American Airlines commercial from 1972 showing off their new luxury liner fleet DC-10, Boeing 707 and Boeing 747. Classic. Check out that economy lounge they had back then.
Malev Hungarian Airlines Boeing 737-600 (HA-LOE) in snowy Moscow
Malev Hungarian Airlines was founded back in 1946 as the Hungarian-Soviet Civil Air Transport Joint Stock Company (that’s a long name). The airline is based out of Budapest and flies to 50 cities in 34 different countries.
Malev has 22 aircraft, including 6 Boeing 737-600’s, 7 737-700’s, 5 737-800’s and 4 Q400. They used to fly Boeing 767’s which make the livery look good as well.
I love this livery with the blue nose, why don’t more airlines do this? Oh I have seen a few liveries with the nose a different color, but it wasn’t meant to be. Although I do like the blue nose best on a Q400.
Image: Aleksander Markin
Quick! What are the three different aircraft types in this photo?
Growing up I flew a lot out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA). I would head over to the North or South Terminals and watch planes come and go for hours. I would love looking at two different aircraft and find the differences so I could tell them apart. Some, like the Boeing 727 and Boeing 737 were easy. Others like the DC-10 and MD-11 took a little more effort. With magazines and the addition of the internet, learning the differences became easier.
For those who might not have every aircraft type down, but want to know them better, I found a pretty slick guide on how to know your Airbus and Boeing airplanes from each other.
Check it out. What are some other ways you use to tell aircraft apart?
Image: MSPdudeWhen an advertisement starts out with the statement, “WARNING: The following video contains language and themes of a sensitive nature. Viewer discretion is advised,” they get my full attention. When first checking out Air New Zealand new Rico ads about a month ago I wondered how they might out-do their videos of almost-naked employees. Well, I think they succeeded and have made me laugh in the process.
Enter Rico, Air New Zealand’s new spokesperson… err spokesquirrell, maybe spokesfuzzyguy, um, I am not really sure what he is. I do know he is unique, a bit rude and darn funny. He says things that no spokes person should ever say, but some how me makes it seem alright. According to his FaceBook he was born, “on plane between two country on international line of dates on June 6th and 7th 1972.” He states he likes to say he was born on the 6th since that was the same day, “David Bowwow release Ziggy Stardust recording.” Don’t tell Rico, but I have heard he was actually “born” at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in Los Angeles. This is the same place that brought you the much more clean-mouthed Muppet’s.
If you follow quite a few aviation blogs, this is probably not the first time you have seen Rico. He has been up to his shenanigans on the internet for a bit over a month. Since then, he has caused quite a stir around the interwebs. I have seen that most aviation geeks love him, some think he is disgusting and others just do not get it. I say, if an airline is able to make their marketing funny and creative enough to get people to write about them, that says something.
How can you not like this little fuzzy dude? Well, I think I like watching him on YouTube, not sure if I would want to sit next to him on Air New Zealand’s longest flight of 14hrs from Vancouver, BC to Auckland (ok, yea I would, but alcohol would need to be involved and I am not sharing a snuggle seat with him). I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to interview him and he made a funny video for me. I am not sure he 100% understood all my questions, but his answers made me laugh hard. Trying to answer what his favorite airplane to fly in should make any aviation geek smile!
If you haven’t seen Rico’s other videos, be sure to check them out. Just do me a favor and don’t listen to these at work 🙂
Episode 1: Happy Hour
Episode 2: The Intimate Art of Touch
Episode 3: Story Time
Episode 4: Relationship Advice (notice the Boeing 787 windows?)
Rico Safety Video
Rico’s Interview with Harriet Baskas on StuckAtTheAirport.com
Would you want to hang out with Rico for a few hours? If you so dare, you can also follow Rico via his Facebook or Twitter accounts. He sounds like a world traveler and hoping I can run into him someday.
Airbus versus Boeing. Who doesn’t love a good competition between the world’s two largest commercial airline manufactures? I try to say I am not slanted one way or another, but living 15 minutes away from where most Boeing aircraft are made might make me a bit biased. The saying around these parts, “If it isn’t Boeing, I am not going,” is pretty popular. I actually know a few people who honestly will not fly an Airbus or Boeing product just on principle. I don’t go that far.
Anyhow one of the constant “this manufacture is better,” arguments I hear is that the Airbus A320 seats are so much wider than the B0eing 737s. I figured it was time to find out. I took a look at airlines from around the world that fly both aircraft and used SeatGuru.com to find out the width of each seat.
I wanted to check the accuracy of the information SeatGuru has on their site, so I spoke with Jami Counter, Senior director of the site and he stated, “SeatGuru’s content team utilizes flyer comments to maintain the accuracy of our airplane seat information and updates the site with both user-submitted reviews and independent research.” That being said, I am by no means saying this is 100% scientific, but I think it can give a good comparison between the two.
Both the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families have the same width no matter what model they might be (ie a Boeing 737-200 is just as wide as a -900). Airbus starts out ahead with a fuselage width of 156″ and a cabin width of 146″. The Boeing 737 is a bit smaller with a 148″ fuselage and only 139″ in the cabin. This means that the Airbus A320 has 7 more inches of width than the Boeing 737. If an airline did things right, each seat and the aisle could have 1″ more width than the 737.
I took a look at airlines running the Boeing 737 and/or the Airbus A320. I compared both the standard economy seating and also premium seating (some airlines call it first class, business, etc). The economy is shown with an “E” and premium with a “P.” If an airline had multiple seat widths in the same category, I averaged them together. Here are my results in inches:
On average, the Airbus A320 seats are wider, but not by much. Only about 1/2″ in economy and almost no difference with premium seats. It seems that airlines and seat manufactures are not using that extra 7″ of cabin width that the Airbus A320 provides.
When I asked Counter from SeatGuru about his thoughts, he told me, “While the A320 does have a wider diameter fuselage, it doesn’t necessarily mean that airlines will put in a significantly wider seat.” He also took a look at the data they have on their site and came to a similar conclusion that the A320 will have slightly more width on average. “On SeatGuru we’ve found that while there is some variation, we generally see airlines give about 17-17.2″ seat width in coach on a B737, while they give about 17.5″-18″ seat width in coach on an A320. These differences depend on the types of seats airlines use, as well as the overall seating configuration of the aircraft. ”
Is it worth making an effort to fly on a Airbus A320 for more room? I am going to say no. I know that many people have a preference of aircraft type they fly on and I am assuming that fractions of an inch isn’t going to persuade a person one way or another. However, airline loyalist have always surprised me in the past. Does this information change your views on flying on either the Boeing 737 or Airbus A320?
Orig Image: Caribb