The last Formula-1 race of the season was the first ever Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. The state-of-the-art, brand new circuit at Yas Island hosted the already World Champions Brawn GP team and Jenson Button, but from a sponsorship point of view – Etihad Airways took it all.

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The champion Brawn GP started out this season as a new team, with practically no sponsors. The first to sign up was Virgin and we were hoping to see some Virgin Atlantic or other Virgin airlines branding on those cars at some point in the season – which did not really happen. On the other hand, the Abu Dhabi based Etihad Airways has been actively participating in Formula-1 – as an on-car sponsor of Scuderia Ferrari – showing Etihad logos on the front and tail wings of the car, the helmets of the drivers and also on the shoulder of the drivers’ overalls.

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Etihad was also the naming sponsor of the first “2009 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix” – which they have used as a truly worldwide global campaign opportunity. All those who have watched the race have seen the Etihad logos all around the circuit on static displays as well as on dynamic giant LCD displays.

Special Aircraft Liveries

And where can an airline advertise any more visible than on its own aircraft? Etihad Airways has prepared two special livery airplanes over the last year to support its high profile involvement with the first ever Abu Dhabi Formula-1 Grand Prix. The intercontinental ambassador of Etihad is an Airbus A340-600 (registration: A6-EHJ), the currently largest airplane of Etihad that has been carrying a special livery for almost a year that has a shaded background (from white through red to black) and shows a checkered flag on its tail.

Etihad has also designed a special livery for one of its smaller planes, an Airbus A320 (registration: A6-EIB), also known as “Etihad’s Black Jet”. The plane is painted in full black livery, with a Formula-1 car on its tail

Congratulations to Etihad for showing the world how to use Formula-1 for a truly, global promotion campaign! 

by balint01

Australian oneworld member Qantas is already operating 4 Airbus A380s, and is awaiting two more for delivery in late 2009. Now Qantas is offering a very special experience aboard this very special aircraft: Sightseeing flights above the all-white, mysterious Antarctica – the world of endless ice and snow. Now a few hundred travelers will have the chance to take a very special look at it from above, from the warm and luxurious flight deck of a Qantas A380 – the largest passenger jet ever flown.

Qantas will operate three sightseeing flights over Antarctica during the Southern summer with its new A380. It is partnering with Antarctica Sightseeing Flights of Melbourne once again, with whom they have previously provided similar special flights aboard Boeing 747-400s.  The idea originally came from New Zealand, where Air New Zealand provided similar flights in the ’70s, until November 28, 1979, when one of its McDonnell Douglas DC-10’s tragically crashed into Mt. Erebus on Antarctica. It took many years before Qantas paired up with Croydon Travel in 1994 for their first scenic Antarctica flight. They have safely operated 85 flights over the 15 years taking more than 30,000 people to experience the world’s ‘last great wilderness’ during this one and a half decade. In contrast to the 30,000 people flown above it, this continent has given birth to only one human in 1978 and has only around 1,000 researchers living on its soil year-round (but nobody is registered there).

The first A380 flight is scheduled for takeoff on December 31, 2009 from Melbourne, the second on January 24, 2010 from Sydney. There will be third Antarctic flight on February 14 from Melbourne, but with a Boeing 747. The New Year’s Eve flight will be under the command of Capt. John Dennis, who has flown more than 40 of Qantas’ 85 747 flights to the ice, and both others will be commanded by a senior Qantas Captain who had flown at least once to Antarctica. The most frequently used route takes the aircraft over the icecap, the South Magnetic Pole, the French scientific base at Dumont d’Urville and finally the spectacular Trans-Antarctic Range. Approval has been secured for 19 Antarctic flight routes, with final selection based upon weather and viewing opportunities.

All flights include two meals with the on board experience enhanced by a panel of experts, including world accredited Antarctic scientists, glaciologists, explorers, adventurers & mountaineers. On to top of the view from the windows, the on board entertainment system would show the live picture of the panorama from the cockpit.  The passengers of the “New Year’s Eve Midnight Sun Party Flight” will be the first to see the sun in 2010– as it will be full daylight at 12.01am over the ice – and the flight will feature dancing in the aisles to the music of a live jazz band.

The flights take about 3 hours to reach the first icebergs of Antarctica, followed by four hours flying above the continent and another 4 to reach Australia again – totaling an average flight time of between 11-13 hours. When over Antarctica the plane flies at approximately 10,000 feet above sea level as this altitude provides excellent viewing while still respecting the wildlife habitats at sea level. The aircraft flies in long sweeping ‘figure 8s’ over various points of interest to allow the spectacular sights to be viewed from both sides of the aircraft. Passenger will be given two boarding passes and will have to switch seats half-way through the flight. This means that all passengers (except the ones flying in Economy Centre or Business Centre seats) will have a window seat at least for half of the flight. Given that there is no dark at night over Antarctica during the Southern summer time, it doesn’t really matter which half of the flight you have the window seat. The seatmap is available here.

Fares for this unforgettable experience start from AUD999 (USD899) for the Economy Class Centre seats and go up through 6 other seat-types to the First Class seats for AUD 6,299 (USD 5,667).

by balint01

This probably the most exciting interior decorating idea related to aviation. The folowing bar counter was made of a real Pratt & Whitney Boeing 747 jet engine.

Each custom fabricated piece includes a 1/2” tempered glass top, supported by mirror polished aluminum stand-offs.  Behind the bar includes a hardwood bar counter top with bottom shelves for storage.  Available in multiple finishes including mirror polished.

If you like this one, you should check out this very exciting website I have just found via Born Rich blog.

By Szafi

After all the bad news we read earlier about Bombardier’s Q400 – also called Dash 8, now there’s some fun about them.

Malev, the Hungarian airline company initiated an aircraft livery design contest. The finalists were selected by a smaller jury that includes Mr Laszlo Zsoter, the designer of the present Malev livery. Malev’s planes are sometimes called Blue Nose among planespotters. If you take a look at this picture, you will understand why.

Malev Q400

Now you can visit Malev’s site and vote for the design you like the most. Don’t miss it, it’s fun! Here are some examples:

By Nora Vera Csovari

By Szabolcs Kozicz

By Gabor Tamas Nemeth

By Szafi

Again a year passed and it is 9/11 again, the black day of civil aviation.

I will not repeat myself. It’s a sad day. Let’s light a candle for them!

By Szafi

Following 7.5 years of operations and almost half a year of struggling to find an investor, SkyEurope Airlines has announced its bankruptcy this morning on the website of the Vienna Stock Exchange, which also means the immediate suspension of all of their flights.

We have reported earlier that a SkyEurope plane had been held up in Paris in July, then all of their Vienna flights were moved to Bratislava just two weeks ago, and earlier on Monday the company cancelled all flights from Slovakia until midnight on Monday, facing a suspension in flights from the Czech capital of Prague starting on Tuesday due to outstanding bills. Then the (not-so) shocking news saw the light this morning: SkyEurope Airlines went bankrupt. This means all of its fleet is grounded, all of its passengers are left behind wherever they may be at the moment.

The final request for the bankruptcy procedure came from the advisor overlooking Slovakian SkyEurope’s financial restructuring. Due to this, ALL OF SKYEUROPE’s flights are CANCELLED with IMMEDIATE EFFECT. Some reports claim their staff has not received their salary for some time, and it still owes a large sum of money for Bratislava Airport for the fuel they have used in recent weeks. SkyEurope first flew on February 13, 2002 and last flew on August 31, 2009.

When clicking on the banner that reads “SkyEurope suspends its operations”, you get to a page with the following text:

“Dear Guests,
Please be advised that SkyEurope has suspended its sales and operations immediately.
Those of you who have purchased flights with a credit card, please turn to your credit card issuing bank to seek refunds for unused portions of SkyEurope’s flights.
In case you have paid directly to SkyEurope in other means than credit card (e.g. bank transfer, cash), please be advised that a refund may not be possible.
If you have ordered your flight tickets via a travel agency or organizer, you should discuss the matter with them first.
If you are already at the destination or have rented a car through SkyEurope’s business partner, you may stay at the hotel and use the vehicle during the period originally agreed. You must, however, order a return flight from some other airline at your own expense.
You may also wish to contact your insurance provider to seek further guidance and support.
We regret for the inconvenience that have been caused to you.“

The worst point is the one that explains that if you are already at your destination, “you must … order a return flight from some other airline at your own expense”. This will mean a lot of hazzle, and maybe extra income and profit for other airlines flying on the same route. Earlier, when other low-cost airlines went bankrupt, easyJet and BA were the first ones to offer special tickets for passengers having a valid ticket with the bankrupt airline. We are wondering if any other airline will offer this now (Austrian Airlines, Wizzair, CSA and maybe Malev are in favor as they share(d) some routes with SkyEurope).

Update (02SEP): Three Airlines are offering special one-way fares for passengers holding a valid SkyEurope ticket: Austrian Airlines for EUR 150, Malév Hungarian Airlines for EUR 99 EasyJet for EUR 30 and Wizzair for EUR 30. Malév also offers the EUR 99 fare for passengers who planned to fly with SkyEurope from Prague – they can now take Malév’s offer for a transfer flight through Budapest.

by balint01

It was a real surprise for Budapest, Hungary to see 41-year-old US Michael Goulian winning the Red Bull Air Race in Budapest.

He was eleventh in the championship before the race arrived in Budapest, thus it was a little bit surprising that he flew the best time among the top four.

Michael Goulian

20th of August is a national holiday in Hungary. Traditionally this holiday welcomes tens of thousands watching planes flying over the river Danube in downtown Budapest on the riverbanks. The first Red Bull Air race took place here on this day some six years ago. Founder of the race, Hungarian Peter Besenyei finished 8th today.

Besenyei with the Parliament in the background

This day is also remarkable as old MIG fighter planes (MIG-29s) said goodbye to the Hungarian audience as they will get retired from serving in the Hungarian Air Force. They have been replaced by Saab Gripens.

Another highlight of the day was that rally driver Sebastian Loeb flew a Red Bull Air Race plane over Budapest.

Loeb in an Air Race plane

More news on the Red Bull Air Race on the official website.

(more pictures are coming soon)

By Szafi

SkyEurope Airlines is in big trouble. They have followed a different strategy from the other regional low-cost carrier, Wizzair, when opting to focus their operations on only three cities: Vienna, Bratislava and Prague. Since last Friday, this has been reduced to only two: Bratislava and Prague.

Following a series of negative financial results in a number of years (actually SkyEurope has not made profits since it launched operations in 2002), and a lot of speculation about possible bankruptcy, the airline went into “creditor protection” – a similar state to the famous US Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Earlier this summer, just a few days after they announced their protection while reorganizing, one of their planes was held up at Paris-Orly airport – due to unpaid duties at the airport. It was then communicated through the media that this had nothing to do with their bankruptcy protection and was an illegal move from the Paris Airport company. However, one of their 737s has been parked at Paris Orly for two months because a French court ordered that the airline not be allowed access to the aircraft until it pays debts owed in France… They also have stated several times during the summer of 2009 that they are paying all of their bills as required and while the reorganization takes place, passengers may count on an uninterrupted service. This was true until last Friday, when:

At the end of July they named the Austrian FOCUS Equity investor group as a partner with whom an agreement had been signed, reporting that FOCUS is willing to invest up to EUR 16.5m, its condition being the successful restructuring of the firm. Ever since this news, SkyEurope has been trying to resolve the problem with lack of cash for the restructuring process.

Just last week further bad news saw the light about the airline, when Vienna Airport announced early in the week, that it will suspend ground handling services for SkyEurope by Friday, unless its outstanding fees to Vienna International are settled by then. Most likely these fees totaling approximately EUR 4 million, have not been settled, as SkyEurope went into pro-active mode on Friday night (August 14, 2009), and simply moved all of its operations from Vienna to the close-by Bratislava airport, overnight. The airports are only 48 kms apart in the air (59 kms on the road), but the move could still lead to unhappy passengers due to delayed flights.

Even though the official announcement of SkyEurope included the word “TEMPORARILY”, it is not yet announced when the Vienna flights would depart and arrive actually in Vienna again. (The information page on their website gets updated everyday to push out the end date by one day…) This temporary measure runs “until an agreement can be reached to resume flights from Vienna.” All passengers scheduled to depart from Vienna on SkyEurope flights will be checked into their flight at Vienna airport as usual and then transferred by bus to nearby Bratislava airport for their flight departures. Passengers should arrive at the Vienna airport to check in at the normal time as they would for a Vienna departure. After check-in, passengers can board the buses in front of the departure area of Vienna Airport Terminal 2. Passengers on SkyEurope flights arriving in Bratislava rather than Vienna will be transferred by bus to Vienna airport. This will mean that the Vienna departure flights will leave Bratislava at least an hour late, and given the short turn-around time used at low-cost airlines, they will arrive back to Vienna at least an hour late. Then passengers will take the bus to Vienna, which could lead to almost a two hour delay in arrivals to the Vienna airport.

SkyEurope will give every affected passenger a free airfare voucher for a future SkyEurope flight. Vouchers will be sent to passengers via e-mail after their flights.

Undermining the “Temporarily” term in the press release about the move, SkyEurope.com has a large banner on the homepage, advertising a 40% sale for “Vienna” low fares - now departing from Bratislava – for the time period September-February (2010). As the banner suggests that these flights will now depart from Bratislava instead of Vienna – it gives the impression that this move is not temporary after all, but is planned for at least half a year – for the less busy winter time-period, for sure – but more probably for the undefined future. When clicking through the banner, you will see the following message:

“By moving our operations from Vienna to Bratislava Airport, you are now saving 40% on our lowest fares.

Booking period: Aug 18, 6pm – Aug 20, 12am.
Travel period: September 1 – February 22″

Not the banner, nor the conditions mention the word “temporarily”…

Looking at this banner also made me think, whether if the move was intended due to the lower handling costs avialable in Bratislava (which may have gotten even lower with the additional capacity bringing better negotiating power with the airport operator) and the Vienna Airport situation was only used as a media reason for the move? Just think about it. Which press release would give you a better impression of the airline:
A) “We are sorry, but due to lower operational costs, we will move our Vienna operations to Bratislava as our financial situation has worsened recently and this is one of the reorganization measures in order to keep SkyEurope in the air (for the time being).” or
B) “Vienna Airport has suspended servicing our flights due to some minor unsettled issues, but SkyEurope have managed to relocate all of those flights to nearby Bratislava – and we’ll take you there by bus for free, plus give you a free flight voucher”.
I think B) just proves to be better accepted by the flying public, and makes SkyEurope look like the champion of quick, problem-solving reaction and relocation!

Whatever the truth is, we hope SkyEurope succeeds in its reorganizational efforts, even though we have our doubts. A low-cost airline using only two basis airports is simply not destined for long-term survival, especially when it has been kicked out of two airports due to unsettled fees in recent months… Keeping our fingers crossed!

by balint01

A song was written about the negligence of United Airlines. The band Son of Maxwell was on a tour and flew United from Halifax to Nebraska. They changed flights in Chicago, where musician Dave Caroll noticed a ground worker dropping his guitar. He asked the flight attendants to do something, but they could not or did not want to help.

After arrival his fear got proven, his guitar worth more than 500 dollars was broken. He immediately claimed his damage, but it was rejected by the airline.

He promised himself to write three songs about this incident and he will make sure that each song will be viewed at least 1 million times. The first video was uploaded at the beginning of July and it was viewed more than 150 thousand times in the first 3 days.

After the appearance of the video the airline revised the case and offered a compensation, but Dave refused it and told them to give that sum to charity.

Later Taylor guitars offered Dave that they fix his guitar for free plus they gave him a shiny new one.

This was the song about the incident by Son of Maxwell:

Here is the second song:

By Szafi

Nine people were killed in New York when a small plane hit a helicopter over the Hudson river and both of them crashed into the water around noon yesterday (08/08/2009).

Five Italian tourist and a pilot were aboard the helicopter, while three people were travelling on the small plane, including a child.

