SkymonsterI can afford to Fly but chose to fly with a company who’s Boss dose not make outrageouse claims slating other companies while his own gose down the pan
Best not fly with Ryanair either then!!! :diablo:
And before anyone says it, whilst Ryanair’s financials are not yet down the pan, its service standards are! 😀
As far as Virgin is concerned, I am surprised at the seemingly rapid reversal in fortunes, but all airlines are suffering right now. Whilst it is very sad that staff may end up losing jobs, whilst the collective we are not travelling so much some retrenchment is almost inevitable.
Andy
SkymonsterYou are of course right that first/early adopters are usually the subject of much scepticism, or worse, until they prove their new technology in anger. However, for each succesful aeroplane made of metal or train going at over 30mph, there have been technology failures. Actually, I am not suggesting that the 787 will be a failure – far from it – but I do think that there will be more bad news to come before we’re all paying good money to ride around the globe in them. And I never said that the 787 would go straight to Mojave either – the “will it ever fly” quip was/is just that, derived from Boeing’s repetitive failure to deliver on any first flight date they’ve proposed, rather than it being an absolute proclamation by me that it will never fly. Even you, being [ahem] pro-Boeing, must admit that their credibility is shot to pieces right now, and that ANY first flight date they propose for the 787 will be greated with some degree of scepticism by both industry insiders and observers alike.
Andy
Skymonsterhttp://www.lonelyscientist.com/
Interesting reading for those who have some time… It certainly puts a different view on the use of composites in large airliners.
Andy
SkymonsterAs an aside. Before Ryanair imposed ‘cost saving’ charges to load hold luggage, I assume that your ticket price already included the price of putting a bag in the hold. Now, if you didnt put a bag in the hold shouldnt you of got a discount on your ticket :dev2:
Indeed… And to my mind, if I have to carry my bag to the aircraft, the airline should PAY ME to do it – I’m saving them a job, I’m doing their job for them, I’m helping them save resources. I also agree with RDC – far too much stuff going into the cabin already let alone if Ryanair does this. I can see either (a) arguments between passengers when they find that there isn’t enough room to stow all their junk and/or (b) Ryanair introducing another charge to use the overhead bin – now, there’s an idea for O’Riley to conjure with!
Andy
SkymonsterSensationalist clap trap, from the both of you.
Just what I’d expect from the Boeing fanboy of the forum! :rolleyes:
In any case, if you care to read around the subject – of the 787 and its current problems – you’ll find some industry people far better informed than you or I still have doubts about the vaibility of large composite load carrying structures in airliners. Whilst I am not yet suggesting that these “experts” know better than Boeing, the current situation certainly leaves enough room for concern over whether further problems might surface. Lets put it this way – if I was getting a new job in airliner sales right now, I’d rather be selling A380s than 787s – whether I’d retain that view long term or not remains to be seen.
Andy
SkymonsterTo be honest Skymonster I think not only are you not looking at this from the correct angle of someone who knows nothing and some of which maybe scared to fly even when things are perfect you are assuming a plane load of “chavs” as you put it.
To be honest I am not saying I would choose Majorca as a holiday destination but you have to remember the country is not in the best state as it is and money is a premium at the moment. We have to assume that there were a number great or small of people on this flight who weren’t “chavs”. Maybe familys with children taking a well deserved holiday in the sun maybe.
I am not sure where you would choose to holiday but if they choose Majorca then thats up to them doesnt mean they are chavs.
Anyway rant over back on topic!
They probably were chav. Actually I have no problem with Majorca – been there myself several times. It’s just that this sort of passenger stupidity never seems to affect “proper” airlines… It’s always the charter airlines full of ignorant ch… sorry, nice British holiday makers.
Andy
SkymonsterLook, I know nothing about ships, if I was crossing the Atlantic at night and the Captain said on the ships speakers …we’ve hit an iceberg but don’t worry, we’re perfectly safe as we are unsinkable……I would have trouble sleeping (unless it was in the lifeboat)
Nah, see, its about trusting the professionals… I don’t know anything about ships either, but if the captain said it was safe that’d be good enough for me (unless it was the captain sleeping in the lifeboat!). Airline crew don’t go about wrecklessly endangering themselves, and whilst I know quite a bit about aviation I’m not intimately familiar with the 757 MEL – but if the captain says its good enough to go, then I’ll get on too. I’d bet a good number of these chavs would happily drive their cars around with defects and without concern for their own or others safety were it not for fear of getting nabbed by the Rozzers, and yet when it comes to aviation they want to be the uninformed judge and jury. Well let them do it – but when they take matters into their own hands, they should be prepared for the consequences – in this case, to get themselves home.
