As usual we had a great day with AC and learned lots more about the future. I will let others post their views and notes that were taken.

Agreed. I am glad I had a chance to voice many of my opinions, concerns, and gripes. It was nice to see the AC reps be candid with us. Kudos to parnel and everyone else involved. We were a very lucky bunch.
*Finally got to meet Empress*

Did everyone manage to take-off and/or land the SIM OK ?

More importantly... how was shore9 at the dinner?

I managed to take off and land safely, but my fellow flight crew were hampered by a malfuntion in the speed control....one go-around, and one 90 degree bank-and-land that was spectacular until we skidded off the end of the runway.

Who knew a A320 could fishtail?

Dinner will be at 19:00PDT. It is now 17:25PDT.
Ignore the post time as it's inaccurate.

Who was the intrepid secretary? Who from AC was involved?
What questions were asked? What was answered? When are the 763 starting to be refurbed?Where is Simon when we need him ? Enjoy dinner and the Beaver for those who are going.......

ACYSB87 and I took detailed notes. No time to post them now, but I'll take a crack at it possibly later tonight, latest tomorrow.

To answer your question, the 763's will be refurbished at a rate of one every 10-15 days beginning March 1, 2006 and completion by early 2007. They will be complete interior overhauls with brand-new leading edge "pod" style lie-flat seats in J and all new Y seating with in-seat power and IFE at every seat. They can't begin the retro-fit any sooner than March as the IFE system won't be certified until then.

No decision has been made on refreshing the domestic 767 fleet yet, although the expectation is that a decision on this will be made at a Board meeting next week. It has to do with finalizing plans for how long these aircraft will remain in the fleet.

Wow, you guys are fast. Parnel, a big ^ for organizing this.

I took copious notes (for my own interest, really) but here's some of the stuff I took down.

Most of the room were SE's, some E's and maybe 2 P's. There was a fairly large contingent from AC and AP including Ben Smith, Sandra Diem, Empress, Charlie McKee, John (forgot last name), Lucie Guillement, Marcel Forget, and others.

First topic was the flight pass. Questions circulated whether new iterations would be coming soon. The answer was that with AC's current technology, the pass system was maxed out. A contract with IBM would expand the platform within the next 4-5 months and new derivatives of the product would be out in October. Some possible products are family passes, small business, and large corps. All would offer flexibility in the user.

Question about whether Club (Supercomfort) Class would be on all long-haul routes and whether future AC planes would offer 3 class (E, E+, J) seating. The answer is that they are still testing the Club Class on the Europe routes but there's a strong likelihood Club Class would stay. AC answered the new 777/787 would probably have 3 classes but couldn't say exactly what they would be.

Question if e-ticketing would be expanded to all Star carriers. There is an intiative underway to interline all e-tickets. By 1Q 2006, all Star partners (with exception of SAA) should be e-ticket eligible. Whether all classes would be the same on e-tickets, they could try but it's probably not possible since other airlines control their own fare buckets.

Ac.com will be able to to show fare classes when booking for all international flights starting June 15. For NA flights, AC is pushing the fare product names as much as possible and felt they already offer a functionality of choosing your fare class. The question was raised of being able to choose the fare class you buy on int'l flights. (For example, ac.com is showing V but you want to buy H for $200 more.) The argument was that the customer wanted to pay more $$ but couldn't and would get charged through the customer call centre as a double whammy. AC seemed very interested in this and said they would investigate it.

Question about promo deals through AP such as getting discounts on Starwood. AP's focus group said the deals offered weren't that good anyways so last year was the first year they didn't go after offers. They wanted to go into offers again but would be more selective about it and wouldn't go ahead unless the offer was good. AC asked the group about what "offers" would interest us. The vast majority answered with Elite levels with hotels and the explanation given was that we would drive revenue towards a hotel if we held elite status, same as with AC/AP. For AP reward sales, they're basically dead. They were offered during the low seasons but new business models show there really aren't any low seasons any more.

Question about family AP accounts. Although we were told we could collect AP points on partners (which some of us raised our eyebrows), it didn't seem like you would be able to pool family accounts for rewards. However, they were bringing back the transfer ability, at the normal $0.02/mile.

AP is changing reward system to allow members to "buy" any seat available. Rules would be similar to rev tickets with yield management practices in place. The 8% classic reward availability would be protected but you could "buy" seats over and above that allocation.

Question about whether AC knew if Star was going to up reward redemption levels across the board. Answer from AP rep was that she wasn't involved in discussions but she didn't think so.

