The MonsterBus looms larger than ever. Some 10 months after French territorial carrier Air Austral pencilled an order for two A380s configured for 840 economy class seats each it has signed the binding purchase contracts.
This story The Party Plane to Paris is on its way published here on January 16 has stood the time test [...]
Tag Archives: air transport
Air Austral signs up for 840 seat party plane but gatecrashers are on the way
November 18, 2009 – 8:01 am
‘Fly by Wire’ the book, and an incredible video
November 13, 2009 – 10:55 am
The six minute flight then glide of US Airways flight Cactus 1549 from La Guardia airport to splashdown in the Hudson River on January 15 this year was a rare and spectacular good news story when it comes to air crashes.
The release this week of Fly by Wire, the Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on [...]
Singapore Airlines reports smaller losses and signs of recovery
November 11, 2009 – 11:26 am
If airlines are the canaries in the mine shaft when it comes to the economic environment, then Singapore Airlines is more firmly gripping its perch but not yet in song.
It has just reported a quarterly loss of $SIN 159 million, compared to $SIN307 million in the previous first quarter of its financial year which ends [...]
Incorrect if not fanciful reporting about Virgin Blue
November 8, 2009 – 7:54 am
It is now 72 hours since a wrong report about Virgin Blue getting Boeing 777-200LRs in Air Transport World sent sites like Airliners.net into a frenzy of learned discussion.
This report also excited contacts in Qantas sufficiently for them to give it credence, and cause this report in Plane Talking. Except that I changed my [...]
Latest Qantas update: Passenger numbers up, yields down, Jetstar continues to grow apace
November 2, 2009 – 3:52 pm
Look closely at the domestic business class cabin on your Cityflyer next time your company makes you walk through to the economy section. It’s not going to be around much longer in its current form in the new reality of cheaper and tighter seating.
As this commentary included in today’s release of the Qantas operating [...]
Is tin back in for jets?
October 31, 2009 – 10:42 am
News that China is looking hard at using aluminium rather than composites for much of its proposed Comac C919 airliner raises the question as to whether ‘plastic fantastics’ like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 are mistakes.
Both high composite projects make ambitious claims for the use of non-metallic materials. And the first, the 787, [...]
CASA, Qantas and unanswered safety allegations
October 31, 2009 – 10:08 am
In the spirit of brave rather than ‘cowardly’ criticism, when will CASA deal with a series of allegations about unsafe practices by Qantas last year raised by the licensed engineers union?
Not deal with, as in, have a spokesman dismiss them as immaterial or industrially motivated.
But deal with, as in investigate and publish detailed findings, and [...]
Tiger v Cityflyer comes into sharper focus
October 30, 2009 – 5:30 pm
Tiger’s second announcement of new Sydney flights in two days underlines the pressure the Singapore Airlines controlled low fare airline is applying to the high fare Qantas Cityflyer operation.
Yes. Cityflyer. Not low fare Jetstar, nor middle market Virgin Blue, but high fare Qantas, and especially its inter capital Cityflyers.
Today Tiger’s touch up is the [...]
Plain talking about CASA and the media
October 30, 2009 – 10:36 am
The new CEO of CASA, John McCormick, made some comments about its critics at the conclusion of a Senate Estimates Committee hearing on October 20.
The white or final Hansard record is less entertaining than accounts of the pink or first draft Hansard, but let’s look at the former, since it constitutes the public record.
Before [...]
Boeing forecasts slo-mo boom times for the ‘hood
October 26, 2009 – 4:30 pm
Boeing has seen the future of air travel in Australia, New Zealand and the (other) South Pacific islands and it is big, very big, but will gain pace slowly in the near future.
Its Commercial Airplanes Vice President of Marketing, Randy Tinseth said “data indicates that the economic downturn has reached bottom and recovery has begun.
“Global [...]
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