Posted by Seth on December 1, 2009 under News | 
It is hard to pick up top-tier airlines to join a global alliance these days. Most that want to be in an alliance already are and the others that are desirable are either happy going it alone or working slowly towards other options. So it is always interesting to read the announcements of which airlines are joining up. The past couple weeks have seen some announcements out of SkyTeam and, well, they are interesting.
First up is the official word that Vietnam Airlines and Tarom will become members in June 2010. I had the pleasure of flying on Vietnam Airlines for a couple domestic flights a few years ago and they seemed to be a pretty well run organization. They’ve announced orders for four Airbus A380s with expected deliveries in the coming years and they’re expanding their international coverage. Plus the economy in Vietnam seems to be still growing so they seem like a nice addition, especially if there are options for transit visas.
Tarom, on the other hand, is a rather notable question mark. They have one true long route – Bucharest to Dubai at just over 2100 miles. The next farthest destination is London at just over 1300 miles. OK, so they’re a regional player. More options is always a good thing and I’m sure it is great for them to get in the alliance, but it just doesn’t seem all that special to have them joining up. Coverage of Eastern Europe will be phenomenal with both Tarom and Czech Air in the alliance, so that is something. Tarom will be joining as an Associate member of the alliance and will be adopting the FlyingBlue loyalty scheme from Air France as part of this move. That probably isn’t great for their direct customers but it means having the alliance so a fair trade.
The last move – somewhat unexpected to me – is that Garuda has also announced intentions to join SkyTeam. Yup, Garuda, the Indonesian airline that just a couple years ago was blacklisted from flying to Europe because of safety and maintenance concerns. But now they’re back, with service from Jakarta to Amsterdam via Dubai returning in June 2010 and ten Boeing 777s on order to allow for non-stop service in the coming years. So I suppose they are getting better, but they really had nowhere to go but up. Maybe having them in the alliance will force them to continue their improvements.
So there aren’t a whole lot of options out there and SkyTeam is doing the best they can. Their coverage in SE Asia is about to get a serious boost and they own Eastern Europe. I suppose things could be worse.
Posted by Seth on November 12, 2009 under News, Trip Reports |
I’ve never been particularly coherent or eloquent about explaining my passion for travel. Fortunately there are some professional writers out there that I can babble at who seem to make pretty decent sense of my ramblings. During last week’s crazy adventure across Europe we were accompanied by Scott McCartney, a WSJ writer. He’s posted a video this morning showing just a few of the things that we got to experience during the week.
That left ear you see in the opening sequence is mine. I’m also the guy drinking from one of the glasses in the drink try while collecting the empties from passengers. Typically me.
Posted by Seth on November 9, 2009 under Trip Reports |
Damn, that plane is big. Huge. Just plain (plane??) enormous. And going to the facility where they assemble such planes means several of them around in all their enormity. As one of the main events of the Star Alliance Mega Do event last week we visited the assembly facility in Toulouse and got to see the planes up close. And I was part of the press crew working the event which meant that I got to bring my cameras in. Yeah, I’m still experiencing a bit of a high from that.
We walked through the facility with representatives of Lufthansa and Airbus, with access that most don’t have. They were quite happy to speak with us about the planes and some of the plans that are in place. Things like how long it takes them to perform final assembly once all the parts come in to Toulouse (about 95 business days) and how they are seeing demand for travel on the A380 (very high).
We wandered among the planes for about an hour and it was truly an amazing experience.
Getting a sense for just how huge everything is on the A380 can be difficult from the photographs. Getting a person in the picture was hard enough because there were not too many folks actually working on the floor while we were there. And then to get it so that you can realize that the speck is actually a person in the photo AND that you can see just how small they are against the backdrop of the plane was just amazingly hard. Here’s one shot of a couple engineers up in the wheel well of the nose gear. There is plenty of room for both of them (and probably a few more) up in there. It is really a big plane.
