Man's enthusiasm for egg salad disappears after first bite

In what was described as a "real bummer," 25 year-old marketing specialist Mitch Jaronski immediately realized his much looked-forward-to egg salad sandwich actually tasted like shit.

"I don't know what the problem was," says Jaronski. "I wanted to eat something cheap, and the company cafeteria had an egg salad sandwich for only $3.50. Egg salad isn't something I normally have, but it sounded kind of good - so I was like well, what the fuck?"

Speculating that it had been approximately 10 years since he last consumed an egg salad sandwich, the thrifty marketing specialist ordered his sandwich with much gusto. While the hispanic, non-English speaking woman working the deli counter didn't seem impressed, his enthusiasm remained high.

"It actually looked good, ya know? I mean, egg salad all looks the same, but the yellowness is kind of a novelty, and I was thinking that it used to taste pretty good when mom made it every once in a great while," he says.

Upon returning to his desk, however, the dream was cut short.

"I took a bite, and I just wanted to cry," says Jaronski. "It tasted ... I don't know, kind of gross, and the texture was kind of like vomit and bread. I choked about three-fourths of it down, but I just couldn't stand to look at it anymore, so I dumped the rest down the garbage."

Unfortunately, the nightmare wasn't over. Because he threw the unwanted sandwich away in his own office garbage can, every few minutes he "caught a whiff of that stinky thing" and shuddered in his chair.

Undaunted, he looked forward to his next sandwich encounter. "Well, the egg salad sandwich wasn't a winner, but I've heard they make a mean peanut butter and jelly - and that's only $2.50."

It's been too long ...

And lots has happened!


A British Airways Boeing 777 safely crash-landed at Heathrow after losing all of its electronics on short final. (NY Times)

Delta has embarked upon merger talks with both United and Northwest (separate talks - not a three-way merger). (NY Times)

and probably other things too - but those are the top two!

The top story will be the most interesting - something like this has never happened to a fly-by-wire aircraft like the 777 before. Luckily in this situation, everyone survived, including both pilots and the black box, so it's very likely the British and American investigators will figure out what happened at some point in the hopefully-near future.

The second story is probably the most important, in terms of airline economics. In one of my former newspaper columns, I wrote enthusiastically about airline mergers, but right now I am skeptical.

Maybe I'll even tell you why some day.

In closing, go patriots!

I hate the SEC.

So much.

But that's beside the point.

Tonight, again, I will write about a pertinent subject and the aviation consequences. Last week, I blogged about the Iowa caucuses and the packed airplanes that would follow.

The next day, along with the myriad of full airline flights, there were ten private and chartered flights between Des Moines and Manchester - New Hampshire's main airport. The flights were full of journalists, essential campaign staffers, and of course, candidates.

But onto the BCS National Championship Game of tonight:

Today, there were only five flights between Columbus and New Orleans, but this past weekend has seen more flights than usual, obviously. There have been more than 10 charter airline flights from the Columbus area in the past few days, from both CMH and LCK. Some of these flights are operated by little known charter carriers like Miami Air, Champion Air, but also mainline carriers like Southwest and AirTran.

Sports charters are an interesting business, and most professional teams contract out with an airline, partly because of the marketing opportunities for the airline (for the cheaper costs - making that particular airline "the airline" of XYZ Sportsteam), but also because of the flexibility airlines offer with aircraft size and availability. It also depends on the sport played - baseball, basketball and hockey teams often have their own flight departments, because of the large number of out of town games played. Pro football teams, on the other hand, almost always (with the exception of a few, notably the Seattle Seahawks, from their owner, Microsoft founder Paul Allen) contract with an airline.

College teams, however, are similar to NFL teams, because they play few away games. And it just wouldn't be feasible for most colleges to own their own aircraft for sports travel.

But, I need to watch the newest edition of The Colbert Report (or should I say, the Col-berT ReporT), as Ohio State is losing it again, making everyone else think the Big Ten sucks and the SEC rocks.

Damn SEC.

The Iowa Caucuses ...

... are over!

No longer will my relatives and friends be inundated with 5+ phone calls per evening. But I'm not a political commentator.

