Thread: Airline News

British Airways loses 15-20,000 bags since Thursday at supremely b0rked Heathrow Terminal 5

The much-ballyhooed opening of Heathrow's £4 billion Terminal 5 has been a debacle. British Airways has canceled 208 flights since Thursday, and has "stranded" between 15,000 and 20,000 bags. Area hotels are crammed with stuck BA passengers and are gouging on pricing, prompting BA to lift its stingy (and possibly illegal) £100 limit on hotels for stuck passengers. This is the terminal with the that just cancelled its crackpot fingerprinting procedure -- passengers are fingerprinted at check-in and at boarding.

British Airways loses 15-20,000 bags since Thursday at supremely b0rked Heathrow Terminal 5 - Boing Boing

Jzeesh! And we complain about swampypoom and Thai inefficiency. Get a grip.

more on the above from the BBC...certainly seems Bkk wasn't so bad when they first opened..

Foreign minister loses bags in T5


It could take some time for the minister to be reunited with his luggage

An unnamed EU foreign minister has been caught up in the baggage backlog at Heathrow's new Terminal 5, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband says.
Writing in his blog, Mr Miliband describes how the minister told him he had lost his bags on his way to an informal meeting in Slovenia.
The minister who was in transit was told the bags could take weeks to find.
"He asked me to pass on a message to BA/BAA: 'For goodness' sake, get your act together'," said Mr Miliband.
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it would not comment on which minister had been caught up in the disruption.
A Slovenian foreign ministry spokesman was unaware of any problem but said it may well have been a minister from one of the Baltic states.
A spokeswoman for Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitekunas said that although he had gone through Heathrow he had not had any problems.
Estonian and Latvian officials did not fly via London.
The opening of Terminal 5 has led to a backlog of 15,000 bags and much of the luggage has been sent to other airports to be processed

Seems they haven't resolved their problems yet, but this woman is caught up in your own importance...

Naomi bailed after row on plane



Naomi Campbell was questioned by police after being arrested at Heathrow


Naomi interviewed

Naomi Campbell has been released on bail pending further inquiries after being arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.
The supermodel had been held at Heathrow Airport following an alleged incident at Terminal 5.
A BAA spokeswoman at Heathrow Airport said: "Police today boarded a British Airways plane and removed a passenger." According to Ms Campbell's spokeswoman, the model had checked in two bags but
was then told that one had been lost.
Ms Campbell is reported to have been handcuffed on board the aircraft, which was believed to be heading for America.
Spokeswoman Annabel Fox said: "Naomi was flying to Los Angeles for a memorial service on Thursday.
"She arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 in plenty of time, checked her two bags in and was told they would make the flight.
"Once on the plane she was told one bag could not be found and was missing.
"BA decided to resolve this by insisting she leave the flight and then called the police to forcibly eject her from the flight.
"She was taken to the Heathrow police station and released on police bail. So far as we are aware BA have still failed to offer any explanation as to why her bag went missing at Terminal 5."
Ms Campbell was discovered at the age of 15 and was the first black model to appear on the covers of Time magazine and both French and British Vogue.

^Don't care.I'd still hit it....37890 times...

You'd think the passengers would be happy that the airline was avoiding possible crashes...but no...

Fresh chaos for US air passengers


American Airlines has cancelled nearly 2,500 flights since Tuesday

The US's biggest airline has cancelled 900 more flights after safety concerns forced it to ground 300 planes - nearly half its passenger-carrying fleet.
It is the third day of cancellations by American Airlines. Nearly 2,500 flights have been affected, causing delays for 100,000 passengers.
The action follows an inspectors' warning of problems with wiring repairs on the MD-80 aircraft two weeks ago.
Other major US carriers have also been forced to ground planes for inspection.
Alaska Airlines has cancelled more than 40 flights, and Midwest Airlines 10, to inspect their own MD-80 jets.
Delta Air Lines, which operates 117 of the twin-engined craft, was likely to call off "a handful of flights", the Associated Press reported the airline as saying.
Full responsibility
American Airlines has said the cancellations are likely to continue until Saturday.

Chief Executive Gerard Arpey apologised profusely for the inconvenience to passengers.
"We are doing everything we possibly can to reaccommodate our customers," he said.
"It's my fault and I take full responsibility."
Mr Arpey added that the cancellations would cost the airline "in the tens of millions of dollars".
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been tightening up its inspections since it was discovered last year that fuselage cracks on Southwest planes had gone undetected because of missed inspections.
The FAA said it had checked several American MD-80s a fortnight ago and decided that improvement work carried out did not meet its standards.

^Yes, the septics are having some aviation woes:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWEdAAaajrAk&refer=home

Also:

Frontier Airlines files for bankruptcy

Frontier Airlines, a US low fare carrier headquartered in Denver, collapsed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday as the latest casualty of the growing shake-up of global aviation, as carriers struggle to cope with record oil prices and weakening economic growth.

Frontier said it had been forced to seek court-administered protection from its creditors in response to a move by its principal credit card processor, First Data, to start withholding “significant proceeds” received from the sale of Frontier tickets.

The collapse of Frontier into bankruptcy is the starkest illustration to date of the drastic tightening of operating conditions in the US aviation sector, where several leading carriers are already cutting domestic capacity and grounding older aircraft.



The airline said the action by the credit card company would have drained “a substantial portion” of its available cash almost immediately and may have made it impossible to continue normal operations.

Frontier said it intended to continue operating its full schedule of flights while in bankruptcy. It said it expected its restructuring in Chapter 11 to last between nine and 18 months.

“It is truly unfortunate that we have had to take this action,” said Sean Menke, Frontier’s chief executive.

“We felt that Frontier would be able to withstand the challenges confronting the US airline industry, which include unprecedented and significant increases in the cost of jet fuel and the impact of the credit crisis in the financial markets, without seeking bankruptcy protection.”

Under the bankruptcy code, the credit card processor would be prohibited from increasing the share of ticket sale proceeds it was withholding.

“We are prepared to litigate this issue if necessary,” said Mr Menke.

Frontier’s bankruptcy comes less than a year since the outlook for the US airline industry appeared to be brightening with the emergence of two leading airlines Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines from Chapter 11 restructuring.

At least five US airlines including Skybus, a start-up low-cost short-haul carrier, Aloha Airlines and ATA have collapsed, suffering the same fate as Maxjet Airways, the all-business class, transatlantic carrier, which went into liquidation at the end of December.

Thought I would bump this thread with the following article, but before I do, I note that the spectre of insolvency is haunting so many airlines right now, that they are not really worth a mention...

Polish pilots' poor English almost led to mid-air collision over Heathrow



A Polish flight crew forced to rely on air traffic control directions after their navigation system shut down nearly collided with another plane over Heathrow because they had such poor English, it emerged today.

The LOT airlines Boeing 737, carrying 89 passengers to Warsaw, wandered around the skies over London for nearly half an hour as the pilots struggled to understand basic instructions.

The jet's Flight Management System - which provides directions like a car's satnav, but also enables the autopilot - failed because the co-pilot entered the wrong geographic coordinates before taking off.



Out of control: A LOT airlines plane was unable to find its way after the autopilot shut down

Instead of entering an westerly longitude as Heathrow lies to the West of the Prime Meridian Line in the London district of Greenwich, he entered an easterly one.

The error meant that the electronic navigational tools that modern pilots use to fly shut down, a report by the Air Accidents Investigations Branch (AAIB) said.


The pilots were forced to fly the plane using standby instruments and struggled to follow the co-ordinates given by air traffic controllers.

Several times the co-pilot, who was flying, turned the aeroplane in the opposite direction given by controllers.




At one point he flew the aeroplane too close to another aircraft, forcing the other to change its course.

It caused a "Short Term Conflict Alert" but was not close enough to count as a "near miss", an AAIB spokesman said.

