Filip Filipov

I shamelessly stole (actually, saved on my desktop) an image from my facebook news feed. Ivo Parashkevov, a dear friend, is currently a Barbarian at the Gate (works for KKR) and as part of his job, he travels a lot. I assume he captured this door tag at one of the hotels (not sure about the name).

Smart and witty design of something as boring as a door tag, which usually reads “Do not disturb” at best. Check this one out! The cleaning staff wouldn’t care. But the guest will. Viral!

A Long Shot: Adria Airways and Croatia Airlines Becoming One?
I stumbled upon this article randomly, but it definitely grabbed my attention.
A marriage between the two carriers (which is a long shot) will definitely follow the industry trend of consolidation and eventually might even make sense, in light of the new route openings for LCC heavy-weights Ryanair and easyJet (even Wizz in that region). As the Brits say: we’ll suck it and see.
Article: http://bit.ly/9KKoxA

eDreams Changs Hands from TA Associates to Permira
Spanish OTA eDreams has changed hands, according to the FT and Mr. May from Tnooz. The majority stake was sold by US-based TA Associates (which bought the OTA in 2006 for about $150 million) to Permira, a UK-based PE firm. The deal is rumored to be in the range of $300 million.
That doesn’t come as a surprise. While the big boys in the OTA business are definitely expanding, there is only a handful of sites really serving the Spanish-speaking world. A few, worth mentioning, include Terminal A Despegar, and eDreams. While eDreams does not specifically focus on Latin America, it wouldn’t be a stretch to move into that market, especially as payment methods improve and allow more pax to not only look, but also book online.
Mr. May says it all: http://bit.ly/abC8j3

Industry Notables
LH posts a profit of $252 million for Q2, but remains in the red for H1 2010 – $135. Reason? Pilot strike and volcano ash. http://bit.ly/9yH1qd

Boeing sees a sharp decline in profit, down 21% YoY. Stops the chronometer for Q2 at $787 million. Delivery decline and tapered defense contracts. http://bit.ly/a6jtMm

China Southern expecting a 5,000% increase YoY on H1 2010 results. A definite wow! http://bit.ly/aH8GQV

easyJet reports a rise in revenue for Q3 ending in June, sets the mark at $1.2 Billion. Increase in passengers is also a worth mentioning – up 3.5% to stand at 12. 3 million pax carried for the quarter. http://bit.ly/amiV8w
– New CEO Carolyn McCall, focuses on fighting Gatwick delays as first item on the “To Do” list. http://bit.ly/9eSiVb

Hawaiian posts $9 million for Q2 2010, down from $27.5 YoY. Numbers expected, argues CEO Mark Dunkerley, mentions the inauguration of two A330. http://bit.ly/bp7okD

LAN hits a solid profit of $60.6 million for Q2, up from $4.2 in Q2 2009. http://bit.ly/ceUltk

Alaska, Horizon start code-sharing with Icelandair, syncing FFPs. http://bit.ly/aFmET0

SpiceJet, Mr. Lund’s favorite airline, heads for international flights. http://bit.ly/9QPBso

TAM orders 25 Airbus planes, puts total number of Airbus planes on order at 176. http://bit.ly/duVhJd

Have a Laugh
To those who fly first/business class: an Air France flight attendant goes through carry-on luggage of asleep passengers. After allegations, she admitted to at least 26 separate occasions when she picked the luggage of the high flyers. http://bit.ly/9WtI2L

A few weeks ago we mentioned that a US Airways pilot was caught snapping up-skirt photos of a teenage girl. He is now on probation. A bit of a disheartening fact is that prior to being a pilot, he was a high-school bus driver. http://bit.ly/dCtQ1u

The European Commission Clears CO-UA Merger
The European Commission is surprisingly going full-speed in the summer season, approving one major deal after another and giving its nod on anti-trust issues. Continental – United announced their intention to merge a couple of months ago and dedicated a website to inform shareholders and the media on the perceived value (http://bit.ly/cYgUjw).

Now, the EU Commission has cleared the proposed merger, claiming that the combined airline will not create an anti-competitive environment. The DOJ is on the case and finally, if the shareholders are happy, the new airline (which will bear the name United and have the Continental logo) will control about 7% of the world’s seat capacity, serve north of 140 million passengers from/to 370 destinations in 59 countries. http://bit.ly/bssTrV

In a separate announcement, the CO-UA team published the new org chart at the top. CEO will be CO’s current Chief Executive Mr. Smisek, Mr. Rowe from Continental will be CFO, and Mr. McDonald from United will become the COO. Take a look here for the full list: http://bit.ly/9Qp7yy

One more CO-related piece: Continental is testing a self-boarding procedure at Houston International – the logic follows the NYC subway (or any other subway for that matter) – you scan your own boarding pass and board the plane (instead of an airline rep doing it for you). Of course, there will be a staff member to ensure the process runs smoothly. That will definitely speed up the boarding process, but it will go through security evaluation before it is universally applied for all CO flights.  http://bit.ly/bdl7DR

