Discussion On Planes & Aviation

[Guest InBangkok]

On 5/23/2018 at 3:22 PM, MeowPrince said:

 

A classic beauty spotted on 19th May  

 

 

I flew the Concorde once - by accident almost. I was on a business class round-the-world ticket. Having visited three cities in Europe, around 4:00 pm I checked in at London Heathrow for my 6:00 pm flight to New York only to be told my flight was full and I had been transferred to another flight. I assumed I would be on a later flight with a later arrival and was about to explode. I was quickly informed I had been upgraded to the 6:30 pm Concorde departure which would arrive about 3 hours before my booked flight! I was in seat 3A and the plane was only about 60% full.

 

Concorde was obviously a marvel of 1950s aircraft engineering. Inside it was more cramped than you might expect. The seats were narrower than any business class seat and the pitch (distance between rows) only a few inches more than economy class. I was seated next to a businessman in a suit. Looked around late 30s. At the end of the runway as the engines started to roar - they were very noisy - this man turned to me and almost shouted in my ear, "The take-off is the part I love on my Concorde flights. Don't you>" Which left me in a bit of a quandary. Should I say "I feel the same" and then perhaps be caught out later in the flight as being a virgin Concorde flyer? After a second of thought, I admitted it was my first flight. It turned out he was the boss of McDonald's in the UK and was off to a regular monthly meeting in New York.

 

When the flight moved from subsonic to supersonic, I felt no sensation of additional speed. Only the speed counter at the front of the cabin gave an indication of the thrust to 1,400 mph. I was also sad that, unlike what i had read, I could not see the curvature of the earth at 60,000 feet up. But then perhaps I had eaten and drunk too much. The food was great for airline fare and the champagne and wines excellent. No way was I going to waste them! Since our immigration details had all been sent to JFK in advance, it took less than 20 minutes to have my passport stamped and to collect my bag from the luggage belt. The complimentary limousine was waiting and I was in my hotel whilst my original flight was still in the air!

 

Speed and service were really the only reason to spend a ton of money on a Concorde flight, I reckon. I agree it looks an amazingly beautiful aircraft. But my favourite was always the upper deck on the 747-400s. Now I'm a big fan of the A380. Have taken several 787 flights and not been impressed. I look forward to my first A350 in August.

[cycle25]

I don't fly very often but every now and again. Absolutely enjoy air travel.

For longer distance flights I try to get the A380's - always a favourite of mine since the window seat seems to have more room.

 

I've always flown on the Firefly turbo-prop plane a couple of times. A very interesting experience compared to jet liners.

On my trip to US last December, took a number of planes - B777, B727, A350.

[Phil]

16 hours ago, Guest InBangkok said:

......

 

Speed and service were really the only reason to spend a ton of money on a Concorde flight, I reckon. I agree it looks an amazingly beautiful aircraft. But my favourite was always the upper deck on the 747-400s. Now I'm a big fan of the A380. Have taken several 787 flights and not been impressed. I look forward to my first A350 in August.

Good description of those old nice Concorde flights...

And thanks for supporting our products!

[Guest InBangkok]

18 hours ago, cycle25 said:

I don't fly very often but every now and again. Absolutely enjoy air travel.

 

I have always enjoyed flying although the ground experience at both ends now is so much more of a hassle than it used to be, even with fairly regular access to business class lounges. I have also rerouted sometimes just to experience a new aircraft. Before moving to Asia I did that by changing airports in Paris flying between London and Marseilles - only because I wanted to try the then new A300 from Paris to Marseilles! I flew between Geneva and Zurich instead of taking the train because I wanted to experience the MD11, despite all the problems its predecessor the DC10 had had (several horrific crashes).

 

I have had the extraordinarily good fortune to work for companies which have required extensive travel – more than 5 million kms so far. Thankfully most have permitted business class, a big change from my very first flight as a child in New Zealand in an ancient DC3 which was blown around as though in a washing machine. I loved it! After a British Airways Vanguard had crashed in Belgium, that aircraft was limited to 10,000 ft. Flying through instead of over storm clouds was no fun. A sudden aborted take-off at Hong Kong, aborted landings in New York and elsewhere, several lightning strikes and so on. Yet I have never felt unsafe on an aircraft even flying the notoriously unreliable internal airlines in Nepal. Only once on the early Russian Illuyshin-86 jumbo which felt very basic inside did I breathe a slight sigh of relief when we landed safely in Moscow.

