By Grant,on July 26th,2011% As usual,it seems that there’s never enough time to get everything done before commencing a long journey but,despite an ever increasing “to do”list,we managed to arrive at the airport with just enough time to grab a quick photo at the gate with a phone before boarding. The flight itself went about as well as any other 14 hour slog across the Pacific,passing the time with movies,magazines and chatting. Attempts at sleep were unsuccessful even though we’d not had a lot of sleep lately as our bodies were sure it was still only mid-afternoon. The cabin crew were friendly,service was efficient and everything else about the flight went well except for not being able to sleep through it. Arrival at LAX provided plenty of views of aircraft from around the world and the chance to experience the “park &tow”arrival at our gate. Surprisingly our transition through customs &immigration was much less of an ordeal than some recent stories we’d heard,taking only an hour to get from the aircraft and out into the Los Angeles summer air. A quick walk through the heat soon returned us to the cooler air of a domestic airline terminal where we checked in almost painlessly via computerised kiosk and a bag drop counter. Passing through the TSA screening point was surprisingly easy and about on par with going through the scanners at Melbourne’s domestic terminals. The staff were courteous and aside from Grant’s belt buckle triggering a metal detector for the first time ever,it all went smoothly and we were soon walking through the concourse looking for a place to set up a base while we waited for our flight. Being limited to Starbucks,Burger King or a standard US eatery,we went with . . . → Read More:Oshkosh 2011 – Day 1 –Getting there isn’t always the best part By Grant,on September 10th,2010% John Borghetti at Virgin Blue is getting some bad news lately with both the Department of Transport and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission raising objections to proposed alliances. The DoT have said they don’t like the look of the alliance with Delta (aka Delta-V) while the ACCC have said the same about the proposed alliance with Air New Zealand. The ACCC have also said they’re going to expedite their review of the recently announced alliance with Etihad so hopefully that one doesn’t get blocked too. While I wouldn’t necessarily say that these alliance plans are in tatters,they are certainly taking some body blows and aren’t looking too healthy. Unless Virgin Blue,Delta &Air New Zealand can put up some good responses to the various objections,the proposed linkages aren’t going to happen for a while. So the big question from this is what will Borghetti do if the Delta &Air New Zealand alliances are blocked? He’s already shown he is not adverse to culling failing operations or routes as he has removed Pacific Blue’s domestic operations in New Zealand and pulled the V Australia 777s out of Johannesburg,Fiji &Phuket. If he can’t get cosy with Delta across the Pacific,will he ramp up V Australia’s presence in the market or pull out entirely and settle for a code-share with Delta,channeling Virgin Blue’s domestic passengers onto Delta and taking their passengers around Australia. If he leaves the Pacific to a linkage with Delta,will he redirect the 777s to routes into Abu Dhabi to supplement flights from Etihad? Could he decide to drop the long haul 777s all together to focus on the Australian domestic market and short international flights to the Pacific and South East Asia with 737s and A330s? It’s always an . . . → Read More:Shakey Alliances for Virgin Blue By Steve,on June 28th,2010% By now most of you have seen the dramatic footage of Matt Hall’s incident in Windsor,Canada. A high G turn that went wrong saw him plunge downward,recover to wings level and do a little surfing on the river before climbing out to safety –all in a matter of seconds. Although I’m not an expert on high performance aircraft such as the MXS-R,I’m fairly certain that it’s not an amphib,and to say Matt was lucky to survive with little more than battered pride and some cosmetic damage is clearly an understatement. The quick recovery to flight is testament to his high skills and military training. The ability to instantly assess the situation and instinctively take the required corrective action is something that I believe certain pilots are born with. The military training just perfects that ability. There have been many articles written about the incident itself,so I need not re-hash it any further here,but the aspect of this story that fascinates me is the way in which Matt has handled the events that have followed since that day in Windsor. . . . → Read More:Matt Hall teaches us all how to “take our lumps” By Grant,on June 22nd,2010% Recent reports state that Lockheed Martin are willing to put a fixed price limit on the F35. Indications are that it will be about US$60 million or so BUT we need to note the caveats: This is for Low Rate Initial Production 4 (LRIP 4) aircraft,not an aircraft that matches the final production