Recently in Asia-Pacific Category

San Diego International airport had a big year in 2012. It landed its first nonstop to Asia on Japan Airlines (JAL), made possible by the Boeing 787, and began to look like a new focus city for Alaska Airlines.

"We had the largest Asian community in the USA without a direct service to Asia," says Hampton Brown, director of air services development at the airport. "On paper, it looked like Orlando was the largest market without service but, when you add the drive market from San Diego, [Asia was] significantly larger than Orlando."

JAL began service four-times weekly between San Diego and Tokyo on 2 December 2012, which Brown asserts was made "economically viable" by the 787. Operations by large aircraft are limited due to the fact that the airport lies in a bowl between two hills and is surrounded by the city and water on all sides.

San Diego Airport

Brown says that the airport considers Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo as the only economically viable routes across the Pacific with destinations further afield in Asia requiring "another technical leap in manufacturing".

Orlando also landed service from San Diego last year. Alaska launched a flight on the route on 11 October 2012 and has since announced new services to Boston from 29 March and Lihue from 7 June. The new routes have prompted Wall Street analyst speculation - which management denies - on whether the airline is turning the airport into a focus city.

Alaska Airlines routes from San Diego, January 2013

Innovata FlightMaps Analytics

"When you look at its network and its growth planes coming down the line, the opportunities that it has out of its core airports - Seattle and Portland - are limited at this point," says Brown. "There are opportunities in other places, like San Diego, and we are happy to help them realise growth possibilities to strengthen the overall network of Alaska."

Other new flights in 2012 include Frontier Airlines to Colorado Springs, Spirit Airlines to Cabo San Lucas, Dallas-Fort Worth and Portland, and US Airways to Washington National.

Southwest Airlines remains king in San Diego despite the new routes. It carried more than 39% of enplaned passengers during the year ending 30 September 2012, according to the US Department of Transportation.

San Diego International airport had a big year in 2012. It landed its first nonstop to Asia on Japan Airlines (JAL), made possible by the Boeing 787, and began to look like a new focus city for Alaska Airlines.

"We had the largest Asian community in the USA without a direct service to Asia," says Hampton Brown, director of air services development at the airport. "On paper, it looked like Orlando was the largest market without service but, when you add the drive market from San Diego, [Asia was] significantly larger than Orlando."

JAL began service four-times weekly between San Diego and Tokyo on 2 December 2012, which Brown asserts was made "economically viable" by the 787. Operations by large aircraft are limited due to the fact that the airport lies in a bowl between two hills and is surrounded by the city and water on all sides.

San Diego Airport

Brown says that the airport considers Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo as the only economically viable routes across the Pacific with destinations further afield in Asia requiring "another technical leap in manufacturing".

Orlando also landed service from San Diego last year. Alaska launched a flight on the route on 11 October 2012 and has since announced new services to Boston from 29 March and Lihue from 7 June. The new routes have prompted Wall Street analyst speculation - which management denies - on whether the airline is turning the airport into a focus city.

Alaska Airlines routes from San Diego, January 2013

Innovata FlightMaps Analytics

"When you look at its network and its growth planes coming down the line, the opportunities that it has out of its core airports - Seattle and Portland - are limited at this point," says Brown. "There are opportunities in other places, like San Diego, and we are happy to help them realise growth possibilities to strengthen the overall network of Alaska."

Other new flights in 2012 include Frontier Airlines to Colorado Springs, Spirit Airlines to Cabo San Lucas, Dallas-Fort Worth and Portland, and US Airways to Washington National.

Southwest Airlines remains king in San Diego despite the new routes. It carried more than 39% of enplaned passengers during the year ending 30 September 2012, according to the US Department of Transportation.

US airlines love Asia. Well, at least the slots to fly there.

Mainline carriers are once again posturing against one another for a slot pair at Tokyo's close-in Haneda airport from the US Department of Transportation (DOT). The one-upmanship brings back memories of the battle for the four available pairs back in 2010 and for the then limited US-China route authorities three years earlier.

Delta Air Lines uses the available pair for its Detroit to Haneda flight but wants to switch the US gateway on the route to Seattle. American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines claim that it cannot because the slots were awarded for only that specific route.

Each carrier has a proposal for the slots. American wants to fly to Haneda from Los Angeles, Hawaiian from Kona and United from San Francisco.