 

My main beef is that pitch in economy has become a joke! Three decades ago, business class was a novelty on only a few airlines. Seating was only a small first class cabin and a huge economy section. Economy therefore benefitted by having much more space. if you were seated by the window on an overnight flight you could pass the other two passengers without waking them up. That's now completely impossible. The winners have been business class passengers where the benefits are better than the first class of old - except for the absence of caviar and a bit less space!

 

Although some airlines still stick with a pitch of 32 inches, 31 inches is becoming much more common and I don’t believe that will be the end of the reduction. Cathay Pacific has also announced it will increase economy seating next year on its 777 fleet from 9 across to 10 across. That means seat width reduces from 18.1 inches to 17.2 inches. But that only gains the airline 8.1 inches. So I guess arm rests and aisle widths will also be reduced. I was on a CX short-haul 777 last week and cannot imagine flying long-haul on a CX 777 with 10-across seating!

[Guest InBangkok]

Having just read through almost all the posts, a lot of guys obviously like the A380. I have never taken it on a medium- or long-haul route; only the daily short hop on Emirates between Bangkok and Hong Kong which I have done more than 20 times. Emirates business class price is extremely good - way cheaper than CX or TG - and the experience far better. Over the last year or so, EK has stopped using the 3 class configuration with first and a large biz class on the upper deck. First and the first section of biz class has gone to be replaced by around 100 Y pax. So that aircraft now has over 600 pax!

 

Return biz class between BKK and HKG costs around S$600. For that you get access to EK's lounges which have the best F&B offerings of any biz class lounge I have experienced anywhere. The seating is staggered and so in many you are essentially in your own private little cabin with a small bar at the side. Seating is full flat-beds, the TV screen is huge and the IFE offerings are, frankly, humungous. Hundreds of movies and TV shows. As for the audio, if you are into classical music, you could spend 20,000 hours and still not get through it all. F&B on board is usually very good, especially the wines, but the 'star' is the bar at the back. Not only do they serve premium brands like Grey Goose Vodka and XO cognacs, there is a wide range of excellent canapés. You could probably eat and drink your way through quite a chunk of the fare!

 

A few photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cycle25]

On 5/26/2018 at 12:22 PM, Guest InBangkok said:

 

Yet I have never felt unsafe on an aircraft even flying the notoriously unreliable internal airlines in Nepal. Only once on the early Russian Illuyshin-86 jumbo which felt very basic inside did I breathe a slight sigh of relief when we landed safely in Moscow.

 

I have once felt unsafe - on an AirAsia flight.

It was a routine  Kuala Lumpur to Singapore hop but the aircraft was circling over Changi for a good 10 to 15 minutes. You can imagine that the passengers would be getting impatient in such a scenario, especially since the flight was about an hour late already. Finally we began to descend and transited into landing. Abruptly, the engines fired up again and the angle of attack changed too - an aborted attempt at landing. Next thing you know, the steward / male flight attendant comes down the aisle asking everyone to switch off their electronic devices. So everyone is guessing what went wrong at this point.

 

We finally land after circling around some more. The moment the aircraft reaches the gate though all the lights and ventilation go off. A lot of us we were wondering what would have happened if we had spent another 5 minutes up in the air. The pilot told us there were technical difficulties. As passengers disembarked, they were speculating - the pilots forgot the landing gear so they had to abort the landing. It is a budget airline so of course no explanations or apologies for being late or why they had to abort a landing. AirAsia took 3 months to reply my feedback which was a rehash of the first automated reply. I'm never flying with them again if I can help it.

[Guest InBangkok]

27 minutes ago, cycle25 said:

Next thing you know, the steward / male flight attendant comes down the aisle asking everyone to switch off their electronic devices. So everyone is guessing what went wrong at this point.

