London Heathrow Terminal 5 Opens

The biggest construction work over the last years is finished and the largest standalone building of the UK has started its everyday business today. The UK’s flagship building is solely to be used by British Airways (BA), the UK’s flag carrier. BA promises that connections will be much faster (~20 mins), and also time spent at the Terminal while departing will also be significantly reduced (~10 mins), as they plan with most of the passengers checking in online before arriving to the airport and then “flying” through the Departures area very quickly. To allow this, 96 fast-bag drops have been installed with the same number of self-service check-in kiosks for those who had no time to check-in from their office, home or mobile phone. According to the website of British Airways, all passengers must be ready to fly (passed check-in and security) 35 minutes before their flights, which means on a normal operational day you can arrive at the airport only 45 minutes before your flight (but this is a theoretical minimum, we believe this means 55-60 minutes in reality…) – if you’re an experienced self check-in kiosk user or have used online check-in and do not have any baggages to check-in.

A Green Building

Following the first idea about a fifth terminal in as early as 1982, construction finally started on the £4.3 billion pound project in September 2002 (5.5 years ago) and has been on time and on budget. 2006 Stirling Prize winner the Richard Rogers Partnership designed the 40 metre high, 396 metres long and 176 metres wide, 5 level Terminal 5. It is built between Heathrow’s two runways, on reclaimed land previously occupied by a sludge works. The project has successfully moved 9 million cubic metres of earth and two rivers have been diverted to create space for the new building. The area now is home to 30.000 woodland plants and 4.000 trees and is planned to have more in the next two years. On top of this green initiative, the building will be operated with as small environmental effects as possible:

• Water conservation – 85 per cent of the water that falls on T5 will be collected and reused
• Recycling – 97 per cent of the construction waste was reused and passengers can contribute by recycling their waste at special facilities around the terminal
• Lighting – the predominantly glass constructed building allows in natural sunlight, reducing the need for artificial lighting (30.000 square metres of reinforced glass and 5.500 glass panels also guarantee the light and airy feel)
• Heat – 85 per cent of the heat required by the building is provided by waste heat from the existing airport heat and power station

The terminal housing the longest baggage carousel system in the world will be able to handle 30 million passengers every year, raising the total capacity of Heathrow to 90 million from 68 million currently (while the airport was originally designed for 45 million…). The main terminal building is home to Concourse A, while the satellite Concourse B has been finished as well (with dedicated stands for the Airbus A380 superjumbo – already on order with BA), and is connected to the main building by an underground people mover system. The opening of Concourse C is scheduled for 2010. Alltogether, Terminal 5 will have 60 aircraft stands.

All sorts of traffic means are connected to the building, including Heathrow Express rail service as well as the London Underground’s Piccadilly Line. 4.000 cars can be parked in the new Parking Garage, but there are bicycle routes up to the terminal as well, with free bicyle parking in car parks 1 and 1A.

BA will use Terminal 5 as the only one carrier, but Terminal 5 will not be the only one terminal used by BA, as they are forced to keep some of their services on Terminal 3. You can find the list of destinations served by BA and their Terminals here. There will also be a frequent coach service launched between Terminals 3 and 5 to allow BA passengers to easily transfer between the two terminals used by the British carrier.

The first flight to arrive is BA 026 from Hong Kong, piloted by BA’s first woman pilot, Captain Lynn Barton, due to touch down at 4.50am. She has described the role as “a huge honour”. The first flight to depart is heading for Paris at 6.20pm with a further 380 (what a coincidence with the A380…) flights due to arrive or depart at the terminal on its first day. The BA move will involve a convoy of more than 1,000 vehicles, including 360 baggage trailers, 240 cargo containers and 27 short-haul aircraft. More than 2,500 ground staff will also make the move, with another 3,000 to follow on the 30th of April.

