Change is bad.  It’s how you get New Coke, wilted tulips, and other sundry destroyed icons.  American announced their rebranding this morning:

It’s been compared to Air France and Cubana.

The livery has already been painted a 737.

Photo Courtesy of FlightAware.com

The current livery had been in use for over 40 years with a Helvetica typeface.  What more could a traveler want?

US CBP recently entered into a partnership with the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service to permit Global Entry members (as well as NEXUS/Sentri members with GE) to use Australia’s electronic passport gates.

While I’m obviously 16 years of age, my 7 year old passport is showing its age… by lacking the RFID chip necessary to use the electronic gates.

Admittedly, much of my discussion on this blog frequently focuses on very first world problems.  For example, my upgrade did not clear on my American flight to San Francisco last night.  (It’s hard to complain when I was on a $109.40 all-in fare.)

Meanwhile, United moved its computer systems over to premerger Continental’s to provide a unified passenger system.  My miles, upgrades, and reservations transfered flawlessly while they did not for others.

colpuck on FlyerTalk reminds us that if (temporarily) losing our miles is the worst thing that can happen to us, we’re in pretty good shape:

Last night while we were fretting over the system merger and deciding whether or not the world would come to and end it actually did for some. Tornadoes moved through AL, KY, and IN killing 73 people. Greg Cook hugs his dog Coco after finding her inside his destroyed home in the East Limestone, Ala. on Friday, March 2, 2012. A reported tornado destroyed several houses in northern Alabama as storms threatened more twisters across the region Friday (AP Photo/The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr.) Mr. Cook has his dog and we have our airline. We have all lost some and we have all won some. It is just a question of degrees.

As part of our Boeing tour, we got to visit the Boeing Customer Experience Center.  Since the aircraft interior mockups were not especially realistic–Boeing found whatever seats they could and stuck them inside, I actually found the faux advertising posters in the lobby to be more interesting.

NYBanker of SitInFirst found an excellent video on YouTube about the coach experience.

After a massive media frenzy in August, American Airlines found Jack the Cat this evening, safe and well.

The Wall Street Journal discusses how “20-Somethings Rack Up Frequent-Flier Miles to Take Far-Flung Journeys; Flying to Fiji for Lunch” in its Middle Seat column.

The passenger security fee might be going up as part of Obama’s deficit reduction program.  Matthew at Upgrd reminds us of the bits of the TSA we don’t need:  whole body imaging.

“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The USA Today reports “at least five…flights were disrupted Sunday because of security concerns.”  Racial profiling is alive and well.  It’s a sad sign of the times when not filing charges for suspicious behavior is newsworthy.

Sadly, national calamities have been better handled without long-lasting disruption to civil liberties.

There’s plenty of anecotal views on how to best board an airplane.  A new paper showed up in the arXiv last week with experimental results (albeit with limited sample size) for different strategies.  Randomized boarding beat back-to-front and the block-based method.  Window-middle-aisle (“Wilma”) came in at about 30 seconds faster, but with a sample size of 1 it’s not necessarily statistically significant.  The “Steffan” method of boarding, which boards passengers at every other row together, came in slightly faster.

There’s a video on Youtube of their method.

I’m in Washington D.C. this weekend.  In lieu of as-I-go hotel reports, I offer up an ad from the U.S. Mint on the DC Metro:

Sadly, the Mint killed off the credit card-based direct ship program recently; otherwise, I would be happy to use $1 coins.

In the movie Up in the Air, Ryan Bingham describes the rewards that come with accumulating 10 million American Airlines miles.  As in the movie, American counts all mileage for lifetime status purposes including elite bonuses and credit card miles, at least for now.  Yesterday, Tom Stuker put the finishing touches on flying 10 million butt-in-seat miles with United Airlines.

United named another plane after him.  Previously, N770UA, a Boeing 777-222 was painted with “Thomas R. Stuker, Customer.”

I got bit by the travel bug about nine months ago when I was about to start my senior year of college. Since then, I’ve graduated and moved to New York to work as a research scientist. For now, I’m flying on American Airlines with Platinum status and United Airlines with Premier Executive status. As a result, I’m bound to emphasize One World and the Star Alliance in my travels far more than Skyteam or independent carriers.

This year, I’m aiming to fly about 125,000 paid miles between the two programs for the year.

At first glance, that 125,000 mile goal could appear lofty and, more importantly, rather expensive. Had someone told me I would be doing this any earlier than eight months ago, I would have thought the same, but nothing could further from the truth. Planning my trips so that they are sanely priced is part of fun, just as the little nuances of the airport and the airplane enrich the experience do (at least for me).

Chris