It’s Friday, so it’s time to wrap up this week in Civil Aviation and ponder what people were thinking this week:

US Immigration Considers $10 on ESTA service.

I’m not going to repeat this here – head to my Soapbox entry.

EK Send a A380 to BHX

I wasn’t going to cover this.. but hey. Here it is – an Emirates Airbus A380  landing safely at BHX (does that mean BHX now becomes a diversion airport for A380′s in the UK? Interesting thought..,..)

Photo Credit  – BHX Flight Guide – photo blog with more photos at http://bhxflightguide.blogspot.com/2009/09/ek-380.html.  Happy 70th BHX.




Well done to the ground team for organsing this, and to Emirates for having a go at deploying this. 
 

Asia Air 09

Some quick highlights an news in a sentence sort of thing:

Air France: Considering new aircraft for the short haul, but want larger, quicker offloading and much lower running costs – and Open Roter might be nice.  and how do you want the moon delivered?
Airbus: A380′s for LCC’s - In a move to destroy any glamour in flying, Airbus are pitching the A380 as a Low Cost carriers dream of connecting Asian cities. This could work with some routes – but 840 people crammed aboard a tin can isn’t my exact idea of fun (ala Air Austal)…
Bombardier -  Buy our CSeries… please?  Taking aim at Embear and Airbus, the CSeries is hoping to make a competitive splash in China when it launches.

BMI Baby steps in at EMA

As Easyjet throws in the EMA towel, BMI Baby are moving in anohter 3 737′s for extra duty at their base at EMA with links to Barcelona, Cork, Malta, Venice, Dubrovnik, Sardinia, Corsica and .. umm… Newquay.

What will Mother Lufthansa say? We’ll see…

Jet Airways Staff “Fall sick”

Jet Airways staff have “fallen sick” in a labor dispute for two pilots joining a new Union, with a total of 186 flights cancelled – the bulk dometic, but  32 international services cancelled to. A follow-on sick day costed another 31 flights cancelled.

Talks are continuing.

Frontier to send Flip and Hector Back to Mexico!

Yup. Now Frontier is out of Bankruptcy, they’re making a bid for Mexico again with A319′s servicing Cancun with a daily return flight.

Hopefully this will be the first of a lot of good news for Frontier.

LOT has almost hat their LOT with Boeings 787.

Oh dear. With the continuing delays to the 787, LOT is getting annoyed with Boeing, and has opened up a few options – deploy 777′s, a major overhaul of the 767 fleet, or talk to Airbus.

Whilst Boeing may crow about how many of these aircraft have been ordered – there is a monumental messup in design and rollout of this aircraft – something that other airlines will get more annoyed at.  It’ll only take a big name to pull out to watch the cards fall on this game.

More roundup next week.

Its Friday, so it’s time to do the news

British Airways – Bleeding Cash.

Oh it’s been over the wires last week – BA managed to make a £148m loss this quarter. Not as bad as some of it’s competitors, but still pretty bad. Of course, the changes they’re making have been well documented in this Blog…

Air France/KLM Group –

Air France/KLM lost 496m euros (£425m) loss this quarter. The usual reasons again.

JAL (Japan Airlines) – Lost money also

.. of $1 BILLION (£618m). Cites the usual reasons (Ressesion, H1N1), and is reacting with route cuts and

ANA – Death by a few cuts

It seems that the Dreamliner launch partner is having a few more problems, and is starting to cut the little things papers in Y, free telephone calls to reservations and newspapers/magazines in economy , and offer parts of the product for sale to Y passengers that accessable only in premium cabins such as meals, drinks and lounge access. In other words… ANA PE could finally open up to th

Lufthansa – A profit

Hold the presses – someone actually made a profit!Lufthansa managed to walk away with a £8 million profit this quarter. However, with it spending money on acquiring the European aviation sector and in most cases – Basket case airlines (BMI, Austrian and Brussels Airlines) and it is actually loosing in comparison 9/10′s of what it was earning last year.

Cathy Pacific – Another Profit.. but the devil is in the detail.

CX also joins the profits crowd, making HK$812m (£61.8m) with drops in premium passengers and cargo. How? Fuel Hedging of course! This is the practice of betting the price of fuel, and seeing saving money if the hedge goes above a set price, or loosing money if the price of fuel drops below that price.

Fuel Hedges don’t last forever though….

Wizz Air Wizz around with more A320 series aircaft

Wizz Air converts its thoughts (letter of intent) into actual orders – ordering 50 A320 aircraft (in A320 configuration). A nice boost for them.
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More news next week!

Ok – not the greatest of offers, but every penny counts these days

Your magic code is QUIDCO529 valid on Airfrance.co.uk only.

Valid depature airports (UK only) – Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, London Heathrow, Manchester, Newcastle or Southampton
Valid to: Tokyo, Guangzhou, Osaka, Nagoya, Seoul, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Caracas, Johannesburg, Lagos, Santo Domingo, Seychelles, Mauritius
Valid Class: Tempo (Economy – Y)
Promo Valid Until: 06/08/09

*Terms and conditions.
* booking made between 13/07/2009 and 06/08/2009
* outbound flight made between 13/07/2009 and 14/12/2009, depending on the destination.
* return flight between 13/07/2009 and 14/12/2009, depending on the destination.
* immediate payment over the website and issuance of an e-ticket
* class of travel: Economy (Tempo)
* minimum price of ticket before the reduction and application of any taxes, surcharges and service charges: £200

Not the greatest of offers, but hey. A penny there, a penny here. It all adds up. No mention of miles in the T&C;’s, so assume it’ll qualify for the miles under your SkyTeam plan…

Well in this time of doom and gloom, it’s good to see deliveries still occurring.

And thank you Air France and Airbus for this little gem, with the delivery of their first A380.

Ok, they’ve changed the logo a tiny bit, but its a start.

Configuration will be 9 First, , 80 seats in business and 440 in economy.

Initally will be depolyed on the CDG-JKF run. It’s still an awful lot of seats to fill in these times… but good luck to AF.

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