T3E Archives - TravelSkills

First look inside United’s new terminal at SFO

January 24, 2014

New T3E facing toward the main terminal building. This is what you’ll see when deplaning (Chris McGinnis)

United and SFO invited TravelSkills out to the new T3E Boarding Area on Friday for a look-see at the shiny new terminal.

Most of what you read here last month when I wrote about my hardhat tour of T3E still stands, but I’ve added a few more interesting nuggets of interest to TravelSkills Readers, BATs!

Take a look at the slideshow.

Some snippets:

>The first flight out of T3E on Tuesday, Jan 28 will be United flight 286, departing SFO at 7.05 am to New York Kennedy Airport.

>”You’ll find luxury perks in T3E that you’d normally see in a four or five star hotel like lounge seating and a living room feel,” said airport director John Martin

Workspace and power outlets everywhere! (Chris McGinnis)

>There are more than 375 power outlets in T3E.

>The women’s bathroom at T3E has a whopping 26 toilets and its own lounge area bathed in natural light from floor to ceiling windows that are (regrettably) frosted. (But you can peer out around the outer edges!)

>The gates in T3E are numbers 60-69.

>A “temporary” United Club is current under construction in the mezzanine area of Terminal 3.

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>The far end of T3E is closer to SFO runways than any other part of the airport. You can definitely feel the thunder of those jumbos out there!

>”Our new facilities are made for those who want to power up…or power down.” United CEO Jeff Smisek commenting on the abundance of power plugs and the terminal’s yoga room. (T2 also has a yoga room.)

Best seat in the house lies between Gate 65 and 66. Love that view! Feel the rumble of 747’s! (Chris McGinnis)

>The best seat in the house is out by Gate 66. You can sit at a table and look out and watch 747’s roar by as they take off for Asia. Best time: around 2pm.

Take a look at the slideshow.

>”We designed the space so arriving passengers would immediately feel like they are in San Francisco as soon as they get off the plane.” Architect Art Gensler (Gensler’s firm also designed SFO’s T2 which has a similar impact on arriving passengers.)

>For now, you cannot enter T3E from the curb. Passengers departing from T3E will enter at current security checkpoints, the proceed down a long corridor to T3E. However, arriving passengers may exit T3E at the curb (upstairs) or take escalators down to baggage claim exits.

— Chris McGinnis

And just in case you missed it, here’s what else you need to know about Bay Area Travel over the last month:

United’s state of the union

New Year. New credit card?

American & US Airways at T2 + Sonoma airport expands + UberX + Delta/Virgin + EVA expands

United transcon bonus + United 787 domestic + Fewer 747s + Delta vs Alaska

The BEST credit cards for TravelSkills Readers

Anticipating T3E + Google Int’l + New Virgin Visa + More Southwest nonstops

Southwest: Blackfish backlash

United: T3E & UA500 & 49ers-Seahawks Game fares

What to do if pulled over by the police [Infographic]

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Anticipating T3E + Google Int’l + New Virgin Visa + More Southwest nonstops

January 18, 2014

It’s been a while since we did a big catch up on Bay Area Travel News. So here goes! Our next three posts will be dedicated to just catching up!

Entering the new Boarding Area E at SFO’s Terminal 3 opens Jan 28!

NEW T3E TERMINAL OPENING. Anticipation is building for the opening of United’s new T3E terminal at SFO on Tues, Jan 28. TravelSkills will post photos shortly after the media preview this Friday (24^th). BAT Editor Chris McGinnis will attend the community day on Saturday (25th), so come out, crawl all over the gorgeous new terminal, and say HEY in person! (Look for that mug to the right>>) Community Day is free, but you must register here first and get tickets. We are still trying to find out what will be United’s first arrival and/or departure on the 28th…but it has not revealed that yet…

The Google 767 will soon move home base from Moffett Field to Google Int'l (Photo: Aero Icarus)

The Google 767 pictured here will soon move home base from Moffett Field to Google Int’l (Photo: Aero Icarus)

GOOGLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. A private airport terminal for Google at San Jose International Airport is set to break ground in February and be complete by late 2015. According to this CNBC story, Google’s top three execs, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are paying for the $82 million facility with their own money—not Google’s. The airport will be able to accommodate up to 60 aircraft (including the Boeing 767 owned by Brin and Page pictured above). Until now, Google has operated its private fleet from Moffett Field under a special agreement with NASA.

BLACKFISH OSCAR SNUB. Remember our recent post about the documentary Blackfish and its controversial ties to Southwest? Well, it appears SeaWorld dodged a bullet last week when the film was NOT selected as a finalist for best documentary by the Academy.

NEW VIRGIN CREDIT CARD. This month Virgin America introduced two cool-looking new Visa Signature cards with some nice bennies. The regular card ($49/year) offers a free first checked bag to you and a travel companion, a $150 discount on one companion ticket per year and 20% off all inflight food and bev purchases. It also provides three Elevate points per dollar spent on Virgin America, and one point for everything else. Spend $1000 in 90 days and you get 10K points. The Premium card ($149/year) includes all the above plus it waives all change and cancellation fees on Virgin flights booked with the card. (However you still must pay any difference in fare, a la Southwest Airlines) Plus, you get 15,000 bonus points if you spend $1000 on the card in the first 90 days. The card also offers up to 15K status points when you hit certain spending tiers each year. That unique benefit of waiving change/cancel fees sounds very nice; however, getting out of the fees is an overly convoluted process according the George Hobica over at AirFareWatchDog.

