airlines traveler as I am, bad news if you happen to live near Heathrow and have to deal with the noise of hundreds of flights every day!) And it may also please us, particularly if we live in Utah, to know that Delta will be offering flights from Salt Lake City to Paris.

But the one question that most ask is, "Will this lead to lower air fares between the US and Europe?"

After studying the issue in great detail, I can conclusively say... "I don't know."

Under capatilism, increased competition normally means lower prices, but the airline industry has never seemed to work this way. That's why your ticket for a flight may cost $791, while the person next to you might have only paid $256.

In an ideal world, I would expect prices to drop over the Atlantic. But the airlines have been brutally battered by skyrocketing fuel prices, increases that have weakened their bottom line. Several airlines in the US have had to file for bankruptcy. Latest reports from Europe state that Alitalia, the Italian airline, may be bought by the company formed by the merger of Air France and KLM.

The airlines are not doing well right now. A fare war over the Atlantic would benefit none of them, and they know it. We may see a slight drop in prices, but not much. I just checked the price of a round trip ticket from Austin to Heathrow in June, with taxes it was $1,378.20. That is not much of a bargain. A ticket to Frankfut cost $1,312.30, three times more than I paid to go there in early March. These are not mileage run fares!

The airlines look forward to the summer months when flights to and from Europe are full and fares are high. Maybe we will see a larger than normal reduction in fares during the winter when there is excess capacity.

Fare wars in the US generally start when Southwest or Jet Blue enter a market. Neither of them will be flying to Paris any time soon. So I look to the European low-fare airlines. Perhaps one of them has the financial strength to enter the market and start a low fare service, much as Sir Freddie Laker did with his Skytrain service between London and New York in 1997, $99 one way. (In all fairness, I should note Sir Freddie's airline went bankrupt in 1982.) Something like this could drive the fares lower. Until then, the chances of American, Delta, British Airways, or any of the other major carriers starting a fare ware appear to be slim.

Perhaps the increased competition will stop fares from going much higher, but I see little hope for them to drop substantially.

Open Skies Treaty Takes Effect March 31

Air travel between the United States and the countries of the European Union will undergo a historic change on March 31 with the implementation of the Open Skies Treaty that was signed in Washington in April 2007.

Before Open Skies, flights between Europe and the United States were strictly regulated: if American Airlines or United Airlines or British Airways wanted to offer increased service across the Atlantic, lengthy negotiations would ensue between the airlines and the governments of hte nations affected. With the implementation of the treaty, airlines can basically fly between any American airport and any European airport without the need to negotiate treaties.

After signing the treaty, Mary Peters, the American Secretary of Transportation said, "With this agreement, the honeymoon in Paris, the business trip to Dublin, and family reunion in Naples will be cheaper, easier and within the reach of more Americans than ever before."

What does this mean for the traveler? In the near run, it means increased flight opportunities across the Atlantic, an increase in destinations to fly to, maybe lower airfares, and realistically, an increase in delays as already crowded airports such as London Heathrow see even more air traffic.

Some of the upcoming changes include:

• British Airways, a OneWorld partner with American Airlines, will launch a new airline called Open Skies which will offer non-stop service between Kennedy Airport in New York and Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. Currently, American Airlines AAdvantage members earn AAdvantage miles on all BA flights except those going across the Atlantic. Will that change with the creation of the new airline?
• KLM will offer new service between Dallas and Amsterdam. Will American Airlines, with its giant hub at Dallas, try to compete with KLM on this route?
  
• Air France will start a Los Angeles-London flight. Will American modify their LAX-LHR service in response?
  
• Singapore Airlines will start non-stop service between Houston and Moscow. American Airlines will offer Chicago-Moscow service starting in June.
• Delta will fly from Salt Lake City to Paris.
• Four US airlines that previously could not fly to Heathrow will now offer service. Delta will fly from Atlanta and JFK. Continental will increase the number of flights from Houston and Newark. US Airways will start service from Philadelphia, and Northwest will offer service from Seattle, Detroit, and Minneapolis.
• American Airlines had been flying to London/Gatwick from Dallas and Raleigh-Durham. Those flights will move to Heathrow.

Of all European airports, London Heathrow will see the largest increase in service, particularly as airlines establish a record of service leading up to the 2012 London Olympics. Last week, Queen Elizabeth opened Terminal 5 at Heathrow after 18 years of construction at a cost of 4.3 billion Pounds ($8.6 billion American. That is not $8 billion for a new airport, that is $8 billion just for a terminal building!). British Airways, the only airline at Terminal 5, has moved its operations from the other Heathrow terminals, helping to ease some of the congestion in those buildings and making gates available for other airlines. That is the good news.

