Brad Templeton· 20/12/07 · 01:14 AM

Air travel must truly enter the internet world to provide a less harried experience to the air traveller. Let me paint for you the possible plane trip of the future.

As I begin my journey, I pick up my mobile phone and dial a speed-dial or use a phone application. In the former case, it looks at my caller-id, identifies me and notices that I am reserved to travel on LHxxx. It immediately greets me and says "Hello Mr. Templeton, confirm you wish to check in for LHxxx departing from"airport" at 6:35 pm for "Destination"

I say yes and it confirms I am checked in. If I don't want to make changes I can
hang up. Shortly a text message arrives on my phone with my boarding pass.
It tells me when I have an appointment to go through security (the departure time of
my flight being less relevant than when I must clear security.)

In a more interesting world, for a short-haul, carry-on baggage flight I drive not
to a crowded terminal but to a small lot by the fence where my plane sits
behind the fence. A Valet is waiting and scans my phone with the boarding pass,
and takes my car. (If I can't afford this, I park further away.)

I go to the security gate during my appointment window. Because I have an
appointment, I do not wait in line, I show my phone screen (with text message)
to the camera and my ID to the guard, and then go through the security screening.
Others who did not make appointments go through a line, if need be.

I walk to the waiting area. There, on the floor are a series of numbers. My
boarding pass has a number in it. Just before boarding -- not long -- I stand
on the square with my number, as do others. We've been ordered in such a
way as to assure the fastest possible boarding. When we enter the plane,
rarely do we find our way blocked by somebody sitting ahead of us stowing
bags or getting into their seat.

I enjoy a flight with internet service and laptop power on board. My
seat back has two pouches, one for airline materials, one for mine so it's
easy for me to clear out my materials when I leave. (Perhaps the airline
materials are just in a zipper bag.)

On some flights, a standard has developed so I can feed video to the screen
in the seatback in front of me, and small bluetooth or similar keyboards/mice are
available on the plane. Then I can take my small PDA or phone and use it like
a laptop, with full screen, keyboard and mouse. I thus don't need to carry a
big laptop to work well on the plane (which frees space on the plane, too.)

When we land, I exit the aircraft at a similar fence and walk out. The
rental company was told that I boarded and when I would be landing.
A rental car is waiting just outside the fence. It has a combination lock
on the door, so I just key in the combination that came in my text message.

I enter the car and drive away.

The trip back is the same, this time I drop off the rental car at the fence,
and an employee will come to process it. Or, if need be, I go to their
return center and take a quick shuttle. When I get back, my car is waiting
by the fence -- the valet was told I boarded the return flight and when it
would land, and got my car ready for me.

Sounds first class, but actually it's cheaper than today's system with big
expensive terminals and jetways. And vastly faster. And many of these
things (boarding pass by phone, appointment at security, faster loading) can
apply in the traditional "big terminal & jetway" system which has made air
travel so slow.
-------------

In another version, I board a train or bus to the airport. In the special
car on the train, there is a security scanner and crew. These guards check
our security credentials and scan us while the train is moving, and when cleared
we moved to the "cleared" section of the train. By the time we get to the airport,
everybody is cleared. So the train takes us to stops in the cleared section
of the airport, perhaps just a short walk from where our flight takes off.

Ideally, I board high speed rail downtown for the ride to the airport, where
I am cleared and dropped just a short walk or shuttle trip to my gate. Once
again I stand in the right boarding order and the flight boards in a short
time and is taking off. At the other end, perhaps I catch a similar train
to my downtown destination. I've easily beaten any pure-rail line on a
downtown to downtime time over more than a very short distance.

Brad Templeton· 20/12/07 · 01:16 AM

By the way, more details on these ideas and others can be found on my blog at http://ideas.4brad.com/taxonomy_menu/2/18/34

Jeff Jarvis· 02/01/08 · 09:32 AM

What if a plane flight were networked and became a social experience with its own economy?

Start here: Most passengers today are connected to the internet on the ground and soon we will be in the air as airlines return to the idea of adding wireless internet to jets (I loved getting online from a Lufthansa jet before Boeing pulled that plug).

Once airplanes' passengers are connected with the ground, that enables them to get connected with each other. It would be easy for the airlines
-- or, failing that, the passengers themselves -- to set up social networks around flights and destinations. The possibilities are endless:

* At the simplest level, we could connect while in the air to set up shared cab rides once we land, saving passengers a fortune.