Industry Notables
A short follow-up on yesterday’s story on Air Berlin and OneWorld – yesterday, Air Berlin formally accepted the invitation to join OneWorld. Expected date: as early as 2012. http://bit.ly/cIUSRh

Ryanair’s CEO Mr. O’Leary hints at a trans-Atlantic venture in 2015, sells 5 m of his shares for EURO 20 million. http://bit.ly/cF4Q8q

Air France/KLM Group posts $953 million net profit, a results driven by the gain of ~$1.4 Billion from selling the 23.1% stake at Amadeus (gone public in Spain on April 29th). http://bit.ly/aon2FZ

Embraer signs a major deal with FlyBe worth $5 Billion – 35 Embraer 175s sold directly at the Farnborough International Airshow, 65 options and about 40 purchase rights. http://bit.ly/cA0CYX

Vueling quadruples profit YoY, takes pride in $17.5 million for Q2 2010. The gains come after the merger with Clickair and the consolidation of the BCN hub (now already geared to handle connects between two VY flights). http://bit.ly/dcxWaA

Have a Laugh
Take a look at some of the ugliest airports in the world (courtesy of Mr. Terziev). http://bit.ly/9D1cGR

Good stuff from yesterday, a lot of interesting items.

Air Berlin to Join OneWorld

What an impressive run OneWorld has seen over the last two weeks. Air Berlin is expected to get an official invitation by OneWorld today (Tuesday) to join the alliance and get access to additional destinations through the extensive network of the smallest airline network.

The invitation seems logical – AB is already in a partnership with Russian carrier S7 (expected to join

OneWorld with full rights by the end of 2010) and the AA/BA/IB carrier doesn’t really have a good partnership in Germany. A few slots might be cut off, especially at TXL, but overall, that will open the door to one of the biggest markets in the world.
Article: http://bit.ly/abSIEi

India’s No. 1 OTA Files for IPO

Just turning 10 this year, the biggest Indian OTA is headed for an IPO at Nasdaq (ticker MMYT). MakeMyTrip claims to have captured over 50% of domestic and international travel and takes pride for being ahead of Yatra.com (No. 2) and Cleartrip.com (No. 3).

The pre-money market caps puts the company at $400 million (a nice exit for the investors – the Tiger Fund, Sierra Ventures, SAIF, and Hellion Venture Partners — a combined three-round investment of $40 m). MakeMyTrip has not been profitable, but the registered losses in a troubled industry do not seem to scare off interest – about $10 m in the red for 2009 and expected $6 m in 2010.
Article: http://bit.ly/96F53I

Industry Notables

Sabre, Amadeus, and Travelport conspicuously come up with exactly the same wording on Dennis Schaal’s request to comment whether they will be joining the Open AXIS Group. http://bit.ly/bpvKYZ

Singapore Airlines hits $184.7 m in profit for Q2 2010, focused on full-year profitability and maybe a change of guard – Mr. Chew Choon Seng, SQ’s CEO, might be stepping down in December, 2010. http://bit.ly/bpvKYZ

Qunar.com, the biggest Chinese meta-search engine, tests a network management tool in partnership with Nokia. http://bit.ly/aYqppY

jetBlue praises Sabre for SabreSonic, happy that the host system allows them complicated pricing for Extra

Legroom Seats. The airline listed about $2 million in SabreSonic-related expenses in their Q2 2010 statement. http://bit.ly/a37D7B
– see jetBlue’s snack packs offered on flights that are more than 3 h and 45 min. http://bit.ly/cYhA5b

Tiger Airways leads the way in Ancillary revenue as percentage of total revenue (19.4%) in Asia. http://bit.ly/aUdIo4

Aer Lingus on track to achieve full-year profitability. http://bit.ly/djUuPj

Have a Laugh (or a few)

SouthWest, in an attempt to curb yet another social media flurry, bumps a skinny lady in order to accommodate an overweight passenger, requiring 2 seats. http://bit.ly/9x516F

Ryanair passenger complains about food, gets arrested upon landing. http://bit.ly/9WcYzE

Delta passenger posts a video on youtube after DL plane was kept on the tarmac for 3 hours without any air conditioning. Check out how much the guy is sweating. http://bit.ly/9dKteO

I have to admit that telcos are always ahead of the curve in terms of inspirational and impressive ads. This one, produced for Movistar, is a gem, especially given that it is not for a country with too many mobile users (compared to Luxembourg, where, according to statistics, there are 141 mobile phones per 100 people).

I’ve been trying to press this post for quite a while now and I haven’t had the time to get my thoughts together. Now I think I got them, even though at almost 2 am, that is doubtful.Anyhow, maybe my insomniac musings wouldn’t be that bad at the end.

After numerous complaints about the antenna problems, an expected news event and expected answers by Apple, and still a shortage and wait-lists at the Apple stores, I think everyone is convinced that the iPhone 4 is here to stay. What got my attention was the new (now already old) iPhone 4 Face Time ads. Out of the five TV spots, 4 are heavily family oriented and one related to a relationship communication (HairCut). So, after spinning the iPad as a device that family members can share and pretty much leave on the kitchen table, now the iPhone is targeting (or at least, the Face Time function) family communication and sharing. The catch here, of course, is that Face Time works only on an iPhone-to-iPhone basis, so if you want to see how your kids “are really doing” at college, you have to make sure your entire family uses the 30-pin cable to charge their mobile devices.

