cloud_9Indeed Tartan, the Minoan ones puzzle me somewhat…just because it says “London” in the airport name, doesn’t mean there is a market for flights.
As for Brighton City Airways, I’ve actually met one of the people behind the venture, and I have to say that he is an all round great guy, very intelligent and runs a flying school at Shoreham airport so he has a wealth of aviation experience, and I wish him the best of luck with his venture.
cloud_9Ah, so that will explain why I saw it at LHR…I thought when I saw it “Blimey, Qatar are using their 787’s again, when did that happen?!”
It was moving about the airport the other day, and may have even taken-off…so perhaps they were doing some test-flights?!:confused:
Lovely set of photos Tartan. Thanks for sharing.:)
cloud_9Am I alone when I say that I think the new Thomson livery really sucks…?!:(
cloud_9Certainly gives a new definition to “booze cruise!”…:diablo:
cloud_9I maybe wrong in saying this, but hasn’t US Airways always been considered to be the #3 carrier of the Star Alliance, that was until Continental and United agreed to merge?
With the DL/NW merger strengthening the SkyTeam alliance, CO/UA’s merger strengthing the Star Alliance in some ways, it would seem natural almost for the last 2 remaining carriers of what used to be known as “the big 6” in the USA to join together and strength the last remaining alliance network, OneWorld.
Consolidation is now where the industry is headed because all airlines are suffering, so much so that it has now become necessary to seek joint-ventures, alliance and code-share partnerships with others in order to survive.
For example, in a recent internal blog post Jeff Smisek (Chairman, President, and CEO of United Continental Holdings, Inc., the holding company for both United Airlines and Continental Airlines) said that CO/UA is now in a much stronger position than it ever was as two single carriers.
Another example, I’ve heard lately is that things could simply boil down to just three airlines in the world…OneWorld, SkyTeam & Star. Each airline will still operate as their own brand so to speak, but you’ll be flying “Star Alliance” rather than any one particular airline. And if you see how things are changing at airports nowadays where these alliance carriers are all focusing their operations together and housing all the airlines under one-roof (SkyTeam all operate out of T4 at LHR now!) in a bid to create a seamless travel experience for their customers.
cloud_9News article is here:
In its defence KLM says that 60-70% of its short-haul passengers carry only hand luggage. The airline says that passengers would prefer to pay less for their flights and that is why it has decided to bring in the fee.
Source: http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/klm-to-charge-for-checked-baggage
Despite what I said earlier, and I still stand by it, this kind of thing already happens in the USA…and as tenthije has correctly identified, all FlyingBlue members (not just Elite members) will not be affected by this change, so I guess that they’ll have a sudden influx of people joining the program simply to avoid this fee, until such time as they choose to only allow Elite customers to check-in baggage for no additional charge.
And seeing as this is related to baggage, I have just found out that United Airlines have changed their baggage policy from yesterday, so now United Business and United BusinessFirst customers are now only allowed x2 bags instead of x3, and United First and United Global First are only allowed x2 bags on domestic journeys instead of x3.
cloud_9Totally agree with Skymonster…
This of course will now pave the way for other legacy carriers to do the same too, and I suspect that Air France won’t be far behind them, seeing as AF/KL are jointly owned.
The first thing I wonder is what will happen if your bags go missing or get delayed in AMS (it happens a lot!)…will they refund the charge you paid as compensation for the inconvenience?!
How long will it be before they start to charge customers to use the loos onboard and force you to print your boarding pass off before you come to the airport…:diablo:
Terrible idea if you ask me, and as others have suggested I won’t be using KLM in the future (even though I work for a company that is 60% owned by them!).
