tenthijehttp://home.arcor.de/usrw2/Julian/Technische_Daten.html
type …….. Tu-144 …… Tu-144D
wingspan .. 28,90 m ….. 28,80 m
Length ….. 65,68 m ….. 65,68 m
Height ….. 12,85 m …… 12,85 m
tenthijeI live in London and was wondering if people could tell me how bus services are run outside of London. In london TfL tenders routes, operators bid for them and the route is awarded to the best bidder, a bit like with the raileways, but how do things run outide of London.
Bus routes are tendered in the Netherlands as well.
The Netherlands are split up in zones (noone seems to know where one zone ends and another begins) and are tendered per zone or block of zones. In some regions regional trains are included under the tender, but that is rare. One example of this is the east of the Netherlands (half of Gelderland and bits of Overijssel) where Syntus operates busses and trains.
Bus services that go through more than 1 tendered zone are done by both bus companies involved. Say company A in zone A and company B in zone B. Bus travel between zone A and B is operated jointly by A and B. So there are no seperate tenders for long distance busses. Since there are hardly any long distance busses it is really not worth the hassle.
Tenders are opened mostly by provincial government. The larger cities can tender local busses on their own. In those cases the local council owned bus companies always get the tender (or at least the more lucrative bits). For instance HZM in Den Haag, GVB in Amsterdam or RET in Rotterdam.
The biggest bus company by far in the Netherlands is Conexxion. They are for a large part state owned, and for the other part owned by the Dutch railways (who just happen to be owned by the state). Others include Syntus in the East and BBA (Connex group) in the south. BBA has recently lost part of its franchise though so what will remain of them remains to be seen. Unsurprisingly Conexxion took over most activities.
tenthijeI live in London and was wondering if people could tell me how bus services are run outside of London. In london TfL tenders routes, operators bid for them and the route is awarded to the best bidder, a bit like with the raileways, but how do things run outide of London.
Bus routes are tendered in the Netherlands as well.
The Netherlands are split up in zones (noone seems to know where one zone ends and another begins) and are tendered per zone or block of zones. In some regions regional trains are included under the tender, but that is rare. One example of this is the east of the Netherlands (half of Gelderland and bits of Overijssel) where Syntus operates busses and trains.
Bus services that go through more than 1 tendered zone are done by both bus companies involved. Say company A in zone A and company B in zone B. Bus travel between zone A and B is operated jointly by A and B. So there are no seperate tenders for long distance busses. Since there are hardly any long distance busses it is really not worth the hassle.
Tenders are opened mostly by provincial government. The larger cities can tender local busses on their own. In those cases the local council owned bus companies always get the tender (or at least the more lucrative bits). For instance HZM in Den Haag, GVB in Amsterdam or RET in Rotterdam.
The biggest bus company by far in the Netherlands is Conexxion. They are for a large part state owned, and for the other part owned by the Dutch railways (who just happen to be owned by the state). Others include Syntus in the East and BBA (Connex group) in the south. BBA has recently lost part of its franchise though so what will remain of them remains to be seen. Unsurprisingly Conexxion took over most activities.
tenthijeThe USAF has repeatedly buzzed a glider field mistaking it for Farnborough. Not sure of the name of the glider field. Anyone?
tenthijeYou could just as well got to London, and take the train to Farn and back. Roughly an hour if I am not mistaken.
tenthijeVery nice! Especially the Finnair is a nice plane. Must get myself back there some day, probably with the airliners.net meet.
Your photos are a whole lot better then the crap I made today at AMS. Damn weather… or damn lense. The lense is new so perhaps the lense is the problem. Scary!
tenthijeVery nice photos! Is City Star a new operator? Had not heard from them before.
tenthijePrice is most important to me, but I do look further then the airline fare alone. If I fly to London I always do so by BMI to LHR. They are usually a few pounds more expensive then Easyjet or Ryanair, but I save 3 times the money on train fares to London itself (a 5 zone travel card vs a train ticket and a 2-zone travel card).
I am willing to pay a bit more to get a better timed flight, though not a lot. Perhaps 20% or thereabouts. Other then that I would normally not pay for the usual extra services like lounges, PTV, free nuts or a drink.
Truth be told though, I have flown once with Buzz to STN, even though they where a tad more expensive then BMI. Only reason for that was so I could fly on a BAe146 instead of another 320/737. But as a spotter I am entitled to some excentricities. 😉
tenthijeAccording to the FAA website this registration is currently not assigned.
http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_inquiry.asp
According to 747sp.com plane 21992/447 did/does carry N747FU. This plane used to be with the Oman Royal flight as A40-SP.
tenthijeGood show!