* We can ask our fellow passengers who live in or frequently visit a destination for their recommendations for restaurants, things to do, ways to get around.

* We can play games.

Note that this requires not only wifi internet access at a reasonable price but also electric plugs at every seat. The first airline to do this will gain the loyalty and appreciation of a huge number of wired road warriors.

* Now think back to the earliest 747s with their lounges where you could socialize with fellow passengers. The idea is coming back on Virgin and in the 787 Dreamliner and A380. So now imagine if on this onboard social network, you could find people you want to meet -- people in the same business going to the same conference, people of similar interests, future husbands and wives -- and you can rendezvous in the lounge.

* This is the key to decommodifying the airline: What if you chose to fly on one airline vs. another because you knew and liked the people better? What if the airline's brand became its passengers? What if the airline even found ways to encourage more interesting people to fly with them because they knew that would attract and retain passengers (they could offer discounts and benefits to people who are active and popular in the social network)? Right now, all you offer is seats and miles:
commodities. How much richer this would be if you offered small societies. Yes, we could still get stuck next to a talkative bozo -- but not if we could meet people and arrange our seats before the flight thanks to the social network. Next to the right person, I might even tolerate a middle seat.

So these social networks should be opened before the flight. And that enables not only these on-flight connections but also a new economy:

* The airline can set up an auction marketplace for at least some of the
seats: What's it worth for you to fly to Berlin next Wednesday? You could bid and buy a seat from a passenger who already holds one. This could solve some of the airlines' overbooking problem and reduce the cost of bumping customers if late-booking passengers can buy seats from fellow passengers in an open marketplace. You can bet that once a social network around a flight exists, we'll compare what we paid. So why not be open? Yes, speculators could arbitrage seats, but so long as they're nonrefundable, what problem is that for the airline? They become market makers. Besides, this sets a new market value for seats that in some cases will be higher than the airlines' existing fares.

* The airline could also use this to predict and maximize load. What if there's a sudden surge in demand for a destination the airline can see because bids appear in an auction marketplace for a certain route around certain dates (because of a new conference or festival or good media coverage for a new getaway or bargain)? The airline can add capacity, which keeps the airlines in control over arbitrageurs; the airline is always in control of supply and now it would know more about demand.
Similarly, what if a flight is light and the airline starts offering passengers alternatives at great discounts to enable the airline to cancel a flight and reroute the equipment long before departure? The airline increases efficiency and profitability; the passengers get a dividend; and the environment gets a break. These things can be done in an open and flexible marketplace.

* While you're at it, why not turn frequent-flier miles into an open market? In miles, the airlines have created a virtual currency with far greater reach and value than those on Second Life or Facebook. But they're essentially illiquid. The airlines make it impossible to get frequent-flier seats with them unless you're flying to Krakow on Christmas Day a decade hence. And the other deals they offer us -- use your miles to buy a TV -- are bad deals. This, in turn, devalues the virtual currency to the point that it offers an ever-decreasing incentive to choose one airline over another; it no longer acts as the decommodifier the airlines intended. So open it up: Let us bid on frequent flier seats with our miles. Let us trade and barter our miles with each other -- I'll sell you this iPod for miles I want to use to get my vacation. This will again add value to the currency.

* The main reason we go for miles today is to get silver or greater status so we can jump lines and board first. But I'm not in control of how much I travel; my employers are. So what you really want is my loyalty; you want a large marketshare of me. So let me earn privileges in other ways. Open this up, too. Let me bid miles or money for these
benefits: create a market value for boarding first.

* The airline should find ways to involve employees in the network. They can also offer tips. They are the airline's representatives to the community. And the airline should want to learn more about its employees through the network. Those who make the flight more pleasant and more social are an asset and should be rewarded. Besides, it's hard to get nasty with cabin crews when you feel as if you know them.

* The airlines can also learn a great deal about their service from the network of passengers. We'll tell you about the food and what's worth paying for. I'll start a movement to save my knees from the bozos who slam their seats into them. You'll see which employees are your best marketers.