Haneda is attractive because it is only about 14km from Tokyo Station in the city centre versus about 57km to Japanese capital's primary international airport Narita. While the available slot pair is not ideal for connections at Haneda - flights arrive and depart either late at night or early in the morning - the airport is more attractive to originating and departing Tokyo traffic, which makes the available slots extremely popular among airlines.

Reallocating the slot pair makes sense.

The DOT cited that Detroit would provide a "large central and eastern US catchment area with convenient Haneda service through a proven US-Asia hub", in its final decision in July 2010. It said that the city provided the largest "behind-gateway" catchment area of the proposals at the time.

Delta and its partner Alaska Airlines offer significantly fewer connections at Seattle than Detroit, especially from the central and eastern portion of the USA. However, neither do the other airlines' proposals. The DOT will need to decide whether it still wants the slot pair to serve the largest number of connecting passengers or to target originating and departing traffic, as it evaluates the four routes on the table.

The DOT will award the Haneda slots to the route that best serves the "public interest", according to a filing on 17 August.

American says that it needs the slot pair to compete with the Star Alliance's All Nippon Airways (joint venture partner with United) and Delta between Los Angeles and Haneda. Hawaiian says that it needs the pair to open up Kona, which currently has no nonstop to Japan, to Japanese tourists. While United says that it is at a competitive disadvantage with no access to Haneda and can offer the most connections on the west coast through its San Francisco hub.

One thing the DOT did not clarify is what will happen if Delta decides to retain the Detroit gateway. The airline may prefer to do this instead of give up the coveted slot pair if the decision does not go its way.

Delta may very well have the best proposal but the DOT's competition is the only way to determine that. Each airline's proposal must receive its fair due before the route can be awarded.

May the best airline win.

At the Singapore air show this weekend the country's flag carrier is giving one of aviation's iconic airliners a worthy send-off.

For SIA will retire the Boeing 747 from its passenger fleet on 6 April after almost four decades of faithful service. Although the Jumbo will continue to haul freight for SIA's cargo arm for some time to come, it is game over for the "Mega Top" at the passenger division.

To celebrate, SIA has brought the last 747-412 it received, back in 2001, to the static park at the Singapore air show this weekend (after a 7min positioning flight from nearby Changi Int'l) to celebrate its massive contribution to the airline's development since it arrived in September 1973.

"The 747 has been the flagship for so many years in the SIA fleet. We're sad that we're having to say goodbye to it, SIA's VP public affairs (and former Flightglobal hack) Nick Ionides told Interactive Flight Daily News.

"The 747 enabled us to pioneer non-stop flying across the Pacific and from Singapore to London. It's only fitting that we involve the public, so we've brought the last 747 passenger aircraft we received to the show and opened it up to visitors."

When the big jet arrived in Singapore 39 years ago it immediately transformed the airline, which until then had been relying largely on the 747's little sister, the 707. Indeed there were many who wondered what the tiny island state was doing ordering such a huge aeroplane in large numbers (sound familiar?).

The jumbo quickly went on to help SIA establish itself as the world's leading international network carrier with a reputation for fine service delivered by troupes of attentive (and attractive!) "Singapore Girls".

The airline's original 747-200Bs were joined by the stretched upper deck 747-300 "Big Tops" from 1983 and the -400 "Mega Tops" in 1989.

But the airline has called time as it transitions to the 777-300ER and A380 for its long-haul network. The Jumbo's last scheduled service will be on 25 March from Melbourne and the type will retire after a SIN-HKG-SIN commemorative flight on 6 April.

The Jumbo is open to tours at the show and has been decked out with an exhibition displaying the history of the airline's 747 operations over the four decades of service. The piece de resistance is the display in the forward cabin which features the original 1993 waxwork (above) from Madame Tussaud's of real Singapore Girl Lim Suet Kwee, who looks as beautiful as ever. Kwee, who has been with SIA since 1986, only stopped flying last year and now a cabin crew executive.

Farewell Singapore Jumbo...

Watch the feature about SIA's 747 farewell at the Singapore air show here

And here's a link to the story from Flight International in August 1972, when newly created SIA placed orders for two 747s and took options on two more. It said at the time it may have a requirement for up to 12 Jumbos over the next 10 years.