Or check out how big the tires are compared to the normal sized forklift. Yeah. Big.
After the factory tour we headed over to their cabin demonstration facility. This is a building filled with fuselages of each Airbus series (A318/219/320/321, A330/340, A380 and a mock-up of the A350). Each model is configured with a variety of seat types from different manufacturers. This allows the airlines (and special guests on tours) to walk through and see how the plane would look with various seating arrangements. Sadly, no photographs permitted on this tour, but the variety of cabin layouts was quite impressive. While a typical airplane has three or four seating types in it those in the tour had as many as twelve (in the A380) to show off just how varied the options are. The first class lounge demonstrated on the A380 at the facility was ridiculously nice. I’m pretty sure that the space was larger and better appointed than my apartment. The “living room” space in the middle had a wrap-around couch that could seat six.
If you happen to find yourself anywhere near Toulouse, France and a fan of airplanes, I highly recommend that you try to get a tour of the assembly line. I’m pretty sure that they are generally open to the public. It is an amazing experience.
Posted by Seth on November 2, 2009 under Trip Reports |
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| GoJet CRJ-700 N153GJ operating as United Express, my ride to Chicago, with a Continental 737 in the background |
When the concept of the “Star Alliance Mega Do” was first proposed I was immediately enamored with it. I also thought that there was no way the organizers were going to be able to pull it off. Private tours for 200+ people with behind the scenes access to airlines, airplane manufacturers and airports seem pretty ridiculous to arrange. Add into the mix a privately chartered Boeing 757-300 and traversing six different airports over 4 days and the whole thing seemed like a pipe dream. Yet here I am, flying to Chicago to meet up with many of those 200 to start this week long event. It is really happening.
The itinerary is somewhat crazy. Day one includes a tour with United Airlines at O’Hare in the morning followed by a flight to Newark to meet up with Continental and more tours. Then a bus ride to JFK and more celebrating before approximately 100 folks climb aboard Lufthansa’s flight 405 with service to Frankfurt. Day two is a tour of Lufthansa facilities for many and a select few – including me!! – get to participate in some of the training activities that the Lufthansa flight attendants go through. Oh, and dinner with executives from Star Alliance and Lufthansa. Day three has the whole group flying on the chartered 757-300 to Oslo to meet with SAS and pick up more aerophiles joining the fun. Then onward to Toulouse for the main event: a tour of the Airbus facilities where the A380 is manufactured. Day four is more tours of Lufthansa in Frankfurt.
It is exhausting just describing the schedule.
There were two different contests held to give away seats on the flights, generating over 100,000 entries. Yeah, people are really excited by this event. And I cannot blame them at all. Flying on specially chartered planes with custom catering, special themes and access to facilities and people that normally don’t open their doors up to some crazy guy who loves flying, much less me AND 200 of my friends. This is going to be one crazy week.
I’ll be posting more about it here throughout the week as well as on my Twitter @WanderngAramean. You can also follow along at www.StarMegaDo.com or at twitter.com/StarMegaDo to share in the experience.
Posted by Seth on October 30, 2009 under News |
Air France took delivery of their first Airbus A380 this morning with an inaugural flight from Hamburg to Paris. The carrier is the first European operator of the type and the fourth globally. The promo photos certainly make it look pretty, but there are some scary realities that come with it. The plane is expected to begin transatlantic operations at the end of November on the New York – Paris route.
The Air France configuration is, by about 15%, the most densely packed of the seating layouts seen to date. Sure, it could be worse – Emirates has suggested an all-coach configuration for some regional flights – but this is the most packed the plane has shown up thus far. And despite claims that Premium Economy is the best money maker for airlines Air France has chosen to not add that cabin of service to the plane. It is hard to tell if that is a comment on the value of that cabin on flights or something else, but it is an interesting development, especially considering that they already have a similar product, Alize, on several of their aircraft.