Once airside, BA passengers will be able to kill time in an enormous shopping mall and a range of cafes and restaurants – the list of outlets includes Harrods, Prada, Bulgari, Wagamama, Gordon Ramsay, Paul Smith and Carluccio’s as well as Starbucks among many-many others.

by balint01

British Airways Boeing 777 Incident at London Heathrow

British Airways flight BA 038 inbound to London Heathrow, from Beijing, China today at 12:42 pm local time (12:42 GMT) has crash landed just a few meters off the beginning of Heathrow’s Southern runway (unlucky?). From another point of view, it crash landed just a few meters off of a congested two way road, just inside the boundaries and fences of Heathrow Airport (lucky!!).

According to the first reports by BBC and declined to be commented by British Airways, the aircraft has lost some (or all) of its power and avionics systems while descending to the airport, and it equals to a miracle that the pilot managed to reach the territory of the airport by gliding this huge bird “nose up”, and not crash-land into the heavily populated residential areas of West-London. This is the FIRST Report, only a few hours after the crash, so as investigations will take place, the findings may change the descriptions of the cause.

All 136 passengers and 16 crew escaped the aircraft, with 13 of the passengers (among them 7 British and 3 Chinese) reportedly being treated in a nearby hospital with minor injuries.

Scotland Yard has quickly stated that the incident is not terrorism related.

BA chief Willie Walsh, while praising the crew for doing an “excellent job,” declined to comment on the possible cause of the accident, which is being to be probed by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). He further added that “The captain of the aircraft is one of our most experienced and has been flying with us for nearly 20 years,” he said.

What is known at this moment, is a few eyewitness explanations:

Eyewitness Neil Jones, who has a general aviation pilot’s licence, said the plane had been making a “very, very unusual approach,” and the engine sounded louder than normal. “The aircraft was banking to the left and it was coming in very low over the surrounding houses. The plane was significantly lower than it would normally be,” he told the BBC. “You could see the pilot was desperate, trying to get the plane down. The aircraft hit the grass and there was a lot of dirt. The pilot was struggling to keep the plane straight. He did a great job,” said Jones. Another witness said the Boeing had come in at a “funny angle,” and, with its undercarriage down, had slid along the grass in a “plume of smoke.” The plane had hit the ground with a “big impact and a loud noise.”

The 6 year old Boeing 777-200ER, registration G-YMMM, was built by Boeing in 2001 and is one of 43 in the British Airways fleet. The plane is powered by two Rolls-Royce Group Plc Trent 895 engines and had accumulated 23,476 flying hours as of Dec. 31, 2006, (according to data on the Web site of the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority) and was immediately surrounded by emergency vehicles, including fire engines and ambulances, as a carpet of foam was sprayed. The wheels of the plane, which had a routine maintenance check in December, were still in the field where it crashed, several hundred meters from the runway.

Officials said delays were expected after one of Heathrow’s two runways was closed for almost two hours with an air exclusion zone imposed to help regulate traffic at one of the world’s busiest airports. The runway has since been reopened for take-offs only.

Update: first good resolution pictures on airliners.net:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1318128/L/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1318132/L/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1318205/L/

Update: Video of the Crew’s Press Meeting on Telegraph TV, so you know who made sure that such an emergency situation was handled as best as possible: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1137942530/bclid1155254697/bctid1381652074 

Update: In the preliminary report The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said the flight had been normal until that point but then the Boeing 777 descended rapidly. The report states: “At approximately 600ft and two miles from touch down, the autothrottle demanded an increase in thrust from the two engines but the engines did not respond.” This means that so far the first theory has been confirmed by pre-liminary investigation findings. This was the first ever crash involving a Boeing 777 aircraft, which is considered as one of the most advanced jets in the sky today.

by balint01

Sexy Stewardess Uniforms

It has been a long time I wanted to take the time and write this post. It is a little bit long, but I ensure you it is not just the photos that are interesting! 🙂

Who can become a flight attendant?

