Culturally inspired entrees, including signature dishes developed by American Airlines Chefs' Conclave member Stephan Pyles, will delight the taste buds of American Airlines First and Business Class customers ...

Northwest Airlines says it is adding an $80 fuel charge to round-trip tickets, matching increases added by its competitors.

AirTran Airways, which is shrinking its work force as it tries to cope with high fuel costs, said Tuesday it may not have to furlough any flight attendants but that some pilots may have to be let go.

The Award Ticket calendar is somewhat close to me because I was involved with the initial project to add the functionality to Award Ticket Shopping. Passions and tensions on the topic run extremely high. The biggest complaint (outside of availability) is that the calendar shows availability that “disappears” when selecting flights. Why does that happen? Frankly, its a difference in how the data is collected. Hold on to your seats, there’s some math ahead!

At a high level, for any date pair searched, the resulting calendars show up to 961 (31×31) date combinations (such as a departure in July returning in August) per cabin combination. For comparison, if you are searching dates within the same month there are up to 496 possible date combinations (31 options on the 1st, plus 30 on the 2nd, plus 29 on the 3rd, etc). This is under the assumption there is only one possible flight option per day. What if there are more? What if there were 5 flights or more available per day?

To use a real example, if you are searching for flights from Atlanta, GA to New York-La Guardia, NY departing on Monday Dec 29th and returning Saturday January 3rd how many options are there? Well if you look at the schedule there are 17 flights to LGA on 12/29 and 9 flights back on 1/3. Using those for each day of the week results in (31×17) x (31×9) options. Oh sorry, that’s 147,033 options. That’s using just LGA. If your final destination is NYC then what if we include options to JFK and EWR? You could include HPN (White Plains) as well.

It doesn’t take long to realize that the number of options available is growing beyond control. The problem is not in retrieving all the information, its that auditing each of those options takes time. If we use 1ms as the time required to check each itinerary’s validity as an option, using the example above of 24,025 itineraries would require just under 25 SECONDS. Fortunately there are more than 5 available routes per day for most searches. Its also rare that there is one person searching at a time. At this point you have to start looking at the computers doing all that work in a different light.

At the end of the day a decision had to be made regarding the methodology used for searching that balances accuracy, response time, and investment (both in development time and hardware costs). These are often the hardest choices because all those factors play into your experience. The end decision was to use one type of search for the calendar and a different one for the available flights. They are different, but both 100% accurate. What does that mean to YOU when you search?

Behind the scenes, the calendar builds the schedule of flights for each given day (non-stop, direct, one-stop, and multi-stop). Then each flight is reviewed to see if the number of SkySaver seats are available in the cabin you searched. Once it finds a match, it stops searching that day, and moves to the next. When you move on to look at the flight options for your selected days, its a much more intensive look that validates all the business rules. After you’ve selected your flights, the itinerary is again audited and priced. If you started the search without logging in, before you provide the passenger information, we price it again to make sure you get the lowest possible price.

To be frank, the calendar might be improved by just taking the “just throw more servers at it” methodology. The intrinsic problem with that approach is the number of servers required and the cost incurred to get them. More servers by default will only support more capacity (the number of people using the site at the same time), not necessarily more speed. To improve speed requires one or more things to happen:

• faster processors
• more efficient algorithms
• farming/distributive computing (often used in the production of 3D animation and rendering)
• less complex rules

So while there are differences between the response on the calendar, the flight results, and the final pricing, the award ticket calendar provides a much faster way to search for availability. As a developer, it both inspires and challenges me. At the end of the day, I want the end product to be a success as judged by the user. The numbers show that 75% of all Award Tickets are booked on delta.com.

So there you have it: the award ticket calendar demystified. At this point, the can of worms is open, and in all honestly, I’m terrified of the comments.

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Blackie Sherrod, one of the best sportswriters ever to have pounded a typewriter (remember them) in this area, used to devote on of his columns to odds and ends (that weren’t necessarily sports related), and he would start off the column with this line:  “Scattershooting while wondering what happened to ZaSu Pitts” or some other forgotten celebrity.  Sportswriters don’t come with names like Blackie anymore, and it’s a shame they don’t write like Blackie anymore too.  Looking back, one of Blackie’s contemporaries wrote that Blackie blogged without the Internet.  Anyway, in honor of Blackie:  Scatter shooting while wondering what became of Ding! Boy and External Blog Boy.

Actually, both are still around, and they are now official Southwest Employees.  Ding! Boy, a.k.a. Joe Friedman, is an Aircraft Appearance Technician at Chicago Midway, and External Blog Boy, or Kim Seele on his birth certificate, is a new Writing Representative in our Customer Relations Department.  Welcome to the SWA Family, guys!  (Don’t worry, each of them still maintain their twisted sense of humor.)

