Dan - one of my board members does. Do you want me to connect you? If so just e-mail me directly. Cdierkes@atlantatrackclub.org

We are also sponsored by delta so we have a few higher up contacts that might be helpful.

I know a Delta pilot in my local cycling group

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

Yep. A "major international airline" in Canada. I'm currently on the B787, 17 years with the company now. I'll give you just one guess as to which one! When you say 'take a run at' one of these companies, what exactly are you getting at Dan? We just transported a slew of athletes to the Pan Am Games, many who were from South America. The report we got from an internal memo a day or two ago was we had a high degree of success over the Games in OTA and PWB ('on time arrival' and 'passengers with baggage'), key metrics in customer satisfaction we honestly strive to achieve 100% in, but can be nearly impossible to meet due to things out of our control (weather/de-icing, ATC, mechanical failures, crew day legalities, etc) and as well as in our control but our own failings (human errors, manning issues, etc). A lot of baggage issues are actually rooted in the customer simply not showing up at the airport in time or booking a connection that's too tight where any little glitch or delay, things can quickly go off the rails!

At the risk of totally hijacking this thread with STer's experiences last year during the ITU Worlds in Edmonton, we (AC) anticipated issues with the inability to accommodate bikes to/from YEG. To boil it down to the logistic nitty-gritty, the majority of traffic to/from YEG is from either Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver. There are zero wide-bodies on any of these city pairs, and in fact between Calgary and Edmonton it's mainly Dash-8's and between Vancouver and Edmonton there were a lot of CRJ705's (not the case this year it appears). The YYZ-YEG route and some of the YVR-YEG flights were served by E-190, or at the largest A320/A321 if advanced bookings warranted the capacity. It doesn't take many bikes to consume a huge majority of the cargo space, meaning we have to leave luggage and/or contracted cargo behind to accommodate the bikes, or we leave the bikes behind so the cargo contracts are fulfilled and people arrive with their underwear and toothbrushes. It was a hard decision to make as a company, especially as there might have been flights that could have managed to handle the bulk. We caught a lot of flak over it, naturally, but as the bookings with bikes mounted and it became evident we would have cargo capacity issues, we wanted to make sure athletes didn't have their bikes left behind and perhaps take DAYS to arrive awaiting cargo space! It was the lesser evil to have athletes ship their bikes ahead of time via a courier like FedEx or DHL. If you thought we could just put a bigger airplane on the route, we just don't have spare airplanes sitting on a ramp somewhere for this sort of thing. They are all used on the routes most appropriate for their size/capacity, and we should not have to apologize for wanting to make money with them, you have to agree. I don't think WestJet had the same issues because of their one aircraft type at the time (B737) and the fact they typically don't have a huge amount of international hub traffic (leisure sun-destination markets yes, major international hubs not so much) or contracted cargo like fresh produce. Simply put, for someone flying just within Canada, they would likely have been able to handle the additional bulk cargo volume of bikes.

A tangent from the thrust of this thread, I'll just add that slagging AC is something Canadians have taken as the third national sport, and yes, we're an easy target! I still see stressed out front-line employees like gate agents or flight attendants getting snippy with customers who are chirping at them for something that they personally had nothing to do with creating, but were on the receiving end of the pissed off traveller nonetheless and are being human before being professional. We have gems too though, who go way over and above the call of duty, going unnoticed or unadvertised to make the customer's travel as good an experience as possible.

Dave

I'll just get my double double and timbits and watch the fun......:0)

(you should be hearing from the Canadian Pacific, aka CP Air, Pacific Western, Canadian Air, crowd, pretty soon, even the ones who still have a job, but no pension :0(

A bit of a derailment of Dan's thread but my personal experience on Air Canada has been number 1 out of all the airlines I fly with a bike. I have almost never had my bike not get there with me long before I was Super Elite (Altitude 100K). I assume that for other airlines when you fly >100K your bike flies free as it does with AC. Having said that, I will jump on the national pastime of hammering AC and beat up on it for clawing back privileges of frequent fliers, but up to now, they have not pulled back on the free bike bag. I believe at Altitude 50K you get one direction free, so when I was 50K I would just buy two one way tickets as that would be cheaper. I don't know what the AC bike fee is today, but I believe it is still $50 which is quite reasonable.

One cool thing that Air Canada use to do for the old IMC in Penticton is have a large truck to haul our bikes on the final Vancouver to Penticton leg (which was a Dash8 turbo prop) and after the race in Penticton, you brought your bike case to transition and it would basically get checked into your flight. AC would drive it down to Vanvouver and and then onward on whatever widebody connector you took.

By the way, I flew your B787 between Vanvouver and Hong Kong and it was totally awesome.

Dan, related to your thread, one of my college classmates is COO of a major US airline and also an avid cyclist. His airline is not in your list though, but they have a ton of flights from west coast to Hawaii. Your poll seems to suggest that >15 percent of STers responding flew 100K + miles. I think the target is really those that flew above 25K miles. 25K is 4 cross continent trips in a year. It's still a decent amount of PITA flying if you have a bike in tow.