Not everybody qualifies for a stewardes. Flighat attendants need to go through a 6 weeks to 6 months training period that includes psychological, IQ and physical tests (depending on the airline’s requirements). Safety training includes, but is not limited to: emergency passenger evacuation management, use of evacuation slides / life rafts, in-flight fire fighting, survival in the jungle, sea, desert, ice, first aid, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), defibrillation, ditching/emergency landing procedures, decompression emergencies, Crew Resource Management and security.

But even those, who pass these tests and trainings, may fail. Some airlines have height and weight requirements. While airlines using bigger jets have minimum height limit, because air hostesses cannot reach the overhead compartments, regional carriers have maximum height limit as the ceiling of the aircrafts is very low. Weight is almost always a concern. Even if they do not communicate it, almost all airlines hire only girls with regular weight. Neither underweighing, nor overweighing applicants are accepted. Even later if somebody gains some weight do the airlines give out a new uniform to anyone.

Playmates, beauty queens

Sex has always been associated with flight attendants. There have been several playmates and former bueauty queen working as stewardesses. No wonder that if we take a look at the series of known women who worked as flight attendants before or after they became famous.

Some of them were:

• Ester Codet was a playmate of the motnh in October 1974
• Avis Miller was playmate in November, 1970
• Julie Woodson was playmate in April, 1973
• Jennifer Hosten was Miss World in 1970, first to win this title for her home, Grenada.
• Kate Linder is still an active US actress
• Evangeline Lilly is a Golden-globe nominated actress, most known for her role in Lost. She worked for Air Canada.

History of airline uniforms

The first stewardess uniforms were designed to be durable, practical, and inspire confidence in passengers. The first stewardesses for United Airlines wore green berets, green capes and nurse’s shoes. Other airlines, such as Eastern Air Lines, actually dressed stewardesses in nurses’ uniforms.
Perhaps reflecting the military aviation background of many commercial aviation pioneers, many early uniforms had a strongly military appearance; hats, jackets, and skirts showed simple straight lines and military details like epaulettes and brass buttons. Many uniforms had a summer and winter version, differentiated by colours and fabrics appropriate to the season: navy blue for winter, for example, khaki for summer. But as the role of women in the air grew, and airline companies began to realise the publicity value of their stewardesses, more feminine lines and colours began to appear in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Some airlines began to commission designs from high-end department stores and still others called in noted designers or even milliners to create distinctive and attractive apparel.

Famous fashion designers – famous uniforms

Christian Lacroix designs uniforms for Air France. British Airways flight crews and staff now sport designs by Givenchy star Julien Macdonald. Los Angeles-based celebrity designer Richard Tyler presented Delta Air Lines’ new line-up alongside his ready-to-wear collection during New York Fashion Week. Korean Air launched new outfits by Italian designer Gianfranco Ferre, including pants for the first time in the airline’s history.

Sexiest airline uniforms

And now let’s look at the list of the most sexy airline uniforms:

1. Hooters Air

2. Singapore Airlines

3. Malaysia Airlines

4. Delta Airlines

5. Thai Airways

6. Etihad Airways

7. Gulf Air

8. Air France

9. Wizz Air

10. Sky Europe

If you liked this collection, check out our other post about special aircraft paintings and our other post about airline meals!

By Szafi

Our blog is moving to a new place. Please drop us an email to intairline@gmail.com, if you would like to receive updates about our blog!

Flight Review: British Airways

We have been considering writing flight reviews for some time, and now finally here is the first one.