The bad news is that Heathrow is getting all these additional flights but no increase in runways.

According to the British Civil Aviation Authority, 38 percent of all flights arriving or departing from Heathrow in 2007 were delayed. There is no reason to believe that situation will improve with the implementation of Open Skies.

Heathrow has a dreadful reputation among travelers. Users of the TripAdvisor website ranked Heathrow (along with Chicago O'Hare) as the world's worst airport in 2007. Kris Kotarski, writing in the Calgary Herald, (March 22, 2008) described Heathrow this way, "Avoid London like the plague. Heathrow is the heart of darkness (especially Terminal 3 Arrivals) and ranks last on every seasoned traveler's list."

Heathrow was originally built to handle 45 million passengers a year: in 2007 it flew 68 million. Terminal 5 alone is expected to handle 30 million passengers, but the runways are still the same ones that were built for an airport expecting 45 million passengers, not 70 or 80 million.

Just as delays at DFW, O'Hare, and JFK have a ripple affect on cities throughout North America, we can expect the same thing on service throughout Europe. (See my articles about bad weather in Chicago affecting two of my mileage runs, one that did not come withing a thousand miles of Chicago, and one that did involve flights into O'Hare.

The offer of increased service to Europe is truly exciting. Mileage runners will look forward to seeing special bargains on trans-Atlantic flights. Whether the system can handle the additional service is another question.

American Airlines Ends Online Booking Bonus

It's a sign of the times.

As airlines cut back on every free service imaginable, from pillows and blankets and magazines to meals and checking a second bag for no charge, American Airlines is ending one of my favorite bonuses, the extra miles for booking a trip online at AA.com.

American began the program several years ago as a way to convince travelers to make their reservations online rather than over the phone: book a round-trip coach ticket online and get 1,000 bonus miles. A thousand miles might not sound like much, but it could make a significant difference over time.

A busy business traveler can easily make 25 trips per year; give that traveler 1,000 bonus miles for each trip and he/she will get enough miles, just from the bonus, to get a free coach ticket anywhere in the continental United States.

A traveler taking a short trip such as New York - Boston would earn 1,000 miles. Toss in the bonus and the mileage doubles. Not a bad deal at all.

As travelers grew more accustomed to using AA.com to make their reservations, American gradually reduced the bonus mileage. Several years ago it dropped to 500 miles for each coach ticket, and then it fell to its current level of 250 miles. In less than two weeks, that too will end.

The announcement on AA.com states, "Starting in April, American Airlines will no longer offer an online booking bonus for travel booked on AA.com. The current bonus will be honored for all bookings made on or before March 31, 2008, regardless of travel dates."

But all is not lost, they say they will still offer great online service. "While AA.com is eliminating its bonus mile offer, it still provides members many great benefits. At AA.com you can conveniently search for and book low fares and award travel, select seats, make hotel, rental car and cruise reservations, get flight arrival and departure information, sign up for flight status notification and even check in and print boarding passes. "

To their credit, their is a distinct level of truth to that comment. AA.com has consistently increased the amount of service it offers travelers, making it one of the most robust online booking tools available. In the last few years I have used the site to book award travel, select seats, register for flight status notification, and check-in. One of the best new services, in my opinion, was added in the last year: the ability to search by "price and schedule." (I'll provide more information on that in a future post.)

So, yes, they are indeed providing a dramatically better product with increased service on AA.com, no doubt about it. But that doesn't change the fact that mileage runners will miss that online booking bonus.

High Speed Sports Car vs Fighter Jet -- and the winner is...

I think there is something inherent in all men, at one time or another, to want to drive an incredibly high performance sports car. I plead guilty to that desire, wondering what it would be like to get behind the wheel of a car I will never find on Cars.com, and take it for a couple of laps around the track at full speed.

I've also had dreams about being a fighter pilot; strapping into the cockpit of a high performance jet, racing down the runway with full afterburners, pulling back on the stick, pulling 5 Gs as I race up to 50,000 feet in a matter of seconds.

The video below combines both of those fantasies.

The producers of Top Gear, a British automotive show, arranged a drag race between one of the most powerful sports cars in the world, the Bugatti Veyron, (cost, about $1.5 million each) and the Eurofighter Typhoon, an air-superiority fighter currently flying for the British, Austrian, German, Italian, and Spanish air forces.

The Bugatti can go from 0-190 mph in 18 seconds. The Typhoon's two engines, each with 20,000 pounds of thrust, can easily take it to an altitude of 65,000 feet at 1,500 mph. It can go from brakes-off on the runway to 35,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes!

The two-mile race took place at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. The Bugatti and the Typhoon would start from the same place on the runway. At the start the Bugatti would race down the runway for one mile, turn around as quickly as possible, and go back to the starting line as fast as it could. (And in a Bugatti, that is FAST!) The Typhoon would take off, go straight up for one mile, turn over and come back down the same mile, crossing the finish line at a low altitude.

Who will win? Watch the video and see. Enjoy!

The Next Mileage Run

Spring has sprung, and with it comes a challenge in finding a good mileage run. As the weather gets nice more and more people travel: increased demand makes air fares rise.

I flew to Frankfurt at the start of March: the same trip in the middle of May will cost twice as much. My February trip to Helsinki will cost $420 more in May. The increased fares make it a challenge to find a good MR.

Fortunately, I was able to locate one. As I mentioned in a previous post, I do a lot of MRs to Seattle simply because I can get more miles flying there than I can to any other city in the continental US.

I manged to find a sale on American Airlines to Seattle: $202! That is quite a good deal, I paid as much as $256 to fly there in December. In fact, the $202 fare was apparently available for only a day: the day after I booked it the new cost was $260.

I'll make the trip in April: Austin - Chicago - Seattle - Chicago - Austin. I'll earn almost 5,400 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs), and 11,000 total miles, for a cost of 1.83 cents per mile. Any time I can get the cost below 2 cents, I am a Happy Flier!

Unfortunately, I won't be able to go into town, my layover in SEA is only three hours. I'll use that short layover to take advantage of some of the excellent sea food restaurants at Sea-Tac for lunch, then come home. The good thing is that I will not be on a red-eye coming back, I'll leave Saturday morning and be back very late that night.

One of my goals for the year is to maintain my Platinum status (remember, Platinum gets me double miles on all my flights!): I'll need 50,000 EQMs by December 31 to do that. Once I complete this trip I will be at 35,000: Mrs. HappyFlier and I are doing an Orlando vacation in a few months, that will give me another 3,000 miles. So, it looks like I will be able to hit the 50,000 mark without too much difficulty.

Frankfurt Mileage Run

Saturday morning, March 1.

It was an early morning as I began my second international mileage run. My itinerary was Austin - Dallas/Fort Worth - Orange County, California - Chicago - Frankfurt - Chicago - Austin.

My first flight was out of Austin at 6 a.m. The alarm clock is not my good friend when it goes off before 3 a.m., but that is the price we pay for our mileage runs. :-)

Austin to Orange County
I checked in at the Austin airport, the agent asked where I was going and I replied, "Dallas, then Orange County, then Chicago, and then on to Frankfurt." She looked at me like I was out of my mind (not an uncommon occurrence for mileage runners!) and said "I can get you a more direct booking."

Ahh, I wish I had a dollar for every time that has happened. Some agents look at an itinerary like that and say "Looks like you are doing a mileage run today!" but some don't get it. This agent did not, so I smiled and said "Thanks so much for the offer, but I have a business lunch in Orange County that I must attend." That was acceptable to her and she gave me my boarding passes all the way to Frankfurt.

I had an uneventful flight to DFW, arriving at Terminal D, my favorite terminal. After a short layover I boarded the 737 for the flight to Orange County. I'm sure it was a nice flight but I can't say for sure, I slept most of the way.

We came in for our landing at Orange County's John Wayne Airport: as soon as the plane touched down it felt like the pilot was standing on the brakes! With full reverse thrusters we slowed down very very quickly (not sure if it makes sense to say we "slowed very quickly" but you get the idea haha!) -- I assumed the pilot was trying to make a turn from the runway to the taxiway without going all the way to the end of the runway. Boy, was I wrong! When the plane made its turn I looked out and saw that we had used almost the entire runway!

I am accustomed to landings on a short runway: the old Robert Mueller Airport in Austin had a 7,000 foot runway. I asked the pilot how that compared to the John Wayne runway and he told me it was huge -- the longest runway at John Wayne is only 5,700 feet! The pilot told me that I would find the take off to be very interesting.

Once I got off the plane my first stop was the Admiral's Club. My next flight was to Chicago O'Hare, where I would have a very short layover, only 50 minutes. In fact, my boarding pass said that the Frankfurt flight would start to board only 5 minutes after my flight from John Wayne landed. I asked the AC staff if there were delays at O'Hare, if it looked like there might be a problem making my connection. They checked and said there were no problems. I was glad to hear this, but was still concerned about my short connection time.

