Posted by Seth on February 20, 2008 under News | 
In another huge blow to Heathrow’s reputation as a reasonable place to travel through, there has been a catastrophic failure of the baggage handling facilities at Terminal 4. British Airways has responded by prohibiting checked luggage on almost all flights that they operate to or from Terminal 4. That’s right – no checked bags! Of course, there are the usual exceptions for their most frequent fliers and passengers in first and business classes, but a limit like this is is pretty drastic.
It is supposed to get better over the next couple days, but Heathrow keeps losing its respect (what little it has left) as the world’s connecting point for air travel. Can’t wait for my trip through there later this year.
Posted by Seth on February 20, 2008 under News |
Despite the recent negative press on the all premium carriers and where that segment of the industy might end up, the apparent leader, Eos, isn’t slowing down at all. They’ve announced increases in service, adding Newark and Dubai as destinations, starting in early May andearly July, respectively.
In the meantime, British Airways is making the transatlantic experiencec even more intimate, planning service between London and New York with a Airbus 318 plane configured to hold 32 passengers. The flights will be from London City Airport, which is arguably the most convenient option for the financial industry. It will require a stop, however, on the westbound flight, as the plane will not be able to hold enough fuel to make the trip non-stop and also take off from the airport’s rather short runway. That would be enough to turn me off from it, but BA has high hopes.
Posted by Seth on February 20, 2008 under News |
If you’re flying along and your plane heads several miles past the airport, plus the pilots don’t bother to communicate with the FAA for about 20 minutes, would you classify that as a radio problem or nap time for the pilots? A couple pilots for Hawaiian carrier go! are being investigated because they failed to land where and when they were supposed to on a short, inter-island hop last week.
It’d be strange for both to nod off at the same time, but airlines are full of similarly strange stories, so who knows.
Update (2.21.08 6:34p): It has also been suggested by some that the flight is sufficiently short that for them to be out of touch that long they would’ve had to be asleep basically from takeoff to landing, and that perhaps there was something more “fun” going on in the cockpit. No word on the genders of the flight crew, though that won’t really affect whether something “else” happened or not, assuming willing participants.
Posted by Seth on February 19, 2008 under News |
Looks like the A380 – the flying whale – had a mechanical problem earlier this morning in Singapore, preventing it from making its daily trip to Sydney. The problem was apparently a failed fuel pump, though that doesn’t make a ton of sense as a replacement pump failed to resolve the issue.
Considering that the leading candidate for cause in the British Airways 777 crash landing last month is potential issues with the fuel supply system, this is a rather interesting coincidence.
Posted by Seth on February 19, 2008 under News |
Well, new to most Americans anyways, and only maybe. Castro has resigned as the president of Cuba, which leaves a small amount of hope that the US will lift their ridiculous travel prohibition on the Carribean island. Of course, there’s a chance that the US won’t lift the restrictions and we’ll be relegated to religious and educational missions or illegal travel from the Keys by boat or from other Latin American countries. But a guy can dream…
Update (3:26pm 19 Feb 2008): Apparently there’s no chance that the travel ban is going anywhere anytime soon. According to John Negropronte, the Deputy Secretary of State, “I can’t imagine that happening any time soon.” Sounds like he needs a better imagination.
Posted by Seth on February 18, 2008 under Internet |
Every now and then an airline does something that provides information to passengers in a clear and useful manner. It is very rare, but it happens, as evidenced by a new tool that Continental has recently released into beta testing (though I can vouch for the fact that it is pretty solid.
