At Birmingham Airport in the UK there was a series of days with severe crosswinds in March. The video below is a compilation of landings from one of those days from YouTube user flugsnug. Around 4:40 into the video you can see a United 757-200 departure and get an idea of just how strong the crosswind is, it picks the plane up and pushes it sideways during the climb.
Category: Travel
Etihad’s A380 First Class – Overkill
Etihad, the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates, has released images and videos of their A380 and 787 products. All are interesting but the A380 first class product is what stands out. In it, there is a single three-room compartment area that can be occupied by two passengers called “The Residence”. Each residence consists of a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom.
Etihad has posted a video of the Residence layout and general look and feel.
They have also uploaded a video narrated by Dannii Minogue, giving a better feel for what the seat layout and bathroom will be like.
The bedroom will have a full size bed and can accommodate two people.
The bathroom will have a private shower and plenty of personal care amenities.
On top of all of this, passengers in the Residence will have a private butler.
Starting price? You can look to part with close to $20,000 for a one-way flight between London and Abu-Dhabi in the Residence. Even for what you are getting, for what maxes out at an eight hour flight, $20,000 one-way is mighty steep.
There are a lot of posts out there talking about how amazing this new product is and they all end with “these will not be available as award redemptions”. So, if you want to book one of the Residences, you are going to need to pay cash, something very few of the people touting this product as “amazing” and “groundbreaking” are willing to do. At the $20,000 price point per person, you are coming very close to private jet prices and then you could fit more people and spread out the cost somewhat. While Etihad’s first class private cabin looks really cool and makes for great marketing, I am more interested in the products that I actually have potential to fly. Etihad will also have 9 first class “Apartments” which will still have a ton of privacy and space but will not feature the separate bedroom and the bathroom will be shared with other first class passengers (there is a shower in that bathroom as well).
Not wanting to drop the cash on first class? Etihad’s new business class on the A380 and the 787-9 looks fantastic and perfectly suited for a long haul flight where I needed to be into work the next day.
There is a ton of space in what Etihad is calling the “Business Studio”. The small flat surface to the side allows you to keep your essentials within arms reach and still have space to spread out.
Etihad has also provided another Dannii Minogue narrated video of their Business Studio cabin.
Lastly is the economy cabin which seems to have received some very intriguing features. The first thing I noticed were the headrests. They have a built-in wing on them to allow for leaning into, great for a nap. I do not know if Etihad will do away with pillows because of this feature, but it does allow you to rest your head without worrying about the wing on your headrest collapsing. The other thing you will notice is the inflight entertainment and the power ports in the seat in front of you. This is a huge plus for passengers. Being able to stay entertained and keep your own devices charged is one of my biggest needs when traveling and Etihad has made both of those things of the past with the A380 and 787-9 economy product that they are calling the “Economy Smart Seat”.
Korean Air Arrives in Houston
Today is the big day, Korean Air is arriving from Seoul around 8:30am CT, bringing the first non-stop passenger service between Houston and the capital of South Korea. The flight is being operated by a Boeing 777-200 with three classes of service, first, business, and economy. It appears they will be featuring their new product on the route, the Kosmo suite in first and the Prestige sleeper seat in business, both of which are lie-flat seats. The economy seat is also a new product featuring audio and video on demand and power and USB ports available for each seat. The seat map below shows the layout of the cabin.
Korean Air has an extensive route network and gives Houstonians another great option for getting to Asia. Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, while far from the city center, is a great airport for connections and offers plenty of amenities, including free shower rooms for transiting passengers. They also offer free tours of Seoul for transiting passengers, which is a great way to see a city rather than sitting an airport waiting for your connection.
I should note that Korean also flies into Gimpo International Airport, the smaller, closer to the city airport, with flights only serving Asian destinations. But, if you are spending a few days in Seoul and then continuing on elsewhere in Asia, Gimpo is a great option with frequent flights and an easily accessible location close to the city center.
This is a fantastic option for travelers to get to Asia. Of course, I wish it was Asiana Airlines with their ties to the Star Alliance and United, but another carrier at Houston offering more flights is never a bad thing.
The Korean Air flight departs Houston for Seoul at 10:40am and arrives in Seoul at 3:10pm the next day. Current summer prices on the route range anywhere from $1500 round-trip to $2000 round-trip in economy. Korean Air is a member of the Skyteam airline alliance.
Kevin Cooley Long Exposure Aviation Photography
Here is just one example of his absolutely stunning work. You can also see the video versions. I also found that he has created a couple of photo sets of Svalbard and Iceland, both of which are stunning.
American Airlines Releases New Award Chart
Seth has details of the changes. The big changes are in the AAnytime Awards, or awards that have more availability across dates. There are now three tiers of AAnytime Awards with the highest tier being exponentially more expensive than the lower tier. US Airways also upped the price of the sweet spot on their reward chart, US-North Asia rewards go from 90,000 miles to 110,000 miles.
The biggest news out of this seems to be American releasing the chart with no announcement and making the changes effective immediately. That is definitely not the most customer friendly way to do business and is different than the announcement from other airlines regarding similar types of changes.
I think this is the beginning of the end of the American Airlines love affair that a lot of travel/airline bloggers seem to have. American is going to start to fall in line with what the other carriers have in place for elite programs and reward bookings and people need to prepare themselves for that.
SAS to Start Stavanger-Houston Service
SAS has announced they will start a new flight from Stavanger, Norway to Houston on August 20, 2014. This flight has been rumored for a while (no it’s not an April Fool’s joke) and it looks like it is coming to fruition. With ExxonMobil and Shell both having large facilities in Houston and Stavanger and Exxon’s Dallas campus, the flight is a great way for these companies to move their people between offices and offshore operations centers.
The flight will be operated by a PrivatAir 737-700 in an all business class configuration with 44 seats. The service will operate every day of the week except Saturday.
I will definitely be trying to move one of my reward tickets to Europe to this flight as soon as it becomes bookable later this month.
Rocks in the Water
Swiftwater Seafood Cafe – Whittier, Alaska
After queuing for a while, we drove through the single highway lane Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel and emerged in Whittier, Alaska. It was lunch time and hunger was starting to overtake us so made a pit stop at Swiftwater Seafood Cafe. It is a tiny place but the fish and chips was delicious and they had cold Alaskan Brewing Company beers ready and waiting. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed our lunch on the patio, watching a couple of cruise ships leave the small port before petting a reindeer and waiting in the queue for the next crossing through the tunnel.
Cheap Fares to Europe
That is just one example of a cheap fare to Europe on Star Alliance carriers due to Norwegian Airlines starting a number of routes to North America.
Thoughts on Malaysian Airlines 370 Speculation
A very well thought out post on speculation and Malaysian Airlines flight 370
I have thrown out a few small speculations of my own about the flight but the reality is, we won’t know what happened to the plane and the passengers until we find it. Add on top of that the poor leadership by the Malaysian government and other governments in the region to coordinate information and search efforts and we have powder keg of emotions ready to go off. The passengers on Malaysian Airlines flight 370 deserve better.