I luved SMD1 and I really liked SMD2. Without being critical, I think SMD2 was somewhat diminished for me because:

• I only attended the US portion of SMD2. Clearly this is my "fault" but I must say that in SMD1 and from what I heard, in SMD2, LH went seriously out of their way to accomodate us flying nerds. (Which in turn induced me to fly LH metal when I can.) And for those of us on SMD1, who can forget the welcome and show from SAS? (Trying my best to fly SAS but it's challenging given my flying pattern.) I didn't get the same feeling from CO nor from US, but I did from Boeing. This is beyond the control of anyone on the FT side so it's hard to address. I think though that it would be useful to keep SMD3 more as one event rather than the split Europe / USA gathering we ended up having.
  
  
• The Awards Night was interesting but it seemed like it was a distraction to the overall focus of SMD2. SMD1 was all about flying, planes, kicking tires, hangars etc. With the Awards night it just felt like we took a brief hiatus from all that. I would prefer not to have the 2 events overlapping.
  
  
• Another thing that's beyond the control of the organizers - the Starwood points didn't come through. This is a bit of a bummer and I do acknowledge that the points for the MegaDo are secondary, but it's a shame that one of the key sponsors missed the icing on the cake. (Somewhat mitigated by the nice welcome basket at the Westin SEA. It seems also that the Westin NYC did a good job too.)
  
  
• No pics from Boeing! At least for SMD1 we had Dave the photographer along. It was straightforward to get the pics from him in a reasonable time for a reasonable price. Dave got some good shots in TLS so it's nice to have those as mementos. Definitely for SMD3, let's bring along a professional photographer.
  
  
• I'll blame Osama & GWB for this one - no cockpit visits during the charter. Too bad!

Generally speaking though these are nitpicks. I very much enjoyed SMD2 and I look forward to SMD3.

Before I continue – a few good points about SMD2:

• Unlimited Champagne on the charter. This was Good. Like, Really Good. Seriously Good. ^^
• Great service on the charter. Steph, Tansy & Luke Skywaiter did a good job in the back of the bus.
• The pillow fight.
• Boeing. One word – fantastic!!
• The update from Sheraton. Very informative and gave me a better appreciation of the chain.
• The US Air presentation. I thought it was great to hear directly from the CEO.
• Desert Botanical Gardens – this wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I liked it.

So what / where would I like for SMD3?

I’d like to see one main partner for the Do. I think SMD1 was successful in part because of the high LH focus. Surrounding that we had SAS, UA, CO and Condor. But at the centre was always LH. It worked and I liked it.

I’d like more behind the scenes stuff. Being in a hangar with an airplane is great (CO in IAH) but the LH tour in their Technical Facility was better since we were able to crawl through the airplane. Ditto SAS in SMD1 and of course, the 787 @ Boeing.

I’d enjoy an airport tour too. As a self-respecting FT’er I try not to check bags but sometimes it’s inevitable. Where does my bag go exactly? It would be nice to see. How do emergency crews train? What’s it like to drive the tug towing a 747 behind you? Where does all the deicing fluid go after it’s been sprayed on airplanes? How different is the cargo facility? Etc

This will be difficult for obvious reasons, but if we go to Asia, it would be seriously neat if we could charter that all-business class SQ flight from EWR to SIN. From there I’d enjoy spending time with TG in BKK, CA in PEK or PVG and perhaps NH will have their 787 by then. OZ would be an interesting airline to get to know a little better too. On a related note, it would be neat to get an inside view of SQ. They have the reputation for a fantastic product but at the same time my personal impression is that they seem somewhat aloof / an almost unwilling part of *A. It would be interesting to get some clarity on this.

If we instead focus on Europe then I’d like to spend time with carriers such as OS, LX, SN, OU, MS, JP and A3. (i.e. The “little” guys.) Perhaps we could make our home base out of VIE or ZRH for this. If we do Europe, then maybe a side trip up to The Netherlands could be arranged to visit Fokker. The ESA has a significant presence there too. While it’s a different kind of flying, it’s still flying right?

Hopefully Starwood would still be a willing participant for SMD3 but if not, well there are other choices.

I haven’t mentioned LH. I’m not shunning them! But they’ve done enough for us. I for one am deeply appreciative of what LH has done for SMD and I will continue to fly them where possible. But it’s time to give them a rest. We can come back to them for SMD4 when we take Lady Bee RTW.

Wherever we go, I hope we can still maintain our “tradition” of having time with the senior execs. I’ve appreciated hearing directly from them and I hope they’ve gotten good, direct feedback from us as well. I’ve found that the formal sessions such as what we had with Mr. Antinori @ LH (SMD1) worked well as opposed to the more casual mingles such as what we had with CO @ IAH. I’m sure others will think the opposite though.


I would like to once again sincerely thank Tommy, Oliver, Reb and everyone else involved in organizing the Star MegaDos. Both of them have been incredible experiences which I cherish and still brag about ad nauseum to my friends & co-workers. I look forward to continuing the tradition with SMD3! ^