Eye witnesses said they heard a loud boom, they saw a wing of a plane and the helicopter falling like a stone into the river. Debris fell on the New Yersey side of the river almost hitting motorists.

Rescue teams rushed to the scene, but found only wreckages and dead bodies. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at  press conference that most probably nobody survived the accident.

The following video is from Fox News:

By Szafi

I was recommended a blog post today: somebody took a photo of an Uzbekistan Airways’ billboard that shows a plane that is disappearing in a bunch of clouds. The slogan of the commercial says: Good luck.

I don’t know whther this commercial really exists or this is just a hoax. I tried to check it on the airline’s website, but there was no sign of this billboard there.

Anyway if this is true, I have no clue what their real goal was with it. People are skeptic about these very eastern, not well-known airlines, it just scares passengers in vain. If it is just a hoax or a guerilla marketing, it is a good one, because I myself have never even heard about this airline, but today I have learned they exist.

If anybody knows anything more about it, I would be grateful if he or she shared it with us as a coment here.

Photo: Airliners.net

By Szafi

Japan Airlines has retired its fleet of the Boeing 747 Classic Jumbo Jets with the last scheduled international flight of the type: JO 073 flying from Honolulu, Hawaii to Tokyo Narita airport in Japan, landing on July 31st. (The last domestic flight by a Boeing 747-300 was scheduled to land just 5 minutes earlier, departing from Sapporo Chitose.)

The last JAL operated Classic Jumbo Jet was a Boeing 747-300, that still had to be operated by a 3-man flight crew (modern airliners fly with only 2 pilots). The plane was originally manufactured for JAL and received by the airline in 1983 – 26 years ago.

In the mid-1960s, unprecedented development in technology and the availability of large-thrust engines led to the creation of the giant 747, beginning with the 747-100, the first in the 747 Classics series which also includes the -200 and -300 models. JAL first took delivery of a 747-100 in 1970, and was the launch customer of the 747-100SR (Short Range) in 1973. One of the SR variants formerly operated by JAL is currently being used by NASA as the Shuttle Carrier. For its ever-expanding international network at the time, JAL owned the largest fleet of 747 Classics in 1984, and from 1987 through to 1989, it held the record number of 65 such aircraft – a figure that still stands as the most number of Classics owned by any one airline at a time.

Starting in 1983, Japan Airlines have also been using the Boeing 747-300 type, that had a longer upper deck that could seat more premium passengers. Decommissioning the Group’s remaining 6 747 Classics – of which the earliest was delivered in November 1983, attests to the Group’s steady progress towards downsizing its fleet and operating more fuel-efficient aircraft such as Boeing 777. The Boeing 747-300 was the only airplane in Japan Airlines’ fleet that carried all three liveries over the years. The last two -300s in the fleet have the registration numbers: JA812J and JA8166.

Special ceremonies were held today to bring the curtains down on a long-standing service by the Classic Jumbo Jets in grand fashion. The flight was draped in a giant Hawaiian lei before departure at Honolulu Airport, where an elaborate ceremony was conducted with a proclamation declaring July 30, 2009, as “JAPAN AIRLINES CLASSIC JUMBO JET DAY,” with local dignitaries in attendance.  Upon arrival in Tokyo (Narita), the aircraft was received at the gate by its designer – the “Father of the 747”, Mr. Joseph F. “Joe” Sutter, JAL staff as well as members of the media. Mr. Sutter who led the development of what would become the world’s first wide-body airliner and who is now a senior advisor to the Boeing Company also graced this special occasion with a talk about the birth of the 747.

To memorialize the role of the popular Classic’s in the history of JAL, a sell-out commemorative flight organized by JAL Tours flew fans of the Classic Jumbo Jet from Tokyo (Haneda) to Shimojishima on a round-trip day tour on July 5, 2009. A total of 449 enthusiasts, members of the media and staff had the rare opportunity to go down memory lane, when cabin attendants who wore the 8 different uniforms in the history of JAL welcomed them onboard and served them during the flight.

Over the 39 years of service by the Classic 747 fleet, among thousands of flights and probably lots of memories for millions of passengers as well as crew members, one of the scariest crosswind landings by the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet captured on video was also conducted by JAL in Hong Kong, as seen here on Youtube. Besides the Cargo version (also in old livery), a number of special liveries were also used over the years: Super Resort Express 1, Super Resort Express 2, Reso’cha 1, Reso’Cha 2, Glay Rock Band, and the special Cargo liveries and variants: Untitled Cargo Livery, Shiny Cargo Livery, Super Logistics, Reversed Super Logistics and JA Super Logistics. As a bonus, here is a Zebra painting – which was painted on the livery by the reflection, creating a very nice effect.

And looking forward: Most of the 747-300s have been replaced by Boeing 777-300ER’s.

by balint01

Following a leak of information earlier this week, yesterday British Airways has confirmed that it will remove onboard catering in economy class (Euro Traveller) on flights shorter than 2.5 hr. from next week (3rd of August, 2009). Previously they used to serve a sandwich with a small chocolate bar on most of their flights – together with the famous waste-bag included in the meal package.

BA has also communicated that it will continue to serve breakfast on flights departing before 10 a.m. and offer free drinks and snacks. It will not sell food onboard and claimed it is “not unusual to make small changes [to inflight catering] to avoid waste and save money where it makes sense and it meets customers’ changing tastes.” British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Assn. said the airline is also considering cutting additional amenities such as chocolates in first class, hot towels in business class and pretzels in economy, the BBC reported. It expects to save £22 million ($36.1 million) annually as a result.

Even though the news have been communicated through the media, there’s nothing about it on the British Airways website. It seems like this must have been a quite rapid decision to be made, as the website still describes the Euro Traveller class today (July 31st) as “then once on board let our team of experts serve you complimentary food and drinks from our free bar service“. In the Inflight Meal section of the website, there is a mention of complimentary snacks in the Euro Traveller cabin, but no details. While you make a booking, the booking process does not provide any information about the catering for the flights at all, except linking the same travel cabin description as quoted above.

It will be interesting to see if this traditionally low-cost approach to short haul onboard services will spread to more “full service” carriers in these turbulent economic times or not. Iberia and Brussels Airlines for example only sell food on short-haul flights, while Lufthansa for example only offers a small sandwich with a chocolate bar. We are wondering if such amenities will ever return – even in better economic times…

by balint01

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has published its latest ranking of the world’s airlines in terms of passengers carried and passenger kilometres flown on scheduled flights for the year 2008.

International and Domestic - Number of passengers

Based on number of passengers carried on scheduled flights in 2008 and considering International as well as Domestic traffic, US and Chinese companies seem to rule the world with Southwest Airlines taking number one. However, if we would count Delta and Northwest as one entity (they merged in 2008), they would claim the number one spot (seen in line 0 in the table below). It should be noticed that the fifth position in terms of passengers carried has been taken by a Chinese air company (China Southern Airlines) – which also signals the ongoing growth of the Chinese domestic air travel market.

International - Number of passengers

Looking at only International scheduled traffic in 2008 (excluding domestic), Ryanair has grown to be the largest International airline in the world. Mostly European airlines are included in this bucket, as most of their flights are international, even though the distances flown would in most cases match up with the US (or Chinese) Domestic flights. This just shows how strong the US airlines are on their domestic market and how weak they are on the international routes – in terms of number of passengers. It is interesting to note that Air France and KLM are a merged company since 2004, but operate their separate networks. Also interesting to see that 2 of the top 5 are low-cost carriers (Ryanair and easyJet). If we would consider European international flights as domestic (in terms of distance intra-European flights are similar in nature to the domestic flights within the US or China), none of the European airlines would make it in the top 5 – based on the number of passengers flown, even though Ryanair comes very close to fifth position China Southern.

International and Domestic - Passenger kilometres

When looking at passenger kilometres flown, it gives a slightly different view of the same results. Such a statistic shows us all airlines in terms of passenger kilometres flown (passengers*kilometers flown) and theoretically levels out the difference between the European International flights and the US Domestic flights for example – which produce similar numbers in terms of passenger kilometres. On the other hand, this gives a chance for airlines flying mostly longer routes with less passengers to move up the list. (E.g.: a Budapest-London flight is 1 passenger or rougly 1500 passenger kilometres, while a Paris-Rio de Janeiro flight is also counted as 1 passenger, but rougly 9400 passenger kilometres.)

It is interesting to see that this view is still ruled by the US airlines, and the only non-US in the list is the merged Air France – KLM group, taking the fourth position. We are missing Southwest Airlines from this table, as they do not fly long-haul and fly only a limited number of mid-haul international flights to Central America thus their average kilometers flown per passenger is much lower than those big American airlines that also fly long-haul routes. It is also a notable change that American Airlines (considered to be the largest airline company for years) is passed by the new Delta Airlines (merged with Northwest) by as much as 35%.

It will be interesting to see these numbers for 2009 in a few months – where Delta will most likely hold the number one spot for overall passenger numbers as well as passenger kilometers, but Lufthansa may move up a little bit if they start to publish their numbers together with Brussels Airlines and Austrian Airlines. We are also looking forward to the much talked about possible British Airways – Iberia tie up, which would produce an Air France – KLM like congolmerate that could fight for a top 5 position in terms of worldwide passenger kilometers – considering Iberia’s long flights between Europe and South America.

by balint01

We last talked about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner program one month ago, when Boeing announced a further delay, due to “a series of relatively small areas” on both sides of the aircraft’s body in the “upper wing join area” that registered stress levels during static testing that “exceeded expectations“. That was the sixth time Boeing had delayed the program – and the maiden flight – to an undisclosed date.

Back at the end of June, the company did not set a new target date for the first flight, they only said that a new schedule would be released in “several weeks“. In the meantime it was announced that a new schedule for the flight test program will be released before the end of September. This means “several weeks” in Boeing terminology may mean “up to 12 weeks”… Following the mid-June top management statements that the first flight would happen before the end of the second quarter of this year, this means a new, possibly very long, additional delay to the program.

In the meantime, Boeing has completed gauntlet testing on the first 787 and conducted taxi testing up to 130 kt., while the second Dreamliner has run up its engines. The third and fourth aircraft have been powered on and off. The fifth Flight Test Plane received a new livery on July 21st, painted white with blue accents, the new livery incorporates visual and color elements from the distinctive blue-and-white Boeing Commercial Airplanes livery seen on the first 787 Dreamliner flight test airplane and other new commercial models. The simplified paint scheme will be applied to the three remaining unpainted flight test airplanes (Nos. 3, 4 and 6). The modified livery, which saves time and expense compared to the full Boeing livery, will remain on the airplane until the flight test program is completed.

Boeing has been working with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which manufactures the 787’s wings, and Fuji Heavy Industries, which handles the detailed design and assembly of the center wing box and its integration, to determine a fix. They have also confirmed earlier that a fix to the defect has been identified, but yesterday The Seattle Times has reported that the “787’s structural design problem is more complex than originally outlined“. One engineer with knowledge of the problem claimed that it will take “at least 3-4 months just to get something installed on the 787,” while a second, familiar with Boeing’s construction methods, claimed that the fix first must be installed on the nonflying test aircraft in Everett and only will be applied to flight test aircraft if proven successful.

Let’s take a look at the suggested timeframe quickly. Once the local fix is fully developed, the new parts first will have to be applied to the static test aircraft and then put on the flight test aircraft. These new parts will mean further ground testing before the first flight, but Boeing promises these fixes and the extra weight will have no impact on either performance or maintenance. As currently it’s the end of July, and according to the engineer quoted by The Seattle Times it takes 3-4 months to apply these parts, ground testing will only be able to commence around mid-November. This practically means that the first flight is being delayed until very late 2009 or more likely: to the first half of 2010.

It is also influencing the first delivery to ANA, currently slated for the 2010 first quarter (which is very unlikely to happen in the light of this prediction). Original delivery was planned for June 2008, so that ANA could have used the first Dreamliner for the Beijing Olympics… The program has suffered 73 cancellations this year. The latest structural problem likely will have a serious impact on deliveries, according to a client note issued by Bernstein Research of New York. It suggested that the company now will deliver only three in 2010, down from 15; 25 in 2011, down from 35, and 50 in 2012, down from 60.

We hope to see the 787 Dreamliner taking its maiden flight as soon as possible - either in the “traditional” blue or the new white livery – but also respect Boeing’s continous decisions to make sure that the plane is safe to fly on its maiden flight as well as for decades to come.

by balint01

Ryanair is famous for creating media buzz with the strangest ideas, including collecting money for using the restrooms onboard, or asking passengers to actually carry their luggage all the way to the airplane. Their latest such idea is to install standing “seats” for passengers on short flights. This idea has also been raised by the Chinese low-fare airline, Spring, not so long ago. Ryanair has claimed they are in talks with Boeing to install such devices (let’s not call them seats), but Boeing has not yet confirmed or denied such a study being conducted.

Ryanair however, took the idea one step further, with conducting a survey on their site. During two weeks in July 2009 they were asking their website visitors three questions – that were answered by 120,000 people. Today (22nd July) they announced that over 80,000 (66%) passengers said they would stand on short one hour flights if it meant that their fare would be free (FREE – not simply cheap). 72,000 (60%) agreed that airline passengers should have a choice of standing on short flights as they already do on buses, trains and underground transport while a minority of 50,000 (42%) said they would stand if they could pay 50% less than seated passengers. This means most of the passengers are only willing to stand – if the fare is FREE. Simply offering cheaper fares will not do the trick – in case the majority of the passengers. However, 42% is still a large number to be considered.

Here are the results from the Survey:

by balint01

With 19 Airbus A380s already in service around the world, it’s time to take a look at the latest Airbus A380 news – following our latest updates about new flights and operational issues.

Singapore Airlines - 9 A380s in service – 5 (+ 1) routes

The launch customer of the Airbus A380 superjumbo  – since October 2007 – has already received 9 of the type and has brought the A380 to 7 cities so far. More than 1.4 million customers have flown on its A380s that have clocked more than 35,000 flying hours on more than 4,000 flights since the start of commercial service. Following the first flight to Hong Kong in early July, Melbourne in Australia will be the latest airport to receive the A380 service with 471 seats on board in three classes, following Singapore, Sydney, London, Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong – when the first flight will land in the second most popolous Australian city on 29 September, 2009. The daily A380 flights will replace an existing daily Boeing 747-400 service to Melbourne. SQ227 will depart Singapore Changi Airport at 2100hrs and arrive in Melbourne at 0610hrs (0710hrs from 4 October 2009 due to daylight savings) the next day. On the return leg, SQ228 will depart Melbourne at 1550hrs (1650hrs from 4 October 2009) and touch down in Singapore at 2140hrs.

Emirates – 6 A380s in service – 5 (+ 2) routes

Emirates currently has the largest order placed for the doubledecker aircraft and has already received 6 of the type. Starting in July 2008, Emirates have been serving London Heathrow, Sydney, and Auckland. Since the 1st of June they have been operating the A380 to the Thai capital of Bangkok on a daily flight and to Toronto in Canada, three times weekly. The next Asian destination for the Emirates A380 will be the Korean capital, Seoul, from the 1st of December. The 489 seat, 3 class configuration Emirates A380 features two fully equipped bathrooms with showers and an onboard bar for first and business class passengers as a specialty. In Europe, the next airport served will be Paris Charles de Gaulle from 1st of February, 2010. But Emirates will operate a single service to UK’s Birmingham to mark the Airport’s 70th birthday on September 9th, 2009. This will be the first commercial A380 service outside of London Heathrow in the UK and will park at the new Pier of Birmingham Airport – which opens on the same day with the Emirates A380 as the first aircraft being served there.

Qantas - 4 A380s in service – 4 routes

Qantas has been operating the A380 is its fleet since October 2008. The fourth A380 arrives to Australia at the end of July, allowing Qantas to increase its Sydney-Singapore-London A380 services from three to five per week, and Sydney-Los Angeles services from three to four per week. The fifth and sixth airplane scheduled to arrive in 2009 will further increase the frequency between Australia and the UK and the US, as by November Qantas will operate daily A380 services to London and LA and will increase the Melbourne-Los Angeles services from two to three A380 flights per week. By the end of 2009 this will mean 34 return flights per week. The 450 seat, four-class configuration aircraft type has so far transported more than 200.000 passengers at the Australian flag-carrier.

