Europe: February 2008 Archives

At last: a blog on Ryanair that doesn’t involve scantily clad swimsuit models or a cheap publicity stunt, or indeed both.
Ryanair has been feeling the heat as it scrambles to upgrade its New Skies reservations system. The airline that makes an astounding 99% of its bookings online had to shut down its reservations system between 22:00 on 22 February and 23:00 on 25 February to make the changeover.
Yesterday Ryanair released a statement apologising “to any passengers who have suffered inconvenience in attempting to access Ryanair.com over the last 24 hours”.
And despite “significant progress” with the cut over, Ryanair expects “further bedding down problems over the next day or two”.

This fine and sunny morning (yes, I'm serious!) I headed into London to attend a presentation at the Institute of Directors (which represents 52,000 business directors) to unveil the results of a survey sponsored by UK carrier bmi entitled "High Fliers: business leaders' view on air travel". Now forgive me for not being blown away by one of the main points raised by the survey, which is that, wait for it, drum roll.....most business organisations use air travel at some point. Well blow me down with a feather! Who'd've thought it?!

However, once I'd scraped myself off the floor and recovered from the shock revelation that UK businesses actually need to do the odd bit of travelling from time to time, there were actually some interesting points in the survey. For instance, of the 500 IoD members surveyed, half agree that air fares should be higher "in order that the aviation industry pays its full environmental costs". This is not something you see very often, particularly as we head towards a possible recession when travel budgets are normally one of the first things to be cut.

The IoD is also using the survey to throw its weight behind the argument in favour of building a third runway at London Heathrow, pointing out that 70% of respondents agree that UK airport capacity should be expanded over the next 20 years. Expect more arguments in favour of the third runway as we approach the end of the government consultation into Heathrow expansion - my inbox when I returned to the office contained press releases from both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, calling for the third runway to be approved.

And in the against camp, Greenpeace made its feelings crystal clear this morning as campaigers climbed on top of a BA aircraft at Heathrow and dropped a banner saying "Climate emergency - no third runway" (see picture). Whatever your feelings on airport expansion, this stunt certainly raises serious security concerns that BAA will no doubt be facing a grilling over!

Ryanair's planned three-day shutdown of its entire reservations system over this weekend turned into just two days, the carrier says.

As we commented in our March issue, it had incredibly taken the decision to close itself for bookings while it transferred from its Navitaire Open Skies res system to the all-singing all-dancing New Skies one.

Most remarkable of all is Ryanair's plea for customers: "We expect to be dealing with some small bedding down issues over the next few days and we would ask passengers to please bear with us as we iron them out."

Hang on, you want customers to cut you some slack. That's rich coming from the airline that is as black and white about customer service as it gets.

British Airways is having a tough week. Not only has the baggage system at its London Heathrow base broken down, forcing the carrier to tell long-haul passengers not to bother bringing any hold luggage with them, but its pilots have voted to go on strike for the first time in nearly 30 years.

BA's pilots are protesting the carrier's planned new OpenSkies subsidiary, which the pilots see as a "Trojan horse" which will "force down" their pay and conditions.

This is the last thing BA needs with its move into Terminal 5 just around the corner, and will no doubt dampen the optimism expressed by chief executive Willie Walsh during his recent cover interview with Airline Business.

The pilots union BALPA has not set a date for the planned strike, but it could prove catastrophic for the grand opening of the much trumpeted T5 if the two events coincide.

London's incumbent mayor Ken Livingstone and the arch-rival who's vying for his job, Boris Johnson, may be poles apart politically, but they have something in common: they both oppose further expansion at their city's biggest airport.

On a recent visit to one of the villages that would have to be demolished if proposals for a third runway at Heathrow became reality, Livingstone spelled out his fierce opposition to expansion, saying: "It is vital that all airport expansion in London and the South East, including Heathrow, is halted now as it is contrary to growing evidence on the role of aviation in contributing towards catastrophic climate change."

