Posted by Seth on May 14, 2010 under News | 
Looking for an opportunity to experience the Airbus A380 but not willing to commit a ton of time or money to that search? Air France just might have the solution you’re looking for. The airline has announced that they will be operating one of their A380s on the London Heathrow – Paris route 3-4x weekly this summer. This will be the only short-haul route that the aircraft operates on and the fares aren’t bad at all.
The fares range from £80 in coach to £280 in business class. Service will be offered once daily on Saturday, Sunday and Mondays all summer long, as well as Fridays in July.
I just checked my schedule for the summer and I don’t have any weekends in either Paris or London, at least not yet.
Posted by Seth on April 23, 2010 under Trip Reports |
Most folks want oceans, mountains, lakes or other beautiful nature when looking out of their hotel rooms. I like that stuff, too, but if I’m staying at the airport hotel I’m hoping for a room with decent views of the runways. At an airport like Los Angeles International, where the airplanes coming and going are more varied that desire is even stronger. I love that I got to watch a Yangtze River Express 747 freighter land this morning as the sun was coming up and that I got to watch the sun disappear into the sea just off the end of the runways last night as planes came and went. Besides, the LAX runways have mountains (ok, hills) and ocean surrounding them so everyone wins.
A Southwest 737 prepares for takeoff with a Virgin America Airbus right behind.
A Southwest B737 just off the ground with an Air China B747, Air France B777 and Alaska Air B737 in the foreground
A B747 freighter arriving from China
Look up a bit from the horizon and you cannot even tell it is an airport.
Yeah, it may not be for everyone, but this is a room with a view that is pretty much perfect for my somewhat “different” outlook on the world. For those curious, room 1438 at the Sheraton Gateway LAX.
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 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 June 2, 2009 under Uncategorized |
There is nothing quite like waking up to the news of a plane having gone down somewhere in the world. A mix of sadness and hope, along with a bit of “there but for the grace of god go I” all blend together. And there are generally more questions than there are answers. In this particular case it looks like the number of questions will stay ahead of the number of answers probably for the rest of time.
The plane was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Sunday night when it disappeared in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It had departed the airspace that is under the control of Brazilian ATC and was headed towards controllers working out of Senegal. But they never received the expected communication from the plane. It should be noted here that the airspaces in question are not necessarily territorial but are just the spaces managed by the ATC in those countries to facilitate air travel around the world. So it isn’t that the plane was just off the coast of Senegal; it was very much still in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
The plane does have a system that transmits mechanical issues and notes to Airbus and the carrier. This allows them to perform follow-up checks when the plane arrives at its destination. In the case of AF447 it also means that we have a very small bit of information about what was going on towards the end of the flight.
Sources within Air France reported, that the automatic message did not only report an electrical short circuit, but also the loss of cabin pressure. This information has been confirmed by FAB, who also stated, that the position of the airplane was given as N3.5777 W30.3744 in that message.
New information provided by sources within Air France suggests, that the ACARS messages of system failures started to arrive at 02:10Z indicating, that the autopilot had disengaged and the fly by wire system had changed to alternate law. Between 02:11Z and 02:13Z a flurry of messages regarding ADIRU and ISIS faults arrived, at 02:13Z PRIM 1 and SEC 1 faults were indicated, at 02:14Z the last message received was an advisory regarding cabin vertical speed. That sequence of messages could not be independently verified.
I honestly don’t know what most of that means, but things like “electrical short circuit” and “advisory regarding vertical cabin speed” are just not good. And, just now this morning, BBC and several other news outlets are reporting that debris has been spotted on the ocean surface, not too far from where the last communication was transmitted. The good news is that if they have, in fact, located the wreckage then there is a chance that there could be some answers as to what actually happened. But getting a full accounting is highly unlikely; it is, after all, a very big ocean out there.
It is a sad day in the travel world. Very sad, indeed.
Posted by Seth on March 4, 2009 under Trip Reports |
By the time you read this I’ll be somewhere in Tokyo, having arrived after an almost 14 hour long flight from Houston. But right now I’m somewhere over Denver having a ridiculously good time on my flight. I’ve been on the road since 11:30am EST on Friday, inside security since 6:45pm PST on Saturday and will arrive at around 3:45pm JST on Wednesday, approximately 76 hours after I entered the Seattle airport TSA screening on Saturday, having flown about 25,000 miles in that time. Naturally the question that arises from such a schedule is “Why?” or, possibly, “Why!?!?!”
There is one easy answer to the question: I’m crazy. Really, I am.
There are several more complicated answers that all come back to the above analysis. For starters, the trip was pretty cheap. Much like my week-long trip to Hong Kong last year for Chinese New Year, this one is being done very much on a budget. Thanks to a mistake by someone at Continental the airfare to Tokyo was ridiculously cheap. But that is only part of the equation.
