Mandala Airlines Airbus A319-100 PK-RMF
Mandala Airlines is a low cost carrier based at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakart, Indonesia. It has a fleet of only Airbus A320’s and A319’s. The airline was founded in 1969 at a time that Indonesia was re-building a devastated economy.
In 2006 the airline sold 49% stake to Indigo Partners [they also have stakes in Spirit Airlines (USA), Wizz (Europe), Tiger (Singapore), and Abnanova Airlines (Russia)]. With the change, the airline replaced its aging fleet with new Airbus aircraft. The airline currently have 30 additional aircraft on order and hope to grow at a rate of 25% per year.
The airline’s logo is a golden eight-pointed mandala showing the eight characters of humanity and the eight elements of Javanese tradition. The five-petaled lotus in the center represents Indonesia’s state ideology, Pancasila.
Thank you @racingwinds for this livery idea! If you have a mostly unknown, current airline livery you like, let me know and I might use it (da***@ai*************.com).
Mandala Airlines Website
Image: Achdiyatma Reza
Logos of different South African airlines. Image made by Kyle Hwang.
GUEST BLOG (By Kyle Hwang, intro by David): From time to time I will have guest bloggers talk about something they specialize in. Recently I was connected with Kyle who is an 18 year old student living in Pretoria, South Africa and attending University of Pretoria studying BSc Actuarial and Financial Mathematics.
He enjoys plane spotting, even though the closest major airport is OR Tambo, which is a 45 minute drive. When he has free time, he loves designing airline liveries and has quite the collection. Here are his thoughts on airlines in South Africa, in his own words:
So you might think that South Africa is a rainbow nation and not ready to host a World Cup. But either way, it has a rather rich and diverse aviation world. Here’s a quick look at the airlines
SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS (SAA):
South African Airways is the national flag carrier of South Africa. SAA is one of six airlines in the world to fly to all continents of the world. Clearly the dominant airline at OR Tambo International Airport, their fortress. SAA has a 4 star Skytrax rating and is also a member of Star Alliance.
Besides the multi coloured Ndizani livery that bought the national Olympic team to Atlanta in 1996, the airline has not had a single special livery except the Star Alliance planes. Oddly enough, SAA is also not the official airline of the FIFA World Cup.
SAA is however pretty infamous on their home turf. Rivals Kulula.com have made SAA pay several anti-competitive fines. SAA was also blamed for the shut down of Nationwide Airlines.
SAA CEO’s have also not had one of the best rides. Andre Viljoen is generally a nuisance in the public’s eye, receiving many letters to retire. Viljoen was however the pioneer of SAA’s Airbus fleet refurbishment program. Khaya Ngqula, Viljoen’s predecessor had to retire because of mismanagement (fraud in my opinion!). He has also been the one taking credit for Viljoen’s Airbus program which proved to be quite successful.
Current CEO Siza Mzimela seems to bring the airline some hope. Former CEO of South African Express (SAA’s strategic partner) may restore the airline to their former glory (SAA won the best Business class seat award in 2004 and 2nd best Business class in 2005).
SOUTH AFRICAN EXPRESS (SAX)
Having revamped their logo recently, SAX is having a much better independent-from-Mother-SAA feel. You can consider SAX as a Southwest/Frontier African equivalent. SAX offers their passengers meal boxes on their domestic flights but here comes the catch- your paying sky rocket fees for a LCC…
SOUTH AFRICAN AIRLINK
The Hummingbirds is what I call them. They literally crashed into a school ground last year and had 3 accidents in a time span of 4 months. With the possibility of the airline closing down, Airlink employees quickly wrote some comments on Facebook hoping that it would save their airline. As a result, more journalists pointed fingers to Airlink’s then rapidly shrinking reputation. Will The Hummingbirds ever be successful? If the day arrives when SAA brings SAX and Airlink back under their wing.
MANGO
You cannot miss Mango’s B737-800 from the ground. They are mango coloured! Mango is SAA’s response to the flood of low cost carriers (LCC) in South Africa. Mango took SAA’s cabin and put Mango logos all over it, like a real cheap LCC.
Also, their inflight magazine is called “Juice.”
1TIME.CO.ZA
If it wasn’t for their sponsor planes, you could also spot 1time from the ground. The are red, hot red! The first time I flew 1time (1time.aero back then) I flew the Nando’s plane. It was red and decorated with Nando’s chicken catch phrases. (“This plane flies at 30,000 feet and 60,000 chicken feet”). 1time’s planes now consists of the Avis, Pushkin Vodka (not for sale to persons under 18!), the Smiley Plane and Go Zanzibar. “More nice, less price,” is their slogan.
KULULA AIRLINES
Definitely one of the success stories of South African Aviation. Flying 101 has caught international attention and even on Airline Reporter. Kulula is actually a British Airways Comair initiative that has bought the spark back into the LCC industry. Kulula has also been voted best LCC to Africa.
