Airlines: September 2007 Archives

A special kind of scrutiny was applied to the European Aviation Safety Agency last week.

On 27 September the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) imported five of the top executives from EASA, seated them behind a long desk facing a packed hall of industry people, allowed them a few words each to update the audience on current issues they face, and then opened the session for about two hours of questions.

This doesn't normally happen to the senior executives in European agencies. So why EASA? And why did the agency's big five - executive director Patrick Goudou, communications head Daniel Holtgen, quality and standardisation director Francesco Banal, certification director Norbert Lohl and deputy head of flight standards Eric Sivel - agree to undergo this public grilling?

The big news in the office this morning is the announcement from BA, who have chosen both Airbus and Boeing as their fleet options for the replacement of 34 of the BA's long haul fleet.

It seems that David Field on the Airline Business blog isn't a fan of certain corporate airline blogs!!!!

Since yesterday's tragic air crash in Phuket, it has been difficult to come to any firm conclusions about what actually happened.

As news and video of the aftermath came through it became clear that weather conditions played their part, but as our Safety and Operations Editor David Learmount states in his video review of the incident, no firm conclusions can be drawn until the flight recorder information is downloaded.

Whatever the outcome, a tragedy like this is hard to grasp.

There seems to be a growing trend among airlines to refer to their passengers (a word that seems perfectly adequate) as the more grandiose 'guests'; an odd trend that makes customers sound like they are entering a hotel rather than a jet.

In promoting Virgin Blue's Embraer 170 jets, CEO Brett Godfrey talks from a "guest point of view". He says:

"We (Virgin Blue) cannot wait to introduce the aircraft to Virgin Blue guests in the coming months"

Now, I am all for marketing speak to sell an experience, but does the word "passengers" suffice?

Or maybe soon airlines will start calling First and Business Class guests and Economy as cattle!!!