I'm an airplane commentator.

So what does this mean for aviation?

Well, if you're the Des Moines International Airport, it means a huge vacuum.

D.M. airport plans good show amid post caucus surge - Des Moines Register

Thousands of volunteers, journalists and consultants will be flooding out of Iowa starting tomorrow. Des Moines, where the majority of candidates are headquartered, will see most of the travelers. The article mentions that the airlines flying out of DSM have brought in bigger airplanes, but that's not really true. United has replaced one 737 to ORD with a 757, and that's pretty much it in terms of capacity upgrades (about 50 seats) for that airline.

Here's the makeup of flights, airlines and aircraft tomorrow out of DSM (not including Allegiant Air, a tourist airline not likely to carry many business/political pax):

Atlanta: 3 flights on Delta, 3 CRJ-200s

Chicago: 15 flights on UA and AA, 2 CRJ-200s, 2 CRJ-700s, 2 737-300s, 1 757, 1 Emb. 175 (UA) and 7 ERJ-145s (AA),

Cincinnati: 3 flights on Delta, 3 CRJ-100s

Dallas/Ft. Worth: 6 flights on AA, 6 ERJ-145s, 1 CR-700

Denver: 5 flights on UA, 2 A319s, 2 737-500s and 1 CRJ-700

Detroit: 4 flights on NWA, 2 CRJ-200s and 2 CRJ-900s

Houston: 2 flights on Continental, 2 ERJ-135s

Memphis: 3 flights on NWA, 3 CRJ-200s

Milwaukee: 4 flights on Midwest Airlines, 4 Dornier-328s

Minneapolis: 7 flights on NWA, 4 CR-200, 2 Saab 340 and 1 CRJ-900

New York LaGuardia: 2 flights on NWA/AA, 1 CRJ-200 (NWA) and 1 ERJ-135

Phoenix: 2 flights on US Airways, 1 CRJ-200 and 1 CRJ-900

Salt Lake City: 1 flight on Delta, 1 CRJ-200

St. Louis: 4 flights on AA, 4 ERJ-135/45s

Washington National: 1 flight on NWA, 1 CRJ-900

That's a lot of flights, but basically no extra than what is usually flying out of Des Moines. So, that means that there are NO open flights whatsoever out of Des Moines on Friday, January 4. All the seats are filled.

Good for the airlines, and good for the airport.

Whoa, United.

For some reason, United Airlines just can't seem to do it right.

United flight cancellations continue into third day - Chicago Tribune

Despite being three days past a nasty snowstorm that put a big knot in United's nationwide domestic operations, they still weren't up to snuff today.

The Elk Grove Village based airline apparently did all they could on Sunday and Christmas Eve to fly passengers onto their Christmas destinations. But they did that in spite of their Christmas Day schedule (they basically ignored it) and flew their aircraft and crews to far flung destinations away from where they were supposed to be on Christmas morning.

Not a big deal though on Christmas day - not too many people flying then, so they could afford to cancel a bunch of flights and still fly 70% of their schedule.

Not so though, for the day after Christmas - a historically busy travel day. Because many of their flight crews were still not in position, many of their flights were cancelled for a third day in a row. Here's an example of how that might happen:

Crew A flies a 757 and is based out of DEN. On Christmas Eve, they started a trip and were supposed to fly (all times mountain):

DEN - DSM (1:15-2:30)
DSM - ORD (4:23-5:10)
ORD - LGA (6:37-8:19)

and time out in New York. The next day, our crew reports at 7:00 am for a 7:50 - 11:41 flight back to DEN, finishing the day at SNA around 5:15 p.m, so they can fly next day's 8:03 a.m. departure back to DEN.

Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve, the crew is delayed everywhere, and doesn't get into LGA until 1:25 a.m. on Christmas Day. Luckily, all those passengers going to New York eventually get there for Christmas, so things are good for them.

However, for the pilots, and the airline, things are a bit more complicated. The pilots don't start rest until 1:30 in the morning...meaning they only have 5.5 hours until they start their next day ... which is illegal. So unless United has a spare crew (unlikely, since this is Christmas Day), their morning flight is delayed and the crew is stranded in New York.

