During the holiday season, United Airlines gives its flight attendants some leeway on how to accessorise their uniforms.
But the US airline based in Chicago apparently doesn’t want its flight crews to go overboard with extras that detract from the flight attendants’ professional image.
That was the key takeaway from a United Airlines memo sent to flight attendants released last week under the headline ‘Holiday Adornment’.
“Accessories must be in good taste,” the memo read.
“In the spirit of the holiday, and not detract from your professional image.”
The memo outlines what “adornments” flight attendants are permitted to add to their uniforms, such as a “conservative holiday scarf” and “conservative earrings” for women and “conservative holiday tie” and “one-holiday pin” for men.
But the memo also makes clear what is prohibited: “Head adornments (i.e., antlers, Santa hats, haloes, etc.; Holiday vests or sweaters; Holiday aprons: Holiday hosiery.”
A United Airlines spokeswoman said the memo is issued every year at this time to remind employees of the carrier’s standards but she said she didn’t know how many years it has been sent out and what prompted the original memo.
United Continental(NASDAQ: UAL) tried to capture some media buzz last week by teasing “an historic package of new and expanded international routes” to be unveiled on Wednesday.
The reality was a little more ordinary. United plans to significantly expand its international service from its San Francisco hub during 2019. However, many of the additional flights had been announced previously, and only one of the truly “new” routes was especially noteworthy.
United has been spreading its wings in San Francisco
During 2018, United Airlines has accelerated its capacity growth. Its main goal has been to add more capacity in the domestic market (including more flights to smaller cities) in order to regain market share and strengthen its hubs. However, United is also on track to expand its fleet of international widebodies by 14 aircraft.
A lot of United’s international growth has come in San Francisco. Not only is San Francisco United Airlines’ gateway to the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region, it’s also a booming regional economy in its own right. In late October, United Airlines began a second daily flight between San Francisco and Singapore. Shortly thereafter, it started flying three times a week between San Francisco and Tahiti.
United is expanding its international route network from San Francisco. Image source: United Airlines.
United has also previously announced several service additions in San Francisco that will go into effect in 2019. In March, it will begin daily service between San Francisco and Amsterdam. United’s seasonal route to Auckland will return to year-round service around the same time. Most recently, on the day that it launched the new Tahiti flights, the carrier announced that they would operate year-round rather than seasonally (as originally planned).
More new routes coming
On Wednesday, United Airlines revealed that it will launch several other new international flights from San Francisco next year.
United Airlines will begin twice-daily service to Toronto on March 31. It plans to begin offering a second flight between San Francisco and Seoul four days a week as of April 1, complementing its existing daily service on that route. United’s international expansion will resume in the fall. It will begin flying between San Francisco and Melbourne three days a week on Oct. 29, while daily seasonal service to New Delhi will begin on Dec. 5.
In total, United’s new and expanded international service from San Francisco will touch seven destinations and add up to 41 additional flights per week.
Good moves, but nothing earth-shattering
United Airlines’ teaser about an historic announcement had some pundits speculating that the carrier was planning to return to Africa in a big way. By contrast, while the changes announced this week will further solidify San Francisco’s position as the best West Coast airline hub, they don’t really qualify as historic.
For one thing, the new route to Amsterdam and the decisions to switch to year-round service on the Auckland and Tahiti routes had all been announced earlier this year.
Meanwhile, extra flights to Seoul are just par for the course, considering that the Bay Area and Seoul are both massive metropolitan areas with huge technology industries. The only surprising thing about the new twice-daily route to Toronto is that it didn’t already exist, given that Toronto is one of the 10 largest metro areas in North America. And the flights to Melbourne are just a case of (almost) keeping up with the Joneses. Qantas began serving that route four days a week back in September.
For the past five years, it’s been boom times in U.S. air travel as passengers benefited from highly profitable airlines in the form of low airfares and a rapid expansion of new flights. In 2018 alone, many U.S. consumers faced an onslaught of discounted fares—$99, $59, and even $19 one-way—and the industry celebrated a bounty of “firsts,” like the first nonstop flight from Chicago to Africa on Ethiopian Airlines, and Kansas City’s first non-stop flight to Europe on Icelandair. With 2019 just weeks away, the new year looks to be full of its own surprises, bringing new elements like biometrics and more (!) bag fees to the travel experience. International trade policies and fuel prices are wild cards that could throw a wrench in it all though—possibly driving up prices and driving down the number of flights.