Route: BUDAPEST-London/Gatwick-ATLANTA
Operating Airlines: oneworld: British Airways and Malev Hungarian Airlines
Travel Date: 06NOV2007

Ticket Purchase

I have bought the ticket through www.ba.com, which was a very nice experience. The website provides you with lowest price options on and around the days you have searched for showing the options in an easy-to-understand, coloured format. After selecting (confirming) your travel dates, it gives you a detailed list of all the available flight combinations, also colored so that you can easily recognize the cheapest option. What I really liked about the flight descriptions, that it explicitly tells you operational information after or between the concerned flights. For example it would tell you “Warning – your connection will involve travel between airports by coach or bus, the cost of which is not included in your fare.” And this text would be displayed between those two flights, where one arrives at Heathrow, while the other leaves from Gatwick. Really easy to understand, and very visual. After selecting your flights and providing passenger details you can pay for your trip with your credit card and upon successful payment, you receive a confirmation email immediately (as expected). The site also takes you immediately to the “Manage My Booking” section, that provides very usefull information and allows you to manage your booking. For example you can save time at the airport by filling out the APIS data (required for entry to the USA) online, you can also add frequent flier number if you forgot to add it at the time of the booking, and can change or upgrade your flights right from here, but can check the online entertainment options, including the movies you will be offered, too.

Offsetting Carbon Emissions 

You can also follow a link from the “Manage My Booking” page to offset your carbon-dioxide emissions with Climate Care (http://www.climatecare.org/britishairways/calculators/) using a pollution calculator. For this particular return flight my emmission is 1,86 t of CO2, which costed me EUR 20,75 to offset. Climate Care has also sent me a British Airways co-branded Certificate to certify that I have offset the CO2 generated by my return flight.
(Being curious I have also checked the Lufthansa website partnered with myclimate.org, launched a few months ago, and to my surprise for the same route it calculated: 1,705 t of CO2, and suggested a compensation of EUR 34. Where the difference comes from, I don’t know…)

Check-In

To be in control of my seats, I chose to check-in online. It opens 24 hours before the actual flight (each flight opens individually). Unfortunately check-in for the BUD-LGW segment was not available on the BA website, as it is operated by Malev Hungarian Airlines. But for the British Airways flight, I could check-in flawlessly, where I got a pre-assigned seat, which I could change while using a seat-map of the actual aircraft that I was going to fly. The process is very straight forward, and easy to understand I think. After the successful transaction I printed my boarding pass on a normal A4 size paper, that included a bar code for later identification at the airport. The website also gave me check-in summary after completing it. Unlike some other airlines, BA did not replace this home-printed paper with a magnetic stripe “traditional” boarding pass at the airport, this was the only boarding paper I used to get on my flight.

Due to the above mentioned situation I also used the check-in desks at Budapest, where they checked me in quickly for the Budapest-London segment, but they had no information of my other already self-checked-in segment. They could not confirm if I actually have 35A as my seat or not, but she said she can not do anything with my second flight (the systems blocks her) and suggested that I look for a BA transfer desk at Gatwick. She could check-in my luggage all the way, though. Upon arrival to Gatwick I contacted BA Ticket desk in the transit area, and the lady there was also very nice, told me that indeed I have 35A, but even though my luggage was checked-in all the way in Budapest already, she does not see it in the system. So I gave her my bag-tag, which then she recorded in their system.

1. BUDAPEST – LONDON GATWICK (BA 4450 operated by Malev: MA 612)

Aircraft: Boeing 737-700NG (HA-LOL), new, clean, comfortable aircraft operated by Malev Hungarian Airlines
Class: Economy
Punctuality: Flight took off 10 minutes late, arrived exactly on time.
Boarding: After a long-long queue at the security (airport’s responsibility) I had to rush to the gate, otherwise it was OK
Seats: Full leather seats in both classes, with average legroom
Flight Attendants: There were 4 of them, 3 young girls and 1 older purser. Two of the girls were very good looking, all of them were very friendly.
Meals: We got hot breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans and a wurst as well as freshly warmed/heated buns. Also got orange juice and tea, could have gotten a wide variety of soft drinks, or wine or beer.
Entertainment: There are LCD screens above the seats per every three-four rows in the aircraft, which play Malev and Hungary PR material throughout the whole flight.

