Hate to bring up an old thread, but my cousin who works at LAX told me he saw this aircraft, operating a Martinair flight at the time, still in the Virgin colour scheme circa ’98. He thought it was a Virgin on lease to Martinair, so I had to show him this picture and tell him it was the other way around.

Actually T5, even the LAX-JFK portion of those flights are operated by a 767. I took flight 905 from JFK-LAX my 2nd to last trip to N.Y., and it was definitely a 767, and it was the 2nd leg originating in London. Just because it’s the same flight number, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same aircraft.

Are my posts even read on this forum? I gave a very detailed spill with an example, no less, of the whole Concorde color situation, on A330Crazy’s “Tribute to a Legend” thread. Shall I re-copy and paste it? I think I shall. Seeing as it was the last post on that thread, I’m guessing it did in fact go unread….

“Guys, save all the publicity talk for the other thread, no need for 2 of the same. As far as painting it silver goes, they couldn’t do that if they wanted to fly supersonic. AF doesn’t apply, since they’re colours are all white anyhow (even though this can be debated at times, even on Concorde!), but why do you think BA’s Concorde’s never donned the blue and grey scheme? Because the paint would just peal right off when they hit supersonic. The only time the Concorde was painted in a non-white scheme, was when Pepsi chartered it about 6 years ago, some of you might remember. It was painted all blue, except for the wings. Those flights were all flown at subsonic speeds, or else that blue paint would have come right off. The reasoning behind this is, white doesn’t get as hot as any other color because it reflects the sun’s rays, it doesn’t aborb them.”

I flew on one of NZ’s 762’s last summer, and they were in very good condition. I fly on UA’s all the time and those are in equally good condition. UA’s LAX-JFK routes are run exclusively by 762’s. For them to use that aircraft on a very prestigious route, they have to hold them in pretty hard regard. In fact, my favourite seat in any aircraft, ever, is a business class seat in a UA 762.

The hammer & sickle did stem from the communist era, however the way it is used in Aeroflot’s symbol, is very distinctive to the airline. I see nothing wrong in them wanting to keep that. When I look at that symbol, I don’t immediately think, “commies!” I think, “That’s Aeroflot, the airline of Russia.”

Qatar of Gulf, perhaps Saudi Arabian, as UA currently have a marketing agreement with them. The Middle-East is the only missing link for Star. They have everything else covered. United, USAirways, and the only airline in (Air) Canada in N. America; Mexicana and Varig in S. America; one of 2 carriers in the S. Pacific, ANZ; the 2 carriers based at the 2 hubs that join that S. Pacific w/ Europe, Singapore and Thai; not to mention 2 others that are based in the heart of Asia, ANA and Asiana in addition to Air China now (I think they’re pretty much set in Asia); plus a strong Euro presence w/ BMI, Lufthansa, Austrian, and Spanair. You guys suggest 2 Balkan airlines in Adria and Croatian, I might suggest another in the Balkans, Olympic. OA being a pretty dog$hit airline at the moment in terms of service and economics. But good in terms ofn safety record, pilots, and potential. With the Greek islands being popular tourist destinations, plus their proximity to the middle east, if they were given the correct guidance, they could and should be a profitable airline, like when Onassis owned them prior to relinquishing control to the Greek gov’t (bad move). Nevermind BA tried to do that about 5 years ago when they sent the Speedwing team in there to clean up their act. Didn’t work.

India media was reporting that UA was to join Star? Fantastic, too bad they were one of the founding members. It makes sense for USAirways to join Star, since the parternship they have with UA currently is closer that with the rest of the Star members have with United, when it comes to bonus mileage and other perks. Also, UA has a very strong West Coast and Coast to Coast presence whereas US is the strongest carrier on the North/South East Coast routes. They have very little route overlap. As far as those 2 guys merging? Won’t happen. They already tried that, 3 years ago, and it got shot down. Air China joining makes sense because they’ve had close relations with LH in recent years, and there have been rumors for a while that they would join. Are far as Star getting too big, is there a benchmark for the size of alliances? The bigger an alliance, the more they can help each other out and gain revenue from one another. For instance, UA doesn’t fly to Greece, but LH does. Why should UA yeild revenue to DL to fly me to Greece, when LH can? As far as service lacking? I completely disagree. That is up to the individual carrier. Just because one airline in Star like Singapore is top 2 or 3 every year in service, and UA isn’t, doesn’t mean SIA’s service is going to start slipping. Lastly, Bloomberg conveniently neglected to mention UA’s 3 ‘other’ hubs, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington’s Dulles.

Did I ever say there’s anything wrong with Business Class? I don’t recall EVER saying there was anything wrong with Business Class. You missed the whole point here, Jay. We were talking about whether, or whether or not LH had PTV’s in their economy class cabin, which Monster just put the final stamp of approval on something I knew already. Thanks Monster.