Biometrics Will Be Here, There, and Everywhere
Travelers can expect to see greater use of human biometric data—like facial recognition and other physical characteristics—to board airplanes, pass through customs, and drop bags in 2019. Delta Air Lines led the movement, opening the first biometric terminal in Atlanta this year, but others, including JetBlue and Lufthansa, have piloted biometric boarding processes in Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Delta is also testing facial recognition technology to self-check bags at Minneapolis-St. Paul. Orlando International Airport plans to use facial scanning on all inbound and outbound international flights by the beginning of the year (U.S. citizens can opt-out, though that’s not widely advertised). Clear, a biometric technology company, is now in more than 25 U.S. airports and has partnered with Hertz to speed up car rental pickup and with Delta for quick entry to its airport lounges with a thumbprint ID. But with the growing prevalence of biometric data, privacy concerns will continue to bubble, too. (Read more about that here.)
Cathay Pacific unveiled “The Deck,” a massive new lounge, at Hong Kong International Airport, in March 2018.
Tailor-Made Everything Is The Thing
Travelers will have more options than ever before—including basic economy, standard economy, premium economy, business class, or first class—to customize their flight experience in 2019. Premium customers will see the rosier side of customized travel. Carriers are investing heavily in upgrading airport lounges at hubs across their networks and adding more luxurious, front-of-plane cabins, like United’s Polaris, American’s Flagship First, JetBlue’s Mint, and Delta’s One suites. “Airlines are curating and tailoring their pricing and experiences based on loyalty and frequent flying,” says Katie Raddatz, a senior director with Carlson Wagonlit Travel, which manages business travel for companies. “The days when people pay different costs for the same experiences are going away.”
But with more delineation, certain things we’ve come to expect as included in our fare just won’t be. (And it’ll likely cost more.) Spirit Airlines, for one, has pioneered “dynamic pricing” for its bag fees, which—in simplest terms—means customers will pay more for their luggage during more desirable times of day (like Monday mornings or Friday afternoons), seasons (winter when travelers tend to pack bulkier items), or for longer trips. There’s even no longer a luggage price matrix to reference on Spirit’s website because there are too many variables on an individual’s flight itinerary that must be calculated.
Who will follow? “I think more airlines will try it this year because, quite bluntly, there’s a lot of money in it,” says Bob Mann, a Port Washington, New York-based airline consultant. Though legacy airlines used to turn up their noses at the ultra-low-cost carriers like Spirit and Allegiant for nickel-and-diming customers with fees, those same carriers are now adopting and adapting many of these methods, from the rise of basic economy to higher bag fees, and calling it “customization.” These incremental changes will increase in 2019 as airlines leverage data to promote special offers, upgrades, and add-ons to customers based on their flying history.
Airfares May Get More Expensive (Sorry)
Fuel is a major expense for airlines, and ultimately affects the cost consumers pay to reach their destination. As airlines in recent years benefited from low fuel prices, which bottomed out in early 2016, they were able to price tickets more competitively. That all looked to be changing this summer as crude oil rose to its highest level since 2014, and experts began to brace consumers for rising airfares next year. But then the cost of oil dropped again this fall, creating volatility and leaving airfare forecasts in flux, says Raddatz. Moral of the story? Stay tuned.
The Ultra-Long Haul Flight May See Some Struggles
This fall, much fanfare was made about Singapore Airlines’ relaunch of the world’s longest nonstop flight—18.5 hours between Singapore and Newark. And competition is heating up: The advent of more fuel-efficient planes has led several airlines to start new ultra-long-haul flights, defined as more than 8,000 miles one way. In the past few years, United launched its 17.5-hour Houston to Sydney flight, Qantas Airways started flying 17 hours from Perth to London, and Cathay Pacific Airways began a 17-hour nonstop from Hong Kong to Washington, D.C. In 2019, United will fly nonstop from San Francisco to Delhi and Singapore Airlines will fly nonstop from its home country to Seattle. “There was a thirst for it and there was a lot of great marketing and promotion behind it,” says Raddatz of Carlson Wagonlit. She calculates there are currently 19 in service around the globe, which is three times as many as a decade ago.
