Well a little piece of aviation history will pass today with the end of Continental Airlines as it currently stands, and the merger of United and Continental takes effect tomorrow. 

The mega-merger will take on Delta in the US Market and all comers to elsewhere.

Of course, the individual operating certificates will stand, and things will operate “as usual” for now until, but the United tulip will fade away, as well the Continental titles off the plane, to be replaced with something that is ugly.

There has been a 737-900ER painted up already, and rumours persist of a 757-200 also being painted up in this livery too.  There’s also a “RetroJet” painted up too in the first “Jet” colours that Continental.

More a bit later on as the story. 

Well things don’t stand still in the aviation industry. With SkyTeam concentrating work in Africa, OneWorld in Europe, Star Alliance is working with African/Middle Eastern Carriers with the announcement that Ethiopian Airlines will be joining Star.

Timetabled for full membership in the next 12 months, Ethiopian will be mentored by Lufthansa as they migrate systems towards being compliant.

This makes Star Alliance bigger with 29 airlines, 5 new countries to serve added and 29 new destinations

There are the usual quotes saying how good it is, but this should open up some intresting travel options to people making redemptions

And it’s not as if Ethiopian are staying still with the a lot of new aircraft on order – in particular Boeing 777-200LR’s, Boeing 787′s and Airbus A350-900′s to reequip it’s longhaul fleet.

It’s current fleet is a mix of

• Regional – Fokker 50′s and Dash 8-400′s
• Short Haul – Boeing 737-700′s and 800′s
• Long Haul – Boeing 757′s and Boeing 767ER’s for long haul work.

Another growth for Star Alliance – but there is still the long langishing membership of Air India to sort out still…

A little technology fight is breaking out in Australia as Virgin Blue suffered a catastrophic reservation systems failure.

On Sunday and Monday a 21-hour outage of the New Skies Reservation system, hosted at Navitaire’s Sydney data centre, caused mass delays Virgin Blue’s customers and services as the airline reverted to a manual system. In addition, the airline has had to pay accommodation costs for some customers, with the eventual costs being a lot more.

We’ve all run into Navitaire’s “wonderful” reservation system at some point (Virgin Blue, Jetstar, RyanAir are a few of their victims), and it’s not the greatest lump of softwarw around.

Already the blame game is beginning with NetApp saying “not our fault”, Texas Memory Systems is working “non-stop” (more than the airlines) and Accenture at the root of all this who owns Navitare.

Navitaire’s states it tried to “repair the device” and this attempt delayed the “cutover to a contingency hardware platform.”

With a cutover of 21 hours, and the failure of disaster recovery procedures, it’s near enough farcical – least of all for the customers and operations teams who are forced back to manual systems to get them going again – which promptly failed after some use (and has now recovered)

Virgin Blue on the other had are very annoyed – to the point they’re considering legal action.

It’s amazing how much we trust technology to “just work”. However, if there is just one glitch, the house of cards comes tumbling down quickly – this is just an example of it.

A more techincal analysis can be found at The Register

News today has been released that say that the Joint Venture between British Airways and American Airlines has been given full approval, and has been signed off at a value of  £.4.4 Billion a year.

The terms of the Joint Venture allow the airlines to share costs and revenue on passengers from the European Union Area, Norway and Switzerland to the United States of America, Canada and Mexico.

The net looser in all of this is Virgin Atlantic, who are now one of the few airlines who operate to the USA from the EU and isn’t a member of a major alliance (and who think this will create a monster of an airline to combat)

British Airways indicates this news will bring about lower fares – unfortunately, my fare tracking indicates prices on fares are heading one way thanks to the new levels of Air Passenger Duty in November – I’ll give you a hint – it’s not downwards.

For Virgin, the need to align itself with an alliance will grow deeper today as its costs will be higher than it’s competitors over the pond now….

Singapore Airlines have a lovely offer for First Class or Suites customers – a free night in a hotel with transfers thrown in if you’re flying from Hong Kong.

But not just any hotels – For Suites customers, you’re off to The Raffles Hotel for the night. For First Class, it’s a choice (dependant on when you’re visiting and availability) of Fairmont Singapore Hotel,  Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore or Shangri-La Hotel Singapore.