I had a quick meal and looked around the airport. John Wayne Airport is unique in that it is located downtown: the business district is literally across the street from the parking lot. For people in Orange County, this makes it a very nice option when compared to Los Angeles International.

Orange County to Chicago
I boarded the 757 for the flight to Chicago O'Hare. My first class upgrade had gone through so I had comfortable seating and a good meal on the flight. I was wondering about the comment from the pilot about the interesting takeoff, and then I found out.

As we taxied to the runway, our pilot announced that "once the aircraft reaches 1,000 foot altitude, I will cut power to the engines by 70% as part of a noise abatement procedure. It may sound to you that we have lost power. We have not. Do not be concerned, this is a normal procedure for departures from this airport."

We got to the end of the runway: the pilot set the engines to full power, then popped the brakes. He had a little bit more than a mile to get that 757 into the air. We raced down the runway and took off smoothly, and just as he said he would, the pilot cut power dramatically shortly after we took off. I was glad that he had made his previous announcement, otherwise I would have been very concerned by the sudden loss of power. Instead, I marked it up as another unique mileage run experience.

We had a smooth flight to Chicago and must have caught a tailwind, we arrived 20 minutes early. Good deal, that made it much easier for me to make my connection.

We landed at O'Hare and I called a friend from FlyerTalk. He and his wife live in San Francisco and were doing the same Frankfurt mileage run as I was. But this was the fifth time in six weekends that they were doing the trip. Serious mileage runners! They were at the American Airlines Flagship Lounge: this is similar to the Admiral's Club, but better. Complimentary food and beverages (beer included). You have to have Executive Platinum Status to be a member. I met them at the Lounge and we chatted and got to know each other.

O'Hare to Frankfurt
After talking for a while we headed for our flight. It was packed, not an empty seat in any class!

I was in coach: the 767 has a 2-4-2 seating plan, I was in the aisle seat on the left side. The traveler in the window seat soon arrived: I thought I was sitting next to a football player. This guy must have been 6'4", 250 lbs. Is someone missing a tight end? He could barely fit in the seat, and I really felt sorry for him. I also felt sorry for the lady in the seat in front of him, she couldn't recline because his knees were wedged tightly against the back of her seat.

With a nine-hour flight, I tried to sleep as much as I could. After the meal I called it a night and dozed off.

The approach to Frankfurt
I woke an hour before our arrival at Frankfurt. Everything seemed to be going well, it even looked like we would land a few minutes early. And then things got bad in a hurry. About 20 minutes before landing the plane started bouncing up and down. This was not normal turbulence where the plan seems to shake, this was roller-coaster turbulence with the plane going from updraft to downdraft and back to another updraft. As we got closer to the airport, more and more people were reaching for the air sickness bags. I was getting queezy myself and looked forward to us getting on the ground. We were on a gradual descent and then, suddenly, the pilot gunned the engines to full power and we banked to the left. What happened?

A moment later the pilot announced "We were ready to land, but another flight had not yet cleared the runway, so we had to abort and are going to go around again."

Go around again gave us another 10 minutes of turbulence, with even more people making use of the motion sickness bags. There were a lot of happy people when we finally landed.

Stormy skies above the Frankfurt airport made our landing very rough.

Germany had been hit by a bad storm the day before, Lufthansa had canceled over 70 flights at Frankfurt alone. We had gone through the last part of the storm. At least we did not have to deal with the high winds that a Lufthansa flight had had at Hamburg the day before, as captured in this video.



I joined my fellow mileage runners at the Admiral's Club. Four of my friends from FlyerTalk were on the flight, taking advantage of the low fare to Frankfurt.

Four mileage runners from Flyer Talk at the Frankfurt Admirals Club: Mrs. Skydiver, Skydiver, Weinskkb, and Skye1.

We had a little bit more than 2 hours before we had to head to the gate and get back on the same flight for the trip to Chicago. I really would have enjoyed going into Frankfurt, but there was no way to do this on a two-day mileage run; it only would have worked if I had left on Friday.

Frankfurt to Chicago
After resting at the club we went back to our gate and boarded the plane. Thankfully I had an exit row seat this time with plenty of leg room. My friends from San Francisco were in the seats in front of me!

We pulled away from the terminal on time, moved about 300 feet and stopped. After a few moments we went back to the terminal!

The pilot announced that the coffee maker in the rear galley was not shutting off when it should and was flooding the rear areas. We sat for almost an hour until they could get it fixed. I was concerned by this, I knew Mrs. HappyFlier was expecting a call from me as soon as I landed at O'Hare and would be concerned when I did not call at the time she expected. Now I would be at least an hour late and there was no way to let her know.

