When we were kids, we enlisted all sorts of people into play weddings: the cat, teddy bears, dolls etc. Now someone has done it for real. This week, 2000 invitees and 20 police dogs attended a wedding ceremony for nine pairs of dogs, in the town of Kandy, Sri Lanka. German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Labradors and Doberman took part in the wedding ceremony. The ceremony was intended to promote a programme to breed more sniffer dogs. This initiative was introduced with a aim to save foreign exchange of around Rs20 million [$US150 000] on importing high pedigree dogs from…
Trip Report: Air Asia -four times!
I have not had a good run with Air Asia and have placed them in my bottom ten airlines for the last three years. I was challenged last year by a number of Air Asia supporters so I have been determined to give them a good testing. This month, I flew two flights with Air Asia and two flights with Air Asia X, their international arm. Booking: 7 out of 10 Air Asia has an attractive website that is easy to navigate. The site even has a clear guide on how to book online.…
Considering Carry On
I was standing at the check in counter for Lufthansa at Frankfurt. The check in agent asked the passenger next to me to present his carry on bag so she could weigh it. “why? It’s just carry on” “yes sir. I need to weigh it. Sir it weighs 12kilograms. You must check it. ” “the last airline let me carry it on” “You have to remove items or check it in sir” “this has nothing to do with safety. You just want to make money. Get me your supervisor” The customer then berated the supervisor.…
No kids On Board!
We are getting used to paying for more leg room. Now Scoot (the Singapore based discount off shoot of Singapore Airlines) are offering more leg room with no children. For an extra fee, you can choose one of 41 seats in a special “Scoot in silence” cabin that bans children under 12. The cabin is located behind Business Class. Scoot started flying in 2012. They have five Boeing 777s which fly to eleven destinations through Asia and Australia. They are going to receive 20 Boeing 787s which were ordered by Singapore airlines. Skytrax have not rated Scoot yet but…
Syria
I love the Middle East and have enjoyed amazing hospitality from very generous and kind people Today, I join many others in my sadness over today’s events in Syria. How can we stop such cruelty in our world. Can we stop fighting and killing each other?
The Fake Zoo
A Chinese zoo at the People’s Park in Luohe faced a dilemma when its most popular exhibit its African Lion was sent away to a breeding programme. The zoo hit on a novel idea of replacing the lion with a Tibetan mastiff, a large and hairy dog. The plan came unstuck when the “Lion” opened its mouth and instead of a regal roar began barking. > Other fake animals were uncovered at the zoo including a fake Golden jaguar: A dog in a wolf pen: two coypu rodents in a snake’s cage: Authorities in the…
All about OptionTown
Another way of unbundling has reached my attention. Using the services of Optiontown, I got an upgrade last week, with Air Asia at nominal cost. The way it worked was this: I completed my online booking with Air Asia I then navigated to Optiontown and retrieved my airline booking Chose the upgrade option I wanted Paid a small non refundable fee to apply for the upgrade. Fees can be paid by Credit Card or Paypal Paid a second fee equivalent to 50% of the usual upgrade price. This fee is refunded five days after the flight if upgrade does…
Switch off that Phone????
As the announcement to switch off our phones is broadcast. I watch some people settle back in their seats content or smug, they have complied. Some will discover upon landing that their phone wasn’t actually off! In fact the Airline Passenger Experience Association and the Consumer Electronics Association found 30 percent of passengers accidentally left an electronic device turned on during a flight -61 percent said it was a smartphone. Another group will get up and check in a panic, only to find they have indeed already switched their phone off. On a recent flight,…
Mapping 10 Busiest Air Routes of 2012
Was fascinated by this mapping of the Top Ten busiest air routes by Visual Statistix. The article is from Amadeus which noted that 300 of the world’s routes carry 20pc of the world’s passengers. They also state that each of these 300 “super routes” has one million plus passengers per year. It seems seven of the top ten routes are in Asia, one in Australia, one in Africa and one in the Americas. Considering 60 per cent of the world’s population live in Asia, this makes sense. The high use of trains in Europe probably…
Hyperlooping Sci Fi or Real?
;Imagine sitting in a sealed pressurised car shaped capsule with 27 other passengers travelling at 1100+km/h (660mph) in a near vacuum through a tube in an electromagnetically suspensed vehicle. The tube would be built on pylons above or next to the current California Interstate 5 highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco reducing the 380-mile (610km) journey between the two cities to “about half an hour”. One major advantage of this system is that riders could go directly from city centre to city centre. The proposed Hyperloop is a “cross between a Concorde, a railgun…
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