Monthly Archives: September 2009

British Airways Means Business New York – London City

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BA started business-class-only flights from JFK to London City Airport yesterday. Inflight Internet access, full-recline seats, aimed at a niche market of go-bag executives. As in “It’s called a go bag because I keep it in the trunk of my car (NCIS)”

Club World London City – British Airways

Club World London City is our Business Class only service, with just 32 seats on board, flying between London City and New York JFK.

Your entire journey has been designed to minimise airport travel time and check-in times whilst maximizing your productivity on board with OnAir capability allowing you to send emails, text from you mobile phone and connect to the Internet throughout your flight.

It is, in short, the most productive way for you to travel Business Class between the heart of London and New York.

Book your ticket now and be one of the first to experience this new service, for travel from 29 September.

Wow, that’s a tiny amount of seats for the price they’re charging for a ticket with a change fee. Check out one likely set of roundtrip flights (they have 2 conveniently-timed departures each way):

1 BA 2I 20OCT T JFKLCY SS1 640P 715A 21OCT W /DCBA /E
2 BA 1I 27OCT T LCYJFK SS1 1230P 615P /DCBA /E

20OCT DEPARTURE DATE-----LAST DAY TO PURCHASE 03OCT/2359
BASE FARE TAXES TOTAL
1- USD4000.00 544.90XT USD4544.90ADT
XT 32.20US 5.50YC 7.00XY 5.00XA
2.50AY 127.00GB 39.20UB 322.00YQ
4.50XF
4000.00 544.90 4544.90TTL
ADT-01 IRCLC2S
NYC BA LON2000.00IRCLC2S BA NYC2000.00IRCLC2S NUC4000.00
END ROE1.00 XFJFK4.5
REFUNDS/CHANGES RESTRICTED/NO VALUE AFTER FLT TIME
VALIDATING CARRIER - BA

BASE FARE TAXES TOTAL
1- USD9746.00 544.90XT USD10290.90ADT
XT 32.20US 5.50YC 7.00XY 5.00XA
2.50AY 127.00GB 39.20UB 322.00YQ
4.50XF
9746.00 544.90 10290.90TTL
ADT-01 CRLCS
NYC BA LON4873.00CRLCS BA NYC4873.00CRLCS NUC9746.00
END ROE1.00 XFJFK4.5
VALIDATING CARRIER - BA
CHANGE BOOKING CLASS - 1C 2C

So for the penalty fare, it’s about $4500.00 roundtrip with a $500.00 change/cancel penalty, and a hefty $10290.90 for the fully refundable fare. I’m thinking they’re planning on making a fair amound in penalty charges, since this product appeals most to the type of traveler whose plans chnage constantly. With the inflight wireless, you can start using your mobile phone and connecting to the Internet once reaching 10,000 feet… or within 10 minutes of takeoff.

I may even book a few of our East Coast guys on this once in a while. The flight numbers are easy to remember – the old Concorde numbers (BA001, BA002, BA003, BA004). Some of them are just “go-bag” enough to need the extra convenience and connectivity.

Very interesting to see if BA makes a go of it (or not) since it’s a lot fewer seats than I expected from the aircraft. The cool thing is the flight makes a “refueling” stop at Shannon airport in Ireland on the way to the US, and all passengers clear US customs there instead of JFK… so they come into the Domestic part of JFK and avoid the scrimmage.

Oh, and First class is even higher. I didn’t go there.

A Roguish Ghost Story

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Palin pops the literary pooper Nov. 17th, but a ghostly midwife will probably fade into the background. 400 pages in 4 months? Really?

Sarah Palin finishes 400-page memoir, 'Going Rogue,' to be released Nov. 17 — chicagotribune.com

Palin, 45, spent weeks in San Diego shortly after leaving office and worked on the manuscript with collaborator Lynn Vincent, a person close to her said. She was joined in San Diego by her family and her top aide, Meghan Stapleton, then spent several days in New York working around the clock with editors at Harper, said the person, who wasn’t authorized to comment and asked not to be identified.

(This version CORRECTS ADDS background on what going rogue means; corrects Palin spent days, not weeks, with Harper editors. Moving on general news and entertainment services.)

Trees and Nuts and Squirrels

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Clear and cool this afternoon, went to Morton Arboretum to walk in the trees, avoid the nuts, and have a squirrel encounter. We didn’t have a plan, just wanted to hike in the woodlands.

