Delta Air Lines Airbus A330 with a KLM Boeing 747-400 in the background in Amsterdam.
This was my last leg of my RwandAir adventure. I had already flown from Seattle to Rwanda in a 737 and just completed a 10 hour flight from Kigali, Rwanda to Amsterdam on a KLM A330. I was already pretty tired and wasn’t sure how my mind, body and spirit would do on another ten hour ride in a different A330. On the positive side, I was looking forward to comparing two international Airbus A330s back-to-back. Overall, I have to say I like the Northwest Delta Air Lines A330 long haul premium economy a bit better than KLM’s.
When arriving into Amsterdam, I had a three hour layover and I was hoping to check out their observation deck. Before plane spotting, I needed to do some charging of my laptop and cell phone, since my last ten hour flight did not have in-seat power and neither would my next one. The classic hunt for an open outlet was on.
I started down the concourse looking from side to side. I kept going and going and’¦ well, going. Seriously? After 45 minutes looking up and down concourses D, E and F, I found an outlet about seven feet up for vending machines, one in the bathroom, one on a fire hose holder and one on a center pillar in a crowded walkway. I choose to deal with the crowds and sat down on the floor (looking like an idiot by the way) by the pillar, plugged in my phone and then’¦ nothing. Sweet, this outlet did not work. Now the debate was did I want to look like even more of an idiot standing in the bathroom charging my phone, climbing on a vending machine or using an outlet on a fire hose that might cause some alarm to go off. I figured my best bet was with the fire hose and luckily it worked. The bad part was it took so long to juice up, that I wasn’t able to check out the observation deck ’“ save it for next time I guess.
Delta Economy Comfort seat on an Airbus A330.
I figured I might as well head to the gate, where I received my first body scan. We had to wait in a small waiting area at the gate for our flight, which had little entertainment before being able to board. I was sitting in Delta Economy Comfort, which gave me four additional inches of seat pitch, 50% more recline, priority boarding and free alcohol. You also sit near the front of the plane, which means you are first to customs after arriving in Seattle. .
Even with the extra four inches, I was unable to fully stretch out my legs since there was a huge in-flight entertainment box under my seat, negating the extra leg room. You would think with a large electrical box like that under your seat, they would at least give you an outlet, but there was none. Reading on SeatGuru.com, it looks like only Business Class has outlets. Good thing I did some charging during my layover.
One nice surprise was seeing an air vent in the overhead bin. I absolutely love my air vents, since I am normally hot and that little breeze can make a huge difference. Sure, most domestic aircraft have air vents, but I am finding more and more long haul Boeing 747, 777, Airbus A330/A330 and the A380 are lacking them.
During both legs (KGL to AMS and AMS to SEA), I had window seats. When flying on the KLM A330, I noticed that there was quite a bit of room between the seat and the wall and was wishing the outer arm rest would raise, allowing me access to that extra room. It was too bad that the armrest would not rise on the KLM A330, but it did rise on Delta’s. This gave me an extra three inches or so of seat width and I was starting to get the feeling that this might be a good flight. Unfortunately we ran into some trouble pretty quickly.
Taking off from Amsterdam.
After boarding we were told there would be a delay. It turns out that the amount of fuel that the truck indicated being pumped into the aircraft, didn’t match the A330’s gauges. Delays can be annoying, but I am willing to wait to make sure we have enough fuel — I am old fashioned like that. It took about an hour to determine that the truck had the failure and after all the paperwork was completed, we took off.
When getting my free headphones given by Delta out of their plastic bag I accidently ripped one of the wires. Not a big deal, I figured I could just ring the call button and quickly get a new one. I decided to try something new; time how long it would take for a flight attendant to assist me after ringing the call button. I decided I would make eye contact with a flight attendant walking by, but I would not say anything like “excuse me,” to put them to the test.
I rang the call button and waited. And waited. And holy crap waited some more. At the 10 minute mark I turned off my call light and rang it again. During those ten minutes I had two different flight attendants walk by, but they did not stop’¦ they did not even make eye contact. At the 15 minute mark I turned off my call light and rang it again. Another flight attendant walked by, but still nothing. I could see that my call light was on and the “ding” noise was definitely making its sound.
