Thanks to Monarch, 600 British kids got to swap their school bus for an Airbus recently and jet off on the ultimate geography field trip.

As a 70s' school kid, I dreamed of a trip like this! The best we could hope for was our form teacher borrowing the school minibus and taking us for a tour of one of the local attractions - Windsor Great Park or the RAF Memorial.

But Monarch took "school's out" to a new level, running a nationwide appeal to make education fun. Three schools got exclusive use of a Monarch aircraft for the day. Harris Academy Beckenham flew from Gatwick to Gibraltar, Icknield Community College from Manchester to Verona and Fulbrook Middle School from Birmingham to Dubrovnik.

And despite the excitment of a school trip at 35,000ft, I bet there was still a rush to nab the back row!

Phoenix Sky Harbor International is a bustling domestic airport, with competing hub operations on both Southwest Airlines and US Airways. If you are flying around the American southwest, odds are that you will pass through Phoenix at some point.

City of Phoenix

But if your destination is somewhere abroad, Dallas-Fort Worth or Los Angeles are much more likely to be in your future. 

International service from Sky Harbor is limited to mostly Canada and Mexico with a daily nonstop to London Heathrow on British Airways. International traffic represented just 5.4% of overall passenger traffic, or 2.19 million passengers, in 2012, according to airport data.

"We want more nonstop [international] service to places where there is demand," Deborah Ostreicher, deputy aviation director at Sky Harbor, tells Airline Business on the sidelines of the Phoenix International Aviation Symposium on 25 April. She names Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Tokyo as well as an additional flight to London as markets where the airport sees demand for nonstop service.

Airlines may be coming around, too.

The proposed American Airlines-US Airways merger creates a huge amount of possibility for the airport. Ostreicher says that the airport is targeting the merged carrier for new service as well as its Oneworld alliance partners, naming Japan Airlines to Tokyo as a possibility.

Andrew Nocella, senior vice-president of marketing and planning at US Airways, says that there are no specific plans for international service from Phoenix after the merger but that it would create many opportunities for the hub, at a media event on 24 April. He cites the combined fleet and networks.

Together the carriers had 148 widebody aircraft with an additional 62 on order at the end of March. The orderbook includes 42 787s, which - along with the Airbus A350 - is seen by many analysts as ideal for international service from Phoenix.

"The 787 is the right type of airplane for a Oneworld airline to serve Asia from here," says Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Hudson Crossing, on the sidelines of the Phoenix symposium.

Ambitions and possibilities aside, the reality for international service to Phoenix is very much up in the air. The merger has yet to be approved while no route launched by an airline specifically with the 787 has flown long enough to prove its worth. 

International travellers would be well advised to keep up on the dining options at Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles for at least the near term.

Speaking to Temel Kotil, it's easy to assume he harbours a passion for cooking given the amount of references to food preparation and food quality which he drops into conversation.

He describes alliance strategy as mixing together ingredients in a recipe, while challenges faced by his airline are "adding spices" to its diet.

He is also keen to expand the number of Flying Chefs on board Turkish Airlines services, who are trained in food preparation and service, and continue cooking the food on board.

Yet in reality his culinary enthusiasm is simply an airline chief executive's clever pragmatism, using a subject familiar to everybody to reach "common ground". He also views food quality as a cost-efficient way to make his airline's customer service stand out against its competitors.

 "I don't have time for cooking and my wife doesn't allow me to cook, because she is a great cook," he says.

In fact, Kotil says that he has not really done much cooking since his salad days as a student, with the notable exception of Turkish Airlines staff picnics, for which he helps prepare food for the carrier's employees.

To hear how Kotil is convinced Turkish Airlines' rapid rise can be sustained to the summit of the aviation industry as it makes the most of its location on the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa; including video interviews visit: www.flightglobal.com/interviews/temel-kotil/

American Airlines will begin upgauging its regional aircraft fleet with Embraer 175s this August, following the lead of Delta Air Lines in rejigging its regional feed.

The Fort Worth-based carrier will use the 76-seat E-175s to replace 63-seat Bombardier CRJ700s and add capacity in nearly all of the 12 markets that they will serve from Chicago O'Hare beginning 1 August. Only two - Minneapolis-St. Paul and Washington National - will result in a reduction of capacity.

American Airlines

While not surprising in light of an industry that wants to dump its 50-seat regional jets, the move is a switch from American's previous position where it presented 66- to 76-seat jets as an alternative to its mainline fleet.

"Larger RJs [regional jets] have lower per departure costs than our 140-seat MD-80s, which enables us to offer a better schedule without increasing capacity, since each larger RJ has far fewer seats than an MD-80," the airline said in an employee newsletter in May 2012. "With this superior frequency pattern, American can earn higher yields because we can better schedule flights at times when customers are most willing to pay higher fares."

