Close shave for flyers on Nagpur flight

Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) normally maintain high levels of aircraft block hours and consequently, they have high levels of aircraft utilization. In fact, aircraft productivity (i.e., aircraft utilization) is a core operational issue for the business model of LCCs.
Having said so, it seems that the airport agents of Air Arabia in Nagpur have strict instructions about speedy boarding of passengers for outbound flights because they did so despite their awareness of the technical snag reported earlier at the touchdown of the very same aircraft at Nagpur Airport.
If airport gate agents will not allow the passengers to board the aircraft before getting the green-light from the cleaning crew, is it less important to board the passengers before receiving the go-ahead from the technical crew?
Will it make sense that speedy boarding of passengers is more important than the technical condition of the aircraft, and accordingly the safety of the passengers?

Date: 11 January 2011 commenting on http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

   

Zambian President Banda foreign trips justified

Are we supposed to believe that EgyptAir would operate 4 flights a week between Cairo and Lusaka for the sake of President Banda and his visits?
The reality is that EgyptAir will operate those flights because of some commercial benefits. It is true that Zambia will benefit from the EgyptAir’s network but EgyptAir’s benefits outweigh Zambia’s.

Date: 27 December 2010 commenting on http://www.ukzambians.co.uk/

The consolidation of the LCC market

The airline business model does not congenitally have geographic restrictions on its own. Airline companies are free to choose their operational models as long as they can successfully operate. The so far success of Air Arabia in applying the LCC model does not necessarily mean that Sama can comparatively succeed applying the same model.

Sama’s management was fully aware of the applicable rules of the Saudi Civil Aviation from the beginning. Considering the fact that there was no significant change in those Saudi rules, Sama’s management team was gambling by mainly depending on the possibility of changing those rules.

What was the plan of Mr. Bruce Ashby, the CEO of Sama by searching for more finance? Was he planning to use the same management culture in utilizing the new funds? Was he simply planning to eventually run out of cash again?

Date: 30 August 2010 commenting on http://oussamastake.blogspot.com/

FAA issues cockpit-window safety mandates

Bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy!
The relation between fires/ smoke incidents and certain cockpit windows had been established in 1980, why did Federal Aviation Administration wait for about 30 years to issue a safety mandate?
Moreover, what could be the reason for more time before issuing a maintenance directive for Boeing 747?
Were they just waiting for that safety issue to be publicly highlighted last May before going ahead with a revised safety mandate?
Questionably, the latest directive affects the forward-looking cockpit windows, rather than all cockpit windows as if side cockpit windows are for decorative purpose only. 

Date: 13 July 2010 commenting on http://online.wsj.com/

Royal Jordanian… Exciting times

The times are rather critical than exciting for Royal Jordanian. RJ is currently taking care of those measures to improve its position among its competitors.
Seemingly, Mr. Hussein Dabbas is in favor of merging with another carrier. However, he did not reveal which of the two carriers would benefit more from the potential merging.
Anyway, it is somehow unusual for a royal princess to be on the lookout for a suitor.

Date: 26 June 2010 commenting on http://oussamastake.blogspot.com/

EgyptAir to Copenhagen

The anticipated Egypt Air’s flights will make the carrier the only Full Service Carrier (FSC) operating between the African continent and Scandinavia
Considering the fact that Egypt Air canceled its flights to Copenhagen in 2004 due to poor operating results, and the fact that Egypt Air will be the only legacy carrier linking Copenhagen and Cairo nonstop, are we in a position to assume that Egypt Air is quite sure about the potential viability behind the comeback?

Date: 01 June 2010 commenting on http://newsodrome.com/

Egypt Air Airbus A340-200 SU-GBO landing at KIX (Osaka)

Smooth landing! However, pilots are supposed to land that way. Otherwise, we will be talking about an air hostess landing the aircraft instead of the captain in case of emergency landing.
What is more remarkable is catching that particular landing on tape. Good job!

Date: 04 April 2010 commenting on http://www.youtube.com/

The “Jetstar-isation” of Qantas is not over yet

The fact that Impulse Airlines started to operate as LCC in June 2000 after acquiring its fleet of Boeing 717 (the joint production of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas), makes us believe that Qantas decided to consider low cost operation when it purchased Impulse Airline in November 2001. What happened in 2004 is that Qantas only re-branded its Impulse into Jetstar.

