Zambezi Airlines is based at Lusaka International Airport in Zambia (located in south central Africa) and started operations in July 2008 using a single Embraer 120. They currently operate three Boeing 737-500s and have expanded operations. Even though Zambezi Airline’s website states the airline has, “quickly gained a reputation for service and reliability,” they are currently banned from flying to the European Union.
Zambezi has helped the local economy by bringing a maintenance hangar back online that was once owned by Zambia Airways and was abandoned after the carrier went under in 1993. Where most other African airlines send their aircraft to South Africa for work, Zambezi has provided local aviation jobs in Lusaka. It is estimated that the airline has spent close to $700,000.00 on getting the facility back to working order.
The airline has a pretty slick livery with giraffe print on the tail and engine cowlings and simple green titles on the fuselage. I was kind of hoping that the seats would be giraffe print fabric, but it appears they are a standard blue — oh well.
Last week Virgin American started flying to Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) via Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO). Not only was there celebration, but a big challenge placed to legacy airlines to watch their back — Virgin America is in town.
Virgin America seems like the little airline that could. Back in 2007 when they first started operations many of the large carriers barely took notice. Now, the San Francisco based airline keeps growing with a fleet of 39 Airbus A320 and A319 aircraft that serve 14 destinations. The airline currently has 60 additional Airbus A320s on order and plans to keep growing their route network. It is hard to argue that Virgin America does not deliver the best in-cabin product of any domestic carrier, and with prices matching other carriers, they could give the legacy airlines a run for their money (story continues below photos).
One of Virgin’s Airbus A320s.
Some bubbly in San Fran before take off.
Get your fight on.
Adrian Grenier from the show Entourage with Sir Richard Branson.
’œUntil today, travelers flying from O’Hare to the two largest California airports had little choice and few low fare options. We believe our flights will be a breath of fresh air for Chicago travelers and thank the City and O’Hare officials for their efforts to open up access to new competition,’ said Virgin America President and Chief Executive Officer David Cush. It seems that Cush might be talking directly about United (which is based in ORD) and American Airlines (which has a hub at ORD) when he stated, “Flyers deserve more options than just the off-chance they may be upgraded from poor to mediocre on a legacy airline.”
The legacies are fighting back. United Airlines has announced a double mileage award program where residents of Illinois or California can earn double miles when flying between Chicago and LAX or SFO. United has also added an additional five round trip flights to SFO and one additional flight to LAX. American plans to add one additional flight between ORD and LAX in June.
United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson told the Chicago Tribune, “Our strategy is squarely focused on giving customers the most convenient schedule and access to the broadest network. We have competed with multiple carriers in these two Chicago-West Coast markets for years. We will continue to do so and will continue to win.” Those sure sound like confident fighting words to me.
Sir Richard Branson told the Chicago Tribune that, “We’ve had to fight our way into Chicago,” as he credited the big airlines at O’Hare with “knocking out” Virgin’s previous attempts to serve O’Hare for three years.
Virgin America isn’t stopping the fight at just flying to ORD, they too are offering special frequent flier rewards. Passengers flying between now and August 31st will be able to earn triple Elevate rewards points flying between LAX, SFO and ORD. Who doesn’t love a little battle of the airlines — well maybe the airlines, but it sure is good for customers.
Of course the large elephant in the room is that Virgin America doesn’t have a good track record of making profit. Yes, they are still a new airline flying new airplanes into expensive airports, so it could just take time to make a solid profit. Virgin America does offer more bang for the buck, but will it be enough to woo over passengers who are loyal to larger carriers? So far it seems that Virgin American think they can. They brought the fight to Chicago and it looks like others airlines have heard the call. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Due to being stuck in Dallas because of bad weather, I was not able to make this exciting trip with Sir Richard Branson. Luckily, others were able to capture the excitement:
* Story and photos from Jaunted of Virgin America’s Chicago event
* You can see more of Nick Rose’s photos on his Facebook page (a big thanks for sharing your photos)
It was great being in a Boeing 737 full of excited Southwest employees and aviation nuts. Then when landing at Oshkosh and people lined up along the runway waving at us like we were royalty.
As we were towed to the center of Oshkosh to park, people were waving and treating us like they have never seeing a Boeing 737 before. Oh yea, let’s not forget being able to check out all sorts of really amazing aircraft.
With Southwest’s contest you can join in on the fun this year. All you have to do it give a little information about yourself and hit “Submit.” No videos, no stories, ten seconds and done. If you win, you and a guest get to enjoy the Southwest Oshkosh AirVenture experience. GOOD LUCK!
I love a good time-lapse video. This one is brought to you by the very busy Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). The author recorded one hour and ten minutes of video and reduced it down to about two and a half minutes.
On his YouTube posting he stated he would have preferred to record a bit longer, but local law enforcement thought it might not be such a great idea (even though what he was doing was not illegal). I think it is interesting to see how the aircraft don’t go 100% straight when taking off. Enjoy!
Due to a schedule conflict I wasn’t able to make it to General Aviation Day at Paine Field last weekend, but luckily a lot of you were. Since I was going through to see what I missed, I wanted to share with you as well.
Even though there was a lot of very cool vintage warplanes there, being an airline geek, I think the pinnacle was a low pass by a Boeing 747 Dreamlifter, taken by Liembo and posted to his Flicker account:
