Some creative United Airlines and American Airlines liveries
I am one that enjoys following all the airline liveries and get excited when a new one comes out. Sometimes I shudder when seeing a new livery that just…well isn’t that great.
While surfing around, I found a website that allows people to create their own liveriesand some are not half bad. Kind of wish more airlines would take a look to get a better idea of what possibilities are out there, since creating a new brand is not cheap.
Sukoi Superjet 100. Pic from sukhoi.org
Jon Ostrower from FlightBlogger is over at the Paris Air Show and has been doing a great job covering it. Today he posted a video showing the new Sukhoi Superjet.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 can hold 75-95 passengers and is scheduled to start deliveries in the third quarter of 2009. Armenian Armanvia will receive the first planes, followed by Aeroflot. The Flightblogger reports that there are an additional 24 orders from Avia Leasing and another 30 for Malev in Hungary. As of June 2009 there are 124 confirmed orders and an additional 99 options by 11 airlines/leasing companies.
Even though most of the attention is given to the Boeing vs Airbus battle, there are quite a few other aircraft choices out there, other than the two main players. The Airline Blog will be reporting more on other aircraft manufacturers this summer.
See More: Video – Sukoi.org
CN-RNT Royal Air Maroc Boeing 767 showing the damages after a hard landing. Click for Larger.
Wandering around on Airliners.net, I found the first pictures I have seen of Royal Air Maroc’s Boeing 767-300 which had a hard landing back in April 2009. The aircraft was cleared to land at JFK (flying from Morocco).
After the landing there was no obvious damage to the plane and it was set up for the return flight. Then the flight crew noticed the damage during the walk-around and it is expected to cost up to $10 million to repair the damaged plane. It is currently thought that the incident was caused by wake turbulence.
It is scary to think what might have happened if the plane would have taken off without the damages found. And to think this damage was found in the dark during the walk-around! That must have been one hard landing for everyone aboard for sure.
Image: Gerard Isaacson
Air India Boeing 777-337 (ER) VT-ALK Chattisgarh
Air India has been having more problems than curry setting off fire alarms. The airline announced it will be paying 31,000 employees two weeks late.
“The national carrier is facing perhaps its toughest ever crisis,” said Kapil Kaul who is the chief executive officer.
The airline saw a loss of over $800 million in the last financial year and the future outlook isn’t looking much better.
Employees now are struggling to figure out how to pay their own bills, since banks won’t be willing to push off bills for another two weeks.
Hopefully this can be resolved soon since one of the biggest morale killers is not getting paid.
Source: Indian Express Image: Thomas Becker
Continental Airlines Boeing 737
Continental Airlines made a little mistake with sending a ten year old girl to Newark, when her grandparents were waiting for her in Cleveland.
Her grandparents called her father asking where she was when she didn’t get off the plane. For 45 long minutes the father was panicked trying to track down the location of his daughter, until discovering Continental had escorted her to the wrong airport.
Continental states that there were two flights leaving from the same doorway and miscommunication led to the girl being placed on the wrong flight. When the mistake was uncovered, the girl was placed on another plane and sent safely to her grandparents.
Continental offered to waive the $75 unaccompanied minor fee, but the father stated, “You can bet they’ll be refunding a lot more than that fee by the time I’m done with them. My father-in-law laughed when they made the offer, it was so outrageous.”
Certainly mistakes like this happen, but it seems like airlines should be ready to bend over backwards to make things right with the affected family, if for no other reason than to avoid bad publicity like they’re getting.
UPDATE: It turns out that Continental did this TWICE this weekend. They put an 8yr old girl on a wrong flight as well. Read more…
Source: WCVB Image: code20photog