Date: 23 February 2010 commenting on http://simpliflying.com/

Air France warns pilots on safety procedures

The manufacturer’s manual and operation instructions should be fully respected and strictly followed by all pilots.

The Airbus A330 operating AF447 was assumably in a perfect flying condition at the end of the assembly line. Keeping that perfect condition is the responsibility of the maintenance teams. They are supposed to handle all periodic checks of the aircraft. In that respect, field remarks from the pilots should be seriously dealt with by maintenance teams. Both maintenance teams and pilots are the human tools of any airline to keep the fleet up. Definitely, we are not expecting the managing directors of AF to check every single aircraft themselves.

Having said so, we are not excluding the possibility of Airbus to be the reason behind the June crash of A330 in the Atlantic Ocean.

Regarding the idea of having a more dependable medium for the flight information, I reached the same conclusion of having a backup system on the ground on my posting of 08JUL 2009 which can be found here: http://airlinologist.blogspot.com/2009/07/missing-black-box_08.html

Date: 26 October 2009 commenting on http://online.wsj.com/

BA all-business flight grounded by engine fault on second day

What a joke! What a bungled promise!
Did we hear about sacking someone for the job badly done?
They can make only noise without delivering something tangible.
They forgot to advertise that the service is intended for business passengers who prefer to waste their valuable time waiting at the business lounge.
Sir Richard Branson is definitely lucky to compete with such an inefficient management team.

Date: 01 October 2009 commenting on http://www.thetimes.co.uk/

Best airline branding ever? Virgin America

Yes, Virgin America offers a distinctive flight experience from/ to California. It has a brand of its own.
It is no wonder that they have received many quality travel awards in its relatively short life of about 2 years.
Its success, especially in Alaska, might be the reason for the continuous efforts of Alaska Airlines to challenge the US status of Virgin America.

Date: 10 September 2009 commenting on http://bukes.blogspot.com/

Tail of Aeroflot-Don B737 strikes upon landing at Chelyabinsk

What are we expecting from Aeroflot Don which was on the verge of going bankrupt last month?
The airline needs a complete corporate cleanup. There will be no significant improvement if thy will go on with their current operational mentality.
We have to respect the seriousness of handling H1N1 flu. However, two hits at the heads of the passengers (the hard landing and the medical procedures) apparently tell us about Aeroflot Don’s idea of customer service.

Date: 27 August 2009 commenting on http://avherald.com/

Blogs: A way to learn business

This is definitely a good idea for evaluating their newly acquired business skills.
Creating a blog and maintaining it would be treated as a graduation project. At the beginning, it might be more suitable to give the students the option of choosing between creating a blog or participating in one of any other existing projects.
For the students to discuss points of both strength and weakness could further enhance the idea for their classmates as well as the general public.
Since we are driving the highway of “new ideas,” what about the idea of creating and maintaining a Twitter account? Twitter is a micro-blogging tool; and it might be allocated for heavyweight challenging students only.

Date: 25 August 2009 commenting on http://aatir.wordpress.com/

Roasted in the social media

Only roasted? United Airlines has been already charred. It has become no longer edible.
With the ever-increasing role and effect of social media channels, the only way for all kinds of businesses is to go back to basics. I am quite sure that the current economic crisis is a result of forgetting the basics and switching to greedy patterns of business. Mr. Madoff, who scammed the whole world, is just an example.
United Airlines was aware of the case from the beginning as its careless employees were carefully playing all major roles of the customer service drama. United Airlines failed to assess the potential damage when the case was totally under its control before pushing the passenger to the point of no return.
Obviously, social media is recreating the rules of the game. Are we expecting to see social media channels added to the list of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)?

Date: 14 August 2009 commenting on http://www.aviationbusinessconsultants.com/

Cairo Airport to cut back on night time operations from June 1

What happened to the ambitious plan of building more terminals for Cairo Airport?
What are we expecting if the trends of both business and tourism are sharply going down? The current atmosphere is totally unhealthy for business and tourism to flourish.
The problem is that partial closure of the terminal one has not been decided as a part of a comprehensive plan of meeting the ugly condition of tourism in Egypt and consequently the deteriorating situation of airline business in Egypt.
Taking reactive decisions will not provide long-term solutions. Did they hear about proactive approach? What about trying one now?

Date: 05 April 2013 commenting on http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/
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Date: 06 April 2013 commenting on http://www.ch-aviation.ch/