 

We finally land after circling around some more. The moment the aircraft reaches the gate though all the lights and ventilation go off. A lot of us we were wondering what would have happened if we had spent another 5 minutes up in the air. The pilot told us there were technical difficulties. As passengers disembarked, they were speculating - the pilots forgot the landing gear so they had to abort the landing. It is a budget airline so of course no explanations or apologies for being late or why they had to abort a landing. AirAsia took 3 months to reply my feedback which was a rehash of the first automated reply. I'm never flying with them again if I can help it.

 

I'm pleased there's another Air Asia non-flyer! But I wonder about your experience and what the technical difficulties might have been. I doubt if it was a landing gear issue because a voice will be heard in the cockpit if the pilots fail to drop it. Even if here was a fault in the landing gear systems, landing gear is designed to fall into position by gravity as a last resort. My one aborted landing was due to to another aircraft failing to clear the runway on time. Yours seems like some form of genuine fault and the fact that you had to circle several times after that aborted landing means the pilot could perhaps have been dumping fuel. You need not have worried about being an additional 5 minutes in the air. If an aircraft is genuinely running out of fuel, it was be granted absolute landing priority.  But I think every pilot had a duty to tell passengers what a technical issue is. I'm glad you made it down safely.

[cycle25]

3 minutes ago, Guest InBangkok said:

 

I'm pleased there's another Air Asia non-flyer! But I wonder about your experience and what the technical difficulties might have been. I doubt if it was a landing gear issue because a voice will be heard in the cockpit if the pilots fail to drop it. Even if here was a fault in the landing gear systems, landing gear is designed to fall into position by gravity as a last resort. My one aborted landing was due to to another aircraft failing to clear the runway on time. Yours seems like some form of genuine fault and the fact that you had to circle several times after that aborted landing means the pilot could perhaps have been dumping fuel. You need not have worried about being an additional 5 minutes in the air. If an aircraft is genuinely running out of fuel, it was be granted absolute landing priority.  But I think every pilot had a duty to tell passengers what a technical issue is. I'm glad you made it down safely.

 

The pilot himself sounded uncertain when making that announcement. Nonetheless, I don't blame the flight crew who were probably doing their best with what they could. It is the behind-the-scenes operations that are lacking - I did write in the feedback that people were speculating on the cause of the aborted landing and for the airline's reputation it might be a good idea to have an explanation to the passengers on the flight. Also, they should have contingencies for such occasions as the gate at KLIA2 did not have sufficient seating and the least the airline should have done was to offer passengers water for having to wait an additional hour. Yet none of that got acknowledged - just a we will forward your feedback to the necessary teams. Both in the auto-response and reply 3 months later. How insincere!

[singalion]

But did you note most landings from short haul flights are often delayed at Changi the past 2 years. There seems to be some traffic jams nowadays. You're turning either above Batam or the East side of Malaysia around Desaru. It's rare nowadays that the plane goes down straight for landing...

[cycle25]

Just now, singalion said:

But did you note most landings from short haul flights are often delayed at Changi the past 2 years. There seems to be some traffic jams nowadays. You're turning either above Batam or the East side of Malaysia around Desaru. It's rare nowadays that the plane goes down straight for landing...

 

As a pretty frequent flier, this was taken into account. However when you couple it with a delayed flight and an aborted landing with the power going off upon reaching the gate, it does serve as a pretty memorable flight don't you think? Already frustrated and grouchy passengers would be even more ready to blast on social media. In any case, this flight was from 2015, so....

[singalion]

15 minutes ago, cycle25 said:

 

As a pretty frequent flier, this was taken into account. However when you couple it with a delayed flight and an aborted landing with the power going off upon reaching the gate, it does serve as a pretty memorable flight don't you think? Already frustrated and grouchy passengers would be even more ready to blast on social media. In any case, this flight was from 2015, so....

 

Life is a risk which even insurance can't cover...

I remember when that pretty SQ stewardess (even not into girls, would say she was pretty) asked me "whether everything was fine?". I just responded : "As long that we don't land somewhere in the Indian ocean, everything is fine!"

[singalion]

19 minutes ago, cycle25 said:

 

As a pretty frequent flier, this was taken into account. However when you couple it with a delayed flight and an aborted landing with the power going off upon reaching the gate, it does serve as a pretty memorable flight don't you think? Already frustrated and grouchy passengers would be even more ready to blast on social media. In any case, this flight was from 2015, so....