There are many subtleties to this. For example, in some cases, I won't want to reveal my true identity (telling people I'm out of town), for others I will (doing business). If seats are being traded, real identities and credit cards must be in the system for security. And so on. But this would be easy to pull off with existing social software (Ning, Drupal, Twitter) and links to existing social networks (Facebook,
LinkedIn) and existing auction markets (a walled-in eBay). The beauty is that no marketing is required; you're simply serving, connecting, and organizing the customers you already have. Yet this act alone rebrands you as the social airline. (Better get there quick, before Virgin does.)

So brainstorm with employees and passengers. Imagine what it takes to be the open, social airline -- a platform for travel -- and then imagine the good that comes of it. Your customers will give you value if you trust them and let them.

(A different version of this post appears on my blog at:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/12/27/the-social-flight/. I tried to post this earlier but it didn't get through. I'll see you at DLD.)

- Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis· 03/01/08 · 11:26 PM

Furthering my ruminations on the social airline...

Today's NY Times writes about travel publishers still trying to figure out the web. It says that among their tactics is licensing book content to airlines to display on their seat-back entertainment systems.

But that should be a two-way exchange. Airlines should capture the knowledge of their wise-about-traveling crowds. Imagine if, on return trips, the airlines asked us the hotels where we just stayed and ate and invited us to rate and review them. Imagine if they asked natives to share some inside tips on eating and shopping in their towns. They have a currency to pay for the information: They could reward us with frequent-flier bonus miles. Because they know who we are, they could even start to anonymously aggregate other data around this: 'American Express Platinum customers recommend....'

The airlines would gather an incredible data base of live knowledge of real travelers with fresh knowledge. They'd outdo TripAdvisor over time. Or they could license their content to TripAdvisor or some of those travel publishers. The airlines could themselves become publishers by listening to and capturing and sharing the knowledge of their customers. But first, the an airline needs to think of itself as a platform for travel and of its customers as networks.

This should be a basic question of any company or industry in the internet era: 'What do my customers know and how do I help them share that?'

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Brad Templeton· 10/01/08 · 04:42 AM

Let me add a few more details about some of the concepts I am outlining.

Airlines must fast facts. 95% of the reason to use them over anything else is time. Planes are faster, when in the air. Otherwise we would not put up with troubles of getting to airports, the crowds, the security lines and indignities, the waiting, the delays, the inconsistent and unpredictable schedules, being crowded like sardines and all the rest. We want to get there faster. You can make it nicer with amenities (especially in first class) but in the end time is what matters in the comparison to rail we are challenged to do. Everything that makes flying longer tips the balance to rail, especially in the famous "downtown to downtime" time that rail touts.

So let me talk about why I believe both appointments at security, and clearance on the transit to the airport can make so much sense.

We're given two times right now, a departure time and a boarding time. But these times are not the important one. The time I need to know is the time I must arrive to make it through the lines at check-in and security. Once I am through security, I can predict easily how long it will take to get to the gate -- just a few minutes. As such, if I must board at 3 pm, I just need to know I have reliably cleared security just a few minutes before that.

However, since I can't predict the length of the lines, I must get there much earlier. However, if I have an appointment at security at 2:50, and it is reliably kept by security, then I know when to get there. Others who do not have appointments, because they didn't make them, or aren't the same class of passenger, or missed their appointment can go in a line. If I have an appointment, I go right to security (or whatever I have my appointment for.) If everybody wants an appointment at 2:50, we know that in advance, and the security gate, which allocates appointments, will give me an earlier appointment to assure there is enough time to handle all those with appointments (including the fraction who need extra scrutiny) as well as some portion of those without appointments.

In fact, the system can select people for extra scrutiny in any way it likes, and just give them a slightly earlier appointment to assure there is time for it. There will be rare cases where they decide on extra scrutiny at the checkpoint, and you miss your flight -- but that happens now, and it happens because they are doing it to other people, not just you.

Of course, a smart system, aware of the flow at security, can text message people with updates to their appointment time, pushing it forward or back as needed, and many will get it in time to compensate. Today if the line is longer than you hoped, you miss your flight -- or they bump you to the front, as if you had that appointment.

This also applies to check-in, but fortunately we're moving more and more to automated check in, even with checked luggage. However, if you do need to do things at a gate, you should be able to get an appointment, and go into a line for agents dealing with those with appointments. The agent's computer will confirm you have the appointment.