+ Air France - 0 A380s in service – (+1) route

Air France – the first European operator of the type – has rolled out the airplane in its new livery on the 9th of July. This airplane is scheduled to enter service in November on a daily Paris Charles de Gaulle – New York JFK service. It is interesting that Emirates had operated the A380 to New York JFK before, but has since withdrawn the aircraft from the route. The French A380 will be configured for 538 passengers in a three-cabin layout with 80 business and 106 economy seats on the upper deck and nine first class and 343 economy seats on the main deck. That compares with 450 seats on Qantas A380s, 471 on Singapore Airlines and 489 on Emirates. CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said in a recent conversation in Paris to Airwise News that Air France’s A380s would not be equipped with special luxury features specifically designed for the double-deck aircraft like spas or spacious premium suites. “It’s an aircraft, an aircraft offering high-density seating and thus offering lower unit costs,” he said. “We will use it as such.” AirFrance will be the first European airline to operate the A380 and the first to use it on transatlantic flights between Europe and the US. It has 12 on order, four of which will start operating this winter and next spring.

by balint01

Today at 11.33 am a Tupolev belonging to Iran-based Caspian Air crashed near Qazvin, Iran about 140 kms from the capital Tehran, with 168 passengers and crew on board. The plane was heading to the Armenian capital of Yerevan and took off from Tehran only 16 minutes before the crash.

All aboard flight number 7908 were killed according to the first news coming from local TV stations.

It took a long time before anything has appeared on the official website of the airline, but the international website still shows no information about the crash. When we called the local representative of the carrier earlier today, we were the first to tell him about the accident.

The Tupolev TU-154M plane involved in the accident was built in 1987 and was originally delivered to Ariana Afghan Airlines. It is one of the four of the type that is operated by Caspian Airlines – which is a Russian-Iranian joint venture established in 1993. They have also been using a fifth one of the same type that was operated for them, by Aerotur Air. Reports suggest that the lost plane was registered as EP-CPG (shown on the image above). The local television channels showed a huge crater and debris spread around in in a wide area. According to a representative of Caspian Air there were mainly Iranian citizens onboard (29 of them were members of Iran’s some 100,000 ethnic Armenian community – many of whom frequently use the flights between Tehran and Yerevan to visit relatives in Armenia), with 40 Armenians  (6 of them were Armenian citizens, the rest are Iranian citizens as mentioned) and two Georgian citizens also on the plane.  Besides the 156 passengers there were 12 crew members working on the flight. It is unclear whether other nations were also involved in the crash, but a boarding card belonging to a Japanese citizen was found at the crash site, Iranian reports said. Among those on board were eight members of Iran’s national youth judo team, along with two trainers and a delegation chief, who were scheduled to train with the Armenian judo team before attending competitions in Budapest, Hungary on Aug. 6, Iranian state TV said. 

There are no reports about potential death, or injury of anyone on the ground.

First eyewitness reports suggest that the plane’s tail was on fire and had circled in the air (probably trying to find an area available for emergency landing) before crashing in the ground, nose down.  “Then, I saw the plane crashing nose-down. It hit the ground causing a big explosion. The impact shook the ground like an earthquake. Then, plane pieces were scattered all over the agricultural fields,” Ali Akbar Hashemi, a 23-year-old who was laying gas pipes in a nearby home, told the Associated Press by phone. This confirms the reports on the Aviation Herald website claiming that the pilot had reported a fire in the left engine mid-air, before quickly losing altitude and deviating to the left of the assigned flight path. This information has not been confirmed by any authorities yet. Based on the above mentioned footage of the area, the plane has practically been desintegrated into small pieces by the impact of the crash, and its broken parts have spread around in an area bigger than 200 square meters. The crater is about 10 meters in depth.

“I saw a finger of a passenger on the ground. There is no sign of the airplane, just small pieces of metal,” said a witness. “I do not see even a complete leg or arm.“ “The Tupolev plane has been totally destroyed and the corpses, unfortunately, have been totally burned and destroyed,” Qazvin police commander Massoud Jafarinasab told semi-official Fars News Agency.

Weeping relatives and friends gathered at Yerevan Airport where a notice on a wall listed people who were on board. Doctors treated relatives for shock and heart problems. (You can find the full list of the flight crew and the passengers in a comment added to this article below.)

The plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been found at the crash site, state television reported late Wednesday, so an explanation of the crash is likely to be found.

By Szafi and balint01

According to the Daily Mail, Her Majesty might recieve her own private jet for 3 million British pounds. There are two planes used by the royal family, but these are quite old and unreliable. She will have to wait for the final decision until March 2010, but in the meantime she will fly by chartered planes.

The reason to buy her own private jet seems ridiculous: cost cutting. Reportedly last year the royal family flew 137,000 miles on 18 scheduled and 21 chartered flight. The total cost of these travels was 6,5 million pounds. (£ 167,000 per flight) Well, in comparison with that cost, £ 3 million is really cost cutting.

In the meantime to make waiting less boring, she will receive a new helicopter, because the leasing of the old one has expired. The heli will cost £ 500,000 per year.

Maybe it is just me who thinks she should try Ryanair or Easyjet instead. I am interested in your opinion.

By Szafi

Boeing has put off the time of the first maiden flight of its B 787 Dreamliner. The new plane was due to fly first on 30 June. the company delayed the maiden flight because of “a need to reinforce a side section of the plane” due to the explanation that ”on both sides of the aircraft’s body in the “upper wing join area” that registered stress levels during static testing that “exceeded expectations.”

Boeing says it will not release any other dates for the maiden flight in the next couple of weeks. It did not say whether or how long first delivery to ANA, slated for the 2010 first quarter, would be delayed, either. This is the sixth (6th!) time the program has been delayed so far.

The project has now been delayed a few times, so everybody looked at this end of June deadline with high expectations. The first delay of 6 months was announced in October 2007. The second announcement came in January 2008, when Boeing projected the maiden flight for June 2008. Then shorter delays came, and apparently a year later we still do not know when we will see the new Dreamliner flying.

We will inform you about the developing story. Please follow our blog via RSS!

By Szafi

An Indonesian passenger plane slided off the runway during landing at Tanah Merah Airport, Papua.

The pilot lost control over the plane after a dog ran cross the runway. Noone was hurt during the incident, but the plane suffered some damages.

The video shows the whole scene including the very fast evacuation process.

Thanks to Domi for the link!

By Szafi

The 2009 Paris Air Show has just begun today, with the expectation of no major aircraft orders due to the current economic crisis. Airbus and Boeing are still in the net cancellations for 2009, and they are not expecting any major orders this week.

But the economic crisis may be helping smaller, upcoming aircraft manufacturers to record some orders – as they can probably stay cheaper than the two major global companies. One of them is the new Russian Sukhoi Superjet, that has reportedly gained 30 orders from Malév Hungarian Airlines today. Sukhoi Superjet International has announced that it closed a deal with oneworld member Malev for 30 Sukhoi Superjet 100s (15 firm + 15 options), as Martin Gauss, CEO of Malév and Alessandro Franzoni, CEO of Superjet International have signed a letter of intent today at Le Bourget. It is not yet known whether it’s a complete purchase or a leasing deal, but the deal’s value is said to be in excess of 1 billion USD. According to the plans, the first aircraft would arrive at Malév in 2011, and 6 would follow each year. The Hungarians are the first known “Western” customers for the type, which marks its entry into the skies of the European Union – therefore it is a very important announcement for Sukhoi.

The Superjet was revealed in September 2007, but then fell behind original plans and got delayed, similar to other new aircrafts in the 21st century, but finally took to the skies on its first flight in June 2008. Malev has been tied with a possible order earlier, but this seems to be confirmed today.

Malév Hungarian Airlines currently operates a short-haul fleet with 18 Boeing 737 NGs making up most of the fleet and the turboprop Bombardier Q400 taking the regional role (replacing Fokker-70’s as those are being phased out). The question unanswered at the moment is whether the two-class configured SJJ100’s would be introduced as the third aircraft type or would replace either the 737s or the Q400s. We hope these 30 will be additional, as the 98 seat Superjet would not be able to take the role of the 737-700 and -800s that can carry up to 140 and 180 passengers respectively.

The deal itself may sound a surprise to some, but given the fact that the Russian state-owned Vnyesekonombank holds a minority stake in Malév and has been postponing its promised capital injection, this order for the Russian aircraft type may be part of the behind-the-scenes inter-government deal pushed down the throat of the ailing Hungarian state carrier.

by balint01

These days are not the best for European plane manufacturer Airbus. Shortly after the accident of Air France flight 447, more news are coming from around the world about different Airbus plane types having technical diffculties.

On Wednesday June, 11 a Spanish carrier had to land at the Canary Islands shortly after take off due to engine problems. The aircraft was an Airbus A320.

Today (June 12) an Aeroflot flight had to abort its way from Yakutsk to Moscow and immediately land at Novosibirsk with 122 people on board, because one of the winshields of the cockpit got cracked. The plane was an A 320.

Australian JetStar’s A 330 had to make an emergency landing Tamuning, Guam. The plane took off from Osaka, Japan and was about to fly to Coolangatta, Australia. There were 200 people aboard, and the casue of the emergency landing was a fire in the cockpit.

JetStar's faulty A330

Luckily nobody was hurt during these incidents.

Airbus is facing hard times financially, as both A380 and the new A350 cost more than predicted. The company turned to the governments of the owner countries as bank credits do not cover the additional costs.

By Szafi

An Italian couple missed their flight Air France 447 on 31 May heading from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. We thought to ourselves: these people are really lucky.

Some days later the German-Italian couple Johanna and Kurt Ganthaler arrived back in Europe safely. From Munich they decided to drive home – Merano, Italy – by a rental car.

On the way around Kufstein their car changed lanes for some reason and they ended up in the opposite direction, where they had a head-on collision with a truck.

The woman died in the hospital where she was taken after the accident. Her husband was also injured and he is still in hospital.

After reading such stories, I start to believe in fate.

By Szafi

It has been confirmed by Air France that their flight AF 447, linking Rio de Janeiro with Paris (Charles de Gaulle) had disappeared earlier today from the Brazilian radars and has never contacted Senegalese air traffic control.

The Airbus A330 should have landed in Paris at 11:10 local time but it has dissappeared earlier this morning. The plane – with 216 passengers (126 men, 82 women, 7 children and a baby) and 12 crew members onboard – took off from Rio de Janeiro Sunday evening at 7pm local time, heading towards Europe on a route that would lead northwards above Brazil, then crossing the Atlantic towards Senegal and flying through Spanish air-space before arriving to the French capital. However, contact with the aircraft was lost about 3 and a half hours into the flight (~1:33 GMT), when the plane was cruising at 35.000 feet at a speed of 840 km/h, approximately 300 kms from the Brazilian shore (565 kms north-east of the Brazilian city of Natal), above the Atlantic Ocean – already outside of Brazilian radar-space. It had last contacted air traffic control in Recife, Brazil. Brazilian Air Force started the search early Monday morning around the Northeastern Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha (365 kms from the South-American coast). They were later joined by a French military plane flying out of Senegal to help with the search. Brazilian officials cautioned that the search area could be three times the size of Europe. See map on CNN.com and the map on BBC.co.uk.

There were several possible scenarios why contact was lost, it could have been a transponder problem, a hijack or a crash. Transport analyst Kieran Daly told CNN that the lack of communication with the aircraft “does suggest it was something serious and catastrophic.” He said the aircraft involved was one delivered to Air France in April 2005. Given the fact that that Airbus A330 is one of the safest airplane types currently flying around the Globe – not having a regular fatal accident since its first commercial flight in 1998 -, theoretically it could have done a water landing – similar to the US Airways flight that ditched in the Hudson river earlier this year - but the fact that all radio contact had been lost does not sound too positive at this stage. Also in the middle of a storm at the open ocean it is a much harder task than the Hudson river in quite weather.

The plane was hit by heavy turbulance in stormy weather and reported electrical problems before it lost contact, Air France said Monday. The automatic system of the Airbus A330-200 began a four-minute exchange of messages to the company’s maintenance computers, indicating that “several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down,” at 02:14 GMT (four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro) as it hit strong turbulence early in its 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told a news conference. “This succession of messages signals a totally unforeseeable, great difficulty,” he said. “Something quite new within the plane.” During that time, there was no contact with the crew, Gourgeon said, adding that ”It was probable that it was a little bit after those messages that the impact of the plane took place in the Atlantic,” he added. He also said that flight AF 447 was probably closer to Brazil than to Africa when it crashed. Speculations are now pointing towards a possible lightning strike as the cause of the electrical malfunction – but that alone should not have brought down a modern airliner such as the Airbus A330. The jet had also sent a warning that it had lost pressure, the Brazilian air force said. The missing jet, registered as F-GZCP last had a maintenance check on April 16 and has been flying in service since April 18, 2005 – with 18870 recorded flight hours and was powered by General Electric CF6-80E engines. According to Reuters, two Lufthansa planes have flown over the same area shortly before and shortly after the Air France flight – without any incidents. Both German pilots reported the bad, stormy weather.

The chances of finding any survivors were “very low,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted Monday. Air France identified the nationalities of the victims (based on the information received from the Brazilian Authorities) as two Americans, an Argentinean, an Austrian, a Belgian, 58 Brazilians, five British, a Canadian, nine Chinese, a Croatian, a Dane, a Dutch, an Estonian, a Filipino, 61 French, a Gambian, 26 Germans, four Hungarians, three Irish, one Icelandic, nine Italians, five Lebanese, two Moroccans, three Norwegians, two Polish, one Romanian, one Russian, three Slovakian, one South African, two Spanish, one Swedish, six Swiss and one Turk. This means 32 countries are involved in the tragedy. The four Hungarians are said to be 2 adults and 2 children. A woman returning from a 3 week training in Brazil - that she held on behalf of the International Pető Institute – with her spouse and her child – traveling together with another child who had visited relatives in Brazil. According to Brazilian sources, Luis Roberto Anastáci, President of Michelin South America was also among the passengers. Two ticket holders were not allowed to get on board due to the expiration of their passports.

Update (02/June, 20.00 CET): some debris of a plane were found by rescue teams. According to new sources a seat, a life vast, an oil drum and signs of oil and kerosene were found, but there were not enough material to make sure these were parts of the lost plane. Three commercial ships were directed to the area later in the afternoon.

Update (07/June, 10.00 CET): According to CNN, two bodies and some parts of the aircraft were found yesterday. Also a backpack and a leather briefcase were found, the latter holding a flight ticket, which was identified by Air France and it was proven to belong to one of the passengers. Airbus said the automated error messages may show that the speed controls were faulty.  Read more here.

by balint01

This year’s financial crisis hits airlines hard. The past years were quite a bad period for most commercial airlines, but in 2009 it is not just tourists who try to save money on holiday trips, but also companies cut costs and allow their employees to travel only on special occasions. Therefore it is not a miracle that airlines try to be extremely creative with their marketing and PR actions.

This time Air New Zealand surprised us with some unexpected creativity and announced the launch of cupid flights between Los Angeles and Auckland in October this year. According to the original news source, passengers of the matchmaking flight will attend a gate party and they can take part in onboard games to have the chance to get to know each other.

Read the full story here.

Do you think it is possible to find the love of your life on a plane? Share your opinion with us!

By Szafi

I found the following news today on an Australian news portal:

EUROPE’S largest low-cost airline Ryanair is looking at the possibility of getting passengers to carry their luggage all the way to the plane, cutting out the need for baggage handlers.

“We would say to passengers … take your own bag down through airport security, leave it at the bottom of the steps, we put it in the hold and on arrival we deliver it to the aircraft steps and you take it with you,” Chief Executive Michael O’Leary told a news conference yesterday.

