Southwest Blog-o-Spondent Contest - Dan Webb
By admin | August 16, 2008
Southwest is holding a contest to find the next “Nuts about Southwest Blog-o-Spondent.” The three finalists get to go to Las Vegas on September 20-21 for the BlogWorld Expo 2008 and compete for the finals. Sound cool? It is, but what’s even cooler is that we’ve got one of our close blogging friends, Dan Webb who’s in the lead! Show him some love by voting for his video at: http://southwest.spigit.com/Sector/ViewThread?threadid=231
Topics: Videos |
Images and Video of B-2 Guam Crash
By admin | August 6, 2008
On February 26th, a B-2 bomber crashed on takeoff from Guam. This July, the Air Force finally released video and photos of the accident, as well as an official cause. According to the Air Combat Command Accident Investigation Board, water became trapped in some of the sensors which detect airspeed, altitude, and attitude. The on-board computer used this erroneous data to command a higher nose angle than the airspeed could withstand, and the inevitable stall resulted.
Topics: B2, Videos, Pictures |
Detailed Qantas 747 Explosion Pictures
By admin | August 4, 2008
It certainly does appeart that this was an oxygen bottle by the placement. With the high pressure inside those bottles and the differential in pressure across the skin of the pressure vessel, it doesn’t take much to create a hole.
A close-up of the damage.
Closer view yet. The damage to the electrical wiring is apparent.
These look like some sort of oxygen system blow-out valves, but I’m not certain. Anyone with more information on this?
The explosion also did damage to the passenger door above the bottle. Don’t see the damage?
How about now? Take a look at that last picture and you’ll see where the reinforced skin around the door was compromised.
A view inside the cabin which seems to be directly above the explosion. There was significant damage to the interior of the aircraft, none of which seemed to be structural.
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Topics: Qantas, 747, Pictures |
DC-10 Highway Landing Video
By admin | July 30, 2008
So this is a couple of years old, but it’s still hilarious. Where else can you get your fix for DC-10’s and get a good laugh at a slow-driving old lady? Enjoy this classic video, “405.”
Ode to Landing Gear
By admin | July 25, 2008
Wheels on an airplane may sound a bit redundant and unnecessary, until you don’t have them. This is an ode to the oft forgotten landing gear. Nobody even seems to care about you until you’re missing.
Waiting for the inevitable.
Pucker Time.
What a solidly build airplane!
Great action pic. Anyone know the status of this crew and aircraft?
This one breaks my heart! Such a beautiful airplane, but a great picture.
Expensive result of a bad landing gear.
Ultra-expensive result of a bad landing gear. Good way to lose your job.
So here’s to you, landing gear. Without you, we’d all end up on our bellies.
Share ThisTopics: Landing Gear, 747, Pictures |
DC-9 Crash in SLW Caught on Film
By admin | July 14, 2008
New Aviation Podcast - The Airplane Geeks
By admin | June 10, 2008
For those of you sick of reading what I have to say, why not listen to it? I’ve partnered up with Max Flight from www.thirtythousandfee.com and we’ve put together a weekly podcast for all the true airplane geeks. Focusing on the airline industry, we also deal with the latest in general aviation, and military aviation. Oh, and I make a total fool of myself, too. Give us a listen and let us know what you think. I’ve even set up a voicemail account if you’d prefer to leave a message we can hear: 812-757-4252.
Topics: Podcast |
Tis the Season…To Break Deals With Airline Partners
By miller22 | May 30, 2008
It seems to be the latest fashion in the airline industry to try to screw the people you’ve signed a deal with. Whether it be mainline-regional agreements, or cargo, there’s been no lost love in the industry lately. With yesterday’s news regarding the relationship between Mesa and Delta, I thought it was time to discuss just how nasty it’s gotten out there.
After Delta’s claims that Mesa did not meet minimum flight completion requirements, Delta announced they would no longer continue to do business with Mesa. For those of you who’ve been following the death spiral that is Mesa, you know that they’ve been largely criticized for their inability to maintain crew staffing, have launched an expensive and questionable ventures in China and Hawaii, and have recently been ordered to pay over $50 million to Aloha. After the announcement by Delta, Mesa warned it’s shareholders that, should Delta be allowed to terminate the contract, Mesa would be forced to file for bankruptcy on or before July 20. Mesa filed for an injunction which was allowed by the courts yesterday, effectively holding everything at status-quo.