Of course, none of this compares with the concept of being able to clear security on a train or bus to the airport. This effectively reduces check-in and security time to zero, because it is done while you are in motion, it takes no extra time than you would spend otherwise, unless you went out of your way to get the bus or train. However, this is somewhat expensive, because the security apparatus and staff are effectively idle on the return trip. As such, it adds quite a bit to the cost of security, but it may be a cost we're willing to pay because it saves so much time. If one can board a train downtown, be cleared on the train and then taken on a shuttle into the secured area right to your plane to quickly board, the airline should always easily beat the downtown to downtown time for any but the shortest journeys.

Alternately, one could clear people and do check-in at a rail or bus terminal with no increase in the cost of security, but without the same savings. However, one could have again an appointment time at the rail/bus terminal and still have a trip with less lost time and hassle.

Dispersing security is well worthwhile anyway. What is not often talked about is the fact that while we do all this security to stop people blowing up planes full of people, and yet this is managed by creating a large, inherently unsecured and very crowded security line area where a terrorist can wheel up a large bomb and kill many more people than would be on a plane, and shut down an entire airport as well. It is only because we are so afraid of death on planes that we make this strange decision. However, I don't know if I, or Lufthansa have the power to stop the security theatre which protects almost nothing and ruins air travel. Not without a lot of time.

Anyway, it's all about time. Next I will post a summary of some recent ideas I posted on my blog about how airlines could vastly improve the time it takes to do customer service by installing videoconferencing terminals in the airports, equipped with document scanners and printers for tickets/boarding passes/vouchers so that any agent, any where, can do almost everything for any passenger at any airport short of putting a bag on a belt or opening a door to a jetway. As such, sudden loads of high demand for customer service at one airport can be quickly dispersed to agents in other airports or at offices who are more idle. And any laptop can become a terminal for a videoconference, with shared scanners and printers handling the start and ends of transactions.

http://ideas.4brad.com/videocall-terminals-scanners-and-printers-customer-service

Brad Templeton· 10/01/08 · 05:15 AM

I also wanted to add that when I spoke of an SMS (or other messaging) boarding pass, I was not referring to the check-in-by-SMS system that Lufthansa already uses. In that system, you get an SMS asking if you will indeed fly, and you confirm you will, but you still need to go to a check-in kiosk and print your boarding pass.

I suggest an ability to send the actual information of a boarding pass in an SMS (or superior format.) Then this message would be shown to a scanner/camera which would capture it and use OCR techniques to read it. In particular it would read a string of securely generated characters from the SMS -- you don't need many to be secure -- and be able to fetch the complete record which was pre-stored in the scanner ahead of time, or is fetched over a database. (In the latter case, if the connection goes offline, the person would need to go to an online kiosk.)

Now while the SMS might get sniffed over the air, since in today's systems the passenger's name is in the record and they must show ID with their name, it does the sniffer no good. As such the unique string coudl be very short, but if you prefer it to encode more, you can of course encode just over 6 bits per character.

However, most of it would be for the user: Flight time, gate, boarding order number and such. If the user has downloaded a boarding pass application to their phone, that would take the SMS or other message and display it in a nice format, and also put up an even easier to decode bitmap for use by the scanner.

As such, you would get your message and walk directly to the gate, showing the phone screen at security, and again as you board the plane, never stopping for anything else unless you have bags to check. In which case you would show it there, too, to get luggage destination tags etc.

Steve lavi· 10/01/08 · 05:51 AM

The key issues that need to be addressed are -

- Is HSR a competitor or a partner ?

- Technology - availability of new airborne platforms in the coming decade ( microjets, VSTOL, helicopters ), fuel innovations

- Customer service - the airline industry invented service for travellers. higher operating costs drove it down to the ground. the top five results on Google for "cattle class" are aviation related !!!. innovation - innovation - innovation. CRM 2.0

- class of service issues - 3 classes of service ( 1st / biz / economy ), 2 classes of service - or vertical - biz class only / luxury travel ( Eos and netjets etc ) and all economy - (easyjet / ryanair etc ).

- innovative pricing models - bidding models, rebate models, revenue share models

- transportation solution - e.g. are you only in the airport-to-airport busines or are you in the transportation solution business ( e.g. originating home/office/hotel to final destination ).

- The "long tail" vs. core routes.