cloud_9I used to love trains before I got into aeroplanes, but now and then I do love the sight and sound of First Great Western’s HSTs rumbling past.;)
cloud_9I used to love trains before I got into aeroplanes, but now and then I do love the sight and sound of First Great Western’s HSTs rumbling past.;)
cloud_9In fact, having just looked a bit further on their website under the “Operating Certificates” page, I’ve found that they do have the aircraft C-FUVU, and its been leased…look on Page 1 of “Aircraft Operating Certificate”…under category F), its shows the model of aircraft, registration and then a small asterik, and underneath this info the asterik shows as “leased airplane”…http://www.eca-air.com/englisch/certificates.html
Hope this helps.:)
cloud_9Hi Etienne,
The following website seems to suggest that the aircraft C-FVFU has been “de-registered”, so its obviously not flying around at the moment, unless its been given a new registration…http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/C-FVFU.html
On the other hand, the ECA website shows plenty of pictures of the aircraft, and it states that they are starting operations in Spring 2013, so I guess they may well still have the aircraft…http://www.eca-air.com/englisch/flugzeuge.html
Have you tried contacting someone from ECA directly, i.e Managing Director?
http://www.eca-air.com/englisch/team.html
cloud_9Wow pistonrob those photos are amazing, especially the second one with the reflection of the aircraft in the water. Thanks for sharing.:)
cloud_9I would think that QF will probably end up leaving OneWorld because of its tie-up with Emirates, seeing as they are a currently a non-alliance partner, and I very much doubt that EK would join OW because Qatar Airways are joining in August of this year.
I would imagine that QF/EK will come to some sort of agreement between them that will see them code-sharing on each others flights, and customers being able to gain frequent flyer miles jointly.
That said, I don’t quite understand why BA has suddenly chosen to cancel their code-share “in protest”…isn’t this cutting off their nose to spite their face, and could it potentially hurt them financially in the process?
Until such an announcement has been made, surely it would be in BA’s interests to keep the code-share and ability to collect frequent flyer miles running, and then they can cancel it a few days before or the day before the new agreement between QF/EK comes into effect, thus giving customers more time to adapt to the changes?
One question I do have…will this see QF drop LHR from its schedule? Due to the tie-up to EK, I’m assuming most of their customers will now look to transit via DXB, and I don’t think that there is enough demand for both QF and EK to operate A380’s on the same route…?
Perhaps QF/EK can come to some agreement whereby customers can travel SYD-DXB on QF, and then DXB-LHR on EK, similar in a way to the partnership between Virgin Australia and Etihad?
cloud_9I’ve seen similar instances before.
Can you give us any more examples J Boyle, as this is the first I’ve ever seen of it…?
Did Manx2.com do the same when Flight 7100 crashed at Cork?
Personally, I think it’s terrible.
Ok, so thankfully nobody has died as yet, but people were seriously injured and for an airline to try and cover up its identity after an incident like this (regardless of whether they had chartered/leased the aircraft from another operator!) I find it to be a very poor judgement, and it clearly shows how much Alitalia really values its customers…
To the ordinary customer (i.e. not any of us!:D), it was just a normal Alitalia flight (assuming with an AZ flight no.?), and so they wouldn’t of know that the aircraft was from another operator…and for the airline to try and take away their identity from the scene is simply awful.:mad:
From The Telegraph article:
Alitalia defended the decision to white out its markings, saying it was standard corporate practice and a way of avoiding bad publicity.
Avoiding bad publicity…well, if anything I would say that this has heaped a whole load more bad publicity on them. Surely the best thing to of done would be to have an internal investigation to establish the cause of the crash, as well as to see what the results of the authorities investigations result, and then offer to compensate all of the customers that were on the flight. Then the airline could look to persue Carpatair for any damages, if it was deemed that they were at fault in anyway?
Accidents happen…its a fact of life, as hard as it is to accept, but to simply try and get away with it to save face and your reputation is just plain and simply wrong imho.
cloud_9I sincerely hope they don’t acquire CityJet!
It will be just the like bmi takeover at LHR…they’ll rape the carrier for all its worth (predominately the slots!) and then they’ll become a monopoly operator on key routes and will be able to get away with raising fares as and when they see fit.
That said though, if they did acquire it I would like to think that they might look to obtain a few more A318’s in the business-class only configuration, and operate them on other routes…there was talk of other US cities such as BOS, IAD and possibly ORD being served, however I would rather see other routes operated…could/would DXB possibly work to/from LCY perhaps?!
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