The screening took 40 minutes. Well I thin kthey agreed that it is a hot photo

Nah, a.nets had the Lufthansa retro-jet since this morning – its a very nice photo, but jp’s probably fast-screening because they’re desperate to keep up with the premiere photo site! 😮 :dev2:

Andy

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=446908
Here is my pic of the beauty

Ugh! Can’t you put it on a decent site like a.net. Sorry, I don’t go to jetphotos – too many pop-ups.

Andy

I was using a simple approach to explaining it. Theres more to it.

Obviously! :dev2: 😉

Nice Idea. but won’t happen. That cheatline over the windows is too expensive. Some has to go and manualy mask off the windows. A time consuming process.

What??? :confused: :confused: :confused:

So how does any other airline avoid paint covering over the windows when they apply just a solid colour to the side of their airplanes???

I know, cheatline paint is attracted to windows, whereas solid side colours are repelled by window glass! :p :diablo:

Seriously, even Air France has to paint around the windows – or mask them! 😀

Andy

PS: Cheats aren’t always painted anyway – American, for example, uses decals for its cheats with the window apertures pre-cut into them when the decals are made.

Hey, don’t knock it. Most of my flying this last twelve months has been on BD, UA and LH. The across-Star recognition of frequent flyers has certainly influenced my choice of airlines – it brings benefits not only for in terms of miles accumulation, but also as they allow me to use express checkin and lounges regardless of airline and class of travel. Without Star Alliance my BD Diamond Club mileage balance would look a bit sick and I’d be struggling to make gold this year. With Star, I’ve done enough miles for two “free” business class trips to the USA, am closing on a free to Australia, or with a few more trips might even see if I can redeem for a round-the-world.

I think Star Alliance is great – I can get most places in the world on Star, and it does wonders for my bmi frequent flyer account! 😎

Because there are national carriers involved, carriers that don’t want to give up their “signature” routes, and because the alliances aren’t set up to take over their member’s business, there will always be some overlap. It isn’t huge in comparison to overall alliance or individual airline business, and is certainly no worse than the competition that existed pre-alliances. Schedule coordination that provides a better frequency is more likely a result of airlines joining alliances, rather than illimination of competition.

SA will be joining Star soon, with TP having been the most recent joiner. Whilst SA may not provide many direct links into Africa, they have a better African network than almost any other carrier from the region (as well as being one of relatively few “reputable” carriers from Africa). The South Africa market is big in itself, and it makes sense for Star to have more exposure there. The only other carriers I see as realistic potential alliance members are Kenya, Ethiopian and a maybe few from the north Africa region.

Emirates have always been a target for Star, but it has mainly been EK’s resistance to an alliance that has slowed things down. EK have always been a bit like this – witness how long it took them to set up a frequent flyer program, for example. Maybe EK will remain alone, but the alliances bandwagon is still rolling and sooner or later one of the other progressive Middle East carriers will sign up (Qatar, Etihad or even Gulf) and then maybe EK will have less choice about which alliance it goes into if it finally does decide to go the alliance route.

China is the next target – Star are in active talks with Air China and I suspect that they will be soon to join. If that happens, I wouldn’t be surprised to see SkyTeam or OneWorld courting China Southern.

Andy

realy?

Care to recollect your flights and tell us what was wrong?

20/08/2001 SU571 SVO-PEK, and 03/09/2001 SU572 PEK-SVO

All that’s worth saying is that the interior was a total wreck – frayed carpets, rips in seats or threadbare seats, stained cloth, adjustable wings missing from headrests on quite a few seats, broken seat back tables, cracks in side-wall claddings, filthy bathrooms, etc, etc. This wasn’t just a case of an aircraft appearing to be nearing the time it needed an interior refit, it was just totally uncared for and not looked after.

In contrast, I recall the cabin service and food not being too bad, although I also recall that the service and the interiors were MUCH better on the A310s we flew LHR-SVO and SVO-LHR on.

At the time, the SU 777s flew daily PEK and NYC, so maybe they just flew them so much they didn’t have time to care for them. Either way, they were in a bad state internally and anyone who got them in that state would have been looking at some major interior work to get them to a state that most airlines (and passengers) would find acceptable.

Andy

I feel sorry for Vietnam – I hope that they’ve got plenty of time and money available to refurbish those two ex-Aeroflot 777s, because they are the tattiest airplanes I’ve ever flown on.

Andy