Ever noticed how airlines welcome you aboard? As you go down the jetbridge and through the open aeroplane door, what happens. In Australia and New Zealand domestic travel, crew members check your boarding pass and usually greet you. This is generally the case with international flights. Not so  in the USA as passengers wander onto the plane ignored by cabin crew. These have been my experiences with domestic and international cabin crews.

Air Asia-there were flight crew on board?
Air Canada- Calm cheerfulness
Air France- Gallic hospitality-feel like I am coming home
Air New Zealand – Awesome Kiwi friendliness
American- Surly
British- mix of friendliness and British reserve
Cathay Pacific- Refined Charming
Delta-Down to Earth
Emirates-Extremely welcoming
Frontier- Fun and Friendly
JetBlue- some of the friendliest attendants ever
Jetstar- ugh
LAN- Latino politeness and warmth
Lufthansa- Lovely welcomes every time
Malev-Warm
Qantas- Warm and professional
Ryanair- reserved, resentful,
SAS  -uber Scandanavian reserve
Singapore- almost subservient, almost forced greetings
Southwest- Fun, sometimes manic but always Fun with a captal F
United- Usually grumpy
V Australia- warm and groovy
Virgin America – Aloof coolness
Virgin Blue/Australia – Harried friendliness

What do you think? Whats your experience?

Korean Air took delivery of its first A380. The only 380 in the world to feature all business class upstairs, a duty free lounge and an in-flight luxury lounge for business and First customers with bar, sofas and TV.

 Their pilots are getting assessed. The Korean government aviation authority will approve the massive plane and then the sixth airline in the world will start flying between  Seoul-Incheon and Tokyo-Narita on June 17. Flights to USA and Europe will follow.

I hope to fly Korean’s A380 in October. That will be my fourth airline A380 experience. I have flown Emirates, Qantas and Singapore. I compared my experiences on those airlines in this post. Yet to do Lufthansa and Air France’s versions. Will aim for November for those services to catch up.

Check out the Korean A380 website for lots of pictures and graphics.

As a very frequent flyer with 752 take offs and 752 landings now, I am particularly keen to keep the number of my landings the same as the number of take offs. Any investigations, therefore, into plane crashes interest me.  Call me morbid or possessing an active self preservation interest?

You may remember Air France 447 that was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on 31 May 2009 (exactly two years ago). It plunged into the ocean off the coast of Brazil. After an almost two year search,  the black boxes belonging to the A330 have been found and investigated by France’s Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses (BEA).   I was stunned to read the reports of the situation that led to the deaths of 228 people

http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2009/06/air_france_flight_447_-_google_eart.html

Flight Global has the blow by blow final six minutes of the flight. In summary what happened was this:

1. The aircraft pitot tubes (used to determine the airspeed of an aircraft) failed and began giving false/inconsistent readings (as has always been suspected and why airlines have been replacing this type of pitot tube). The false reading was for less than a minute.
2. the autopilot and autothrust disengaged. This is undoubtedly because of the false data. As one commentator described it, at this point the plane is now similar to a  Windows PC in “fail safe” mode.  Some key safety features are shut down at this point
3. The plane began to roll to the right and the Pilot “appears to have rolled the aircraft to the left, to counter the roll to the right, he also pulled the aircraft’s nose upwards – for reasons yet to be explained (flight global)  and the plane climbed to 38,000 ft. The normal safety systems would not allow this to happen but they had been automatically Shut down
4. the stall warning was triggered and the plane stalled (BEA) but„ the inputs made by the PF were mainly nose-up (BEA). In other words, the pilot kept trying to take the plane up but “The A330′s angle of attack is too high, and the aircraft is losing the battle to sustain lift, as demonstrated by the stall alarm, yet the pilot is still keeping the nose pointing upwards – in apparent contradiction to a basic principle of flight: escaping a stall requires the nose to be pushed down, in order to regain a smooth, fast airflow over the wings.”
5. The engines are taken to full power but the resulting thrust is not enough for the heavy aircraft to have enough lift in the thin air at that altitude
6. the plane then reached an angle of over 35 degrees (probably close to 40 degrees)
7. The plane then dropped 38 000 feet (11.6km, 7 miles) in 3 min 30 secs (can you imagine how terrifying that would be to be falling a mile every 15 seconds). During this time, the A330 remained stalled. It hit the water at 200km/h

On Air France 447, all  three pilots were all very experienced. Why did they commit such a mistake? And what would stop another experienced crew making the same mistake.

