Agreed, does look interesting – thanks for the link 🙂 and thanks for the heads up on Ice Pilots 😉

It is only a small aircraft but that’s always going to be the case with single engined aircraft.

I’m sure people were saying the same thing about twin-jets 30 years ago. But we now have the 77W which carries just as many passengers as the guad-jet 747.

Aeronautical engineering is advancing at an unprecedented rate, so much so that the technology in the aircraft delivered to airlines as little as ten years ago is fast becoming obsolete. At the logistics airport in California, there are row upon row of 8/9 year old 757s and 767s collecting dust and never to be flown again.

I wouldn’t say there will never be a single jet passenger aircraft capable of carrying 100+ passengers – we just have to wait for engine performance and reliability to catch up. (Maybe another 30-40 years?)

Good stuff! 🙂

Oh, yes, I forgot about the grounding. Was it over safety issues?

Whatever the cause, one would think Tiger would be wanting to successfully re-establish itself in the market. With this debacle, one has to wonder just how much longer the airline is going to last. :confused:

CASA has been watching Tiger like a hawk ever-since the airline cut pilot’s pay in 2010. The cut in pay saw a mass exodus of senior first officers and captains to other airlines (such as Virgin) so the few remaining pilots had their air time maximised.
This lead to hundreds of reports of Tiger Airways pilots falling asleep in the cockpit but the trigger for the grounding was this incident http://avherald.com/h?article=43dd24a1&opt=0

I expect Tiger will remain flying. Their fares are ridiculously cheap, and its those fares that attract the customers. However I am somewhat surprised by the lack of growth. It’s been around almost 10 years now and only has 19 aircraft, that seems like slow expansion for a LCC.

Coincidently there was another security related operation at LHR today.

I noticed 4 Metropolitan Police 4X4s pulling up next to me whilst I was photographing earlier. Just as I was thinking they might have come to move me on for loitering and as I was mentally preparing my argument to stay, an old brown 25 year old Volvo (240?) pulled out of Eastchurch Road (the blocked off taxyway road through the East side of the airport) (this one http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8442/8010362274_5404bd2a35_z.jpg)

It had cardboard blocking out the rear passenger windows and rear window. It did look very suspicious. Then all the police cars went racing after it and boxed it in about 20 metres down the road. Armed police then dragged out the occupant literally in-front of the runway threshold.

Made my morning a little more exciting.

Anyway, RIP to the victims of Lockerbie, shame to think the remains lay in a scrap yard. I personally think someone should press the authorities to de-classify the material so it can be turned into some form of monument.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-490284/19-years-Lockerbie-plane-debris-rotting-away-scrapyard.html

@Argonaut WOW you’ve been lucky! …or, I’ve just been unlucky? :rolleyes:

I’ve only flown with them once (return journey), whilst coming back from Trieste my flight was delayed by more than 1 hour! I wouldn’t have minded so much (it’s not as if I was in any hurry) but the crew didn’t apologise for the delay once!
Then to add insult to injury (I can only assume there was a mix-up?) upon landing at STN the cabin crew played the “Welcome, you have arrived on yet another on time flight!” recording…

Well that was it, I’ve sworn never to fly them again – what a joke of an airline.

@MSR777 easyJet is my LCC of choice too. I can’t speak for their whole network, but if you’re flying from/to LGW their customer service rivals many flagships.
However, if you’re flying to a largish destination (eg. Barcelona/Madrid/Rome) I’d recommend BA for the best value for money. People seem to have a stigma that BA are overpriced, that’s really not true these days and often beat the LCCs on price whenever I look (assuming you book well in advance).

No we are all dead or escaped in a flying saucer!

Only in America… oh no, wait. Looks like France has jumped on the crazy train now too.

http://news.sky.com/story/1028417/end-of-world-french-village-ready-for-doomsday

Whilst I would welcome the takeover in principle, I feel that Virgin Atlantic should also get an opportunity to be able to bid for at least a few of these slots too

Do you not think MOL would have done this? He probably played BA & VS off of each other to get the most money from the slots, and unsurprisingly, BA won the bid.

But I don’t really see why FR want EI? EI is hardly big competition, despite it being the home territory, Ireland makes up a fraction of FR’s revenue.

If the deal does go through (and I doubt it will), I expect FR will be forced to continue operating the long haul EI routes by the Irish government. I expect they’ll want to keep the transport links with key global markets (eg US).