If you are looking to sell an airline, you ususally ring Lufthansa or Aeroflot. Would either of them be interested in OpenSkies? Perhaps to fly into LHR?

Long haul LCC is already being done out of Australia, so Ryanair are not inventing anything new.

Basic low fare, then pre-pay for in flight meals, pre-pay for IFE, and pre-pay for a comfort kit. Airlines here have picked up Ryan’s idea of charging to check bags – I wonder if the same deal of letting you carry on board 10kg of hand luggage will still apply on long haul

When MOL did his famous press conference, about all the extras, he made it clear that Ryanair will have a Business Class, and it will cost a lot to fly in it. Some of the services MOL described did not have a German translation – Ryan would need cabins similar to Singapore A380s R Class if those will be providedl

Wonder if that is what Zoom needed? If Zoom had used 30 Business Class seats would they still be in business?

I guess LH will run bmi like a British version of Swissair. Planes still painted in bmi colours, but a division of LH. There are some place, like LHR-NYC, where there is no Star Alliance carrier. Would LH want to fly that with its own branded planes – bmi and CO/UA will do that service as an airbridge, if CO/UA merger goes ahead.

BMI would have to benefit from LH’s purchasing power for aircraft. Will bmi just feed LH long haul services to Asia? When there is a strong market from the UK, LH would let bmi do its own thing. BMI could use planes from LH fleet – A340-600s if needed, and even A380s.

If SIA want to sell music and videos, they will just be an online store like itunes or Amazon. If they sell only what they have on the plane, the selection will be a bit limited compared with what people can get on the ground. As the article says, the big question is whether people are prepared to pay to download music on the plane. People were not so keen on Connexion by Boeing because of the cost, and big music/video files would cost quite a lot to download in the air.

A lot of the charges are costs that are charged to Ryanair by their service providers. Apart from the Priority Boarding charge, I think all the other costs reflect the cost of having passengers and bags checked in by contractors. It used to be that these duties were performed by airline employees who were paid to be there, whether they checked in a whole plane load, or they stood around on duty while there were no planes to handle.

Where there is a Government charge that Ryanair has to collect, it is fair enough that the airline should be allowed to show that as part of the broken down cost of the ticket. Airlines used to be able to absorb the cost of having electronic payments processed.

Can you survive a short holiday with just a cabin bag? One person,who was the CEO of Saab Aircraft used to travel into his work every day with a clean set of underwear, and a toothbrush. That was all he needed to travel anywhere in the world at short notice. The old saying about packing to travel – put everything you need into your bag, then take half the stuff out, is even more true when you are going away for a short break.

My prediction is that one of the first destinations in the USA will be a Florida point. Not one of the well known airports, but perhaps Melbourne, FL, which is about an hour in a bus north of Orlando. Ryan Atlantic can fly direct from UK airports like Prestwick, Stansted, NEMA – no need to worry about connecting flights.

12 pounds will be the lead in price – you will have to be quick to get the cheapest fares.

Ryan Atlantic will be totally different on long haul, just as BA has different service and seat pitch on long haul and short haul flights.

It will be easy to pre purchase meals and entertainment at the time of booking. By the time Ryan Atlantic is in the air IFE will be better than it is now – live internet connections will be standard at every seat.

The best thing is that Ryan Atlantic should be uncomplicated.

Change of plane at LAX for MEL passengers. Timings are almost the same as for SYD. Check timetable on http://www.qantas.com

I think Lufthansa Cargo could order the 777-200F as an MD-11F replacement. LH Cargo is the only part of Lh that operates the MD-11, and an order for 20 units would mean that commonality is not a problem.

I have not heard of an A340-600F program