October 2007 Archives

Over in the USA my colleague Mary Kirby, in her Runway Girl blog, has highlighted an Austrian Airlines demonstration of how to keep your head, while your Star Alliance partners at SAS are losing theirs, by shrugging off a minor Q400 technical problem and underlining faith in the reliability of the aircraft.

To be fair, SAS might have learned how to throw its spectacular strop from another European airline which, back in 2003, was experiencing its own frustrating episodes with the Q400.

Persistent niggling problems culminated in one of its aircraft shedding a wheel on take-off, whereupon the carrier in question lost its rag and furiously told Bombardier to sort the Q400 out pretty damn quick, and give the airline “massive support” to eliminate the technical issues, or it could kiss any more orders goodbye.

“Our image has suffered greatly as a result of this series of technical problems,” stormed the airline’s then-managing director, a phrase not dissimilar to SAS’ own sentiments this week when it axed the Q400 from its fleet.

Which European carrier was spitting so much venom about the reliability of the Q400? Step forward Tyrolean Airways, the Q400 operator for...Austrian Airlines!

Here's a very dated advertisement for the Boeing 747 "The 70s way to fly".

Trawling the newspapers this morning I discovered that somewhere out there, a little Westie Stanley travels about, not on four legs but a makeshift Spitfire.

The flight team are specialists in many different areas, but the arena of fine cuisine isn’t obviously one of them.

We all talk a good game, pretending to know our foie gras from our lobster tail, but Gordon Ramsey we certainly are not.

Everything is bigger and better in Dubai, or so the emirate's ruler would have you believe. So it seemed fitting that Ad Air unveiled the world's largest ad there.

Sexy pictures are the aim of the day today in the Flight office, but not in the sense that you'd think.

Forget images of sexy flight attendants and uniforms for a second, we are talking about the first flight of the A380.

Dubai is renowned for year round sunny climes, a tax-free status and lifestyle benefits including, as standard, a gym and a pool on the roof of your apartment building.

But what they don't tell you about Dubai is that it is riddled with daily traffic chaos. This is no fun, especially in the heat, even though the cars have air conditioning.

With a Monday-morning Italian strike simmering nicely in Milan, causing chaos at Linate and Malpensa airports, the obligatory call is put in to operating company SEA.

Inevitably they ask us to wait a moment while they try to find someone to talk about the mess. And down the phone comes their choice of hold music.

Altogether now: "Yesterday...all my troubles seemed so far away..."

Soviet propaganda is alive and flourishing in the taxi rank at Kiev Borispol Airport, where the distance to the city is 50-55km, if you listen to insistent drivers, or 45.7km if you read the taxi companies’ bold-print rubber-stamped table of fares, contained in a serious-looking black file and thrust under your nose if you dare question the official version of geography.

All of which is utter cobblers, because I can assure you the actual distance is 34km and the vastly-inflated figures are simply a scam to justify the $40 fare. To put this in all its outrageous perspective, a single ticket anywhere on the Kiev metro costs 50 kopiyok – that’s about a dime – while the taxi journey from the airport takes 25 minutes, which means a driver can earn the average monthly wage in Kiev in just an hour and a half.

You could try the sneaky trick of asking the fare in slurred Russian in the deluded belief you’ll be taken for a paid-up party member and offered the real price. I can only claim a partial victory: the driver told me “sorok dollarov”, which was initially encouraging until I realised it meant “forty dollars”.

Since there’s no train link to Borispol and the alternative transport is a Ukrainian bus, this little post-communist exercise in monopoly economics isn’t likely to wind up any time soon. But if you’re heading for Kiev, and an unshaven, leather-jacketed guy called Bogdan sidles up to you three seconds after you clear customs, smoking and muttering a ‘Taxi? Taxi?’ mantra, you can indignantly inform him that you know exactly how far it is to the city and you won’t stand for any Pravda-esque claptrap. It’ll make no difference but at least when you’re sat in the back of Bogdan’s Volga with no seat belts you won’t have that nagging suspicion you’re being ripped off, because there’ll be no doubt about it, comrade.

