I admit that I don’t think much about my seats when I fly and instead I’d be more interested in where I’m seated (aisle or window). But apparently a lot of time and resources are poured into designing the seats. Take a peek inside the highly-secretive, East London studio where airline seats are dreamed up.
It is official. I declare that Air New Zealand is the most fun airline on this planet. You ask why? Check this video below and you will agree with me wholeheartedly. Always known for pushing the envelope, Air New Zealand packaged an important safety message into a well-made hobbit themed video that is not only fun to watch but also compelling enough to get you to pay attention. For this brand new Hobbit inspired Safety Video, Air NZ partnered with WETA Workshop and it features cameo appearances including Sir Peter Jackson. What’s better? Visit http://www.airnzcode.com/hobbitmovie to Find and Unlock the Elvish Code for your chance to win one of six double passes to the World Premiere Screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in New Zealand on the 28th of November 2012
I’ve not had a chance to fly #airnzhobbit but one of these days I’ll definitely do so to experience the fun. Oh, why can’t the other airlines take a leaf (or two) from #airnz and do such creative infusion into their drab and stale “professional looking” safety briefings. “If you need little more inflation, blow into your mouth piece..” LOL.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlRbrB_Gnc&hd=1′]
Must be one heck of a scary experience for the flyers when the copilot came on the mic and the announcement.
The captain of a Qatar Airways plane has died while flying the aircraft from the Philippines to the Qatari capital, Doha.
The assistant pilot took control of the plane and the flight was then diverted to Kuala Lumpur where it landed at around 11.30am local time, Qatar Airways said on Wednesday.
(Source: ABC)
Why doesn’t these things NEVER happen in my flights? Hmmm.. I am happy for these folks who had a bit of entertainment to cheer up during their long flight and a story to tell when they land. After battling the hassles of baggage check-ins and security checks, these folks probably appreciated this nice musical treat..
Note: Silly me can’t help but think aloud about these questions: what would the reaction be if these guys were a bunch of middle-eastern musicians wearing traditional robes – how would the airline staff react to such a spontaneous request to play music? Thank god, KLM staff were not so uptight about letting some musicians to get off their seats and play their gear..
(Source: Wall Street Journal)
It Can Cost More to Fly to Hartford Than Barcelona. What Airlines Consider in Setting Prices. I have always wondered about this issue. And am glad that someone is trying to answer this.
Image Courtesy: WSJ.com
Airline ticket prices often seem like a brain-teaser with little logic. From Chicago, a flight to Miami is more than twice as far as a flight to Memphis, but the shorter Memphis flight costs 25% more on average. Fly to Washington, D.C., from Hartford, Conn., and the average fare is nearly three times as high as if you flew to nearby Baltimore from Hartford, according to government data for the first quarter of this year.
The fares travelers pay typically have little relation to how far you fly, even though airline costs are largely dependent on the length of a flight. Long trips often cost less than short trips. Flights of the same time and distance can have radically different prices.
The price you pay for a ticket is driven by a number of variables: competition, types of passengers, the route and operating costs. But the biggest factor, by far, is whether discount airlines fly in a market. Low-cost carriers often set the price in markets because competitors feel compelled to match that price or risk losing customers and flying empty seats. And when they aren’t there, big airlines behave radically differently when setting prices.
Remember those crazy storms that dumped loads of snow on the cities and towns along the Eastern seaboard and many mid-Western states across the US during February 2010? Apart from the impact on the surface transportation modes, these storms wreaked havoc on the aviation sector, terribly disrupting the performance of the whole sector.
The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) has released a special report that explores how several February 2010 snowstorms in the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast disrupted air travel at airports across the United States. Quite an interesting read and for your reading pleasure it is provided below.
For those interested, you can click here to download the report.
According to an article on Daily Telegraph , the quirky CEO – Michael O’Leary was quoted saying that charging customers £1 to make use of facilities on board the planes would encourage travelers on one hour flights to use lavatories at the airport instead of on the aircraft.
The Irishman said he intended to introduce coin-operated loos and added: “The other change we’ve been looking at is taking out the last 10 rows of seats so we will have 15 rows of seats and the equivalent of 10 rows of standing area.”
A Ryanair spokesman said that Boeing had been consulted over refitting the fleet with “vertical seats” which would allow passengers to be strapped in while standing up, which would cost between £4 and £8 per person.
USA Today points to Megan Lane of the BBC, who describes Ryanair’s O’Leary as being “fond of speculating publicly about outlandish money-saving schemes.” And she’s quick to point out this is “not the first time the airline has floated the standing seats idea, or indeed come up with headline grabbing schemes which fail to materialise.” She cites Ryanair’s proposed “fat tax” for obese passengers and the carrier’s still-to-materialize pay-toilet plan as examples.
The USA Today article also got this – A spokesman with the Cologne-based European Aviation Safety Agency tells the London Daily Mailthat “what they [Ryanair] are proposing would be unprecedented and highly unlikely to be certified in the near future. Stand-up seating would require changes to European rules for the certification of aircraft.
Transportgooru Musings: As you can see below, this announcement has generated quite bit of a publicity buzz around the world and worked like a charm for O’Leary, as always! But please – do not charge for toilets. It is one last thing we flyers don’t need to worry about paying for when planning our trip budgets. How would I be even include this as part of my expense report when I return from a Business trip to UK?
(Source: Telegraph, UK)
The last Concorde plane kept by British Airways may be sold to Dubai as a tourist attraction, it has been reported.