 

I had the chance to wait more than 20 hours at a newly opened Indonesian airport for an Air Asia flight with no announcement made for the delay. Had to wait nearly 5 hours until they allowed to check in my suitcase. Nothing at this airport. The 7 eleven had nothing to eat or drink. Because after 9pm the only restaurant was already closed. When sitting at the departure lounge; the ugly times started. Passengers got rowdy. It took Air Asia 5 hours to get some small water bottles to the gate. After another 3 hours waiting  with passengers shouting, fighting and having friendly remarks to the ground  staff they brought some food packages. In fact not all for everyone...

What I never understood why they never told any reason for this delay. In fact; I think they should have just told something even if it wasn't true to comfort the passengers. I even advised the staff to just say something.

Lucky that I mostly carry stuff to read... to bridge the wait... When an aircraft finally arrived most passenger just fell on the seats. Without sleep I took a shower and went to work... I m still waiting for Air Asia to inform me on the reason...

I boycotted Air Asia since then... ( because just too many things bumped up).

[Guest InBangkok]

4 hours ago, singalion said:

 

I had the chance to wait more than 20 hours at a newly opened Indonesian airport for an Air Asia flight with no announcement made for the delay. Had to wait nearly 5 hours until they allowed to check in my suitcase. Nothing at this airport. The 7 eleven had nothing to eat or drink. Because after 9pm the only restaurant was already closed. When sitting at the departure lounge; the ugly times started. Passengers got rowdy. It took Air Asia 5 hours to get some small water bottles to the gate. After another 3 hours waiting  with passengers shouting, fighting and having friendly remarks to the ground  staff they brought some food packages. In fact not all for everyone...

What I never understood why they never told any reason for this delay. In fact; I think they should have just told something even if it wasn't true to comfort the passengers. I even advised the staff to just say something.

Lucky that I mostly carry stuff to read... to bridge the wait... When an aircraft finally arrived most passenger just fell on the seats. Without sleep I took a shower and went to work... I m still waiting for Air Asia to inform me on the reason...

I boycotted Air Asia since then... ( because just too many things bumped up).

 

I always think the mark of a good airline is how well it takes care of their passengers - and that means in time of difficulty, delay and so on as well as in the air and before and after take-off. I once had a BA flight from Edinburgh to London connecting to another BA one to Munich where I had allowed a good four hours for a cheap Lufthansa flight up to Dresden. (Dresden is not an easy city to fly to from outside Germany!) At Edinburgh, the packed 767 was boarded promptly, doors closed and I assumed we were ready to fly. Not so. The captain then came on the intercom to say there would be a delay of around an hour before takeoff. High winds at London meant all flights were being delayed. However, those on connecting flights would be rebooked and a crew member would come round whilst we waited to assure this was being done. 

 

I was livid! Before boarding even started, BA was perfectly well aware of the situation. So instead of informing us we would sit on the tarmac for an hour just so a gate could be freed up, I could have quickly changed and taken an Easyjet flight to Munich. This aircraft was actually on the next stand and not due to depart until half an hour after the London flight. And if one flight in to London was to be delayed, it was as certain as could be that every other flight that day would be similarly delayed. Naturally when I got to London, I had missed my Munich connection. But my new flight would still leave me two hours to make the connection in Munich. As time marched on and nobody in BA had any clue what was happening, it eventually became obvious that I would miss the Dresden flight. Indeed, as my much delayed BA flight arrived, I could see the Dresden flight take off. It was the last flight of the day.

 

I went to the Lufthansa counter where the girls could not have been more pleasant, even though the news they imparted as not good. Having missed my €90 special return fare flight to Dresden, that cash was forfeited. For a new return flight I would have to cough up €415!! And being 9:00 pm at night, I had to stay in an airport Holiday Inn Express at another €80 for the night. I thought of the train, but as anyone who knows that part of Germany will also know, this means 3 separate trains and can take almost 7 hours whereas the flight is 40 minutes. I had no option but to bite the bullet.

 

The one piece of good fortune was that I did have travel insurance cover. It took weeks to get the pertinent info from the two airlines, but I did get it and the insurance company did pay out. When I have had delays on Air Asia, I have never had even an apology!

