September 30, 2011 – 3:42 pm
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has signaled serious concerns about the safety of the main Melbourne-Sydney rail line less than two months after launching a systemic inquiry into its operations at the direction of the Minister for Infrastructure and transport, Anthony Albanese. It says in a preliminary factual report, that: The condition of the track [...]
September 30, 2011 – 6:27 am
The most damning of various things that were said about Jetstar’s safety standards on ABC TV Lateline last night is this comment by the Qantas subsidiary: Jetstar says overseas contracts reflects local market conditions. This imposition of ‘local’ market conditions by Jetstar on Australian travellers has on the simple facts presented by this latest Lateline expose [...]
September 29, 2011 – 2:33 pm
Emirates, the airline that gets up the nose of just about every carrier on the planet, has announced a surge into the US that could see all of a greatly expanded American network flown exclusively by giant Airbus A380s within five years. That disclosure, by Emirates president Tim Clark, in an interview in The Wall [...]
September 29, 2011 – 7:40 am
There is no precedent for the effects of Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport being deluged by one of the regions highest daily September downpours in 100 years just as traffic volumes rise in advance of football finals in Melbourne on Saturday and Sydney on Sunday. Sydney Airport is also seeing some rain squalls, and while they are [...]
September 28, 2011 – 11:20 am
If Singapore Airlines is looking in some way to its proposed alliance with Virgin Australia to help overcome the misfortunes of Tiger Airlines, then the public records of the ACCC suggest it may be disappointed. In a response to a set of questions from the ACCC concerning its intentions in such an alliance, Virgin Australia [...]
September 27, 2011 – 12:27 pm
OK this makes sense. Qantas is putting on extra A330 flights to take ‘us’ to Auckland to the Rugby World Cup to see the Wallabies win, and ‘them’ to Sydney to see their Warriors lose in the NRL Grand Final. It’s the perfect trans Tasman two way footy play for an airline. But, spot the [...]
September 27, 2011 – 9:57 am
Ceremonies over, the first Dreamliner to actually get delivered to an airline is about to leave Everett 40 months late and so heavy it is useless for long range flights. Instead the 787-8 will enter for short haul service with launch customer All Nippon Airways on 1 November, with daily flights between Tokyo Haneda and [...]
September 26, 2011 – 4:15 pm
Ever since Air Asia, Jetstar and Tiger became the prime proponents of trans border low cost airline franchises in the Asia-Pacific they have been ferociously resisted by the countries with the most potential; China, India, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. That’s why the announcement overnight that Tiger Airways Holdings has finalised an [...]
September 23, 2011 – 6:31 pm
UARS fell out of orbit apparently off the US west coast, yesterday at about the same time a similar fate overtook our server, preventing timely updates On current estimates NASA expects the 5900 kilogram UARS satellite to plunge out of orbit into the Pacific ocean west of Chile in the afternoon local time or about [...]
September 23, 2011 – 12:04 pm
There are US reports that the repo boom that has been one of America’s few growth sectors since the GFC has now spread aggressively into private and corporate aircraft. As this YouTube shows, repo pilots are even going viral, and TV columnists say reality shows about their exploits are likely to win network spots because [...]
