I have entered the Qatar Airways Reflections contest with five photos and need your vote to help me win. You will have to register with Qatar but you can do that using your Facebook id or an email address. I would really appreciate it. Thank you! Here are four of my five entries along with link to vote for that photo. 1. Mont Saint-Michel Rising out of the sea, one kilometre off the north-western coast of France, Saint-Michel has been a strategic point in Normandy and a monastery since the 8th century AD.The place has an almost magical feel heightened by the tidal movements which…
Sterling -Final demise
On the morning of Thursday May 3rd, 2012, Denmark’s regional airline Cimber Sterling filed for bankruptcy after its owners pulled financial support from the company. The carrier had 19 international and six domestic destinations. Four of its six domestic routes were monopoly routes. Sun-Air of Scandinavia, Danish Air Transport (DAT), Norwegian and Skyways have all taken over routes very quickly. I have never flown them but I was interested for two reasons. The first is how many airlines have gone this year. We are up to ten with some big names (Malev, Air Zimbabwe, and Spanair). Three went in January, four…
American’s Tricky Problem: Tickets for Life
So you want to raise cash as an airline? What do you do? Why not sell a First Class ticket that gives a passenger unlimited first class travel for life The Los Angeles Times reports that this is what American Airlines did in 1981. Aviation Gas was cheap and interest rates high. The airline wanted cash. So for $US250,000, 64 passengers bought a ticket which allowed them to travel as often as they wanted in first class. For an extra $150 000 you could take a companion. It was called the AAirpass program. The airline did not pass…
Some anomalies at Skytrax Best Airports
The World Airport award results came out last week. The top three are fairly predictable: Incheon International Airport– last year was third, Singapore Changi Airport -my favourite airport Hong Kong International Airport – last year was first Amsterdam Schiphol Airport comes in at fourth. Everyone raves about Schiphol but I am not a huge fan. Beijing’s vast Capital International Airport sits at fifth. The airport inclusions that I found odd are: 11 London Heathrow Airport. If I was to create hell on earth, it would be London Heathrow. The new terminals are nice but already too small and…
787 landing Washington DC
A sight I would have loved to see close up…. a Boeing 787 landed recently at Washington DC National Airport (known as Reagan National since 1998). This airport (Code = DCA) is the nearest to the capitol. On May 7, as part of its world dream tour, the third Boeing 787 ever manufactured (Serial number ZA003) made a very short flight from Washington’s other main airport: Dulles International to DCA. The 787 uses composite materials and its main features include larger windows than on any other plane, a four-panel windshield, better air circulation, improved lighting and humidity and much larger…
An American -US Air merger- closer [updated]
American Airlines has bowed to pressure from creditors and is exploring merger options, having previously vowed to go it alone. This consideration makes the possibility much more real. Especially with the AA unions being so keen on a merger. Lots of logic for the move. It would create the second-largest airline in the United States in terms of operating revenue. US Airways plans to adopt the American Airlines name. The unions feel it would protect them. Not sure what it will do to customer service at the airline. I personally think AA has the worst in the USA (Business Insider said in 2011 that American Airlines is…
Dude, Stop standing in my Plane
He was 6’4 and sitting in the cramped row in front of me in the middle seat on an American Airlines flight. After the drink and “meal” service, he stood up and moved to the centre of the plane. There he stood in the aisle reading a paperback book. After 45 minutes, the person in the aisle seat next to where he was standing told him loudly: “you are creeping me out. Please go back to your seat.” The man moved forward one row of seats but continued to stand in the aisle reading his book until just…
US Airways A319: Spokane to LAX
Getting from Spokane to Los Angeles on a Sunday after Bloomsday, a major running race in Spokane, was not as easy or as cheap as I would like. My options were fairly limited as I had to fly out after the race had finished and get to LAX in time to connect to a flight to Australia. I could either travel with Frontier via Denver, Alaska via Seattle and US Airways via Phoenix. None very cheap! I chose US Airways which is a big step for me! I had studiously avoided them for years after some terrible flights. More recently,…
I just hit Two Million km!
Today’s flight with Virgin Australia from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia tipped me over two million kilometres (1.25 million miles) travelled by aeroplane! This is a distance equivalent to 50 times around the earth. I have eaten, read, slept, chatted and worked for 16 and a half weeks of my life in the air. I record all of my 857 flights at Flightmemory.com. This database allows me to keep all of my flight information in one place and print maps based on the data. In case you think I am completely geeky,…
Bloomsday 2012
For the last few years, I have run in the annual Bloomsday race in Spokane, Washington. It is a 12 kilometre (7.5 mile) event that starts and finishes downtown. The course includes several stretches of running alongside the river, some sections through suburbia and one of the toughest hills in the world for a run. Spokane has made this event, in my mind, one of the best foot races I have done on the planet. It is very well organised and the people of the My results this year were a Finish Time: 1:09:09 and an overall place out of 47,841…
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