February 29, 2012 – 8:43 pm
The disclosure today at the creditors meeting that Air Australia had debts of up to $90 million and only $440,000 in cash when it went bust is a huge embarrassment to the media, including Plane Talking. There are a number of general media stories in circulation, but no apologies for a lack of forensic reporting [...]
February 29, 2012 – 6:26 pm
Turbo-prop maker ATR has gone and lost the plot in a weird white world. In the middle of a long day talking to interesting people about some difficult but important issues in air transport, the following image from the turbo-prop maker ATR made the painfully slow 0.12Mbps journey courtesy of Telstra fraudband to my [...]
February 29, 2012 – 8:57 am
America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finalised its proposal for a minimum experience standard of 1500 hours flight time for mainline first officers, something universally rejected as unnecessary by Australian airlines, CASA and subsequently, the Federal Government during and after last year’s Senate inquiry into pilot training and airline safety. The US requirement is likely [...]
February 28, 2012 – 2:14 pm
Update: Since this story appeared the Minister for Transport Anthony Albanese has said that Qantas has to work out how to continue conforming to the Qantas Sale Act restrictions on foreign ownership, and that Virgin Australia doesn’t need government approval to make its commercial decision to restructure its business. Virgin Australia has applied for a [...]
February 28, 2012 – 12:18 pm
Cathay Pacific made its illustrated entry into the economy class space race this morning, showing what its previously announced new long haul bring-your-legs Y class product and premium economy products will look like. Given Plane Talking‘s founding interest of more space for your knees, and without taking out a third mortgage, we are excited, although [...]
February 28, 2012 – 7:20 am
Damon Kitney’s top story in The Australian today about Virgin Australia working on (read doing) a super exclusive alternative to the Qantas Chairman’s Lounges raises some fascinating, as well as ethical questions. Apart from the frivolous question as to what it might be called, maybe the Virgin Parlour, or given the invited free membership of [...]
February 27, 2012 – 10:00 am
KLM is persisting with its Seat and Meet flight companion selection system based on your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, despite some dreadful if not stressful consequences from those who may not have given much thought to sharing their social media identities with the Dutch flag carrier in the past. Some of these are well illustrated [...]
February 26, 2012 – 9:49 am
The plastic fantastic 787 Dreamliner keeps sending alarming messages to interested if not impatient travellers and its increasingly desperate or angry customer airlines. In its first five months with All Nippon Airways, the launch customer, it has averaged only one delivery per month. Last week United Airlines joined the queue of customer airlines demanding compensation [...]
February 25, 2012 – 9:22 am
Apart from the significant news from Virgin Australia, there were moves late this week on the Australia-NZ and India markets. After posting a bad first half to 31 December result in which Air NZ struggled to come within $4 million of making as much money as all of Qantas in the same period, and which [...]
February 24, 2012 – 10:48 am
Updated with Qantas statement It could be the ultimate irony for Qantas if John Borghetti, the ex Qantas executive general manager who has lead Virgin Australia to Qantas beating profitability, has also invented the solution to freeing up its share price to increased demand from foreign investors. Consider this. The proposed restructuring of Virgin Australia [...]