There definitely will be new players trying to get into the iPhone video call game through apps (which will be duly banned, with the exception of probably a couple in order to keep the app store competitive – I am assuming Fring and Skype) and Apple will definitely expand the Face Time footprint to all its devices, substituting iChat. I bet that when that happens, the Face Time ads will include a bunch of double-Windsor-knot colleagues around the world that do video conferencing to close business deals (naturally, the characters will include members of the countries that speak the UN official languages), and boom – a new business communication feature, competing with Cisco’s WebEx and Skype’s screen-sharing functions.

But it could be that I am all wrong and even though I sound a bit bitter, I have to say that I am a huge Apple fanboy, so here are my positive 2 cents. Finally, we see Face Time TV spots that make sense (as opposed to the initial blurb, where we saw a weird stream of frames showing people that wave and smile at each other, but didn’t talk). Enjoy!

APPLE IPHONE 4 FACE TIME

So the story goes like this: a guy, working for Best Buy, decides to use an amazing program XTRA NORMAL and create an almost true representation of iPhone buyers (myself included) v. customer reps. The dialogue is brutally funny and edgy and the video’s hitmark is already north of 4,000,000 views (also, supporting the guys from XTRA NORMAL, who have nearly 9 m created projects).

Apparently, the young pal’s job might be in danger for what he is doing during his free time, but that kind of creativity should be supported. Enjoy!

An inspiration and arguably the best basketball player of all times, MJ was (and still is) featured in a myriad of commercials, most notably around his basketball shoes series. One of the oldies that has remained on top of my favs of all time is the “Failure” NIKE commercial.

Focus change.

I thought long and hard how to kick off this section and I couldn’t think of a better way than just show you. An amazing ad on how to save lives (or to be more exact – how to save our life and the ones of those around us).

A worthy commercial and great artwork by the director and the team. Most importantly, a powerfully delivered message.

Since the launch of the iPad on April 3rd this year, the iBooks team has definitely taken the time to think about the improvements it needed to make in order to place the iBooks app as real contender in the eReader category. For quite some time Kindle was ahead of the curve, with its functionality including a built-in dictionary, notes input, highlights, and bookmarks. And now iBooks has all of it, too.

I have been power-using the app since the update was released on June 21st and I am glad to outline some of my favorite the features:

• Notes: Long awaited. Now avid readers can take advantage of the Notes functionality within iBooks. It’s easy-to-use, pops-up in a nice, post-it fashion and looks an order of magnitude better than what the Kindle offers in terms of UI.

• Bookmarks: A no-brainer function that needs to be embedded in any eReader – again, easy-to-use, but honestly, you cannot really screw up the bookmark tassel.
• Sepia Background: I personally didn’t find the all-white background too harsh on the eyes, but after using the background for a while, I can see the delta. Kindle had it first, but maybe the next update will go as far as B&N’s app, which allows you to pick any color for your background.
• Sync Across Devices: Quite a useful feature for those of us who continue shuffling between our iDevices. I wonder if/when we will have the iBooks app for Macs as well (highly doubtful anyone will use the retina-display iPhone 4 to really immerse in reading the Brothers Karamazov on the 3.5” display).
• PDF Support: A number of apps already made it easy to read PDFs on the iPad (GoodReader is a stunning app for this), but now Apple has made it even easier. I really enjoy the two separate “shelves” for Books and PDFs and the quality is razor-sharp.

Some features I would love to see:

• Dictionary Export: As non-native speaker, I look up words regularly. Currently, there is no feature that allows you to export the ones you’ve checked in the dictionary so far. I good example of this functionality is the Dictionary app.
• Multi-Language Dictionary: I humbly expect this to be a given as iBooks expands its footprint and starts including books in different languages (Kindle is a good example). That will really take the app to the e-learning universe.
• Note-Export-&-Print: Another feature that can prove useful for students and people who used to read books with a pen. Even saving the notes with the page location in a separate file (PDF or Pages) would be great for last-minute study aids
• Social Media Exports: I know this one might be taking it way too far, but at the same time, we live in the world of digital social sharing – being able to post on facebook a favorite passage will give us a chance to incite more interest in what we read (as opposed to just watch)
• CONTENT: I was debating whether magazines and newspapers should be part of the store as well, but I have decided that a separate app would serve us better – more content, delivered in a new way through interactive magazines and newspapers (and of course, the appropriate charge for the iAds in it). Nevertheless, all of Guttenberg’s children should be on the iBooks store as quickly as possible.

In either case, the software release was expected and appreciated, but the books in the iBooks store really need to add up in order for users to switch to the app and stop supporting multiple eReader platforms on the same device (I personally have B&N, Borders, Kindle and iBooks, with books on all of them). Or maybe not – let the publishers do a perfect arbitrage.