Airbus forecasts some 1,100 very-large aircraft being sold. Boeing says won’t even be 400. The true figure will probably lie in between.

Those two have a long history of rubbishing and forecasting gloom for each other. I’m sure privately they would both admit there is room in the market for both companies and also for both their new flagship aircrafts to co-exist.

Would you prefer Steve it if they had decided to replace the Australian wine with, say, Californian?

It might be a bit of a blow for the Melbourne wine industry but at the end of the day the New Zealanders have decided to look after their own first- something which a lot of people do nowadays.

If the Kiwi wine turns out to be of poor quality Air New Zealand’s customers will be the first ones to complain and make the airline bring back the Aussie wines, unless they want to risk losing customers. So time will tell…

I’ve been to Goa a couple of times and the one thing you grasp very quickly is try not get in trouble with the law there.

The reputation of the Goan prison is indeed infamous- there always are a few Western ‘guests’ there, mostly for drug related offences. I pity the men if they’re convicted but like it’s been said you’d have to be utterly stupid to do such thing on an aeroplane these days.

T5, I’ve had the misfortune of sharing a Go flight between Madrid and Stansted with a bunch of Man United fans that were ****ed as rats. United had played Real Madrid the previous evening and many fans had not bothered with a hotel- they stayed in bars all night and then slept on the airport’s departure lounge until the gate opened. A few of them were well damn rude and they gave one of the stewardesses a lot of bother. Some of them were farting and burping with pride and by the end of it I was almost praying for a plane crash and a quick death.

Unfortunately unless they’re so drunk they can’t stand, it is easy for ****ed people to board planes.

That China 744 Cargo seems to have pretty a short landing gear.

Are all 747 Cargos this close to the ground?

Landing gear?

I think it’s ludicrous myself. There is a limit to what people will put up with to save a few quid. What next, charging £1 for using the toilet?

And it’s not like Ryanair is dramatically cheaper than other budget airlines anyway. I suspect not an awful lot of the savings that will be achieved by this will actually be passed on to the passengers either. By comparison even Easyjet will be left looking like Emirates First Class next to Ryanair. Will more people really be happy to fly in such conditions for the sake of saving an extra fiver?