- Finnair With Santa on the Side
Hope those of you stuck in an airport over the holidays the best of luck with getting to your loved ones or back home soon! And of course a Happy Holidays to everyone else not stuck at an airport :).
NY Stock Exchange
I have avoided making blogs about the poor economy and how poorly the airlines have been doing since I didn’t want to repeat myself. But there is some good economic news for the airlines (well some airlines) and why not have some positive things to share during this time of year?!
AIRLINE STOCKS ARE GOING UP!
The AP is reporting that with oil prices going down, airline stocks keep going up. Even Southwest whose fuel hedging has been hurting them a bit, is doing some airplane selling and re-leasing magic and their stocks went up as well!
Souce: AP via Forbes Image:Helico
Plane being de-iced
Alaska Airlines is having a great (sarcasm) season so far. First there were a bunch of cancelled flights (that is understandable since well, they are HQ in Seattle, WA which has been hit by a crazy snow storm). Now they de-iced a bunch of people inside the plane.
Alaska Airlines flight 528, on its way to Burbank this morning was getting de-iced when people were realizing it was getting into the cabin. Six crew members were taken to the hospital, but all 26 passengers were given the thumbs up at the airport.
A commenter on the story on KOMO (rwgav8) stated, “The ramp agent more than likely shot the de-icer into one of the engines or the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) inlet.”
Not a great way to start Christmas for sure!
Continental Flight 1404
A Continental Boeing 737-500 slid off the runway at Denver International Airport this morning. No one was killed, but 38 of the 107 passengers and 5 crew were taken to the emergency room. Looking at the picture of the plane, it is lucky that the number is not higher.
Flight 1404 on its way to Houston had the gear and engine ripped off. The fuselage filled with smoke as the plane started to burn. It is currently believed to be a braking problem that caused this accident to occur.
A very shaky start to the holiday travel season. Hope everyone stays safe and we won’t have any more of these stories!
Source: WSJ Image: AP
Jatropha
Boeing is working to allow their jets to run off a bio fuel made from algae. Of course we all like the idea of fuel that isn’t as bad for the environment, but one of the benefits of this type of fuel is that jatropha (the image above and where the fuel is made from) is a nonfood plant (at least for us humans).
E85 Ethanol fuel has seen the ramifications of using a food plant where the prices rise dramatically as the price of corn rose.
Currently Continental Airlines is working on flying one engine of a 737-800 on a fuel mixture.
This looks promising. Goldman Sachs recently stated that, “Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production.”
Source: KOMO Image: TheLandScaper