The aircraft may not be old but perhaps they were not signed on particularly long leases…perhaps especially the case as they were the first of a new type for the company in those days.

All the Virgin classics have been sold to Transaero.

We used to see the Air Atlanta 74’s in Turkey most nights (Dalaman, Antalya, Izmir, etc) when I was in the charters. There could be quite a large market for large scale people moving to that area during the season.

The reason that there aren’t any 737’s available is because the leasing costs at the moment are generally cheaper than an A320. Similarly a 767 can be had at the moment for around 200,000 dollars a month whereas an A330 will set you back around 900,000.

I wouldn’t read too much into it. They must just need more capacity right now and anything short term wet lease at the right price will suffice. That just happened to be an A320.

With 3 of his albums on my portable mp3 I’m a fan!

I take it there was some Mike Oldfield on the wireless when you were registering! 95% of those that read this won’t know who he is! He was the guy that generated Branson his first million.

That’s news to me! I think it’s more likely to be an engineers personal viewpoint in light of the things that the wooly pully is coming out with.

As an aside…a mate came round the other day. He has just finished his 744 course with BA (previously 330 with bmi) and he had just had a chat with one of the fleet managers. He was told that BA will be ordering the A380 once the initial proving and initial operation of the type has been completed. The managers comment was that in the next few years you will need to have the 380 on your books if you want to be taken seriously as a world player (his words not mine). He also stated that 787 orders are inevitable.