Another part is that there are many miles to be had for such a crazy trip. I’m flying approximately 35,000 miles in a seven day span. Thanks to the nuance of the OnePass frequent flyer program, I’ll earn many more miles than that for this trip. At the end of the day I’ll accrue enough points for a trip to Europe, or half the points necessary for a trip to Europe in the big comfy seat up front. So a trip to Tokyo and a trip to Europe for less than a typical summer fare to Europe and way less than a typical fare to Japan. Not too shabby. But there’s more.
The fare to Tokyo wasn’t only underpriced; it was underpriced in a fare class that earns extra elite miles and that is cheap to upgrade. Continental was very early in the cash + miles approach to upgrades for their premium product, and that was enough to convince me that I would almost never actually upgrade a long-haul flight that I purchased with them. “Almost never” may actually be an understatement. This is only the second time I’ve even tried for such an upgrade. The last time was on a last minute work trip to London; this time it was only because the cash component was zero for the outbound (thanks, orphaned Delta SkyMiles) and only $100 for the return. At those prices, plus the miles, of course, it seemed very reasonable to try for the upgrades. And thanks to that “special” aspect of the mistake, I’m sitting in a BusinessFirst, enjoying the finest that Continetal has to offer. There’s one other guy on the flight who I know is on the same deal I’m on (I met up with him in Seattle last night). Other than us, my guess is that the average fare for folks sitting in this cabin is about a zero more. I love finding such deals.
It isn’t just about the seat. The meal service is really at least half of what I love about the BusinessFirst product. I know that it isn’t the best meal I’ve ever had (not even close). It isn’t even the best meal I’ve had in the air (I think that Air France beats Continental on food, hands down). But the overall experience, particularly for the price I’m paying, certainly is top notch. Sure, the flight attendant mistaking my request for a Grand Marnier for a Cognac was a mistake, but ending up with both of them on my tray to accompany the ice cream sundae certainly wasn’t that horrible a situation to find myself in.
None of this really answers the question “Why?” any better than my initial thought, that I’m crazy. But I’m having a great time doing it so far.
And now, off to nap time. After all, it is a very long flight, and the next meal is only a couple hours away.
Posted by Seth on March 1, 2009 under Trip Reports |
With an eleven hour layover in Seattle yesterday I felt compelled to get out of the airport and actually do something useful with my time. And since the Seattle area is still home to the major assembly facilities for Boeing, a visit to see the big birds being put together made sense to me. A PriceLined rental car and I was on my way up to Everett, Washington (~45 minutes north of the airport) to visit the Future of Flight museum and factory tour.
The tour is pretty amazing. They don’t allow any electronics of any sort on the tour, so no photographs, but standing in the world’s largest building by volume and watching the planes being put together is pretty awesome. The doors for each of the six bays are ~350 feet wide and ~80 feet tall. Everything is oversized. We were able to see the last of the 747-400Fs being assembled (the line is converting to the 747-800 now), about nine 777s under construction – including the 777th 777 which will be delivered to Air France in a few weeks once it is complete. The assembly process for these planes is pretty interesting to see in action. Getting to see the planes in the various states of assembly and moving through the process was particularly cool. Hearing that they can put all 3 million pieces of a 777 together from start to finish in 17 days was downright incredible.
Most exciting for me on the tour was seeing the 787 Dreamliner assembly line. Despite all the delays that Boeing has experienced with the 787s the six or so on the line were looking very much like real airplanes at this point (and the windows really are a lot bigger than what you typically get today). I think they might actually be able to get one of them in the air in Q2 ‘09 as they’ve most recently revised their schedule to. One of the women on the tour was a Boeing employee on the 787 line. I overheard her describing to her mother the parts she works on and how the whole process was going from a point of view of an employee rather than a Boeing talking head, which was an interesting change of pace.
We also got to see one of the three DreamLifter planes that they have in service right now. These are 747s that have been converted into super freighters to carry pieces of the 787 assemblies from around the world to the Everett facility for final assembly. The thing is HUGE, able to fit a full pair of wings inside or major chunks of the fuselage. Very, very cool. Plus, we could see it from the parking lot so I actually got a photo of it.
One of the more interesting things about the Everett assembly facility is that Boeing actually doesn’t own the airport there. Paine Field is owned by the county and Boeing waits their turn for flight operations just like all the other folks who use it for their private planes. I saw a whole bunch of single engine props coming and going while waiting there, but no big planes flying as it was a Saturday and the majority of the factory was off-duty.
In addition to the factory tour there is also a small museum at the Future of Flight facility. It is not worth going to unless you are also going on the main tour. There was a traveling exhibit on display from Air France celebrating their 75th anniversary and it had some neat things from their history. There is also a 727 cockpit interior, the nose gear from a 777 and a model interior of a 787 on display, but the exhibits do not justify a visit unto themselves. That being said, there is the “stratodeck” on top of the building that has phenomenal views of the field, including the pads where the planes are parked while undergoing their initial flight testing and awaiting delivery to the airlines. Access to the stratodeck is free and they have the local ATC tower radio playing so you can listen in as the planes come and go. With a longer lens I am pretty sure I could’ve gotten some great shots of the planes waiting, and I’m sure that the deck will be packed when the 787 finally rolls out of the paint hanger and onto the flight line for its maiden voyage.
