=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2004/04= /04/TRG2E5U5681.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, April 4, 2004 (SF Chronicle) Coast-to-coast comparison: Flying the frugal skies Jane Engle, Los Angeles Times Time was, Southwest was the only discount airline most people knew. No more. The "bus of the skies" has a host of imitators, all promising low fares and high fun. Now the question is this: Who really delivers? To find out, I recently rode four self-proclaimed low-cost carriers -- Delta's Song, JetBlue, United's Ted and Southwest -- plus United on a cross- country barnstorming tour to compare service, entertainment options, food, comfort levels, fares and more. My main impression of these five: Song was a standout, with its cheerful= ly corny crew, wacky color scheme and gourmet food. JetBlue pulled up second. As for the rest, I found little difference in the flying experience -- or sometimes even fares -- from one to the next. I chose a route that would take me from Los Angeles to the East Coast and back: Song from Los Angeles International Airport to Orlando, Fla.; JetBlue from Orlando to Boston; United from Boston to Denver; Ted from Denver to Las Vegas; and Southwest from Las Vegas to LAX. This was not a scientific sampling, certainly. Trip legs varied from 4 1= /2 hours on Song and United to an hour on Southwest. I wasn't able to taste full menus on all flights. Even within the same airline, different crews may give different service. Fares, of course, shift constantly. So I can report only what I found on my flights, detailed in the order flown:. Song Delta launched this low-cost carrier last April on a fashionable note: Kate Spade designer crew duds, organic buy-on-board menu by former W Hotel chef Michel Nischan and seatback TVs. All this plus extra legroom. The airline shuttles mainly between the Northeast and Florida but also flies nonstop to Florida from the West, including Los Angeles. Its promise, on its Web site: "The song is personal. It's unique. Memorable. And brings a smile to your face." It does just that, for the most part. The LAX gate crew for my morning Song nonstop to Orlando was subdued. But at 54B next door, a Song agent regaled -- or tormented -- his captive audience with jokes such as: "Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Shelby." "Shelby who?" "Shelby coming around the mountain when she comes." Inside the squeaky-clean B757 cabin, where the color scheme was bright blue with lime, purple and orange accents, the good humor carried through to the safety audio, set to salsa music. "You're lucky," the crew told us: We were on one of the first Song planes to be wired for live satellite TV, with 24 channels. You pay for food, and it's not cheap. But my gourmet vegan sandwich, a 7- inch-diameter lavash stuffed with grilled vegetables, tofu and rice, was worth the $8, and the Song Sunrise (vodka, orange juice and a splash of cran-apple), $5, wasn't bad either. Neither was my one-way fare: $129.10 (including taxes), the lowest in the market the day I booked it.. JetBlue This 4-year-old, New York-based carrier has enjoyed a meteoric rise, powered by low fares, roomy leather seats and 24 channels of satellite TV beamed to every seatback. It flies to 23 cities in 11 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, with a West Coast hub in Long Beach. In Northern California, it offers service from Oakland and soon will fly out of Sacramento and San Jose. It also sports a breezy, cheeky style. Directing us to pick up headphones from a box before boarding, the gate agent in Orlando announced, "They're free now. But if you get on the plane, they're $5,000." By comparison, the crew on our A320 to Boston played it straight. But flying was still fun. My TV monitor worked, with occasional audio glitches. Guides to travel manners ("Be nice"; "Pack your own meal") and "Airplane Yoga, or how to look like a real weirdo to your fellow passengers," were clever. The downside on my nearly three-hour flight: no magazines and skimpy, albeit free, food offerings. The latter included the airline's reduced-fat "blue" potato chips, party mix and cookies. There was no buy-on-board program. The cabin was a vision in gray; I missed Song's hues. However, my one-way fare was $87.60, lowest in the market when I booked.. United Airlines This industry giant, which traces its roots to a 1926 air-mail service, = is the largest U.S. airline under bankruptcy protection. United has cut costs, reduced some business fares, launched a low-cost carrier named Ted and made