Either way it is always nice to see new planes entering service. One of these days I’ll manage to fly on one of the A380s. And next week I get to visit the assembly line and see where they’re made!
(Photo from FlightGlobal/TwitPic)
Posted by Seth on February 23, 2009 under Uncategorized |
A few tidbits of news concerning flights to Australia this week, all of them good for the consumer.
First up, V Australia is finally ready to start operations. They were originally supposed to start up a few months ago during the peak southern hemisphere summer season, but thanks to the Boeing strike they couldn’t get their plane delivered in time. But that’s all behind us now, and they have their first 777-300ER fully loaded with three classes of service – business, premium economy and economy – and ready to fly. They are starting service this Thursday, with 3x weekly service between Sydney and Los Angeles. Service will go to daily in a few weeks when they receive their second plane. Additional service between Brisbane and Los Angeles will start in April and Melbourne is coming in September (both also dependant on receiving additional planes).
If that isn’t enough to drive some competition on the USA-Oz routes, Delta’s planned start of service between Los Angeles and Sydney on July 1 is certainly going to do so. Delta is going to be flying with a 777-200LR. The plane certainly has the range, but they only have 276 seats on the plane. A 777-300LR has 75-100 more seats on it, and the 747s that United and Qantas use have close to 400 as well. And then there are the Qantas A380s that are running on the route, with 450 seats and even more cargo capacity. I have no idea how Delta is going to be competitive in such a market. They have fewer seats to spread the fixed costs over and the fixed costs on such a route are VERY high. But the net result remains the same – cheaper prices for customers and now all three alliances will have service between the USA and Oz.
Last up on the this this morning is an interesting report that came out yesterday regarding potential changes in trans-Tasman service. The New Zealand and Australian governments have apparently agreed to streamline the operations for immigration, customs and quarantine for the short hops between their countries. This is apparently expected to help ease the travel experience and, according to some carriers, cut ticket costs by as much as 30% on those routes. From the article:
Quarantine, security and immigration issues have to be addressed to make the route a common border, The Sydney Morning Herald website said.
An Open Skies bilateral agreement is already in place, relaxing the rules for carriers flying between the two countries.
After two years of discussions, Australian and New Zealand Customs are planning trials to clear passengers before they board flights between the countries.
Sure, none of this is as cool as the crazy Los Angeles – Honolulu – San Francisco – Sydney round trip flights for $600 (I really wish I had bought one or two of those), but it is still all great news for folks headed to or from Australia. Oh, and there are still plenty of great deals to be had for flights ex-Sydney, thanks to the V Australia fares. Enjoy.
Posted by Seth on December 29, 2008 under Uncategorized |
There has been plenty of hype about the quality of the premium cabin in-flight product that Asian and Middle-East carriers are bringing to the skies. Singapore Air and Emirates have invested significantly in their A380 First Class experience. Singapore offers a double bed option for couples traveling together and Emirates offers a shower, among other benefits. But getting in to those seats is going to cost you a lot of cash; they cannot be booked using all those points you’ve been saving.
Singapore Air started limiting seats in their Suites by designating them a different booking class, and therefore making them ineligible for reward bookings, even for their own KrisFlyer members. Things got worse when they changed the rules on their new business class product, allowing redemption only using KrisFlyer points and then only at the unrestricted/double points level. Among other things this took the NYC and Los Angeles to Singapore non-stop flights away from partner award bookings, as they are configured in an all business class setup using the new product.
Emirates was actually letting folks still redeem for their premium cabin seats following the launch of their A380s earlier this year, but that well seems to have dried up, too. As of December 1, however, they apparently are no longer permitting any redemptions in either the business or first class cabins on those planes.
Qantas is in a similar position, blocking out their A380 first class cabin from reward redemption. A number of enterprising folks booked reward seats on flights that were operated by the 747-400 when the reward was booked, expecting that the aircraft would be swapped to the A380. As far as I know they have been successful in keeping their reward seats, but no new reward bookings are being taken on those flights.