Instant KK is seen as expensive for AC but they'll be keeping it because it's an important feature of SE. It will continue but may evolve. How? Maybe reigning in the ability to give instant KK to "anyone".

Question about lifetime SE status. I didn't seem to hear an answer but I got the feeling it wasn't happening anytime soon. Another question about people who were SE and dropped to nothing. AC does allow people to explain their situation and a dedicated team at AP reviews all of them. About 800 exceptions were granted last year (across all tier groups).

Question about allowing rev-based tier levels. AP responded by saying they had taken some steps by reducing the number of segments required. They agreed the ultimate utopia would be a purely rev-based system but their own computer system is limiting. Perhaps in 3 years time, status will be completely revenue based. They brought up a scenario if someone was willing to dedicate their business to AC for next 6-12 months, one of the enticements may be to grant E or SE up front.

Elite will not be raised to 50K. They didn't feel doing that was beneficial for them. As for P being raised to 25K, the segment of ppl between 18K - 25K had about a 70% turnover every year. Because of the number of P's, AP couldn't give tangible benefits. They hope by reducing the number of P's, they can give better benefits.

Question about why raising tier qualification wasn't announced sooner? Tier design starts about June/July and is finalized around September. AP agreed they could/should have announced it earlier.

For buy-on-board, there was no way of recognizing status on a reward ticket. The issue was that ppl thought a reward ticket was equal to full Y. AC answered definitely by saying ppl on reward tickets do not get a free meal. However, they agreed status should be recognized (and printed) on a reward ticket and are going to look into that.

Refits: CRJ 705 will have 34" pitch and full J. The seats in the Emb will be wider than the A320. Some early Emb's will be retrofit with IFE and in-seat power (110V, normal plug) between Oct-Dec. Later Emb's will come fitted.

319/320/321 retrofit will start at the end of the year. There will be IFE and in-seat power. New seats for both Y and J. The entire fleet will be completed in early 2007.

767 - will have the 777 interior. ^ All 767's will be standardized to a single config and J will have horizontal (not angled) lie-flat seats. Retrofit starts Feb/06. Would be earlier but they are waiting for certification for the new IFE system. They are still deciding the vendor for the lie-flats but "it will be a leading product compared to any other carrier in the world". Both the 767's and 330/340's will be done by 2007.

777 - Y will have pitch between 31-34" and will definitely have an E+ type product (although they haven't decided the specs). They're working with Verizon and Bell to offer wireless internet. AC questioned the group about relaxing the cell phone rules and the group unanimously said that was a bad idea.

Question about aircraft grooming. All int'l flights have their blankets and pillow covers changed. When there is a quick turnaround, they basically just clean the washroom (1st level cleaning). When planes are left overnight, a more thorough (3rd level) cleaning is done.

Continued...

Part II.

Ac.com will have some expanded functionality to book non-code shared flights (next 4-8 months) but it won't be an expedia.

Question about integrated US Air skeds. Both carriers have legacy systems that don't talk to each other. They just finished a code-share agreement with US Air but don't have anti-trust ability as they do with UA.

Question about recognizing ppl with status for upgrades. Examples were brought up about unconventional upgrade rules deployed. AC's system (DCS) should properly show ppl who have status for gate agent. AC hopes to have rules-based automation in the future.

AC announced some possible new routes to Asia, US, Middle East, and Europe in the future. (I'm not posting them since I don't know if that's leaking their strategic plans.)

There's an evolution at AP and AC has engaged AP as consultants to manage their tier program. (Cards have evolved from saying AP Elite to AC Elite, for example.) AP recommends changes to AC but doesn't make the decisions. Tier benefits won't be lost with the transitioning in AP.

Lastly, it was brought up that it would be an excellent idea to have an AC lurker. There were some mixed results from the AC folk but looks like they may consider it.

I know I've left out stuff since I was gone from the room to take some calls. Also, I'm supposed to be in the office so I'd better get some work done before I head down to the FT DO dinner.

Excellent work Braindrain, thanks ^ ! Kudo's to all who went and took time out of their lives to make all of our travel experiences better in the future.

Thanks, BrainDrain!! Was there any discussion of the ratio between 773ER and 772LR, as well as 787-800 and 787-900 variants in the fleet?

You definitely drained the brain, Braindrain........great stuff and thanks! ^

Thanks BrainDrain - Great report with interseting tid bits... The whole Flight Pass interchangeability for users from a family or corp being limited by the IT platform !

Thanks for the time and notes!

Was any mention made of reinstating nonstops on SYD ?
(Preferably with a 772LR !!! ).

Many thanks for your efforts - am sure everyone appreciates the report.