Arrivology
Tips on easing your trip to or from New York City:
Flying
You want to fly into La Guardia, Kennedy or Newark, NJ. If you are buying your tickets online, most travel sites will let you punch in "NYC" as the airport code, letting you search all three airports at once, rather than typing LGA, JFK and EWR.
Also see: FAA’s current airport conditions
TSA’s items prohibited in carry-ons
NewYorkology Basics: From the airport to Manhattan
Resources: Airfare Watchdog, Seat Guru and Airline Quality.
Amtrak – Before booking, check their website specials. You want to come to Pennsylvania Station, New York, which also serves NJ Transit, the Long Island Rail Road and several subway lines.
Bus
LimoLiner is the business-class bus from Boston; Chinatown buses offer cheap white-knuckle rides and there's always Greyhound, the Hampton Jitney or Peter Pan.
There's no need to drive, really.
Travel tech: Delta's $9.95 wi-fi, new gadgets and guides
Delta Airlines will soon offer wi-fi on all its domestic flights for a flat rate of $9.95 (or $12.95 on flights more than three hours,) the company said in a news release this morning. Aircell will provide the broadband service, called Gogo, will be installed this fall on delta’s 133 MD88/90 planes, with an expansion to its 200 Boeing 737, 757 and 767-300 aircraft through the first half of 2009, Delta said.
 On Friday, Schmap will roll out a public beta to enable website for the iPhone. “The solution allows a website (say for a restaurant, bar or other business) to serve a map and contact details perfectly formatted for iPhone visitors,” Natalia Palacios, the vice president of marketing for Schmap Inc., told NewYorkology via e-mail. They plan to expand to others including Nokia S60, Google Android and BlackBerry.
Google Maps Mania reports that CitySearch has already been optimized for iPhones. CitySearch is a Google Maps mash-up with embedded data for restaurants, hotels, bars, shops and other services.
Check out Flavorpill’s stripped down mobile edition of its daily listings. (Found via Kathryn Yu.)
Guidespot, in public beta, offers user-written guides to New York including how to be a groupie and the Midnight Cowboy’s guide to Manhattan.
David Sifry’s OffbeatGuides is still in private beta, but once launched, it will allow users to create their own destination guides using gobs of open-source info and pictures on the web.
Guideal is a new ite that allows travelers to find local guides at their destinations. The site currently offers a free Financial District tour.
Gridskipper also directs readers to TripWolf, a “a Myspace-meets-Lonely Planet” travel guide site.
You can already sign up for the MTA’s list of weekly planned subway service disruptions and coming in the fall, you’ll be able to sign up for the unplanned snafus, according to the Daily News.
The MTA also operates Trip Planner, which gets about 10,000 users a day, has recently added Navteq Map Data and Microsoft Virtual Earth, the MTA said.
Read the rest of this entry
August 5, 2008 6:55 AM Comments (0)
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OpenSkies to fly JFK- Amsterdam starting October 15
OpenSkies, the premium-class British Airways spinoff that debuted last month with service between New York and Paris, today said it will add service to another city: Amsterdam.
Service between JFK and Amsterdam’s Schiphol International will start October 15, with tickets on sale sometime in August. Daily flights will depart Schiphol at 1:20 p.m. for a 3:35 p.m. arrival at JFK; the 8:05 p.m. departure from JFK will arrive at Schiphol at 9:40 a.m. the following morning.
OpenSkies, which carries just 82 passengers on its retrofitted 757, plans to add still more cities. Today’s press releases states: “Other European destinations being considered for the airline include Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan.”
Earlier: OpenSkies to buy L’Avion, will fly Orly to JFK, Newark
Inside upscale OpenSkies after first landing at JFK
July 28, 2008 1:22 PM Comments (0)
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Transit hikes real and proposed: MTA, Amtrak, taxis
 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority hopes to raise fares on New York City subways and buses in July 2009 and again in early 2011, the New York Times reports.
In March of this year, the MTA raised prices for multi-ride MetroCards but kept the base per-ride fare at $2.
The proposed fare hike for 2009 would come up for a final vote on the MTA budget by December, according to the Times.