Their liveries include Flying 101 of course, Jetsetter, Camoplane, Zippy plane, da udder plane, THIS WAY UP and 3 World cup celebrating planes sponsored by Europcar.
Kulula was asked by FIFA to remove the “Unofficial National carrier of the You-know-what” titles because for copyright infringements.
BRITISH AIRWAYS
What?! An European carrier in the midst of South African unknowns? Comair operates plenty of domestic flights for BA. The only catch is that your are bound to be flying some old 737 that makes a lot of noise.
So hopefully when you watch the soccer on TV you will remember that South Africa also has a pretty rich aviation industry!
I keep seeing some creative ads out there and almost blog about them, but haven’t gotten around to blog about them. Well slacking off works in my favor this time, since there have been quite a few and I can talk about them all in one blog. Here are my favorites:
* Southwest Airlines is advertising their “Bags Fly Free” on their baggage carts. This is cool in two ways. #1 they spent good money to produce these ads and are really pushing the concept. It is a good sign they won’t be charging for bags anytime soon.
* American Airlines has some new ads celebrating those in the armed services. I think American did a nice classy job with this ad just in time for Veteran’s Day.
* Jetstar has its first 3D ad for a soccer game. They said they did the ad, yet I cannot find any video of the ad. Sad.
* Southwest Airlines said no to a PETA ad that shows a revealing body in a body scan with the tagline, “Be Proud of Your Body Scan: Go Vegan.”
The airlines don’t get all the fun. Recently Oddee.com looked at some pretty creative airport advertisements:
Careful! That is hot.
Visa ad on a luggage carousel in New Zealand for the Pompeii exhibit at the National Museum. I love this idea. When the belt starts move, it looks like hot lava is coming your way. This definitely has to get your attention! (bigger version)
Time to cool down
If the lava ad is too hot, cool down. This ad showed up in Gulfport Biloxi International Airport in Mississippi and is for Beau Rivage Resort & Casino. It is supposed to let travelers feel relaxed while watching the swimmers go in circles. (bigger version)
If you like those, check out 11 other creative airport advertisements!
Thanks @bernichacra & @indigocat for finding the 13 airport ads.
Saunders Roe Princess G-ALUN flypast at the Farnborough SBAC Show in September 1953
In the first half of the 1900’s airline travel boomed. During World War II, there was a shortage of materials for making aircraft and proper runway facilities. Because of a lack of proper airports, the popularity of flying boats soared (get it soared?). Flying boats were purpose-built to land on the water and provide air transportation for all over the work (as long as water was around).
The 1940’s saw the biggest use of flying boats to get passengers around the world, but by the beginning of the 1950’s, more and more land based aircraft were being used.
The Saunders-Roe Princess was one of the last flying boats designed and built, but it never made it into service. Her journey started in 1945 when Saunders-Roe wanted to build an aircraft that could used by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). Their bid was successful an in 1946 three aircraft were ordered by BOAC.
Engineers decided to have the airplane powered by ten turboprop engines. The four inner propellers had contra-rotating propellers, driven by a twin engine. The two outer propellers were single and powered by one engine. Although the engines were unique and head of their time, the complexities ended up dooming the aircraft type. The total thrust was not as they had expected and the gearing was not able to handle the engines.
The Princess was a double decker plane, designed to fly 105 passengers very comfortably. The aircraft was to be the pinnacle of flying boats, but it never got to see that day. In 1951 BOAC cancelled their orders. NASA looked at using the aircraft for transporting Saturn V rocket parts, but decided against it. Airbus even looked at using the Princess to transport A300 sections, but decided on the Super Guppies instead. There was hope the aircraft would be used in some capacity, but never were. In 1967 all three were destroyed.
Seeing such a beautiful plane destroyed is a real shame. One could have found its way to a museum or into a collector’s hands.
Additional media:
* Old video on making the Saunders-Roe Princess
* Airshow fly by of the plane
* Some color video and seeing her twin blades
* A few photos from Airliners.net
* Article on the aircraft written in 1952 by Flight
Image: RuthAS via Wikipedia
It took 9,500 flowers to make this lei for the Hawaiian Airlines A330
Last week I showed a photo of Hawaiian Airline’s brand spanking new Airbus A330 and it had a fancy lei on it. I asked how many flowers do you think it took to make the lei?
Via the comments and people emailing me I received over 60 guesses. They ranged from 330 to 330,200 (both guesses a play off the being an A330, I am guessing) The answer? According to Hawaiian Airlines it took 9,500 dendrobium orchids to make the lei on the Airbus A330. Now that is a lot of flowers.
And who was closest? David Brown. Seriously. But it isn’t me, it is another David Brown (there are a lot of us out there and he has an aviation blog too). Mr. Brown guessed 9855 flowers, which was closest to 9500. I will be mailing him his prizes. Thank you all for participating!
On June 4th the A330 had its maiden flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles. This is the first of 27 new A330s and A350s that Hawaiian plans to introduce into its fleet over the coming decade. Check out this photo of the A330 being pushed back from its gate at Honolulu.