Frequent Flyer Pets
A British airline is targeting a growing market in pet travel by launching a special frequent flyer scheme for jet-setting dogs, cats and other animals!
Four dogs and a cat have been signed up to the Virgin Atlantic Flying Paws reward scheme since it was launched
last month, a spokeswoman for the airline said.
Virgin carried 1250 animals last year, twice the number of the year before. In a bid to tempt fussy pets onto their flights, dogs taking their first Virgin trip will be given a T-shirt and dog tag, while cats receive a toy mouse, and ferrets get a flying jacket and collar tag.
Once pets have notched up five 'paw prints' in their frequent flyer book, they can acquire other goodies such as hand-made food bowls.
Perhaps more likely in practice, the animals can instead donate their bonuses to their owners in the form of
frequent flyer points.
Message from pilot: "This is the moment of reckoning. Good luck"
The pilot of a South African Airways subsidiary, SA Airlink, flight which was forced to make an emergency landing at Durban International Airport told his passengers to prepare for death.
Evidently, the pilot of the Jetstream 41 aircraft from Johannesburg to Margate issued
this message of doom shortly before landing: "Our worst nightmare has come true, this thing [the nose wheel] won't come out. This is the moment of reckoning. Good luck".
One passenger recalls that at that point in the flight, everyone had their heads between their legs and the only thing he could remember was the air hostess calmly repeating: "Brace, brace, keep your heads down."
Following orders from a technician, the pilot attempted several G-force manoeuvres to dislodge the wheel, which refused to deploy.
When this failed, he flew to Durban airport where he burnt off excess fuel by circling over the ocean.
He then came in low and slowly, before touching down. The plane landed on
its two rear wheels as the pilot held the nose up and steady. As it lost
speed the nose dropped onto the runway until it finally came to a nose-down halt
at the very end of the runway.
A staff member of SA Airlink said the pilot had been badly traumatised by the experience.
An understatement, I suspect!
More bad news for SAA, this time falling body parts!
Pieces of a man's body fell from the wheel well of SA 203 as it prepared to
land at New York's Kennedy Airport. The body parts, which included the
right leg, part of the spine and a hip, struck a garage roof of a home in
South Floral Park, New York, before landing in the backyard, police said.
A South African Airways spokeswoman said it appeared to have been a stowaway
attempt. She said the plane had stopped in Dakar, Senegal, on its way to
New York. The pilot reported feeling vibrations at takeoff but conducted a
check and found nothing amiss.
Its been a rough month for South African Airways!
Pilots guilty of operating jet while drunk
Two former America West pilots were convicted of operating a jet full of passengers while still drunk from a night of beer drinking. A Florida court jury convicted
the two of operating a plane while intoxicated or in a reckless manner. They face punishment ranging from probation to five years in prison.
The pilots were pulled off an America West flight at Miami Airport in 2002, after a security screener reported that they smelled of alcohol. The Airbus A319 was being towed to the runway for takeoff to Phoenix with 124 passengers and three flight attendants aboard when it was ordered back to the terminal.
"They were about five or six minutes away from flying," said one of the prosecutors.
America West fired the former pilots shortly after their arrest and the Federal Aviation Administration revoked their pilots' licenses. FAA rules bar pilots from consuming alcohol for eight hours before a flight.
5 stars for Star Alliance
Star Alliance has been named the world�s best airline alliance, attracting more than 1.6 million votes in the latest Skytrax global air passenger survey. It is Star�s second such achievement in three years. Oneworld finished second, with the KLM/Air France-dominated SkyTeam third.
Meanwhile, SkyTeam has announced that four new airlines - Spanish carrier Air Europa, Copa
Airlines of Panama, Kenya Airways and the Romanian flag carrier Tarom - will be
joining the network next year. The addition of these airlines will
significantly expand their network of destinations.
Weird Australian Hotels
Eight Australian hotels have made it into an online guide to the world�s most unusual hotels.
The Unusual Hotels of the World guide (www.uhotw.com) includes more than 120 properties from across the world. Four of the Australian hotels are underground or cave properties,
three are tree-house properties, and one is a "Possum Hideaway"!
Consumer body calls for openness on discount air tickets
The Australian Consumers Association has called for airlines to be more transparent when advertising cheap domestic flights, after a survey found heavily promoted discounted tickets were often unavailable. Spokeswoman Lisa Tait said consumers should be able to make informed decisions, but that was difficult when airlines failed to indicate the availability of cheap seats on flights.
The survey, conducted among 505 of Choice magazine�s subscribers, also found that consumers faced a discrepancy of more than $270 between the cheapest and most expensive domestic economy-class tickets.
Virgin Blue and Qantas now taking their battle to the
small screen
Virgin Blue is targeting business travellers in a new television advertising campaign.
It is the first time Virgin Blue has directly targeted business travellers through advertising and follows its introduction of the Blue Plus fare for corporate travellers.
Not to be left out, Qantas have also launched a new TV campaign.
More...
Which Airline? - Air NZ chief to head up Commonwealth Bank
Air
New Zealand CEO, Ralph Norris, is to leave the airline to head up the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Norris led Air NZ through a period of significant change and recently presided over a major upgrade to its long-haul fleet.
The airline said Norris had been "an outstanding leader" and an integral part of the airline's recovery from financial woes over the past three years.
... and while on the topic of airline CEOs, outgoing British Airways chief Rod Eddington has been awarded a knighthood in the Queen�s birthday honours for services to civil aviation. Australian-born Eddington described the honour as a �wonderful way� to round off his career in the aviation industry ahead of his departure from BA at the end of September after five years at the helm.