Ryanair’s business is centered around cutting costs and the carrier is planning to eliminate check-in desks from October this year, saving up to 40 million euros annually.

An airline spokesman said the group would not pursue the luggage plan if it jeopardized their quick turnaround times.  (Original sourc: Reuters)

Now let’s think it over for a moment. It is clear that if they close check-in counters completely, they get in trouble. We all know that luggage self-check-in does not work. People cheat with it, they screw up sticking bag tags properly on the luggage, they spend 10 minutes by sticking the bag tag instead of moving away from self check-in kiosks, so they queue up, which is not efficient at all. In the end it is always more simple to open up a check-in counter and have them pay an extra cost for checked-in lugagge. They actually do so. If you fly Ryanair, you will need to pay an extra lugagge fee. Wherever they launched it, they use carousels to take the luggage from the check-in kiosk to the security check.

So now instead of carousels and a central luggage assorter it is the passenger, who takes the luggage to security – which is actually the same security that checks on-board baggages. First of all how do they decide whether you can take a bottle of wine with you? If it is a checked baggage, it can stay there, if not, then leave it here for us? Or what?

Who weighs the baggage? The passenger? I can predict – although I am not a fortune teller – that there will be no overwiehgts any more. So how can a balance sheet be prepared for the ground staff? Is it safe?

Then the passenger takes the luggage to the stairs, puts it into a container, so the ground handlers will start loading them into the plane exactly when boarding starts. Because earlier no luggage can be left alone anywhere, otherwise it is a security hole again. For me it seems impossible to finish loading in time, but miracles can happen.

After the plane arrives it is fine that passengers take it from the container and they will not stand along a carousel again, but what about lost luggage? It would be fun to handle their claims right at the plane, when again loading starts for the return flight. Yes, I know, they can be directed to a customer management desk, but passengers are strange people: if they will see loading staff, they will try to convince them to go and look for their luggage again.

And what is it that they really save at the end of the day? A carousel that takes checked luggage to the central assorting place, then to the security and then to the aircraft, which is almost fully automized. I am not sure it is such a big deal. And on the other hand passengers pay for this service.

Well, I will keep my eyes on this story. I am too skeptic to believe this is actually going to happen.

How about you? Would you carry your checked-in luggage all through the airport to the plane?

By Szafi

In my earlier post about aircraft winglets I have mentioned the Boeing 767 as the latest type to receive post-production blended winglets but at that time it was only in its final development phase and being tested.

A Sunday in early March 2009 marked the first commercial flight by American Airlines, using a blended winglet fitted Boeing 767-300ER. The aircraft with the freshly installed winglets flew from Dallas/Fort Worth to London Heathrow with 204 passengers onboard. The winglet has been designed and developed by Aviation Partners Boeing, that has previously worked on similar, post-production winglets for the B757 for example. The 767-300ER has received very large, and especially tall additions to its wings, as these new winglets stretch 11 feet high (3.35 m!!) from the tip of the wings and “represent the largest piece of structure ever retrofitted to a commercial aircraft“.

According to the airline, the winglets will reduce fuel consumption per airplane per year by up to 500,000 gallons (~6.5%), which also means a carbon dioxide (CO2) emmission reduction of up to 277,000 metric tons annually.  This figure makes “blended winglets the greenest aftermarket product available to the aviation industry today” – says Joe Clark, founder and Chairman of Aviation Partners Boeing. Using the special winglets also extends the airplane’s range by up to 360 nautical miles (666 kms) as well as increases the payload by up to 12,000 pounds (5450 kilograms) - by enabling better take-off performance without any engine updates. The winglets have been installed by American’s Maintenance & Engineering organization at its maintenance base in Kansas City, MO.

When American started to work with Aviation Partners Boeing, they estimated the winglets would save an annual 17 million gallons of kerosene for the airline, but with the final design they now predict to save 29 million gallons of Jet-A fuel a year when the winglets are installed on the full fleet of American’s 58 Boeing 767-300s – they plan to finish the installation by 2011.

The 767-300ER Blended Winglet program proved to be a huge success even before the first commercial flight, as Aviation Partners Boeing has pre-sold more than 130 systems to 10 different airlines, even before the solution received certification.

Recently American’s fellow oneworld partner, LAN Airlines has also reported their first commercial flight between Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires with a blended winglet equipped 767-300ER on 31st of March, while Delta and Austrian have also received their first jets with this adjustment. LAN is planning to update its whole fleet of 37 767-300s by year-end (investing nearly $70 million), with Austrian planning 4 planes to carry the high red winglet by the end of May, 2009, after the first two (registrations OE-LAE and OE-LAY with special Star Alliance livery) have joined its fleet earlier this month. Further airlines planning to introduce blended winglets on their 767s include Air New Zealand, Condor and Hawaiian Airlines (with 8+7 options).

To date over 2,480 Boeing aircraft have now been equipped with Blended Winglets, which includes 124 Boeing 757s and 77 Boeing 737s in American’s fleet alone.

by balint01

After a very smart, very well planned April fools’ day hoax about a Hotelicopter, I thought this one was a media hack again. But no, this story seems to be true.

Do you remember the scene in Airplane the movie, when the main character, the veteran pilot has to land a jet after all three pilots get sick of the food served? Well, it must be a nightmare, when it actually happens to you.

Just like in the old Hollywood movie, Doug White held a pilot license, but he had never flown a plane as big as this one.  They took off from Marco Island. The plane was leased by the company of Mr White. During take off the pilot got sick and lost consciousness. White travelling with his family realized there’s no other way than landing the plane by himself.

(c) Wikipedia

He radioed the traffic control and asked them for help. One of the controllers called a friend of his, who knows this aircraft type. Together they navigated the plane down exactly like in the movie. The auto pilot could not be used as the pilot programmed the original destination into it.

In Fort Meyers, when they finally reached a safe position, fire fighters and ambulances were waiting for them. They tried hard to save the life of Joe Cabuk, the pilot, but he did not survive.

Although the drama has a partial happy ending, therefore no manuscript will be based on it, there is one important thing to learn: when you’re in the biggest trouble and you think there is no way out, don’t forget to repeat it to yourself at least three times: “Yes, I can.”

Read the full story and watch a video about it on MSNBC.com

Learn more about King Air planes on Wikipedia.

By Szafi

Sir Richard Branson is a Timing Expert! He launched his Virgin Atlantic Airways 25 years ago when longhaul travel was growing up, launched Virgin Blue as the first low-cost carrier in Australia, founded (and by now sold) the Belgian low-cost carrier Virgin Express, and has entered the American low-cost market with Virgin America (maybe that seems to be a bit late, but with the credit crunch even more people may turn to low-cost travel..) and has created Virgin Nigeria to serve the most populated African country. He used perfect timing when building the Virgin Megastore chain while CD’s were best-selling items and sold it when digital downloads started catching up. He has also been the first person to actually establish the world’s first ”spacelines” (or “spaceways”?): Virgin Galactic. During all these years he has many times been courted by a number of Formula-1 teams to close a sponsorship deal, but he has always refused. Up until 2009, when he felt that the time has come. It was worth it, and of course perfect timing - the cars carrying the Virgin logo took a 1-2 victory in the first race!!

We all know the story that Honda shockingly withdrew from Formula-1 late last year and the Brackley-based team had a very rough and tough winter – with a lot of speculation about the future of the team. Finally it seemed that the potential buyers were down to only two options: Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin group and Mr. Ross Brawn, the technical director. In the end Brawn bought the team for one Euro and seemed that Virgin will still remain outside of F-1.

Following the pre-season tests, Brawn GP seemed quite strong and Sir Richard Branson used his timing-skills and announced a partnership just one day before the first race of the season. It was a quickly brought together deal in the eleventh hour, the official announcement coming just before the first qualifying session of the year. A downside to this quick deal is that the car has not (yet) received a new livery, and the team and driver overalls saw no Virgin branding at all (missing an opportunity to show Virgin at the top of the podium…), but I’m also sure that Sir Richard made a good deal in the middle of the economic recession. He must have gotten either more coverage for the same money, or is paying less for the same coverage – than would have done last year. So the famous Virgin logo – used by a number of airlines around the world – were quickly added to the cockpit area of the Brawn-Mercedes challengers and will probably be in the news around the world in the coming days – as Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello took an already legendary 1-2 finish in the first race ever of the Brawn GP team.

The official sponsorship announcement included hints that the addition of the red Virgin logo to the cockpit area is only the first step. Besides the technical partners’ logos, this was the only brand on the white livery of the cars – but a brand new, Virgin livery is expected before the following Malaysian grand priy, which is the “home” grand-prix for the Williams sponsor, Air Asia. Last year Air Asia prepared a special airplane livery for the Malaysian grandprix, we are looking forward to any similar announcements this year. We also wonder if Virgin will use a steady livery throughout the year, or will they start showing different brands of the Virgin Empire at different races – which would mean that some of the Virgin branded airlines’ logos could appear on the cars at some point of the season? I hope at least Virgin Atlantic will join a number of other airlines currently sponsoring Formula-1 teams: Air Asia (WilliamsF1), Etihad (Scuderia Ferrari), Kingfisher (Force India) and will also mark the sponsorship deal with some special airplane liveries across its fleet?

Let’s hope to see at least one of the Virgin branded Airlines’ logos on the Brawn GP (to be renamed Virgin Formula-1?) cars in 2009 and beyond as well as more special, Formula-1 themed aircraft liveries at Virgin!

by balint01

The biggest buzz on the internet these days is a Southwest Airlines flight attendant: Mr David Holmes, who is apparently bored of telling the same old sentences flight by flight. Thus he makes an interactive show for the passengers and includes all the necessary information in a short rap performance.

I am not sure it is not a well prepared guerilla marketing action of the airline, but anyway, it is fun, so do not miss it.

If anyone of you has flown together with this guy, please share your experience with us!

By Szafi

The Australian Qantas Airways is the third airline to operate the Airbus A380 doubledecker aircraft, but the first one to be forced to temporarily withdraw all three of its A380 fleet from service.

On 2nd of March, 2009 Qantas had no A380s in service for a short period of time – all 3 aircraft having to be removed from operations due to unrelated fuel system problems. The first mega-jumbo of the Australian airline (named Nancy-Bird Walton) had technical troubles back in Sydney on Saturday (February 28) when it was delayed 19 hours (!) before taking off for London Heathrow. On the return trip, the aircraft suffered a fuel leak and passengers were transferred to a Boeing 747-400 – 12 hours later. Engineers in London fixed the fuel leak and the A380 was back in service by late Tuesday.

The other two A380s (pictured here above) had a different fuel system issue and were removed from service at the same time. Qantas has stated that two A380s were declared unserviceable with a ‘”fuel tank indication system problem”. They also returned to service on Tuesday after the fixes were made in Sydney. According to ATWOnline, “the issue related to the Fuel Quantity Indicating System (FQIS) and some microbiological contamination, which resulted in faulty FQIS readings.”

The introduction of the Airbus A380 is still referred to as the best entry into service of any aircraft with Australia’s national airline.

Since entering service in October 2007, the 13 A380s flying with Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Qantas have flown 31,750 hours and 3,300 revenue flights, with 97.8% leaving on time. There were only a few, minor incidents earlier at Singapore Airlines.

by balint01

A Saab-2000 airplane operated by Carpatair has executed a safe emergency landing at Timisoara airport in Romania this morning, with no injuries. The plane arrived to Timisoara from Chisinau, Moldavia with 47 passengers, 1 infant and 4 crew members onboard.

It was noticed by the crew during the final approach before landing that the front landing gear did not open to its extended position. Following several attampts to release the nose gear, a low pass over the runway was performed to visually check the nose gear position. It was confirmed from the ground to be in the up position and therefore an emergency landing was decided - which was broadcasted live on Romanian Television.

All procedures went according to the books and professional plans, the flight spent more than an hour and a half circling around the airport to burn fuel, thus reduce the risk of an explosion or fire upon landing. They landed at 9:44 (instead of the originally planned 8:05) with more than 20 ambulances and fire engines on the site, prepared for the worst.  The aircraft stopped perfectly on the centerline axis shortly after the nose of the aircraft had touched the runway surface. Preliminarily, a foam carpet had been created on the runway to diminish the fire risk (the whote foam is clearly seen on the image above).  Both pilots in the cockpit were very experienced as they have flown for more than 40 years, with more than 10.000 flight hours recorded individually.

Passengers had been disembarked through the front passenger door. No passenger or crew member was injured. The aircraft has no noticeable damages following the emergency landing.

Carpatair is a regional airline serving several airports in Romania and surrounding countries as well as flying to Italy, Greece, Austria and Germany with a fleet of 14 Saab-2000’s and 3 Fokker F100’s. It also flies in cooperation with oneworld member Malév Hungarian Airlines on several routes to and from Budapest, Hungary.

by balint01

A Boeing 737-800 jet owned by Turkish Airlines, crashed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 10.40 am local time today (25 February, 2009). The first reports said there were survivors from Flight TK 1591, but the exact numbers of casulties and surivors are still unknown.

There were 135 passengers on the plane: 127 passengers (with 72 Turkish and 32 Dutch nationalities) and 7 crew members according to Turkish media.

(c) CNN

The first pictures show the plane broken into 3 parts, but there is no sign of fire, therefore everybody is optimistic about the number of survivors.

A few hours after the accident, the Dutch authorities have confirmed that at least 9 people (including 3 pilots) have been killed, with more than 50 injured – 5 of those are in a life threatening condition. By noon local time, all survivors have been escaped from the wreckage, while many lucky passengers have simply walked away after the accident.

Update from Turkish Airlines’ emergency website: “Turkish Airlines regrets to confirm that its flight Number TK 1951 from Istanbul to Amsterdam the capital of The Netherlands  was involved in an accident today near the Amsterdam Airport.
The aircraft, a B737-800 was during the landing when the accident occurred, at around 11:30 a.m. local time.
At this time, after the search and rescue operations, we have 9 casualties, and 50 passengers were injured. Turkish Airlines staff has been doing everything possible to assist the emergency services and local authorities.
There were127 passengers and 7 crew members on board Flight Number TK 1951 and we are currently confirming the details of the passenger manifest for this flight.“

The plane crash-landed in the fields just outside of Schiphol International Airport, coming to a rest only 150 m’s from the A9 highway. The plane broke into three parts with the aft part totally destroyed, while the front has broken in two around the front part of the wings. Many of the around 50 people who walked away from the plane have left the aircraft in the back where the cabin was wide open after the back of the plane has broken off.

The first reports suggested, the plane attempted to land but was too high and instead the pilots chose to abort landing but by then the plane was too slow to fully take off again, and the back of the fuselage hit the ground just after the the end of the runway. This process has been explained both by a passenger onboard as well as by a witness on the ground. However most of the reports are suggesting that the plane was on final approach to the runway which is also supported by the Aviation Safety Network’s Flight Path image. Some witnesses claim that the Boeing was quietly gliding just before the crash – which could theoretically mean that there was an engine failure, or could also mean that the plane has simply ran out of fuel. This second version is also supported by the fact that the plane has not caught on fire after the crash. (Last year a British Airways Boeing 777 crash-landing short of the London Heathrow runway - where nobody was hurt.)

The plane was a Boeing 737-800 with 165 seats. Turkish Airlines flies 52 of these planes in its fleet, while this type is considered as one of the safest airliners in the skies. This particular plane (registration: TC-JGE, name: Tekirdağ) first flew on January 24, 2002 and was originally delivered to Turkish Airlines.

By Szafi and balint01

16 January has already become a part of aviation history. After a double bird strike the engines of US Airways flight 1549 completely stopped and the pilot landed the plane safely on New York’s Hudson River. The outstanding pilot performance of Captain Chesley Sullenberger will be remembered forever.  The plane was full with fuel and passengers aboard, the engines did not work and besides that he had to put down the plane on a river without landing gears, without reversers in the middle of New York City, one of the world’s mostly populated metropolitans.

Now you can learn it yourselves how difficult this maneuver is. Of course this time it is just virtual, but still it gives you some idea how hard it is. I am sure that for some people this is still traumatic, but as an old commonsense says: humor heals everything.

