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That's an Alaska fly that you gotta go to Seattle. I guess you can go to Seattle for Indianapolis. You have to go to Seattle, but I have to go home. That sounds that sounds like a steepen excuse. No, 'cause I'm coming to Portland from the data center. Again, sounds like a steep an excuse. Yeah, possibly But I'm likely to go on this trip. Okay, all right, fair enough. You're listening to dots, lines, and destinations , a travel podcast with host Stephen Seagraves, Ozma Moon, and Seth Miller. Hello and welcome to episode five hundred ninety two of Dots Lines and Destinations. I'm Steven Segraves, joined today by Mr. Seth Miller, Mr. Fazmood Gentleman. I was worried there was going to be a third thing at it after that. There was an Oxford Comment there and I wasn't sure who was next. Oh yeah, , no guests today. We should have more guests though . That would involve us, you know, finding guests. Yes, this is true. And if you want to be a guest, we'd love to have you. Yes. I'm in the midst of scheduling one right now. It's a surprise. We can't talk about it. My favorite kind of guest. FIFA plane planes. Oh my god, it's too early in the morning here. FIFA planes. American, Alaska ?'s What what's the deal? You know, World Cup fever catching the world. It's Alaska and American have special liveries for the tournament this year. What I found interesting about them is that in the press releases both of them are announced as in partnership with Qatar Airways . Well, we don't like soccer here, so putting that part aside , the fact that they have to blessed by Qatar's and Qatar Airways also has a special delivery for it. It seems to me like Qatar bought the global airline rights for FIFA and they're sub leasing out individual like opportunities to also be a sponsor somehow and like paint a plain special. I can't prove it, but like that's based on what's happening, it seems to be how airlines are doing it. Like if you want to have an official fee delivery plane you have to get Qatar Airways to bless it for you. So there's subcontracting sub licensing so that seems random. Do you think they're making any money off of that or do they care? So far, it's their two one world member partners that are doing it . So I think probably less with the making money and are at least in a significant way and more just having fun and being nice to their friends . But that was a very interesting bit but there's also the airl ines that are doing stuff that aren't officially licensed to me this sort of goes back to like the whole like in the US or the Super Bowl where people talk about the big game the instead ofperb Sowul because there's confusion about lic ensing and what you are and aren't allowed to do, but like Airlines Argentinas has a three hundred and thirty painted with their soccer jersey on the tail . Oh , okay and it's and there seems to be a captain's badge on one of the engines , like an arm band sort of thing. So that's pretty nifty Air algeri has a plane with like the flag and everything else on it that is clearly a World Cup special livery and like designed to sort of match the uniforms, I think, but also doesn't say World Cup anywhere on it. Doesn't mention FIFA, that kind of thing. Doesn't mention FIFA . A,m am I looking this at correctly? I say oh nice and new A three hundred and thirty with the New England's um did they so are these liveries like Aeralgier Aergiri in Argentini are they flying the team around or are they like for passenger service? The Argentinian one was definitely used for the charter that brought the team to Kansas City, which was that base. I don't know what the Air Algeria one was, but it's a , you know, there 's some great photos out there of all of them , some fun stuff going on. It was just the whole like is your very blessed by FIFA and by Qatar Airways as an adjunct EQA bit is the part I find most amusing . Yeah, it's interesting . about What what about fun lines? So that's the other fun bit is there the charters that brought all the teams in. So I mentioned the Aerolinius Argentina flight from Buenos Aires. I think it went from Aeroparque even to Kansas City. So rather rare . Santiago de Compostella to Nashville . That's fun for the Spain National Team. I like that . It's the other one that's pretty solid. And even that's a special FIFA World Cup livery, but it's and that one actually because their one world may be blessed by Qatar Airways, but I'm not sure I haven't seen enough close of it. But I'm disappointed it wasn't Melila to Kansas City or somewhere. National training base. Yeah. That's another one that's a three hundred and fifty. It's got the special paint job . Good times . Yeah, we had the Jordanian team is here in Portland and they came up from San Diego , which I thought was odd. Like did they fly from Aman to San Diego and then up to I don't know, I don't know what the story is, but they were apparently in San Diego before they came here . So yeah, it's super I mean, it's pretty cool. It's always fun. And then Fight Raider made some posts, right about these random lines. They've got a bunch. Yeah, that's the source of almost all of my useful information for the world. That's great Southwest , Nashville . A lounge ? So apparently they have a permit to put a lounge in Nashville now. , Okay okay Right. There was talk about Hawaii. We saw that one. That was the first one that broke cover . Apparently they have a permit. So when first class ? This is the United States. We don't care about lounge access for first class passengers. No, but like when are they going to put first class in the planes ? This is the United States. I don't care about first class for lounge . Everyone's equal here, right? I mean, but that's not to say that Southwest couldn't change that, right? It would really upend the lounge game if they started