This week for me has certainly been one surrounded by planes. However, it didn’t involve any flying. Puzzled? Alright, let me fill you in: I visited the 2011 Avalon International Airshow on 3 days. Where is Avalon? Glad you ask – Avalon (IATA: AVV) is a small regional airport about 60km South of Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city. Every other year Avalon hosts Australia’s largest International Airshow attracting Hundreds of Thousands of public and hundreds of industry & trade visitors from around the country and abroad. While I was hoping for a lot more civil aircraft demonstrations, the airshow otherwise lived up to the motto of “feel the power”: From a jet-engine-equipped glider, the always impressive Mustangs to the newest Royal Australian Air Force plane, the F/A-18F Super Hornet, if it had an engine and made a lot of noise, it was on display. My favourite bit though was the transport aircraft C27-J Spartan (pictured) flown by the Italian Air Force performing jaw-dropping manoeuvres and even included a roll!
“Good night, sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite”, is a common phrase you tell children at night before they go to sleep and I’m sure you’ve said it many times yourself. But have you ever come across those mean little creatures? I hope you haven’t as they really are nasty. Zane Selkirk from California recently experienced the little biting creatures first hand. But not in some scabby hotel room, nor in a run-down backpacker, no, she got bitten on two occasions on British Airways flights.
This one was a rather eventful week for the world’s airports – at least by my news inbox measurements: We found out several interesting things, for example, that Los Angeles Airport (IATA: LAX) is the only airport with a hit song according to the airport’s media department. It’s a bit dated if you ask me, but hey, it’s a proper song! You can listen to it here. Maybe that was why I chose to fly through LAX on my next trip and therefore wrote up the first part of how to properly research an airport.
I’m currently planning a trip to Las Vegas for in 2 weeks. Since there are no direct flights from Melbourne to Nevada’s Sin City, I’m flying through the US’s third busiest airport, Los Angeles or simply called LAX after it’s IATA code. I have only been once to Los Angeles and its airport and I was 12 years old at the time. Therefore I can’t really remember it any more (probably because Disneyland was far more interesting than airports in those days). Besides, even if I could remember it vividly, I doubt it would still look the same today (let’s hope it doesn’t!). That’s why I want to provide you with an interesting little experiment: I’m going to show you how to research LAX for its facilities and then compare my analysis with the real results when I’m there. So here’s part 1 of the research.
It’s the second week of our newly created section and I always knew this would happen at some point: there’s that odd week where not much happens. But don’t worry, this wouldn’t be LateDeparture if we hadn’t something to write about in style!
The first true late departure of the week was when a rat (yes, you read that right) delayed an Alaskan Airlines flight in Seattle (IATA: SEA). The Associated Press went on reporting that
[…]the flight from Seattle to Denver had just pulled away from the gate Thursday morning when the little stowaway was spotted. The 737 jetliner returned to the terminal and passengers and crew boarded another plane about 90 minutes later. Airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan says the plane won’t be returned to service until maintenance workers make sure the rat didn’t damage equipment or chew any wires – and an exterminator certifies the plane is rodent-free.”
Well, if that wasn’t juicy news for you, I really don’t know!
On Monday US President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.7 trillion budget plan. Within the 10-year blueprint is also a juicy bit directly affecting US airports as according to some airport industry groups, Obama could cut $1 billion out of the government’s $3.5 billion fund for airport construction grants. So what does that mean for US airports?
Welcome to an entirely new section of LateDeparture! This little weekly review aims at giving you an overview of what happened in the world of airports over the past seven days; every week. Of course, in true LateDeparture fashion, I will specifically focus on airport developments and non-developments (read: delays). If, however, you’re after official on-time performance reports, you’re at the wrong spot. In that case you may want to try this site instead. Everyone else, please read on;-)
First of all, the harsh winter weather continued in many parts around the US and therefore added further delays across a number of US airports. Texas received a hit on Wednesday when more than 400 flights at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport (IATA: DFW) were cancelled as reported in the Wall Street Journal.
I’ve been in two minds over reviewing this airport. On one hand, Cairns is only the 7th busiest airport in Australia and can I highly doubt anyone outside of Australia can actually name 7 cities on this continent, or am I wrong? But then for comparison, the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Dallas Houston [corrected; apologies for the mistake], Texas (IATA: IAH) is the US 7th busiest airport and I’d certainly wouldn’t hesitate writing about that one.
First the Super Bowl in Dallas and now the ATW Online Awards, what a week! Alright, in all fairness, I care as much about the Super Bowl as a child cares about a retirement fund. Put me aside, and it’s undoubtedly a massive event in the US. So what about the ATW Online Awards? Right. ATW stands for Air Transport World. According to their website, they “for nearly 47 years, Air Transport World […] has been the leading monthly magazine serving the needs of the global airline and commercial air transport manufacturing communities.” In this capacity they award the annual ATW’s Airline Industry Achievement Awards. The 37th award ceremony for this years winners is taking place tonight from 6pm local time in Washington, DC.
