Kuban Airlines Boeing 737-300 (VQ-BHD) with sunflower livery
Kuban Airlines was founded back in 1932 as a division of Aeroflot, in Krasnodar, Russia. In 1992 it was mostly privatized with the state owning 51% and the employees owning 49%.
This February Kuban Airlines added three Boeing 737-300’s to its fleet with a brand new livery. The airline also flies 12 flew Yakovlev Yak-42D’s in their old livery. They fly to about 18 domestic destinations, but will also fly chartered international flights.
If you know Russian, you can learn more about them on their website.
Thanks Yvette for this find!
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Image: Tristar Images
Congrats! Cimber Sterling earns the "Crazier Than Ryanair" medal.
I created the “Crazier Than Ryanair” medal quite a long time ago and have only been able to give it to one airline, before taking it back again. Reader Daniel asked if Cimber Sterling might be deserving of the medal due to their recent actions of buying cheap tickets from a competitor, so passengers could not.
Oh yes. That is for sure crazier than Ryanair…or at least equal enough to their craziness for Cimber Sterling to earn the “Crazier Than Ryanair” medal. Congrats!
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Orig Image: davidrogonza
A Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 737-300
Picture an airline that is having a super sale. When I say super, I mean SUPER. Selling tickets for only $0.19 USD (well it was for 1 Danish crown, but that equals about $0.19). Then picture a second airline whose employees go and buy out hundreds of the $0.19 tickets, not letting real passengers purchase them. Too crazy to happen? Think again.
Norwegian Air Shuttle, to celebrate a new route between Copenhagen and Karup, were offering the super cheap airfares. Danish airline Cimber Sterling employees saw a good opportunity to take advantage of the low fares.
Using fake names, Cimber Sterling employees bought well over 650 tickets on Norwegian Air Shuttle. “One person has booked 458 tickets, and another 100, and two more than 50, and two Cimber board members 18. I am sure it is more than 650,” Norwegian Air Shuttle spokesperson Anne-Sissel Skaanvik said. “It costs us money when we have work to cancel the tickets. There are many people involved in this, and it is not for free.”
Skaanvik said that the flight has seen many “no-shows” since real passengers weren’t able to purchase the tickets. Cimber Sterling’s CEO Jacob Krogsgaard called his counterpart to apologize. “I have called (Norwegian CEO) Bjorn Kjos and given him an unreserved apology for what occurred,” Krogsgaard said in a statement, calling it a case of “misguided loyalty” on the part of Cimber staff. “We cannot interfere in what our employees are doing privately, but I want to stress that it is not the way Cimber Sterling wants to do business,” Krogsgaard continued.
This is just dirty. Yes, there is good competition out there and this is not it. Even if real passengers bought the tickets, Norwegian Air Shuttle would have lost money, but it would have built relationships with new customers. Not only were they not able to build those relationships, it cost them money to take care of the fake tickets. To have so many employees and even board members purchasing the tickets, it is hard to believe that upper management at Cimber Sterling had no idea what was going on.
Thanks Keith for the tip!
Source: ForexPros Image: oeinlsen
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Sunset view looking at a Ryanair winglet over the Canary Islands
If you read the blog often you know I have a fascination with Ryanair. Well I think most people who follow the airline industry have a fascination with Ryanair. As American travelers complain about fees, yet still pay them, I think Ryanair might show a glimpse of the future if passengers keep demanding the lowest price possible. Ryanair is known for their cheap prices, tons of fees and a total lack of customer service.
Recently Ryanair showed their customer service skills by stranding passengers at the wrong destination.
Eager passengers were on a flight from the UK to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands when it was diverted to Fuerteventura (about 30 miles away) due to weather. Even though airlines have no legal obligations to pay for costs related to weather, most make accommodations for customers in this situation due to this thing called “customer service.”
Instead, Ryanair booted off the passengers, fueled up and took off, leaving passengers on their own. Since there was no staff at the airport, there was little chance to get help. Of course, they could have tried to fight it out on the phone, but Ryanair charges by the minute to talk to a customer service representative.
Do I feel bad for these travelers? A little bit, I mean they lost a day of their vacation, had to get a hotel room, but flying on Ryanair is always a gamble. The old saying “you get what you pay for,” is quite accurate with Ryanair.
UPDATE 3/18/10: I just received an email from Stephen McNamara, head of communications for Ryanair who states the airline did provide ferry service to the passengers destinations. More can be found here.
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Image: GanMed64
Delta Air Lines Flight 253
It was lucky that the bomb didn’t go off on Delta Airlines Flight 253 by the so-called Christmas bomber. However recent research shows that the Airbus A330 with 278 might have been able to land, if the bomb had detonated.
BBC News did some research with a Boeing 747 that showed that flight 253’s fuselage most likely would not have broken and it should have been able to land safely. The testing shows the bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and the passenger next to him would have most likely been killed, making it still a very horrific event. The explosion would cause injuries to passengers, smoke and chaos, but the plane would have still been able to land completely intact.
Dr John Wyatt, an international terrorism and explosives adviser to the UN, replicated the conditions on board the Detroit flight on a decommissioned Boeing 747 at an aircraft graveyard in Gloucestershire, England. The amount of explosives found on the bomber would not have been enough to break the skin of the flexible aluminum making up the aircraft’s fuselage. Even though the Boeing 747 was not the aircraft that flew on flight 253, the two planes are made similarly enough to be used in the test.
The researchers couldn’t do into great details of the damages that were caused for security reasons, but their goal is to assure passengers that airlines are safer than most people think. For the tests the plane was not pressurized since flight 253 was at about 10,000 feet and the pressure would have been similar on the inside and outside of the fuselage. The results could be much more different at a higher altitude.
If you live in the UK you can watch the full BBC show, otherwise you can check out a small clip of the show here.
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