- Airport topology - e.g. hub ( star topology + feeders vs. open network, major hub congestion, slot availability),

Brad Templeton· 11/01/08 · 09:30 AM

I still think that better service in the air, while nice, can only go so far. Unless you buy 1st class, it's still going to be more cramped and inferior in most other ways to the train (where they can also bump up their 1st class and offer social network games and all the rest.)

It's going to be harder because German security is reportedly getting more burdensome than US security. In the US, we're unable to convince them that most of the things they do are theatre, or worse, counterproductive. Checking ID and trying to do background checks on passengers is one of those things that actually hurts security and slows things down, but try to convince the TSA or airlines of it. Any better hope in Europe? There are good arguments why only universal general security with truly random (including even babies) extra screening is the only strategy that works. Every system which tries to give some people less screening that follows a pattern (ie. is not random) is in trouble, because the bad guys can work out the pattern over time, and use it (unless it's perfect, which is isn't) to get the lower security for some subset of their guys, who become the attack team.

So anything wasteful you do (checking ID, tossing out bottles of water) actually takes resources away from doing real, useful security checks, and as such helps the bad guys. Innocent people don't change their behaviour to thwart security systems, but bad guys do.

The "take over the plane and crash it into a building" attack stopped working by 9:30am on Sept 11. We have to stop defending against the last attack. Then we might design security that's both strong and doesn't cripple air travel by adding 45 minutes to the trip.

Brad Templeton· 11/01/08 · 07:37 PM

Ok, so I keep coming up with thoughts in this area. Let's go a little more into the future, as this needs some new technologies. I will propose "multi modal transport" of a sort.

You've seen the cargo planes where the nose tips fully up and they slot in standard air-cargo contaners into an otherwise empty plane? Imagine passenger modules which can slide into that hollow plane on special rails, and which can also fit on a rail car. Since rail is at most 10' wide this would primarily be for short-haul jets with 2 and 2 seating, 2 and 3 at most. But you need this mostly for short-haul flights where transfer time is of the essence.

Passengers board a train with their luggage. In one version they were security screened at the train station. In a better and more expensive version they are security screened on the train before being allowed to proceed to the flight module. Those who can't handle "board while moving on the rails" pre-board before the train departs if they wish. Passengers or airline workers place luggage onto a belt that moves it into the luggage area below the seats. The belt may be built into the passenger module but powered by a motor in the rail car, or some other system, or even crawling workers. Alternately those with checked luggage must present it before train departure to be loaded from the side in the standard way. Having too many workers on the train wastes half their time, so you want to avoid it. This is for short haul with less checked luggage anyway.

The luggage unit is ideally one of the new designs that can withstand a small bomb, deforming rather than rupturing.

As the electrified train car comes to the airport, there is no terminal. The hollow aircraft, nose up, is carefully parked lined up with the rail terminus. Once computers confirm the alignment, the train approaches, and the passenger module is rolled on rails or wheels into the aircraft. Then it is locked down and redundant power connections are made and locked.

The nose is lowered and locked, systems are checked, and it's into the sky. At the other end, same thing in reverse. Plane lands, aligns (probably computer driven or towed by special computerized tower, or possibly the rail car has the ability once stopped to shift the passenger module left and right by a short amount before inserting it.) Module is rolled onto rail car, which drives out. Passengers may remain in module, some move to another rail car if they only have carry on bags.

Note that there is no way from the passenger module to the cockpit. Pilots have their own door. Taking control of the plane (9/11 style) is simply impossible. Security needs may be far less.

Now here are two options:

a) Module is pressurized. The aircraft itself is unpressurized except for cockpit. Highly secure. Makes windows and emergency doors a bit more work, you must align them. Outer, unpressurized door is light, however. Pressure and air control systems must be present in module. With one module, if a terrorist breaches pressure with a bomb, the others are still pressurized.

b) Plane is still pressurized, passenger modules need not be. Air recirculation system must still be present in module as we don't want to hook up air ducts.

One could load more than one module into a plane. Passengers and crew would probably not be able to move between them, though in a pressurized plane there is no reason they could not have doors between them like train cars.

Now as I noted, if you combine the isolated cockpit and bomb-proof luggage area, you start having security concerns that are more like a train or bus than a plane. If the passenger area itself is bomb-proof, so a small bomb can kill people in the module but not damage the plane itself, you start having security needs that are much more like a bus. Yes, it is scary that somebody might blow up a crowded module, but no more scary than blowing up a bus or train or mall or cinema.

