Star Mega DO III -- Post your ideas here
 

All,

Happy new year.

Yes, we are thinking about doing another Star Mega DO in 2011. ;)

What did you like/not like about SMD II and what would you like us to do in 2011.

Please post your ideas and thoughts here

Thank you!

SMD2 was great, landing at PAE and the Boeing tour were the highlights for me (especially the way we were treated by Boeing, LH, Starwood, CO and even USAir along the way), but the entire thing was great from end to end. Not sure how we're going to top it this year.

Some people have suggested Asia for this year.

-David

Seeing this thread title made me quite excited and happy.

To graze over what I left in the survey sent after SMD2010, I think Asia's our next suspect due to the previous extensive coverage of North America and Europe and the large # of S*A carriers there, even if the costs and time commitments would be greatly increased for a great many attendees.

Hope all is well with all.

Maybe you can arrange a charter flight to Antarktis.

I also give the ^ for Asia. Would love to get Thai, Singapore or ANA onboard.

Did you get ideas from the surveys submitted? It might be nice to get a quick recap of what folk had submitted on that so as not to repeat ourselves - and also see what other cool ideas fellow FTers came up w/.

Cheers. Sharon

If you plan something with LH, try to do something in MUC instead of FRA or try to include MUC somehow.

Or all of the above! My vote goes to Asia.

Looking forward to this year (since I had to miss SMDII). Asia might be too far - and limit some attendance. Europe is always great - and the flight schedules work well from the USA. LH might be tired of hosting - but maybe A380 will be flying to JFK next year.

My thought - try to work in a LH A380.

I had to miss SMD II so, I am dying to be part of SMD III.
My thoughts are working with Asia carriers like, TG, OZ, SQ or NH. CA may be a thought as well.

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! ^

Ok, I'm a bit confused (granted, easy to do ;) :p :D).

There was a survey sent to SMD2 participants post SMD2 where we answered a variety of questions & provided input on both what we didn't like & did like about SMD2 & what we'd like for SMD3, so a bit confused on why you're asking us to post the same information here on this thread. :confused:

I think when I filled it out, the email I received said 50% had already done so, which is approximately 100 people. Presumably some good information was gathered from those who filled it out, enough to give the organizers an idea of what was liked/disliked/what folk would like to see in SMD3.

Did those of us who took the time to fill it out waste our time? :( If you're looking for information from the participants that didn't fill out the survey, can't you PM them & ask them to complete it?

Since a # of us did provide input, perhaps the organizers can provide a summary or snapshot of the info obtained from the surveys submitted & post here.

That would eliminate folk reinventing the wheel, and then if they don't see on the summary something that they disliked or liked or want in SMD3, they could post that.

Cheers. Sharon

I missed SMDI and II and am really looking forward to being part of SMDIII!
I would also love to see it with an asian focus (TK, OZ, SQ, TG, NH...) and it would be so awesome to include NZ at one of their gateways (PVG, PEK, KIX, NRT, HKG) with PVG being a good place to start woth no visa req. for a lot of people with a 48h-max stay and it being a city with a lot of *A-traffic.
That would be aweseome!

I let my survey answers speak for themselves. However, those that did not attend SMD2 but are interested in SMD3 should also have a forum to present their ideas.

I'd also like to see Asia/Oceania. Cost will be a concern for me but not time. I've already blocked out the entire first week in November (and can slide that around some too)!

Yes, we have that feedback. We are simply asking for more here from folks who wish to provide it this way. Not everyone filled out the survey and not everyone in this community was invited to. There's a reason we use multiple different channels. Rest assured that we value the results from all of them.

You are not being asked to duplicate any efforts. I'm not sure why you'd assume you were.

That's fair.

But given 100+ folk did fill out the surveys & thus the organizers have a snapshop, would be nice to have that info listed thus perhaps avoid a lot of repeating the same thing - or, some of the replies might inspire others or make them think of stuff they haven't thought of! It's not something I'm getting bent out of shape over, so don't take it that way.

