Well Farnborough is over for another 2 years (as next year, we’re back to Paris), so lets look at the which carriers have decided to splurge some pennies at equipment makers.

---

Okay? We can have airplanes!

China’s Okay Airways has ordered 10 Boeing 737-800s which will be delivered from 2014. Previously just a lessee, this will be the first purchase directly from Boeing.

This will be in the addition to the 4 they currently lease, along with a variety of other aircraft.

---

Royal Jordan goes for a full replacement – adds follow-on’s for 787′s

Royal Jordan Airlines has submitted a order for an additional 3 787-8s, to complete a long haul fleet renewal.

Deliveries are due to be complete by the end of 2016

This will replace the exist A310s and A340s and in the longer term – the A330s it flies.

---

And that’s your lot. No doubt there will be more orders agreed, more haggling done and a few surprises soon. GhettoIFE.com will continue to monitor and report the fun that is the civil aviation industry when new planes are being ordered – and more importantly – when they’re up in the air with passengers bums on seats.

In the continuing battle of the odd couple, Unite is taking a pop at BA by taking it to court over the withdrawn travel concessions of striked cabin crew, claiming a breach of the European Human rights legislation.

It belives that these privlages were withdrawn without proper disciplinary procedures being followed.

With Unite trying the publicity drive with Unite providing additional assistance for crew who have suffered fiscal hardship

BA and Unite are due to meet next week to attempt to solve the dispute, but these actions aren’t going to help in the long run.

Unless both are in a kamikaze mood to oblivion…

Now here’s something that is completely out of the blue – Air Berlin – a Low Cost Carrier based in Germany has accepted an invitation to join OneWorld!

Appearing on the Oneworld website, a full statement is to be released Tuesday afternoon, and will be a development routes with AA and Finnair – with British Airways acting as a mentor.

Could this be the starting pistol some have waited for – LCC’s to join major alliances?

And will this lead to BA, Iberia, and Finnair cowering in fear – or is International Airlines Group quietly watching and waiting?

More details tomorrow evening!

As information is slowly filling in month by month about the changes to Diamond Club and how it will or will not be merging into Miles and More, GhettoIFE.com will be keeping a very close eye on events (as a reporter, analyst and customer).

NOTE as of 9th February, there will be no movement into Miles and More during 2011. See most recent post


Most Recent Post:

• The Long Road to Miles and More: On Hold – Diamond Club to remain in 2011.
  

Past Posts

• The Long Road to Miles and More: German press announces possible date, more questions than answers – http://www.ghettoife.com/2010/08/long-road-to-miles-and-more-german.html
• Another step towards Miles and More – HON Circle and Excutive Bonus miles now earnable on BMI. - http://www.ghettoife.com/2010/07/another-step-towards-miles-and-more-hon.htm
• Nope – We don’t know what’s going on! http://www.ghettoife.com/2010/07/bmi-diamond-club-nope-we-dont-know.html

The one that set this thing into full swing…

• Anaysis: Upcoming changes (with advice)  – http://www.ghettoife.com/2010/06/analysis-diamond-club-upcoming-changes.html
  

Flyertalk discussion: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-diamond-club/1100408-prock-schauer-roadmap-integration-diamond-club-m-m-agreed.html

Ukraine, The Netherlands and Israel fall first…. 

• The oncoming storm on hold: http://www.ghettoife.com/2010/04/oncoming-storm-is-breifly-put-on-hold.html
• The Diamond Club Party coming to an end? http://www.ghettoife.com/2010/04/more-evidence-diamond-club-party-is.html

For information about this sorry messup, head to Flyertalk. 

---

This post can be found in the left-hand bar, or if something important has happened, this post re-dated and reposted.

You can also access this via an RSS feed – http://www.ghettoife.com/search/DCMigration will lead you to the latest posts on this affair.

It’s another Sunday, so that must logically mean time it’s time for some Airplane p0rn.

This week, it’s an “ex-Ted” United Airlines  Airbus A320 coming into the gate at Washington Dulles International

More next week!

Well it’s close to the wrapping up point at Farnborough, but there’s still a few low hanging fruit to get. Lets see who’s buying what…

---

Air Austral opts for 777-200LR’s

Air Austral wants to run fully loaded planes from Reunion to Paris on a very short, and is ordering 2 777-200LR’s to help.

Air Austral runs three 777-200ERs and two 777-300ERs, and also has the A380 in the mad 800+ configuration on order.

---

SuperJet Interests grow: Orient Thai Airlines signs tentative order for 12 Superjets

It seems Orient Thai Airlines are very interested in the Superjets, putting in an order for for 12 and options for an another 12, and if anything is one of the more intresting bits of news of Farnborough this year. GhettoIFE.com will be looking at the superjet in a few weeks and ask the question… WTF?

---

More Pam Ann Happiness – ANA and Hainan to get… Winglets!

ANA and Haian are in the mood to try and save some fuel, and equip their new aircraft with blended winglets.

Hainan Airlines will install blended winglets on 45 737-800s, with All Nippon Airways purchasing them for their 5 new 767-300ERs

---

TRIP leases more aircraft, more E-Jet’s to head to Brasil (or is it from Brasil?)

Brazilian regional carrier TRIP has agreed to lease three Embraer E-175s from GECAS, and is also on the warpath to try and get hold of anohter two in 2011. This puts TRIP on a very nice expansion plan – not enough to take on Azul, but enough to be an annoyance….