American had this to say in its reorganisation plan that it filed with the bankruptcy court on 15 April: "The debtors plan to accelerate the retirement of smaller regional aircraft - those with 50 seats or less - thereby increasing their ability to acquire a significant number of larger regional jets with 51 to 76 seats."

The airline will place 15 E-175s in service and remove 11 37-seat Embraer ERJ-135s and three 44-seat Embraer ERJ-140s from its regional fleet during the second half.

With American's plans now clear, it is easy to extrapolate that the 32 E-175s slated for delivery in 2014 and 2015 will continue to replace smaller regional jets. 

And what about the proposed merger with US Airways? Doug Parker, chairman and chief executive of the airline and future chief executive of the combined American and US Airways, said in July 2012 that he would like "some larger regional jets to offset some of those 50-seaters" - a sentiment that will undoubtedly be carried over through the merger.

Now only United Airlines is alone in refleeting its regional feed, a move that executives say will occur in 2014.

If you think the British Airways Airbus A380 looks resplendent in its new livery, you probably ought to thank, at least in part, the late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher openly disapproved of BA's bold decision to abandon its Union flag colours in favour of a multitude of ethnic designs intended to reflect its global reach - a controversial marketing ploy spearheaded by then-chief Bob Ayling.

When she encountered the models of a BA Boeing 747-400 and an Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde during the 1997 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher pronounced her verdict.

"Absolutely terrible," she said, in front of the cameras, and - in a moment that has passed into legend - retrieved a paper tissue from her handbag to cover the 747's fin. Concorde, carrying a stylised version of the flag, was untouched.

Virgin Atlantic and BMI mischievously responded by incorporating the flag in their own colour schemes, while operational concerns emerged as to whether the diversity of BA fins might cause identification problems.

BA backtracked on the fin designs just two years into the scheme, declaring that it would cap the number of aircraft. When the repainted fleet reached triple figures, in 2001, the airline gave up completely, scrapping the tail art to bring back a "simpler identity" that would illustrate "consistency and unity" - and, of course, be less likely to suffer a "handbagging" from her ladyship.

If you only know Michael O'Leary from his cost-control obsessed side running low-cost carrier giant Ryanair, this might be a side to him you are less used to seeing. The horse-racing mad airline boss this weekend donated €200,000 to the fund set up for injured jockey JT McNamara - who suffered serious neck injuries after a fall at the recent Cheltenham Festival.

The donation came after O'Leary had offered a €200,000 prize for the winner of the race that precedes the Irish Grand National - a race he has previously bought the winning horse - only for his own horse Akorakor to win the race. So instead he donated the money to the fund set up for JT McNamara.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/horse-racing/21997219

O'Leary has a long-held passion for national hunt racing and his own horse, War of Attrition, is a former Gold Cup winner.

Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller has obviously been impressing the Irish Government with his turnaround skills, as they are looking to tap his expertise to help turnaround the state-owned Irish postal service An Post as well.

Mueller has returned Aer Lingus to profit after embarking on a major turnaround after joining amid spiralling losses in 2009. Now Irish communications minister Pat Rabbitte has turned to Mueller to chair the An Post board at what he calls "a critical time" for the company. The company will benefit from the strategic leadership approach that Christoph Mueller has brought to Aer Lingus," he says.

The role, which does not effect his Aer Lingus position, underlines the value the Irish Government see in Mueller's ability to turn around companies. It is also familiar ground for Mueller as he was previously CFO at DHL and served on the executive committee of Deutsche Post.

You can read more about Mueller's strategy at Aer Lingus in our cover interview we did with him in 2011 here.

Yesterday, Jean-Cyril Spinetta confirmed hints he'd been making that he would not see out the rest of his contract which runs to April 2014 and will step down as head of Air France-KLM in the summer on 1 July.

Similar to the manner in which his beloved French rugby team turned to a trusted pair of hands by returning the captaincy to Thierry Dusautoir while in a desperate predicament in this year's Six Nations rugby tournament, so Spinetta resumed the job he had left in 2009.

©Rex

Along with fellow Air France-KLM founding father, former KLM CEO Leo van Wijk, Spinetta returned as chief executive to put in place a restructuring plan which aims to reduce the group's net debt by €2 billion ($2.6 billion) by 2015.

Yet now with the plan in place and showing signs of success, to continue the rugby metaphor, he has offloaded the ball to compatriot Alexandre de Juniac who is seen as the man most capable of driving the team towards the try-line.

De Juniac's career in aviation stretches back to the mid-90s with roles including general manager for Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America at Thales. He left the industry in 2009 to become French finance ministry chief of staff under former French cabinet minister Christine Lagarde, but returned as head of Air France in 2011 following the resignation of Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.

His elevation to the top role at the Air France-KLM group comes as reward for his success in pushing through difficult cost-saving measures at Air France, with staff signing revised labour agreements without resorting to industrial action.