Ten years ago the most luxurious way to travel was arguably the Concorde. Sure, the seats were small, as was the fuselage itself, but you were wined and dined and among the elite of air travel. And all the while it was bookable with reward points. I’m not saying that there were free seats out there every day for anyone who wanted one, but at least the option (or the dream) was there.
And then, just like that, poof. The option is gone.
Premium cabin long haul flights are still, by far, the best value for redeeming points, but it certainly is disheartening to see the greatest of the options disappearing. Hopefully the allure of the A380 will wear off and those seats will come back into reward inventory, but I’m not holding my breath.
Posted by Seth on October 20, 2008 under Internet |
Wanna save a ton of weight on your airplane? Perhaps getting rid of some of the hundreds of miles of wires running throughout the plane would be a good place to start. But what about all the things that those wires are used for, like in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems? Make ‘em all wireless.
Apparently Boeing had started working with vendors on a wireless IFE system for the 787 Dreamliner but bailed on it when it became clear that they weren’t going to be able to secure government approvals or sufficient quantities of the wireless chips in time to guarantee that the 787 would come off the line with the IFE functional. In the meantime, however, a company called Bluebox has put together a system that apparently works in the Boeing Business Jets well enough that Airbus wants to see how well it will fly on the A380. A test installation is scheduled for next week in Hamburg at the Airbus A380 demo facility. More on the test can be found here and here.
Apparently Bluebox has secured deals with major Hollywood studios to provide “first run” content on the systems, at least in the BBJ product. That means lots of content available and potentially weight savings from an installation of the product, all good things for both the airlines and the passengers. Of course, it still needs approval for commercial airplane operations and a customer to buy it. The test plans with Airbus suggest that the A350 might be the target for a green-field implementation, but Airbus is mum on that topic for now.
The other fun bit that I came across was an update on wireless in-flight internet connectivity. And I’m not even talking about the decisions by Delta and American to censor their in-flight internet offering. There’s another player in the in-flight broadband market, and they are claiming that they have so many customers that they don’t care about the commercial carriers. ViaSat plays in the satellite connectivity space rather than the terrestrial space, so they can provide global coverage. And they are currently doing so in conjunction with Lufthansa for private planes and maritime customers. It is always good to see more options for such connectivity, assuming they keep the prices reasonable.
Posted by Seth on July 28, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Emirates has taken delivery of their first A380 aircraft this morning. They aren’t the first carrier to operate the A380, so that isn’t all that exciting, but it does mean that they’ve finally announced the details of their cabin layout and amenities. And what a collection they include.
The First Class cabin will include spa showers, private suites for each passenger and a bar area that includes a “water feature” as well as food and beverage to keep you busy throughout the flight. The lounge features “A selection of delicacies by leading international chefs, have been prepared to entice the most discerning of palates,” and “a selection of beverages, as well as some of the finest world-class wines carefully selected by our sommeliers.” It appears that the lounge will be shared with the Business Class passengers based on a photo caption, but the description of the lounge for the Business Class cabin has a much more austere description (“A variety of drinks and hot and cold beverages are available throughout your flight.”) so it is hard to know for certain. The First Class Suites also have a mini-bar, wardrobe, electrically operated doors for privacy and, much like Singapore Air’s Suites, a privacy barrier that can be lowered for passengers traveling together to share their Suites’ space.
Business class will include lie-flat seats that are 79” long and a dedicated lounge area as well. The seats in the Business Class cabin appear to be a design where your feet slide under the seat in front of you, which allows for longer beds without taking up too much space in the airplane so the airlines can maintain their seating density. Continental apparently is going to be installing similar seats starting in late 2009 on their fleet, though the announcement was pulled off the website pending an official announcement coming soon. Oh, and the seats have a built-in mini-bar and touch-screen remote control for all the systems.