giving lounge access. And Alaska does for paid first class. As long as you're on a flight long enough, yes . And only for paid, yeah. And paid. Yeah. Apparently this was old news. I didn't see it before, so that's why I'm bringing it up now. But I mean Nashville is a huge market for Southwest and Nashville's rolling. I think even with the construction Nashville, I still feel like that airport's a little bit of a mess like with them completing the new terminal. Like it's just it's under built for the amount of traffic it has. I think that like yeah, just not that enough space or but they're but they're still not done, right? They're they tore down where united the other side, the A side where United was and they're now rebuilding that out . It'll be yeah, I think that will help for sure because that's kind of where the international flights depart from and come into because it was like the only segregated hallway like out you know, still secure but not with regular traffic to go to the go ahead I think the international flights now use what do you call them the tea gates when you walk right in. Oh , well, how does that work then with arrivals? Did they build arrivals facilities there? I mean, there might be one or a connects, right? I'm not sure, but all the departures now that I have seen are going out of that area. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I flew there last year, I think, and it was still tight. I think the I think you're right, Fazz, the AG's were going to help when it's done . It just it feels like a very crowded airport . There's just too many people, but that's like any big airport. True , true. And it's a ustin sized airport and they still have the remote gates out there on the satellite and yeah.' Wells, the that island of M isfit Toys It's all legion now since Spirit's gone . Isn't a frontier out there? Are they? I thought they were. They might, they might be. You might be right so yeah, I mean a lounge pificac didn't get shunted all the way out there when they operated. I just remember that . Yeah, I think a lounge, I mean, it kind of makes sense for Southwest at one of its bigger operations. I'm surprised they haven't said anything about love since it's I think that one is also I think love is on the list also it's just not fully it hasn't been permitted or whatever and yeah there's no public visibility of it Yeah . I mean, what do you guys think? I mean, is this going to be one of those things where you buy access a pass every now and then? I mean, if I care to go in, sure . I mean, do you think that's how it's going to work because they don't offer I mean I guess they'll have to have a program , like a lounge access program. You don't get free access when you spend seventy five thousand dollars on your Chase Sapphire Reserve. Oh yeah. Or just on your Chase Southwest card . Or that? No, no, they'll have a club card for that . Fair. Yeah, but if you spend seventy five thousand dollars, then you can bring your guest. Oh yeah, exactly. Maybe twenty five thousand for the first guest and seventy five for the full family? Well, you know, with when you only have two lounges, that might not be a bad trade off. I mean, where else would they put one? Midway ? There's not much room in Midway, but yeah . San Diego, Oakland , Phoenix Oakland, anything, they could put in at Oakland, they could put in literally anything and it would be better than the terminal. They could they could put in a restaurant and it would be better than the terminal. They could just put up a wall and more benches and it would be better than the terminal. Yeah, exactly. Vegas probably. That's another one where I messed about space. Yeah, especially on their side, yeah. There has to be space over there, right? There used to be an American West Lounge. There used to be a twenty four fitness in that other terminal . Wait, what? Oh yeah . There was a twenty four hour fitness. There was a twenty four fitness in McCower . I did not know that . Wow. Did it have showers? I assume so. I never went in. I would have signed up just for that. That would have been awesome. Seth Seth could have done a little bit of weightlifting before his flight. Something to stay awake before the Red Eye? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Starlink and Whiz and L . Yeah . A couple more . The more the more people that sign up for Starlink , the more I wonder about Delta's Amazon Leo Move . So we'll get to that in a second. Other interesting bits, Wiz is an ultra low cost carrier that histor ically has charged for everything that wasn't bolted down. And so there's that like very public spat between Musk and Oleri a couple months ago now, I guess, beginning of this year, fighting over who should pay what and how much it costs to put WiFi on a plane and all that stuff. And WizAir seems to not care. They're going to they're picking up the tab and they're going to make it work somehow they think. So that's an as ultra low cost carrier with the unbundled model choosing to go that route is pretty interesting, especially when you had like Viva Aerobuser, which is now as Viva, but I have trouble calling them that in Mexico is adding wi fi but, they went with SES , also a Leo solution, but they went with the one where they could charge for it Because they're an ultra locox carrier, and if you put something on the plane, it's got to make it cover its own costs . Do you think that Wiz looked at it and said we can become an more attractive option within Europe ? Like point to point because of having this? That's all they fly, so sure. I mean, they fly some long routes on three hundred and nineteen s or three hundred and twenty ' s, whatever they have now. The three hundred and twenty one's. They flew some stuff down to the Middle East, they've mostly they closed the Abu Dhabi base, right? So yeah, they fly longer stuff in some