This week saw the first anniversary of a joint business agreement between American, Iberia and British. Under this agreement, the airlines agreed to co-operate commercially on flights between the United States, Mexico, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland and Norway. The agreement was backed up by anti trust immunity from US and European authorities. Shortly, after the agreement was signed, in January, 2011, Iberia and BA merged into a new company called IAG (international Airlines Group), Europe’s third largest airline group and the sixth largest in the world by revenue. The airlines have combined the strong BA Asian connections with Iberia’s…
By Rail from Melbourne, Australia to Adelaide, Australia.
I travelled this week the 828km between these two Australian cities on the Overland train. Departure was 08:05 am and the arrival a mere ten hours and 45minutes later! The Overland began running as the Intercolonial Express train in October 1887. In 1926, the overnight rail service became The Overland in 1926. In the 1950s, The Overland introduced air-conditioned carriages and was the first train in the world to have on board showers! Unfortunately, trains in Australia have not had the similar investment, European railways have enjoyed. Today, the train journey takes much about the same time as…
Tuesday Trip Report: Train to Torquay
Torquay is the home of Basil Fawlty, the long suffering proprietor in the cringingly hilarious English Tv series Fawlty Towers. Its also the town in England where my ancestors came from. My grandfather often talked about the mighty Great Western Railway steam engines that connected the town to London. The railway designed by British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was designed to be fast, and stylish way of travel. Today the GWR is known as First Great Western (owned by First Group). They operate trains through to Wales and the southwest of England from London’s Paddington station (more well…
British Airways and Ipads –I like it
If you have ever sat near the front of an aeroplane, you would know that when the cabin door is about to close, the crew are handed a long scrolled up piece of paper with all customer details. In the 21st Century! It looks so primitive. BA is testing Ipads with 100 cabin staff with the aim of rolling them out to all senior crew members in the next few months. Loaded on them are timetables, safety manuals and customer service updates. More importantly from a customer service point of view, when the doors are about to close,…
This week
I have just come back from the UK. This week’s blog posts will, as a result, be focussing, therefore, on the UK. I was mostly in the Southwest of the UK: London, Devon, Cornwall and Bristol. See map below. Struck this time by two things: how much the UK packs into every square foot. how old things are! For example. Exeter in Devon, has had a mayor since at least 1207. Have a great week
China Southern A380 to fly this week
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bszcN2SwgTIThis week, for the first time ever, an A380 will be used on a domestic route. China Southern received their first 380 on October 14 from Airbus in France (see handover video above- Note the slight error in translation of the CEO’s speech when the plane is referred to as “A-three-eight-zero“). The plane touched down in Beijing October 15. China Southern’s became the seventh airline to fly the A380 joining Air France, Emirates, Korea, Lufthansa, Qantas and Singapore. number seven and their A380 is the 58th in scheduled service. They have ordered five A380s. The handover video gives you…
Emirates: No Match
Its like being turned down by someone you most like! Ever had that experience? I just asked Emirates, my favourite airline, for a “status match” with Qantas where I hold Gold Frequent Flyer Status. One of the difficulties of being “high status” with one airline is that it does “lock you in”. Gold Status comes with express check in, lounge access, bonus frequent flyer points and higher luggage allowances. I have Blue Status (the basic level with Emirates) because I frankly haven’t flown them enough. They don’t fly on most of the routes, I have…
Tuesday Trip Report: Lufthansa’s A380
In August, the A380 celebrated its third Birthday of flying, Last week, I flew my fourth A38o airline: Lufthansa, the German flag carrier. My earlier A380 flights have been with Qantas, Singapore and Emirates. Booking I was determined to fly on the Lufthansa A380 so I searched for the flight at Lufthansa.com to find it was much more expensive than I planned. I then found United was selling seats on the exact same Lufthansa flight for substantially cheaper than the Lufthansa price! After confirmation of my booking, my next task was seat selection. Lufthansa’s website works very well and…
This blog is moving!
The big news is my blog is moving to a new location. I have joined the team at Boardingarea.com BoardingArea was developed by the same people who founded some of the most popular business travel and frequent flyer Web sites on the Internet. They say: “In our years covering topics of interest to the business traveler, we bookmarked the best business travel blogs we stumbled across, and even hosted one of the first blogs in this arena – View From the Wing. Now we’re sharing those bookmarks with you.. all in one place.” The business travel…
Wild about travel has moved!
As foreshadowed, Boardingarea.com is our new home. Thanks for inviting us aboard! I am Wild about Travel. I love it. Both the journey and the destination. I want to share about my experiences with both. Thoughts and observations from where I have been and how I have got there. Expect cities, nature, planes, trains, advice, hassles and good times. I have flown 786 times (as of now) for a total of 1,785,449km (1,109,427 miles) to six continents with 78 airlines. I have experienced boat travel and train travel on or between five continents and buses plus cars…
Recent Comments