Because of airline work rules, the crew can't fly until they get a certain amount of rest (the actual amount escapes me at the moment - but it's generally between 8 and 14 hours, depending on the hours worked the previous day). That 757 is stuck in New York until the crew gets their rest.

To make it even more complicated, the crew and the aircraft go their separate ways after getting back to DEN. Our stuck LGA aircraft is supposed to go on to SEA, while our crew to SNA in a different aircraft. So both of those flights are screwed up and it's still 6 hours before they even have to depart.

The crew can't leave LGA until after 10:00 a.m. to make sure they get 8 hours rest. But that's only 2 hours or so - which isn't bad. Unfortunately, to make sure our airplane gets to SEA on time for the next day's flights, United operations cancels the DEN & SEA flights altogether and sends our aircraft and crew to ORD at 12:30 p.m. to sub for a different stuck airplane so it (our 757) can be in position for a totally different SEA flight to be ready for next day's ops.

The crew flies to Chicago, but because of LGA's delays, they don't get to ORD until 2:30 p.m. Ops has canceled the next two flights to SNA, so they sub the crew onto a different 757 that's missing it's crew to BOS from 4:10 to 6:00 p.m. The crew ends up in Boston, and are out of working hours until the next day - 3,000 miles from where they were supposed to end up in Southern California.

Because United's pilots are shorthanded, there are barely any reserve DEN, ORD or LAX crew members to make it to SNA for the 8:05 a.m. flight out to DEN (on the day after Christmas) - so even if somehow United managed to get an aircraft to the airport, there's no crew to fly it.

See what a cluster-**** this whole airline operations thing can be?

long time no post

And tonight's is going to be kind of a lame-oh. But at least I'm trying.

Here are four interesting aviation stories that have come out in the past few days:

U.S. Acts to Ease Crunch at New York Airports (NY Times)

The gist: Flight cap during peak hours makes for less delays.

Gulf Remains Between US Airways Pilots (TheStreet.com)

The gist: After more than a year of integrating US Airways and America West Airlines, pilot seniority lists are still not integrated. Pilot unions are also separate.

Smoke in Cockpit Sends Plane Back to LA (AP/NY Times)

The gist: A faulty oven sent smoke into the cockpit, which caused the pilots to immediately declare an emergency and head for the shore.

Airline descends to a new low: a death fee (LA Times)

The gist: Daughters plan vacation in Hawaii with mom. Mom dies. Everyone else offers a hassle fee trip refund ... except for Hawaiian Airlines, who charge them a $75 cancellation fee, per ticket (3 of them). Luckily, American Express steps in and refunds the customers money (and likely demands their own refund from Hawaiian).

It's called "mandatory retirement..."

...and not many other jobs have one.

But pilots do.

For years, airline captains and first officers bemoaned this ancient and unnecessary law as they're forced to hang up their pilot goggles and scarfs as they turned the dreaded age (although, some pilots relished the fact that they were "forced" to retire).

However, it looks like that's all about to change after both the Senate and the House passed a bill that would increase that age by five years.

Senate votes to up pilot retirement age - NY Times/AP

The purpose of the bill is threefold:

First, to get rid of an antiquated law that's about 40 years too old. Really - there's no medical reason a 60 year old pilot can't perform in the cockpit, especially with a second able bodied person in the right seat next to him. All airline pilots get a medical checkup every six months, and after the age of 40 you get an EKG at the same time.

Second, to let airline pilots who are now making a lot less than they used to have a chance to earn more money - and work until social security payout age.

And Third, to give airlines a little more time from the pilots they've spent so much money on training over the years. There really is going to be a pilot shortage. My Uncle Doug was in the first round of Vietnam era pilots to retire in 2005, and lots of now-60 year old Captains are following him out the door at the moment. Which means lots of First Officers are moving up to Captain, which means lots more pilots are moving into those mainline slots from regional and corporate gigs. And when those regional Captains move up, regional F/Os take their spots - which means that flight instructors and other non airline pilots have to get hired - which takes time. I've heard from my pilot buddies that a lot of regionals are already hard up for able bodies to sit in the cockpit.