(L-R Aviation Week's Robert Wall, Avion Revue Luis Calvo, Flug Revue's Sebastian Steinke, Airbus PR Marcella Muratore)

It is not everyday you get to go to the Diagora Congress Centre in Toulouse and sit with your journo counterparts from the weekly and monthly rivals (allegedly) to Flight and today was no different in its uniqueness for this was for the presentation of the VIVACE project!

At last our chance to see inside!

First, a slight matter of jumping the queue (completely unwittingly), getting in the way of Louis Gallois’s official tour of the aircraft, and almost simultaneously getting thrown off for being on-board before the official press tour had even begun.

However vitally this was not before bagging the essential photos of the fabled double bed suites in First Class.

Here’s the single First Class cabin with separate bed and chair

And here are the two central First Class cabins which can have the divider removed to convert into a true double bed.

Lastly, Chew Choon Seng of SIA says some words, while accompanied by SIA’s finest selection of air hostesses.

He starts slightly confusingly when he appears to refer to the impending deliver of the “A330” (although my ears could’ve been mistaken), but he then cracks on by saying the A380 has been well worth the wait.

He says he’s proud of SIA’s roll in helping to set the performance and environmental agenda for the aircraft.

He goes on to reveal some details of the A380 cabin configuration – 471 seats in total, more leg room in all classes, usb and power plugs for every seat, personal on-demand IFE for every seat and the real coup de grâce – double beds in first class!

I’ve got to see that!

Sir John Rose of Rolls-Royce graces us with his presence.

His is just a short speech mainly paying tribute to SIA and their help in setting the standards for performance of the A380 and its engines.

He then talks briefly about the Trent 900.

The CEOs take turns to stand and deliver their messages.

First up is Tom Enders of Airbus.

He’s keen to tell us that this “gentle green giant” is the defining aircraft of its generation, and that, together with the A350, Airbus are moving the industry towards a new era in aviation.

The collective media are wowed by the “greener, smarter, quieter, bigger” A380 (model) that spins from the ceiling doused in a variety of easy-on-the-eye nature scenes along the lines of Airbus’s recent ad campaign.

The dolphins, who's pictures loom around us, look suitable impressed with the A380's contribution to their well-being.

Well, here we are along with the world’s press (and I mean just about everyone) taking over Toulouse for the official handover ceremony of the first A380 to Singapore Airlines.

It’s a bit of a bun fight but Kieran Daly (via his new blog Unusual Attitude) and I will endeavour to bring you as close to the action as we can.

Things are set to kick off in about 40mins and the ceremony is expected to last for a couple of hours.

The proceedings are to include speeches from Tom Enders (CEO Airbus), Sir John Rose (CEO Rolls-Royce), and Chew Choon Seng (CEO Singapore Airlines).

I wrote the very first post on our very first blog on 14 July 2005. It's been enormously satisfying ever since, but time moves on and now I'm striking out on my own blog - Unusual Attitude - still under the Flight umbrella of course.

For most people the sight of the First Class lounge brings with it a ping of jealousy, as you trudge through to cattle classes and look enviously on at the haven of plentiful drinks, great cuisine and beds made of silk(okay well this is how I imagine it anyway).

When I heard about an album inspired by the sound of aviation I thought it would be awful and amateurish but I was pleasantly surprised.

There is some sad breaking news regarding a plane crash in a market in Kinshasa, Congo. Firm details are at yet scarce, but so far there are 17 announced casualties.

In India, a man runs a little "experience" business by charging people £2.00 to sit in the cabin of an Airbus A300.
There's a slight hitch, however. The aircraft, parked in Delhi, won't take off because it only has one wing and a large part of the tail is missing.

The venture is aimed at satisfying the curiosity of those that have never experienced air travel. And they won't either.

A man who flew on the inaugural Pan Am Boeing 747 flight has been invited as SIA's guest to fly on the Airbus A380 maiden journey from Singapore to Sydney on 25 October.

Is he not the luckiest man alive?