BTW - what I thought was funny was someone AIM'd me & said are you going on SMD3? Me - huh? :confused: What, has it been announced & I missed it already? :eek: Where are we going? :D

So my response is the same as to the AIMer. I'm certainly interested in SMD3, but can't commit until I know the itinerary, what's happening, the costs, the timeframe. Yeah, I know that's a big duh ;) :p :D

One thing I would suggest - to avoid the 1,000lb guerilla the SMD2 thread became (aka, the megathread), lock the interested thread & create a new one once they open up bookings, which is what I think they did for SMD1. It will still be long, but by doing that & changing the title a bit, it will be more managable & perhaps attract more interest so the organizers won't be scrambling at the last minute to fill up the plane.

I do know that if there is a SMD3, the organizers will do a fab job as always! SMD1 & SMD2 rocked!

Cheers. Sharon

Can't remember if I posted this in the survey or not, but while it's great Starwood stepped up to the plate, perhaps the organizers can also approach Marriott, IHG, Hyatt, or Hilton for the hotel end & spread the wealth around. Marriott might be inclined to do so after results of 1st FT Awards :D

Cheers. Sharon

Thanks for your input. As noted above, we have our reasons.

Can we now get this thread back on-topic??

It is time to go to Asia.

With proximity of ICN to NRT, it should be easy to set up an event that folds in NH and OZ, especially if there is a local orginizer who is willing to take the lead on that.

If NH has the 787 by then, perhaps we can charter it from SFO. But chartering the SQ all-biz from EWR would be cooler. ;)

Cargo
 

Was really stunned by SMGD2!

I am in for a cargo part (SQ/SIN) during SMD3, the max for cargo would be FedEx at Memphis although not Star Alliance releated.

South America: Embrear

Africa: Do I need to say more?

Looking forward to SMD3!!!

I haven't been able to do either of the *MD's due to the fact they are in November and I can't take time off from school. I wish it could be held at another time of the year but I venture to guess that I am in the minority.

I also think it could be time for an around the world *MD :D
JFK/EWR-MUC-NRT-BKK-LAX-XXX (home airport) but I am sure that is cost prohibitive.

I wasn't able to join neither SMD1 nor SMD2, but I'd love to be on SMD3, especially if it's in Asia (my favourite continent when it comes to airlines and food).

My suggested itinerary:

DAY 1:
Arrival in Tokyo. Europeans arrive on the daily LH 388, and Americans on some American carrier. Sightseeing at NRT courtesy of NH.

DAY 2:
An NH 788 charter (if it has been delivered by then) HND-NGO. Visit to 787 suppliers, see a Dreamlifter being loaded. Charter NH 788 NGO-ICN.

DAY 3:
Guests of Asiana. An OZ 763 charter ICN-BKK.

DAY 4:
Guests of Thai at Don Muang maintenance base. Golf at the golf course between the runways. TG charter DMK-SIN.

DAY 5:
Guests of SQ. SQ charter SIN-SIN on an A388. In the evening, departure with SQ back to home country.

Alternative SMD extension for people with time and money: SIN-DPS-SIN with three days in Bali.

I'll re-iterate with my Cbuzz mod lipstick on - if you are unsure of the purpose of the thread, I would ask that going forward, you PM the SMD organisers to ask, rather than get the useful suggestions lost in meta-discussions.

Thanks for your assistance in this

Jenbel
Co-moderator, Communitybuzz!

How about making it some type of RTW itinerary? Such as XXX-MUC-NRT-XXX?

here's another idea, and perhaps it could be a pre-DO field trip. I've *always* wanted to go to the unclaimed baggage center. How fun would THAT be with a big group of crazy FTers????

My favorite parts of SMD2: A380 visit and LH reception in FRA, *A focus groups and reception in FRA, Charter flight, Doug Parker, Boeing tour, Starwood Seattle Sheraton reception. The events in Houston weren't that interesting (Award ceremony and CO reception - CO didn't really engage us (understandable given the merger, but a missed opportunity) - the PC crawl was the highlight in IAH for me.)