FREE TV ON SOUTHWEST. Southwest and Dish will continue to offer free inflight TV through the end of 2014. Southwest’s TV is different from other airlines in that you must watch it on your own device—it’s not embedded in the seatback. And we hear varying reports about the quality of the signal. Have you watched TV on Southwest? How’d that go for you?

NEW SOUTHWEST NONSTOPS. Southwest Airlines is adding new nonstop flights between Oakland and Baltimore Washington airport (BWI) starting June 8. Its also adding a second daily nonstop to/from Kansas City on the same date.

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Have you ever heard about TravelSkills—TravelSkills– for frequent travelers? It’s a free local travel blog that I subscribe to. It’s full of helpful news and advice for frequent travelers who live in the Bay Area…just like us. I think it’s definitely something you could use. See “Subscribe” in the upper right margin of the blog, or just sign up right here. Thanks! [ADD: *Your signature*]

— Chris McGinnis

And just in case you missed it, here’s what else you need to know about Bay Area Travel over the last month:

Southwest: Blackfish backlash

United: T3E & UA500 & 49ers-Seahawks Game fares

What to do if pulled over by the police [Infographic]

What winter storm?

12 wishes for better Bay Area travel in 2014

*How to earn a quick 40,000 United miles*

Are you a “data traveler?”

Virgin SFO-LaGuardia + AA’s newest jet + Global Entry delays + more

New terminal at SFO: hard hat tour (photos)

16 brand new, must see NYC hotels

Update: United p.s. fleet SFO-JFK

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United: T3E & UA500 & 49ers-Seahawks Game fares

January 13, 2014

New art installation “Sky” at SFO’s T3E (Photo: SFO)

WE’RE COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS…until the opening of United’s shiny new Boarding Area E in Terminal 3 (with a shiny new acronym: “T3E”). When TravelSkills took a hard hat tour last month, things were still very much under construction, but we are starting to see and hear about more of the finished product, including some of the unusual art installations. Last week United posted a press release about the new terminal (but still has not revealed which flights will be the first to arrive or depart when it opens on Jan 28.) And then there’s this from the San Mateo Daily Journal:

At the waiting area at the end of the terminal lies the suspended light sculpture ‘Sky’ by Merge Conceptual Design. The artist team Franka Diehnelt and Claudia Reisenberger created the sculpture, which is made up of 27 mirror-polished stainless steel spheres of different sizes. The globes are hollow with circular openings oriented at various angles and their interiors are painted a matte blue. They are also illuminated by LED lights to create a soft interior glow, while a computerized program causes these lights to brighten and dim at intervals creating a changing pattern of light.

GETTING BETTER? Included in United’s press release about T3E was a blurb claiming, “United’s operational performance [at SFO] has improved significantly, with baggage-handling reliability up 25 percent in 2013 versus 2012, and ‘controllable delays’ – those not attributed, for example, to inclement weather – down nearly 50 percent for mainline flights and more than 40 percent for regional flights. Satisfaction among San Francisco customers, as measured from post-travel surveys, has increased six-fold since mid-2012.” Then there’s last weeks damning Bloomberg story about how United is still wracked with computer malfunctions affecting its performance. Do you agree with United’s assessment that things have improved at SFO over the last 18 months? Please leave your comments below.

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SEE IT BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE. GET FREE GOGO WIFI. Would you like to see the new Boarding Area E before it opens on Tuesday, Jan 28? Then RSVP for the “T3E Community Day” on Saturday, Jan 25. Attendees can crawl all over the modern new terminal, soak up the new (and old) art installations, check out the terminal’s dramatic runway views, and enjoy food and entertainment for the whole family. It’s from 12 noon until 5 pm—admission is free, but you must reserve a ticket ahead of time. (The first three BATs who submit photos of the new terminal get one free Gogo inflight internet pass! We’ll create a slideshow for the blog with your photos. Send here.)

FORTY NINERS VS SEAHAWKS FARES. As of this morning, fares between Bay Area Airports and Seattle are running in the upper $300’s for those headed to the playoff game scheduled for 3:30 pm Sunday Jan 19. Alaska and Virgin seem to have to lower fares of the bunch, coming in at about $390 for trips northbound on Saturday and southbound on Sunday night. United and Delta nonstops are already priced over $500 roundtrip. Are you going?

Frozen first flight (Photo: SFO)

UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT (INDY) 500. Deep beneath the blizzard of news about the Polar Vortex and how it was affecting air travel, United pulled off the inaugural nonstop flight between SFO and Indianapolis on Tues, Jan 7. As the Airbus A319 readied for departure on time at 1:35 pm, the temperature in Indy hovered at a bitter 4 degrees F and the city was at the tail end of a “level red” emergency, which forbade all driving except for emergencies. Undoubtedly, those flying into SFO from Indy were happy to escape the winter blast and enjoy some of our disturbingly sunny, dry California weather! Clever: The flight number for the IND-SFO leg is UA500 (Think Indy 500 race). The SFO-IND leg is flight UA317– and 317 is the area code for Indianapolis.

— Chris McGinnis

And just in case you missed it, here’s what else you need to know about Bay Area Travel over the last month:

What to do if pulled over by the police [Infographic]

What winter storm?

12 wishes for better Bay Area travel in 2014

*How to earn a quick 40,000 United miles*

Are you a “data traveler?”

Virgin SFO-LaGuardia + AA’s newest jet + Global Entry delays + more

New terminal at SFO: hard hat tour (photos)

16 brand new, must see NYC hotels

Update: United p.s. fleet SFO-JFK

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