areas, but it is at this point basically just , you know , flying anywhere they can in around . So Do they think it's going to help them sell more tickets? Obviously, but it's I don't know what the model is there. So that one's a hard it's a hard one for me to sort . Maybe they maybe they have a per flight code that you have to enter and you pay for the code or something like that . By design , historically, contractually, Starlink won't allow that . So there's no way to like put up a paywall. It's on and it's in your plane. Yeah , the closest they've gotten or the most that Starlink has been willing to give up is that you can have a frequent flyer requirement. And that's what, you know, United does. You have to have a frequent flyer account, but the account has to be able to be had for free. Yeah. And BA's doing basically , I shouldn't say everybody because not everybody is, but it's either wide open free or a number of almost all of the more recent subs ignu ups contracts. The airlines are doing it with a frequent flyer account. I'm actually reached out to Wizard. They never got back to me, but they haven't explained how they're going to do it because they don't really have a frequent flyer program. Maybe it's what they're doing,. go G aoodhead fossil. Well, I mean, they're already charged for bags, so now they're just gonna start charging for devices. If you want to bring yourself on board, it costs money but whether you want to get on board to connect to the internet. Yeah . I like the way you think. How many how many laptops are in your bag ? That's an iPad. That's three devices, sir. You gotta put one in your check luggage . Wait, you can't put in your check luggage . You can put in the it donation bin over there. Yeah, yeah, straight to our employees here. Did you find this? Could you write your password on this and put it on top ? Oh , we'll ship it to you. Yeah, so that was happening. Then L L is also switching . They're BISAC customer right now and are moving over to Starlink. So that's another interesting one to me again , obviously, they think there's a different business model and plan here that's going to work . I think from the VISAT perspective, Viasat had been talking about, you know, we've got two new satellites that just went into orbit . The first one's actually supposed to be online imminently for airlines . The second one will be online soon, but is also doing orbit racing, whatever it's going to massive capacity in the Americas and in Asia . And LL's flights are mostly Europe and Europe to North America where interestingly, the new satellites don't actually add a ton of capacity. So it's unclear to me if that's sort of why LL was like, We waited, you didn't actually boost our networks enough. So it's just not going to work. Yeah , yeah. What about just the idea that Amazon Leo is not a viable option in general right now? Like is like I mean it's not right now because the satellites aren't in orbit yet, but they did get an extension on the deadline they had to have satellites in orbit to be able to maintain their priority for the spectrum which is a whole sort of regulatory thing, but the short version is if they didn't do that, other people would be able to use that same spectrum. It would be very bad for Amazon. And they sort of defended themselves there. They had that rocket blow up a couple of weeks ago now a new Glen . So getting to launch the satellites themselves is still going to take some time . But they've got space contracts, they've got ESA contracts launching out of French Guiana. So they're getting them into orbit you know twenty five to thirty at a time when you're trying to get to, you know, three thousand or whatever the number is, that's a lot of launches, but they're getting there. So here's here's the question, right? Like there's a ton of space junk and maybe you don't know the answer to this. There's a ton of space junk in low orbit. There's also satellites now that we're using for communications . At what point like is it bec ome problematic to launch , I mean, I guess you know where everything is. Like most of the stuff is mapped, right? Right. At what point does this become problematic though for launching actual people into space ? For launching less of an issue, I think for , you know , for like people, also we don't put people into space very often. So it's okay . What's interesting to me is the sort of there are databases slash maps of where everything is and where it's going and how fast it's moving and all that stuff. And so trying to track where and when things are going to be and you have different orbital planes in different pathways. So imagine like, you know, something two hula hoops spinning in circles with a common center point . At some point, like the balls on them might actually be in the same place . And that's not good . And so it's a conjunction, I think it's what those are called incident. And so there's massive math that goes into avoiding conjunctions and historically it was done, manually and it was fine . And as part of SpaceX 's constellation , they made a lot of it automated and, you know , math . Like do the math if you see, you know, you know where all the things tell the system knows where all the things are something's going to , like create rules of avoidance and let the math just sort of automate how all that works. And so far it's working . Yeah . Yeah , a little bit of time for an October. I could fly I could run this with you know, I could fly flight in the dark yeah if the map is good enough . Yeah, exactly. I mean it's kind of like it's kind of like the idea of like not falling out of orbit either because yes, you know, space is just falling perpetually . So yeah , that is a thing and like, you know, every now and then there's a failure and something deorbits act, you know, uncontrolled or has a fuel tank explode or whatever else, then you got to deal with like, okay, what other stuff is around it? And is anything else going to pass through that debris field soon and how quickly that debris field dissipate and all that other stuff? Yeah, yeah. It's super interesting . Sorry, I just go back to the point of, you know, is it viable in Delta's position here ? I actually talked about a buddy up here who works for him not, in this department at all, but like he's mad because he wants the good internet on board today instead of waiting two years and I get it . At the same time , you know, I think there are options other than SpaceX. It's a matter of timing and how much are you willing to wait and how good will these other systems be in the interim ? I also that Amazon's approach is more than just here's Internet have fun and it's here's Internet and you're back hauled into our data centers and into our private network already. So oh, you wanted Amazon Prime content on board. Turns out that's, you know, a different price point because there's no egress fees, right? Everything's on our network and stuff like that. So there are more at the same time SpaceX could very easily set peering agreements with Netflix, HPO, any other provider out there . Right. Amazon pay for peering generations a lot of people don't pay for peering because they view it as mutually beneficial . Right . Explain what peering is for the listeners that don't know. Peering is when two entities connect together by choice at a network level. Yeah. Internet, there's massive interconnect points where sort of everybody can play and it's a public crossing, if you will, and then there's private ones, which is these peering so that's talk about. Yeah. And there's also peering in some of these public places right. They're called network access points snaps. So you have these giant naps where like as an example, Comcast goes into a bunch of naps and they sign peering agreements in those naps as well as outside of those naps because they have so much traffic going to Netflix , HPO on St Rather than shoving it all the way back onto the public internet and coming back because that creates a negative experience for their users as well as increases their costs because they're pushing traffic out of the regular internet . Yeah , I get it. Yes, you could have those peering, but there's still cost to build it out even if there's not a charge to do it and you know for a peering for bandwidth, whatever. The idea that and Amazon is not alone in this approach, but the idea that there's more to a service provider than just here's the pipe is not a new one and how it will play for Delta longer term versus anyone else would be interesting . I think one of the things that comes to mind for me is like Starlink is here today. Amazon Leo won't be here for two years . And when Leo launches , will it be like Starlink is today or will it have evolved ? Right. And Starlink has two years to now innovate while they continue to deliver this product. So they can increase bandwidth, they could reduce latency and a number of different things , as well as improving the onboard kits, right? I think that's the biggest challenge that Amazon's going to have is we all know that these kits when they first came out were not super reliable on any platform. Over time they get refined and better . So I don't think Delta is going to have reliable high speed internet in two years. I think it's going to be four years because it's going to take years for that kit to stabilize and like you'll have real world results, right? Not just testing results. Yeah , that is a very real risk. I mean, I know a bunch of the guys there and I can't vouch for it's going to like that's not they're not going to have the same problems everybody else has. They know about those problems. They know what the challenges are there. So I know they are working to address them an engineer to be there, you know, when the time comes, they're not building WiFi four hotspots today, right? They're definitely building the newer ones. The antenna that they're building will be at the capacity of what is reasonable for the bandwidth, et cetera . They want in theory, again, have to be in real world testing, but they are building to that target rather than building to last year's target or even a today target. Marine Sabbath We'll see it is an interesting challenge and also , you know, that I doubt we will argue a little bit of that via Sat going with who is their main provider with the new satellite now covering the Americas, Viasat has sort of promised they're going to open the tap , go from garden hose to fire hose here real fast in terms of available bandwidth. And latency will be a problem still because speed of light hasn't changed and neither has the distance to the satellites. But they think that they actually have a quote from the guy from V iasat was an just interesting one, which is effectively when Gogo was the original provider and then Viasat launched and Viasat was the upstart competitor, Viasat's latency was way higher, but performance was way better than on Gogo. And it's because they had more band width available. And there are some things that are very specifically latency sensitive, but not everything . And Biospat has had to dial down how much bandwidth is available because they didn't have enough satellite capacity. And now that they're going to sort of open the floodgates to the fire h ose again . They are reasonably confident that with the latency not dropping , just being able to put massively more amounts of bandwidth on any given airplane will be enough to make people happy with their performance. I am skeptical of that, but that's one of the things they've said, and we're going to see how that goes. Time will tell . Yep . United some issues with their new seven hundred and eighty seven s with the new polaris . One of them is kind of is back at the shop at Boeing to have some problems worked out . Yeah, like the this is one hundred and one, which was the first polaris with the new config, a new first seventy nine with the new polaris config . And it did the outbound and then the return from Sing apore cancelled, then it did a flight to London and the flight from London cancelled. And both times they had to ferry it back. So it's been a problem shell from the beginning. And at this point after sitting around for a few weeks, they flew it to Moses Lake yesterday on Saturday. This reminds me a lot of Americans first seven point eight nine with their premium config last year , which was having all sorts of weird cancellations or what have you. And I believe this is the same plane that that Reddit post with the flood references . Like where the water in the bathrooms like yeah, it overflows. Like coming out of the sidewall or something, right? Yeah . Yeah, where they took the sidewall off and they still couldn't figure out what was where it was coming from. Oh, interesting. I mean, this plane's like been going to Singapore and then canceling or delaying and then three days later it'll, finally make the fl ight back . And it's causing I think it's causing just a lot of problems operationally for them. So I wonder why it's just one plane though. Don't they have multiples of these ? They do, but I mean, maybe this is the worst offender? Or maybe they're gonna go through all of 'em, but this is the one that they want to get in first. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like Boeing called Lemon Law, and Boeing, United called Lemon Law on this . Take it back. Take a minute. We want our money man, that sucks . Project Sunrise . Seth, did you put this in here? I did. You did. What's the story here? Well, I mean, Quantas has slowly been releasing more details at sunrise . And some of the things that popped out is they reduced the committed pitch in economy so it'll be cramper than they said . Some of the projections have them flying northeast out of Sydney over Alaska and over the North Pole to London. This is my favorite part. They're planning a North Pole route . And they had an interview there's an interview floating around on Instagram that I have a link to with a pilot talking about it and it's like, you know, we've got this new software that's helped us optimize flight planning and it's, you know, analyze the winds and the weather forecasts and everything else for duration of the flight to try to pick what's the best route to go . And there are scenarios during the northern winter season where the jet stream is pushing so strong that a polar route from Sydney delivering a northern arrival over Scotland London will be the most efficient . And all I can say to the Earth must be a really weird shape. Garth is a very weird shape. I wish there was a way to map that effectively. Like what the flight path looks like? Yeah, 'cause like, you know, the Europe the Japan to Europe flights typically like thread the needle up through Alaska and then go over the North Pole to wherever their destination is in Europe . So that I can see. But doing it over the Pacific , what numbers is basically just that. You fly to Japan and then you keep going . I mean, it's a lot like the New York to Singapore flights, right? They generally just go east. Yeah, true. Strong enough. Yeah . I mean, the thing I wonder about is like, does this also have to do with they're not operationally confident in airspace going westbound ? I mean it's possible, but they're definitely going to have more headwinds going west. True. Yeah. Right. So and then the other thing, they quietly dropped Melbourne from their plans. It's just Sydney . Really? Yeah . What was the rumor that they were going to do at Melbourne? Just Heathrow or Heathrow and JFK? Actually, I'm not sure. I think maybe it was just Heathrow, but yeah, now it's just Sydney JFK and Sydney London . And London will be first . Interesting . And then it's going to start in Nocto twenty twenty seven. That's the plan. That's the current plan. We talked a couple of weeks ago about how, you know, aircraft delivery was delayed and whatnot. And then like a couple of days later, Airbus went out and put it on a first flight . So there's also I think they had some folks out to Toulouse to tour sort of cabin mock ups and stuff like that . First class cabin or first class suites, six seats in a one hundred one setup and it's both a chair and a bed . So decent amount of space for your twenty hours on board . ten something odd, what is it ten thousand five hundred seventy three miles from Sydney to London He,athrow go if to they the west bound route. I mean, that's that's wild . Yeah Any I mean, you think we'll be able to find reward space on this faze . If you can't find Perth to Heathrow, you're not going find to space . Yeah, anything else you guys want to talk about ? No, I think that's good. Sweet. All right, for our patreon subscribers, we're going to talk a little bit about United's XLRs and some changes there , new drinks for Alaska and WestJet and KLM with some A three hundred fifty ' s with an interesting twist on them. Alaska cutting some leisure routes and a nerd route. So stick around for that if you're Patreon supporter. If not, thanks for listening and we will talk to you next time, happy travels. Take care . I have one more thing . Oh crap Steve Jobs. Sorry, just one more thing. Just a reminder that the three of us are going to be at the Points Travel Festival of Portland, twenty twenty sixth on july thirty first, august first, that weekend in Portland, Oregon. Drinking Beer with Steven and, I guess some of you will probably drink coffee with Steven too, but I won't . And you should come hang out with us and we will see you there. Yeah, I forgot about that. Thank you for reminding me.