This year, I have flown something like 90K miles to date between work and personal, and over 1/3 of that time there was a bike in tow. I go out of my way to get on Air Canada not just to save money but the overall user experience regardless of bike/status is better. Most of the time I am traveling on a super cheap Tango fare (which is the lowest of low AC fares), and the service at the back of the bus is still quite good where once you sit down, none of the flight crew know how frequently you fly.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Os-rupiVrvs

I don't know how it works but i fly predominantly One World - I would have though that the bigger benefit here were to tackle either one world or star alliance as opposed to an airline

If you want to tackle either of those, I MAY be able to help through a national airline which it may not take a rocket scientist to figure out - I'd need to talk to some people

I think it would be awesome if Dan could penetrate and influence One World, Star Alliance of Sky Team at the "network" level vs a single airline. I would love to see WTC/ITU/Challenge joining forces on this with WTC. It would be nice if athletes could get a uniform fee with proof of entry into a race. In that case you'd have to go with one network so that they lure the tri crowd to their airline. I think Dan's pitch needs to basically say that to every race that you lure a triathlete to with low bike fees for your personal airline ticket, you are likely paying for 3 others (family members, friends) to fly on that airline. I am just not sure how much volume/passenger mles triathletes would add to affect anything though and airlines might be better off exploiting us and gouging us for bike fees because we don't have much choice. But maybe our volume is decent.

Years ago we all traveled with soft shell cases or better yet, rolled our bikes up to the check in, took our pedals off, deflated tires, turned handlebars and checked the bike in like that. The baggage guys just rolled the bike up to the aircraft. I traveled countless times in my 20's that way. No packing at all. But WE killed the golden goose ourselves with the stupid hard shelled bike cases that are the size of tank cases. If I was the airline, damn right I would charge $150 for those bohemoths. I've personally flown with a small soft shell case for 30 years with no issues. But now I am paying because of all the hard shell guys whose cases take up a ton more space and are heavy for the baggage handlers....so I travel AC where I get to fly my bike for free. But the moment I am on OneWorld, Skyteam etc, I am paying full fees. On non Air Canada Star Alliance, I am hit and miss based on 100K on AC. United always charges me the full fee. Lufthansa, South Africa, ANA, Asiana, EVA (Taiwan), Swiss, I have had pretty good success paying nothing (or in one case on Lufthansa I believe I paid 175 Euros...ouch).

Dev

None of those airlines have existed for at least 15 years, many 20+ years. The last one of that group (Canadi<n) was purchased by AC in 2000, and I can assure you that that in itself saved all their pensions! I work with ex-Canadi<n employees all the time, who themselves were ex-CP, ex-Wardair, ex-Nordair or ex-Pacific Western who definitely have a pension as long as AC exists. Even if AC bites the dust, our pension laws in Canada prevent the money from simply evaporating, unlike what happened in the US.

Dave

it would seem to me that the WTC would have weight in any discussion on this - I'm guessing there are 100+ events globally, average attendance maybe 1500 and significant proportions of those participating travel large distances to get to them

tackling it at an airline level doesn't solve all the problems - accessing direct flights, not connecting etc whereas if it were done at a partner level it wouldn't matter who you flew with the deal would be the same

all that said, i was amazed when I landed at Nice to see some of the bags people use - the thule box is a tank - its ridiculous and I suspect that at some point airlines will simply refuse to carry them - you cant have 400 people flying out of heathrow / gatwick the thurs / fri before and all expecting to check in boxes like that - let alone at no cost

I use a biknd jetpack - its awesome - I suppose it could get penetrated by something ground side but if a forklift drives in to it - hardshell or not, nothings going to help the bike

Similar to a Nirvana/hotel tie up?
Good God no!

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Dont complain about the results you did n't get from the training you did n't do.

Actually I used them for the Zurich half as I only decided to do it a couple of weeks before. I thought they did a good job

For nice we rented an apartment about 150 yards from the start and that worked fine as well

I don't really mind if there's a deal or not as like Dev I have a one world status that gets accommodated but at the same time to get any sort of wider deal you would need to have something like nirvana has - I was happy with their offer and don't think they were outrageous price wise

When you say 'take a run at' one of these companies, what exactly are you getting at Dan?

Geez, when I read the OP, I thought he was talking about a discount or a fly with your bike on the airline 3x and the bike travels for free on 4th. Or, show your ST membership card at the desk and they'll have someone tune your bike while it's in the cargo bay. Or, mention ST when you purchase your ticket and the bike will sit in first class while you sit in cargo.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I'm on the Ops side of things, not marketing, so I could be totally wrong, but that might be a tough sell. You're essentially asking the company to discount passengers who have additional (and fragile!) luggage. More potential for f'ing things up, more potential for upset customers, all for less money.

I assume the company's end of things would be the additional passengers preferring their airline over another, but any given airline may not service many locations of triathlons since most routes are relatively set and so are most tri events. That is, United may agree but if they don't fly to/near IMLP, IMCdR, etc., they wouldn't end up getting much out of the deal because consumers would prefer a competitor who does.