For Delta, the attempted cancellation of the contract comes at a convenient time when they’re trying to get rid of excess 50-seat lift. The injunction will leave them looking elsewhere, or waiting for the appeal process to be completed or the contract to expire. The clear exposure here is on Comair, which is the only regional carrier owned lock-stock by Delta.
For Mesa, this injunction is a small win which just delays the inevitable. Their performance has been suffering across all customers as of late, and forcing one of your larger customers to keep in a contract they don’t agree with does not a viable long-term solution make.
The biggest surprise of yesterday came from the announcement that DHL would entirely scrap it’s U.S. network and outsource all flying to UPS. This is a devastating blow to both ABX and Astar, both of which who currently fly for DHL in the U.S. DHL owns 49% of Astar, and accounts for almost 100% of its revenues. No announcement has been made by Astar as to the future of the company. ABX does operate some flights outside the DHL network, notably with ANA in Asia. Even with this slight diversification, shares of ATSG were down over 40% on the news.
According to releases from both UPS and DHL, the transition will take place over the course of 2008 and 2009, and still has to pass Department of Justice approval. With precedence set in the FedEx/USPS contract, this approval is not expected to see any obstacles.
In one of the most creative stabs in the back we’ve seen in a while, Continental Airlines said it would only continue its relationship with ExpressJet if they sold to Skywest airlines. This was conveniently accompanied with an offer from Skywest to by ExpressJet. It seems the contract between Continental and ExpressJet wasn’t even negotiated by ExpressJet, but Skywest.
Topics: Continental, Cargo, Delta |
Pay for your Delta Tickets on Paypal
By miller22 | May 29, 2008
Paypal has announced that Delta will soon be offering the option for travellers to pay via Paypal. This represents a significant milestone in internet 
history for us geeks, since Paypal has long been regarded as the Ebay payment service. Now that Delta has agreed to start using them, expect other airlines to follow suit.
I prefer to use Paypal when given the option, and this announcement makes me all the happier. The big winner, however is Paypal itself, who has made the transition to a more mainstream market. Delta doesn’t fare to badly on this either, since options for their
Share ThisTopics: Delta |
American Announced Route Cuts - Is ORD on the Chopping Block?
By miller22 | May 28, 2008
After warning of route cutbacks, American announced yesterday some of the routes to be hit in the initial round. Not surprisingly, ORD was hit hardest with routes to HNL and EZE (Buenos Aires) being shut down, as well as BOS-SAN. It doesn’t take a geography scientist (or in this case the winner of the Oregon-Davis Elementary Geography Bee 1990…Thank you. Thank you very much) to tell you that these are all thin long-haul markets. What I do find interesting is the ORD-HNL route, which admittedly must be lower yield, but with the recent reduction of flights to HI from the likes of ATA and Aloha, I would expect this to be lower on their list. More likely, they’re going to reroute all of their Hawaii customers through DFW to not only fill those planes, but boost yields that are lagging behind the surging fuel prices.
But as much as this will build load factors and yields out of DFW, it will also hurt them out of ORD. Could this be the beginning of a major pullback for American out of ORD? They have taken what some would consider more drastic, nay desperate measures which were announced at their annual meeting. The $15 fee for the first checked bag is something we would have expected out of an LCC long before the largest legacy airline in the country. In fact we’ve seen the exact opposite with American taking that $15 leap, and Southwest announcing they wouldn’t even join the club and charge the almost-standard $25 for the second checked bag. Remember that ORD is the fortress hub for one United Airlines, recently-ish emerged from bankruptcy, with a low(er) cost structure than American who narrowly avoided the “B” word. United is undoubtedly leveraging its new cost structure to put pressure on American, which may be too much for them to bear.
The Dallas based airline also mentioned that this would be the beginning of several announcements of cutbacks to reduce mainline capacity by up to 12 percent in Q4 2008 vs 2007. Also mentioned in the release was a “restructuring” of their San Juan hub, which is almost entirely reserved to American Eagle. This will be the first of an additional 11 percent reduction in its RJ fleet, including the retirement of the entire Saab fleet by the end of the year.
Topics: Schedule Changes, American Airlines |
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