Inside YVR.
For some this might not seem like a prize for a contest, but for many who love the airline business, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is holding a contest, where the winner will live in YVR for 80 days.
Do not worry, you won’t have to sleep there – a nice free room awaits you in a hotel, but during the day time hours, you are on. There will be no “average day” during your 80-day stint. “Each day, he/she will be shooting a story, editing it and posting it to the Live@YVR site,” Rebecca Catley, Director of Communications for the airport explained via email. “They will be meeting people, researching stories, socializing with YVR employees, and checking out all the airport has to offer. They will be using Twitter and Facebook, writing a daily blog, and some days, turning the camera on themselves as part of their video diary. There will be lots they will want and need to do and lots for them to explore.”
The idea is to show how YVR is a city with-in a city. Many passengers just see the airport as one unwelcome step to the travel experience, but they can be part of the experience. There are over 23,000 employees and 400 businesses at the YVR to explore, which is similar to many other airports.
Now, the biggest restriction for the contest is you must be a British Columbia resident, but you do not need to be a Canadian citizen. Probably one of the strictist requirements, according to their site, is you must be “generally awesome,” a very important quality. If you meet the requirements and have a great idea, post your video to their contest page and good luck!
Image: roaming-the-planet
Cayman Airways Boeing 737-300 (VP-CAY)
Cayman Airways was founded in 1968 and has its headquarters in George Town on the Cayman Islands. The airline’s mascot is a turtle with ascot called Sir Turtle. You can find sir Turtle on the front of the aircraft’s livery.
The airline operates non-stop service between Grand Cayman and Miami, Tampa, Washington DC, New York, and Chicago using four Boeing 737-300s. Cayman Airways also uses two Twin Otters for local regional services.
Thanks to Dave Brown for the suggestion!
Image: Anne S14
Delta Air Lines Boeing 767-300ER.
There is no question that Delta Air Lines made a lot of money off bag fees last year — $952 million to be exact. While many other airlines made a load of money with bag fees as well, Delta gets the majority of the attention since they made the most. Some attention has been in late night routines (okay, Conan’s bit is hilarious, if not fully accurate) and others have been negative news articles. It seems odd that so many companies are getting pats on the back for making profit out of the bad economy, but airlines end up being punished, like they are somehow earning their money illegally.
Dan Webb, on his blog Things in the Sky, shows that although Delta made more in bag fees than other airlines, that doesn’t mean it is a large percentage of their revenue. His post has a very handy chart that shows that Delta’s bag fees are only 3% of their overall operating revenue. When looking at all major US airlines, Delta is actually 9th in the percentage of bag fees to total operational revenue with ultra low cost carriers Spirit and Allegiant at the top the list with 10.5% and 8.7% respectfully.
There are a lot stories out there hating on the bag fees, but one of my favorites is from Boston’s NCEN.com titled Fuming over Bag Fees. It is a classic story talking to passengers who are up in arms for the airlines not being “honest” with them and hiding these bag fees. Even for people that do not travel often, it is pretty difficult not to know about bag fees. For those that do not, every airline I have ever flown makes it quite clear when booking your ticket, if there will be additional fees for luggage so one can plan accordingly. Passengers in NCEN’s story act like airlines are literally opening their wallets and stealing their money. The author, Peter Howe, states that airlines are “addicted” to fees like they are some nasty habit that should be kicked. Since when does a business not like a new idea that makes them money and allows them to survive? Without bag fees, you can be certain that not as many airlines would be able to survive, there would be less competition and airfares would be higher overall.
Airlines are not charities — they are businesses looking to make profit. Airlines had this idea to charge passengers for bag fees, obviously many passengers pay this fee and airlines are able to make a profit. Why would an airline get rid of these fees? Customers have the ability to vote on these fees with their pocket book. Southwest Airlines and JetBlue both don’t charge you for checking a bag (on Southwest, you can check two for free), but of course, they are not always the cheapest option, even when checking a bag.
All that being said, yes I know that they are annoying when you are checking in and you have to drop another $50.00 for two bags. I do whatever I can to avoid paying bag fees myself and cringe when I end up having to pay them.I wish airlines would do a better job explaining why they are charging the fees. It seems like most airlines are like “we are charging them, take it or leave it approach.” I do not think most customers realize that weight costs money and instead of selling it as, “if you have a checked bag, you will owe more,” sell it as, “if you do not have a checked bag, we now let you save money.”
I believe that ala cart pricing will be the future of airlines. Many other businesses operate this way and why should I have to pay for something that I don’t want to use. When I book a hotel room, I might cringe when I have to pay $25 for parking and $20 for Wi-Fi and $5 for a bottle of water, but it is understandable. Why should parking be built into my hotel price if I do not have a car?
Image: Thomas Becker
United Airways Airbus A310 with a clear "United" on the left side.
What’s in a name — a lot. Imagine you started an airline in 1926; one of the first in the world. You were uniting other airlines under one umbrella and came up with the name “United Air Lines.” Time marches on, but the name stays (mostly) the same. Other airlines are bought out, mergers happen and United Airlines becomes the world’s largest airline with 48,000 employees and operating about 3,300 flights per day. Now that is a big monster of an airline.