As such, the only thing you need to check for is very large bombs. You don't care about guns, knives or small bombs any more than a bus or train does.

Of course, a new modern aircraft is fly-by-wire, and has many redundant power and data paths running along its skin, so only serious structural damage would disable the plane.

Downsides? It's complex, and it's likely to be heavier than existing technology, with associated fuel cost. It requires as yet undeveloped technology for alignment and transfer. (The bomb-proof luggage containers are already out there.)

Upsides: It's fast. In the ideal (minimal security you clear on the train) it's like a train that goes for 20 minutes, pauses for 5 and then goes 800 km/h. It's relaxed (you have the full length of the train portion to get your seat and stow your carry-on) and it's cool.

Brad Templeton· 15/01/08 · 03:43 AM

I'll add some more about my boarding number system for faster boarding. Each passenger, on their boarding pass, gets a number. It could be a unique number or you could group passengers in groups of about 4 with the same number. In the boarding area, the numbers are painted on the floor along the path the line will form. If several people have the same number they can stand adjacent -- this allows you to not have the line snake all over, and there will also not be gaps.

On printed boarding passes, the number will be very big, so everybody can see it on the boarding passes people are holding. For text-message passes, should they arise, this is not possible.

Now ideally you would assign the numbers in the optimal boarding order. Some people think that's simply "rear first" but there are other experiments that have it start with rear windows first, then rear middles and midplane windows and so on, the idea being that the windows board first and can stow and get into their row quickly, and don't have to get up for the other folks. There have been experiments done on this and more can be done.

In the real world, you can't be so close to the ideal, whatever it is. People flying together want to board together or in some cases must board together. So you give them the same number, but strangers will get different numbers so the window customer is ahead of the aisle one.

In addition, most airlines will offer frequent flyers the option of an early number. They want it for prime access to storage space. This can be done, but it will slow boarding a bit. However, you can safely have the premium flyers board after the very rear of the plane folks because they won't take the storage. We FFs just want to know we are first to our rows, not on the plane itself. First class passengers also are offered board-at-will, though they get lots of storage so need not care as much. However, the simplest thing may be to let them do what they want and accept when they block the boarding line.

The usual "pre-boarders" like folks in wheelchairs and families will small kids can still pre-board but in many cases they can just be inserted into a logical place in the order that is as good as pre-boarding. (I've never really understood pre-boarding because yes, the people with complex boarding issues do need more time to clear the aisle but that's only if they are more forward in the plane. At the rear they can board in a more sorted order. No easy solutions here, but we can make it as good as possible.

The latecomers who missed the boarding of their slot can go to the back of the line unless they have status. While ideally people would go onto the plane by standing on their number until they have a clear path, I know that in reality the line will just move forward as a block, the way lines do, so after boarding starts you won't be able to find your number easily unless an ad-hoc system is implemented among passengers where they call out their number or people in line hold out cards with a big number or colour.

(It doesn't have to be numbers, it could be something unsorted, like colours or symbols, to seem more egalitarian. Only so many colours are available, though.)

You also need a system for those who deliberately try to get in out of order. I'm told people sometimes get violent when told they are boarding too early, which is why many airlines don't enforce the boarding order. The markings on the floor would probably improve that.

The computer at the gate can help. As passengers are scanned, the current number can show on the screen, so even after it starts moving, latecomers can see where the line is, know if their number has gone in, or where it will be approximately.

It's also suggested that those who insist on boarding ahead of their number (by more than a few units) just be allowed to board, but be charged 1,000 frequent flyer miles automatically as an early boarding fee, if they are in the frequent flyer program. (The elite FFs of course are already allowed this.)

Every minute wasted in boarding increases aircraft turnaround time, wastes passenger time and costs the airline money, so if this can be made to work the savings could be considerable.

Brad Templeton· 15/01/08 · 03:46 AM

BTW, while I notice there have not been many folks participating here (Seems like Jeff Jarvis and I will get the prizes :-) perhaps if there were an RSS feed for this forum more people would participate. The only RSS feed that shows is the general DLD blog. Also, it should, if it could, remember your information so you don't have to type your name each time.