Ryanair Boeing 737-800 in March 2005 showing off the airline's first winglets
Normally one has to take whatever Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary says with a grain of salt. He says a lot of crazy things, most likely to get a few news stories written about him. When he first started talking about charging passengers to use the bathroom, I thought it was another crazy publicity stunt, but…
Ryanair plans to add credit card readers to the bathrooms in their Boeing 737-800 jets and even remove two of the three bathrooms to provide more seats. O’Leary is quoted as saying, “We are flying aircraft on an average flight time of one hour around Europe.” Is it crazy for this to start making a little sense to me now? I mean, some people ride buses and trains without bathrooms for longer than an hour on a daily basis.
The airline plans to charge about $1.50 for each bathroom usage and no word on emergency situations for people without credit cards. They plan to have the new system in place within 2 years.
Source: NYT Image: jordi757
Aviacsa Boeing 737-200 at McCarran Int'l Airport in Las Vegas
Due to reports of irregularities of Aviacsa’s airline maintenance, Mexico has demanded no more of their planes fly and have 60 days to fix any issues. The airline has a fleet of 26 planes, serving 17 cities, including Las Vegas.
The airline is defending themselves saying the problems were only “cosmetic — opaque logos, dull lights and scratches on the wings.”
The Transportation and Communications Department however stated that the issues found “put passengers at risk,” and it would be odd for a government to shut down an airline due to faded logos. The fact that 21 of their planes are Boeing 737-200’s and the others are Boeing 737-300 (as of Sept 2008), they are not new planes and could likely have other issues.
Source: AP Image: gTarded
Mark's Website
That’s right! 24/7, comedian Mark Malkoff will be hanging out on an AirTran plane, travelling to about 12 cities per day, sleeping, eating — even washing himself on an airliner for thirty straight days. The beauty? He has a fear of flying.
Not only does he want to conquer his fear of flying, but he is also trying to break the Guinness record for continuous flight. And since AirTran has WiFi, Mark is able to relate his journey through his website and on his Twitter account.
His great adventure started this Monday and will go to the end of the month. I wonder if he is able to earn frequent flier miles through Airtran — I will try and ask him — stay tuned.
Update: Mark’s response: “I hope so!”
Update2: He has earned so many miles he got a big Elite airmiles card.
The Brazilian Military has been heading to the location where another jetliner reported seeing flames on the ocean previously.
When the Brazilian military planes arrived they found a 3 mile long path of debris from the Air France jet carrying 228 people.
The ocean depth at the crash location is about 3 miles. With the area and depth of the crash scene, it will be very difficult to track down the cockpit and the blackbox, which records much of the flight data.
A few unverifiable objects (life vests, seats) have been found among the mostly unidentifiable wreckage, but no signs of any of the 228 aboard at this point.
There is still only speculation to what caused this crash. It is known the flight hit heavy weather and it seems there was little time for the pilots to make a Mayday call.
Our thoughts go out to all those who are affected by this tragic loss.
Read the most up-to-date information on this story.
Continental Airlines Boeing 737 in Mexico
Continental Airlines is reporting that the H1N1 (or “Swine Flu”) devastated their flights between the US and Mexico for May 2009. Continental could see a 19% fall in revenue per available seat mile in May and a 13% decline in April.
The H1N1 media spree has seemed to cause a lot more than just awareness. The CDC removed the travel advisory to Mexico in mid-May.
Source: Airline Biz Blog Image: World Aviation Group