2. LONDON GATWICK – ATLANTA (BA 2227)

Aircraft: Boeing 777-200 (G-VIIF), not so new, at some places worn-down aircraft operated by British Airways
Class: Economy
Punctuality: Flight took off 10 minutes late, arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule.
Boarding: The security at Gatwick was very long, I was happy I had a three hour layover so I didn’t have to run, and I could relax while standing in the line. It was confusing that when finally they put up on the screens that we need to go to gate 55, while walking there I caught the last few words of an announcement saying that passenger flying to Atlanta should proceed to gate 59. It doesn’t sound that bad, but the gates are on two different sides of Gatwick, so it would have caused a running excercise if the announcement proves true. As I wasn’t sure if it was about my flight (there was another flight to Atlanta about an hour after mine) I went to the gate which was on the screens – it was a good decision as that was our gate. After the gate-boarding pass check-in there were seats available for only about half of the passengers, so either be there early or arrive late! Other than that, boarding went smoothly.
Seats: Full leather seats with proper legroom, as comfortable as a regular economy seat can get. Tip: if legroom is important for you don’t get a window seat, as the entertainment cables go on the window seat’s chairleg, which reduces free legroom. It doesn’t really leave you the option to put a laptop bag under the seat in front of you for example.
Flight Attendants: They really did their job of serving meals and overlooking the passengers for security. That’s all they did. No special smile or service, dry English manner.

 

Meals: Not so long after take-off we received a small pack of snacks with drinks and later on the main meal. The choice was chicken or pasta, I took the chicken with assorted vegetables (potatoes, broccoli and mashed carrots). The taste was good, just like that of the standard salad (with fish) and the blackberry pie. The Twix chocolate bar tasted as everywhere around the world. The bun was not fresh and not warmed, not tasty at all. The white wine was OK, but it’s probably not award winning, either. Shortly before landing we got another “meal” which was a small pre-packed sandwhich with a small carrot-cake with raisins and a pack of dried fruits. Drinks were served once again. During the flight if somebody wanted to get snacks or extra drinks, the kitchen in the back of the plane was always “open”.

  

Entertainment: Every passenger in economy has their own LCD screen and built-in remote control in the armrest. My armrest was really worn-down and actually broken. The dirty looking plastic cover was living it’s own life, as you can see on the pictures above. It should be dangling around like this, it was annoying. Just like the fact that I tried 2 headphones where each had only one side working, then I put on my own headphones which just worked properly. As it is a Skype enabled one, the flight attendants spotted it and brought a third one to try, which finally worked on both sides! It may only be me, but I always get a half- or non-working headphone set on my long-haul flights at first… On the other hand, the radio stations were OK, and the movies, too. The movies start at un-announced times, all movies starting at the same time. I watched three of them: Die Hard 4, Ocean’s Thirteen and Knocked Up.
Amenities: Each economy passenger received a bag of socks, and toothbrush-toothpaste.

Overall Experience

Despite the minor glitches on the BA flight with the entertainment (armrest and headphones) I would take this flight again, I had a good time onboard both oneworld flights. A big advantage was the convenient schedule (leaving Budapest at 7:10 and arriving in Atlanta at 16:25) and the pricetag: this return flight costed USD 1072, with the purchase taking place exactly one week before the departure (so relatively late).

by balint01

Friday Fun – Good Airline Commercials I.

The following video collection is a bunch of good airline commercials. I think it’s not just me. We all love them. More airline commercials to the world! 🙂

KLM 1 – Swan taking off I really love this series. Swan is an elegant, still somehow very funny animal and a very remarkable figure for KLM. This commercial is simple and very funny.

KLM 2 – Swan landing I think this is the better part of th series.

KLM 3 – Ain’t no mountain high enough A perfect song, a perfect match for an airline that wants to communicate reliability. The song is about being there when our loved one needs us.

