Economy Class & Beyond

Kip Hawley on why Mascara and Lipstick are treated differenty

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As some may know, I'm not a fan of Kip Hawley when he ran the TSA. Actually. Scrub that. I wasn't a fan of Kip Hawleys TSA full of stop (something about wrecking my luggage, damaging equipment inside the luggage and not ringing me back after 2 kindly worded emails) So I found this gem today on Youtube. So if it's solid - it won't destroy an aircraft, yet if its … [Read more...]

Analysis: The Boeing 747-8 Series – Win or Fail?

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Believe it or not, people are still interested in Quad Engined jets still. But why? A few reasons : No ETOPS requirement. ETOPS (Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards) of extending twin engine aircraft that at points during the journey are greater than a 60 minutes' flying time from an diversion point with one engine inoperative. There are different … [Read more...]

Another Day, Another O’Liar Rant. Someone change the channel please?

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So its making it's way around the nets about Ryanair reducing its flights in and out of Stansted (STN) by 40%, and actual flights by 30% - or in real numbers - 4 less B737-800's. 4. Big whoop. Of course. O'Liar doesn't want to highlight this. Instead, he chooses to bitch about BAA (form a queue - there's a lot of us who wish to moan about the Shopping mall with Airbridges … [Read more...]

Cricket – It CAN be intresting when it’s tied to Air fares…

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Leather ball on wood. Nothing like the sound of it. Actually, it bores the hell out of me (that it can be painful if you miss the ball, and it lands somewhere else, but that's another blog entirely.) However, BA and Qantas decided in the spirit of "The Ashes" (an age old Cricket Series between England and the Australians) to have a little fun with this to drive sales, … [Read more...]

Psst? Wanna buy an Airline?

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It seems that one of the great experiments is heading to fall flat on its face shortly, with the (majority) sale of BA's OpenSkies operation. Picture - BA Openskies is an airline set-up to take advantage of the "Open Skies" agreement between the USA and Europe (and originally to take on SilverJet and MaxJet), so BA set up this "side" airline with a different set-up to … [Read more...]

EK to bring one of their A380’s to BHX … WTF?

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It seems that the airline with lots of hype and variable substance has decided to show off its muscles again, and is deploying not a 2 class 777, not a 3 class 777, not one of their clapped out A330s... but an A380 to Birmingham International Airport (BHX) for a one day promotional trip. Image - Emirates WTF? Now apart from the ground logistics of handling one of … [Read more...]

BMI Miles – Spend £25, get 300 Destination miles….

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BMI is in the mood to throw some miles around again. By shopping through their on-line portal, if you spent £25, you'll get the miles from the shop, plus an extra 300 miles. Now at buy rate 1.5p a mile... that's £4.50's worth of miles. Considering a 1000 miles is about £12 + £15 transaction fee = £27, as you probably worked out - this isn't … [Read more...]

Caspian Airlines 7908 – Crash

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Another sad day, another crash. Today - Caspian Airlines flt 7908, left Tehran, heading to Yerecan. Alas, it failed to make it, and crashed 16 minutes after take off with 168 souls aboard. Currently the makeup of the passengers is mostly Armenian, but not 100% accounted for. The aircraft involved was a Tupolev, Tu-154M, built in 1987, and took off safely with no … [Read more...]