United is my favourite since they take real good care of me, with all my premier exec perks and all. Singapore, Austrian, Air New Zealand and Lufthansa aren’t too far behind.

By the way T5, where did you fly United to/from?

Proud Wings was a great livery, binx, I agree. I wish Air Canada had kept the Canadi>n name and identity alive as a wholly owned subsidiary, a la Austrian and Lauda, after they bought them out. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been that much of a burden. If anything, it would have saved them having to buy a few gallons of paint.

Also Steve, is the new Wunala Dreaming going to be exactly like the old one, just on the new ER aircraft?

Does that Milenium Dome even have a purpose?

If I’m not mistaken, that 2nd one is taken at ONT, my hometown airport! Nice!

The gas guzzler being the standard IL-96, not the upgraded ‘M’ version, right Kabir?

For the record, I’m still peeved that they went under. Damn Air New Zealand!

Actually, it’s really not that bad in performance. The IL-86 is the one that was a huge disappointment. As far as western engines go, they tried that with the IL-96M. They stretched the fuselage, put Pratt&Whitney engines (basically 757 engines), and used Collins Avionics. That makes for a pretty good 4 engined widebody. But all that aside, which ‘western’ based airline is going to buy one of those over Boeing or Airbus?

It would be different if an airline could legitimatly make a profit off Concorde. AF and BA have been able to sustain losses from their Concorde operations for years, because they are both such big airlines and have so many other planes in their fleet that are profitable, and are able to compensate for Concorde’s losses. The question is, are Virgin Atlantic big enough to compensate? Even if they lower prices considerably and are able to maintain a higher load factor, is that enough? As far as Virgin Upper Class goes, that is more or less a quasi-First/Business class hybrid. After all, what’s the difference between First and Business, a full-size sleeper? With some airlines, even that’s not the case. Service is tremendous in both, and I’m sure you get great service in Virgin’s upper class, on the same par if not better than some carriers first class. And they do have full size sleepers, if I’m not mistaken.