Game 1

The first game is simpler, but it is funny. Click here to play.

Game 2

The second game has much better graphics and it is really exciting to play. The aim is to avoid bird strikes, and after the second strike you have to land perfectly on the river. Click here to play.

Enjoy the games!

By Szafi

Aleksandra Mir is a Lublin, Poland born modern artist, who has previously claimed herself as the First Woman on the Moon in 1999 - among other strange artistic projects. My colleague, Péter has brought my attention to one of her latest artworks, which is referred to as “Plane Landing“.

Plane Landing goes back to 2001, when she first came up with the idea of creating a special, large balloon with the shape of a landing passenger airliner and inflate it at places, where we would not expect to see a jet airplane. Then it turned out to be a relatively complicated engineering project at Cameron Balloons of Bristol (the company that gave us Darth Vader, Coke Bottle or Flying Cow shaped ballons just to mention a few) where the actual balloon was designed and manufactured. It became a science project rather than art at this stage with aeronautics, engineering and design playing the major roles.

The balloon became an impressive one:

• Length = 20.8 meters
• Wing span = 15 meters
• Volume = about 100 cubic meters
• 4 different fabrics = white gas fabric (white gas fabric with overlaid silver), black hyper last for the go-faster stripe, black window fabric and red doorframe artwork fabric.
• Approximately = 1 km of thread and heat sealed seams

It was first inflated in Compton Verney, in the UK in 2003 with three successful test inflations and with the first crowd gathering around it in the park. Mir usually prepares a collage or a sketch of the location where she is planning to land the plane – and after approval she lands it. We have no information on where the plane had spent the following five years – maybe at the Mojave desert among the other parked planes or simply flying in the air - but the next documented landing only happened in July 2008 ,when the plane arrived in Switzerland. Contrary to the original idea, it showed up in a place where we would most expect it to be: at Zürich Airport! It was first inflated at dawn at the place where the plane observers watch actual planes touching down, while the second landing took place overnight at the airport tarmac, in front of Gate 44.

Just a little more than 3 months after landing in Zürich, the plane arrived to dowtown Paris in October 21-22-23, 2008 with inflations around the most famous locations such as the Eiffel Tower or the in front of the Louvre. You can see all Paris pictures at aleksandramir.info.

I’m not fully convinced that this project can be categorized as art, but I very much like it as a gig, and hope to hear about its next landing somewhere in the near future!

Aleksandra, if you happen to read this post and plan to land the plane in Budapest, Hungary, please let us know, we would help you with organization and some publicity!

by balint01

The French national carrier, Air France has launched a new, updated logo this week, that will eventually be used in all of their communication materials as well as on their full fleet of aircraft. The company also said that the rebranding will be gradual in order “to avoid additional costs“. The AirFrance website already features the new logo.

Air France becoming AirFrance

Air France SkyTeam becoming AirFrance Skyteam

Boeing 777 showing new AirFrance livery

In case of an airline logo change, one of the most important questions is how it will translate to aircraft liveries? In this case it will be very simple, the fleet will gradually get the new design with the regular paint jobs, and the only two things changing will be the carrier’s logo in the front, and a very minor change to the tail: Turning the old 5 simple lines to only 4, flourish type of lines as seen here below.

Old and new Tail designs for Air France

You can see a video explaining the change at the Air France Corporate website.

by balint01

On Thursday, 12 February Continental Airlines’ flight 3407 crashed into a house in Clarence Center, in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York shortly after 10 pm. 49 people died in the crash including 4 crew members, all passengers on board and one person on the ground.

Photo: Buffalo News

According to the first official news, the plane reported serious technical problems when it approached Buffalo airport. People who live near the crash scene said the sound of the engines was strange and shortly before the crash there was a thunderous explosion. Other witnesses claim the strange engine sounds had stopped for a few seconds, right before the actual crash at 10:20 pm.

After the plane crashed into a building, surrounding houses were also evacuated as they caught fire, too. The flames could be seen from miles away.

Photo: Buffalo News

The house the plane crashed into was completely flattened. Nobody on board survived the crash.

The airplane was a Bombardier Dash-8 (also known as DHC-8 or Q400), flying as Continental Connection Flight CJC 3407, operated by Colgan Air, registration number N200WQ, built in 2008.

Read more on Buffalo News.

By Szafi

Probably the most boring part of our flight is when the plane is taxiing from the apron to the runway or the other direction after landing.

Now with the help of this simple guide you can become an expert of airport signs and you can show off with it to the passenger seated next to you.

The pictures are taken from a PDF file I found on AOPA’s website. This post here presents only the more interesting ones, but if you would like to become a real expert or you are getting prepared for your pilot license exam, you can download it and print it for yourself. Here is the full version.

Before we get started, let’s clarify some basic expressions:

- taxiways: a system of tracks the lead planes from the terminal building to the runway. Once a plane enters the taxiway, it is under the control of the tower and must follow their instructions.

- runway: where planes land and take off. It is dangerous to stay on the runway too long, therefore planes are directed to the taxi ways if they need to wait for their slot.

- holding point: where the plane has to wait before entering the runway.

- ILS: Instrument Landing System – an automated system that helps pilots in landing. Most airports that accept passenger jets are equipped with ILS that becomes extremely important in case of bad weather.

And now the signs:

ILS critical area holding position sign:

Hold at this sign on the taxiway, where the ILS is in use and the weather is less than 800 feet and 2 miles. Aircraft taxiing beyond this point may interfere with the ILS signal to approaching aircraft.

.

Runway holding position sign:

Hold here. In this example, the threshold for runway 15 is to your left and the threshold for runway 33 is to your right. This sign is located next to the yellow holding position marking painted on taxiways. The “A” sign is the Taxiway location sign. It indicates the taxiway you are on.

Taxiway direction:

The yellow signs usually seen next to a taxiway location sign, indicate the direction of intersecting taxiways. In this example taxiway Charlie is to the left and right, and Alpha takes a turn to the right ahead.

.

Runway approach area holding position sign:

Taxiing past this sign may interfere with operations on the runway. In this case, aircraft arriving to runway 15 or departing from runway 33. It is located next to the yellow Holding position markings painted on the taxiway pavement. The aircraft has to stop on the solid lines side of the marking. The dashed lines show the direction towards the runway. Planes must stopped at this line until cleared.

Have fun with your new knowledge during your next flight!

By Szafi

The world is celebrating a new superstar:  Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of U.S. Airways flight 1549 that crashed into New York’s Hudson River on January 16, 2009. Thanks to the crew of the flight now passengers were wounded and everybody survived the crash caused most probably by bird strike.

Now another pilot, Susan O’Donnell who was traveling on flight 1549 when the accident happened, is telling us her version of the story. She is not a journalist, so the text contains some jargon, but still it gives you thrills as you read it.

This is the captain. Brace for impact.

This is the sentence you never want to hear on board a passenger jet. How did the passengers react? What happened to them exactly? Read the full story on Sky Talk from one of the survivors, a jumpseat passenger: another pilot.

By Szafi

Following the special, oneworld liveries applied to some airplanes by Japan Airlines, LAN and Finnair, now the biggest European member of the alliance has also followed with a special livery on one of its 55 Jumbo Jets.

The Boeing 747-400, registration number: G-CIVP (also known as “The V.P.“) has been given a new paint-job, displaying large “member of oneworld” titles on the front part of its fuselage. The letters of the smaller “member of” text from a distance look like if they were additional windows on the top floor. The large letters in “oneworld” are painted between the two floors of the Jumbo, with the top of the “d” vritually ending smoothly in one of the top floor windows.

British Airways or oneworld is yet to publish any press coverage about the special livery, or whether if other planes would follow, but ”The V.P.” has already been spotted at Heathrow two days ago.

The first pictures are available on airliners.net.

by balint01

It looks like airlines around the world are starting to have enough of the recent delays from aircraft manufacturers while they are developing new airliners. The Airbus A380 was late by 1.5 years, Sukhoi’s SuperJet is also well behind schedule, not to mention Boeing’s troubled 787 Dreamliner, latest hit by the machinist’s/assembly workers’ 2 month strike last fall.

S7 Airlines, Russia’s biggest domestic airline is the first airline to have confirmed the cancellation of its full order for 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliners. As widely known, Boeing’s promising new Dreamliner has not flown yet, and is more than 2 years behind the original schedule. The first plane should have been delivered to All Nippon Airways last year, before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but the plane has yet to take to the skies for the first ime. S7 is the first carrier to actually terminate a major deal for Boeing’s next generation widebody airplane.

The May 2007 order placed for 15 787s, due to be delivered in 2014, was worth about USD$2.4 billion at list prices and also included 10 purchase rights. The cancellation is a blow for Boeing, as other customers standing in line for the Dreamliner and simply acknowledging each news about further delays (the manufacturer has delayed the 787 program five (!) times already) may get powered up and decide to also cancel their orders. The current financial crisis is hitting practically all airlines around the world really bad, thus cost-cutting is vital for them. And Boeing running so much behind its schedule and not fulfilling its contractual duties, is in a bad position to protect and save these deals, while airlines may see 787 Dreamliner order cancellations as an effective way of saving some money in these hard times.

The order is gone, but we may still see the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in S7 livery

The airline (formerly known as Siberia Airlines), did not offer a reason for the cancellation but said in a statement that it “retains interest in using the Dreamliner and at the moment is looking into receiving the planes under a leasing scheme at an earlier date, for which it is in negotiations with several leasing companies.“

Boeing’s 787 backlog now stands at 895 from 58 customers. Overall, it has taken 914 gross orders for the Dreamliner. In addition to the S7 cancellation, Xiamen Airlines in 2006 replaced an order for three 787s with an order for seven 737-800s and Azerbaijan Airlines replaced one 787 with one 767-300ER last summer.

Boeing has originally planned to deliver around 100 787s in 2009…

by balint01

Today a shocking screen waited for us, who visited Airliners.net: Paulo Emanuele, general manager of the famous aviation photo site died last evening in a plane crash. His plane took off out of Santa Monica Airport around 5:00 PM and lost power. Paulo attempted to return to the airport, but did not make it. Paulo loved Airliners and everything it stands for. According other news sources, there was another passenger on the plane, who was also killed in the accident, but these resources do not mention the passengers name.

airliners.net - 29/01/2009

The Airliners team created a very nice site with aquote from Leonardo da Vinci saying:

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Probably this is the most accurate way to describe what we flyaholics feel about aviation.

Guys, please follow his footsteps and continue the great work you are doing there at Airliners.net!

Paulo Emanuele was 47 years old.

By Szafi and balint01

There was a great market opening in Northern Italy for scheduled air services, as the weakened Alitalia decided to focus on their hub in Rome. Ryanair was among the first operators to announce that it’s capable of placing a few aircraft there, but in the end it seems that Lufthansa is the first airline to actually make a strong move.

Lufthansa has been shopping around Europe as we reported earlier, but has missed out on purchasing a stake in the re-launched Alitalia a few weeks ago, who in the end chose to cooperate with their long-time SkyTeam partner, Air France-KLM. Lufthansa (and Star Alliance) had a very good relationship to the second biggest Italian carrier, Air One, but Air One is included in the newly formed Alitalia, thus probably that relationship will sooner or later end. But the German flag-carrier is not sitting around waiting for that, instead, they have chosen a different way to strengthen their position in the Italian market: setting up their own subsidiary outside the safe German home-market.

The new Lufthansa Italia took to the skies on January 28, 2009 with a panoramic flight over the Alps which was followed by the christening ceremony of its first two Airbus A319s, named “Milano” and “Varese” respectively. Until now all Lufthansa planes have been named after German cities, therefore these new names are symbolically emphasizing their aggressive expansion strategy and real focus on the Italian market.

The A319s were painted in Lufthansa Italia livery and refurbished with 138 seats across two classes. The cabin interior will be designed Italian-style, in-flight service will be in the hands of Italian fights attendants and Italian delicacies will round off the in-flight cuisine. Scheduled service will start February 2, 2009, with the first two destinations: thrice daily flights to both Barcelona and Paris (Charles de Gaulle).  After the arrival of the next two aircraft, starting March 2, 2009 twice daily flights to Brussels, Budapest and Madrid plus a daily service to Bucharest will be added to the timetable four weeks later. London (Heathrow) (four-times-daily ! ) and Lisbon (daily) will be brought into the network from the start of the 2009 summer flight schedules at the end of March when another two Airbus A319s join the fleet. Five aircraft are ex-Germanwings and one will come from the Lufthansa mainline. The new services will provide Lufthansa customers with fast, non-stop connections to European metropolises.

In the summer, the new airline will operate some 260 weekly flights out of MXP in addition to the 140 operated by Lufthansa. This will mean that Lufthansa and Lufthansa Italia will operate a total of weekly 400 flights from Milan-Malpensa!

Once LH Italia receives its own Air Operators Certificate (AOC), it will employ some 300 people. Lufthansa Italia is seeking an Italian AOC in large part to secure traffic rights to non-EU destinations like Eastern Europe or countries that do not have open skies agreements with the EU.

by balint01

This has been in the news all over Australia last month and was brought to our attention by an ex-Virgin Blue employee-friend (who says this is “oh so true“…), so we thought it still deservers an article in our Friday Fun series.

Torsten Koerting was a project manager at Virgin Blue at the airline’s Brisbane Headquarter office, but he resigned last November, sending a farewell email to his colleauges. Until this point, this is a very typical story of one leaving a company, but he included a funny board game in his last email, criticizing the company’s decision making process, with 50 steps to make a decision (which is the ultimate goal of the game).

Based on the classic Snakes and Ladders format, his version contains ladders and ropes taking you forward (ladder) or back (rope) if you end up on the bottom of the ladder or the top of the rope. If you end up on a square that has a Virgin Blue airplane, you have to take an Action card, and this is where the inside joke really comes into play. All action cards are referring to actual Project Experiences that he gathered while working for Virgin Blue, but let’s face it, the Australian Low-cost airline is not the only one in the industry facing such difficulties around decision making. I’m sure if we would replace “EMT” with whatever the Project Approval Board at your airline (or company) is called, the game would be very well targeted for your colleagues as well. You may have to recolor the board and replace the plane images as well as the faces on the figures, but it would probably be playable at your upcoming Team Building weekend or in a longer Friday lunch-break in the cantine. “CEO on holiday – no decision – go 1 step back” is something that we probably have all been faced with at one point in our carriers. But I have a feeling that the “Parlez-vous Français? – if yes go 3 steps forward, if not go 3 steps back” action card may be refering to working with one of the strongest Aviation and Tourism IT company based in Nice, France.

We are planning to have a game session with this board game sometime in the future, and will add a comment about our experiences.

Download the full resolution pdf file.

by balint01

The world’s first jumbo hostel was opened on 15th January this year. The plane was completely renewed and refurbished by its owners. Originally it operated to and from Stockholm’s Arlanda international airport. Last time it landed there was in November 2002.

After a few years break the huge plane is back in business again, but this time it stays at the entrance of Arlanda Airport, where it operates as a hotel.  It is useful for both the airport and the passengers and besides that it just looks great!

Watch a video about the Boeing-747 hotel:

you can read more about the hostel at jumbohostel.com.

By Szafi

Singapore Airlines, the first operator of the Airbus A380 has announced that it will fly to Paris Charles-de-Gaulle starting June 1, 2009 from its Singapore homebase. This will be the first service to the continental Europe operated by an A380 superjumbo. The new daily flight will replace the existing 10-times-weekly Singapore-Paris flight, that has been operated by Boeing 777.300ER.

Singapore was the first one to bring the A380 to London Heathrow nearly 10 months ago, and now is the first one to operate this aircraft type to Paris. They have passed the 2000th flight with an A380 with more than 20,000 flying hours, and are currently the largest operator of the type, already having 6 aircraft in service, each equipped with 471 seats in three cabins. First class features the famous and revolutionary Singapore Airlines Suites, a new and luxurious class of travel with each Suite enclosed by sliding doors for privacy, and a full-sized flat bed that is separate from the seat. Paris will be the carrier’s fourth A380 destination after London Heathrow (twice-daily), Sydney and Tokyo Narita (each daily) and will follow the delivery of the seventh and eighth aircraft. It has a further 13 Airbus superjumbos on order.