I know I will make myself public enemy #1 here with this statement, but the same should be done to those stealing safety cards. They are there for a reason!
tenthijeThank you! That does seem to be it. And the “winglet” may actually be a wing fairing, which would explain a lot since Centralwings has no winglets.
tenthijebegin practising with a short shutter time. 1/500th should do it for normal weather. Perhaps a bit less when the light is low. Also, do not try to get a full frame. Instead, go for a half full frame first, and build increase the size as you get experience.
Practise to keep you camera steady. If you live near a motorway you will find this a great way to practise. The cars may be much smaller and slightly slower, but they are much closer by making the process much the same as planes. Of course is you live near an airport you might as well go there, but not everyone lives close to airports.
For the time being, try to get full side-on shots. They are easier to get sharp as the depth of field requires little attention.
I have no experience with your camera so trial and error will be best, but usually keeping your F rating between F5.6 to F8.0 is best. For very good light keep it at 100ISO, for very bad light at 400ISO and 200ISO for everything in between. Do not ever go higher then 400ISO unless you are shooting night shots.
tenthijeStelios certainly didn’t and when he set up easyJet, he based it on the principles of Southwest Airlines, and look where he is today!
Main difference between you and Stelios (I would assume) is that you do not have a dad that owns a very large shipping company. Stelios could set up his airline with his own money, with sufficient reserve to loose a lot of money the first few months.
A lot of airlines are rather succesful when they start, exceeding expectations. However the initial investment is very high, and a lot of “operationally profitable” airlines go bust because they can not pay the loans. Examples include VBird and Goodjet.
I want to do something on the similar scale as easyJet
Easyjet started small, and so should you. However you should not expect the massive growth that Easyjet has achieved. Would of course be great and I wish you all the luck in the world, but the LCC market is maturing very fast. Easyjet and Ryanair where just lucky with their timing. Not too early but neither too late. Some airlines where too early and went bankrupt because the passengers did not trust a 10 pound ticket. Others where too late and have not been able to compete with established carriers like Easyjet and the (now much more efficient) network carriers.
but using the principles of an airline like JetBlue, which gives the passengers a better service and value for money.
Theoretically this is a good idea. But the network carriers (KLM/BA/AF/LH etc) offer more and more low fares, albeit mostly without PTV.
A risk of this approach is that you scare away the people that want to go cheap with the added luxury on the one side, and scare away all the people that want to go luxurious on the other side. Of course no enterprise has ever been started without a good deal of risk, so it might be work.
was thinking about using Southampton as a base, because it is the only airport in the South East/West of England that I think has got a potential market…
Won’t comment on the airport as I do not know enough about the area.
I was orignally thinking about using Manston, but have been discouraged since EUJet went bust.
Manston is a very big NO! Your catchment area there would be insufficient. I have joked in a few earlier threads that the catchment area of Manston is half of Kent and a million fish. That will not do.
As cheesebag has stated, funding is going to the biggest problem, as I would need to attract the help of an investor in order to provide the start-up capital needed, but can I not sell like 48% of my business so that I get the finance, and still retain a controlling share?
LOL. Might I remind you that at the moment you have nothing to sell but a nice idea? Once the airline has been established and running nicely, people will take your offer of 48%. But You should not expect any serious offers before that. If you get an offer you should not expect to gain a lot of money from it. The aviation industry is too volatile for venture capitalists to put their money in.
The other option would be to consider the possibility of taking a failing airline and transform it into a better airline (i.e Olympic).
DON’T EVER PRESUME YOU CAN CHANGE A COMPANY
Seriously, don’t do it! You can not just remove the debt from a company and a few routes, planes and personnel and solve the problem this way. Any company has a corporate culture. And the problem with a failing company is that it has a rotten culture. And trust me when I say that you can not get rid of a culture. You might be able to change it slightly, but the core remains.
You may be able to fire half the staff (and continue paying pensions, social plans, termination bonusses etc), but the culture will stick. Why do you think Pan Am went bust time and again? Their personnel was just too used to being aviation-gods. Admired by everyone.
A green field operation is almost always better.
One option though is to buy the ASSETS of a failed company. In particular the AOC is worthwhile. Other then that most assets are most likely mortgaged anyway so not worth the hassle.
tenthijeDoesn’t he say…..
“Do not include specific objects, specific objects do not interest me”
Does Death Star come under the banner of a specific object Pete? 😉 if so you’ll have to try again. 😀
Aah ok. I have not sound on my computer so I did not catch that.
However, how can he not be interested in the Death Star… he has been drooling over it for pretty much the entire star wars series. 😀
tenthijeDoesn’t he say…..
“Do not include specific objects, specific objects do not interest me”
Does Death Star come under the banner of a specific object Pete? 😉 if so you’ll have to try again. 😀
Aah ok. I have not sound on my computer so I did not catch that.
However, how can he not be interested in the Death Star… he has been drooling over it for pretty much the entire star wars series. 😀
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