SIA has also set up a dedicated website to mark the 747 retirement, with history and info about the type's service with the airline.

This time last year Europe awoke to images of a rather second-hand looking Qantas Airbus A380 on the runway at Singapore's Changi airport. The big jet, operating Flight QF32 from London to Sidney via Singapore on 4 November 2010 with 469 souls on board, had made an emergency landing back at Changi after suffering a dramatic uncontained failure of its No 2 Rolls-Royce Trent 900.

The A380's captain, Capt Richard Champion de Crespigny, described the effect of the engine explosion (caused by the failure of the intermediate pressure turbine (IPT) following an oil fire) to Flightglobal's David Learmount as follows: "The wing was cluster-bombed. The aircraft had phenomenal damage to all systems. But it didn't just recover, it performed brilliantly."

As David explains in his recent blog, while Airbus should be applauded for the fact that the A380 was able to land safely after such a destructive failure, the manufacturer has had to address the overbearing way in which the warning system responded to the problem.
Immediately following the engine failure, Capt de Crespigny and his crew (there were five pilots up front on that eventful day) faced an excessive number of ECAM alerts - more than 60.

Interestingly, the over-talkative nature of the A380's warning system came up as a criticism of the double-decker in Flight International's award-winning in-service report Judging A Giant, which was published two years ago.

In the report, Airbus's executive vice president programmes, Tom Williams, admitted that the A380 crews "have a feeling that the aircraft is talking to them too much - telling them things that are interesting but not really essential".

SIA's then senior vice president flight operations, Capt Gerard Yeap, told Flight International that with aircraft systems now able to provide such a raft of data "we have to be careful we don't have information overload - that we don't fall into the trap of wanting to know so much you end up not knowing anything".

 

Faced with exactly that situation, QF32's Capt de Crespigny says that he realised, that instead of dealing with the failures, his crew had to determine what was still working.

The collateral damage caused by the accident was huge. Rolls was widely criticised for the way it hunkered down in the wake of the accident and ensuing grounding of the Trent-powered A380 fleet. Indeed it was intriguing - and somewhat unusual - to see the way the airframer swivelled the media spotlight on to its engine supplier which ended up bearing the brunt of the media storm.

The engine problem has had a knock-on effect on A380 deliveries this year, due to the restricted supply of modified Trents. Meanwhile the damaged A380 (VH-OQA) remains in Changi undergoing extensive repairs after a three-digit ($ million) insurance pay-out. The latest estimate is that it will be ready to return to service early in 2012 with what amounts to be a new port wing installed.

But after reading the fir

sthand account of Capt de Crespigny, the industry should definitely be grateful that the "QF32" incident wasn't a far more serious event.

If Singapore Airlines isn't naming some new airline company 'Scoot' then a lot of effort is going into throwing nosey hacks off the scent.

Not only is there apparently a Scoot-related website domain registration linked to SIA, but a trawl through the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore's trademark database turns up the following entry, listed on 20 June, under 'transport':

The application has been put forward on behalf of a company named 'New Aviation' but which gives an address which matches the location of Singapore Airlines' headquarters at Changi International Airport.

As Red Bull Racing Formula 1 racer Mark Webber prepares to repeat his feat of a year ago by winning this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, he's swapped his 200mph RB7 for a 600mph Airbus A380.

Australian Webber, a "Qantas Ambassador", is to study for his pilot's license and has hooked up with his national airline to help him achieve his dream. He took the opportunity to get up close and personal to one of the airline's 450-seat A380s at London Heathrow, where he was shown around the cockpit by a Qantas training captain.

Qantas is providing "mentoring support" with one of its training pilots and will give Webber some valuable time in a flight simulator. It will also recommend an approved pilot training organisation for his tuition.

Webber is of course no stranger to "low flying", having famously become airborne in a high-speed barrel-rolling accident at last year's European Grand Prix in Valencia after colliding with the back of Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus (below). Here's hoping that Mark's next take-off is a less spectacular affair!

We've all been there. One misheard quote and suddenly your journalistic creativity runs riot while your common-sense filter is out on a tea-break. Even on a publication as venerable as The Times of India.

Can't say I was at the press conference, but a quick check of other Indian papers suggests minister Ashwani Kumar actually said those second- and third-tier cities would be served by a "70- to 100-seat" aircraft...