But an airplane on a 15- or 16-hour flight uses nearly 40 percent of all its onboard fuel just to carry the weight of the fuel it takes to go that far, Mann says. Both Raddatz and Mann agree that for these flights to make financial sense, an airline needs to be carrying predominantly premium-class passengers to pay the heftier fees to cover the fuel costs. Singapore Airlines has configured its long-haul aircraft with just premium economy and business class seats—something Qantas is now taking into consideration for its ultra-long-haul aircraft of the future. If fuel prices rise too steeply next year, we will probably be saying “sayonara” to some of these super-long-haul flights.
HOUSTON – It was the 1960’s – the golden age of flying. The days of steak dinners and dress codes at 30,000 feet up above.
Like one big party, life on board use to feature five-star foods, endless booze, smoking, and well, anything else you wanted above three ounces.
But gone are the days of comfort outside of first class.
Today, flying high looks much different. Because it is.
What was once deemed ‘high society’ – pun intended – is now for everyone. Literally – it’s called economy.
While we’ve lost quite a bit of leg room, we’re getting something in return – money.
The seats have shrunk, but so have the price tags.
A 1966 Air Transport publication showed ticket prices for coach seats from New York to Los Angeles was $290.
Seems about right, except with inflation, today, that price would be $2,200.
Ouch.
At just under half a million flights last year, Bush Intercontinental Airport is definitely the breadwinner when it comes to our airports, more than double the traffic at Hobby Airport.
But while we may think we’ve got the goods with not one, but two airports, a recent report shows we don’t even make the top twenty worldwide.
The Airports Council International says Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world, with 104 million passengers last year alone.
But what you really care about – is who’s the cheapest.
A 2016 study found out of 101 airports, Long Beach ($202), DFW ($203) and LaGuardia ($215) had the lowest average prices.
Hobby ($254) came in eleventh, and Bush ($286) ranked 26th.
Traveling by plane isn’t always comfortable. Often times it can be cramped, or the temperature isn’t right, or you’re sitting in a noisy area.
But if you’re traveling this holiday season, keep in mind there are places to sit on the plane that are more optimal than other seats, says a flight attendant.
Best place to sit if you’re always cold:
If you hate being cold on a flight, do not sit next to the emergency exit windows. The outside air seeps in the most in those seats.
Best place to sit if you hate loud noise:
Planes are notoriously loud, but if you need more of a quiet seat, chose one that’s away from the kitchen, where the flight attendants work most.
Best place to sit if you want a lot of leg room:
I think we’re all guilty of propping our feet up on the seat in front of us, because we’re cramped. So, if you want a lot of leg room, chose the bulkhead seats, the seats right after the cabin divider or the emergency exit window seats.
Best place to sit if you hate turbulence:
Turbulence on a flight is never fun, and if you get anxious, sit closer to the front of the plane. That way you won’t feel the bumpiness as much as you would in the back.
Depending on the flight experience you’re looking for, a great website to check out before booking your next flight is called Seat Guru, where you can browse seat maps to over 1,100 aircrafts.
US carrier United Airlines plans to introduce a new daily non-stop seasonal flight between Delhi and San Francisco from December 7 next year.
Currently, Air India’s non-stop service between Delhi and San Francisco runs through the year.
Like the Air India flight, the United Airlines flight will also circumnavigate the globe. A senior airline United Airlines official said its flight will fly from Delhi towards Tokyo and then onwards to the US, while on the return, the aircraft will fly over Europe before reaching India.
While Air India uses a Boeing 777-200 ER, United Airlines plans to use a Boeing 787-9 aircraft on this non-stop service.
A Denver doctor said she was repeatedly questioned about her credentials when she jumped in to help a passenger who was having a medical emergency on her flight.
Dr. Comilla Sasson said she was asked for proof that she was a doctor, even as she started treating the patient. Sasson, who is a practicing emergency medicine physician, also serves as the medical expert here at 9NEWS.
United Airlines said in an emailed statement that crew members “are trained to ask for identification if there is a volunteer.”
On Thursday, Sasson was a passenger on an early morning United Airlines flight to Houston. The plane had already left the gate but was not yet in the air when she heard something strange.
“All of a sudden I heard a thump and a groan,” she said.
Just up the aisle, she found a person in the middle of a medical emergency.
“I said right away, hey, ‘I’m an ER doctor, how can I help?,’” Sasson said. “And the flight attendant asked me three different times, ‘Are you a doctor? What kind of a doctor are you? Are you a doctor?’ And kept asking me, and I kept saying, ‘I’m a doctor and I need to help this patient because this person is critically ill. Something is obviously wrong with this person.”
Sasson said she was also repeatedly asked for her credentials, which she doesn’t carry with her all the time, especially when she’s not at work.
“I said, ‘Look, they’re online. I don’t carry credentials. No doctor carries credentials around, I don’t have time for this right now. I need to take care of this person who’s ill,’” she said. “In my mind, spending five minutes, literally, would have been the difference between life and death for this person, potentially.”
Sasson said she began to treat the patient anyway, despite the ongoing questions. She said there have been other doctors in similar situations before.
Sasson said this isn’t the first time someone questioned her credentials, either.
“Women, often times, are thought of as nurses. They’re not referred to as doctors. That’s not even implicit biased, that’s something that happens every single day. It happens to me every single day in the ER when I walk into a patient room. somebody says, ‘Hey, when is the doctor coming to see me?’” she said. “So I think there’s a gender bias to it, and I do wonder if there’s something to the fact that I’m an Asian American, woman doctor who came up and said, ‘Hey, look, I want to help. I want to do something.’ And it was this sort of instant, well prove to me that you’re really a doctor.”
Sasson said she was also frustrated by delays when asking for medical supplies on the plane. About twenty minutes later, she said the plane returned to the gate and she handed off the patient to paramedics. She said once the patient was treated, she did provide her credentials to airline staff.
United Airlines issued the following statement about the incident by email:
“Prior to takeoff, United Flight 1192 from Denver to Houston returned to the gate due to a medical emergency. One customer was treated by paramedics at the gate and rebooked on the next flight to Houston after the customer was deemed safe to fly by paramedics.
We are thankful to Sasson who assisted in treating the customer. The safety of our customers is our top priority. In medical emergencies, time permitting, our crew are trained to ask for identification if there is a volunteer. We are reaching out to Sasson and the crew to understand what occurred.”
Sasson said, after the event, the flight attendants thanked her, too. She hopes other people with medical training won’t hesitate to help in an emergency, just because someone might question them or their credentials.
“Maybe I don’t look like a doctor, maybe I do. It shouldn’t really matter. If I want to go help somebody and somebody’s having a life-threatening event, then I should be allowed to do that,” she said.
Members of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA protest United Airlines at O’Hare International Airport on Dec. 13, 2018 in Chicago. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The weather outside is frightful, and working conditions for United Airlines employees are apparently less than delightful, as evidenced by recent protests.
Impending staffing cuts, effective in early 2019, recently drove over 24,000 flight attendants to an international “Day of Action,” TravelPulse reports.
Impending staffing cuts, effective in early 2019, recently drove over 24,000 flight attendants to protest the airline during an international “Day of Action.” (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
On Dec. 13, United flight attendants and cabin crew members united to picket at air hubs around the world – including Washington, Boston, Chicago, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Frankfurt, Germany – regarding the forthcoming cuts, The Los Angeles Times reports.
The weather outside is frightful, and working conditions are apparently less than delightful for United Airlines employees. (iStock)
According to the outlet, the campaign was organized by Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), which represents over 50,000 flight attendants employed at 20 airlines. As of February 2019, United will operate international flights with 10 flight attendants — one staffer down from the current 11. Staffers removed from those trips do not face termination, but instead will be assigned to other trips, as per the Times.
While reps for the carrier did not immediately return Fox News’ request for comment, a spokesperson did confirm to the Times that United’s decision is meant to align the airline’s staffing levels with those of its competitors, namely Delta Air Lines and American Airlines.
Meanwhile, some insiders don’t quite agree.
“We need them there. They’re our eyes. It’s about safety,” a 20-year United flight attendant who picketed outside Newark Liberty International Airport told CNBC.