[Guest suffering]

44 minutes ago, Guest InBangkok said:

 

I always think the mark of a good airline is how well it takes care of their passengers - and that means in time of difficulty, delay and so on as well as in the air and before and after take-off. I once had a BA flight from Edinburgh to London connecting to another BA one to Munich where I had allowed a good four hours for a cheap Lufthansa flight up to Dresden. (Dresden is not an easy city to fly to from outside Germany!) At Edinburgh, the packed 767 was boarded promptly, doors closed and I assumed we were ready to fly. Not so. The captain then came on the intercom to say there would be a delay of around an hour before takeoff. High winds at London meant all flights were being delayed. However, those on connecting flights would be rebooked and a crew member would come round whilst we waited to assure this was being done. 

 

I was livid! Before boarding even started, BA was perfectly well aware of the situation. So instead of informing us we would sit on the tarmac for an hour just so a gate could be freed up, I could have quickly changed and taken an Easyjet flight to Munich. This aircraft was actually on the next stand and not due to depart until half an hour after the London flight. And if one flight in to London was to be delayed, it was as certain as could be that every other flight that day would be similarly delayed. Naturally when I got to London, I had missed my Munich connection. But my new flight would still leave me two hours to make the connection in Munich. As time marched on and nobody in BA had any clue what was happening, it eventually became obvious that I would miss the Dresden flight. Indeed, as my much delayed BA flight arrived, I could see the Dresden flight take off. It was the last flight of the day.

 

I went to the Lufthansa counter where the girls could not have been more pleasant, even though the news they imparted as not good. Having missed my €90 special return fare flight to Dresden, that cash was forfeited. For a new return flight I would have to cough up €415!! And being 9:00 pm at night, I had to stay in an airport Holiday Inn Express at another €80 for the night. I thought of the train, but as anyone who knows that part of Germany will also know, this means 3 separate trains and can take almost 7 hours whereas the flight is 40 minutes. I had no option but to bite the bullet.

 

The one piece of good fortune was that I did have travel insurance cover. It took weeks to get the pertinent info from the two airlines, but I did get it and the insurance company did pay out. When I have had delays on Air Asia, I have never had even an apology!

 

You could have rented a Porsche and browse through the German highways at 250km/h  yourself... ha ha.

 

Just wonder if the travel insurance covered you for the suffering from that blond blue eyed Bavarian who tortured you with his 8 1/2" tool...

You left this part out I think...

[FizzleBuzz]

Dont boycott airasia.. i love the inflight food!!

 

_______________________________________________

I still have the Line Aviation chatgroup if anyone wants to join in.

@fizzvlim

 

[mlyfunp]

2 hours ago, FizzleBuzz said:

Dont boycott airasia.. i love the inflight food!!

 

_______________________________________________

I still have the Line Aviation chatgroup if anyone wants to join in.

@fizzvlim

 

 

bro, who will taste the inflight food with Airasia if service sucks so often...

And isn't it ready made food...

[greenroad]

LCC wise, still better to rely on our local ones when possible imh. The customer service standards (in the event of delays and disputes) will still be better..

 

i would also believe that they have much higher safety standards

[FizzleBuzz]

Then again is still comes down to the price that you pay. Some people find it ridiculous to pay so much for certain destination. 

[Skuweedee]

13 hours ago, Guest InBangkok said:

 

I'm pleased there's another Air Asia non-flyer! But I wonder about your experience and what the technical difficulties might have been. I doubt if it was a landing gear issue because a voice will be heard in the cockpit if the pilots fail to drop it. Even if here was a fault in the landing gear systems, landing gear is designed to fall into position by gravity as a last resort. My one aborted landing was due to to another aircraft failing to clear the runway on time. Yours seems like some form of genuine fault and the fact that you had to circle several times after that aborted landing means the pilot could perhaps have been dumping fuel. You need not have worried about being an additional 5 minutes in the air. If an aircraft is genuinely running out of fuel, it was be granted absolute landing priority.  But I think every pilot had a duty to tell passengers what a technical issue is. I'm glad you made it down safely.

 

AFAIK, it is not possible for any member of the A320 Family to dump fuel. What may have happened is that, the flight crew is burning fuel, although some say that it’s not even necessary for an A320 to do that. 