The MTA is far from the only transit agency looking to shore up its coffers.
Although they’ve been turned down once this year, NYC taxi drivers haven’t given up hope of securing a $1 per ride fuel surcharge, which would need the approval of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, reports NY1. Queens Councilman John Liu has taken up the drivers’ cause and a TLC commissioner told NY1 that they “continue to monitor the situation closely.”
Amtrak’s out in front when it comes to fare hikes. They’ve already raised ticket prices by 5 percent on a number of Northeast routes, the Observer reported.
Meanwhile, Amtrak said it is spending $2.1 million to advertise the rebranding of its Northeast Regional service (which it’s no longer calling Northeast Corridor Regional service.) The rebranding includes a new logo, refurbished Café cars with new menus, en-route cleaning of the cars, and refurbished business class seats.
Also, an Amtrak blogger points readers to Amtrak.com’s new route performance page.
Picture credit: Amy Langfield/NewYorkology.
July 24, 2008 7:46 AM Comments (0)
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Free JFK AirTrain rides on Friday to mark airport's 60th
 JFK’s AirTrain will operate entirely free on charge on Friday, July 25, to celebrate the airport’s 60th birthday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced in a press release.
AirTrain rides between terminals, parking and rental car lots are always free, but a $5 charge kicks in (except this Friday) when you stay on to connect to the NYC subway system or the Long Island Rail Road.
A bit more JFK Airport history from the press release:The first passenger arrived at what was then known as New York International Airport on July 9, 1948, on a Peruvian International Airways DC-4 from Santiago, Chile. The airport was dedicated three weeks later, on July 31, 1948, in a ceremony attended by more than 200,000 people, including President Harry S. Truman.
The airport has undergone numerous transformations since then, including a name change in 1963 to honor slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Contrary to popular belief, the airport has never had any other official name, although it was commonly referred to as Idlewild.
In the 1960s, the airport became home to several new passenger terminals, including one of the icons of modern American architecture - the TWA Flight Center, designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen. Rehabilitation work is currently under way in the building, and it is expected to reopen to the public later this year, as is a new passenger terminal under construction directly behind the Saarinen terminal. On August 1, JFK will host the first scheduled flight of the A-380, the largest passenger aircraft in the world, as it arrives at Terminal 4.
There’s also an Airtrain to Newark Airport. But that’s not free Friday.
Earlier: Inside upscale OpenSkies after first landing at JFK
JetBlue on track to reopen Terminal 5 at JFK in fall
July 22, 2008 11:12 AM Comments (0)
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East Coast military airspace goes public for July 4th
Commercial airlines will once again get permission to use U.S. military airspace along the East Coast during the 4th of July weekend in hopes of reducing delays, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announced today.
The details:The Department of Defense (DOD) is releasing airspace off the eastern seaboard from 6:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, July 3, to 6:00 a.m. on Monday, July 7, the Secretary said. This is similar to what was done over Memorial Day, Christmas and Thanksgiving. The military continually works with the Federal Aviation Administration to release the airspace anytime it is not being used for military missions, the Secretary noted. Earlier: Military airspace to open for Memorial Day weekend
Feds limit Newark, JFK flights to 83 per hour at peak
East Coast to get airspace ‘express lane’ for holidays
July 2, 2008 4:14 PM Comments (0)
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OpenSkies to buy L’Avion, will fly Orly to JFK, Newark
British Airways today agreed to buy L’Avion, the low-fare business-class airline that flies between New York and Paris, in order to combine the French airline with BA’s two-week-old premium-class spinoff, OpenSkies.
BA values the acquisition at Euro 68 million, including cash of Euro 33 million.
OpenSkies currently has only one plane, and flies seven days a week between JFK and Orly. L’Avion has two planes, travelling five days a week between Orly and Newark. Those routes would be maintained “as is” after the companies merge, though in theory at least one of the planes could peel off for use to another city as OpenSkies gets permission for new routes out of New York.
An OpenSkies spokesman today told NewYorkology he couldn’t comment on new routes, but
in June the company said Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan are popssible next destinations.
