I was reminded this week that sometimes a flight doesn’t need to be particularly long to be eventful.  I was on a 45 minute shuttle flight that had 2 unusual incidents. 

The first when our departure was delayed as the airbridge took some persuading to detach from the aircraft. At one stage they were considering using a pushback tug to drag the aircraft sideways off the airbridge. Fortunately this action was not needed with the airbridge eventually moved.

The mid-flight there was a medical emergency with one of the passengers. Normal cruise speed was forgotten with higher thrust applied to get us to the destination as quickly as possible, and we had a fast landing approach as well.  It is amazing just how much quicker you can land when flightpath shortcuts are opened up for our use and skies cleared of other aircraft.

Changes to the airline alliances continue with confirmation that Shanghai Airlines will leave Star Alliance at 31 October 2010. 

The alliance status of some of the Chinese airlines has been up in the air for a while due to the complicated and evolving cross-ownerships in each other – Shanghai is in the process of being merged with China Eastern, which earlier this year announced an intention to join Sky Team.  China Eastern is itself partly owned by both Cathay Pacific (Oneworld) and Air China (Star Alliance). So it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Shanghai Airlines would leave Star Alliance.

Travellers on Shanghai Airlines will now have a period of a year or two without alliance benefits but existing Star Alliance awards on Shanghai Airlines for travel after October will be honoured. Those flying on paid tickets on Shanghai Airlines from November will no longer be able to earn Star Alliance frequent flyer status miles.  Whether redeemable miles can continue to be earnt will depend on the frequent flyer program being credited to as some may continue to have Shanghai Airlines as a non-alliance partner and others may drop them.

From the New Zealand Herald comes news of air safety investigations into 2 incidents at Queenstown.  The first one was apparently a case of reduced vertical separation when an aircraft aborted a landing, and the second was apparently about a take-off at dusk in poor visibility.

I’ve flown in and out of Queenstown many times (70 times according to Flight Memory), and it is one of my favourite places to fly to or from.  The scenery is spectacular with the airport located in a deep mountain basin beside a lake with towering mountains and foothills looming in all directions. 

I have experienced aborted landings here – if another aircraft is in the vicinity it wouldn’t be easy to keep track of due to the convoluted flight paths.  I’ve also experienced several times mad rush of crew to prepare flights to leave before it gets too dark – shadows fall quickly as the sun sets behind the mountains and for safety reasons flights must take off well before nightfall.  Some times we’ve been literally a minute from the flight being cancelled.

I’ll be looking out for the results of the investigations.  Queenstown is a very busy airport at times so there is a great need for high safety margins.

Source: Ian Beatty

I’ve been so fortunate to live my life the way I do and to travel so much.  There are a number of ways I try to give back, and one of them is through Kiva.  By lending as little as US$25 I can help out entrepreneurs all over the world.  Here are some links

Kiva – how it works

Flyertalk team on Kiva

FT discussion

Recently both EU and US regulators approved anti-trust immunity for American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia on the important trans-Atlantic routes with minimal conditions.  Oneworld was the last of the 3 main airline alliances to get approval to co-operate closely on flights between USA and Europe.  This means finally members of British Airways Executive Club and American AAdvantage will (in the near future) be able to earn and redeem on each other’s flights which has been a source of irritation for many frequent flyers for years.

Today, Oneworld announced Air Berlin will be joining the alliance (hat tip View from the Wing).  No firm date has yet been given but normally it takes 12-18 months for an airline to complete entry into an alliance (Air India joining Star Alliance being a notable exception to this rule of thumb).  Air Berlin is considered by some to be an odd choice – they aren’t quite full service nor low cost, and remind me a little of Australia’s Virgin Blue.  I’ll be watching how well they integrate into the alliance with interest.

It is another good travel week for me as I’ll requalify elite status on a frequent flyer program (3 months to requal – I must be losing my touch!) and also on a frequent stay program.

One of my peeves are websites that don’t hold a fare when you select flights and only after you’ve entered your details let you know the fare is not available.

Low cost airline Jetstar does this whenever there is a super sale, which is why I no longer bother.  Air New Zealand grab-a-seat also does this meaning getting $1 (or $20 or whatever) fares is a lottery even after you’ve selected the flights.

Yesterday I encountered similar on a normal, non-sale fare with Emirates.  No matter which flights I selected from the many options available, when I hit the button for purchase now (after entering all my details) I was advised the fare wasn’t available and to use search by schedule function instead.  The search by schedule consistently returned fares about $2000 more than the search by price function, for the exact same flights and dates.

This website flaws are annoying and not limited to the 3 airlines I’ve mentioned.  What airline/online TA website issues do you find annoying?  What do you do about it?

Sky Team is offering a discounted around the world fare to mark their 10th anniversary.  According to the SkyTeam website this saves up to 30%.  I’m not sure which countries/class of travel this worthwhile level of saving applies to.  Please add a comment if you find some good fares.

There are some significant restrictions – maximum 20k flight miles (except for Kenya origin 22k miles), bookings by 30 September for travel commencing between 15 July and 31 December 2010, a maximum 6 months duration (minimum 10 days), and no more than 5 stopovers.

The next step in the integration of bmi into Lufthansa is the inclusion of each other in the list of airlines eligible for status bonuses from 1 August.  Miles & More elite members can get their 25% status bonus when flying bmi (and they count for HON Circle miles), and Diamond Club Gold status members can get their 35% status bonus when flying Lufthansa (but oddly not for Swiss, Austrian or Brussels flights).

I had to laugh at the wording of the Diamond Club email. Describing the parent airline as a partner is an odd choice of words.

Last month The Economist had an article on the new gulf super hubs being developed at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha in the Persian Gulf – largely as a result of the ambitions of their home airlines of Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways respectively.  John Macilree’s comment on the article included a nifty diagram from Boeing showing some of their 777 aircraft can fly almost everywhere from the Persian Gulf.

I thought it may be useful to see where these airlines already fly. The map below (courtesy of Great Circle Mapper) excludes routes under 1500 miles from the hubs.

The combined route map of the 3 airlines is far flung. A hemispherical view centred on the gulf, shown below (also from GCM) shows more clearly how useful the Persian Gulf is located geographically for a super-hub, especially on the Europe to South Asia/Australia/NZ or Asia to Africa routes.

Each of the 3 airlines is now getting to the size where it’s route network is only one order of magnitude less than a full airline alliance, albeit with limited local flights (intra Middle East and some fifth freedom routes excepted).  No wonder these airlines haven’t been in any rush to join an alliance!