---

Well, day five over, and most of the deals are done. Now the public can invade the field…

Comming tommorow – stats and numbers…

Well maybe I was lieing. There are some orders about today, so lets see what the manufacturers and others are doing today:

---

Virgin America signs for up to 60 Airbus A320s – with sharklets.

Virgin America is on a push for expansion, and has opted for more A320′s – 40 firm and 20 options

If the Memo turns into an order, they would start arriving in 2013.

Pam Ann would just love the sharklets I suspect…

---

Azerbaijan dumps 737 order and switches to 767s

Azerbaijan Airlines dumped an order for 2 Boeing 737, and instead taking one 767-300ER and two 767F’s in a Freighter configuration to develop it’s cargo wing.

Well, you’ve got to shift stuff around somehow – a 767 is a good platform – if it could actually hold ULD’s… 

---

Boeing 787 escapes evacuation trials

One of the key verification stages of a aircraft is for an emergency exit drill so that people can escape a plane in a set time.

Boeing will not be required to run a cabin evacuation trial due to the similarity of it compared to the 767 trials which have the similar amount of people.

Of course, all the escape systems need to work, and thus demonstrated.

---

In Russia – Gas  Jet flys you! – Gazprom signs letter of intent for SuperJets

Gazprom has signed on for 10 Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft. This is to replace the exisiting Yakovlev Yak-42 tri-jets

Deliveries are scheduled to take place in 2013-15, to be used as the in-house airline “Gazpromavia”, and subject to financing – more could be ordered.

---

Still in Russia, Aeroflot confirms A330-300 order – beware Wrath of Putin…

Aeroflot confirmed an order it has made for 11 Airbus A330-300s, having recently disclosed it to the public.

As is typlical for an A330, the aircraft will be in a two-class layout with 300 seats with a target delivery for 2011-13.

However, all is not well at Aeroflot, as a certain Mr Putin has been putting pressure on Aeroflot to “buy Russian”. The fact that Russia no longer makes a widebody jet is of course, besides the point…

---

As the show winds down, orders will now dry out, but I’m sure there’s room for a couple more suprises along the way….

So as we end Day 3 of Farnborough, a lot of the big deals have been done. Lets see what’s rocking and rolling today…..

---

RBS Aviation buys a selection of planes.

Yes – lessors are doing a lot of trade this show, and it’s RBS Aviation turn to make an order.

This time RBS Aviation Capital is purchasing 95 frames – 52 Airbus A320-family and 43 Boeing 737 family aircraft (although actual subtypes have yet to be agreed).

This will keep the lines at Renton and Toulouse running quite nicely. Leased aircraft of course go to a variety of operators.

---

Garuda Indonesia expands fleet – order A330-200.

Garuda Indonesia has ordered 6 Airbus A330-200s, that will be delivered during 2012. For this little order Garuda is upgrading its fleet. Which is nice.

---

Germania confirms order for 5 A319′s.

Germania is in a mood to swap aircraft, and is purchasing five A319′s, swapping them for the existing Boeing 737 fleet, replacing them for Charter and Scheduled/Subleased routes.

Deliveries begin in 2011.

---

Republic further commits itself to more E-Jets

The mega-regional airline (and wannabe mainline player) Republic Airlines has signed a memo with Embraer for more E-Jet’s, in particular the E-190 (convertible to E-195′s), with an eye to deploying them with Frontier as they are very suitable for use in Denver and other hot and high airports (Denver being Frontier’s base)

---

AA gets the Boeing Bug and orders more 737-800′s

American Airlines announced today will take up the options it has with Boeing for an addiitonal 35 737-800 aircraft

Delivery is to take place in 2011 and 2012, in a bid to start replacing the ageing MD-80′s that AA insists on keeping in the air – and with a 35% fuel advantage, it’s no small cost.

---

Right – that’s your lot for today – as most of the big deals have been done, it’s now a slow wind down for the public to start visiting Farnborough. Who knows, there might be some big game out there still…. 

Cofunsion still reigns regarding the migration of Diamond Club to Miles and More.

BMI have popped a little statement on FaceBook, but for clarity, here it is in word and form:

We have communicated all of the comments on this thread internally and would like to thank everyone who has taken part so far. Your comments are all being taken on board internally and are highly valued. At the moment as no decision has been made over DC/M+M there is nothing else to communicate for the time being. Rest assured that as soon as we have any further information on the subject it will be posted here.

So what can we take away from this?

They know don’t know what the plan is – or they’re unwilling to tell us what it actually will be.

The general advice however remains the same:

• Burn those miles if possible
• Pool those miles 
• Consider re-aligning if Star Alliance Gold is your number 1 priority.

I’ll be opening up a new section of the site tonight to monitor and report on this… well, it’s BMI. Regulars know exactly what this is…

Some minor good news for the three operators – American Airways, British Airways and Ibera have recivied clearance from US anti-trust authorities regarding their proposed Transatlantic (TATL) Joint venture,

This will allow carriers in the Oneworld Alliance to coordinate scheduling, pricing, and other services (as is done by the other two alliances – Star Alliance on the same agreement, SkyTeam with the old KLM/Northwest Agreement).

Finnair and Royal Jordanian Airlines are also covered in this agreement.

As part of the offer, the 4 pairs of slots will be released (for lease) at Heathrow to competitors if they wish to launch services to certain cities

Meanwhile in Heathrow T3, a certain bearded airline is fuming, and now let in the feeling the pinch of all three major alliances pooling their resources together. Whilst there may be argument over fares being anti-competitive, there are still three major groupings. All they have to do is fight.

And make Virgin suffer.