October 2010 Archives

Banzai!

This morning was supposed to see ANA and JAL simultaneously offer the first regularly scheduled international flights out of Tokyo's Haneda airport following the opening of a fourth runway earlier this month.

ANA flight NH1006 to Los Angeles and JAL flight JL002 to San Fransisco were both scheduled to depart Haneda at 00:05 Sunday morning, granting neither carrier the title of first to depart.

In an example of renowned Japanese efficiency, NH1006 pushed back 14 minutes early at 23:51 Saturday night. But that was not enough to edge out JAL, whose JL002 pushed back 9 minutes earlier at 23:42, giving it the title of first carrier to depart HND (see flight statuses above).

You can watch a video of JL002's departure here. The clip includes dozens of ramp workers waving goodbye to the flight, a scene that would resemble Times Square on New Year's Eve if everyone wore white gloves and waved marshalling wands.

Despite the celebrations, I suspect somewhere there is a bureacrat woefully upset at this whole matter as history books will need to be re-written to reflect that the first departure occurred a day earlier than planned.

It's no secret by now. AirAsia and Tiger Airways aren't the best of friends.

And it'd be hard expecting them to, going by the intense competition for a bigger share in the Asia Pacific low-cost carrier market.

But recently, the rivalry has gotten a lot more heated, and certainly, way more personal.

Tiger Airways today issued a statement, saying it is disappointed "to read reports that the head of AirAsia [Tony Fernandes] has passed racial remarks against Tiger Airways".

It adds: "While we understand that we are intensifying the level of competition with our expansion across Asia, resorting to racial slurs is unbecoming and unnecessary. Tiger Airways is proud of our employees' contributions regardless of their race or cultural background.  Positions are determined by merit alone. In any case, we happen to have a great racial and cultural diversity across our board, management and the rest of the organisation."

Tiger's statement was prompted by a story in the Bangkok Post, which quoted Fernandes extensively and had his views on Tiger's senior management. While the story does not name anyone, it is obvious that Fernandes was referring to Tiger's CEO Tony Davis.

Air New Zealand's marketing guys are fast becoming one of my favourites - this is just the latest in a series of brilliant and funny videos they have put out. Okay, these may not be to everyone's taste. But take a chill pill, folks, sit back, and, erm, gently press the play button...

AirAsia X knows a thing or two about making itself heard, especially when it comes to its bid to begin flights to Sydney. The airline has been trying to launch flights to the Australian city for a while now, but the Malaysian government has not given it rights to do so.

The carrier's CEO, Azran Osman Rani, has said this is because Malaysia wants to protect Malaysia Airlines (which is the only airline flying between Kuala Lumpur and Sydney) - a charge that the Malaysian government denies.

Now AirAsia X has taken its message to the skies, by painting its A330 with the slogan: "Liberate Sydney - end the monopoly".



Sydney Airport also took the rare step today in publicly backing AirAsia X's bid to begin flights, saying that "fundamentally, airlines should be able to fly where passengers want them to go".

By now, you would have seen that video of Cebu Pacific cabin crew dancing to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.

The Philippine low-cost carrier had its cabin crew dancing again on a flight yesterday, but this time, the male flight attendants were the ones doing the boogeying.

I'm not sure about you, but I think I prefer the first dance!

AirAsia took out a full-page advertisement in today's Straits Times in Singapore, declaring "We've got the stripes - guaranteed to fly everyday" with "stripes" in big block letters coloured in with tiger stripes.

If you've heard about Tiger Airways' flight disruptions last weekend, you will see that the ad is a not-too-subtle jibe by AirAsia at its low-cost rival!

Makes me wonder if Tiger will be hitting back with an ad of its own anytime soon. Tiger's CEO Tony Davis has never held back when making known his opinions about his competition.

This might just be the start of a catfight in the already extremely competitive low-cost carrier market in the region.

Back in February Hainan Airlines Group announced it would inject capital into Deer Air and rename the carrier Capital Airlines.

The result of that deal has been brought to fruition in aircraft pictorial format. Photographer ESP captured at Airbus's plant in Toulouse this new A320 for Capital Airlines bearing the new livery. Once you get past the aircraft's lack of engines you'll notice the only change is the name and its typography.

Here's what the Deer Air livery looked like, courtesy of Yannick Delamarre: