On January 1st, Thais in every part of the country offer food to monks at temples or public places to give themselves a good start for the year. These New-Year ceremonies pay homage to Buddha. The tradition is that the New Year is seen as a time to establish a new chapter in one’s “karma ledger“. We rose early on New Year’s Day and joined a local community’s ritual in the Northern suburbs of Bangkok. Tables were set up along the street and the offerings placed on them. There were also balloons for luck available…
Goodbye -The airlines that vanished in 2018
You know the scene, as you have seen it on the news programs. Passengers milling around desks in airports whilst a news commentator drones on about the number of planes grounded. Usually, the news does not affect you unless you are flying or when you might be an employee or family member of an employee. This scene repeated itself about fifty times around the world in 2018. Some of these airline collapses were with a bang and some with a whimper. A number of carriers were merely folded into their parent company or another subsidiary.…
Herb Kelleher passes away
The world today will be full of blog posts, interviews and articles about Mr Kelleher, co-founder, CEO, and Chairman Emeritus of Southwest Airlines. I wanted to pay my own quick tribute. Born March 12, 1931 Mr Kelleher died on January 3, 2019. He was a lawyer and reportedly created the Southwest concept on a serviette with one of his law clients. Southwest became known as an airline that was fun, friendly, low fares and operated direct low fare flights in opposition to its competitors of the “hub-and-spoke” scheduling systems. This successful airline stemmed from Mr…
Don’t touch the Flight Attendant
In response to this instagram post from Qantas, one poster placed their response up: My view is that, no one likes being grabbed by their customer. It does not matter if they are a Doctor, a Teacher, a Police Officer, Garbage Collector or Flight Attendant. The Flight Attendants I have met usually have very high tolerance and patience welcoming a range of people. They deserve our respect. Business Insider identified one year ago that there are 25 things they wish passengers would stop doing. (That is a big list!). One of them was being touched…
My 2018 Travel Adventures!
No surprises for my friends and colleagues that I flew, railed, rode ferries and drove the equivalent distance of about five times around the world. My focus was predominantly on Asia, Australia and New Zealand with visiting 24 major cities in ten countries at least once. I also dropped in on many smaller towns including Bringalbert, Australia which has a population of 12! Where did 2018 take you? My year started with a fabulous New Year’s Eve in Shanghai, China now one of my top 20 cities in the world. I took 5000 photos through the…
Drones, Drones, Drones – How can we protect airports & skies after Gatwick?
As the world knows, Gatwick airport (the second busiest in the UK) was closed for about 36 hours on 19th and 20th December because of repeated drone sightings near the airfield. The Police said they received 115 reports of sightings with 93 confirmed as “credible” with a pilot, airport staff and police officers amongst the reporters. The risk of collision and damage with an aircraft is a nightmare scenario. The airport has a one kilometre exclusion zone around it, in which it is illegal to fly any unauthorised drones. In addition, drones must be kept…
Ten of My Faves -My Top Airlines
People often ask me what are my favourite airlines? Here is the answer, after 1300 flights on 103 airlines almost 75 times around the world. Of the 103 different airlines I have travelled on, two of them I will never choose to fly on again (Air Asia and Ryanair) and two I regularly avoid (TigerAir and United). Others have merged or gone bust. My top ten currently ranked favourites are: 10. Virgin Australia -in a few short years, they have transformed themselves from a budget carrier to a full service global carrier. I really enjoy…
A few of my Faves: My Top Five Global Fun Runs
I am a runner and one of the most fun things I like doing whilst traveling is running in different cities. I have run as far south as Dunedin, New Zealand and as far north as Reykjavik, Iceland. Even more than just running in a city is participating in a Fun Run in a city, I am visiting. As I staggered up a hill in Sydney, Australia during a “fun” run, I reflected on the runs I have most enjoyed participating in. I managed to work out my six favourites (two tie for third place):…
Stunning AirFrance 787 video
After Air France received their fifth 787, they released this stunning air-to-air footage of a 787 over Southern France. This is video of behind the scenes which is just as fascinating: Air France ‘s 787 has 30 lie flat seats (2 m / 6.5 ft )in the Business cabin, 21 seats in Premium Economy cabin, and 225 seats in the Economy cabin. Every seat has a personal power outlet and a USB port. Business passengers enjoy an adjustable fiber-optic reading lamp, a reading rest integrated into the foldout tray table for books and tablets. All the seats are produced by French equipment supplier…
Welcoming Royal Air Maroc to fracturing OneWorld
Royal Air Maroc has been revealed as One World’s newest member ending days of speculation as to whether it or China Southern were joining. Royal Air Maroc fixes a massive hole for One World: a member airline based in Africa. Star Alliance have Ethiopian and South African as members giving them a massive footprint across the continent, Skyteam has Kenya which currently has a substantial network too. One World only has a handful of routes in Southern Africa through British Airways Comair. Royal Air Maroc serves 94 destinations: The airline flies to several One World…
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