Late last night I got word from Jon Ostrower (aka FlightBlogger) that a nicely new painted Boeing 747-8 in British Airways colors was out in the open. So, this morning I headed over to Paine Field (KPAE) to check it out. I found her, but it wasn’t so easy. First she was parked a bit off from the rest of the Boeing 747-8’s and she is not in full British Airways livery. She is painted all white with a blue belly.
I was also able to check out the other Boeing 747-8’s sitting, waiting to take to the sky.
Update: BA has announced it is updating its fleet of Boeing 747-400F with new Boeing 747-8F’s and will be leasing them through Global Supply Systems, which is 49% owned by Atlas Air. On the press release BA states, “It has also been agreed that the new 747-8fs will be delivered in British Airways livery and incorporate the British Airways World Cargo logo.” Flight Global reports that they will be wet-leased for five years by GSS.
An American Airlines Boeing 757 and Airbus A300 line up for take off at Miami International Airport
Airlines have to start getting pretty creative to come up with new fees to help increase their revenue. Even though I get frustrated to have to pay the fees myself, I at least understand why I am paying them. American has started charging a new fee and I am not sure if it is worth it.
Depending on the length of the flight, you can now pay anywhere from $19 to $39 to sit in the first few rows in economy and be one of the first ones to board. There is no question being one of the first to board to make sure you have room for your carry-ons and it is nice to get off the plane instead of waiting in the back for everyone else to. However, I am not sure if the added cost is worth it.
United has something similar called EconomyPlus, but at least when you pay more for those seats, you also get additional legroom. With United, you can purchase the seats at the time of booking, but with American’s Express Seats, they can only be purchased from a kiosk starting 24hrs before a flight to 50 minutes before take off.
Virasb Vahidi, Chief Commercial Officer for American Airlines states, “Express Seats highlights American’s focus on offering customers what they value most.” I am not sure if passengers really value paying more to sit in the front the most. However, I haven’t done the research and spoke with a lot of American passengers about it, which I assume American has and they got positive feedback. The nice thing for American is there is no need to change the layouts of their aircraft to make this work, which means it will be cheap to test and cheap to pull the plug if it doesn’t work out.
1Time is a low cost airline based out of South Africa. They have a fleet of mostly MD-80 aircraft and fly domestically through Africa.
This MD-83 (ZS-SKB) was painted in zebra strips to celebrate the airline’s new route to Livingston, Zambia from Johannesburg. It seems the plane likes the paint job, look at her big smile!
Ah, Saturday Night Live is always (or sometimes) good for a laugh. Every once in a while a nice airline-related gem will pop up. This one is a bit old, but still a good one, making a little fun of Captain Sully and US Airways flight 1549.
Seattle's Airport will be getting body scanners soon.
Here they come folks! Body scanners are on their way to my home town here in Seattle. I like to think of Seattle as a pretty progressive town and I was hoping that they wouldn’t make their way to my hometown airport. But as the Seattle Times is reporting, they will start to be used in September at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA).
The TSA hopes to install 450 of the $130,000 to $170,000 machines this year and 500 more the next. Someone is definitely getting rich off all this added security.
Remember, you have the option to opt-out of the body scanners and get a full pat down if you choose. I won’t re-hash my love (that is sarcastic) for these machines.