Sector	Flight Number	Daily Departure Time	Daily Arrival Time
Singapore-Paris (From June 1, 2009)	SQ334	2340hrs	0655hrs + 1
Paris-Singapore (From June 2, 2009)	SQ333	1225hrs	0655hrs + 1

Separately, Singapore Airlines is very close to reaching another exciting milestone less than one and a half years after the inaugural flight, as they are expecting to fly the one millionth A380 customer in February 2009, less than only four months after the first anniversary of launching A380 commercial services.  The Airline is expecting to welcome its first millionth customer onboard the A380 in the month of February, and is planning to surprise the lucky customer and other customers on the flight with a series of goodies. The lucky millionth customer will be greeted with the news upon check-in and a special package.  Beyond the enhanced inflight experience, the winner will get to enjoy a host of prizes at the destination, including a three-night stay at a luxury hotel and a chauffeur-driven limousine ride to the hotel, experiences at top-class restaurants as well as a series of other goodies to take away. To commemorate this special occasion, customers in all three classes on the millionth customer flight will also be presented with champagne onboard and special Singapore Airlines giveaways.

by balint01

US Airways flight 1549 on 15JAN2009 has crash landed in the icy Hudson River in New York City shortly after take-off from New York La Guardia airport. The Airbus A320 was heading to Charlotte, North Carolina with 155 people on board, including the 2 pilots and 3 flight attendants, of whom ALL escaped successfully after the water landing.

First reports claim, that the plane (registration: N106US, first flight in 1999) took off at 15:26 local time, and soon afterwards passengers heard some sort of an explosion and the plane started shaking. The FAA has disclosed that less than one minute after take-off, the pilot reported “a double bird strike” after colliding with a flock of birds. Soon after the explosion the plane started to turn around and asked for clearance for an emergency landing at La Guardia, just east of Manhattan in Queens which it was granted. Later the pilot chose to try to land at Teterboro which was closer, but couldn’t make it there, either – which resulted in the first controlled emergency landing on water of a US commercial aircraft in more than 50 years at 15:30 local time (less than 6 minutes after takeoff). He informed the passengers ”to get ready for the impact” and landed in the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan, just across New Jersey. Passengers claim it simply felt like a car-accident. Witnesses reported that the plane landed very softly on the river, slowly touching down on the surface at around 48th street, without making a bounce (more about the dangers of such bounces in our earlier article: How to survive an Air Crash?)

Air temperature at the time was -6 Celsius, with the water being +6 C. Television images taken shortly after the accident showed that the aircraft appeared intact and just partially submerged, with local ferry boats quickly rushing to the scene and taking all passengers and crew onboard from the deployed slides/rafts, saving them from being chilled as the aircraft subsequently began to sink. Many were photographed standing on the wings. Passengers have reported that there was indeed some panic onboard after the landing, but the crew was professional in getting them all out of the aircraft through the doors, with women and children first. The 57 year old ex Air Force pilot, Captain Chesley Sullenberger was the last to leave the plane sweaping the center aisle twice to make sure nobody was left behind! He has been flying with US Airways since 1980 and just one day after the accident it regarded as a Hero (similar to the pilot of British Airways flight 038 last year).

There were widespread but unconfirmed reports of various injuries, including cuts, broken bones and hypothermia, but nothing life threatening. Victims were treated at local hospitals.

“Our preliminary report is that everyone is off the plane and accounted for,” US Airways Chairman and CEO Doug Parker said, adding that it was “premature to speculate about the cause.” Such planes as the Airbus A320 can easily survive the strike of one bird in one of the engines, but hitting 4-5 birds at the same time can cause such an accident as this one.

Landing such an Airbus A320 airliner on water with such precision has never happened before and is claimed as a miracle by many. This type of aircraft typically lands at a speed of around 250 km/hour and hitting the water surface with such speed may make a lot of damage to the fuselage and could practically tear off the engines and the wings or even break the cabin apart – which would result in quick sinking. But luckily this hasn’t happened and the plane landed safely.

This was the second take-off accident in the US within a month that all passengers survived, as on December 20, 2008, a Continental Airlines Boeing slid off the runway in Denver. About a month and a half  ago on November 28, 2008, an Airbus A320 crashed in water on a test-flight, killing 7 people onboard.

by balint01

Business Traveler magazine in the US has announced the results of a poll that was conducted among 4,000 readers. The awards were given in 3 main ctagories: airline industry, hotel industry and business travel related industries.

Naturally we were interested in the airline industry awards. Some winners were surprising, but I think if someone knows these airlines will be able to guess even without seeing the results. I am not sure whether this poll shows the real picture or it is built on preconceptions and good marketing, but I truely miss some smaller and thus more creative airlines.

Besides that I linked in the websites of the awarded airlines and I really wonder why all these big companies still use their 1999-style webdesign and why they don’t feel the need to improve them. I think one of our next posts will be an early 2009 overview of the biggest airlines with the most austere websites.

Anyway, let’s see the winners:

- Best Overall Airline in the World:  Emirates
- Best Airport in the World:  Changi Airport (Singapore)
- Best First-Class Service in the World: Jet Airways
- Best Business- Class Service in the World:  Qantas
- Best Premium Economy Class in the World: Virgin Atlantic
- Best Economy-Class Service in the World:  Singapore Airlines
- Best Airline for International Travel:  Cathay Pacific
- Best Airline for North American Travel:  Continental Airlines
- Best Flight Attendants in North America: Continental Airlines
- Best Airline in Mexico: Aeromexico
- Best Airline in Western Europe: British Airways
- Best Airline in Central and Eastern Europe:  Czech Airlines
- Best Airline in the Middle East:  Qatar Airways
- Best Airline in Asia: Korean Air
- Best Business Class to Asia/Trans-Pacific:  Korean Air
- Best Airline Advertising Campaign:  Korean Air
- Best Flight Attendants in the World:  Asiana
- Best In-Flight Services in the World: Asiana
- Best Overall Airline Customer Service: Asiana
- Best Airline for First-Class Service in North America:  American Airlines
- Best North American Airline for International Travel: Air Canada
- Best Airline for Business-Class Service in North America:  Air Canada
- Best In-Flight Services in North America:  Air Canada
- Best Airline for Business-Class Service to South America:  LAN
- Best Airline for Business Class to Europe/trans-Atlantic:  Air France
- Best Business Class to Australia/New Zealand/South Pacific:  Air New Zealand
- Best Business Class to the Middle East:  Etihad Airways
- Best Business Class to Africa:  South African Airways
- Best All-Business-Class Service: All Nippon Airways
- Best Airline Cuisine/Meals: bmi
- Best Airline Alliance Program: Star Alliance
- Best Low-Cost Airline in North America: Virgin America
- Best Airport Clubs/Lounges: Delta Air Lines
- Best Frequent-Flyer Program: Delta Air Lines
- Best Airline Web Site: Delta Air Lines
- Best Airport in North America: Denver International Airport

By Szafi

2008 was a bad year for the travel industry, and apparently 2009 will be even worse. Boeing, one of the two biggest jetliner manufacturer will start the year 2009 with a tough cut of about 4,500 positions due to the decreasing number of orders from airlines.

@ Boeing.com

This number is about 3% of the total workforce at Boeing. Most of the cuts will occur in Washington state in April-May. Before that Boeing plans to notify the affected employees starting at the end of February.

Boeing announced the job cuts after a long strike that further delayed the first flights of the new Boeing 787. The huge delay in the B 787 programme is definately harmful for the company and it is probably one of the main reasons the manufacturer’s orders decreased. As AirlineWorld Blog reported earlier, Boeing announced the first delay in 2007. According to the original plans, the first Dreamliners should have been delivered to Japanese carrier ANA before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Read full story on Boeing’s website.

Please share your opinion with us:

By Szafi

As we have already mentioned in an earlier post about sexy setwardess uniforms, not everybody can qualify for a stewardess job.  Many airlines have height and weight requirements and even once you start working as a flight attendant, you may be released any time for loosing your shape.

Apparently Air India is one of these strict airlines. In December 2008 10 stewardesses were fired for being fat. They were given a chance to loose weight and reshape themselves, but they failed. I am sure many of us have experienced the bad feeling over the failure of loosing weight in a diet. Besides this bad feeling, the ladies even lost their jobs.

According to the full story by Times Online, they initiated a legal procedure, but the court said it was the right of the airline to apply strict rules regarding the appearance of the flight crew.

Well, it is up to everyone to decide what is better: seeing good young chicks on board and fire women at the age of 50, when they cannot get a job any more or seeing old and a little overweight stewardesses during the flight time.

By Szafi

‘Flying!’ says Tom, as Susan and I slip past him. ‘A champagne lifestyle on lemonade money. Don’t you just love it?’

We do love it, and if you want to know more about it, or just a have a good laugh, this 2005 book by Imogen Edwards-Jones & Anonymus (where Anonymus stands for a number of unnamed airline and airport staff interviewed by the author) takes you behind the scenes of the world of flying in a very funny, entertaining way.

The book is basically a lot of anecdotes compiled in a fictional day of an Airport Duty Manager of the imaginery Air Babylon Airlines, organized in 24 chapters that span each hour of the day from 5am – til 5am the next day. We witness the Airport operations from handling flight arrivals early in the morning that arrive with dead people and criminals on board as well as with a snake that broke loose during the flight, through check-in and boarding, including the always required and sought after quick cigarettes on the apron as well as the must-have coffee breaks to fight the hangover from the last day… Our hero arrives at the airport at 5am with his shitty car looking around the parking lot at the Jaguars, Audis and BMW’s of the baggage handlers… We get an insight to the world of check-in for example, why and what the check-in agents are typing into the computer while we just stand there in front of them for a few minutes in silence. Why and based on what does the duty manager make the call about late comers allowed on the plane or being rejected, or another important “lesson” for the reader’s future travels is why complaining and whining around about the desired seat can result in a very unpleasant travel experience…

Later on during the day we witness “typical” airport situations such a boyfriend saying goodbye to his girlfriend and taking pills, a police escorted terrorist checking-in, or random sex happening around in the airport toilettes. The book also reveals the tricks of how we can get the worst seat on a flight or where is the best place to have sex on board an airplane or why we usually don’t see the panty-line on a stewardess’ skirt… On the other hand, I believe some parts of the story include an exaggerated amount of alcohol drinking by the staff and crew – they probably do drink while on the job, but I personally believe it’s not as bad as described in the book by Edwards-Jones. But of course I haven’t been working as a flight attendant, so I shouldn’t make any statements about that…

Even though the book is mostly about the airport life, it also takes us on an extremely eventful flight to Dubai to join the team of sex-hungry, alcohol-blooded airline employees celebrating the assistant airport manager’s birthday on a quick get-away trip. During this flight we learn about many typical situations on board – from heavy turbulence to breakfast fixing by the “hosties” or why the cabin heating seems to work much better after dinner.

The book reveals a large number of airline secrets that are good and fun to know for everyday travellers, and does this in a very entertaining, humorous manner. We at the airlineworld blog have both read it and suggest it for airline-fans as well as to regular passengers. Only one warning: if you’re afraid of flying, you should read it in a nice chair on the porch or in your living room (especially the chapters after 9pm), rather than onboard a long transatlantic flight – even though it would also make such a flight much easier to survive and the time would fly much faster!

by balint01

George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas offers a special entertainment for bored travellers. Karaoke is much fun at parties, but the brave management of the airport decided to take the idea of an employee and start offering karaoke as a new entertainment service for passengers.

It could have been a complete failure as well, but Rob Mason, the enthusiastic employee provided not just the idea and the karaoke machine to the airport, he even took the role of the karaoke DJ and debuted at the first karaoke party organized especially for the holidays.

Besides karaoke, local chool chires were also invited to entertain tired and nervous passengers and bring holiday spirit to the terminal while queuing up for security control. According to the airport’s webiste, it was a big hit and I am almost sure karaoke will become a standard at international airports, soon.

By Szafi

Lufthansa, the German flag carrier has been one of the most successful airlines in Europe in recent years and a leader in the Star Alliance. They have made very strong relationships with the other European Star Alliance members by sharing loyalty programs (pushing through their own Miles & More program to be used by others), promoting strong code-share agreements, etc. They have also assured to have an insight and some influence over at least some of their fellow European Star partners by having minority stakes in British bmi and the Scandinavian SAS. Lufthansa has also made a strong partnership with Italian Air One in 2000 – this is a nowadays often heard name, as Air One is merging with the nearly-collapsed Alitalia to form the new Italian flag-carrier.

    1. SWISS International Airlines (2005)

Other European carriers may have also had some similar agreements in place, but no minority ownership in other airlines, until only a few years ago. Then in 2004 Air France merged with KLM, creating Air France-KLM and created the world’s largest Airline in terms of annual revenue in those days. As an answer, Lufthansa purchased the bankrupt Swiss International Airlines in March 2005, which was also officially communicated as a merger, but in reality it was a take-over by the Germans. Swiss has been turned around and is making profit these days – thus it is living proof that Lufthansa may be very successful in acquiring other airlines and merging them into its extended line of subsidiaries that contain smaller, regional partners such as Air Dolomiti, Lufthansa CityLine, Augsburg Airways just to name a few. Obviously Swiss became a much bigger subsidiary than these others by keeping its own brand and identity but sharing the coherences.

   2. jetBlue (2007)

Then, two years after the succussful Swiss take-over, Lufthansa began airline shopping in late 2007. First it purchased a 19% stake in the American low-cost airline, JetBlue and announced extended partnerships.

3. Brussels Airlines (2008)

But in 2008, Lufthansa really shifted gears and became the main advocate and driver of airline consolidation around Europe. Basically any airline sales that have happened this year, included Lufthansa as a potential buyer at some point, but more interestingly in a number of cases they turned out to be the actual buyers. On September 15 2008, Lufthansa announced a relative surprise 45% stake acquisition in Brussels Airlines, just two weeks after the first rumours of such a tie-up. It is interesting as Brussels Airlines has not been a member of Star Alliance (has been an outsider to any airline alliances actually), and is a result of a merger by itself, that happened not so long ago. In 2006 SN Brussels Airlines (replacement of the earlier bankrupt Sabena) merged with Virgin Express, a Richard Branson owned low-cost carrier to create the largest Belgian airlines. Lufthansa now owns 45% of it, but has an option to purchase the remaining 55% by 2011. Brussels Airlines is bound to gain full membership to Star Alliance in the coming years as a result. During the merger process it was revealed that Brussels Airlines was also in talks with British Airways, but that deal has fallen through.

Over the course of 2008, Lufthansa was also mentioned as a potential buyer of SAS, or its subsidiary in Spain: Spanair. They are both members of Star, so it would have been a logical step. (The Spanair interest has been expressed already in 2007 as we reported.) However, a Spanair flight suffered a very bad, deadly accident on August 20th, 2008, following of which Lufthansa seems to have given up on purchasing the SAS lead airline group that fell into heavy losses after the accident.

4. bmi (British Midland) (2008)

But let’s not forget the large UK market, where as said earlier, LH has held a minority stake (30%-1 share) in the second largest local player on the market: bmi. The current majority stakeholder, Sir Michael Bishop has 50%+1 share, with the remaining 20% being owned by the Scandinavian SAS Airlines group. Lufthansa is planning to purchase the stakes of Sir Bishop (who expressed his intentions of selling his stakes to the Germans in late October, 2008), with which they would become the 80% owner of the second largest British Airlines, and the airlines holding the second largest number of take-off and landing slots at London Heathrow airport, the biggest European Gateway to North-America. This sale is expected at around GBP 314 Million, which at the time of the announcement was worth around EUR 400 Million. By the time the sale is concluded sometime in January 2009, it may cost less for the Germans due to the recent weakness of the Pound against the Euro. Having mentioned Sir Richard Branson’s name in connection with Brussels Airlines above, both parties have confirmed that should Lufthansa become the majority owner of bmi, he would very much like to link up the long-haul operations of his Virgin Atlantic Airways with the short and medium haul flights of bmi – to create a realistic competition to British Airways in the UK. Virgin Atlantic Airways President Richard Branson said in December that “talks will take place with Lufthansa, maybe are taking place, to see whether it makes sense for the two companies to work together,” the Associated Press reported.

