Sounds quite a big entry into MEL by AI. Any news on frequencies and ac to be used on the routes?

Its not AI, its IC. IC plans to lease A330s for these flights. I had been lobbying for this route for 2 years and the idiots start it when i am shifting out of Australia. 😡

IC will have stiff competition though, TK, AI/QF, SQ, CX, Malaysian offer very good connections to Australia, specially Melbourne. SQ being the best of the lot, in terms of connectivity, by offering two daily flights to Melbourne.

Few things that might give IC the edge is if they have mid-day or mid-afternoon flights out of India, sparing passengers the congestion vows being faced at hubs like Delhi and Mumbai these days.

HEADSHOT!!

sorry..could not resist. 🙂

That Embraer deal is almost ready to be signed apparently, and the 126 fighter jet deal might be announced by Sunday.

Qatar was rumoured to be a 380CJ customer.

I like it..has a great retro touch to it.

As far as I understand it…

This situation is only likely to occur after some form of ground handling incident and the the aircraft is required for operations until a replacement or repairs can be carried out. There is little perceivable asymetric handling effect (none in a FBW Airbus) of having one missing however there is a small performance reduction. The manufacturers have to provide an extensive set of performance data with certain items of equipment missing so, bearing in mind you would have to be incredibly unlucky (stupid?) to dink two wingtips at the same time and removing a serviceable winglet doesn’t really help you, there is no real point in doing the approval for this situation.

Thanks for the explanation Wys. Another question… even if flying with one winglet does it create an imbalance in wind drag at all? Or is it just ignorable?