Speaking of new titles, we have some new titles on the blog.  The Blog Team is now officially part of our new Emerging Media Team, under our Senior Manager, Sherie Blanton.  Both Paula Berg and I are permanent parts of this new Team, and Paula’s new title is Manager Emerging Media.  Mine is Manager Online Relationships & Special Projects, and no, the relationships aren’t of the type mentioned in this previous post.  We will also be expanding our use of videos as soon as we can.  This new Emerging Media Team signifies that Southwest Airlines intends to be a longtime resident of the blogosphere.

Here’s another:  Scattershooting while wondering what became of airport observation decks.  Here at Southwest Headquarters, we have a third-floor deck which provides great view of the runways and Love Field Terminal—and most importantly, the airplanes.  For those of you old enough to remember them, it reminds me of airport observation decks.  The Love Field Terminal had a great one, with inside theater seating overlooking the ramp, and if you wanted to brave the elements, it had walkways on top of the three concourses.  Some other great observation decks were at both Chicago airports, Atlanta’s old terminal, London Heathrow, and Paris Orly Sud.  When I was a kid, my Dad, who worked at Love, would bring me to work with him in the summer, and I would spend all day on the observation deck.  I know security has sealed off the last of these amenities, but we have lost venues that would let you stand and wonder, and dream of far-off places.

And finally, I have to mention an embarrassment of riches.  This year, the Dallas/Fort Worth area hosted both the national convention of the National Railway Historical Society and Airliners International.  Of course, I attended both.  Probably of the most interest to those reading this post is the Airliners International memento show.  It was one of the biggest I have ever attended, and I purchased a February 1946 Official Airline Guide.  For those of you who don’t know, “the” Guide contains the schedules of all airlines, and in the days before computerized schedules, it was the only way to plan connecting flights.  One of the many things that make this Guide so special is that it still contains schedules of Pan American’s Boeing 314 flying boats between San Francisco and Honolulu. 

I hope you didn't mind me borrowing your catch phrase, Blackie!  We miss you in the paper.

If you didn't purchase a ticket on Delta Air Lines within the past 24 hours, then think twice before opening an e-mail that says you did. Delta Air Lines released an advisory on its Web site that alerts consumers of...

Allegiant Air is to start a weekly nonstop service between Grand Island and Las Vegas from September 4, officials at Central Nebraska Regional Airport have announced. John Fenyes, the carrier's Director of Sales, told The Grand Island Independent that flights...

Statistics, glitz, and politics... While this might sound like the national Census gala at the White House, it was not. It was the 40th anniversary of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a national civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S. 
 
It was standing room only at the two luncheons where Senator Barak Obama and later Senator John McCain addressed the group.  Obama hit several emotional and eloquent points, where he was loudly cheered and liked.  McCain held his own in a town hall  style meeting after his address taking on some hard-hitting questions.  It seems that his candor and honesty may have earned him some points in the crowd. 
 
More than 5,000 people attended the workshops, town hall meetings, and leadership training sessions in San Diego.  Southwest Airlines hosted the Affiliate Luncheon where more than 2,000 community leaders joined to hear from L.A.'s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and where we heard Dr. Samuel Betances speak about everything from education to aging.  He humorously talked of his wife and shared his view that women do not have hot flashes, they have power surges!  And with a 48% high school drop out rate among Latinos, he talked about how the best economic stimulus package is a college degree!
 
 At the affiliate luncheon, on July 12,  I had an opportunity to address the group as well.  I shared my thoughts on our connection to NCLR with this quote:
 
"Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres."  -- Tell me who you are with, and I'll tell you who you are.
 
This is a proverb I first heard from Dominga & Juan Medrano, my grandparents when I was a little girl growing up in Texas. At the end of my talk, I asked attendees to think of other proverbs they learned growing up and to please share them with us as well.  I look forward to hearing from you on our blog.  
 

GuestLogix (Web site: www.guestlogix.com), a provider of on-board retail devices, has announced that it has partnered with the ticket agency Broadway Inbound to sell tickets for Broadway shows to people flying to the New York area. The multi-year agreement is...

Delta Air Lines is to launch a new Award Travel structure to provide SkyMiles members more options when redeeming miles. The new program allows members to book the last seat on a flight using miles and three redemption tiers for...

AirTran Airways has launched a promotion offering one winner and a guest a complimentary round-trip airfare to see the Indianapolis Colts play the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday, December 18, in Jacksonville. The winner will also receive two Colts tickets and...

American Airlines’ First and Business Class passengers can enjoy revamped Latin American menus on southbound Latin America flights from August 1. Designed by Chef Stephen Pyles, in partnership with chefs at Gate Gourmet, the new additions incorporate a medley of...

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Flight attendants discovered the body of a 61-year-old woman in the restroom of a plane shortly before the flight landed in Atlanta Wednesday morning, a spokeswoman for the airline said.

Embroiled in an on-going dispute with the Federal Aviation Administration regarding imposed work rules they consider unfair, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) contends aircraft are coming too close for comfort at the world’s busiest airport. NATCA maintains the...

Here’s yet another inducement to pack light or, better yet, carry that small, lightly packed piece of luggage on the airplane. Delta Air Lines is doubling the cost of checking a second piece of domestic luggage, upping it from $25...