OK, so maybe communication wasn’t the best, but like I said before I think best in these cases to tell people what to do/where to sit and say no more – I little knowledge is a truely dangerous thing to the ignorant.
SkymonsterThese people have paid good money for a safe service, at no point on their ticket does it say anything about flying in a broken aeroplane. They are not to know how safe or not it is, why should they?
Not so in this case infact quite the opposite, the passengers have done their own risk assessment and said no!
I don’t blame them
And I’d bet 99% of these passengers, if confronted with a layman at their own place of work and that layman said what they were doing was wrong or dangerous, they would tell that layman to ******* off and mind his own business (or similar) and carry on with the job.
Passengers have a right to fly on a servicable aircraft, and it sounds like that’s just what they got. IMHO they should indeed have been invited to board, or find their own way home.
The problem of course is that a little knowledge (misinformation) is a dangerous thing in the minds of today’s proletariat… Best would have been to leave them in the ignorance most of them undoubtedly wallow in anyway, tell them they have to sit in their assigned seats (at the back or where ever) and that failure to do so constitutes refusing the instructions of aircrew which in turn is penalisable under the law.
Andy
SkymonsterI think Hand just wanted us all to know that he’s sunning himself in Aquitaine. 😀
You’d have thought that if he was sunning himself, he’d not be bothering too much about 707s with spinning roof-racks! :rolleyes: I’m sure that there are plenty more visually appealing subjects to look at! 😎
Andy
SkymonsterMy “intel” source on the subject advises that if an AWACS was seen taking off from BIQ (where ever that is!) at around 4PM, an AWACS could probably have been observed landing at BIQ sometime before that time :p
Andy
PS: Such aircraft often visit commercial airports, either (a) on legitimate business, (b) as a diversion from a planned military airfield for any variety of operational reasons or (c) as a training exercise associated with the possibility of the aforementioned diversion. For example, AWACS periodically visit EMA to do training ILS (civilian) approaches as many military airfields do not have commercial ILS and many civil airfields do not have military PAR
SkymonsterFlightglobal:
Oh dear – Dreamliner becomes Nightmareliner! Will the plastic pig ever fly?
Andy
SkymonsterI don’t see that the Boeing and Airbus positions change much – Cseries stands a chance of making something, but not many of the rest as most airlines will go with slightly older designs from proven manufacturers rather than buy “riskier” solutions like the SSJ and ARJ (the designs may end up being proven but there’s still a perceived risk in support and supply chain – and consider that Aviastar couldn’t sell the TU204 even with Rollers and western avionics).
Despite the recession and the potential cancellations that might bring, the order backlog on A320/737 families will keep the lines moving until the new types ramp up, and those backlogs and the lack of really credible alternatives suggest the current types will keep most airlines happy during that period too.
The mid-/long-haul 200-sh seater (i.e. 757 replacement) may be a gap in the market (and the recession might increase its importance a bit versus the larger options currently available), but at present I think the market is too limited to justify manufacturer investment.
SkymonsterI can’t help wonder if we’re going to see more of a regional operation from Virgin with these.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/06/22/328628/virgin-atlantic-orders-10-a330s.html
My reading of the above is that they’re more to replace the [six] A340-300s and maybe deliver a bit of growth. More likely then the delayed Boeing Nightmareliners could be for further expansion once the markets really turn up again. Surprised its -300s though – I thought that they were a bit stretched on segments like LHR-YVR and LHR-PEK.
With Dicky spouting on today/yesterday about BA and how VS could fill any gap as a UK airline, it would be an absolute disgrace if they didn’t go for Trent engines.
A
SkymonsterIn the internal paper they mention they are using more fuel efficient landings now to save money. How do you do this ?
Er… you stick the gearbox into neutral 10 miles out and cut a deal for the remainders with the nearest taxaco forecourt… ? 😉
Pretty close on the first part actually… CDAs…
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/68/Basic_Principles_CDA.pdf
Of course, CDAs aren’t always easy to achieve when NATS insists on sending your aeroplanes into the hold at Bovingdon or Ockham (even though the doc suggests that the CDA should start after the hold, the ideal is a CDA from cruise altitude), but that’s another issue…
Andy
SkymonsterBranson is a self-serving publicist in the same camp as Scumbag O’Riley – the only thing that sets him about the mentioned Irish bandit is that his airline isn’t quite as cheap and nasty. If Sir Dicky really thinks VS could plug the gaps left by a BA collapse, he’s almost as much in cloud cookoo land as O’Riley is when he says he’ll charge for using the toilets.
Anyways, (1) BA isn’t going to collapse and (2) even if it did the government would end up bailing it out in one form or another.
Andy
Sign In