As I didn’t work out on Thursday or Friday last week, I needed some catch-up as I’ve been pretty consistent about getting at least 3 workouts a week. So it was nice to hike along in the new pair of Vasque hiking boots I bought last winter, although I need to put the better arch inserts in them next time. The wind was blowing loudly in the tallest trees, a sound I love. We parked on the West side and hiked around one side of Lake Marmo, watched some lounging turtles… lounging, and then took off up a hillside trail. We climbed under a canopy of maples, oaks, and black walnuts (the husks of walnuts were rotting on the trail, along with lots of acorns and shells that went “crack!” when you stepped on them).

I was reminded of the year Mom decided she would collect a neighbor’s black walnuts for her, let them dry out on our old patio, and then harvest all those lovely walnuts. Well, what we ended up with were a few small, undernourished nuts that weren’t too buggy, and brown hands from the stain in the husks. Yuck, but funny.

Morton Arboretum’s hiking trails are always well maintained and usually of the springy “bark-o-mulch” type, which is pleasant to walk on. The local squirrel population was busily running around collecting a bounty of nuts, and one golden-hued guy practically ran into us on the trail. He was digging little holes, and then running along and digging more holes – we weren’t sure if he was looking to steal other squirrels’ nuts, or looking for his own. When he saw us, he remained intent on finding or digging or whatever, and detoured around us into the brush for a few yards before re-emerging just behind us and continuing along, poking and digging into the path. Silly little guy…

It’s way too early for fall colors but we spotted some nice groves that will be really beautiful later in October – tall maples and so on. Also, I’d like to see the gingkos in their golden colors, and I know there are some on the East side. After looping through the woods and along Sterling Pond and the big Schulenberg Prairie loop, we came back the way we’d come. Along part of the way was an interactive trail activity for kids, that was something to do with “Animal Houses.” I admit I was looking around for Bluto and Flounder a little, but no sign of them. David was startled by Ducks, however, who didn’t like their house being invaded by blundering cameramonkeys.

After the hike, we just drove the loop on the other side of IL-83 (the park is on both sides of the highway, with an underpass for cars and pedestrians). It was pleasant to drive along in battery mode, listening to the BBC News Hour, listening to the rustling branches and the whooshing sound the tires make on pavement on a quiet private road like the ones in Morton. It was nice to just… be in nature, and not part of frenetic modern life (even though we were using tons of hybrid electric technology and listening to the election results from Germany, of all things).

I’d like to go back to Morton again in the fall for sure. It’s always such a restful place to recharge the batteries.

Today Was My Birthday, So What Was It To Me?

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[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/QJ-CqT5orEI" width="425" height="344" wmode="transparent" /]

This card was waiting for me when I got home – THANKS, DEBBIE!!! I love it!

It was a really early start – I had to be in the office by 7am as I’d switched shifts with someone. And it was my birthday, and it was my day to keep an eye on queues and emails, but of course we were short 2 agents and we had lots of calls, so forget keeping and eye on emails and queues. In the middle of all the chaos, some pretty flowers arrived at my desk, courtesy of my nice hubbeh.

PrettyFlars

Finally, finally, after messing around with records that weren’t cooperating and ticketless airlines that had to be called and dealing with weird problems, I finally had to leave, after leaving a longer list of things to watch for my co-worker and friend Gio. Ugh, I hated that, but I’d already been there 45 minutes too long. The calls continued like that until closing, Gio told me later. Ugh.

Finally got home, and had been looking forward all day to dinner at the Weber Grill, which is really a chain of restaurants owned by the local kettle grill manufacturers – and their food is awesome. Everything is grilled, except for the drinks (and maybe some of the desserts).

Good food. Nice hubbeh. I had a really tasty marlin with a kind of curry sauce, and David had a half-slab of ribs. He very kindly asked if I wanted any notice taken by the restaurant of my birthday, and I said “not really, it’ll just tempt me into dessert.”

As it is, that herb cheese spread with their cardamom bread about did me in, and then the little pot of garlic mashed potatoes were teh yum.

Discovery: Goose Island Brewery makes an awesome Spiced Ginger soda drink, TEH YUM.

And then I played around on Second Life listening to Glenn Greenwald on Virtually Speaking, as I read one of his books (How Would A Patriot Act). Afterwards, I danced and danced with my virtual friends to great music, drinking real wine, the end.