Of course, there are a mile long terms and conditions apply, but here are the important ones…

• This offer is only applicable to booking classes “R”, “F”, “P”
• Ticket must be issued on SQ (618) ticket stock
•  Only booking made on or after 27 September 2010 is entitled to this offer
• This offer is applicable to all Singapore Airlines operating sectors flying to Singapore, except from Southeast Asia (Bandar Seri Begawan, Bangkok, Denpasar, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila)
• Complimentary 1-night stay must be utilized immediately on arrival of Singapore Airlines Suites or First Class to Singapore, and hotel stay cannot be deferred to a later date
• The complimentary hotel stay will only be offered once, per ticket
• All bookings are not transferable, cannot be exchanged for equivalent cash value, and cannot be carried forward as a credit

So if you have a lump of money to spend, actually buying a Singapore First/Suites seat and heading to Singapore from Hong Kong, head over to http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_UK/content/local/HK/promotions/Joint_Suites_First_Class_Hotel_offer.jsp and enjoy. 

Virgin Atlantic have confirmed the success of it’s London Heathrow to Accra, Ghana route with the addition an extra rotation, taking it to 4 services week for the peak Christmas Period (11/12/10 to 09/01/11).

However, it seems a lack of slots is preventing the growth of the route further as Virgin wishes to increase the frequency permanently – but with capacity stretched at Heathrow, this may take some time.

According to Virgin, loads have been high (in terms of passengers), citing it to be a popular destination – although it has not been disclosed if the yield (amount earned per passenger) is of value.

Although anything like this will just lead to Virgin bleating it hasn’t got enough slots and needs more capcity at Heathrow – to which Virgin has to remember the answer to that is simple: Gatwick…..

Unsurprisingly, the UKBA and Customs and Exercise we not impressed with this little antic when an air stewardess for South African Airways -Ms Elphia Dlamini, 42, -  hid  a whopping £120,000 worth of cocaine (about 3kg weight) in her bra and knickers.

She was stopped during a random search with sniffer dogs at Heathrow Airport.

Ms Dlamini pleaded guilty to importation of drugs at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court, and has been sentenced for 7 years in jail.

At least she didn’t try this trick at Singapore Changi. There, capital punishment for drug smuggling is the name of the game.

Well it seems the market is picking up for consolidation – this time with Southwest Airlines agreeing to buy AirTran for $1.4 billion, with the merger to be concluded in early 2011, and a full operations merger in 2012.

So why? It’s not as if Southwest needs more aircraft – it’s about access to airports and slots – namely the access to Eastern USA as AirTran has a concentration in Atlanta (it’s home base), with access to Washington DC (Regan National) and New York (La Guardia)- tasty morsels indeed.

It also buys Southwest access to Mexican and Caribbean services without the rigmarole of applying for access – again a time saver and a cost reduction mechanism if they choose to exercise it.

Should the purchase go ahead there will be a small issue of a mixed fleet – which knowing Southwest they will bulldoze through quickly, stripping down the current 737-700′s and refitting them to their all economy standards (vs the mixed class inside them at the moment) and getting shot of the little 717′s that remain (although in the short term, Southwest will retain them for “smaller” markets).

I’m still not sure over this – Southwest are a power to be reckoned with and this could give them valuable access to markets. Of course, this will probably have to go through a few committees for approval so there is time for this to fall through. All I’d say is from this angle, expect a lot more planes painted in Blue, Orange and Yellow soon…..

Air Berlin have announced as part of their OneWorld joining programme that will initiate a service between Berlin Tegal and New York JFK.

Service will start in May 2011, with the following operation pattern (4 days a week)

OUTBOUND

DEP TIME   ARV TIME    DAY

TXL 10:00  JFK 12:45   MON, WED, SUN

TXL 10:00  JFK 13:45   FRI

RETURN

DEP TIME   ARV TIME    DAY

JFK 17:40  JFK 07:30   MON, WED, SUN, FRI

Flights are timed as such to allow connections from Air Berlin’s European network, and connections with soon-to-be OneWorld partner American Airlines.

Tegel currently has support to the New York area with Delta Airlines (representing SkyTeam) and Continental (Star Alliance). These services however are offered on a daily basis.

Well it’s nice to see a new route, but a bit more commitment would be nice in the long term (4 days a week is a bit wishywashy). To compete, Air Berlin will have to look at the equipment carefully, and maybe plan an upgrade up the front of the plane where currently, there are recliner seats. Whilst good for day flights, the markets are moving to flat seats (be they wedgie or fully flat).

Still, new routes are always welcome…

It’s Sunday again, so it must be time for some more Airplane p0rn.

This week, it’s an Asiana Airlines Boeing 767-300ER beginning it’s taxi at Seoul Inchon International.

More of course next week!

It’s that time again to stow your tray tables, clip your seatbelts together, and pay attention to the safety video.

This week, it’s a Swiss’s safety onboard their A330.

More next week!