Today’s flight with Virgin Australia from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia tipped me over two million kilometres (1.25 million miles)  travelled by aeroplane!  This is a distance equivalent to 50 times around the earth. I have eaten, read, slept, chatted and worked for 16 and a half weeks of my life in the air.

I record all of my 857 flights at Flightmemory.com. This database allows me to keep al of my flight information in one place and print maps based on the data. In case you think I am completely geeky, here is the blog post which explains how my friend Tony started using Flightmemory. His memory is one motivation for continuing to record my flights.

Key Stats:

 This flight also re-earnt me my Platinum Status with Virgin Australia.  I now hold Platinum with them until December, 2013. Flying a lot has some rewards.

This week I fly nowhere (unless I win the lottery!)

I am Wild about Flying and thanks to my friend Tony (see separate story), I have a very accurate record of my travel. This means I know for a certainty, that as at today’s date I have flown 812 times in my life-   111 times in 2011.   Question: Do I need to fly 112 times next year? 111 times in a year is about twice per week. In total a scary 412 hours of my year was spent in aeroplanes- two and a half weeks!!

Distance Flown
I  travelled 304 560 km  (189 245 miles). That number is meaningless to me as a quantity but it is 7.6 times right around the earth!!!  This is the most I have flown in my life and brought my total miles flown in my life to:  1,161,075 miles/  1,868,569 kilometres.  At current flying patterns, I will hit two million kilometres by mid 2012! Like to bet when?

The Overall Experience.

For me, flying was not quite as good an experience as it was in 2010, but way better than the first five years after September 11. My overall score for flying in 2011 was 4.3 out of 5 (86%). Flying is made more pleasurable for me by looking for the good in it, not checking bags in, having high frequent flyer status and seeking after exit row seats as much as possible. Its let down by crappy US airlines, US security lines and proceses (although TSA personnel are much happier now).

Greenhouse emissions

My plane travel resulted in a staggering 39.4 tonnes of greenhouse gas, which I offset 110% by purchasing 163 trees. We also added offset to some tickets as we bought them from the airlines. Its kind of like double dipping in a good way.

Airports Visited 

The airports I visited the most were Melbourne and Sydney (Australia), Los Angeles, Auckland and Perth, I added a lot of new airports in the year mostly in South America and the Middle East.

Airlines Flown- Qantas drops from my most flown airline

In terms of the 27 airlines I used in  2011, the Virgin Australia group were the ones I was with the most travelling with them 20 times for 61 000 km. Qantas came second 15 times for 43 000km, While a lot, my Qantas flying has firmly dropped – see the table below of annual Qantas travel which shows a reduction from a peak of 61 to 43 to 15 flights over the last three years).

I had quite a sour taste in my mouth about Qantas due to

1. my perception that the Qantas management have been less focused on customer service
2. the dilution of Platinum status frequent flyer
3. a dramatic improvement in the Virgin Australia product within the Australian domestic market
4. more flights to the middle east and South America where Qantas has no presence

I am curious as to how many other Qantas Platinum customers have done the same reduction in travel.

New Airlines

Experienced Etihad  for the first time (trip report to come), as well as V Australia (now part of Virgin Australia, Royal Brunei and Royal Jordanian and Korean Air. In total in my life I have now travelled with 81 airlines- some of which are defunct. See my blog tomorrow for my top (and bottom) airlines of 2011.

The Big One – The Planes

The fact I flew on 24 types of planes is a little humdrum in view of the real excitement (for me) in 2011.

The first was my 7** sequencing. I managed to time my 737th, 747th, 757th, 767th and 777th flights of my life to be on the aircraft of the same number:

• Southwest 737: Portland to Spokane - brilliant flight
• Qantas 747: Excellent
• United 757: awful
• Qantas 767: okay
• Air New Zealand 777- Auckland to Los Angeles- Perfect Experience

I was very excited by this achievement

Little disappointed that I didn’t manage:

• 707 – I don’t know John Travolta well enough to ask to go in his 707
• 717 – I didnt manage to get an Air Tran flight timing right
•  727  -The only airline with 727 in regular service is in Iran a
• 787- the first B787 flight ended up being after my 787th flight and despite lobbying efforts I did not get near it

The other was an additional three A380 products: korean, Air France (to come) and Lufthansa.

