Thomson Airways Flight TOM33 had to make an emergency landing after departing Orlando Stanford Airport.

The 767-300ER departed at 18:20 Wednesday, with a bird being injestested by an engine, resulting in a bang sound and smoke in the cabin. The Captain chose to return to Orlando-Stanford, where all 254 passengers and 12 crew disembarked safely 20 minutes after initial departure.

The aircraft has been grouned pending safety checks that are required for a bird strike of this nature

Thomson Airways state that passengers are being looked after and the aircraft is being assessed, with an incident investigation now open.


Good work to the Captain and First Officer for getting the plane down safely

It seems AA is realising the benifits that most carriers have identified with the 777-300ER, and has upped it’s order of 777-300ER’s from 3 to 5, according to AMR Corperation latest earning report.

Whilst not the biggest of fleets (say compared to Emirates), Five 777-300ER’s represent one heck of an investment – and more expansion possibilities (or redeployment opportunities).

Whilst there is growth on these frames is set for 2012-2013, fans of the long operated MD-80′s might shed a tear as at least 25 MD-80′s are up for the chop. No news on what these will be relplaced with – although holds orders for 54 Boeing 737s still to come.

Hatip: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/thingsinthesky/2011/04/20/amr-reports-earnings/

British Airways is pushing ahead with a service expansion on it’s London to Rio route, taking it from 3 times a week to 6 times a week commencing in October

Services will therefore operate every day except Monday when the new timetable in the autumn is introduced.   The timings of the service will remain departing LHR at 1215 arriving GIG at 2155.

So for those of you off to the party city, enjoy!

For those of you who are thinking of using EasyJet or Ryanair for a cheap getaway, Money Saving Expert has a timely update on the games these two airlines are up to.


For EasyJet

• Fees to pay by debit card are up from £5.50 per booking to £8.
• Credit card fees are up per booking from £5.50 + £4.95 or 2.5% of transaction value (whichever is higher) to £8 + £4.95 or 2.5% (whichever is higher).
• No fees on a Visa Electron card – if you can find one.
• Baggage charges for items weighing up to 20kg are up from £9 to £12.50 to £9 to £14 per segment, dependant on segment length travelled.

For Ryanair

• The mandatory £2/€2 fee for EC261/2004 or “We can’t afford to compensate people so we’re penalising everyone else fee”
• Card costs go up from £5 to £6 a segment (MasterCard Prepaid debit card is free)
• Peak travel has been redefined, leading to a higher baggage fee of £20 per segment up from £15. For those mad enough, these are 1 June to 21 September and 21 December to 4 January. 

Whilst Low Cost Carriers like these two can represent good value if you plan correctly, and follow the rules, do me a favour – and check the traditional carriers. By the time you add in all the extras, you might find that going by a traditional carrier may be better for your wallet….

Dear British Airways.

Thank you for the replacement bag that Frankfurt Airport managed to mess up for me. Whilst it may had taken 8 weeks, a few emails, a letter and a phone call to get to this point, at least you did the right thing.

From this:

To this

Thank You British Airways for taking care of the luggage in your care, and taking up your responsibility when it went wrong.

Last year Tony Ferndaz of Air Asia and Richard Branson of Virgin group had a bet regarding who would be the better F1 team during the 2010 Formula 1 Team.

Alas Richard lost as Virgin Racing… were awful last year and got before Team Lotus racing.

Therefore Richard will be dressing up as an Air Asia X Flight attendant, and flying from London Stansted to Kuala Lupmar LCC International

Booking is open at www.airasiago.com until 24th April, with both airlines donating procceds to charity.

And Richard didn’t welch on his bet – Good Man.

It’s rare I do this, but with the Royal Wedding coming up that is making everyone want to leave or come into the country, T-Mobile have been busy…

Unless the real wedding is like this, I’ll be disappointed…

The little subset of BMI, BMI Regional has anoucced more routes from Edinburgh and Glasgow for this summer.

EDI-CPH (Edinburgh to Copenhagen)
Additional flights Friday and Sunday from 03/06/11 to 28/08/11

GLA-CPH (Glasgow to Copenhagen)
Additional Saturday flight from 03/06/11 to 28/08/11 (Now a daily service)

EDI-ZRH (Edinburgh to Zurich)
Additional Services Monday – Friday.

BMI Regional loves to niche itself, running ERJ-145′s (and in turn running the same aircraft for the mainline operation).

Lets hope these routes can pay for themselves….

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

This week, it’s a KLM 737-800 taxing at London Heathrow Airport.

More of course next week!

It’s Saturday again, so it’s time for your weekly dose of safety.

This week, it’s HiFly and one of the dicest intro’s I’ve ever seen to a safety video for an A330.

More next week!