Three helpful links to help reflect on this crash:

1. Brett Snyder (Cranky Flier) has a very useful commentary on the situation in which he expresses concern about the pilot errors that caused the plane to crash
2. Clive Irving in a Daily Beast news article on Flight 447′s Terrifying Four and a Half Minute Crash  notes what I have been wondering: “ there must be critical attention paid to those faulty speed gauges.  Indeed, attention should return to a report on the crash by the BEA released in November 2009. Buried in the technical details was the revelation that there was a record of at least 53 instances in which flight crews had faced control problems directly caused by the speed gauges and “13 significant events involving five airlines operating A330/340 airplanes.” Airbus itself reported 32 incidents between 2003 and 2009 that were attributable “to the possible destruction of at least two gauges by ice.” 
3. Plane crash info which gives you information on what causes plane crashes and why you should avoid commuter airlines! Pilot error represents 50% of all accidents and commuter lines generally use way less experienced pilots. The accident rate for  fatalities per million hours is almost three times greater for commuter flights than for regular mainline airlines.   

Not sure what my conclusions are yet out of this. I imagine the scenario will be repeated a few times in simulators. The question is would other pilots in the same situation repeat the same mistake and stall the craft?

From Time:

Investigators have located and recovered the memory unit of the flight data recorder of a 2009 Air France flight — a remarkable deep-sea discovery they hope will explain why the aircraft went down in a remote area of the mid-Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.

This incident and the  7 October 2008, Qantas 72 incident where their A330 suffered a rapid loss of altitude mean I am very very keen for them to sort out the issue

Here’s a great reason to ALWAYS wear a seat belt on a plane even when its stationery on the ground. I cant believe how many seat belts I hear being opened seconds after a plane lands.

Have you seen the video where the Air France A380 jet at  New York’s John F. Kennedy airport hits the tail section of a Bombardier CRJ 700 Regional Jet? The smaller plane spins a quarter turn on the taxiway!

The A380 was operating Air France Flight 7 to Paris and was taxing to take off. It had 495 passengers and 25 crew members on board.

Its left wingtip struck the tail of Comair Flight 6293, which had just landed from Boston and was taxiing to its gate at Kennedy. The Comair  had 62 passengers and four crew members on board.

There were no reports of injuries.

Both planes were inspected Tuesday,  pilots and crew  interviewed and ground radar checked.

The Airbus “super jumbo”, the world’s largest jetliner has a wingspan of almost 80 meters (yards). About a third of a metre of the Air France left wing appears to be damaged. Air France said the damage was only ”material”. I hope so.

So who was at fault? The airbus has only been flying to JFK since Nov. 20, 2009. Lufthansa also flies the A380 into JFK since February, 2011. So the airport is still getting used to them. Check out my  review of the Emirates A380 comparing it to the Qantas and Singapore A380s. I have yet to fly the Lufthansa and Air France planes. Hope to do them in the second half of 2011. 

How many people really care what aeroplane they are in? I do care -cos I sit in a 100 planes a year! These planes are my favourites: 

• Boeing 767 (flown 102 times)
• Boeing 717 (flown 18 times)
• Boeing 747 (83 times for 660 000km)
• Boeing 777 (alas only 7 times)
• CRJ 700 (a mere 10 times)
• Airbus 340  (8 times)
• Airbus 380 (now 3 times)

The plane I am in love with is the A380, the world’s largest passenger plane. First flew it with Singapore Airlines from Singapore to Sydney last November. Then I travelled on the Qantas one in June from Los Angeles to Sydney (blog post here) This week’s adventure on the mega Jumbo was with Emirates, the airline of Dubai on their service from Auckland to Sydney. Today I compare the flying experience between these three airlines. Sadly only in Economy. Sponsorship is welcomed to try the First Class product with all of them!

Passenger Reactions

I was curious to see the reactions from my approximately 500 fellow as they  filed past the plane. Just five of us stopped and took photographs of the 569 tonne monster (pictured)

Forty or fifty gazed, pointed and chatted displaying an excitement about flying the 22 wheeled Double Decker aluminum “Super Jumbo” aeroplane.

Some were more nonchalant, glancing at the plane as they headed to the Boarding gate

A very large number were clearly caught up in the excitement of the journey – just happy to be travelling. The type of plane seemed irrelevant in this situation. We had two large groups -a large Kiwi young rugby player contingent and a Chinese tour group on board.

A few slipped nervously on board, obviously dreading the three hours inside the 73m (239ft) long metal tube. Can you believe the the Wright brothers first flight was only 37 metres (120 feet) long. In other words this plane is almost twice as long as humanity’s first ever powered flight. One would love to see their faces if they ever came face to face with this plane.

Emirates check in was astoundingly efficient considering there were three flights departing Auckland in a short time period -one to Brisbane, (B777), one to Melbourne (A340) and the A380 flight to Sydney. This means a potential check in number of a 1000 passengers. Plentiful desks and hired contractors directing passenger traffic made the experience easy . From queue to boarding pass was less than six minutes. This matched the Qantas check in and faster than the one at Singapore Airlines.


Check in:
Emirates (EQ) 10/10
Qantas   (QF) 9/10
Singapore (SQ) 8/10

Boarding
Boarding was also efficient -and fast. The welcome aboard by the on board crew was astounding. While the Qantas welcome on the A380 had been up to the usually Qantas friendliness,  I generally find the Singapore Airlines “welcome aboards” a little false and forced. With Emirates the ethnically diverse crew members greeted you in a way that seemed personal, unique and genuine.  It may not seem much but this contact reminds the passenger that they are special and are involved in the special experience of flying. I know many Airlines have reduced flight to that of a bus to the detriment of the flying experience I believe.


