The locally obscure French colonial carrier, Air Austral, has sprung a big surprise on Qantas and Virgin Blue.
It has signed a memorandum of understanding to buy two giant Airbus A380s and use them the way the designers always said was possible, and fit each of them with 840 seats in an all economy class configuration.
Although [...]
Monthly Archives: January 2009
The party plane to Paris is on its way
January 16, 2009 – 8:28 am
Goodbye Nancy-Bird Walton (1915-2009)
January 13, 2009 – 5:31 pm
Nancy-Bird Walton who died this afternoon in Sydney aged 93 never lost her way in the air or on the ground.
On a clear winter’s day in June 2007, visiting the cockpit of an Airbus A380 that was making a demonstration flight out of Sydney, Nancy-Bird Walton leaned forward toward the captain’s ear and said “Young [...]
Qantas and the Malaysian equation
January 10, 2009 – 6:43 pm
Since almost everyone in the country is speculating on a Qantas deal with Malaysia Airlines it is my turn to have a shot.
Maybe it’s looking at a Malaysian airline, not Malaysia Airlines. Maybe the play involves AirAsia, based in Kuala Lumpur, and involves AirAsia pursuing a reciprocal consolidation agenda by taking significant equity in Jetstar [...]
How well Rooted are jet biofuels?
January 9, 2009 – 6:02 pm
Colleague Jane Nethercote has linked in Crikey blog Rooted to an assessment of jet biofuels in Wired’s ‘Autopia’ blog.
It’s a good read, but quotes Jeff Gazzard of a UK based aviation action group who seems to be rooted in the past.
His comments were loosing relevancy even a year ago. Since then the shameless pursuit of [...]
Being seen as mean, tricky and unaccountable harms Tiger
January 9, 2009 – 6:56 am
The latest ‘horror’ story about flying Tiger come with a consequence.
Being seen as mean, tricky and unaccountable is very harmful for an airline.
Tiger may have an explanation for its fictitious flight. It may have an explanation for its incapacity to promptly communicate schedule changes. It may even see virtue in screwing a customer who was [...]
iPhone iFly iPay-by-the-minute
January 8, 2009 – 3:47 pm
It’s a bold new way of flying. Wired blog Autopia reports on a South African idea to start a new airline where you pay by minutes for flights you book on your smart phone.
The article explains it isn’t a done deal as yet, with the securing of aircraft but one of many loose ends.
But there [...]
Why a threatened oneworld split up means little to a real world
January 8, 2009 – 10:51 am
The chairman of British Airways, Martin Broughton, is being given space by the consumer and technical aviation media abroad in which to claim that the oneworld alliance will split up if it doesn’t get its way over yet another demand to be allowed to fix prices in concert with American Airlines on the North Atlantic [...]
A lightning fast departure from Brisbane
January 6, 2009 – 10:37 am
Linda Petrie doesn’t just enjoy Brisbane’s storm season, she videos it. While going through several hours of images recorded on 28 December at 10 to 12 frames per second she discovered this sequence of lightning zapping an unidentified jet which had just taken off from Brisbane Airport at 8.32 pm.
The images show just how lightning [...]
Another entry for the Airbus A330 X-files!
January 2, 2009 – 6:58 pm
The Harold E Holt naval communications base near Exmouth on WA’s North West Cape is about to get worked over again as a menace to airliners, at least in the excitable media.
A short while ago the Australian Transport Safety Bureau released this brief but important statement concerning a Qantas A330-300 that experienced an unexplained autopilot [...]
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