The upcoming London Olympics have provided a great
opportunity to British Airways to get creative with aircraft liveries. If a
few weeks ago the "Dove" was unveiled, it is now the turn of the "Firefly", the
Airbus A319 that will fly the Olympic flame from Athens
to London.
Picture: British Airways
Firefly's special livery has required 9 days of work and 250
litres of gold, white and yellow paint. Its name was chosen in a competition in
which students across the UK
participated.
As the London 2012 Olympics are fast approaching some sort of marketing initiative was expected from British Airways, that, in addition to calling London its home, is also a proud sponsor of the event.
Designer Pascal Anson has come up with a dove-like livery for one of British Airways Airbus A319s (see picture above). The artist was inspired while watching the movement of aircraft at London Gatwick airport and the design is aimed to play with people's perceptions of flying objects.
As well as an international symbol of peace, Doves have a long association with the Olympics, as in ancient Greece they were used to send reports of what was happening, and, in modern times, they have featured prominently in some of the modern Olympics ceremonies such as that of London's previous Olympics, in 1948.
The painting of the aircraft required a team of ten people and took 50 man-hours to complete, applying the 500 litres of paint in the process (see video below). It is the first time that BA has painted the whole surface of an aircraft that will continue to feature the traditional Chatham Dockyard Union flag.
The first stop of the aircraft will be today's flight to Copenhagen but expect to see it represent the UK around Europe over the coming months.
You can find more pictures of this and other aircraft in the British Airways fleet in our British Airways gallery.
While aviation people spend a lot of time and energy worrying about how to squeeze fuel burn a bit or if the wings can be bit more carbon fibre, the ultimate customers - passengers - seem to have very different concerns.
Indeed, Gadget Duck's pitch for the $18.95 Knee Defender suggests that passengers don't give a hoot about economy - what concerns them is mere survival.
According to Gadget Duck, by disabling the reclining mechanism on the seat in front of yours, Knee Defender "helps you defend the space you need when confronted by a faceless, determined seat recliner who doesn't care how long your legs are or about anything else that might be 'back there'...
"If the airlines will not protect people from being battered, crunched, and immobilized - very real problems according to healthcare professionals, medical studies, government agencies, and even some airlines - then people need options to protect themselves."
And, according to Gadget Duck, the stylish device violates no US aviation law, as long as it's not used during taxi, takeoff or landing.
This column, it must be said, neither endorses nor discounts Gadget Duck's claims for Knee Defender's effectiveness - but do note, dear readers, that Gadget Duck does not appear to sell any devices to defend against being punched in the face by an irate passenger in the seat ahead.
Malaysia Airlines has unveiled the design and specifications of its first Airbus A380-800 aircraft.
The aircraft, to be delivered in the middle of June, will have a new livery on its exterior, said the airline.
The aircraft will have 494 seats in a three-class configuration - eight in first class, 66 in business and 420 in economy. The business class seats, together with 70 economy seats, will be on the aircraft's upper deck.
Here's an interesting example of a trend we're seeing in finance - money deals that might in the past have been naturally placed in Europe are moving to other regions. The problem is that European banks are being forced to trim their balance sheets to toughen themselves up against the cold wind of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, and also meet forthcoming regulations on debt to capital ratios that are designed to cut the risk of default in the banking industry. More broadly, European banks are struggling against the general global liquidity crunch to raise as much US dollar finance as they've been accustomed to working with. The most visible aerospace implication of these factors to date has been European banks' cutback of exposure to new airliner finance deals, whereas in recent years it's been Europe taking the lion's share of the debt that keeps the aircraft rolling off assembly lines at Airbus, Boeing, et al. The sale of RBS's aviation business to Mitsubishi in Japan has been the headline example of this trend, but it's clearly widespread. Today, though, we learn that Safran - the French aerospace and security technology giant - has successfully gone to the US corporate bonds market to place $1.2 billion of unsecuredc notes with 7-, 10- and 12-year maturities, at coupon rates of 3.7% to 4.43%. According to Safran:
"This transaction enables Safran to diversify its funding sources at
attractive conditions, to lengthen the maturity of its debt profile and
to provide long term funding for the acquisitions made in the past 3
years, notably in the US.
"The placement which was made to a broad group of
accredited institutional investors demonstrated the confidence that debt
investors have in the Group's strategy and long term development."
Confidence, for sure - Safran is borrowing much cheaper than several European countries, probably including France. And, it's inherently a good thing for a company like this to borrow broadly; stable long-term relationships with lenders in a home region are good things, but for borrowers as well as lenders, spreading risk is a wise strategy for the long term.
