When Ansett Australia was flying, their in flight magazine had a section for nervous and new flyers explaining the bangs and noises of a flight. Last week British British Airways is installing an instructional video on its in-flight entertainment system based on its one-day Flying with Confidence course. The video guides passengers through the operations of an aircraft, including explaining the technical side of flying including turbulence. The course is run by Captain Allright (that is his real name apparently!) Also included in the video are relaxation techniques from clinical psychologists to help reduce any feelings of panic. A clip…
Terrific Tripit
If you travel regularly or are planning an extended trip, get TripIt. Tripit works like this:Whenever I get an itinerary from an airline, rail company, hotel (pictured below) I forward the confirmation to Tripit. Users can currently forward confirmation emails from over 1,000 different booking sites. Thirty seconds after Tripit has got my email, they send one back: Its like magic! Every now and then one doesn’t work (Interislander ferries in NZ didnt work yesterday!). Tripit creates an itinerary from the confirmation. You can see my upcoming trips below on my Tripit homepage: Each of these Trips will include…
LAN gets 787
Boeing keeps churning out the 787s! LAN Airlines, received delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner yesterday. The new plane arrived in Santiago, Chile September 1st, making it the first airline in the Americas to receive the new airplane. LAN is one of my favourite airlines. I have always found them a delight to travel with. LAN has ordered 32 planes that will be phased in over the next 10 years at a cost of almost five billion dollars. The destinations the 787 will fly to during its first year of operation will be Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima, Los Angeles,…
My 888th Flight
This week I fly my 888th flight. It is a standard run of the mill Melbourne to Wellington with Qantas (it will be my 255th flight with Qantas). I would have liked to have made the flight more special in some way. For example, it would have been nice to have made flight 888 first class on an ANA 787 but that is not going to happen! I need to get better organised for my 999 and 1000th flights! Open to any ideas to make those flights amazing! Related Posts 787 times in the air &…
Time for Thai’s A380
Thai Airways held a pre-launch reception to showcase its first Airbus A380-800 aircraft on August 29 including the new colour scheme. I think the THAI colours on the A380 look brilliant! According to the airline: “Thai’s symbol is an abstract image suggesting movement, inspired by the crown flower used in Thai handicraft work and Thai garlands used in traditional ceremonies such as weddings and auspicious events. Colors used are purple, magenta and gold representing, respectively, a Thai orchid, shimmering Thai silk and the brilliance of a Thai temple.” THAI are due to receive six of the A380s with…
Aerolíneas Argentinas Joins SkyTeam
The Flag carrier for Argentina joined SkyTeam today. Forty of their 52 destinations are new for the alliance. Aerolíneas is a Skytrax three star airline. Their 265 customer reviews onSkytrax gives them an average rating of 4.2 out of ten. This is a major reason why I have never flown them. No one I know who has flown them has a good word to say for them. But then they are part of an alliance with Aeroflot (3 star: 4.7 out of 10) Alitalia (3 star: 4.7 of 10) CZA: Czech (3 star: 5.2 out of 10)…
ANA 787 to San Jose
On January 11, 2013, ANA will begin a five day a week 787 between San Jose, California and Tokyo, Japan. The flight will depart San Jose at 1145am every day except Tuesday and Thursday. It will arrive in Tokyo at 4:10 p.m. The return flight will leave Tokyo at 5:35 p.m. and arrive at SJC at 10:10 the following morning. This will be the first 787 flight into the Bay Area. It sounds like a very delightful way to fly into the USA. For passnegers flying to Tokyo, ANA will offer great connections to their…
United 787 is up and away
Some good news for United Airlines. On August 19, their first Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off from Boeing’s Everett field in, Washington state for its first test flight. The plane cruised around Seattle for three hours as all aspects of the craft’s backup and safety systems were checked. The plane will be delivered to United in late September and will be followed by 49 others. United will be the fifth airline in the world to get the 787 (after ANA, JAL, Ethiopian, LAN) and the first US carrier to have it. They will be flying Denver to Tokyo…
Does Most Liveable Matter?
Vancouver slipped out of the top spot and Melbourne, Australia became the Economist’s most liveable city in their latest six mothly Liveability Ranking and Overview released August, 2012. Again. In fact, four of the world’s most liveable cities, according to the Economist, are in Australia and one is in New Zealand. Canada has three. Helsinki and Vienna are Europe’s representatives. No US cities made the cut. Living conditions in 140 cities around the world are assessed across 30 indicators in five broad categories including Stability, Healthcare, Culture, Environment, Education and Infrastructure There are a number of these liveability surveys eg the Mercer Quality of living Worldwide City Rankings which places Vienna…
Honey, guess what we lost today?
Normally my whacky Wednesday posts are funny or at least a little amusing. Today’s is far from amusing. United Airlines, who I regularly bag, bash and mock in my blog are apparently in the business of transporting luggage and people around the USA. According to Brett Snyder, they are doing worse since the merger with Continental (vale). For example only 70.1 percent of their flights were on time in June. In addition, United lost bags at twice the rate of Delta which is a bigger airline. Luggage being lost is annoying. On June 30, 2012 United Airlines lost a bag…
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