With the number of delayed flights increasing and the consistency of ammenities on planes pretty much gone, knowing what to expect in terms of a meal, in-flight entertainment and an actual departure time for your flight is harder than ever. That is, if you aren’t flying on Continental. If you are, there’s a great new tool available for you that can give you all that information, as well as standby status and upgrade wait list status – no more need to harass the gate agents for those morsels of data. Continental has added all of this functionality to their PDA site, allowing folks to pull it all up from any device (including your regular computer) that has internet access. Just browse over to http://pda.continental.com/Info/ and all the information will be at your fingertips. One of my favorite features of the new site is the “Where is my plane coming from?” link which is based on the Continental flight operations assignment of aircraft, so it is always the most accurate information available. When you click on that link you go directly to the updated information regarding the status of the actual airplane on its way to pick you up, including any delays it might be experiencing. It also links into the catering system to tell you what the food will be on the flight, the details of the in-flight entertainment system and a few other nuggets.
Top notch!
Posted by Seth on February 18, 2008 under TSA |
For quite some time Amtrak has been the refuge of those wishing to avoid the annoyance of the TSA security charade at airports, especially in the NE corridor, where the travel time is comparable on the train or by air. That may be coming to an end with the introduction this week of “roving security teams” that will set up tables on or near the train platforms, similar to the way the MTA does for the NYC subways. The Amtrak TSA crews will apparently have trace detection machines (swab your zippers and look for traces of explosive residue). Only if you alarm the machine will your bag be inspected, or so they claim. Also, not everyone will be searched at any given station. Oh, and they may have bomb-sniffing dogs on the trains every now and then. This change in security posture is in response to “no new or different specific threat,” according to Bill Kummant, Amtrak’s CEO, which translates to me as they need to spend some money and also step up in the fear-mongering or risk having their budget reduced next year.
As long as they keep the bar car open I’m OK, I guess, though I still don’t like the “security for show” path that Amtrak seems to be following the airlines down.
Posted by Seth on February 18, 2008 under News |
It isn’t often that a new country shows up on the world map, but when it does one of the questions that pops into my mind is if there are any cheap flight headed that way. Today the new country is Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia over the weekend and which most of the Western world is now recognizing as independent.
There is an airport in the new capital, Pristina (PRN), and the flights from London aren’t terribly priced, but I think I might have to wait until they work out the details on this, like whether it really is going to be independent or not and whether they have immigration stamps ready before I go booking the tickets.
Edit to add (4:14p 18 Feb 08): Of course, if this holds there is the small issue that Serbia may cut relations with the US, making travel there more difficult, so the number of available countries may stay net unchanged.
Posted by Seth on February 18, 2008 under News |
Four weeks after a British Airways 777 made an emergency landing at London’s Heathrow airport, the British AAIB (their version of the NTSB) is reporting that they can’t find any problems with the engines. Well, except for the part where they didn’t actually get the plane all the way to the runway.
So we still don’t really know anything conclusive, but the investigation proceeds.
Posted by Seth on February 16, 2008 under News |
Recently Europe opened up to an Open Skies (unlimited flights between any destinations) agreement with the USA. Now Australia has signed on as well. Prior to this agreement non-stop flights from the mainland US to Oz were limited in frequencies, destinations (LAX/SFO only on the USA side) and there were some controls on pricing. All that goes away with this agreement. Any carrier based in the USA or Australia can operate any flight to any airport between the two countries. This is going to be a big hit on Qantas’s operations, as they currently operate ~77% of the capacity between the two countries (United has the rest), and they do so at a significant premium over their other main longhaul route (Oz-London). The airline most likely to benefit in the immediate future is Virgin Blue, the Richard Branson operation down under. They’ve got the planes on the way and he’s got some experience taking on a major flag carrier on their money routes and winning. With all the recent news in the US travel market being about the potential mergers and the associated reductions in service levels that are likely to follow, this improvement is a nice one to see come to fruition.
Update: On further study this agreement is only semi-open. Perhaps “Ajar Skies” is a better description. The main limitation here is that the carrier has to be US or OZ-based, while regular open skies allows any carriers. This was done to prevent Singapore Air and Air Canada – two carriers that actually want to fly the routes – from competing. No US-based carrier has expressed any interest in starting the route in the immediate future, though Continental and Delta rumors are starting to swirl.