Videos of landing aircraft in challenging conditions is nothing new, but this video - currently popular on YouTube - showcases how an afternoon of bad weather at Düsseldorf airport can make landing an aircraft a real test of skill for pilots.
Video footage emerged showing an Air France Airbus A380 colliding with a Comair Bombardier CRJ700 during taxiing at New York JFK back in April. The A380 "clipped the tail fin" of the parked Comair jet, causing only "material damage".
Japanese investigators have detailed the extraordinary in-flight upset involving an All Nippon Airways Boeing 737-700 which resulted in the aircraft banking to a near-inverted attitude.
Flight NH140 from Naha had been cruising at 41,000ft, en route to Tokyo on 6 September, and had been some 43km south of Hamamatsu when the incident occurred.
All Nippon Airways has unveiled the long-awaited configuration of the first 787 to enter service, outfitting its first 787s with 264 seats for regional and domestic operations, with later regionally-configured aircraft to have 222 seats as the carrier ramps up its initial pilot and cabin crew training.
The aircraft, painted in bespoke white and blue colours highlighting Boeing's Dreamliner brand and ANA's service goals - innovation, uniqueness and the inspiration of Japan - is the eighth 787 built. It is also known as ZA101 and has been registered JA801A.
With the beginning of at-sea trials for the Lockheed Martin F-35B, the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant had entered the most critical phase in a year-long campaign to overcome probation and be spared cancellation.
Video evidence of an aircraft crash in Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo in March identified the type as an Antonov An-12 freighter, and showed it rolling inverted moments before impact.
Images of the aircraft's last seconds show it diving steeply and rolling to starboard, crashing inverted.
Airbus believes that a viable all-new single-aisle airliner will not arrive before 2030, due to the timing of the necessary advances in powerplant technology.
John Leahy, Airbus' chief operating officer, spoke to Flightglobal on video.
Boeing underwent a crucial phase in the 747-8 flight-test effort as it prepares to start trials of the -8I passenger variant including maximum-brake-energy demonstration on the freighter version, plus an analysis of back-to-back wake vortex testing to determine whether the stretched 747 will be approved in the same separation category as the smaller 747-400. Four 747-8Fs were engaged in the flight-test programme, which began in February 2010.
Pilots in Russia extracted an Alrosa Tupolev Tu-154 from a remote military airfield, six months after an in-flight power loss and emergency landing left the aircraft stranded.
The landing damaged the trijet, when it overran the 1,300m runway at Izhma in the Komi republic, and the short field meant that it could not easily be flown out again.
Passengers flying with KLM can select who to sit next to on flights using social media such as Facebook.
The airline believes that your air travel experience can be affected by the person you are seated next to and is proposing that passengers can opt to select their seat mate using tools like Facebook.
The airline says the "meet and seat" programme can be used for networking or to find passengers who share similar interests.
A Qantas Airways Airbus A380 was forced to take a diversion from its scheduled flight from Singapore to London, due to an oil problem, causing one of its four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines to shut down.
Flight QF31 flew for around two-and-a-half hours with only three functioning engines before landing safely in Dubai. The aircraft had 250 passengers and 25 members of staff who all disembarked safely.
Avid Twitter user Stephen Fry was a passenger onboard this flight tweeted his reactions: ''Bugger. Forced to land in Dubai. An engine has decided not to play.'' Adding: ''I should in all conscience add that staff are being wonderful & that morale is high and the passengers understanding & cheerful.''
He colourfully expressed anger at leaving his wallet on the grounded flight: "I've left my wallet on the sodding plane. Hell's teeth this really isn't my day."
This isn't the first time Qantas has had engine-related problems. Almost exactly one year ago, in November 2010, a fault in a Trent 900 oil feed tube caused the number two engine of a Qantas A380 to fail, resulting in an emergency landing in Singapore. Oddly similar to today's events.
Further evidence of a surging civil aviation economy comes
from systems supplier Goodrich. Overall, sales were up 16% at $2.03 billion and
pre-tax profit gained 34.5% to $300 million, and for the full year Goodrich
forecasts a 15% increase in large airliner original equipment sales, assuming
Boeing 787 and 747-8 schedules are maintained.
Meanwhile, on the operating side of the equation things are
less cheerful. The world's mightiest - or at least biggest - airline,
United-Continental, saw rising oil prices add $1 billion to its quarterly fuel bill
to slash pre-tax income by 22.5%
to $660 million despite an 8.7% rise in operating revenue, to $10.2 billion. And,
earlier this month, American Airlines parent AMR swung to a $162 million
pre-tax loss for the third quarter, reversing a $143 million profit recorded
the year-prior, as its fuel bill rose 41% year-on-year.
Recent Comments