L’Avion, the last survivor of the recent all-business class airline trend, has been flying since January 2007. SilverJet folded in May, Eos went bust in April and MaxJet pulled the plug on Christmas Eve.
Earlier: Inside upscale OpenSkies after first landing at JFK
July 2, 2008 8:59 AM Comments (0)
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Inside upscale OpenSkies after first landing at JFK
NewYorkology contributor Vidiot commits journalism by night and explores NYC by day. He's especially interested in the infrastructure, transit, architectural wonders, drinking establishments, and hidden corners of the greatest city in the world.
New York gained an airline Thursday when OpenSkies, a subsidiary of British Airways, inaugurated service to JFK from Paris Orly airport.
The first flight, a Boeing 757-200 operating under the callsign "Mistral 001" (the mistral is the powerful wind that blows down France's Rhône Valley), touched down on JFK's Runway 31 Right half an hour early, at 12:52 p.m., and received the traditional water-cannon salute while taxiing to Terminal 7.
OpenSkies carries just 82 passengers aboard the narrow-body 757, in three classes:
 --24 "Biz" business-class seats, which recline to form a 180-degree bed, the only fully flat bed in business class between Paris and New York. These seats cost around $3,200 each way;
--28 "Prem+" seats, with 52-inch seat pitch. These seats cost around $1,500 to $1,700; and
--30 Economy seats, (pictured below,) which are priced about $500 to $800 each way.
All classes include leather seats and portable video-on-demand individual in-flight entertainment screens that attach to the seats. Individual cabins are small, and the frontward Biz-class cabin is decorated with stylish black-and-white pictures of both the Eiffel Tower and the Flatiron Building.
Since the aircraft only carries 82 people in a space that most airlines use for at least double that number, there's lots of overhead-bin space as well. Cabin crew member Sonja Robb told NewYorkology that "even if you're all the way in the back, you don't have to wait for 200 people to get off first." OpenSkies also offers a concierge service to all passengers, which will book hotel rooms and sightseeing tours, provide destination information and quick translations, and arrange other services.
The airline takes its name from the recent agreement between the European Union and United States, which allows European and US airlines to fly between any two points in the European Union and United States. Before the treaty took effect in March, a UK-based airline such as OpenSkies would not be permitted to operate a flight that didn't take off or land in the UK.
 At a press conference in the Concorde Room at Terminal 7 after the plane's arrival, Dale Moss, Managing Director of OpenSkies, said the flight from Paris was "a very special journey" that was 15 months in the making from the original idea for the airline. A New York native, Moss described growing up in Ozone Park, recalling how "my grandparents used to take me to Idlewild in my footie pajamas, and that was when I got kerosene in my veins."
OpenSkies began operations with just one airplane, named "Lauren" after Moss's granddaughter. Moss described how watching Lauren learn to walk, and her refusal to give up after repeatedly falling down inspired him to name Project Lauren, the original internal British Airways codename for the OpenSkies project.
Future aircraft will also be named after family members of OpenSkies employees. The airline's second 757, dubbed "Penny" (after the daughter of engineering director Ron Froude), will be operational by the end of this year, and the airline expects to operate six aircraft (all retrofitted with fuel-saving winglets) by the end of 2009. OpenSkies will not participate in BA's OneWorld alliance with American Airlines and others, and will not offer interline onward connections from JFK or Orly; Moss said that "people will interline themselves", and that "if we add complexity, we add cost."
The airline is currently weighing other destinations including Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan. But Moss noted the uncertainty surrounding startup airlines in light of record fuel prices, but said that he intends for OpenSkies to be a spirited competitor in the transatlantic airline market, declaring "While we'll never be big, we'll be fierce, and we'll be very, very good."
Picture credits: Vidiot.
Earlier: OpenSkies' new premium JFK-Orly tickets now on sale
BA's new OpenSkies gets OK for JFK-Paris for June
OpenSkies aims to fly JFK-de Gaulle in 'early summer'
June 20, 2008 7:42 AM Comments (0)
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Business-class only airline SilverJet ceases all flights
 Finanically troubled SilverJet, which has been flying business-class only flights between Newark Liberty and London's Luton Airport for 17 months, today called it quits.
