Jazeera Airways Airbus A320.
Jazeera Airways is a low cost airline based in Kuwait. It was founded in 2004 and currently has a fleet of six Airbus A320 aircraft. At one time, the airline had 30 A320s on order, but in 2010 aircraft were parked and five had their leases stopped. Jazeera Airways cancelled most of their orders and now only has four A320s on order with Airbus.
The airline was started when the Kuwait government allowed Jazeera Airways to operate, ending Kuwait Airway’s monopoly in the country.
The livery has a lot of white and I almost wish they would have made part of the bottom or have a stripe that was teal. One fun part, you don’t see on many liveries, is the blue behind the tail surrounding the APU. It is pretty difficult to read the airline’s name on the front, on the engines and on the tail due to the font chosen.
Image by: Globespotter
This a guest blog from Vinay Bhaskara looking how airline and train transportation has changed over time on the east coast. This is his story:
One of my more ’œavgeeky’ hobbies is looking at the Form 41 data; specifically the T100. The T100D Segment, which I’m going to be looking at today, gives us data about every domestic flight operated by all carriers, both US owned, and international.
Now the T100 database at the DOT goes back to 1990, so I decided to take a look at how a specific route looked like in 1990, and then in 2009 (the second to last full year of data available). After a few moments of debate, I decided on New York La Guardia to Washington Reagan ’“ one component of the venerable Northeast Shuttle.
The La Guardia to Reagan route is still one of the most traversed air routes in North America, comprising 423,483 passengers last year. There are only two airlines on the route; US Airways, and Delta. In 1990, it was the legendary Pan Am who flew the route in lieu of Delta. That being said, here are some of the stats I found most interesting:
* Capacity on the route fell by 49% and passengers dropped 50%. So in 19 years, the airlines have halved their capacity on the route, and half as many passengers are flying the route.
* Despite the precipitous drop in capacity and demand, the average number of daily flights only dropped from 31 to 24.
* This corresponds with the average aircraft size falling from 159 seats in 1990, to 103 seats in 2009. Of course this probably has a lot to do with the fact that Delta is running E175s every hour, but still.
* Delta had a load factor of 40% last year. I hope they have lots of high yielding passengers, because they sure as heck aren’t filling many seats.
The following chart shows how the capacity and passengers carried stacked up for each airline:
The next two charts show the corresponding market shares of the different airlines. Isn’t it surprising that Delta (who replaced Pan Am on the route in 1991) lost so much market share?
Why are the passenger numbers dropping so much? In a word: time. The time it takes to fly between New York and DC has grown so much, that flying has become far less attractive, especially when compared to other options like the Acela Express.
Still skeptical?
Let’s take our average businessman, and say that he lives 20 minutes away from both Penn Station and La Guardia (I’m not sure there is such a point, but work with me here). So we start with that. Then, the Acela Express takes an average of 3 hours to reach its destination, and bam, you’re in downtown DC at Union Station.
The flight on the other hand is much more complex. After arriving at the airport, you usually have to budget time for security. I’d estimate it to be 15 minutes at the Marine Air Terminal (Delta Shuttle) during peak times, and 40 minutes at US Airways’ terminal during the same time period. So let’s assume that it takes around 30 minutes for security. Then, you want to be at the gate around 25 minutes before your flight; which brings you to a total of 75 minutes before you even board the flights. Now, the average ramp to ramp time, which is how long it takes for the plane to go from gate to gate was 73 minutes last year. Once you arrive at the airport, we can figure around 10 minutes for disembarking and going to the taxi stand/limo pickup. From Reagan National, it usually takes around 25 minutes to get to downtown DC by car. So let’s tally up the total travel time for each method.
Acela Express
Drive to Penn Station- 20 minutes
Train Travel Time- 180 minutes
Total Travel Time- 200 minutes
US Airways and Delta Shuttles
Drive to La Guardia- 20 minutes
Security at Airport- 30 minutes
Time at Gate Prior to Departure- 25 minutes
Plane Travel Time- 73 minutes
Time to Get out of Reagan Airport- 10 minutes
Drive to Downtown DC- 25 minutes
Total Travel Time- 183 minutes
Plus, the service on the Acela Express is much better. Acela Express- Spacious seats, in-seat power, WiFi, a newspaper, and gourmet meals. US Airways/Delta Shuttle- Cramped cabin, snack boxes, free drinks, and a newspaper. You decide’¦.. Which one would/do you choose?
Vinay Bhaskara is an aviation analyst and history buff based in the United States (New Jersey). In addition to his analyst’s position at Aspire Aviation, he also writes for the Bangalore Aviation blog, and does a podcast on Asian aviation with Innovation Analysis Group (IAG). He can be reached at @TheABVinay on Twitter, as well as at vi***@ba***************.com, on Facebook , and via Linkedin.
ANA's first Boeing 787 Dreamliner to be delivered on September 27th.
