Absolutely.

It’s like easyJet isn’t it? A similar sort of airline that flew only Boeing aircraft and then came the surprise announcement that they would be purchasing many brand new A319s.

No doubt is there is a far easier solution to this!

Check out the website of your equivalent of the Civil Aviation Authority. In the UK, we have a website which allows you to input any UK-registered aircraft and check the information about it. If it had been transferred to another airline or overseas, it would say so.

His last post was 25th July which sounds about right if he was going away a day or two later.

Yeah, thanks for that.

The colour scheme shows the web address which I have just checked out – http://www.duo.com/ Just done a quick price check on a flight from Birmingham to Berlin on 5th January 2004. The quote is £65.00 one way (inclusive of taxes). You can pay £244.00 one way and be able to make changes to your booking, have extra baggage allowance, use the Duo lounges and more. To make changes on the £65 ticket will set you back £30 each time!

Surely the aircraft they are using will not be big enough and something like a 737 could be better for them?

I don’t think governments and airlines are being completely serious with regard to safety on board. Banning manicure sets is one very small step. But Duty Free goods and drinks from the drinks trolley are all served from glass bottles. My Thai flights saw drinks being served in glasses and some airlines have now even reverted back to metal cutlery (including knives). But it will never be perfect. I’m sure if you stroll around an aircraft, you’ll find something which could do some damage.

And unless the law changes so that duty free purchases cannot be collected on board the aircraft, drinks are served in plastic beakers and cutlery is plastic, safety on board cannot really be guaranteed.

Wow.. it looks so old, you could take it on the Antiques Roadshow and they’d tell you it was 100s of years old!

I’ve always liked Britannia and on my first transatlantic crossing in 1998 to Orlando Sanford, I was very impressed. Nearly 9 hours on a 767-300 passed very quickly. We were served two main meals and a hot dog before landing. Drinks had to be paid for (but this standard on all charter flights) and the meals were quite good. The only hefty delay I’ve encountered was last year with Airtours International (about 4 hours from MBJ to LGW) and then in 2000 with JMC on a LGW to POP flight (about 3.5 hours).

Mind you, most charters are good in their own way. Delays are necessarily everything. You may find an extremely punctual airline has poor service. With Britannia though, this is not the case.