Update: On 18MAY2009, the takeover bid has been approved by the European Commission.

5. Austrian Airlines (2008)

On the other hand, Lufthansa quickly turned its focus towards the recently loss-making Austrian Airlines, a long-time close Star Alliance partner. The Austrian Government was selling off the majority stake of its own flag-carrier over the course of October-November, 2008. There are some controversial details to the final bidding process where AirFrance-KLM had dropped its bid, but after all, Lufthansa was announced as the winner of this privatization effort. This sounds like a logical step, based on their long-time partnership. The deal is expected to be closed by January 2009.

Update (29AUG2009): It took much longer than expected, but finally on 28AUG, the European Commission has officially approved Lufthansa’s acquisition of Austrian Airlines Group. Lufthansa alleviated antitrust concerns by agreeing to reduce service between five European cities (Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne and Brussels) and Vienna.

6. Germanwings (2008)

Another late 2008 announcement saw Lufthansa taking full ownership of the German low-cost carrier, Germanwings (established in 1997), that was owned by Eurowings, a Dortmund based regional air carrier. To twist this story, Lufthansa has been holding a 49% stake in Eurowings since 2006 with full control as parent company, thus it was already partial owner of Germanwings before the announcement in December, 2008, that it will fully take it over as of January 1, 2009.

7. What’s next in 2009?

Looking at the dynamics of Lufthansa shopping around Europe for other airlines, we are sure they will continue in 2009. But what could be their next target(s)?

• Alitalia
  The Italian flag-carrier is just being reorganized and the new owners are looking for a strategic partner, which could be either Lufthansa (given their strong relationship to Air One, it would make sense) or Air France-KLM (they have been cooperating with Alitalia and are all in SkyTeam). And let’s not forget that Lufthansa has been interested in Alitalia all along the long and rocky road to its privatization.
  Update (09JAN2009): Lufthansa confirmed that it did not make an offer for Alitalia in the end, and prefers to work with its Star Alliance partners in the Italian market. Air France-KLM will hold a minority stake in the reorganized Italian flag-carrier.
• SAS / Spanair
  Given the earlier speculations and shared Star Alliance interests, a partial or majority stake exchange or merger could still happen between Lufthansa and SAS or SAS subsidiary Spanair.
  Update (02FEB2009): SAS has sold its 80.1% stake in Spanair for €1 ($1.31), leaving SAS with the remainder. This practically rules out Lufthansa buying the Spanish carrier, but would still offer the possibility for a stake in SAS.
• LOT Polish Airlines
  The Polish government is planning to sell all or at least part of the national carrier of Poland that has been in Star Alliance and has been cooperating with Lufthansa for quite some time.
• TAP Portugal
  We don’t know about TAP being up for sale, but would not be surprised if Lufthansa would simply buy the fellow Star Alliance member that would give them a much larger presence in South-America.
• CSA Czech Airlines
  I wouldn’t bet on such a tie-up, but given the aggressiveness of the Germans, if and when CSA will be up for privatization, they may join the tender process, just in case…
  Update: Lufthansa had not turned in an offer for CSA.
• Regional carriers
  There are a number of regional flag-carriers of smaller European countries that could theoretically be of interest to Lufthansa next year, such as those Star Alliance associates on the Balkans (Croatia Airlines and Adria Airways) or any of the small carriers in the Baltic states.

If Lufthansa will keep its course and will continue to be shopping around Europe for airlines in 2009, we’ll be here to keep you updated! And of course the other two major European players (Air France-KLM and British Airways) will also have to speed up their consolidation plans if they want to cooperate with any airline in Europe, before Lufthansa buys them all…

by balint01

Continental Airlines flight 1404 scheduled to fly from Denver, Colorado to Houston, Texas on 20 December, 2008 slid off the runway at Denver International Airport at around 6:18 pm.

The Continental Airlines Boeing 737-500 as seen at the crash site, one day later - C by Ben Remy on Airliners.net

The Boeing 737-500 (registration number N18611) that first flew in 1994 had 115 people on board of flight CO 1404 (110 passengers and 5 crew), who ALL disembarked the plane through emergency slides that have been deployed on both sides of the aircraft. 38 of them were taken to hospital, with 4 having “moderate to serious” and one person reported as having “serious” injuries. Most injuries are broken bones and fractures. Most of the passengers escaped through the emergency slides and were climbing up the small hill immediately after the accident as the fire fighters arriving to the scene have seen passengers walking or running away from the plane, coming out of the smoke that covered the wreckage.

It is not yet confirmed whether the plane had actually taken off by the time it caught fire, but according to reports runway has was littered by wreckage – which indicates that the plane may have lifted off and then practically fell back on the runway before sliding off into a small ravine on the side 200 yards away. (If this is true, the accident itself seems to be similar to that of Spanair in Madrid earlier this year, where most of the passengers died…) One passenger story tells us: ”the plane started to take off, came back down and skidded off“, but this will have to be investigated. After skidding off, the plane came to rest on its right hand side, and the cabin was filled with smoke. After the evacuation the fire had entered the cabin as well, as firefighters were reporting that the overhead luggage bins have melted onto the seats.

by balint01

Following our earlier polls about:

• The best A380 interior design
• The biggest looser of the year
• The best airline commercial

now we are interested in you opinion about

The Best PR action of the year

Here are the nominees:

• Air Asia

for dressing one of their Airbus planes in a special Williams F1 livery to present that hey are sponsoring the Williams Formula 1 team.

• Astraeus

for their special Iron Maiden flight that delivered fans to the locations of the bands’ concerts. Naturally the pilot was captain Bruce Dickinson himself.

• Finnair

for a perfect retro website and retro livery on the airline’s 85th birthday.

• Qantas

for the introduction of their new A380. First they made a nice naming ceremony, then the first flight was welcome by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Los Angeles.

Now please vote for the best airline PR action of the year 2008.

As bloggers specialized in aviation, we read tons of airline press releases every day. We really belive that this selection really represents the best PR actions of the year and we congratulate these airlines and their PR experts, because there is a tough competition, but somehow most airlines do not use this tool to get freemedia attention as they do.

This post is the third part of our”Best of 2008″ series. After the best A380 interior design and the biggest looser of the year 2008, now you can vote for

The Best Airline Commercial Video

The nominees are:

• Zambian airline 1time for the following video

• Virgin Atlantic for the following one

• United Airlines for this one

• Norwegian Airlines for the following commercial

Now please vote for The Best Airline Commerical Video

An Airbus A320 has crashed in the Mediterranean Sea on 27NOV2008, just 2.5 km offshore Canet-en-Roussillon in Perpignan, southern France. Reports say this was a test flight, with three people found dead and four missing (but feared dead), which would mean none of the 7 people onboard would have survived the crash…

The aircraft plunged into waters just off the French coast after taking off in late afternoon with a crew of seven from Perpignan, France, where the plane was being overhauled. The accident occured at around 5pm local time, as the plane was preparing to land after the two-hour test flight. The plane belonged to Air New Zealand and had been leased to the German carrier XL Airways for the last two years. It was to have been returned in the coming days to Air New Zealand, thus it has been repainted to Air New Zealand colours when the accident happened.

The Airbus A320 in XL Airways colors and registration (c by Roger Andreasson at airliners.net)

Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe told a news conference in Auckland that two of the crew were German pilots from XL Airways. (Some reports say they were actually piloting the plane on this flight, but this is not yet confirmed.) The others were a pilot and three engineers employed by Air New Zealand and an inspector from New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority, he said.

Three bodies were recovered from the water, and though French Navy boats, planes and a helicopter were continuing rescue search efforts, a spokesman for the French Coast Guard said that it was very unlikely that anyone had survived the crash.

Fyfe told reporters on Friday 28NOV2008, that he still hoped survivors would be found. “I certainly haven’t given up hope,” he said.

The cause of the accident is not yet known, but according to some reports, the spokesman for XL said “the plane tried to make an emergency landing on the sea.” The remains of the plane is currently resting in about 30 meters of water.

by balint01

In our earlier post we started a year-end poll about the biggest things that happened in the airline industry in 2008.

In the first poll we aksed your opinion about the best A380 interior design.

Now it’s fun time. Let’s see who was the biggest looser of the year.

The nominees are:

• A cow hit by an aeroplane during landing.

The weird accident happened earlier this year. You can read the short story here.

• Boeing for further delaying the delivery of the Dreamliner (B 787).

Both Boeing and Airbus had problems with their new wonder machines. Boeing was in a much better situation about 2 years ago, but in the meantime Airbus delivered the A380 and Boeing is still stuck in the middle of the Dreamliner project.

• British Airways and British Airport Authorities for screwing up the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5.

When it comes to success, it is always about one-man-shows. But when failure is coming, it is always team work. Here you can read about what went wrong during the Terminal 5 project, but one thing is clear: that was a huge failure.

• Ryanair in the dispute with Mr Sarkozy

To keep a long story short, Ryanair used French president, Mr Sarkozy and his newly wed wife without their permissions for an advertisement in a French daily paper. Then Mr Sarkozy sued them and said he did not want any money, and if he wins, he will give it to charity, but it was not fair what Ryanair did. You can read the full story here.

• Mr Sarkozy in the dispute with Ryanair

Finally Mr Sarkozy won the case, and Ryanair had to pay EUR 60 000, but in the end accorsing to Ryanair they won about EUR 5 million in the form of free publicity. You can read more about it here.

Now it is your turn to tell us:

Who is the biggest looser of the year?

End of the year is coming again. Last year we just wrote an article that collected all the big events of the year, but this year thanks to WordPress we have a nice voting tool we’ll use to sum up the year 2008.

We borrowed a good title from Pink Floyd (for those who don’t know it, here’s a very good concert version) that absolutely represents what is called the Best of Airline World 2008.

Please add our blog’s RSS feed to your RSS reader and follow the votes in the next weeks to help us find out your opinion about the best A380 interior design, the biggest looser of the year, the greenest airline of the year, the biggest financial loss, the most stupid aviation news, the funniest airline video and so on.

Now let’s see the first vote. You can go and check out the designs with the help of the links :

The best A380 interior design

Naturally the greatest gig among planes that fly over us day by day is the biggest commercial plane: the Airbus A380. Since it was intorduced to the public, three airlines have started to use A380. These are:

• Singapore Airlines

You can check out the design of the Singapore Airlines A380 on the airline’s website.

• Emirates

Emirates have always been famous for its on-board service. But what about their A380? Check it out here.

• Qantas

The Australian carrier has always good ideas, when it comes to PR. Now let’s see the work of their well marketed designer, who is always present at every PR event.

Now please share your opinion with us:

Which is the best A380 interior design in 2008?

Four new pilots from four continents will join the world’s fastest growing technical sport: Red Bull Air Race. The four pilots are all ambitious and they are all willing to take first places in the race’s hall of fame next year.

Four pilots from four countires from four continents – according to the official press release of Red Bull Air Race, the year 2009 will be even more exciting than this year’s series.

2008 was the year of 41-year-old Austrian pilot Hannes Arch. Peter Besenyei, the founder of the race was 5th in the championship. In 2008 eight cities hosted the series, more than 3 million spectators on site and more than 500 million following the events on TV. (See our previous posts on some of the highlights)

The scenes of the race for 2009 are not published yet, but we will see the following new faces:

4 new pilots in Red Bull Air Race 2009

The pilots in the order of thw picture are:

Pete McLeod, 24, Canada

24-year old Pete McLeod of Canada will be the youngest ever pilot in the series.

Yoshihide Muroya, 35, Japan

Japanese Yoshihide Muroya will be the first Asian pilot joining the air race team.

Matt Hall, 37, Australia

37-year-old Matt Hall is an Australian Air Force fighter pilot.

Matthias Dolderer, 38, Germany

Germany’s Matthias Dolderer is willing to put back Germany on the map again after the retirement of original air race pilot, Kluas Schrodt.

Enjoy the spectacular race with us next year and if you live close to any of the scenes, don’t miss the chance to go and watch it live. Nothing compares to the sound of these planes!

By Szafi

Route: BUDAPEST-London/Gatwick
Travel Date: 05OCT2008

Ticket Purchase

I have bought the ticket through www.easyjet.com, which was very simple and straight forward. After selecting your departue city on the homepage, it narrows down the list of destinations which are directly served from there. Also there is an option to indicate if you’re flexible about your dates. As I was on a business trip, this was not an option for me, I had to leave on a Sunday as the Monday schedule from Budapest to London pretty much destroys the full business day, thus it’s not an option… (I think with the winter 2008 timetable this flight has been rescheduled as an evening flight.) The Search Results still show 3 days, even though I have opted not to be flexible with my dates…

The least fair step of the booking process, comes after selecting your flight, where additional services are already added to your flight by default and the price of course is increased. This page looks very crowded, with loads of information presented in a number of different stlyed boxes below each other, making it hard to read and find the important information (“I’m charged with extra stuff”), which seems to be lost among the colored text and symbols. Third party taxes are of course OK, but why do I have to be automatically opted-in to Travel Insurance and 1 checked-in luggage with their associated costs? I can somewhat understand the luggage as probably the average traveller takes 1 larger, non-carry-on bag with them, but the insurance is really something that should not be opted-in by default! I can still add other items to the service, such as Speedy Boarding, additional luggage, and special sports equipment. This is the step when I can also opt-in to compensate my CO2 emmissions of the flight(s) booked. After having actively removed the Travel Insurance and the Checked-in luggage fee, I can continue to the next page to provide my traveller details, etc. Based on my preferred credit card type, I’m again charged with the extra Credit Card Transactional Fee. Only Visa Electron is transaction fee free… Once paid, I can already check-in if my flight is within 3 months from now! This is a very nice solution!

Offsetting Carbon Emissions 

Offsetting Carbon Emissions is very easy and simple with easyJet. As I already mentioned after selecting your flight you are presented with a very loaded page where you can opt-in for extras. One of those is the CO2 offsetting schema, that has already calculated the amount you should pay for this “service” and you can opt-in with just one simple click.

easyJet Airbus A319 (G-EZBU) c by Martin Stephen on airliners.net

Check-In

I chose to check-in online, immediately after finishing my booking. It opens 3 months before the actual flight, it’s very simple, and you can print your boarding pass at the end of the process. It is very convenient as you can proceed straight to the gate with that piece of paper. The only worry I would have is that if I’m checked in 3 months in advance for a flight, I may simply forget about it… As easyJet is using “Open seating“, there are no seats assigned to the passengers, you can look for a free seat you like and just take it once you’re on the aircraft. With the internet check-in, one is placed in boarding group “A”, that supposedly gets on board after those who have purchased the “Speedy Boarding” service – to guarantee themselves as among the first people to enter the airplane. There is another group following “A”, which is “B” and includes those who checked-in at the airport. They are the last ones to get on the plane and can only select from “left-over” seats.

1. BUDAPEST – LONDON GATWICK (EZY 5444)

Aircraft: Airbus A319 (G-EZBU)
Class: Economy (one class layout)
Punctuality: Flight took off 2 minutes late, arrived exactly on time.
Boarding: By bus, thus the above described boarding groups were hard to coordinate I think. As I took the aft door of the plane after getting out of the bus, I probably entered the plane with my “A” group Boarding pass earlier than some of those going through the front door and having “Speedy Boarding”… I got a window seat without any problems. Flight was less-than half house, with plenty of free seats, I was the only one in my row on my side.
Seats: Regular seats with less-than average legroom
Flight Attendants: There were 4 of them, 2 young girls and 1 guy plus 1 older purser. Two of the girls were good looking, all of them were very friendly.
Meals: Meals are offered at an additional cost, you can select from a range of sandwiches and drinks including alcoholic drinks. Those who selected a warm sandwhich, had to wait about 20 mins before they got their heated up food.
In-Flight shopping: In-flight shopping contains a selected range of items. I have purchased a limited series easyJet model plastic aircraft only, as the parfume I wanted to buy for my wife has already ran out.
Entertainment: No LCD screens or such, only the In-Flight magazine of easyJet plus the In-Flight Shopping guide of course. Bring your own reading material and music player!