British Airways – Absolutely my favourite airline commercial. I saw a film about how they created it. it’s just perfect. Thousands of people are conducted to form a smiling face from air that immediately turns into a globe by taking off their top t-shirt. (They have 2 t-shirts on and the second one helps them form earth.

Finnair – animation. I like it very much. I saw it many times in different business lounges in Europe and it reminds me of that period.

To be continued next Friday. Stay with us! 🙂

By Szafi

Paper-free Air Cargo

IATA is working with seven key cargo airlines – Air Canada, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, KLM, Martinair, SAS and Singapore Airlines – freight forwarders (DHL Global Forwarding, Panalpina, Kuehne+Nagel, Schenker, TMI Group-Roadair, Jetspeed) and ground handling agents kick-started the move to a paper-free air cargo environment with the launch of six e-freight pilot projects. Starting today, cargo on key trade routes connecting Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the U.K will be processed electronically.

“The paper-free era for air freight begins today,” said Giovanni Bisignani, Director General & CEO of IATA. “This first wave of pilots will pave the way for a global rollout of e-freight that will eliminate the paper that costs this industry $1.2 billion every year. Combined, these documents could fill 39 B747 cargo freighters each year making e-freight—a win for the business and for the environment.”

“E-freight is a revolution for an industry that is absolutely critical to modern life. For airlines it is a US$55 billion business that generates 12% of their revenues. More broadly air cargo transports 35% of the total value of goods traded across borders. The potential impact of greater efficiency in air cargo has very broad implications across the global economy,” said Bisignani.
E-freight pilots will systematically test for the first time common standards, processes, procedures and systems designed to replace paper documents that typically accompany air freight with electronic information. During the initial phase, selected shipments will travel without a number of key documents that make up the majority of the paperwork, including the house and master air waybills.  Results from the pilots will be used to expand e-freight to other territories.

IATA e-freight requires that business, technical and legal frameworks are in place to allow airlines, freight forwarders, customs administrations and governments to seamlessly exchange electronic information and e-documents.  The six pilot locations were selected based on their ability to meet these criteria along with offering network connectivity and sufficient cargo volumes.

At each location cargo experts from participating airlines, freight forwarders, ground handling agents, local customs administrations and airport authorities worked together closely over the past 10 months to prepare the pilots.
“High oil prices and cumbersome processing requirements are handicapping air transport’s competitiveness with sea shipping,” said Bisignani. “Sea shipping is expected to grow at 6% annually over the next five years, compared to 4.8% for air cargo. E-freight makes a four-decade leap, bringing strengthened competitiveness by cutting costs and improving transparency and consistency throughout the supply chain. This good news for the customer will help shore-up air transport’s competitiveness with sea shipping and other modes of transport.”

E-freight is one of five Simplifying the Business projects being led by IATA to improve service and cut costs. The industry has set a deadline of the end of 2010 for the implementation of e-freight wherever feasible.

Source: IATA.org

Airline Economics – Ticket Prices

We always see fantastic price offers from airlines. But it is never clear if they contain taxes or not? How much is it whith taxes? And what are these taxes anyway? The following article will explain it all to you.

Today I read it in the news, that British Airways will have to pay a penalty of about EUR 20 000 to the Hungarian Competition Committee, because some of their past commercials were misleading for customers. The Committee’s main problem with these commercials were that they did not say taxes were not included in the price. Earlier SkyEurope, Malev, SmartWings, WizzAir and KLM were penalized for the same purpose. Therefore – at least in Hungary – some airlines started to publish their gross prices. However gross prices can be different at the same airline for the same trip bought on the same day. How can it be?

Basic ticket prices

Pricing is a very sophisticated process at airlines. we can say that almost every airline ha s adifferent pricing model. In general we can say that prices can differ:

– by cabin class: economy class tickets are the cheapest, business class ticket prices are higher and first class ticket cost the most

– by the date of departure. The closer we are to the date of departure when buying the ticket, the higher the prices are. It is thought to be the model of low cost airlines, but it is not true. Thishas always been the model of flight ticket pricing.