Closer to the Seattle airport is another Boeing facility where the 737s are assembled. That one isn’t open for factory tours but they do have the Museum of Flight (not a Boeing thing but at their airport) there. This is much more similar to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy facility in terms of what they have on display, lots and lots of planes from the history of flight. I got there after it closed for the day but there were a few planes out on the lawn that I was able to get a pretty good look at.
.smugcontainer div {overflow: hidden;line-height: 1.1;margin-top: 10px;font-family: verdana, arial, lucida, sans-serif;font-size: 85%;background-color1: rgb(20, 20, 20);}
.smugimg li {float: left;display: block;width: 300px;height: 300px;background-position: 50% 50%;margin-right: 10px;margin-bottom: 10px;}
.smugimg li img {width: auto; height: auto; border: solid 1px #aaa; background: #555; padding: 2px; vertical-align: middle;}
.smugimg a {display: block;text-align: center;text-decoration: none; color1: rgb(240,240,240);}
.smugimg a:hover img {border: 3px solid #6da6d1; padding: 0px;}
If you’re passing through the Seattle area and have any aerogeek in your blood I highly recommend visiting the Future of Flight facility. There are a few other smaller museums around Paine field that I missed due to a lack of time, but they are also supposed to be pretty amazing. They include:
Definitely a worthwhile way to spend a few hours and see some very cool airplane stuff.
Posted by Seth on November 6, 2008 under Uncategorized |
With the distractions of their merger with Northwest behind them, Delta is now moving forward in actually operating the airline. They are announcing two new routes from Paris planned to start next spring. Service will run between Paris and Pittsburgh and Raleigh-Durham, operating on 757 aircraft. The flight to Raleigh-Durham is pretty much at the edge of the operating range of a 757-200, so that will be interesting to watch over the winter to see if they are forced to block seats to reduce weight or divert for fuel stops.
Happy flying!
Posted by Seth on July 29, 2008 under Uncategorized |
British Airways has announced their intention to merge with OneWorld alliance partner Iberia in an all-stock swap. This isn’t the first time that merger rumors have come up between this pair, but it looks like it might actually have legs this time. Last time they were discussing merger possibilities, back in November ‘07, BA walked away after Iberia saw some significant local investment within Spain drive the price up.
The route maps are rather complimentary across the two, which is good, and they can certainly save a lot of money by reducing overlap in their administrative functions and in some of their fleet maintenance facilities.
It remains to be seen whether this merger will involve the Iberia brand being subsumed into the BA brand or if they will continue to operate both brands, similar to the KLM/Air France arrangement. Unless they plan a serious overhaul of the service and amenities it would probably make sense to keep Iberia apart from BA to ensure that the BA brand keeps what cache it has.
Posted by Seth on April 28, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Most pundits (self included) had been suggesting that following the expected DL/NW merger that United and Continental would be the next pair to join up. United is struggling mightily, and Continental is well run but also small, making it difficult for them to compete either domestically or globally on total route coverage or frequencies of flights. Of course, such mergers are almost always bad for customers, and most folks are looking at the mergers with apprehension more than excitement. So yesterday’s announcement from Continental’s management to their employees was somewhat surprising (I bolded some of the interesting points):
We want you to know that our Board of Directors met today and has unanimously supported management’s recommendation that, in the current industry environment, the best course for Continental is to not merge with another airline at this time.
…
We have significant cultural, operational and financial strengths compared to the rest of the industry, and we want to protect and enhance those strengths — which we believe would be placed at risk in a merger with another carrier in today’s environment. We will, however, continue to review potential alliances and our membership in SkyTeam. We are considering alternatives to SkyTeam as we carefully evaluate which major global alliance will be best for Continental over the long term.
While some would prefer to see Continental pursue a merger, we strongly believe we have made the right decision – one that is in the best interests of our stockholders, co-workers, customers and the communities we serve.
Not really included in the letter, but implied and suggested throughout the tone is that merging with United would be bad for the morale and probably bad for the balance sheet as well. Considering United’s significant losses last quarter, the liability of trying to take on that additional debt is significant, so not all that surprising that Continental is happy to stay small and flexible given the high costs of doing business right now.
Also interesting is the suggestion that Continental is considering jumping ship from SkyTeam. They joined the alliance based mostly on their tie-in with Northwest, which joined based on their link to KLM, which in turn is tied to Air France, a founding member of the alliance. Now that the CO/NW link is somewhat weakened, the need for Continental to stay in SkyTeam is somewhat diminished. Combine that with the super anti-trust exemption that AF/NW/DL/KL recently won and the fact that Continental is talking with American Airlines about alliance options doesn’t come as much of a surprise at all.
So we’ll have to keep watching, but it looks like the merger mania may have slowed down a bit.