[Guest InBangkok]

12 hours ago, Skuweedee said:

 

AFAIK, it is not possible for any member of the A320 Family to dump fuel. What may have happened is that, the flight crew is burning fuel, although some say that it’s not even necessary for an A320 to do that. 

 

Thanks. In all my years of flying, I have never known that till now!

[Guest InBangkok]

On 6/3/2018 at 8:50 AM, singalion said:

But did you note most landings from short haul flights are often delayed at Changi the past 2 years. There seems to be some traffic jams nowadays. You're turning either above Batam or the East side of Malaysia around Desaru. It's rare nowadays that the plane goes down straight for landing...

 

I believe the reason is that the larger aircraft tend to be flying much further and so have to get route clearance, a route time slot and arrival at destination time in advance of departure. I have several times had delayed departures because there would be no gate available on arrival. I realise short hauls also need clearances but route clearance is probably easier than for long hauls.

 

One more beef I have with airlines is the reason for delays. It used to be the case that passengers in the terminal would be given a specific reason for a delay. Now, 99.9999% of the time it's a disemboweled voice saying, "We apologise for the delayed departure of FlightXYZ. This is due to the late arrival of the incoming aircraft." I want to know why the aircraft was late arriving i.e. whose fault was it? On the other hand, being told that "the captain got up late because he had had a night of torrid sex with the an economy class flight attendant and was still downing strong black coffee," might not be the best overture to a long flight!! But in that case I'd like to know if the attendant was a guy or a girl!!! LOL
 

[MeowPrince]

Air Mauritius, Korean A380, Air India, A320Neo (LH's), Aeroflot, Dreamliners, Aer Lingus, etc.

Enjoy this batch everyone!  

 

May'18 snaps over two separate days.

[FizzleBuzz]

6 minutes ago, MeowPrince said:

Air Mauritius, Korean A380, Air India, A320Neo (LH's), Aeroflot, Dreamliners, Aer Lingus, etc.

Enjoy this batch everyone!  

 

May'18 snaps over two separate days.

Wow u manage to capture a rare A340-300 Air Mauritius and a B737Max Aeroflot. Good job

[Phil]

Great shots, MP! Congrats!

[FizzleBuzz]

I cant upload any pics here because they restrict the upload max total size.. sad..

[singalion]

2 hours ago, FizzleBuzz said:

I cant upload any pics here because they restrict the upload max total size.. sad..

I guess if you lived outside Singapore, your home would be a transformed old aircaft... ha ha.

I m the nerd who stands at the viewing gallery and will tell the people what aircraft is going to land from some distance and then they think I worked for a secret service...

Maybe you're lucky and can watch Airforce One flying in. Does Kim have a Russian plane?

[singalion]

On 6/3/2018 at 10:50 PM, FizzleBuzz said:

Then again is still comes down to the price that you pay. Some people find it ridiculous to pay so much for certain destination. 

Hm; I know will check on Silkair for some routes, I even managed to fly cheaper on times than budget and the big advantage is the 30kg. And if lucky you get "operated by SQ" and even watch a movie.

Unless you can plan and buy budget 10 months in advance, then budget might be cheaper or you only pay the taxes...

I think the budget prices increased the last 2 years. KL could have been $35 one sector, nowadays I mostly end up at 90 - 120 for both sectors exclusive check in  baggage...

[MeowPrince]

6 hours ago, Phil said:

Great shots, MP! Congrats!

Thank you, kind sir!  

 

 

12 hours ago, FizzleBuzz said:

Wow u manage to capture a rare A340-300 Air Mauritius and a B737Max Aeroflot. Good job

  European airports.

 

 

27 minutes ago, singalion said:

Maybe you're lucky and can watch Airforce One flying in. Does Kim have a Russian plane?

IIRC, he uses a modified Ilyushin-62M.  Narrow-bodied, with 4 engines on the tail.

[FizzleBuzz]

On 6/7/2018 at 9:15 AM, MeowPrince said:

 

 

IIRC, he uses a modified Ilyushin-62M.  Narrow-bodied, with 4 engines on the tail.

I saw it at remote bay while passing by the apron. So many guards watching it. 

[FizzleBuzz]

A330neo is already out to TAP