Economy Class & Beyond

Farnborough Day 2

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Well Day 2 of Farnborough is coming to close, so lets look at what's hot in the world of Civil AviationFlybe goes for 35 E-175's and options for more, but calls on industry for new designs.Heading up the megafleet expansions, Flybe is in the mood to order new planes for an expansion.UK regional carrier Flybe is to order up to 140 Embraer E-Jet's of which 35 will initially be 35 … [Read more...]

Diamond Club shows more of it’s friendship of Mother Lufthansa – Earning Loyalty Bonuses up!

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In another sign of the oncoming storm, BMI is bumping up its loyalty bonuses upwards for segments flown with Lufthansa. Whilst the current Gold Loyalty bonus is 35% for BMI flights and 25% for everyone else, this is now extended to Lufthansa as well. Why other Lufthansa Group airlines have not been extended this privilege, who knows. But if you find a Lufthansa Regional or … [Read more...]

Farnborough 2010 – Day 1 – The orders start flowing…

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It's day 1 of Farnborough 2010 air show, and the orders are off and running. So lets get down with the civil aviation big news...GE goes on a spending spree and buys 100 Aircraft(And I thought the Emirates story would be top today - I was wrong by a long shot). GE Commercial Aviation Services has been shopping today, signing up for for 60 Airbus A320s and 40 Boeing 737-800s. … [Read more...]

Going inside the 787

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Jon Ostrower reports inside the Boeing 787 and what we can expect from it, both in terms of crew and passenger experience.Looking nice - it'll be interesting to see the completed units once they start going into real revenue earning flights, and how the seating is configured. Much more coverage from Farnborough this week later, with an end of day round up at 19:00 each day from … [Read more...]

Airplane p0rn – JetBlue A320

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Another Saturday rolls past, therefore it must be time for some Airplane p0rn.Today, it's a JetBlue Airbus A320 at Washington Dulles International More Airplane p0rn of course - next week! … [Read more...]

Unite is picks another fight – this time with BAA.

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What's the term? It never rains, it pours. Unite is getting busy, with them to ballot workers on the most recently pay offer from BAA. With the usual lines of "Derisory and paltry pay rises".Unite is to ballot more than 6,000 members about possible strike action at BAA's six UK airports in a dispute over pay due to to a 1% pay rise, with a possible 0.5% more (which more than … [Read more...]

Dealing with Call Centres – Phonetics 101

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At some time or another we have to deal with a call centre - either to secure a reservation, set a seat... or sometime to spell our names. Therefore, it's good to use a common alphabet when dealing with them - and the "gold standard" is the ICAO Spelling Alphabet.Letters become words which are pronounceable by all, and understandable by all - which makes the ICAO Spelling … [Read more...]

LH: The year of crazy deployments continues: LH to run 747’s DOMESTICLY.

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It seems the year of crazy aircraft deployments is continuing apace, this time with Lufthansa putting some of it's spare 747 capacity to use, by putting on some domestic services with 747's.The deployment takes place over a three week period, with flight from Frankfurt to Hamburg, Berlin and Munich.Why? Who knows. It could be training runs or it could be an adversing wheeze. … [Read more...]

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