Sorry I haven’t had a chance to do this this past two weeks – life at Kevin Towers has been close to a living hell. Those who know the words “Exchange Server Migration” will know where I’m coming from. As last weeks news is more or less irrelevant like any news (ask the The Daily Mail after this weeks furoiri over the death of Steven Gately commentary piece by one of their so-called columnists), this is from last Saturday to today.
Lufthansa IFE – adds a C with the return of LONG HAUL KU BAND INTERNET SERVICES
This is a BIG thing as companies develop ways of getting out their holes. LH is once again going to have a go at delivering In-Flight Internet Services. Originally delivered as Boeing Connexition, LH has signed a Deal with Panasonic eXConnect – for rollout in late 2010 on LH only – BMI, Austrian or Swiss need not apply – yet.
Delivered over the KU band this is satellite to aircraft mobile connectivity. Along with Row 44 (who are equiping Southwest’s 737 ENTIRE fleet) and Aircell, the battle of Internet Connectivity is starting to warm up…
Flight, Runway Girl, Cranky Flyer
Boeing 748-8F – Growing Pains.
It seems Boeing is just not having ANY Luck with airframes with the first flight of the first 747-8F being pushed back from first flight on Dec 9th and delivery next year to Q3 2010. Delays have been placed firmly at the door of the minor engineering errors that have been missed thanks to the resource pulling to get the 787 out of the hanger.
Expect more delays here – I’m seeing nothing from Boeing to indicate this frame will be out of the barn on schedule.
Flight
Cathay Pacific – 2% traffic drop in September
Its still bad if you’re a premium carrier as CX is proving. With a few “local” events, there is a small traffic upswing, but it is extremely tough going out there
Flight
Avianca-TACA tie up to go toe-to-toe with COPA.
It seems COPA Airlines will have a challenge shortly with the tie up of Avianca and Groupo TACA pooling their resources and joining forces. COPA says their network will be strong enough to resist.
I’m not sure – with COPA’s exit from Skyteam on the 25th October, they’ll be partnerless for a fair bit before entry to the Star Alliance is considered…
Avanica-TACA don’t want a flight it seems, as they wish to grow resources instead of going toe-to-toe with LAN or COPA. We’ll see on that front.
Flight
Blended winglets save cash – Air New Zealand.
Apart from getting neekid and doing the bodypaint thing, Air New Zealand appear to run airline services too, with good cash and fuel savings on the 767 fleet which have blended winglets.
Improved deployment has meant 19% fuel savings – or 7 Dillon liters of fuel a year. That’s a lot of go-go juice – before you get the green crowd happy.
That and those blended winglets do look very cute on a plane. More on Winglets in a GhettoIFE.com article when I get round to finishing it.
Flight
Air India switches entirely to Boeing 777’s from it’s motley collection of aircraft. Also gets bailed out at the same time
All westbound flights from India have been switched to 777’s – as well as Toyko. As well as that, Air India has been bailed out by it’s home government to the tune of US$1.1 Billion which is to be delivered in wages.
Alas, there are wage cut concerns as well with this change with a previous strike the week before. Expect further fireworks shortly…
Flight, BBC News
US Airways gets shot of its E-190’s to… Oh guess who.
The fleapit of the Star Alliance has thrown in the towel with it’s E-190 operations – and has flogged them to.. Republic (who incidednly helped US Purchase them in the first place). Initally the first four will go to Midwest Airlines.
Of course, this means more cuts and job losses at US…
Flight
Odious Little Man is at it again
See http://www.ghettoife.com/2009/10/once-again-bbc-and-odius-little-man.html
GhettoIFE.com, BBC News, TravelMole
Unions tell BA – Hold off on cuts
Unite has stomped its foot up and down telling BA to try and stave off the cuts that are needed. Further talks are upcoming on the 21/10. However, if they don’t go well, strike action is on the horizon..
BBC News
Mesa consider more CRJ-200’s to GO! to the Hawaiian Islands.
After driving Aloha out of the market, Mesa is considering deploying a 6th CRJ-200 over to the islands, with Shuttle America E-170’s moving out, and CRJ-200’s moving in to meet size and requirments.
What a downgrade. More on the flying coffin that is the CRJ-200 in a few weeks.
717’s head south of the border to Mexicana.
Mexicana is accelerating the collection of it’s 717 fleet with the displacing of the Midwest 717s, with 10 currently in service, and the full collection in-sitiu before the end of 2010with delays down to pilot training if anything.
The 717 as readers know is basicly a warmed over MD-90 with new avionics – which although is a very good beast isn’t compatible with the previous MD series or Boeings own 737 series.
It’s good to see these birds still flying.
Air France considers PE Cabin on A380s and decides to copy other carriers.
With the rapid introduction of Premium Voyageur shortly on 777’s, they would like to deploy them on their new A380’s… if they can actually consider the retrofit to the aircraft.
In better news, A380 traffic between Paris CDG – New York JFK is due to kick off on 23rd November.
That’s your lot for this week. Next weeks news update will be delayed as I’m back in Chicago. Hopefully there should be *something* up…