Eventually controllers guided the aircraft step by step back to Heathrow Airport until they could see the runway where they landed, 27 minutes after take off.

But the June 2007 incident highlights the risk of having so many foreign pilots using British airports who have just a small grasp of English.


Only 15 out of 800 Polish pilots flying internationally have passed the test for the required standard of English, The Times reported today.


English is the international language of aviation but many countries failed to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organisation deadline of March this year for ensuring their pilots were proficient in the language.

The AAIB report said: "The crew of LOT 282 were not able to communicate adequately the nature and extent of their problem.

"The commander, who was making the radio calls was not able to understand some of the instructions."

The investigation concluded that the initial error by the co-pilot was "compounded by the difficulty of obtaining information from the pilots because of their limited command for English".


The report also notes that all airports around London are very close to the Meridian line and that this "can lead crews to make such co-ordinate entry errors of this nature".

In addition, states the report, the Polish airline rarely lands at airports west of the line and so most of the co-ordinates used by its pilots will be "eastings".

The navigational problems, said the report, were compounded by the fact that the aircraft's radio controller could not understand some of the instructions.

A transcript of the radio traffic between Air Traffic Control (ATC) and the aircraft commander is included in the report.

At one point the controller is forced to ask: "At what heading do you think you are flying at the moment."

Later he says he has realised that there are navigational problems and asks if the crew have, "any other problems flying your aircraft".

"Only the navigation," replies the commander.

Even after landing the crew was still in the dark as to why the navigational instruments had shut down and suggested it could have been caused by a passenger who was using a mobile phone.

But extensive tests on the equipment revealed no faults.

The report concludes that: "A fairly simple error...went undetected and led to a serious incident."

It adds: "An incident like this demonstrates how reliant pilots have become on the Flight Management System."

ATC also comes in for criticism for failing to realise how severe the aircraft's navigational difficulties were.


The service now plans to use the incident in training exercises.

LOT airlines is "considering reminding pilots of the necessity to use extra caution when manually entering co-ordinates when at locations close to the Prime Meridian," adds the report.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1025911/Polish-pilots-poor-English-led-mid-air-collision-Heathrow.html

153 people have been killed after a Spanish jet taking holidaymakers to the Canary Islands crashed on takeoff and burst into flames at Madrid airport, the Spanish government said.
Stuff.co.nz
Spanish Transport Minister Magdalena Alvarez told a news conference that 17 of the 19 injured had been identified.
Smoke billowed up near Terminal Four from the remains of Spanair's Flight JK5022, an MD-82 jet bound for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.
The 15-year-old plane, carrying 166 passengers and nine crew, shot off the runway at 2:45 pm local time, according to Spanair, and witnesses described a huge explosion.
"Only the tail was recognizable, there was wreckage scattered all over the place and dead bodies across a wide area. A lot of them were children," Herbigio Corral, who headed the rescue effort, told reporters.
There were only 28 survivors, he said.
Of the survivors, eight are in critical condition, an emergency services spokesman told national radio.
It is not known if any New Zealanders were on the flight.
Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez said the cause of the accident seemed to be "an error in takeoff". But Spanish media quoted sources as saying the plane's left engine, made by Pratt & Whitney, had caught fire.
The plane had left late after being delayed, El Mundo said.
The flight was a code-sharing operation with Lufthansa serving the Canary Islands, a popular holiday destination for tourists from throughout Europe.
Lufthansa said seven passengers with Lufthansa tickets, four of them from Germany, had checked in for the flight, and a Canary Islands official said passengers included Swedes and Dutch.
Thick columns of smoke rose into the air and police blocked off both ends of the Terminal Four runway, where more than 20 ambulances and many fire engines were stationed.
"I saw how the plane broke in two and a huge explosion," said Manuel Muela, who was driving past the airport when the crash occurred, according to newspaper El Mundo.
FLAG AT HALF MAST
Police escorted tearful relatives of passengers past reporters and dozens of workers identified as psychologists and social workers arrived at the terminal.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero interrupted his holidays and the Spanish Olympic Committee said the Spanish flag would fly at half mast in the Olympic village in Beijing. Spain's national soccer team wore black armbands at a friendly match with Denmark.
Spanair, which is owned by Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS), has been struggling with high fuel prices and tough competition during an economic slowdown. It announced it was laying off 1,062 staff and cutting routes to turn the airline around after losing US$81 million in the first half of the year.
Hours before the crash, Spanair's pilots threatened to strike. SAS has been trying to sell Spanair since last year.
The MD-82 is a medium-range single-aisle plane, popular with regional airlines. It is a member of the MD-80 family of planes made by US manufacturer Boeing Co.
American Airlines had to cancel 3,000 flights earlier this year after US authorities ordered them to ground MD-80 series planes to check their wiring.
Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas in 1997, and the last of the MD-80 family rolled off its production line in 1999.

