Work kept me from attendting the do -- dangit...

can some please post the Q&A/meeting with Larry wrap up?

Sorry I did not get to see you all. Looks like it was a blast!

Ok, I'll take a stab at this and give the high level bullet points of what I remember. Most of the items are already well-known on the board, but the answers given were pretty candid.

More domestic First Class seats. This has already been posted separately, but the 738s are getting an entertainment system overhaul and will have two more FC seats added to each plane. All 753s will be going to a 24 seat FC configuration, and the 752s will all be configured with BF seats. Most of this is already known.

There was a discussion on the effect of all the taxes on the industry where CO had said the industry lost approx $10 billion but paid out approx $20 billion in industry-specific taxes.

CO remains happy with 50% EQMs, and has not seen the elite ranks significantly hurt by the changeover. The move has helped improved the profitability associated with the OnePass program.

CO wants to expand internationally but is limited by the equipment available. A number of route options were bandied about during the weekend including flights to Athens, Shanghai, and other European and Asian destinations.

CO wants the government to bring back the Transit w/o Visa. This would be beneficial for providing one-stop connections through IAH between Latin American and Europe (and help drive the expansion of IAH-Europe network).

There are (still) no plans for a "mini-hub" of any sort on the West Coast. The example given was an LAX-SFO flight that CO offered several years back. The flight lost money hand over fist even though the planes were otherwise sitting in LAX or SFO waiting to turn around to fly back.

A confirmed same day standby option if availability exists in the same fare class is coming soon to CO. Pax will be able to stand by without paying if they so desire.

CO still talks about adding some perks beyond Plat but hasn't made a decision on what those would be. Any new perks have to provide benefits to both CO and the members.

No lifetime elite status is on the horizon. Suggestions are always welcome.

Partner integration in to co.com and the other CO systems is a huge target for Co mgmt. Partner searches are currently complex and time consuming for both award and revenue flights. Co wants to improve their integration with the other Skyteam partners but in a cost effective way. This was borne out by my own conversations with several managers who oversee different aspects of the system who indicate that the complexity is overwhelming at times. Integration will also drive more options and improvements with co.com.

I'm sure there's more I'm missing but these are the most salient points I recall from the weeked. All in all definitely a good time and a fantastic effort by all involved in putting the event together. Thank you CO and Cigarman!

Thanks cmdinnyc... really appreciate it.

Thanks indeed from another who sadly couldn't attend.

Thanks for the info, I wish I could have been there as well, but my mom and dad said that it was very insightful and had a wonderful time.

LoveChef

Thanks cmdinnyc for the wonderful list of stuff.


Two clarifications:
1) CO is happier with the travel/spending behavior of the current group of Platinums than the Platinums from two years ago. Relative to the growth in OnePass overall, they have more Platinums than two years ago.

2) The "paid confirmed standby" will NOT displace free standby. It will just give you another option. Whew!!

Also, Larry was initially somewhat confused when channa asked about the "standby list is first-come-first-served, not by elite level" issue. But when asked three times about this same issue, I think he finally got it, and went to "we don't want to announce a product, until we can do it right" He was concerned about people who are told "you're #1 on the standby list", only to be bumped down the list by higher elites. Final word...we'll look into it.

Any guesses/confirmation on how many FT'ers were at the DO?

Cigarman gave me the number - it was in the low 300's. Last time about 240 showed.

The number that I heard from Cigarman at the Friday dinner was expected 299. Thanks Cigarman and CO for a really great DO. Everyone I talked to said they look forward to future DOs.

Any follow-up on the MasterCard promo issue???

In the 90 minute Q&A session after Larry's 30 minute presentation, no one asked any questions about the Mastercard mess. I have to assume its a dead issue as far as the FTers there were concerned. Probably 30-40 people did ask a very broad range of questions.

I was told that it was on a list of possible targetted promotions that was never discussed. One of the programmers who puts the codes in accidentally put that code in active mode instead of test mode. Upper OP management didn't know about it until after we did.

Any talk / elaboration on CO*?

These are what I got in a Q&As, in addition to the above list:

Equipment:

- Seat cushion changes on ERJs
- Seat cushion and slightly modifications on 777 BF seats
- Overhaul of 752 coach seats
- The two new 777 (early 2007) will have AVOD
- They're looking into broadband onboard; but probably won't be in near future as they'll have to decide on product, then takes time to refurbish fleet
- Same thing with powerport. I believe Jeff says new planes and new refurbishments will have standard 110V outlet, that's VERY ROBUST (i.e. "unless everybody plugs in a toaster", Jeff says)

Routes:
- IAH-Europe expansion will be pretty slow. Like one destination every two years.
- They're looking into making EWR-HKG daily. [Actually, they were running it daily over Christmas holiday and some other times; 6 days/week for other. It's pretty close to daily already.]
- No "surprise" Europe destination besides the three announced
- "NO" is the answer to every question asked about California.

Both guys, and particularly Jeff Smisek, were extremely critical of the feds. Three things that stood out:

- Taxes
- Air marshalls on board. Jeff simply said that in his opinion, with the hardened cockpit door/locks in place already, there's really no need for air marshalls. And the feds resisted any move to get them into a coach seat.
- The visa-free transit. Well, I think many can understand that we can't let everybody come in to the US freely without visa; but Jeff pointed out that Terminal E at IAH was built with a design that can allow sterile transit (like every other international airport in the world, except US/Canada). AND if they would allow that, THEY'LL START IAH-MAD IMMEDIATELY.

I had wanted to ask a question (which is a followup to the one about UA merger) about switching to Star Alliance. But time went out, so, oh well...

YVR has it so but it isn't used very much.

P.S. I'm still p.o.'d at CO for terminating service to YEG on February 15th so I went to MFE this weekend to visit friends instead of going to the DO. But just in case (given the feature on the Oil Sands on 60 Minutes a week ago near YMM, which is a 4 hour drive north of YEG), did anyone ask whether IAH-YEG service will be reinstated??