At about 18 minutes a flight attendant came by for trash. I was waiting for her to ask me about my light, but she didn’t. I decided I really wanted to start watching a movie, so I asked her for another head phone set, which she got right away. I am not normally one who uses the call button and I have never timed it before, but I am pretty certain that 18 minutes and three flight attendants walking by is not okay. It takes a lot to get me annoyed or frustrated on a flight and this definitely did it.
OH YES! The armrest near the window moves, giving me more room.
When trying to relax, the recline of the Economy Comfort was great. However, when the person in front of me was enjoying their extra 50% recline, it was not so great ’“ actually pretty annoying. I am normally one that doesn’t recline my seat, since I do not want to disturb the person behind me, but I really had to recline a bit to open my laptop, even with the extra four inches.
During the flight, I was served two different meals. One was your standard airline pasta, but the second was pizza. Both of them were pretty decent and I thought it was pretty slick having pizza on the plane. I really didn’t get to enjoy all the amenities in the flight, since I slept through most of it. Having the ability to raise my outer armrest really gave me one of my best economy sleeps with someone sitting next to me. I landed in Seattle feeling a lot better than I thought I would after 24 hours of economy flight.
A FEW MORE PHOTOS
First off I want to say how cool it is that I can blog about the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental one day and then the Airbus A380 the next for the exact airline. Anyhow, tomorrow, Tuesday May 10th at 11am, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is hosting a “A380 Plane Spotting Party.” The shindig will start at 11am at Bayfront Park and should provide good views of Lufthansa’s Airbus A380 landing at SFO. For more information check out their website.
I am also heading down to SFO and am excited to get on an Airbus A380 for the first time. Should be able to get a full tour inside and out. Be sure to watch my Twitter (what’s Twitter?) for plenty of photo updates throughout the day tomorrow.
Make sure photographers don't steal planes!
When I saw this poster yesterday via Carlos Miller on Photography is Not a Crime, I thought it might have been fake. Making photographers look like bad people is a bad idea. It will cause more people to be fearful and waste the time of law enforcement officials. Yes, if you see someone by an airport doing something suspicious, report it. Taking photos of aircraft is not suspicious.
Every time I fly I am constantly taking photos. I used to use an HD camcorder, but decided to stop and use a standard digital camera. There have been multiple times I have received odd looks for taking photos using the camcorder and I even had a run-in with the TSA.
If you are a photographer and “get caught,” it might be a good time to inform them of your hobby. Drewski2112 shared on Airliners.net about his run-ins with the law plane spotting in Seattle. He once had five cars pull up on him at the same time. Instead of getting angry, he calmly explained what he was doing, shared his passion and by the time they left, some were asking for his website address to take a look at his photos. I only hope I could keep that calm and collective if I had five cop cars on me due to being a perceived security risk.
Unfortunatly this poster is not a fake, but it is very real. Knowing that many people were upset about the poster, the TSA confirmed on their blog yesterday. They tried to play it off that photographers are important for seeing suspicious activity, but I am not buying it. “In fact, many photographers would be prime candidates to use such vigilance programs to report suspicious activity since they’re extremely observant of their surroundings.” I am guessing this is more of an afterthought.
Photographers are not criminals and they should not be treated as such. If you do take airport-related photos, don’t let fear of law enforcement stop you, but be prepared. Have identification on you, know your local laws and try to talk to them with a smile and be proud of what you are doing. Oh and if you get some good airplane photos, email them on over to me and I would love to share them on the blog!
I love plane spotting at the airport. Got 2 Delta A330's, 1 Korean B777, 1 Hainan Airlines A330, Tail of Air France A340, 2 Southwest B737's and a US Airways A321
I am currently at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for another adventure (I love their free Wi-Fi). Last weekend I was able to fly on a personal trip, but today’s trip is for the blog. Virgin America has recently announced new flights from San Francisco to Toronto, Canada.
The airline is having a special shin-dig early tomorrow morning and I am flying to San Francisco today, then on to Toronto early tomorrow morning. The flight to Toronto will have other invited guests, media peeps, CEO of Virgin America, David Cush, and the man himself Sir Richard Branson. That’s right. I will be locked in an airplane with daredevil, highly successful Sir Richard Branson…how cool is that?
You can join in on the fun by following my blog, Facebook and Twitter. If you normally use Twitter, be sure to follow the #VXToronto tag.
I have a few emails to get through before my flight boards, so I am off!
Logos of different South African airlines. Image made by Kyle Hwang.
