Can you believe India’s kingfisher is still flying. The group has now slipped from the largest to sixth airline in terms of passengers but continues to fly and amazingly people keep booking seats on them!
Last week, the Indian government announced the carrier owes $US 49m (£31m) in taxes. The carrier owes money to airports, tax authorities, lenders and its own staff.
This Tweet caught my eye:
@ardenbagni Love @WestJet #flightattendants. “This is a no-smoking flight. If you are caught smoking, we will ask you to leave the plane immediately.”
I have entered the Qatar Airways Reflections contest with five photos and need your vote to help me win. You will have to register with Qatar but you can do that using your Facebook id or an email address. I would really appreciate it. Thank you!
Here are four of my five entries along with link to vote for that photo.
1. Mont Saint-Michel
Rising out of the sea, one kilometre off the north-western coast of France, Saint-Michel has been a strategic point in Normandy and a monastery since the 8th century AD.The place has an almost magical feel heightened by the tidal movements which mean at times you can walk around the island.
After a crazy year, I travelled to Samoa . This independent Pacific Island nation has some of beautiful beaches, in the world alongside which stand picturesque villages. The beach and water are a focal point of their culture along with family and faith. Samoans have a long history of resistance to outside interference and have been reluctant to open themselves to outside tourism to protect this culture. I was happy to join the locals on their beach.
3. Wave Rock, Western Australia
14 metres high, and 110m long, the face of Wave Rock appears frozen in time. Frozen for 2700 million years.
The Rock’s shape is formed by gradual erosion of the softer rock beneath the upper edge, over many centuries and its colours of the Wave are caused by the rain washing iron hydroxide down the face, forming vertical stripes of grey, red and yellow.
4. Mackinnon Pass on the Milford Track
On Day three of New Zealand’s Milford Track, we faced the toughest day.We started early morning at our hut which is approximately 500 metres above sea level.
Soon we started our tough climb -which took over two hours to arrive at this point: Mackinnon Pass at 1069 metres above sea level. The combination of the exhilaration at having made it with the scenery and clouds made this place unforgettable. Going down meant dropping back down to 100 metres over 6 hours and 8 km!
Thanks for your support on this!
Cimber Sterling Boeing 737-700 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On the morning of Thursday May 3rd, 2012, Denmark’s regional airline Cimber Sterling filed for bankruptcy after its owners pulled financial support from the company. The carrier had 19 international and six domestic destinations. Four of its six domestic routes were monopoly routes.
Sun-Air of Scandinavia, Danish Air Transport (DAT), Norwegian and Skyways have all taken over routes very quickly.
I have never flown them but I was interested for two reasons.
The first is how many airlines have gone this year. We are up to ten with some big names (Malev, Air Zimbabwe, and Spanair). Three went in January, four in February and three in April. Not quite as bad as 2008 when 84 carriers across the world disappeared.
The second reason is the pedigree in Cimber Sterling. Cimber has been flying since 1950. In 2008 Cimber Air bought parts of Sterling airlines and changed its name in 2009 to Cimber-Sterling. The airline operated as a combination low cost and regional carrier since. A model that was clearly not working as they had recently announced that from September, 2012, the low cost international operations would go.
Sterling (founded 1962) were Europe’s fourth largest low cost carrier after they merged with Maersk Air in 2005. They collapsed as a result of the Icelandic financial crisis in 2008.
So you want to raise cash as an airline?
What do you do?
Why not sell a First Class ticket that gives a passenger unlimited first class travel for life
The Los Angeles Times reports that this is what American Airlines did in 1981. Aviation Gas was cheap and interest rates high. The airline wanted cash. So for $US250,000, 64 passengers bought a ticket which allowed them to travel as often as they wanted in first class. For an extra $150 000 you could take a companion. It was called the AAirpass program.
The airline did not pass on the taxes associated with the ticket (mistake #2)
On top of that AAirpass passengers could accumulate frequent flyer miles on their free rides (mistake #3). They also got unlimited access to the Admirals Club (American’s airport lounge) for life.
As taxes rose, aviation fuel increased in price and American teetered in the edge of bankruptcy, they discovered that their canny first class fliers had found every loop hole possible! American in 2007 began looking for ways to see if actual rules linked to the AAirpass were being broken.
They found that some passholders
American cancelled some of their passes in 2008. These customers are now in court suing the airline. The customers are claiming they acted within the rules. American is claiming they breached them.
Whatever the outcome, I doubt you can buy an AAirpass today.!
A sight I would have loved to see close up…. a Boeing 787 landed recently at Washington DC National Airport (known as Reagan National since 1998). This airport (Code = DCA) is the nearest to the capitol.
On May 7, as part of its world dream tour, the third Boeing 787 ever manufactured (Serial number ZA003) made a very short flight from Washington’s other main airport: Dulles International to DCA. The 787 uses composite materials and its main features include larger windows than on any other plane, a four-panel windshield, better air circulation, improved lighting and humidity and much larger overhead bins. It is designed to use 30% less fuel than a 767.
Five reasons why it is significant:
American Airlines has bowed to pressure from creditors and is exploring merger options, having previously vowed to go it alone. This consideration makes the possibility much more real. Especially with the AA unions being so keen on a merger.
Lots of logic for the move. It would create the second-largest airline in the United States in terms of operating revenue. US Airways plans to adopt the American Airlines name. The unions feel it would protect them.
Not sure what it will do to customer service at the airline. I personally think AA has the worst in the USA (Business Insider said in 2011 that American Airlines is the seventh worst company in the USA!) Both airlines have very high levels of customer complaints: American 1.44 per 100 000 passengers and US: 1.35 compared with the 1.22 industry average. USAirways has a slightly better on time performance 83.0% of flights arrive within 15 minutes of schedules arrival time compared to American’s 79.6% (Industry: 80.0%). The number of passengers who hold confirmed reservations but cannot get on a flight because it is oversold is 0.86 per 10 000 passengers at American and 1.61 at USAirways. As for luggage, American “loses” 3.2 bags per 10 000 passengers compared with 2.53 at USAirways and an industry average of 3.49
The other concern here at Wild about Travel is price. I imagine on some routes, prices will soar as competition falls.
Such a merger will leave the USA with just three mega legacy carriers:
Plus a handful of other carriers:
In five years the USA has said goodbye to: Aloha, ATA, Big Sky Airlines, Boston-Maine Airways, Continental, Independence Air, Midwest, Northwest, Skybus (though in fairness this was hello/goodbye), TED and USA3000. Soon AirTran will go. Have I left anyone out?
He was 6’4 and sitting in the cramped row in front of me in the middle seat on an American Airlines flight. After the drink and “meal” service, he stood up and moved to the centre of the plane. There he stood in the aisle reading a paperback book. After 45 minutes, the person in the aisle seat next to where he was standing told him loudly: “you are creeping me out. Please go back to your seat.”
The man moved forward one row of seats but continued to stand in the aisle reading his book until just before landing. Flight crew did not ask him to move.
Acceptable or non acceptable behaviour?
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!)
For the last few years, I have run in the annual Bloomsday race in Spokane, Washington. It is a 12 kilometre (7.5 mile) event that starts and finishes downtown. The course includes several stretches of running alongside the river, some sections through suburbia and one of the toughest hills in the world for a run.
Spokane has made this event, in my mind, one of the best foot races I have done on the planet. It is very well organised and the people of the
My results this year were a Finish Time: 1:09:09 and an overall place out of 47,841 finishers of : 6,261
