To quote the article: “This Ilyushin 18 plane, built in 1960, was originally used by the Dutch government to transport officials. Three decades later, it began serving as a restaurant. It stayed in the food business until Hotelsuites.nl, which must have been impressed with its resume, acquired it in 2007. “

Good ‘ol fact checking at work! The plane even still has its original East German registration (you know, the one saying DDR) to further complicate life for the writers of dumb articles.

This is extremely distasteful for the press to blame spotters, as genuine spotters/photographers are not going to spoil it for themselves or for other enthusiasts by doing something so stupid.

I know I won’t make myself popular by saying otherwise, but I have to disagree.

I have seen plenty spotters do stupid things around the perimeter of airports, even at airports that are somewhat favourable to spotters (AMS, EIN, DUS). Most of the time spotters that misbehave tend not to be local. They figure, “I’m here only once and I am gonna make the most out of it”, not realising (or caring) the damage they do to the local spotters reputation.

Just some examples include parking, double parking and tripple parking cars. Leaving rubbish. Shouting at people airside to get out of the way for a photo, in one case shouting to the manager of the local Eindhoven paintshop while he was showing the freshly painted plane to his customer (understandably that cost us a few months worth of inside information on paintshop movements). The worst incident I have heard of was someone climbing a construction site to be able to get a shot without fences. At that time the site was little more then a steel skeleton, so aside from it being illegal it was dangerous too!

The photographer that climbed the building site published the photos online at a large Dutch spotter forum, that’s how the sane spotters found out. He got quite a bollocking on the forum, but he was just proud of his shot and ingenuity. And BTW, he’s a local spotter as well!

1) is real. A lufthansa flight into Hamburg, flight LH44. While landing in a crosswind a sudden gust of wind made the plane go of track. The wingtip did hit the ground. A safe go-around was made, and the airport opened their crosswind runway. Why they did not do this from the beginning I don’t know.

2) It’s Kai Tak. Single runway only, so either you’re diverting or you’re commited.

3) From the desciption I already decided this is a fake. Did not open it.

Certainly the unions can put pressure on them through scope clause negotiations etc. But they are far from the biggest hurdle to take. At the end of the day it’s also in the union’s interest that AA gets more planes, as it will require staff to operate them, some of which may join the union.

The biggest hurdle is more likely to be banks. The times that banks lend out money easily are over. Even in the financial boom times airlines where considered a bad investment, how do you think airlines are regarded now?

That would be a very big blow to Boeing and a very big victory for Airbus! Would AA be serious in their A320NEO aspirations, or is this a negotiation ploy to get more favourable terms on the 737, or a potential succesor from Boeing.

If AA does go for the A320NEO, then Boeing will have to realise the current 737s can’t cope. A completely new design, or at least a mayor update of the current 737, will likely be announced not much after AA announces any order for A320s.

Delta? Till the takeover of NWA they had no Airbus in their fleet nor any interest to get them.

The journalist misheard, or is plain stupid, what India is actualy gonna build is a 70 to 100 seater.

Yes, saturday 25th.