Boris (pictured below) has gone one step further, according to this report in The Times, and is calling for Heathrow as we know it to be demolished and moved lock, stock and barrel to a set of artificial islands in the Thames estuary.

I think Boris's plan is far-fetched and pretty unrealistic, given how long it took for Terminal 5 to be built let alone how long it would take to bulldoze Heathrow and move it eastwards. Plus I don't see how moving one of the busiest airports in the world to a different location would lessen the environmental impact in any way.

The third runway debate is reaching fever pitch here in London - what are your thoughts? Should they or shouldn't they build one? And if they don't build one, what is Heathrow's future in comparison to other global hubs?

At it's Annual General Meeting last year, IATA head Giovanni Bisignani stunned his audience of airline bosses by declaring that in his view the industry should aim for a "zero" emissions future within 50 years.

Uh? How can an industry which relies on fossil fuels for its basic propulsion achieve this? Surely not even Giovanni's fierce will power could pull this one off?

But in addition to some fine words, IATA is trying to back its grand vision, which we applauded back then, with action. It has signed a partnership deal with the Solar Impulse project to help this aircraft on its planned journey around the world.

As my colleagues at Flight reported last year, the Solar Impulse is an aircraft that will fly around the world with no fuel and zero emissions.

SkyEurope might have set their standards high when they set out to break the world record for the number of airborne kisses on Valentine’s Day.
But the cynics have been silenced, as yesterday more than 2,200 kisses were recorded onboard 14 of SkyEurope’s aircraft and 84 flights.
Check out these pictures, especially the shot of the couple who weren’t even allocated adjoining seats and had to crane over to the next row to cop a snog. Now that’s romance.

In an event that defines the term "publicity stunt", SkyEurope will be attempting to set a world record for kissing 10km above the ground on Valentines Day.
Passengers flying on 14 February are invited to kiss their partner in exchange for a certificate and a free air ticket. Not bad going.
SkyEurope does add the proviso that kissing records will be allowed on "all the flights on which the safety procedures and sector length will allow". Good to hear that safety regulations won't be broached for the smooch-off.
“Nobody has ever attempted to create a world record in kissing in the skies in European airspace," says Steven Greenway, chief commercial officer of SkyEurope. "We will be the first, and for this year I want to say also world champions in this discipline,” he says rather confidently.

Gone, it seems, are the days when the French government only supported its own.

None other than French Minister for tourism and consumption, Luc Chatel, was on hand at easyJet's bash in downtown Paris to launch its new base at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Here is M. Chatel (right) cutting a ribbon with M. Harrison, the easyJet CEO.

What have heavy rock group Iron Maiden and UK charter carrier Astraeus got in common?

Aerosexuals among you will know the answer straight away - Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson is a pilot for the airline, flying its Boeing 757s.

Only natural therefore that Bruce should pilot one of the airline's 757s on Maiden's world tour which started rocking in Mumbai, India on 1 Feb. And by all accounts the "veteran" rockers worked up a storm.

Now for the aviation link - independent UK-based airline Astraeus has created the world's only Boeing 757 Combi to cart the band and all their kit on their global trip.

British Airways today dropped an unexpected bombshell - it plans to launch business class only Airbus A318 flights between London City airport and New York in 2009. The move marks two major landmarks for the downtown London airport: its first scheduled transatlantic service and its first A318 flight. BA will configure the aircraft with 32 lie-flat beds, and passengers will be offered a 15-minute check-in time.

BA has already announced that it will launch a new subsidiary called OpenSkies this June, which will take advantage of the EU-US agreement from which it takes its name and operate Boeing 757 flights from points in continental Europe to New York.

The airline is clearly on a roll this year - February has only just begun and already we've had these two announcements, not to mention the fact that its long-awaited new home, Heathrow's Terminal 5, opens its doors to the public next month.

The Germans - I gather - are keen on naturist (aka nude) holidays. Don't ask me why, ask a German?

Anyhow, from today a German travel agency is taking bookings for a nude holiday flight from Erfurt to the Baltic Sea.