Today’s terse ASX announcements that Virgin Blue and Air NZ have been in discussions for several months over a potential trans Tasman alliance suggests both want one very badly, but can’t agree as to exactly what it will involve, yet aren’t prepared to let go of the notion. An alliance would be very potent, given [...]
The first Cessna to fly in Australia, and now one of the rarest light aircraft in the world, a Cessna C34 Airmaster, is to be flown-very carefully and on special occasions- from its new home on the Sunshine Coast. The aircraft has been bought by Steve Padgett, the managing director of Aeromil Pacific, Australia’s Cessna [...]
Qantas has hit the front in the race to deploy 2D barcode check-in services for web enabled smart phones, announcing that the service is now available just about everywhere except T2 at Sydney Airport where some of its full service customers can enjoy the Jetstar experience. Its country wide embrace of the process follows Virgin [...]
The Lufthansa A380, due for delivery to the carrier on May 19, seems to reflect the race for the bottom among European carriers. The lower deck of their A380 is all economy seating, like the Emirates A380 plan, but with 420 seats instead of 399. Qantas, which shares that deck with first class, fits in [...]
In political terms, Senator Bob Brown’s call for a new study on a VFT or very fast train between Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney risks provoking some fierce green negativity. However it probably says something about the chances for that issue getting an airing that since Friday when he launched the proposal it has vanished into media invisibility, thanks [...]
In almost 600 posts on Plane Talking nothing has generated as much discussion in individual articles as Russian aviation, whether the stories of its airliners, or the Sukhoi PAK FA or T-50 rival (and it seems likely, terminator) of the JSF, closely followed by debate over numerous items solely about the Joint Strike Fighter debacle. [...]
April 24, 2010 – 11:46 am
Among the dumber mindsets in matters concerning security at airports there has been a crack down on photography in general and plane spotters in particular. The situation is not as bad in Australia as in Little Britain, India, the EU, and the US, but there have been anecdotal reports on sites dedicated to aircraft spotting [...]
Some postcards have arrived from inside the big ‘fridge’ or the McKinley Climatic Laboratory at the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida of ZA003, the third numbered of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner test and certification fleet doing a cold soak test. These freeze frames are from a video that should be posted on www.newairplane.com shortly, [...]
There will be four very different forms of ‘smart’ check-in procedures in domestic air travel by the end of this year. The first of them, the Virgin Blue ‘Check-Mate’ system, was launched today, initially on flights between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It will be followed by a second trial and introduction of a Jetstar procedure [...]
Sydney Airport is refunding the additional parking charges incurred by passengers and air crew who have been delayed overseas by the European volcanic ash crisis and also refunding or allowing free rescheduling of the pre-paid long term car parking bookings made by those who were unable to fly out when they intended. The airport says [...]