34 of my 111 flights were on 737s– mostly shorthaul.

Toward 2012

• I know the China Southern A380 is on my list
• I also plan a 40% reduction in travel next year. What that means in terms of actual flights, I am not sure yet!
• I do want to add States 47, 48, 49 and 50 in the USA
• I want to add five new countries- Japan, Turkey, Denmark, South Africa and ?
• I expect to fly 3 or 4 new airlines
• I hope to be able to share all this with you….thanks for being Wild About Travel!

As foreshadowed, Boardingarea.com is our new home. Thanks for inviting us aboard!

I am Wild about Travel. I love it. Both the journey and the destination. I want to share about my experiences with both. Thoughts and observations from where I have been and how I have got there. Expect cities, nature, planes, trains, advice, hassles and good times.

I have flown 786 times (as of now) for a total of 1,785,449km (1,109,427 miles) to six continents with 78 airlines. I have experienced boat travel and train travel on or between five continents and buses plus cars everywhere.

In October I will visit my 51st country.

One of my quirks is I like to rate everything: Aeroplanes, Airlines, Cities, Hotels- even experiences!

Love your feedback. Please post comments

NB We have imported my blog posts from another site so the formatting is a bit inconsistent on some of the previous posts. We will be fixing those. Please be patient!

Look forward to sharing the journeys!

According to my Flightmemory, flight number 767th of my life has ticked over.  My 767th was with Qantas on a “Red Eye” Boeing 767 from Perth to Melbourne. At one point I thought it was going to be Air New Zealand but life is unpredictable isnt it?

I acknowledge it has become an obsession of mine to match the Boeing type to the number of flights I have done! So far, managed it with flights 737, 747 and 757. (How I know how many flights I have flown is described in my blog here).

Today my 767 was VH-ZXF which seems to be an un named plane. Qantas has had this 20 year old plane for five years getting it from British Airways. 767s have two  engines and a wide body cabin with two aisles and a  2-2-2 in Business class and 2-3-2 layout  in Economy. I like it because you are no more than one seat from  an aisle or a window.

I got seat 26A, window seat in the front of Economy in the Bulkhead row. The plane was quite full-mostly with “FIFO” (Fly In Fly Out) mining workers.  I had no one next to me.

Qantas had two staff at the boarding area measuring and weighing hand luggage. An American woman had her bag forcibly checked in and a group of Asian tourists also had their bags taken. I thought the way the bags were taken was a little officious. In fact most of the other passengers were travelling very light. Many of the FIFO workers had no bags at all and there was a lot of bin space on the plane. Still Qantas rules are rules and the lack of large bags on their flights does mean boarding is so much faster than on the USA equivalents.

The 767 Rolls Royce engine in the dark night

Take off was smooth out of Perth. We departed a few minutes later than our 1210am departure but were promised a good tail wind.  And indeed the Pilot was correct. Despite a late departure we bumped heavily onto the runway into a cold Melbourne dawn five minutes early. The entire flight that was entirely in the dark as a result of the schedule.

My 767 at Melbourne Tullamarine

You can have quite a few bumps out of Perth but on this day there were none.  I dozed off right away and missed the meal service. I had planned not to eat. It smelt nice though. I woke up for a while, then slept until we started descent. I missed whatever Qantas gave out just before landing. I think they provided fruit juices and water but was still asleep.

Entertainment on this plane consistes of raio channels and a program of movies, TV shows and documentaries on the main cabin screens.

After this fight,  I have now been flown 171,237km  (106,402 miles)- over 4 times around the world on on 108  Boeing 767 flights.  Of those flights 64 of them were with Qantas, hence my choice today. 20 were with the former Ansett.  These flights have taken me to Europe, the USA, Canada, NZ and El Salvador.

I have also been on 767s with:

• United Airlines
• American Airlines
• Continental
• Air Canada (including a Sydney-Melbourne sector during Ansett’s woes),
• TACA (El Salvador)- My most amusing memory was of the amount of luggage people were trying to cram into the TACA plane!
•  Air New Zealand,
• Delta Air Lines 
• British Airways

After landing, we got the unauthorised in-flight announcement from the FIrst Officer inviting us to support their union campaign  ensure a Qantas pilot is in charge of a Qantas flight. Not sure how successful it will be.  I did appreciate their skill and experience today. I especially appreciated them signing my Boarding Pass (below) and including an encouraging message on the back (right)

Todays flight was very enjoyable. I would give it 8.5 out of ten. The luggage confiscation at the start and the lack of individual entertainment lost them some points.