"Your belief in us was shared by our investors - but regrettably, due to unforeseen circumstances, they were unable to unlock the finance that we needed. As a result, we are very sad to announce that from 30 May 2008, we will cease operations and we are no longer able to honour flight reservations," SilverJet writes in a letter to its customers posted on the company website.
SilverJet also flew from London to Dubai.
It's the latest of the new premium-class airlines to fold: Eos quit in April and MaxJet folded on Christmas Eve. Both were flying JFK to London's Stansted.
But L'Avion continues to offer low-fare business-class service between Newark and Paris' Orly Airport. British Airways business-class spinoff OpenSkies is on track to start flights between JFK and Orly on June 19.
Earlier this week, USA Today reported that the now-charter company Primaris Airlines next year plans to start commerical all-business-class flights from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Lima, Peru. The route map on the company's website also indicates planned service to Atlanta and Chicago in 2010, Beijing and Shanghai in 2011, and London, Paris and Frankfort in 2013.
USA Today also mentioned that Geneva-based PrivatAir is also offering business-class flights to the USA for Lufthansa, Swiss Air, KLM and Air France.
May 30, 2008 7:21 AM Comments (0)
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Military airspace to open for Memorial Day weekend
Just like they did for the November/December holidays, the U.S. Transportation Department today said they will open the East Coast military airspace to commercial airlines for Memorial Day weekend.
Elsewhere in the airports. ...
The Port Authority will spend $20 million to study the redevelopment of JFK's Terminals 2 and 3, which are both occupied by Delta, Crain's reports.
They're also sending $28 million for more security barries at Newark and LaGuardia, according to the Associated Press.
 Meanwhile, British Airways said it will spend $30 million on an 18-month upgrade of its terminal at JFK. BA's already opened a new Todd English’s Bonfire restaurant a Terminal 7, and Elemis spa has replaced Molton Brown there.
Air traffic controllers say there have been eight incidents at Newark Liberty where "pilots have misinterpreted departure instructions from controllers and have had to correct course since December, when the Federal Aviation Administration began allowing planes to 'fan out' in different directions on takeoff to move flights faster from the congested hub.
There is now a webpage that will predict airport security wait times for NYC's four area airports -- JFK, Newark, LaGuardia and Stewart in the Hudson Valley.
You can also sign up for airport alerts for JFK, Newark or LaGuardia. Alerts go out when weather delay exceeds 120 minutes, if parking lots are full, or if AirTrain service is interrupted.
JetBlue is adding a route between JFK and Nantucket, Mass. However, they're not going to LAX.
For a glimpse of NYC's aviation history, see Nathan Kensinger's pictures of Floyd Bennett Airfield - the city's original municipal airport.
American Airlines will start charging $15 per checked bag and people are already talking about boycotting the world's largest airline.
Picture source: British Airways
May 22, 2008 3:54 PM Comments (0)
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OpenSkies' new premium JFK-Orly tickets now on sale
 Tickets are on sale as of today for OpenSkies, the new premium-class British Airways spin-off, with flights between JFK and Paris' Orly Airport with a launch-deal of $720 one-way in their premium-plus class.
Flights start June 19.
Economy-section seats are priced around $1,000 round trip; the premium economy are around $1,500 round trip, and biz class are around $3,500, according to Online Travel Review. But many of the cheapest economy seats -- which as OpenSkies points out is better than the average airlines' economy section -- are already sold out for most days in June and July.
In fall, as OTR points out, the economy fares come down to $600 while the business travelers' season pushes the premium-economy rate up to $2,000 or so.
OpenSkies will start with only one plane, a retrofitted BA 757 that previously had 180 seats but now has only 82, allowing for less-cramped seating throughout. (And according to the official OpenSkies blog, the first plane is named Lauren.)
The company plans to add service to other European cities including Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan.
Earlier: BA's new OpenSkies gets OK for JFK-Paris for June
OpenSkies aims to fly JFK-de Gaulle in 'early summer'
May 22, 2008 8:03 AM Comments (0)
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