350

Tag Archives for 350.

To HEL and back – two more (almost) Heavenly Finnair flights!

Three years ago, I had four pretty nice flights with Finnair. On this occasion, I was particularly looking forward to trying their Airbus 350  for what would be my 1201st flight ever! Booking: 9/10 Finnair runs the only direct service from Bangkok to Helsinki (HEL). During the Finnish winter, the airline offers 16 services a week -mostly for Finns escaping the Northern hemisphere’s cold. From April, the number of flights runs a daily service with a morning departure from Bangkok at 0855 arriving Helsinki at 15:05. The return flight is an overnighter departing HEL at 17:35…

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Reflecting on 2016 and 2017 Travel Goals

What travel goals did you manage in 2016? I achieved almost all of my 2016 goals! I flew 119 times for business and pleasure last year with 20 airlines, rode 14 long distance trains plus a short cross-border train between Singapore and Malaysia, a few long distance buses and some hire car kilometres. My air flights were mostly concentrated in 14 countries in Asia, Australia/New Zealand and the Middle East with no European or US flights at all, as seen here: My goals for 2016 were to: Visit two new countries which I exceeded by going to Egypt,…

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Happy birthday to Cathay Pacific at 70

Few companies last seventy years in our modern world and even fewer non-government airlines have survived. Carriers in Asia have come and gone over the decades but  Cathay Pacific Airways (CX) has maintained services since 24 September, 1946 from its base in tiny Hong Kong. They have survived SARS, hijackings, the handover of HK back to China and several economic crises. I fell in love with Cathay Pacific in 1971 on my  birthday and today, they are my third favourite airline. I have rated its booking systems, check ins, service, meals etc and come up with…

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Ethiopian’s 350 takes flight.

On June 29, Ethiopian Airlines collected its first A350XWB becoming the seventh operator of the type after Cathay Pacific Airways, Finnair, LATAM Airlines, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and Vietnam Airlines. They are the first African Airline to take delivery of the A50. It’s first 350 is named Simien Mountains, after the world heritage site Ethiopian mountain range. To celebrate, the airlines achieved the world record of creating the largest ever human image of an aircraft with 350 members of staff standing in formation wearing bright yellow uniforms.  The Guinness World Records adjudicators verified the record! Ethiopian’s first…

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Booked my first A350 flight with Thai Airways Royal Silk [updated]

UPDATE: December 2016: Sadly, due to issues with Thailand’s air safety authority, Thai has not been given permission to deploy A350s on Australian flights. So I am on a 777 instead. Still looking forward to the flight. I am very excited to have booked a seat on Thai’s new Airbus A350-900 Royal Silk Business Class product from Bangkok, Thailand to Melbourne, Australia later this year! Thanks to the last Avianca deal which gave me a 125% bonus on purchased miles! I was able to use these miles to get a seat at a very good price with Thai…

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TAM’s new Airbus 350

Brazil’s TAM air has welcomed the first of their 27 beautiful Airbus 350 XWBs. This follows Qatar’s receipt of the 350 in January, followed by Vietnam Airlines and Finnair.   The 348 seat TAM plane has a two class layout: ‘Premium Business’ cabin with 30 forward-facing business class seats arranged 2-2-2. All seats convert into fully-flat beds and have a personal 15.4 inch HD video screens 318 seats are crammed into the Economy in a 3/3/3 layout admittedly with an 18″ seat width Their A350 has the same seats and cabin design as sister carrier LAN’s…

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