Having said all that, the airline industry is extremely competitive and companies are always looking for an edge over competition, so you might have something here given the shear numbers traveling for tri events. Have you considered cross referencing a list of event sites and a list of cities each airline services to target the Airlines most likely to be used? I'd give that a shot.

As for who to contact, I'd say probably someone in Marketing. If you Google an airline's marketing department, it usually returns a LinkedIn list of people. You could get contacts that way.

Wouldn't the same apply to golf bags? Additional, fragile, can be very expensive?

I love to travel for races, but I have to try my best to choose Southwest when I can, because $75 for the bike (each way) is more reasonable to me than $150 plus. The costs have hampered my attempt to do a triathlon (actual RACE, any distance, no IC support crew or 'fundraising') in all of the states.

I work for Southwest Dan....probably not much I can do though...but let me know

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Hans Bielat
TorHans LLC Co-Founder, Owner, Chief Innovation Officer
http://www.torhans.com

I work for AA

JetBlue pilot here Dan... pm me if you think I can do anything for you.

Not too dissimilar, no. And I have heard of similar deals for PGA events. So, it's not outside the realm of possibilities.

Of course that wouldn't happen because the government will step in and bail out AC as they typically do.

I like your list of items beyond your control, "(weather/de-icing, ATC, mechanical failures, crew day legalities, etc)" clearly these could never be anticipated. I know as an ATC myself I spend half of my day trying to find ways to delay aircrafts. *pink font* Should I mention the shortcuts I typically off AC that are routinely refused? I guess staying in the air longer and burning more fuel is in someone's best interest?

A ground stop can be an ATC delay (weather too though). A ground delay program is an ATC delay. Flow control is an ATC delay. Holding due to the inability for a facility to handle volume at a particular time of day is an ATC delay. They happen, and they are outside the control of the airline. As for shortcuts that are routinely refused, our FMSs onboard the aircraft and the flight planning system we use to plan the flights before departure are pretty amazing. I am constantly amazed at how the winds and temperature can be predicted so accurately 12 hours in advance of our arrival over a waypoint at 41000 feet, within a couple of degrees and a few knots almost every time. We route the flights the way we do because it saves seconds between waypoints, and over the course of an entire flight, minutes. A shortcut may look like a time saver to someone on the ground, but often it isn't. More often than not, accepting a small shortcut puts us a minute behind the flight plan rather than ahead. Our refusal of a shortcut always has a basis of efficiency and saving time and more importantly, fuel that equals in my little pilot brain time and energy I might need at the far end of the flight if something bad happens. I sure don't go pissing fuel away because it's fun.

There's a perpetual opinion by Canadians that AC receives bailouts on a continual basis. Patently false. Look it up. The money received in 2009 as part of the difficulties that occurred during the global recession was a loan, all of which has been paid back, deemed at the time in the national interest to stave off a potential service interruption and keep the economy moving forward (we haul a lot of commercial goods). That's the only money received, and temporary at that, I can think of. AC was privatized in 1989 - an entire generation ago - yet to this day people still think it's a Crown Corporation. What bothers me about AC's special place in Canada's transportation structure is AC is the only private company I can think of that has a law named after it; the Air Canada Act. Have you ever heard of a law that forces a publicly traded private company to keep its headquarters in one particular, politically motivated city (Montreal), or mandates it to provide service in two languages on all flights? No other airline in Canada before or since has these restrictive laws that cost huge amounts of money to maintain.

Dave

ATC enforces the delays, we don't cause them. With all your so called advanced analytics, you would think you could plan not having all your planes arrive at an airport at the same time. Did you know the maximum number of runways used for landing at any one time in YYZ is 2? Everyone can't land at the same time. I have seen plenty of your routes that are filed that make completely no sense. Did you know we have tools that show jet steam, winds and weather which go much further than anything you display on the flight deck?

Anyway this thread isn't the place to discuss this, I just don't like hearing you spew your AC propaganda. Have a nice day!

OK, we managed to derail slowman's thread, but I am continuously baffled, why when I get on an AC Flight at Narita, Bejing, Frankfurt etc why the second language for announcements is not the local language of the city we are leaving from. I guess the theory is that we Canadians can't decide that what the first language for the country is so we have to announce in English and French first. Maybe the announcements should start with the local language then English/French (in whatever order)....but a flight from Beijing to Vancouver ????....pretty well no one cares about French. Mandarin should be the prominent second language on that flight. San Francisco to Vancouver? Calgary to Edmonton? Paris to Montreal ? Probably should do that one in French. Quebec Montreal? Seems like a waste of resources to repeat but whatever....our country can't pull its head out of a paper bag on this one. I think I would have been much better off spending my youth learning Mandarin and Japanese though rather than French only because very few countries in the world do biz in French. Speaking Japanese, Mandarin and Korean would be a massive asset (so I am encouraging my son to learn)...but back to this thread.

I was actually thinking you would be getting a lot of flack from the Albertosaurous Rex crowd about don't trust your bike to AC etc etc etc. bla bla bla!

(As my wife was a FA for 35 years with AC she worked her way through, around and into all of those airlines (and few more) ps. the CP crowd got a different package, even after they joined AC)