An AFA exec, too, voiced similar sentiments, arguing that not only was United was prioritizing its financial interests above passenger safety, but that the staffing cut announcement served as a tipping point of frustration for many United employees on top of other long-running issues.
“Instead of leading U.S. carriers and distinguishing United Airlines with superior safety and enhanced customer service, the airline is lowering its standards to follow American and Delta,” Ken Diaz, President of AFA’s United Master Executive Council, said in a press release ahead of the Day of Action. “This is not the way to say we love our passengers.”
“When United is making record profits, it should not be cutting back on the people who are on the front lines of safeguarding and serving passengers. A profitable major airline should not be rushing to reduce customer service,” he continued. “The staffing cut announcement was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We are calling on this management to fix computer glitches, eliminate inhumane schedules, and increase staffing so we have the necessary tools to focus on the best experience for the traveling public.”
“We are an airline. Not a hedge fund,” one protest sign read, as per the AFA’s Twitter account.
“Staffing cuts affect safety and service.”
The carrier is also said to be cracking down on uniform rules regarding holiday accessories for its staffers through the next few weeks as well.
The Chicago-based carrier reportedly wants staffers to keep it professional as they get into the holiday spirit, according to a newly released memo on “Holiday Adornment” described in the LA Times.
Though “head adornments (i.e., antlers, santa hats, halos, etc.); holiday vests or sweaters; holiday aprons: holiday hosiery,” are banned, “conservative” holiday scarves, earrings, ties and pins are allowed.
EVERY MORNING, time once was, a giant roar from Heathrow Airport would announce the departure of flight BA001 to New York. The roar was caused by the injection into the aircraft’s four afterburners of the fuel which provided the extra thrust that it needed to take off. Soon afterwards, the pilot lit the afterburners again—this time to accelerate his charge beyond the speed of sound for the three-and-a-half hour trip to JFK. The plane was Concorde.
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No more. Supersonic passenger travel came to an end in 2003. The crash three years earlier of a French Concorde had not helped, but the main reasons were wider. One was the aircraft’s Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus engines, afterburners and all, which gobbled up too much fuel for its flights to be paying propositions. The second was the boom-causing shock wave it generated when travelling supersonically. That meant the overland sections of its route had to be flown below Mach 1. For the Olympus, an engine optimised for travel far beyond the sound barrier, this was commercial death.
That, however, was then. And this is now. Materials are lighter and stronger. Aerodynamics and the physics of sonic booms are better understood. There is also a more realistic appreciation of the market. As a result, several groups of aircraft engineers are dipping their toes back into the supersonic pool. Some see potential for planes with about half Concorde’s 100-seat capacity. Others plan to start even smaller, with business jets that carry around a dozen passengers.
The chances of such aircraft getting airborne have recently increased substantially. General Electric (GE), one of the world’s biggest makers of jet engines, has teamed up with one of the groups of engineers, at Aerion, a company based in Reno, Nevada, to design an engine called Affinity. This, the two firms hope, will be the first civil supersonic jet engine to enter service since the Olympus, designed originally for a British bomber, was adapted for Concorde half a century ago.
The plan for Affinity, once prototypes have been built and tested, is that Aerion’s AS2, a 12-seat supersonic business jet, will be powered by three of them. The AS2 (maiden flight scheduled for 2023) will have a top speed of Mach 1.4. That is slower than Concorde, which could belt along at just over Mach 2. But GE reckons that, unlike the Olympus, Affinity will be efficient at subsonic as well as supersonic speeds, and will meet existing and forthcoming noise and environmental regulations at airports. Under present rules, however, it too would be required to fly subsonically over land, although in time that might change. The design could also be scaled up, which Aerion says would allow business jets to fly at Mach 1.8 or more, and permit the construction of bigger supersonic passenger aircraft, should demand emerge.
Force majeure
Like all jet engines, Affinity relies for its propulsion on Newton’s third law of motion (to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). The action comes from the mass of air drawn into the engine’s front opening being thrust out of the back at far greater velocity. The reaction against this action propels the engine, and anything attached to it, in the opposite direction—ie, forward.