Boarding/Welcome aboard: EQ: 10/10, QF: 9/10,  SQ 7/10




On Board
My seat was 81K. This seat together with 81A and 68A and 68K  are the best seats on the Emirates plane. Located in the emergency exit, they have no seat in front of them. Thank you to my friend Brett for this tip. 
On this plane I had two very fun women sitting next to me in my row -thanks for a great flight! 
A gentleman seated a row in front of me was a different story. When I arrived at the seat, I found the very large luggage bin a disaster area with bags badly packed and a couple trying to shove lots of bags on top of the other bags in the bin. The couple were oblivious to contents or fragility. I suggested to them, we repack which they accepted. The repacking was a success! We got all the bags into the luggage bin including mine. I made sure that small bags were on top of big ones. As I did this, I asked who owned a blue bag that had been in danger of being squashed under an avalanche of duty free. I wanted to get the owners permission before I moved it. The owner, seated in 80J, who had been watching this activity  yelled at me threatening me if I damaged his bag in any way, he would be very angry. I pointed out to him, I was saving his bag and that a polite thank you would have been better. He looked at me and was suddenly chastened when he realised he was out of line. He didnt say much for the flight.Safety Brief

Pre -flight inspections by crew were through and efficient. Safety briefing is only done over the TV monitors with the crew standing by. I prefer the way Qantas engages their cabin staff in the safety brief. To me it lends an air of seriousness –that the airline really knows its safety stuff.

Safety Inspections and Briefing: EQ: 7/10, QF: 9/10,  SQ 8/10

The Cabin Experience
Takeoff on the A380 is incredible. Firstly it is so quiet! There seems to be no dramatic roar  as the plane moves down the runway. Then the plane seems to simply glide up. The 380 feels like it wants to fly and is simply going back into the atmosphere where it belongs.


It is 40 years since the original jumbo started flying. The advances in air technology since then have been amazing. The A380 is a massive improvement over the 747. For example the A380 produces 50% less cabin noise than the currently flying 747 models and has greater cabin air pressure which makes travel more pleasant. The windows are larger. The bins are larger. The cabin is wider and higher. And of course more people can be flown for less fuel.While Emirates has two versions of the A380: One with 516 seats and one with 489seats. However, Air France crams in 538 people into its A380 in three classes. Lufthansa reduces that to 526. Singapore has opted for 471 seats and Qantas has only 450. NB The overall capacity of the plane is 853 passengers. One airline has said it will aim of 840 seats when it gets its A380 (Air Austral). Ryanair would probably aim for 1000! The feel of all three A380s I have been on has been of incredible spaciousness.

The Lavatories on the Emirates are real class with wood panelling and nice moisturisers etc! Tip: use the ones in the front of the plane. Most people seem to congregate down the back of the plane.


Cabin atmosphere and feel: EQ: 10/10, QF: 9/10,  SQ 8/10

On Board Entertainment System:
I found the Emirates ICE entertainment to be clunky and slow to navigate compared to their counterparts on Qantas and Singapore.
One of the groovy features with Emirates, however, is the cameras they have built into the nose and tail of the pane which allow you to watch takeoff and landing from any direction -although the woman next to me and I decided : ”it would be not a nice sight to watch your plane crash“. 


Entertainment System:
Emirates ICE: 7/10 plus 1 for the camera 8/10
Qantas iQ: 9/10,  
Singapore Krisworld: 10/10

Meal

The Emirates meal was amazing. In a world where airline meals in Economy have declined or diappeared, Emirates seems to believe that giving a quality product may attract repeat business! Starting with a Prawn (shrimp) cocktail, this was followed by a main dish of lamb and pasta, a bread roll, cheese & crackers, a chocolate cake dessert and a small chocolate square filled the spot. Contrary to a popular mythology,  Emirates is not a dry airline on most sectors, so wine was available with dinner. (Flying into Iran and Saudi Arabia would be a very different matter).


 Meal: EQ: 10/10, QF: 7/10,  SQ 9/10

The Verdict
Our landing into Sydney was bumpy (we had been forewarned) with rain, wind and low clouds. We felt very secure in our seats as the plane bounced through the cloudbursts.

My seatmates and I decided that the Emirates Airbus A380 is worth going out of the way for. So my A380 Ratings out of a possible 60:
 #1 Emirates  92%
#2 Qantas      87%  (check out the blog post)
#3 Singapore  83%
(Although I suspect if I was in first class, then I think Singapore’s private suites might be the winner!) 
In July I complied my list of Top 21 Airlines I have flown. When I revise the list, guess who will be the new number one?!


Thanks to my fun seatmates, Emirates and the cabin crew for a great trip