Sorry folks, I have to be lazy and copy and paste directly from ANA’s press release:
’œThe airplane is ready. ANA is ready. And, Boeing is ready,’ said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. ’œThis airplane begins a new chapter in aviation history.’
ANA’s airplane will arrive in Tokyo on Sept. 28, following a Sept. 27 departure from Everett, Wash., and will be greeted by ANA employees, media and Japanese partners. Details of events in Everett and Tokyo will be provided in the weeks ahead. Many of the events will be webcast live, allowing people around the world to participate in the celebration.
Shinichiro Ito, president and CEO of ANA Group, said, ’œAs launch customer, we are delighted to be taking delivery of our first 787 Dreamliner. This aircraft will enable us to offer new standards of service and comfort to our passengers and will play an important role in our international expansion strategy as we seek to become Asia’s number one airline.’
ANA launched the 787 program with a record-setting order of 50 airplanes in April 2004. The airline has played a key role in guiding the design of the Dreamliner.
I am currently at a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey and so far the trip to Rwanda has gone very well. Our flight leaving from Boeing Field ended up being delayed about six hours due to a power black out and computer issues for the bank in Africa. It turned out okay, since it gave us more time to check out the 737-800 (9XR-WF) on the ground and we were even rounded up and taken to a dive bar (Stellar Pizza for any of you locals) where the CEO or Rwanda Air, John Mirenge served us beer — right on.
The flight from Seattle to Keflavik, Iceland only took about 6hrs and 40minutes and after about a 2 hour layover for fuel, we were on our way to Istanbul. I got to test out the Boeing Sky Interior on a short flight from Seattle to Dallas with American Airlines, but I have to say I love it even more after spending about forteen hours with it now.
We rest in Istanbul tonight and tomorrow we are on our way to Kigali, Rwanda. Unfortunately this is one of those trips where I don’t get to go outside the airport or hotel, but I want to be well rested for Rwanda. Of course I will have a full report on the trip and plenty of photos later.
There is a lot of airline hatred out there and one thing I try to do on this blog is remind folks that even though things can and will go wrong in the airline business, it is still made up of wonderful people who should not suffer because too many people feel the need to share negative stories versus postive. When I wrote a story on giving the airlines some love, I got emails from quite a few people sharing their positive stories. Instead of just enjoying themself, I wanted to share. This story comes from Robert who lives in Ontario, Canada. Here is his story in his own words:
Air Canada Boeing 777-300ER
We recently took a packaged vacation throughout Britain and Ireland. To get to London and home, we specified Air Canada flights 848 on September 16th and 849 on October 2nd respectively. Ostensibly these were requested for their departure and arrival times, allowing us the most practical time in London. But, honestly, I chose them to ensure we would ride on the Boeing 777-300ER equipment; 18.5-inch seats and 32-inch pitch ’“ more than the rest of the fleet.
Was everything perfect? No. It can never be, but those flights came close to being as good as possible.
Things started off with the check-in process at PIA, which to our delight, and using the self-serve kiosks, was almost effortless. Right after I figured out how to get the machines to read our passports that is; a bit better signage might be in order there.
Our air-venture progressed to the gate personnel who did their level best to actually load the aircraft by row number, politely but firmly turning folks away when they tried to barge through. Most of the ’œairport vultures’ were indeed held at bay. And this same effort happened at Heathrow inbound too.
Outbound, we backed out more or less on time and arrived within 10-minutes of sked. Inbound, Heathrow ground traffic raised its all-too-normal ugly head, and we were nearly an hour off the published pushback time ’“ not AC’s fault.
Both flights were packed to the gills. I expect that the captains were able to declare themselves as Air Canada ’œvery heavy’ to ATC during the departure processes.
On-board service, both ways, was totally contrary to, in our experience, the undeserved reputation of Air Canada staff. They were, to a person friendly, prompt, helpful and more-than-willing to assist.
Food was okay. Wine or other beverages were readily available. And the AVOD system worked all the way, both ways; including my favourite ’œwhere the heck are we’ channel. Would someone with some authority officially say thank you for us?
The guys at the front-end were informative, good humoured, and when those timing issues arose in London, honest and forthright. That, plus keeping a firm hand on 375-tons of thoroughbred aircraft to produce the rides we got, deserves a nice note from the higher-ups as well, we think.
The only complaint we have, and it really falls more into a firm request is, please, please enforce, manage, and have passengers observe the carry-on size and quantity rules. Right at check-in. Luckily the triple-sevens have relatively large overhead luggage bays; otherwise some of the extraneous nonsense being hauled into the cabins might have had to be bungee corded to the wings.
Lastly, we were almost an hour from deplaning to receiving our luggage. The GTAA folks really need to build in some staffing contingencies when through no fault by the airlines, planes arrive later than planned. Air Canada is big tenant there; they should feel free to exercise their rights as hub customers.
If you have a positive story about an airline, please send it to me: da***@ai*************.com. I would love to share it on a future #AirlineLove story.
Photo by Patcard