other changes to try to pull out of its financial tailspin. At Boston's Logan airport, I checked in for my 9 p.m. flight to Denver at one of the self-serve kiosks. The remaining staff tagged bags and processed customers with paper tickets. The gate agents were efficient and cheerful, although devoid of knock- knock jokes -- a mercy, perhaps. Ditto for the onboard crew. The mostly gray cabin of our B757 showed some fatigue: Worn seatback pockets were stuffed with unwrapped headphones and well-thumbed airline and Sky Mall magazines. I missed having a personal TV, although "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," screened on drop-down cabin monitors, was a classy film offering. My main complaint was legroom. With the seat in front reclined, my knees cleared the seatback by barely 2 inches, less than half the gap on Song and JetBlue. I'm 5 feet, 7 inches tall. No wonder 6-footers scramble for bulkhead and exit-row seats. There was no free food on my 4 1/2-hour flight, another "frill" that the once-glamorous majors are eliminating to compete with their low-cost cousins. But my $7 chicken Caesar salad wrap, bought onboard, was ample and tasty. Except for legroom, United delivered a good flying experience. As for the fare: Had I booked JetBlue, I could have flown for $87.50 instead of the $127.60 I paid on United.. Ted I had high hopes for a fun date with Ted, the low-cost operation that United launched in February from its new Denver hub. Sporting white, blue and orange plumage, Ted, which takes its name from the last three letters of United, is "warm, friendly and casual," according to its publicity. It also seemed aggressively trendy. The onboard "Tedevision" and "Tedtunes" entertainment was getting enthusiastic reviews from teens. But I was mostly disappoin-Ted. The Denver gate agent told me there would be no meals because the one- hour, 49-minute flight was too short to qualify. (On longer flights, you can buy $7 club sandwiches and salmon Caesar salads.) At the gate, there was a forest of orange signs, offering cheery greetin= gs such as "It's a great day to be flying," and "Ted is happy to see you." But onboard, it was much like flying United, with its pleasant but business-like crew and cramped legroom. Plus one unsettling oversight: a used tissue in my seatback pocket. Ted's entertainment was hipper, of course. There was no seatback satelli= te TV, but drop-down monitors showed a Liz Phair music video, a profile of teen singer-actress Mandy Moore, an episode of NBC's "Scrubs" comedy and other shows. Music on 14 channels ranged from retro to house and trance mixes. We got little bags of party mix and beverages, including what Ted touts as Starbucks coffee. On the upside, Ted delivered the lowest fare of the five carriers I compared, $179.10, matching low-cost competitor Frontier.. Southwest Airlines This granddaddy of discount carriers, launched in 1971 from Texas, pioneered "flying for peanuts" with a sense of humor. Although Southwest's flights, once regional, now stretch from coast to coast, you'll still get only peanuts on shorter sojourns, and you won't get a reserved seat. Just hope you get into Boarding Group A. But Southwest is looking a little tired these days, judging from the packed, hourlong flight I took from Las Vegas to Los Angeles International. The repairman apparently hadn't made a recent pass through our B737 cabi= n. My reading light didn't work. The seat in front was locked in half-recline. A couple nearby shifted seats, complaining they couldn't turn off the arctic blast from their air vent. Although the crew was pleasant enough, they weren't funny. Not one corny joke or silly guessing game. Just the standard safety announcements. I was grateful for my two bags of free peanuts and an apple juice -- and for my $47.60 fare, the lowest on the day I'd booked it. Southwest still gets that right. But for me, on this trip, there was little difference between flying Southwest or United or Ted. Allison Zahorik, a Southern Californian handbag designer who was in Las Vegas for business, is a fan of Southwest, having been on flights with more typically jolly crews. "I like the people," she said. "They make a lot of jokes and make you fe= el comfortable." For a less-than-avid flier like her, "it makes a huge difference," she said. I hope the airlines are listening customers like her. Flying, after all, was once fun. As Song and JetBlue prove, it still can be, even when done on the cheap. -------------------------------------------------------------= --------- Copyright 2004 SF Chronicle