These are the billboards which aussies are passing on the way to work...

you'll have to teach your wife phonetics or else she won't get the joke...

Lovely

Alitalia 'running out of fuel'


Negotiations with unions will be critical to saving the airline


Italy's national airline, Alitalia, may have to cancel some flights because of a lack of funds to buy fuel, a top official has warned.

Augusto Fantozzi, Alitalia's bankruptcy administrator, made the comments as he called unions to emergency talks a day after the latest session broke down. The unions earlier quoted him as saying flights could not be "guaranteed" because we cannot "get fuel".


BBC NEWS | Europe | Alitalia 'running out of fuel'

Consortium withdraws Alitalia bid


Union protests forced the ailing airline to cancel 40 flights on Wednesday


A consortium of investors proposing to rescue airline Alitalia has withdrawn its takeover offer, raising fears the carrier may go into liquidation.

The Italian group, called CAI, dropped its bid after unions failed to back the deal before a 1400GMT deadline.

While four of Alitalia's unions had supported the deal, five had objected because of plans to cut 3,000 jobs.

Italy's flag-carrier has already warned that it is running out of funds to buy all the aviation fuel it needs.

Making its announcement, CAI said it expressed "profound disappointment".

"Further concessions would inevitably have put the realisation of the plan at risk," it said.

Cancelled flights

Italian Labour Minister Maurizio Sacconi said before the deadline that the future of Alitalia was "hanging by a thread".

The company is dead and some of my colleagues want to be its undertakers


Head of the UIL union, Luigi Angeletti


While Italy's four main union organisations - CGIL, CISL, UIL and UGL - had signed up to the agreement with the CAI, five other unions had rejected the deal as "useless and provocative".

Those opposed to the package - SDL, ANPAC, UP, ANPAV and Avia - include pilots and cabin crews.
Their protests forced Alitalia, which is losing 2.1m euros ($3m; £1.7m) daily, to cancel 40 flights on Wednesday.

The head of the UIL union, Luigi Angeletti, attacked those unions that rejected the CAI offer. "The company is dead and some of my colleagues want to be its undertakers," he said.


Continued here:

BBC NEWS | Business | Consortium withdraws Alitalia bid

Thai cuts underperforming flights
Report by Alex McWhirter
08/12/2008


Flight operations at Bangkok’s main airport finally returned to normal today (Dec 8). That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the global economic crisis has finally caught up with Thai Airways. With immediate effect it has been forced to cut underperforming flights.

The cutbacks see Thai reduce its operations to a number of cities in mainland Europe and within Asia. From next month they also see Thai withdraw completely from the Bangkok to Johannesburg route.

These flight reductions are likely to inconvenience many passengers. That is because the changes have been made with immediate effect and at the start of the busy travel season between Europe, Asia and Australasia.

In addition, Bangkok is a key aviation hub for the region so passengers might find that their connections are no longer viable.