In a simple jet the ingested air is first squeezed by a compressor, and then mixed with fuel and ignited in the engine’s core to create a fast-moving exhaust. Modern fan jets, however, use some of the exhaust energy to drive a shaft which turns a fan near the engine’s intake. That fan pushes a proportion of the incoming air, known as the “bypass”, around the engine’s hot core and out of the back, thus providing additional thrust. Bypass thrust is more economical to create than core thrust, but it is slower moving. A supersonic aircraft can therefore afford only a small bypass ratio (1:1 in the case of many military jets). In a civil airliner the bypass ratio (which, if high, brings not only efficiency but also quietude) may be as great as 10:1.
Affinity is a compromise between the two approaches, combining technologies from military and civil engines. Though its designers have not revealed the actual ratio (and much else, too, is secret at the moment), they describe it as a “medium bypass” engine, and have said that it has a bigger fan than any other supersonic engine. Nor does it require a thirsty afterburner.
Achieving all this has been made possible by advances in thermal coatings, engine acoustics and materials such as lightweight carbon fibre. Novel production methods like 3D printing have helped as well—as has the involvement of other partner firms, including Lockheed Martin, a giant aerospace company, and Honeywell, a producer of avionics.
A particular design challenge, observes Brad Mottier, one of the GE executives leading the project, was that unlike conventional civil jet engines, which hang from an aircraft’s wings, Affinity has to blend into a plane’s airframe. The laws of aerodynamics require this if it is to perform efficiently. Blending also helps damp down the generation of a sonic boom. Sonic booms are caused by air piling up in front of various parts of the plane, particularly its nose, wings and engine inlets. This air turns into a shock wave that contains a huge amount of energy, which offends the ears when it reaches the ground. Blending engine and body, together with design tweaks such as a specially shaped long, thin nose, can muffle a sonic boom before it gets going.
To mute it after it has happened, and thus strengthen still further the case for letting the AS2 fly supersonically over land, the aircraft’s control systems will constantly monitor nearby atmospheric conditions. By tracking these, aerospace engineers believe they can take advantage of a phenomenon called Mach cut-off. This involves directing the sonic boom in such a way as to refract it through layers of thicker air at lower altitude. Refract it enough and it will, in effect, be reflected—never arriving at ground level. Feeding the autopilot information about where the relevant layers are would let the plane steer itself in a way which maximised Mach cut-off.
Experts are now testing these ideas. In November, an F/A-18 fighter performed a series of supersonic dives over Galveston, Texas, at the behest of NASA, America’s aerospace agency. The agency was attempting to simulate the sort of muted boom that might be expected as a result of Mach cut-off. It installed sound-measuring equipment on the ground, and asked more than 400 residents to note down anything they heard. Some said they heard nothing, others that they noticed what sounded like a car door slamming.
In coming years, NASA hopes to fly an experimental supersonic jet aircraft around America in a further test of ways of moderating the intensity of booms at ground level. If successful, this might lead to changes in the rules to let future supersonic jets, like those planned by Aerion, cut yet more of a dash across the land. If they can do so cheaply as well as quietly, these new speedbirds should face a rosier future than that afforded to Concorde.
Traveling by plane isn’t always comfortable. Often times it can be cramped, or the temperature isn’t right, or you’re sitting in a noisy area.
But if you’re traveling this holiday season, keep in mind there are places to sit on the plane that are more optimal than other seats, says a flight attendant.
Best place to sit if you’re always cold:
If you hate being cold on a flight, do not sit next to the emergency exit windows. The outside air seeps in the most in those seats.
Best place to sit if you hate loud noise:
Planes are notoriously loud, but if you need more of a quiet seat, chose one that’s away from the kitchen, where the flight attendants work most.
Best place to sit if you want a lot of leg room:
I think we’re all guilty of propping our feet up on the seat in front of us, because we’re cramped. So, if you want a lot of leg room, chose the bulkhead seats, the seats right after the cabin divider or the emergency exit window seats.
Best place to sit if you hate turbulence:
Turbulence on a flight is never fun, and if you get anxious, sit closer to the front of the plane. That way you won’t feel the bumpiness as much as you would in the back.
Depending on the flight experience you’re looking for, a great website to check out before booking your next flight is called Seat Guru, where you can browse seat maps to over 1,100 aircrafts.
