On Tuesday13th September, Lufthansa named A380 D-AIMF “Zurich“, after the Swiss city which is hub for the Lufthansa owned SWISS airline. This particular A380 was the sixth in the Lufthansa fleet and has been flying for them since April this year. While the plane is named Zurich, there is no suggestion of it moving from its Frankfurt base to the Swiss city. Passengers will have to fly from Zurich to Frankfurt to connect with Lufthansa to its A380 destinations (Beijing, Miami, New York, Only a couple of weeks for my Lufthansa A380 flight, which will be my fourth A380 carrier (already flown Emirates, Qantas and Singapore)
See 787 handed over to ANA – LIVE
Apparently we will be able to watch the handover of the 787 from Boeing to ANA (at last) at 0900h US Pacific time Monday 26th- midday US Eastern time, 2am Sydney on the 27th and oddly 1am Tokyo on the 27th. I would have thought an afternoon time in Seattle would have been better. It would allowed people to watch it live at a civilised hour in the Airline’s home country. e.g. 8am Tokyo time which equals 4pm Seattle time. Wonder why this timing?
New Names for Qantas Asia
Picture from The Age is a digitally altered plane. The fairfax Press (Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers) are suggesting RedQ or RedQ Executive Express is emerging as the most likely name for Qantas Asia ahead of RedSky and OneAsia. The new 49% venture will be 49% owned by Qantas and is one part of Qantas restructuring. Alan Joyce CEO of Qantas said that the move would create a “newer and stronger Qantas,” by tapping into the major growth that is occurring in Asia. I hate the sound of RedQ. It doesn’t sound enticing. It definitely…
Way out Wadi Ramm (Wadi Rum)
Wadi Ramm or Wadi Rum as it is more commonly known, is a long valley cut into sandstone and granite rock in southern Jordan about km from Amman (see my post about that amazing city). It is one of the longest inhabited places on the planet with people living there since prehistory (at least 4500BC). The Nabateans who built Petra (see my Report on that amazing place) lived in Wadi Ramm.T. E. Lawrence known as Lawrence of Arabia based his operations here during the period of the Arab Revolt from the Turkish Empire at the…
Exciting News Coming
I can hardly contain myself as I have a secret!I have some very exciting news regarding this blog: “Wild about travel” Watch this space for more! In the meantime, thank you for your readership and comments (more comments please!)
Korean A380 for Seoul-LAX
Korean Air now has four Airbus A380s as of last Thursday. The newest A380 will undergo the usual tests and will start flying from Seoul/Incheon to Paris ( Mon, Wed, Fri) from 26 September until 29 October and to Los Angeles (every Tue, Thu, Sat) from 10 October 2011. I plan to fly the Seoul-Lax route in November. Anyone want to join me?
Economists’s Top Ten Liveable cities
Melbourne, Australia is very excited that it scored 97.5 out of 100 in the Economist’s annual most liveable cites survey knocking Vancouver out of top place. The Economist designs the rankings for employers to use when assigning hardship allowances as part of job relocation but they have developed a life of their own with the rankings capturing the attention of people in the street and politicians. The indexes also ignore other issues like the cost of living in those cities, sustainability, and equity and other factors. For example housing costs in Melbourne are now some…
Stay Away from Seattle
Theres a very strange website around which called people to “Stay away from Seattle“. Apparently September 16 is “Stay Away from Seattle Day. It is meant to “give ‘America’s Best Place to Live’ city a break from the influx of people moving to the area.“ Tourists bring 5.5 billion dollars into Seattle every year but not everyone wants them it seems – at least one day a year. There have been a few places in the world that I have been to where I have wondered if people actually want tourists. I have never been made to feel really unwelcome but I have wondered.Many…
Comparing Trans Pacific Business Class
Yesterday’s Trip Report covered my recent V Australia’s Business Class trip between Brisbane, Australia and Los Angeles, USA. Today, I compare the various Business Class offerings of all the trans Pacific carriers. I chose a travel date of of 12th October from Sydney to LAX and travel back 19th October to find pricing. Hawaiian had the cheapest business class fares for those dates. I have ranked the airlines from Best Business Class on the Australian -US route (V Australia) through to the worst on this sector (United). This is based on both my experience and reviews by others. Happy to be challenged! Or…
V Australia Business Class…Stacks up?
So my new friends are V Australia, the international arm of Virgin Australia the “second” mainline Aussie carrier (Qantas being the first). I have now flown in all three V Australia classes between Australia and Los Angeles on their beautiful Boeing 777-300ERs (I really do like V Australia!). Check out my trip report about International Premium Economy Class . I have now flown with V Australia to LA out of all three of their Australian ports: Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. They have been consistently excellent at all of them. Today’s Trip was actually several months ago. Like this blog…
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