The economy cabin will have adjustable headrests (a great feature) and slidey bottom seats, which allow for a more comfortable recline.
All seats on the plane have Emirate’s ICE entertainment system, with 1000 channels of content. The screen sizes will vary, with Biz having 17” screens and First having 23” screens.
I still can’t find a seat map for the new plane so I don’t know just how many of each seat there is going to be on the plane and what the spacing really is going to look like. But it looks pretty exciting for now.
Flights are scheduled to begin on Dubai-JFK 3x weekly starting August 8th, with a special service on August 1st/3rd to inaugurate the plane on the route.
(note: All pictures courtesy of Emirates.com)
UPDATE (7.28.2008 4:02p EDT):A few quick updates on this post…
- The Business Class bar is different than the First Class bar.
- The Business Class seats are actually two different sizes in a staggered arrangement. This is incredibly strange, with the seats having either 39″ or 48″ pitch when upright and a bed length of 70″ or 79″ when in sleep mode. Just plain strange.
- Seat pitch in Economy is 32-33″, which isn’t all that bad.
- There are 156 Biz seats on the plane and 399 Economy seats, to go with the 14 F suites. Clearly the bet being made here is on the Biz seats driving high margins.
Posted by Seth on July 17, 2008 under Uncategorized |
This past week the Farnborough Air Show has been going on. This is one of the major shows, where the airlines and the vendors all show up to announce deals, developments and other fun stuff. I’m sure I’ll make it to a show like this eventually, but in the mean time I have to live vicariously through the other reporters/bloggers/fans there. Some of my favorite bits from the week…
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was a big topic of conversation. In their update to the press Boeing reiterated that things are looking pretty good on the most recent timetable. There is a small chance that the software that controls the braking system will have delays, but those delays are based on issues with traceability in the code and getting it certified, not in the brakes actually working. I guess that’s a good thing, though it’d be nice if the brakes word AND we can prove it. There also is a delay in some fuselage components in South Carolina, but thus far that delay can be handled with slack time built in to the schedule. Boeing still is pretty confident in their Q4 target for first flight. Boeing is also considering adding a second assembly line to help deal with the backlog.
“Going Green” is always a good way to get press, and for airliners it is pretty hard to claim to be going green when your product burns a lot of fuel. Bombardier, a Canadian airplane manufacturer, announced their CSeries, the “greenest” passenger jet ever at the show. The CSeries is designed to seat 110-130 passengers and use 20% less fuel than comparable sized planes. That being said, there are very few comparable sized planes in the market today. Some older 737 models (the –300 and –500) both qualify, but Boeing hasn’t been selling those new for a while now, preferring to focus on the slightly larger 150-180 seat 737NG models. On the plus side, there is a good chance that these CSeries and the similar Embrear 190s (100 seats) will start to replace the smallest regional jets that are particularly cramped and uncomfortable to ride in.
Planes are pretty. This guy took some great pictures during the show. So did this guy.
And, as I mentioned above, lots of deals announced as well. Embraer announced 22 planes sold. Etihad announced a huge purchase sheet: 35 Boeing 787-9 and 10 777-300ER aircraft, 20 Airbus A320s, 25 A350 XWBs and 10 A380s. That’s more capacity than a LOT of airlines out there these days, and they’re just up the Gulf from Dubai where Emirates has a ton of planes and more coming.
Lots more happened, but these are some of the highlights that I thought were useful.
Posted by Seth on June 16, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Qantas has decided that they needed a bit of extra publicity around their launching of their A380 service later this year. And apparently selling seats at ridiculously cheap prices is their means for getting that publicity. Flights from Los Angeles or London to Sydney or Melbourne are on super sales, as low as GBP380 or USD470 for a round trip ticket. These fares are good for flights in November and December it seems.
It is VERY tempting, even though it would mean 15 hours in a 31″ of seat pitch. Plus I don’t know that I really have the time to spare. But it sure is tempting.