GUEST BLOG (By Kyle Hwang, intro by David): From time to time I will have guest bloggers talk about something they specialize in. Recently I was connected with Kyle who is an 18 year old student living in Pretoria, South Africa and attending University of Pretoria studying BSc Actuarial and Financial Mathematics.
He enjoys plane spotting, even though the closest major airport is OR Tambo, which is a 45 minute drive. When he has free time, he loves designing airline liveries and has quite the collection. Here are his thoughts on airlines in South Africa, in his own words:
So you might think that South Africa is a rainbow nation and not ready to host a World Cup. But either way, it has a rather rich and diverse aviation world. Here’s a quick look at the airlines
SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS (SAA):
South African Airways is the national flag carrier of South Africa. SAA is one of six airlines in the world to fly to all continents of the world. Clearly the dominant airline at OR Tambo International Airport, their fortress. SAA has a 4 star Skytrax rating and is also a member of Star Alliance.
Besides the multi coloured Ndizani livery that bought the national Olympic team to Atlanta in 1996, the airline has not had a single special livery except the Star Alliance planes. Oddly enough, SAA is also not the official airline of the FIFA World Cup.
SAA is however pretty infamous on their home turf. Rivals Kulula.com have made SAA pay several anti-competitive fines. SAA was also blamed for the shut down of Nationwide Airlines.
SAA CEO’s have also not had one of the best rides. Andre Viljoen is generally a nuisance in the public’s eye, receiving many letters to retire. Viljoen was however the pioneer of SAA’s Airbus fleet refurbishment program. Khaya Ngqula, Viljoen’s predecessor had to retire because of mismanagement (fraud in my opinion!). He has also been the one taking credit for Viljoen’s Airbus program which proved to be quite successful.
Current CEO Siza Mzimela seems to bring the airline some hope. Former CEO of South African Express (SAA’s strategic partner) may restore the airline to their former glory (SAA won the best Business class seat award in 2004 and 2nd best Business class in 2005).
SOUTH AFRICAN EXPRESS (SAX)
Having revamped their logo recently, SAX is having a much better independent-from-Mother-SAA feel. You can consider SAX as a Southwest/Frontier African equivalent. SAX offers their passengers meal boxes on their domestic flights but here comes the catch- your paying sky rocket fees for a LCC…
SOUTH AFRICAN AIRLINK
The Hummingbirds is what I call them. They literally crashed into a school ground last year and had 3 accidents in a time span of 4 months. With the possibility of the airline closing down, Airlink employees quickly wrote some comments on Facebook hoping that it would save their airline. As a result, more journalists pointed fingers to Airlink’s then rapidly shrinking reputation. Will The Hummingbirds ever be successful? If the day arrives when SAA brings SAX and Airlink back under their wing.
MANGO
You cannot miss Mango’s B737-800 from the ground. They are mango coloured! Mango is SAA’s response to the flood of low cost carriers (LCC) in South Africa. Mango took SAA’s cabin and put Mango logos all over it, like a real cheap LCC.
Also, their inflight magazine is called “Juice.”
1TIME.CO.ZA
If it wasn’t for their sponsor planes, you could also spot 1time from the ground. The are red, hot red! The first time I flew 1time (1time.aero back then) I flew the Nando’s plane. It was red and decorated with Nando’s chicken catch phrases. (“This plane flies at 30,000 feet and 60,000 chicken feet”). 1time’s planes now consists of the Avis, Pushkin Vodka (not for sale to persons under 18!), the Smiley Plane and Go Zanzibar. “More nice, less price,” is their slogan.
KULULA AIRLINES
Definitely one of the success stories of South African Aviation. Flying 101 has caught international attention and even on Airline Reporter. Kulula is actually a British Airways Comair initiative that has bought the spark back into the LCC industry. Kulula has also been voted best LCC to Africa.
Their liveries include Flying 101 of course, Jetsetter, Camoplane, Zippy plane, da udder plane, THIS WAY UP and 3 World cup celebrating planes sponsored by Europcar.
Kulula was asked by FIFA to remove the “Unofficial National carrier of the You-know-what” titles because for copyright infringements.
BRITISH AIRWAYS
What?! An European carrier in the midst of South African unknowns? Comair operates plenty of domestic flights for BA. The only catch is that your are bound to be flying some old 737 that makes a lot of noise.
So hopefully when you watch the soccer on TV you will remember that South Africa also has a pretty rich aviation industry!