Thanks to Flight Memory.com and my  friend Tony (see blog post), I know exactly how many fights, miles and hours have been spent in pressurised tubes of metal flying around the world. Even after many flying hours, and despite the determined efforts by some airlines to make travel as horrible as possible,  I am still wildly excited about plane travel.

United flight 967 at gate in LAX

Flight 737 on a Boeing 737 with Southwest was a fun experience. Flight 747 on a Qantas Boeing 747 was made very special by the delightful cabin crew. Flight number 757 was United’s turn on one of their aging Boeing 757s and it epitomised the worst of air travel.

In DC for a client conference, the flight back to LAX was my 757th in my life so I sought a Boeing 757 flight.

Thanks to my friend Troy, we found United flight 967 out of Washington Dulles

What went wrong with United 967:

• Modern flying means being cramped
  

  My seat is in red!

  There was one empty seat left on the plane-the one next to me-was I lucky or what? My seat 40C, aisle seat at the very back of the plane was not near the extra legroom room Economy Plus section nor was it in the  757s’ very generous exit rows and despite United automatically wait-listing me for an upgrade it wasn’t  in the First cabin either. Like most United flights, they actually had oversold it (ie sold more tickets than seats on the plane hoping enough people would not show)

• Washington Dulles airport is a horrible trek
  The airport is 41km out of downtown DC. A new metro line is being built and will be finished by 2014 but in the meantime there is a slow local bus or a coach/metro combination or taxi with bad traffic.  I opted for a cab organised by my hotel which was driven by a lovely 20 year old college guy from rural Maryland. Turned out to be driving the cab for a cousin and he did not know the way out to Dulles airport:  ”Dude I am on the left land of the freeway heading toward Richmond, where should I be? “

• Check In Friendly Fail
  I never usually check luggage in but was carrying extra stuff as I was Australia bound. The Premium Economy check in line was fast but the actual human interaction was underwhelming- Mr Check In couldn’t give a damn. It never ceases to amaze me how US airlines fail to support their employees to be friendly at every touch point. I know check in staff are underpaid and stressed but United needs to help them make an effort to make customers feel welcome. I get tired of the videos by United saying what a great airline they are and how happy they are we have chosen to be with them when every employee makes me feel like they resent me being there. The actual welcome aboard was friendly and the Crew even offered to stow some extra luggage in a closet for me.

• My Technology Prowess uber fail
  I had chosen to download the boarding pass to my phone.  As I stood in the security line holding my carry on bag, my passport and my cell phone, I somehow advanced my Iphone screen so the boarding pass disappeared.  There was no cell phone signal in then security area so after 7 minutes of trying and letting people in front of me, I returned upstairs. There I found cell phone coverage and re-loaded the boarding pass. I have now sworn off mobile boarding passes particularly as I have no hard copy evidence of my boarding pass

• On my 757th flight

  United Nil Interest in my 757th flight
  Despite tweeting about it and mentioning it to ground and flight staff,  there was no reaction. Airlines I know are  more focused on more important matters such as safety and viability and not eccentric passenger quirks! Oh well- it excites my dork side!

• Two Hour Weather Related Delay
  The doors closed two minutes after departure time but we sat at the gate while ATC gave us  a “rerouting” to avoid nasty weather. After a while we pushed back, we lumbered slowly around the airport to come to a halt on the tarmac with a line of other planes. Soon there were planes everywhere all grounded because of the weather. After about two hours we finally were cleared for takeoff. As the rain started, we launched off into turbulent skies. To his credit, the captain briefed us 3 times while we were waiting but I think one every 15 minutes would be better -we were given a glass of water and a football show during the wait time

• Meals run out
  With the removal of catering for economy passengers on United, on a 5hr 5 minute flight, the airline sells snack boxes, chips, candies, cookies. At row 36, the crew ran out”that’s right, no food left”nine hours between meals.
  