Full details are only now emerging and the picture is confusing not least because Thai has yet to issue an official statement and not all the changes have been made to Thai’s website and the main GDSs (the major booking systems). Thai’s spokesperson in London could not be reached for comment.

According to the Amadeus GDS, Thai’s service from Bangkok to Frankfurt has been cut from 14 to 10 flights a week, Bangkok-Paris CDG is reduced from seven to five a week while Bangkok-Munich is reduced from seven to four a week.

Some positive news is that Thai’s busy Bangkok-London Heathrow is spared the cutbacks. Thai will continue to operate its twice daily service.
So far it appears that the carrier’s flights from Bangkok to Australia and New Zealand will be unchanged.

South Africa will lose its link with Bangkok on January 16 when Thai terminates its three times a week service. It’s understood the route is being cut partly because of the global financial climate and partly because of the weak Rand which has hit Thai’s earnings in that country.

This link is significant because there are precious few air links between South Africa and SE Asia. Moreover Thai was the only Star Alliance carrier to offer a first class cabin and, as a result, it was popular with premium ticket round-the-world passengers.

Airline staff have begun advising passengers of the changes but it will be a long process because so many flights are involved. In addition for those passengers who booked online there’s always the risk their advisory emails will end up in the spam bin.

So we recommend that Thai passengers with flights in the coming months recheck their bookings.

For more information go to Thai Airways International Public Company Limited.

businesstraveller.com

Very Australian, wouldn't you say?

Safety checks for THOUSANDS of planes after ice in fuel caused BA crash at Heathrow

By Ray Massey
Last updated at 10:42 PM on 04th September 2008



Every long-haul passenger plane in the world faces strict new safety checks to prevent a repetition of the Heathrow crash-landing in January.

They could also be ordered to fly at lower altitudes after investigators admitted last night they have no idea how many other planes may be vulnerable to a 'previously unforeseen threat' of ice blocking the flow of engine fuel.

An eight-month investigation into the dramatic crash-landing has concluded that a rush of ice crystals choked off the fuel supply less than a minute before touchdown.

Continued here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-Heathrow.html

They could also be ordered to fly at lower altitudes

Which means more fuel will be used = increased fuel surcharges

Bangkok Post Main Entrance Page

Air NZ to implement new checks on RR Trent 777's

Thousands may be stranded as XL Leisure prepares to declare bankruptcy



Holiday firm XL in administration


Tour operators have been hit by soaring fuel costs


Tens of thousands of Britons could find themselves stranded abroad after the country's third largest package holiday group went into administration.

The XL Leisure Group, which operates XL airlines, flies to 50 destinations, mainly in the Mediterranean.

All its flights have now been cancelled and its aircraft grounded The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said 85,000 people could be stranded abroad and 200,000 have made advance bookings with the company.

BBC NEWS | Business | Holiday firm XL in administration

Bald-head adverts for NZ airline



New Zealand's national airline is looking for bald passengers to head up a new advertising campaign.



The carrier said it wanted 50 passengers to be "cranial billboards" and publicise a new check-in service on their heads.

The fliers will be offered money to have their pates temporarily tattooed with the message.

The airline said it would pay NZ$1,000 (£380; $666) per head, making it easy money for bald frequent fliers.

The airline's marketing manager Steve Bayliss said in a statement: "How better to tell our customers that Air New Zealand is going to do something about [long check-in queues]... than through messaging they can read while they're standing in a queue themselves?"

Asian airlines brace for worse turbulence next year: analysts
Sun, 26 Oct 2008


Asia's aviation sector is hurting from a sharp descent in passenger numbers but the full impact of a deepening global financial crisis is not likely to be felt until next year, analysts said.

Small carriers will be particularly vulnerable as people curtail travel plans, they added, predicting some airlines will not make it through.

"The biggest challenges right now are weakening passenger demand, particularly for first and business class travel, and continuing uncertainty about the global economic outlook ," said Andrew Herdman, director-general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA).