In 2005, while United Airlines was still a large airline, another airline was started in Bangladesh. When starting a new airline, there are a lot of choices when coming up with a name. Many people like to add the word “Air” to the location that the airline is based and call it a day. Unfortunately Air Bangladesh was an airline just going out of business at the time, so now what? United Airways!
For some reason this new airline decided to go with a name that sounds mighty familiar: United Airways. Just try to Google the airline’s website — even with quotes around United Airways gets me nothing. All that comes up is United Airlines. To finally find the website you have to search “United Airways Bangladesh” to get to their site.
According to Flight Global, United Airlines claimed that United Airways had violated their trademark and on June 24th a UK court ruled in favor of United Airlines. The court has demanded that United Airways change their brand and re-paint their aircraft with-in 35 days.
The livery and colors of United Airways are different enough from United Airlines, but just writing this post shows a major problem. Most of the time “United Airlines” is written as just “United” and people know what airline you are referring to. On the United Airway’s livery they have “United” printed on the left side of each aircraft, really causing some issues.
This could be a good opportunity for United Airways to change their brand before they get bigger. They have grown to a fleet of seven aircraft (two MD-83s, two ATR-72s, two Dash8s and one Airbus A310) and fly to international destinations in the Middle East and Europe.
This is not to say that United Airways isn’t a successful airline — probably their success is part of the problem. Around the world airlines come and go, but since it seems like this airline might survive, it is probably time for them to come up with a unique name.
Is this a story of big ‘ol bad United Airlines going after a smaller unknown airline? I do not think so. United Airlines spends a lot of money on their brand and it makes sense to defend it. Sometimes airlines can go a bit too far defending their name (I am talking to you ex-Northwest Airlines/Delta), but this case seems worth while.
Currently, United Airlines is not talking about the situation and an email to United Airways has yet to be answered.
Photo by Josh May via Airliners.net
used with permission
The massive Technik hangar makes the large Airbus A380 look small.
How do you make the Airbus A380, the world’s largest airliner, look small? Put it into the Lufthansa Technik Hangar in Frankfurt Germany that’s how. While in Frankfurt for a 24 hour spiel to celebrate Lufthansa’s first Airbus A380 flight from Frankfurt to Miami, I had a chance to go check out where maintenance is done on the A380.
The Airbus A380 actually sits relatively low, but has lots of wheels.
At the time, I have seen the A380 at a distance and even got to tour the inside. But this was my first opportunity to walk around the aircraft on the outside. It is surreal how tall it is standing next to it, but how at the same time it is so close to the ground. I am 6’1″ tall and my head was touching the bottom of the aircraft when taking the photo above. Closer towards the main landing gear, there is even less head room. From ground to tail, the A380 is about eight stories tall and just the fuselage is about three.
This A380 (D-AIMG) was just having minor work done and I saw her back at Frankfurt Airport the next day ready to fly.
Lufthansa Technik Group is compiled of 30 companies world-wide that help keep Lufthansa and many other aircraft operational. Lufthansa Technik has the ability to perform checks at 60 airports around the world and they are organized into six different operational groups which serve about 750 customers worldwide: Maintenance, Overhaul, Component Services, Engine Services, VIP Services and Landing Gear Services.
- Three “out holes” for the A380. The larger ones vent out air, the center will vent liquid.
Before Lufthansa took delivery of their first Airbus A380, two large facilities were built for Lufthansa Technik to handle the new aircraft. One was in Frankfurt and the other is located in Beijing. The facility in Frankfurt was completed in December of 2007 and measures about 590 x 460 feet. The hangar is large enough to hold two Airbus A380s and one Dreamlifter as was proven not too long ago.
Can you tell where the fuel tanks are located in the wing of the A380?
Obviously the Airbus A380 can hold a lot of fuel — about 85,000 gallons worth. Unlike most other aircraft, no fuel is stored in the fuselage and it is all stored in the wings. During the tour I was wondering how I had dripping water on my head and realized that I was being rained on via the condensation from the fuel tanks in the wings.
How would you like to climb around the A380 tail? I wanted to, but they said something about liability.
Buying the aircraft and building the hangar is just part of the process. Lufthansa Technik also had to get the tools, parts and people to make it complete. The facility has more than 70,000 parts in their inventory ranging from screws to engines. Outside the hangar there is a jet testing area, which was in use during our visit (but could not take photos since it was a non-Lufthansa aircraft).
This is where the pilots can get a little shut eye during flight.
During the tour of the facility we were able to get on board D-AIMG to take a look around. Since I was about to take a 10 hour flight in an A380 in a few hours, I decided to hang out more in the front of the aircraft by the cockpit. Lufthansa’s A380 are designed so there is an external door that leads to a crew sleeping area and lavatory for the flight crew. The crew rest area was actually the largest I have seen in an aircraft and didn’t feel as claustrophobic as others.
Where all the action happens. Hard to believe this large aircraft is controlled by a little joystick.
Some folks think first class is the best seat in the house. Although they are nice, they cannot compare to the seats in the cockpit. The cockpit is very roomy and it is hard to get a feeling of the true size of the aircraft. The flight deck is located in the middle of the aircraft, which doesn’t give it the sense of height that the cockpit in the Boeing 747-400 has.
CHECK OUT ALL 19 PHOTOS FROM THE LUFTHANSA TECHNIK TOUR