Suggestions for SMD3: Maybe a RTW trip which FT'ers can start in USA or Europe, but includes a portion in Asia. Even though we've been in FRA, given that *A is headquartered there, may be worth engaging them. Would be interested in doing gate agent for a flight or two and/or seeing an operations center in action. Plus an aircraft manufacturer or maintenance visit.

I second this, that would be alot of fun^^

As i do not have a U.S. visa anymore i would love if the major portion will not be in the U.S., similar to SMD1

As I commented in the survey, I would like to see it go to Asia, with 2 or 3 hanger, maintenance & operations tours of resident airlines. Perhaps some of the asian airlines' management would have some enthusiasm for our interest. A tour of an off-shore asian contract maintenance facility would be neat.

Where the tour would depart from doesn't matter. Start in SFO, LAX, ORD or NY and throw in a Europe stop at Airbus or *A carrier.

While Asia would be interesting, I would like to concur with the previous posts that it may be cost prohibitive for some (me included :( ).
What about some of the smaller SA carriers in the EU? SAS/BMI/Swiss? (Not that I'm suggesting that LH would be a bad idea.)
Looking forward to the prospect of attending SMD '11... Hopefully my first!

+1, although I won't take the Frequent Traveler Awards into account, as this officially wasn't part of SMD2, and it was a one-off to have the Awards coincide with a SMD.
However, I expected a bit more of the CO event, e.g. a look behind the scenes of some kind in the afternoon. Having said that, the overall experience of SMD2 was of course extremely enjoyable and great!! Hard to top!!

For SMD3, I would also be interested in a visit to Asia, as proposed by other FTers here. Indeed some event around NH's first 787 would be interesting, that is if NH will finally have received 787s by then...

The following won't coincide with SMD3 (at best, or worst, it might coincide with SMD4 if the first delivery will be delayed) and might therefore call for a separate DO, so it's probably a bit OT. Anyway:

As the SMD organizers have a good relationship with LH, wouldn't it be great if FT/SMD would be part of the delivery event of the first LH 747-8i, something akin to the delivery event of the first 777-300ER to NZ? Even more if FTers would also be able to be aboard the delivery flight (say PAE-SFO?), and be the very first to test out the new (new new) C seats etc?

http://www.airlinereporter.com/2010/...ing-777-300er/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/airline...7625531665351/

Thnx for the great posting - I agree 100% @:-)

Everyone thinks Asia is a great itinerary and I agree. Let's also consider Central/South America. This is a huge area of focus for *A with Avianca-Taca and Copa coming onboard shortly combined with TAM's emerging presence.

+1 for Central/South America

+1 for this.

Update!
 

So let me throw this out there:

Alt I

Chicago, visit to the Hyatt world HQ, United world HQ + tour of airport facilities,

Charter ORD-YUL, visit to Air Canada and Bombardier

Charter YUL-DEN, end up in Denver for a very special event


Alt II

Houston, visit to United Airlines

Charter IAH-GRU, visit to TAM and Embraer

overnight

Charter GRU-DEN, end up in Denver for a very special event

Pricing, Alt I: Y: 699, F: 1999
Pricing, Alt II: Y: 849, F: 2599

Both sound great to me! Prices seem quite fair, and the itineraries look super!

I find Chicago/Montreal (Alt I) more appealing than Houston again.

But... won't we be missing the European contingent? It seems a shame not to have an intercontinental component to SMD.

Both seem great indeed, although perhaps not IAH again, but ORD for Alt II as well:

Alt II

Chicago, visit to the Hyatt world HQ, United world HQ + tour of airport facilities,

Charter ORD-GRU, visit to TAM and Embraer

overnight

Charter GRU-DEN, end up in Denver for a very special event


Would like to have the European contingent as well.