The passenger-flight attendant charter
Passengers love to complain about flight attendants and flight attendants seem to love to reciprocate. Spend just two minutes searching aviation keywords on the net and I guarantee you will find endless complaints by both parties. While this attrition is never going to go away entirely, there are things both sides can do to minimize...
The first female pilot in Saudi
Last year on International Women’s Day I covered The Ladies of KLM. This year I thought it more appropriate to cover something more contemporary, the first female pilot in Saudi Arabia. At the risk of oversimplifying I would say that social progress is Saudi Arabia is slow moving and that women have definitely received the short end of the stick. Saudi...
Rethinking seasonality and charters
Why not? It’s time airlines began rethinking the concepts of seasonality and charters. Currently, seasonal services rely on predicted or proven demand swells to justify a change in capacity for a fixed period of time – usually on a recurring basis, most commonly up-gauging around holidays. There can be no doubt that this practice makes...
Short-cycle aircraft leasing
Qantas parking lot at LAX by Kim Davies When planes are on the ground they don’t make money. Why then do numerous carriers the world over allow their precious metal to sit on remote stands gathering dust for hours at a time awaiting their return rotations? Simply put, I think nobody has bothered to challenge...
Five things Bombardier must do help the CSeries fly
CSeries family. Image from Bombardier Multimedia Since it was announced in mid-2004 the Bombardier CSeries has been something of an enigma. Airlines have blown hot and cold on it. Bombardier themselves cancelled the program in early 2006, only to restart it a year or so later. The skeptics out there will have already written this...
Why Air Canada needs the 787
We’re in the second quarter of 2010, which means that in a parallel universe somewhere Air Canada is dotting the umlauts (even in this parallel universe it’s worthwhile running things past zee Germans) and crossing the t’s in the final ramp up to entry into service (EIS) of the 787-8. If only the same thing...
What Air Canada and WestJet can do to fight off Porter
Possible offsite check-in locations. In just three (or so) years Porter has gone from being a boutique operation to being a true contender. In fact they will soon offer more frequencies between Toronto and Ottawa, and Toronto and Montreal than either WestJet or Air Canada – every hour and every forty minutes respectively. Of...
How long till we see alliance-based advertising?
efore heading out to Vancouver to catch the Olympics I sat down to contemplate Air Canada’s decision to splash out significant cash to be in the Olympic advertising picture. If reports are to be believed, Air Canada paid anywhere between 15 and 30 million dollars (US) for the privilege of being an “Official Supporter” of...
Stunning South African Airways livery
When I stumbled upon the above livery I immediately felt it was a winner. It persists the core feel of the current (winning) SA brand while incorporating some touches of modernness and paying homage to the SA of old.
