Nice pics – welcome onboard!

What it deal with BRA Air? Do the stewardesses go round bra-less?!

Don’t by cynical wys – Ryanair wouldn’t do that, Glasgow is too far away.

More like Paris Northwest!

In my professional experience (not flying) women can tend to flap and panic more, especially at certain times of the month. But that’s only anecdotal evidence from one person. Maybe I’m wrong and they only flap as much as men do, but I notice it more because of some repressed prejudice. Equally, maybe we notice high levels of ability more in women, because we are subconsciously surprised by it. We’re entering a deep psychological vein here and as this forum is more about aeroplanes, I suggest we all agree that males and females are professionally equal. The small amount of concrete evidence (as opposed to hearsay) which is around would, in any case, support such a view.

I don’t think airlines should be congratulated for employing females though. It’s akin to congratulating a school for employing black teachers, or a law firm for employing disabled lawyers. That would be positive discrimination and it’s unprofessional and unacceptable. What counts is ability, full stop. If you want more female pilots, then airlines will have to look at the grass routes. Discrimination is just not cricket, regardless of the motive.

No, I think a low cost subsidiary could work well for SIA.

The best model is probably BA when the launched Go: by ringfencing the new airline and running it separately, they managed to achieve low costs. Go was a succesful airline and BA themselves learned a lot from their experience with it.

Silk Air is totally different. Although it is to an extent targeted at leisure travelers (eg. routes like SIN-HKT) it remains firmly within the SIA stable and is by no means “low cost”. It complements SIA well.

I don’t think SIA are reacting to a threat as such, I mean hardly any of their routes are flown against a low cost carrier. It’s more a case of expanding the market and maybe learning a few things as well, which will benefit everyone.

EWR-LHR, Virgin B744
01.12.2001

I usually travel economy, apart from the ocassional business trip. I paid for biz class a few times, but always felt guilty about it so didn’t enjoy it as much as I should. On this flight though, I was approached in my seat by a gorgeous stewardess and asked if I would object to moving into Upper Class!

She then sat me down, handed me a glass of Veuve Clicquot (my favourite bubbly) with a strawberry, and asked me what time I wanted my massage. I think my jaw must have got carpet burn!

Don’t forget there were a lot of arrests in the UK 6 months ago to do with a terrorist group which had obtained something called Ricin. You may remember, a policeman who sometimes guarded Blair was killed in a raid.

Dan-Air 727 from Teesside to Portugal in 1979.

First one I really remember is LHR-BAH on a Gulf Air Tristar in 1981.