– by the rules attached. The less flexibility we need, the cheaper the prices are. Cheapest tickets are not refundable, not modifiable, usually a saturday night has to be spent att he destination and the length of the trip may not exceed 2 weeks. If we need a ticket that can be modified later or refunded or has an open segment (for example we do not know the return date) cost more.

(We will explain the reason of this pricing model in a separate article about airline revenue management.)

The basic ticket prices are paid for the airline and in case of a common operated, so called code share flight the operating and the marketing carrier share the money when the ticket is sold by the marketing carrier.

Taxes

Originally taxes were paid only for the airport. The airports publish their handling and other prices in the same reservation systems the airlines use for booking. They publish these prices in their own currency, that is why these amounts differ from day to day, because the currency converting rates change even within days. This minor change is the reason why airlines do not wish to include taxes in the basic price.

It also belongs to the truth that in case of certain currencies this change my reach bigger amounts as airlines publish their prices for 333 days. We could also say – so what? They can change their prices every week if the want to. This is also a possibility, but publishing airline prices is a difficult and expensive procedure as these prices have to be present in all the reservation systems all around the world. Thus it is understandable airlines do not wish to publish gross prices in all markets. However within the EU it is not a risk.

There is a nice trick about taxes airlines happily use. They did not want to increase prices in the same volume as kerozene prices rose in the near past. Therefore they created a so called YQ tax that is basically the fuel surcharge. This way they could keep prices low and include the extra cost into the taxes that are not shown in the comemrcials. Fuel surcharges are not paid to the airports.
“Other fees”

The other fees section of a ticket contains the so called service fee. Service fee came into the picture when airlines stopped paying regular commission to travel agencies a few years ago. (althoguh they still pay super or marketing commission and similar extras to agencies that qualify for these by selling a huge volume of the airline’s tickets) Instead of paying commissions they launched service fees that they also collect and this way they give some space to agencies to collect the missing commission from the clients directly.

At the same time airlines also started to play with this service fee to direct traffic to their more cost efficient sales channels, such as website or call center. It can easily happen that you pay more for the same ticket, same day, same trip in the airline’s airport office than on their website. The most expensive sales channel for an airline is the travel agency (including online agencies), then comes the city or airport office of the airline, then the call center and naturally the cheapest channel is their own website.

So if you would like to get the cheapest price for a certain flight, you should try to book it for yourself on the airline’s own website. Still it is possible that you will find the cheapest price at another website, because when you first look for it on the airline’s website, only a higher class is open, but in the meantime somewhere somebody in the world cacnelled his ticket, a few minutes later a cheaper ticket will be available.

That is the so called revenue management, but we will take a closer look at it in a different post.

By Szafi

Two Planes Collided At London Heathrow Airport

Yesterday evening two planes collided on the runway during preparation for taking off. Nobody was injured, although passengers panicked and about 20 fire engines were called to the scene, which understandably strengthened their bad feelings. The two planes involved were a Boeing 747 operated by British Airways on its way to Singapore and an Airbus A340 heading for the Maldives, operated by Sri Lankan Airlines.

According to witnesses one of the engines of the BA Jumbo fell onto the ground after the other aircraft’s wing hit it. In the picture of AP news agency it is not visible, but it is clear that the 747’s winglet was torn down and cut in half by the Airbus.

Passengers were safely evacuated and they were offered compensation. The reasons are not known yet, investigations started and we will hopefully learn about the result very soon. Unfortunately Heathrow is one of the most crowded airports of the world and as AirlineWorld reported it earlier, the new terminal will not be open for passengers earlier than next March. BAA is often criticized for the delays at Heathrow Airport as more than one third of the airlines leave Heathrow more than 15 minutes late.

We will give you updates about the investigation as soon as results will be available. Please make sure you add Airline World blog to your favorites and your RSS reader.