  

• Movie was single screen – The 757 is an older plane so in seat entertainment is I didn’t engage in watching as my sound was crappy

• Drink service was slow on a fully laden flight with with the poor woman was serving by herself

• Cabin Safety
  

  757 Safety Card on flight

  I love watching approach and landing but the guy by the window in my row was a closed window man. Airlines in Australia and NZ insist on window shades being open for landing saying its for safety. United has no such stipulation. I find it amazing that we can fly over amazing landscapes and passengers snap their shades closed to watch movies set in the same landscapes! He would peek out his window every now and again and when he did I would edge forward and stare outside. Finally he left the window shade for our last 45 seconds of flight. 

When we finally landed in a stunningly smooth landing.  We got thanked for flying the friendly skies. my entire row laughed at this point. If nothing else, the last row bonded!

Luggage return was fairly prompt.  I got to the empty V Australia counter at 923pm for my 1020pm Sydney bound flight to find it was closed.  Thankfully the supervising agent re opened it for myself and two other weather delayed passengers.

Rating: 4/10 for my Flight 757. Seeing my average rating of all flights with United is out of ten -that’s consistent with my overall United experience. I did like being on the 757 and am excited I managed to score another significant flight..now for 767 on a 767.

Okay Mr Jeff Smisek you apparently are producing a great airline—hurry up!

My friend Tony became very ill and was confined to home. Frustrated out of his mind, because he was unable to work, Tony rested and surfed the internet to satisfy his passion for all things “Boeing”. In fact his slogan was “if its not Boeing I ain’t going“. 

It was Tony who got me to Seattle when Boeing first unveiled the 787. It was Tony who got me onto Flight memory.com

Four years ago, Tony rang me up: “got your frequent flyer statements?” 

“yes”. I said. 

“Good. Bring them round to my place”,

 “Why”.

“Don’t ask.  So round went my frequent flier statements”



A couple of months later,  he rang again, “when you were a kid, did you keep a record of your flights?”. Indeed, I had my BOAC Junior jet club book, which my parents had started with my first flight with BOAC in 1968.

One day when I was at work, Tony sent me a Skype message with one word: “incoming“ There was a link to my own flightmemory.com page. Flightmemory is away of keeping a record of all of your flights. Tony had typed in several hundreds of these flights and maintained my flight memory until the month he died.

Flightmemory records:

• date and time of flights
• number of hours, kilometres and miles flown 
• airline, plane, plane number and name
• seat and reason for travel
• my ratings of flights (something I have started doing more recently)

It then creates maps of travel. This is my lastest one:

You can even order glossy hardcopies of your maps to hang on a wall.

I have kept it up since. Thats how I can tell you the following:

Too bad that the 787 is not flying yet! I am interested that almost all of my “significant” flights have been with Boeings and none with Airbuses! Maybe aim for my 800th on a 380?!

Tony, RIP. 

Woke up Saturday morning feeling some excitement. My flight from Portland, Oregon to Spokane, Washington was essentially a fairly routine one. While I have never flown that sector before, I have been to both airports and both cities a few times now.

Yet Southwest Airlines flight 3218 was no ordinary flight for me. It was the 737th flight in my life. Yup, I have left the ground 737 times -and returned 737 times. I have fastened my seatbelt 737 times. 

Thanks to Southwest airlines being an airline who (currently) only fly Boeing 737s, my 737th flight would be on a Boeing 737. For a plane geek, thats the ultimate in geekiness!

I checked in online and was assigned position B5. Southwest do not assign seats. Instead you get allocated a position in the boarding line based on essentially the time you check in. You then  board in 3 groups of 60: Group A, Group B and Group C. My position meant I would board as the fifth person in the second group. Once on board, you are then free to choose your own seat. The earlier you board, the better your chances of bagging a good seat. In my case, there would be at least 65 people ahead of me.

Our plane was N744SW pictured here at Spokane. This 737-700 first flew for Southwest on 26th March, 1999 and has 137 economy seats. I was surprised to easily get 11D, an aisle seat in the emergency exit row. While it does not have much more leg room, the seats in row 10 do not recline and there are only 2 people in the row.

Friendly welcome from the on board Southwest team (as always). Contrast that to the usual grumpiness at United, the surliness of American and the cool aloofness at Virgin America. 