"The next 12-18 months will be extremely difficult times for airlines and some won't survive the current crisis," said Herdman, whose AAPA represents 17 airlines in the region.

Shukor Yusof, an aviation analyst with credit rating agency Standard and Poor's, said he expects some airlines to defer aircraft orders or return leased planes as they reduce routes and flight frequencies.

"The weakest ones will not be able to maintain the business," he said.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said passenger volumes for Asia Pacific carriers dropped 6.8 percent in September, much sharper than the average 2.9 percent decline worldwide.

Asian airlines also carried 10.6 percent less cargo in September, worse than the drop in Europe and North America, as trade volumes fell sharply, IATA said.

"The deterioration in traffic is alarmingly fast-paced and widespread," IATA director-general Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement.

"We have not seen such a decline in passenger traffic since SARS in 2003," he added, referring to the health scare that grounded travellers in Asia.

Analysts fear that unlike during the SARS period, which lasted for a few months, the current crisis will last for a year or more.

Losses for global airlines this year may exceed IATA's earlier projection of 5.2 billion US dollars, with another further 4.1 billion dollars in losses seen in 2009.

Business class travel, a major cash-spinner for airlines, has become an early casualty of the crisis, especially with retrenchments and belt-tightening in the financial sector, analysts said.

Leisure travel is also suffering as tourists stay home or travel to nearer destinations.

Singapore Airlines said it carried 1.6 percent fewer passengers in September from a year ago.

Singapore's Changi Airport said it handled 2.89 million passengers in September, down 0.4 percent from last year -- the first decrease in monthly traffic since February 2004, the airport operator said.

Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific said passenger numbers in September dropped 0.7 percent year-on-year, while Australia's Qantas said the number of international passengers it carried fell an annual 6.4 percent in August.

"People in the source countries are beginning to say: 'Well, let's rethink what we're going to do for the holidays,'" said John Koldowski, an analyst with Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association.

"It will take a little bit of time because some have already booked their tickets. But if this progresses, we're going to see a much deeper contraction for 2009."

Tourism-related industries like hotels are likely to suffer as well.

"What we're finding out is that people are shifting the way they travel. Instead of travelling business they travel economy; instead of staying at a five-star hotel, they stay at a three-star hotel," Koldowski said.

Business travellers have become more prudent with entertainment expenses as well, he said, adding: "The longer the crisis goes, the tougher it's going to be."

Some analysts said the crisis could force a consolidation of the industry, but others argue that pride could get in the way of cross-border mergers for national flag-carriers.

Earlier this month, India's largest domestic airline, Jet Airways, struck an alliance with arch-rival Kingfisher Airlines involving code-sharing, ground-handling and route rationalisation to avert collapse.

Herdman of AAPA said a key factor in surviving the current crisis is a strong balance sheet because of the tight credit situation.

"In this environment, it's almost impossible to raise equity and the cost of debt is rising," he said. "The airlines best placed to survive are those with good cash reserves."

business.maktoob.com

Oil is 65 bucks a barrel now, but world stock markets are keeping passengers home.

Tough business.

My basic ticket cost has just collapsed for the LHR BKK monthly trip. I might snap up 6-months worth up at this rate...

Originally Posted by Mid

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said passenger volumes for Asia Pacific carriers dropped 6.8 percent in September, much sharper than the average 2.9 percent decline worldwide.

But the TAT would have us believe that it's business as usual...lying cvnts...

^

from the blog world ............

One thing I did find interesting however, were some of the statistics on offer.

I hadn’t realized before that foreigners only actually make up 30% of the tourist arrivals in the Rose of the North (Chiang Mai), with the rest being Thais. Contrary to other figures that I have seen posted in the English language press, here we were informed that foreign tourist arrivals have actually decreased over the past couple of years by almost 15%+. With tourism from the likes of Japan, US, UK and Germany being affected most; that’s to say dropping by 20%. As for the amount of Thai tourists arriving, that has stayed more-or-less the same.

Chiang Mai Mega Fam Trip: Day 2