We finally moved away from the terminal and then had to wait an additional thirty minutes before we were cleared for take off. Now I would be an hour-and-half late getting into Chicago.

At least I had the chance to take some photographs as we waited for clearance to take off.

TAP Air Portugal Airbus A-319 gets ready to take off.

This was the first time I had seen a plane from Etihad Airways, the National Airline of the United Arab Emirates.

An Icelandair 757 waits to take off as a Lufthansa flight lands on the far runway.

A Vietnam Airlines 777 climbs into the stormy skies above Frankfurt.

Everything went well on the flight. I had some a nice conversation with the lady in the seat next to me, and finished listening to some podcasts on my iPod.

As the sun prepared to slip below the horizon, we saw some spectacular cloud patterns above the North Atlantic.

We were chasing the sun and had the chance to see this beautiful sunset over the North Atlantic.

We got to Chicago without any difficulty, other than being an hour and twenty-five minutes late.

The delay at O'Hare
I called my wife to let her know I was okay and quickly cleared customs. I had a three-and-a-half hour wait until my flight to Austin, a flight that would not arrive until after midnight. I tried to change my reservation to an earlier flight that would go through DFW, but was out of luck, that flight was overbooked.

American Airlines, Sunday night at O'Hare. Thankfully, this was not Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and I did not get in trouble with security for taking this picture.

I went to the Admiral's Club to rest and check on my flight, and that was where I got the bad news. My Austin flight was scheduled to depart at 9:25, but was going to be late getting in from Kansas City. They told me my new scheduled departure time was 10:09, arriving at Austin just before 1 a.m. Given the fact I had to be at work the next morning, this was NOT what I wanted to hear.

I ate at the AC, then asked to use the shower. After the long trip the shower was a wonderfully relaxing break. And then my phone rang. It was the automated American Airlines reservation system with an update on my flight. It said the flight would leave O'Hare at 6 a.m. the next morning! This was not good! I'd have to spend the night at the airport, and would be late getting to work Monday morning, in addition to being very very tired.

I asked the lady at the desk to check my status and give me an update about the 6 a.m. flight but she couldn't. According to her, I was still scheduled to leave at 10:09 that night. This was getting confusing!

I relaxed for a while, verified that my flight was still set for 10:09, and headed towards the gate. I got there at 9:45, almost 25 minutes before the flight — the gate was deserted! No one was there other than the gate attendant. I asked if I was the only person flying to Austin, and she informed me that "We've already boarded that flight!" They had not only boarded, they had even locked the door to the ramp — this is very odd, I have seen that 10 minutes before departure but not 25 minutes before. She unlocked the door to the ramp and let me board.

I got to my seat and quickly fell asleep. I woke up just before we landed at Austin at 1 a.m. I drove home, arriving just before 2 a.m.

It was a long weekend, but I got home safely, albeit a little bit late.

26,434 miles posted to my account, and I paid a very very low 1.74 cents for each of those miles.
Mission accomplished.

There is Dumb, and then there is Really Dumb!

I love Cathay Pacific Airlines! In 2007 we saved up our mileage run miles and flew Cathay Pacific from Los Angeles to Hong Kong; after 4 days in HK, we continued on to Bangkok, Thailand. The service was incredible, showing that Cathay has earned its well-deserved reputation as one of the world's finest airlines. But their Chief Pilot did something incredibly stupid at the end of February, something for which there is no excuse.

Cathay Pacific had just taken receipt of a Boeing-777 jetliner from Boeing at their plant in Everett, Washington. Cathay's Chief Pilot, Ian Wilkinson, took off, circled the field once, and then made a low altitude pass of the field with his gear up! At one point he was less than 30 feet off the ground, according to a report on the FinancialPost.com website. (You can see photos on this website.) Buzzing the runway at just a few dozen feet off the ground? Think of Tom Cruise as Maverick buzzing the aircraft carrier in Top Gun, you'll get the idea!

A video of the flyby is now available online. (Thanks to xbob for providing the link.) The low pass looks even worse in video than it does in photographs.

Boeing's website reports the cost of such an aircraft as 250 - 279 million dollars. This idiotic, unsafe action by Wilkinson is only allowed if permission is requested and granted in advance. In this case, it was not. (At least Maverick asked for permission to buzz the carrier.)

Cathay Pacific did the right thing in response to Wilkinson's unsafe action: they fired him.

Perhaps they also should confiscate all copies of Top Gun from the pilots' locker room!