While it was a full flight, the luggage compartments did not end up being full. Southwest do not charge for checked in luggage which makes boarding  less stressful compared to United, for example where people try to carry on board small mountains of luggage and fight over every inch of luggage space.

We took off right on time and landed right on time. It was  a very smooth flight with some light turbulence as we descended into Spokane airport. 

Thanks crew

I shared with the crew 3/4 through the flight about how my “hobby” of recording my flights started. Just before his death,  my friend Tony Chapman set up a Flight memory account into which he painstakingly entered 100s of my flights from my junior jet club book and frequent flyer statements).

As soon as I told the crew that it was my 737th flight, they understood the significance and connection with this aircraft.


 On the ground, I was invited into the cockpit, met the captain and recorded these happy snaps.

Captain= good sport

Co Pilot

My ratings:

6 out of 5 –  Thanks Southwest for a memorable 737th flight – six stars today! My average rating for all Southwest flights I have flown on over eleven years is 4.5 out of 5.

Positives:  Friendly crew, great website, ease of check in, consistent, reliable

Negatives: Lack of on board entertainment, lack of food

Would I fly them again? Yup!

Below is a table summarising of all of my flights- 3.2 months inside planes with 76 airlines to five continents- one million miles of flying (and because I offset my carbon emissions many, many trees). More at my Flightmemory. Of all my flights, 193 (just over a quarter)have been in 737s

Map of all my Southwest airlines flights (below)

Table of my 27 Southwest flights (below)

A recent flight  tipped me over into 2300 hours of flying since I was born. This is equivalent to over 95 days inside a metal tube.  Over 3 months of my life!

More Trivia (some of which can be found at my flightmemory page)

• 75 airlines (my favourites of course Emirates, Air New Zealand and Qantas)
• 48 types of plane (the 3 most common being B737, B747 and B767 and the most exotic a Zepplin airship)
• 180 airports (the 3 most common Melbourne, Sydney and Los Angeles)
• 36 countries on 5 continents flown to (out of the 47 countries I have visited to- 2 countries I went to by ship, 2 by bus and 7 by train)
• 43% of my flights have involved an Australian destination,  31% a US destination and 8% a New Zealand stop and 4% a UK stop.
• I have sat by the window 281 times, on the  Aisle   151 times and in the  Middle  21 times..I cant recall the rest…guessing same proportions. 

I just flew my 666th flight. Wondered if I should have been superstitious? It was a stock standard flight from SYDney, Australia  to MELbourne, Australia.

Bad Luck:  I tried to get onto an earlier flight to find they were all full. A combination of school holidays and a check in meltdown at competitor Virgin Blue meant there was no capacity on any earlier flight.
Good Luck: Qantas upgraded me to business class.
Bad Luck:  the plane was severely delayed as it had been hit by lightning between Perth and Sydney. Technicians took a few hours to look over the plane.
Good Luck: They finally declared it safe
Bad Luck:  but we were very, very late.
Good Luck: I was in the Qantas Club so food and drink and wireless internet were all free!
Bad Luck:  Upon boarding, I found the plane was an Airbus 330 which is actually one of my least favourite planes!
Good Luck:  The plane was called Clare Valley, one of my fave wine growing areas in Australia
Bad Luck:  SYD has a curfew of 11pm. Boarding started at 1040pm and the plane was completely full so we were not on board until 1105pm
Good Luck:  the powers that be granted Qantas a dispensation (which is very, very rare) and we took off at 1120pm.
First time I have broken curfew!
Good Luck: Flight was great and the (late) dinner meal in business class was very nice!

I am not actually superstitious. I am aware instead that I am very blessed to have traveled and seen what  I have seen and remained safe for my travels around the globe  37 times to 174 airports in in 34 countries using 69 airlines.

NB One airline, Qantas represents one third of the flights. Another seven airlines have been my carriers for a third of my flights and the remaining third is divided between the other 61 airlines!  16 of those airlines do not exist any more and two have changed their names.

565 of the flights have been for business! and most of my trips have been in the last decade! And only 35 in Business and 12 in First!

From Iceland in the North to New Zealand in the South. Samoa in the East to Fiji in  the West, I have seen and enjoyed so much!

Now for my 777th flight……an interesting challenge would be to fly a 717 on my 717th flight and a 737 on my 737th flight etc!!