I have not yet ridden the Dreamliner. That is about to change. It has taken me a long time to get on one. Have you flown on a 787 yet? I booked my first 787 flight with, a few weeks ago. Today, I booked my second, third and fourth flights on different airlines. They are all in “Business Class” so I can do some comparisons. Any advice you may have on seating accepted. My first 787 flight is with LATAM in June in Premium Business. These 30 fully reclining seats have a 23 inch width and 75 inch pitch. Behind the…
My travels with the #19 year old #StarAlliance
The Star Alliance turns 19 tomorrow, Saturday the 14th of May. The network is now an “adult” with 27 member airlines carrying almost 638 million passengers annually. This compares to SkyTeam with 20 airlines and 588 million passengers annually and Oneworld with 15 airlines and almost 513 million. Starting with just five airlines, the network has grown to include: I have flown 159 times with nine Star Alliance members for a total of 424,788km (263,951 miles), almost ten times around the earth! This represents 14% of all my flights and a third of the distance I have ever flown! The Star…
Air New Zealand vs Qantas Running Man Challenge
The Running Man craze has spread its way into the airline industry. Started by two high-school students in New Jersey, USA who started dancing along to the 1996 song My Boo by Ghost Town DJ’s in their Finance class, it has exploded around the internet over the last two weeks with police and emergency services around the world with Met police London, St John Ambulance, NZ Finland Police, NYPD, Scottish Police (complete with bagpipes), Sussex Police (UK), ACT Policing by the Lake and many others. Last Friday, Air New Zealand posted their Running Man challenge to Qantas with cabin crew busting the moves on board a training…
Airline route maps in one spot
This may be worth bookmarking. Airfare watchdog has links to around 200 airline route maps. From Adria Airways to Yemenia It is mostly accurate! I tweeted them this week to let them know of a couple of out of date links. All the big ones are there (eg American Airlines, British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Etihad, Lufthansa, United Airlines) plus some smaller ones (eg Nature Air, Regional Express). There are a few missing carriers (Scoot, Air Malindo). Related Posts Mapping 10 Busiest Air Routes of 2012 Picturing Air Routes Navigating Airports – My favourite Apps
Kuwait to require DNA testing of all tourists
I have been to many Middle Eastern countries (Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, UAE, for example) but not to the State of Kuwait. I have an open invitation from some Kuwaiti colleagues to visit the country. The news that the country will extend DNA testing to tourists leaves me a little disquieted. Kuwait has talked about introducing DNA testing for a while. Following the bombing of a mosque in June, 2015 which killed 26 worshippers in Kuwait City, the country quickly enacted laws to mandate DNA testing of its 1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million expatriates. It’s the…
Passengers throw food & punch Ground Staff
The competition to be the worst passenger ever seems to be plumbing the depths. This week, after a flight from Changsha in central China to Sanya insouthern China was delayed because of bad weather, three passengers became aggressive. One threw her lunch box at a female ground staff. Shamefully in the video beloew, you can see her in tears. Another passenger slapped another female ground staff on face saying “I’m hitting you! So what?” Interestingly, the video was released by the People’s Daily suggesting that there is a warning message for others in terms of bad behaviour.…
Navigating Airports – My favourite Apps
I blogged a couple of weeks ago about how I use airports as a place to walk for exercise, people watch and plane spot. I have spent a lot of time in airports and am keen to maximise my productivity. When travelling through airports, these are the apps I go to: Tripit has been my go to app for five years now and I must admit, I completely rely on it. By forwarding my flight and hotel confirmations to Tripit, the app organises them into complete itineraries that I can access via phone or laptop or even print paper…
Mileage Run- with Qantas Double Status Credits help!
My membership year for Qantas finishes soon. I had intended to keep my Qantas Gold Status for another year. With Qantas announcing, their double status credit promotion last week, this changed. Enticed by the earning of double the number of status credits on every flight booked between now and May 4th for travel until 16th April, 2o17, I began a stocktake of my miles situation. A few bookings later, it looked like I would be close to Qantas Platinum! Platinum gives access to One World First Class lounges internationally and Business Class in Australia. The Qantas First Lounge in Sydney is one…
My Top 40 cities.
I am fast closing in my 200th city that I have visited with over 100,000 inhabitants. With each city, I rate their: Natural and Built aesthetics Their liveability Their Culture Crime rates and safety Transportation Their “Vibe 12 of my favourite cities are in Europe, nine in the USA, five in Asia,four in the UK, two in Canada, four in Australia, one in New Zealand, one in South America and two in the Middle East. My top 40 cities ranked are: 1 Paris 2 Berlin 3 Barcelona 4 San Francisco 5 Melbourne 6 Adelaide 7 Stockholm…
Qantas goes outdoors with its iconic safety video
I love a good safety video! No idea how many I have sat through now over the years! It ius now April and I have sat through the 2016 Qantas video 23 times. It runs for 5min 28 secs so I have spent two hours listening to it! Initially, I was a little dismissive but every time I see it, I am mesmerised. This year, Qantas opted for an enthralling collection of 16 Australian iconic locations introduced by real people to build its safety instructions around: This year, Qantas opted for an enthralling collection of 16 Australian…
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