specification It’s based on the assumption that a very large number of aircraft will be produced (more than anyone’s currently talking about ordering) The US$60 million is for the Conventional Take Off &Landing (CTOL) version of the F35,as opposed to the carrier based version or the Short Take Off,Vertical Landing (STOVL) version that’s to replace the Harrier. This isn’t such a big deal for Australia though as we’re going for the CTOL F35A and officially not looking at the other variants. The mainstream media are reporting on LM’s fixed price offer and some are even pointing out a few of the caveats listed above (especially the more aviation focused groups). The big issue I’ve not seen being discussed though relates to capability. Some are touching on it,but we need to have this asked in the headlines of the mainstream media and have real answers provided: . . . → Read More:F35 for $60 million each (batteries not included:) By Grant,on June 20th,2010% I’ve spoken before about the on-going Jetstarisation of Qantas and despite Alan Joyce’s previous comments to the effect that there would be no further “jetstarisation,”recent developments certainly seem to indicate that this is not the case. We’ve previously joked about Jetstar taking over at Qantas and have occasionally used the phrase: Qantas,a member of the Jetstar group While this is a joke comment and I very much doubt we’ll ever see the reality officially recognised like this,recent actions and statements from the Qantas group have led me to coin the phrase: If it’s new,it’s JQ! . . . → Read More:If it’s New,it’s JQ! By Grant,on June 3rd,2010% It wasn’t that long ago that Virgin Blue could do no wrong in the eyes of the mainstream media while Qantas was being hounded over any little maintenance issue and its rapidly falling loads. How times change. In the past few weeks we’ve had reports from Virgin Blue that they’re “only”going to make $20 to $40 million this financial year instead of the $80 million they’d been saying only a few weeks earlier. The reduction was blamed on reduced consumer sentiment,a fall in leisure travel and an expectation that domestic airfares would drop by 10%. Given the fragile nature of the Australian psyche at the moment and the notice arriving after a week of sell-offs in the stock market,naturally the share price took a beating and dropped over 25%. . . . → Read More:How fast the tables turn By Grant,on May 7th,2010% As if Sydney Airport (YSSY) being voted Australia’s worst airport for the 4th time in a row wasn’t enough of a wake up call for Macquarie Airports and the airport’s management &board,the government is bringing forward their oversite review of YSSY from 2012 to now (admittedly with a pending election,but anyhow…). The ACCC is also going to investigate whether airports are abusing their monopoly positions (if you’ve parked your car at YSSY or YMML,then you probably have a good idea that the answer will be yes). Unfortunately,Macquaire Airports don’t seem to be listening though and continue to try to milk every last drop they can from YSSY. If it’s not sky high parking or the most expensive “per passenger”fees levied on the airlines,they’re now increasing their aircraft parking rates to the point where it could cost as much to park a SAAB 340 as it costs to park an A380. . . . → Read More:Macquarie Airports have lost it Entirely By Grant,on February 22nd,2010% According to Alan Joyce from QANTAS,the “Jetstarisation of QANTAS”is supposed to be over. Well,I have a problem with that as I continue to see evidence that,if anything,the “Jetstarisation”is increasing. I would not be surprised to find JQ branded high density A380s flying to the USA and/or Europe while QF dwindles to only a very few select routes. Thanks to an opportunity presented by Shashank Nigam,I’ve been able to voice my concerns on his very well read Simpliflying site. This is not only getting my thoughts before a large audience,it’s also helping to promote the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast,which can only be a good thing. By Grant,on October 8th,2008% I’ve been posting some comments on a couple of stories from Dan Webb’s ‘Things in the Sky’blog. He’s noted that the transport statistics for August 2008 show the on-time arrivals improved and mishandled baggage rates reduced and that he’s looking forward to September’s figures as there should be further impact from the capacity cuts recently introduced by the airlines. I think the improvements we’re seeing now are related to a reduction in passenger numbers (the figures didn’t show pax volumes but Dan found them somewhere else in his second post). We should see even more improvement due to the capacity cuts. To me,the US airport system is like juggling balls. You’re doing fine with 4 balls but when you add a 5th,you start to drop one every now and again –nothing major,just the odd “ooops”moment. The problem is when you wind up juggling 8 or more balls:it’s overload and you’re dropping lots,if not all of them. . . . → Read More:Reducing the load helps smooth out the system | |