By Szafi

Countdown for Heathrow Terminal 5 Has Started

This week British Airways (BA) received the keys of their shiny new Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. The new 69 thousand square meters terminal is 5 times bigger than Terminal 4 currently used by BA. The huilding will host 25 restaurants, 6 business lounges and 18 thousand square meters of shops in total. The total costs of the new terminal will rise as high as  GBP 4.3 billion. The designer was Richard Rogers Partnership and construction started in September, 2002. The baggage system is the biggest, single-terminal baggage handling system in Europe, containing 18km of belts and capable of transporting 12,000 bags per hour around the terminal. From now on 30 thousand BA and BAA (British Airport Authorities) employees will work to get prepared for the opening on March 27, 2008.

 Here you can learn more about the new terminal.

In the meantime UK CAA this week published the Competition Commission report on price controls for London Heathrow and Gatwick airports for the next five-year period. The CC recommended that the maximum per-passenger charge at LHR rise to £10.96 ($22.35) in 2008-09, with charges subsequently increasing by no more than retail price index inflation plus 7.5% each year. For LGW it proposed that charges rise to a maximum £5.48 in 2008-09, subsequently growing by no more than RPI inflation minus 0.5% annually.

The agency also noted that the CC found that both LHR and LGW, “in failing to manage security queuing and queue times to avoid unacceptable delays to passengers, crew and flights, have acted against the public interest,” and that the CC proposed that these problems can be remedied through a broadening and strengthening of existing service quality regulations.

Naturally airlines complained about the high prices as it is against their initiatives to decrease costs and make air travel more cost-efficient for passengers.

 By Szafi

British Airways Orders Airbus A380’s And Boeing 787’s

 

 

British Airways has announced today what the airline industry has been looking forward to for a long time: the first orders to replace their long-haul fleet.

BA that has been using Boeing 57 B747-400’s and 43 B777’s and 14 B767-300’s for long-haul travels, have decided to place firm orders for 12 Airbus A380 superjumbos and 24 Boeing 787 Dreamliners to replace 34 of their older planes (20 B747 jumbojets and all 14 B767-300’s). This also means an increase of 2 planes in the fleet. The order includes options for a further 7 A380’s and 18 B787’s.

BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh told reporters the airline would use the A380 superjumbo to make best use of its limited take-off slots at London’s crowded Heathrow Airport and will be the first long-haul Airbus BA would ever use. It will fly on routes from London to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa (Johannesburg) and the west coast of the United States (Los Angeles and San Francicso) and possibly to Indian destinations as well. The 24 mid-sized 787 Dreamliners, will be used to open up new routes and increase the frequency of flights on existing ones. The two types of new aircraft will be delivered between 2010 and 2014, with the first 787 joining the fleet in 2010 and the firs A380 in 2012.

He denied the company had experienced political pressure to buy the superjumbo, the wings and engines of which will be built in Britain. “There was absolutely none,” he told reporters. “There was no contact, be it formal or informal. The decision was made in the best interest of British Airways. In the engines, the choice of Rolls-Royce was because British is best.” He also added that environmental concerns were a critical consideration: “These aircraft set the gold standard when it comes to environmental performance. . .[and] will contribute significantly to our target of improving fuel efficiency by 25% between 2005 and 2025.”  BA took delivery of its first B747 jumbo on April 22, 1970, becoming just the fifth airline to get one and had used all types of the largest Boeing aircraft. That tradition will be broken now, as even though the new B747-8 is out on the market (and Lufthansa has ordered a few pieces of it as well), BA chose the A380.

BA said it was considering aircraft to replace a further 37 Boeing 747s and is examining the Boeing 777-300 ER, the Airbus A350XWB, as well as a stretched version of Boeing’s 787, the 787-10, which the planemaker has yet to launch to replace the remaining 747-400s. A follow-up order should not be expected before 2010 according to BA.

by balint01