Onboard easyJet

Overall Experience

It was exactly what I paid for: transportation from Budapest to London Gatwick, in a timely, correct manner without any frills. I would take this flight again, but only if I ever want to leave on a business trip on a Sunday afternoon as the schedule is not really good for travellers originating in Budapest. Totally wrong schedule for any Hungarian business travellers, as the flight leaves in the afternoon and returns from London in late morning, but probably suits London business people just OK. The pricetag: this one way flight costed HUF 41.400 or USD 255, with the purchase taking place 10 days before the departure.

by balint01

Exactly a week after the first A380 of Qantas Australian Airlines was named after a nice old lady, who was one of the pioneers of Australian aviation, the first commercial flight was completed by the giant airbus.

John Travolta has a good relationship with the airline. He was a Boeing 707 pilot for Qantas and after their contract was over, he received a 707 from them as a private jet with Qantas livery. The plane is parked in front of his house as he lives in a small village, where taxiways lead to the houses from the central runway and besides garages there are hangars for the private planes. See our earlier post about his topic.

Now that the first flight of the new A380 took off for los Angeles it was a nice idea from the airline to invite both travolta and Australian actress-singer Olivia Newton-John together to this ceremony.

The following pictures are from this welcome ceremony in los Angeles. In the pictures you can also see:

- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

- Qantas Captain Peter Probert

- Qantas Creative Director Marc Newson

Qantas A380 ft John Travolta

Captain John Travolta

Qantas A380 welcome ceremony, LA

Just a cynical note from me: can you imagine the flight with JT and Olivia on board? As they are getting their 20th note from the passengers delivered by the stewardess: “please sing Summer nights for us”, finally they give in, the stewardess pulls away the curtains of the first class and the 2 of them stand up in line: Olivia in front and John behind. Then they start singing Summer Nights and by the time the famous shoo-bop-bop part comes, they are already dancing between the isles.

By Szafi

Well, it is Saturday. But really, I have my excuse. Today is a workday in Hungary and I simply mixed up the days.

Erm, anyway? I think you will like this one, I have just found on Youtube. A very funny parody of a very British airline.

Enjoy the video and have a nice weekend!

By Szafi

News from CNN.com

A passenger plane flying between Antalya on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast and Russia has been hijacked, Turkish media have reported.

A spokesman at Turkish Airlines told CNN that there was an ‘urgent situation’ with their flight to St. Petersburg.

Some Turkish media sources have reported that the hijacker was overpowered by other passengers.

Read more on CNN.

A Turkish Airlines Airbus A320 - photo c by Dejan Milinkovic on airliners.net

More info from BBC:

They say passengers on board the plane flying from the Turkish city of Antalya to St Petersburg, Russia, overpowered the man, who claimed to have a bomb.

The Airbus A-320 with 167 people on board continued its flight after the incident, Turkey’s CNN Turk says.

Details of the incident – which reportedly happened in Belarussian air space – remain sketchy.

The plane was due to land on time in St Petersburg, a spokeswoman at the airport told the AFP news agency.

Flight TK3105 was scheduled to take off from Antalya at 10:30 and actually departed at 10:32. It is scheduled to land in St.Petersburg Pulkovo airport at 15:20 local time, and currently the flight information system projects it to land at 15:22.

By Szafi

The first A380 of Qantas, the flag carrier of Australia has been named after Nancy Bird Walton, a pioneer of aviation. The video tells everything about the event and why the giant Airbus was named after her.

She also speaks at the ceremony and after the champagne is broken on the plane, she just says like a worried grandma: “I hope she didn’t scratch it”.

It is a very nice, touchng video and I think everybody who watches it feels a little bit what Qantas’ employees feel now.

I remember when I worked for Malev and we received our first next generation Boeing, there was an internal hangar party for the workers. We were chatting, talking in the hangar, when suddenly the band stopped playing and the Malev song started from the loud speakers. The door of the hangar opened up and there was this beautiful plane standing in front of the building facing us with its Mickey mouse-like blue nose. I looked around and I saw people standing there proud, most of them having some teardrops in their eyes. Believe me, it is a very touching moment in the life of an airline.

Well done, Qantas, good PR job!

Here is the video and if you have time, watch the commercial that introduces A380 at Qantas.

The commercial:

By Szafi

According to a study written by Boeing in 2006, air traffic can double by 2025. The number of commercial aircrafts gliding through the sky each day is already way too high.

A few weeks ago the School of Engineering of Zurich, Switzerland released a video that simulates the commercial air traffic throughout a 24-hour period. It is interesting to see that air traffic is the highest in Europe and in North-America, especially during the day.In the simulation small yellow dots ilustrate each flight.

See the video here:

If you would like to see it in a higher resolution, you can download the video from the original website.

By Szafi

Thanks for Karen, we have received this funny (joke) conversation, that tries to show how airline pricing would work, if airlines would sell: PAINT for example. Really funny, even though it is exaggerating a little bit! And paint is not the same kind of “non-storable” product as airline seats flying away at a given time.

Customer: Hi. How much is your paint?
Clerk: Well, sir, that all depends on quite a lot of things.
Customer: Can you give me a guess? Is there an average price?
Clerk: Our lowest price is $12 a gallon, and we have 60 different prices up to $200 a gallon.
Customer: What’s the difference in the paint?
Clerk: Oh, there isn’t any difference; it’s all the same paint.
Customer: Well, then I’d like some of that $12 paint.
Clerk: When do you intend to use the paint?
Customer: I want to paint tomorrow. It’s my day off.
Clerk: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the $200 paint.
Customer: When would I have to paint to get the $12 paint?
Clerk: You would have to start very late at night in about 3 weeks. But you will have to agree to start painting before Friday of that week and continue painting until at least Sunday.
Customer: You’ve got to be *&%^#@* kidding!
Clerk: I’ll check and see if we have any paint available.

Customer: You have shelves FULL of paint! I can see it!
Clerk: But it doesn’t mean that we have paint available. We sell only a certain number of gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by the way, the price per gallon just went to $16. We don’t have any more $12 paint.
Customer: The price went up as we were talking?
Clerk: Yes, sir. We change the prices and rules hundreds of times a day, and since you haven’t actually walked out of the store with your paint yet, we just decided to change. I suggest you purchase your paint as soon as possible. How many gallons do you want?
Customer: Well, maybe five gallons. Make that six, so I’ll have enough.
Clerk: Oh no, sir, you can’t do that. If you buy paint and don’t use it, there are penalties and possible confiscation of the paint you already have.
Customer: WHAT?
Clerk: We can sell enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do the bedroom, you will lose your remaining gallons of paint.
Customer: What does it matter whether I use all the paint? I already paid you for it!
Clerk: We make plans based upon the idea that all our paint is used, every drop. If you don’t, it causes us all sorts of problems.
Customer: This is crazy!! I suppose something terrible happens if I don’t keep painting until after Saturday night!

Many of us who fly regularly have most probably seen a so-called winglet or wingtip device at the end of the wing of an airliner at least once. It is showing up more and more often on more and more types of aircraft, thus we felt it’s time to give an overview to our readers about these sometimes funny, sometimes cool and stylish looking aircraft parts.

Winglet on Virgin Atlantic A340-600 - c by Dan Valentine on Airliners.net

History, Reason and Benefits

The initial theoretical concept goes back to times before even the Wright Brothers first took to the skies in 1905, but it was picked up and developed by Richard T. Whitcomb of NASA after the 1973 oil crisis – in order to reduce fuel consumption. The first tests were carried out in 1979/80 in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force. At almost the same time, but independent of any U.S. military organization, a private jet producer, LearJet exhibited a prototype in 1977: the LearJet 28 that featured the first winglets on a jet and a production aircraft. Flight tests made with and without winglets showed that the winglets increased range by about 6.5 percent and also improved directional stability for the LearJet- these two factors are the major reasons behind using this facility at any fixed wing aircraft ever since.

A winglet is a (near) vertical extension of the wing tips. The upward angle of the winglet, its inward angle as well as its size and shape are critical for correct performance – this is why they can look quite different. Air rotating around the wing strikes the surface of the winglet that directs it in another direction – thus creating an extra force, basically converting otherwise wasted energy to thrust. This is a small contribution but can save a lot for an operator in an aircraft’s lifetime. Another potential benefit of winglets is that they reduce the strength of wingtip vortices, which trail behind the plane. When other aircraft pass through these vortices, the turbulent air can cause loss of control, possibly resulting in an accident.

Winglet Types

In general any wingtips that not end the wing simply horizontally are considered as some kind of a winglet. Even though in strictly technical terms Wingtip Fences are not real extensions of the wing, and Raked Wingtips do not have a vertical part, they are still widely considered as winglet variants.

WINGTIP FENCES are a special variant of winglets, that extend both upward and downward from the tip of the wing. Preferred by European plane-maker Airbus, it is featured on their full product range (except the A330/340 family and the future A350). The Airbus A300 was actually the first jet airliner to feature this kind of solution by default, but it was a very small version of the tool. Provided that most of the Airbus planes (including all A320 family jets) feature such wingtip fences, this may be the most seen and most produced winglet type. Even the new Airbus A380 double-decker features wingtip fences.

Airbus Winglets as seen from the outside

Airbus Winglets as seen from onboard

BLENDED WINGLETS (the real “Winglets”) are the most popular winglet type, leveraged by Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, Bombardier but also by Russian Tupolev and Iljushin. Blended winglets were first introduced on the McDonnel Douglas MD-11 aircraft in 1990 with launch customer Finnair (it also features a smaller winglet at the bottom side of the wing). In contrast to Airbus who applies the wingtip fences by default on most of their aircraft (and the winglets on the A330/340 family), blended winglets are considered by Boeing for example as an optional extra feature on their products, except for the Boeing 747-400. For some of the older Boeing jets (737 and 757) such blended winglets have been offered as an aftermarket retrofit, these are the newer, tall designs and do not connect to the tip of the wing with a sharp angle, but with a curve instead. These winglets are popular among airlines that fly these aircraft on medium/long haul routes as most of the real fuel savings materialize while cruising. Longer flights mean longer cruising, thus larger fuel savings. And they also server as marketing surface for airline logos or web addresses usually.

Just recently the Boeing 767-300ER has received 3.4 m high (!) winglets produced by Aviation Partners Inc. with American Airlines as the launch-customer with Air New Zealand and Hawaiian Airlines following with orders of 5 and 8 aircrafts respectively. 141 shipsets have been pre-sold already as the forecasted fuel savings range around 4%-6% for medium/long-range flights. Airbus earlier tested similar blended winglets designed by Winglet Technology for the A320 series, but determined that their benefits did not warrant further development and they stayed with the wingtip fences instead. Aviation Partners Boeing claims that winglets on 737s and 757s have saved a collective 1.2 billion gal. of fuel since they were introduced and 11.5 million tonnes of CO2 while reducing those types’ noise footprint by 6.5%. It has sold winglets to 140 airlines and 95% of all 737NGs are fitted with them. It is working on four winglet concepts for the 777 and hopes to finalize a design for that aircraft type by December, 2008.

Blended Winglets on Several Aircraft Types

RAKED WINGTIPS are the most recent winglet variants (they are probably better classified as special wings, though), where the tip of the wing has a higher degree of sweep than the rest of the wing. They are widely referred to as winglets, but they are better described as integrated wingtip extensions as they are (horizontal) additions to the existing wing, rather than the previously described (near) vertical solutions. The stated purpose of this additional feature is to improve fuel economy, climb performance and to shorten takeoff field length. It does this in much the same way as “traditional” winglets do. In testing by Boeing and NASA, raked wingtips have been shown to reduce drag by as much as 5.5%, as opposed to improvements of 3.5% to 4.5% from conventional winglets. Airliners to use raked wingtips: Boeing 747-8, Boeing 767-400ER, Boeing 777(-200LR; -300ER; and freighter versions) plus the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350. The 747-8, the 787 and the A350 will have special, new kind of wings, which do not have a separate winglet, but have raked, and blended wingtips integrated - without a sharp angle between the wing and the winglet.

Raked Wingtips on the new Boeing 787 and Airbus A350

As you can see, wingtips/winglets have developed and changed very much over the last 30 years, but are becoming the standard, which is not proven better by anything else than the wing designs of future aircraft by the largest airplane-makers that feature a built-in winglet at the tip of their new, revolutionary wings.

(Most of the winglet pictures in the montage images taken from airliners.net taken by several photographers.)

by balint01

Following our last Friday Fun Article about the Russian display at the Farnborough Air Show, here is another Russian related video, again nominated by my friend, Gaba - Thanks!

This time the strong Russians as pushing back the An-124 cargo aircraft by hand (weights 175.000 kgs empty)!

by balint01

Virgin Atlantic seems to take its promise seriously that it wants to become the most environmentally friendly airline in a few years. Following biofuel based flight test promises, their latest new initiative is based around the remodeling of their economy cabin. The remodeling means new seat covers among many other things, which would be thrown away – would they not be so environmentally responsible.

But they are, thus they have teamed up with Worn Again to recycle those seat covers. Worn Again is a company producing consumer goods – mostly fashionable footwear and accessories from already worn down materials such as military tents, used car tyres, seatbelts, etc. And now they have added to their Ingredients the worn down aircraft seat covers from Virgin Atlantic. To celebrate this partnership, they have rolled out a new fashion line called Worn Again Virgin – all the models in this range include some used seat-cover material. The Worn Again Virgin range, which includes the ‘Ollie’ wash bag, the ‘Sherman’ male messenger bag, ‘Lydia’ and ‘Romero’ ladies handbags are available to buy from 1 September 2008. The bags include an ‘Ingredients’ label which lists the all the materials that make up the bags – such as Virgin Atlantic seat covers, car safety belts, Glastonbury tents and bicycle tyres.

Virgin Seat Covers Recycled to Worn Again Lydia Bags (background picture from airliners.net - by Frans Zwart)

Lysette Gauna, Creative Director for Virgin Atlantic, commented: “Virgin Atlantic is committed to taking practical steps to make its business as sustainable as possible. From investing in new technologies, to lobbying the aircraft manufacturers, through to championing new ideas – we believe that actions speak louder than words. This is a fun and creative way to recycle our waste and we are sure these fabulous limited edition bags will be very popular as well as giving people the chance to own a little piece of Virgin Atlantic history.”

Waste reduction is a big focus for Virgin Atlantic. The airline has successfully reduced the waste it produces in its offices and ground operations significantly and continues to work hard to reduce the waste it produces in the air. The airline has set itself a very ambitious target to reduce the waste it sends to landfill from its aircraft by 50% by 2012.

Worn Again Virgin Charlie Bag

A total of 2000 limited edition bags has already been produced in Portugal with materials from approximately 1000 seats. The materials were donated by Virgin Atlantic to Worn Again following the refit of its economy cabin. Worn Again Virgin bags will be available at Terra Plana stores around the world and on the Worn Again website.

by balint01

A month ago Spanair’s flight JK 5022 crashed during take-off, killing 153 people.

As investigation goes on and tries to identify the cause of the accident, lots of families mourn their relatives and friends. This is a tragedy and I am sure that even a lifetime is not enough to deal with such a meaningless death.

Therefore I was shocked by a video that was presented by Spanish media company El Pais. It is an amateur video and it shows the crash itself. I understand that it is a unique video, but it must be a horror for those who lost their family members or friends in this terrible accident.

Here is the video, I hope I will not hurt anybody with it, because I am almost sure relatives of the victims have already seen it somewhere else.

By Szafi