Not being one of the Crown's loyal subjects, Mr O'Leary is not necessarily subject to such punishment as locking him up in the Tower or leaving him Hung, Drawn and Quartered. Much though I am sure that Hon Gwyneth Dunwoody MP, Chair(wo)man Transport Committee of the British House of Commons would perhaps like him to be.
However he has a point about the issues being raised at the session being somewhat off point. HMG (Her Majesty's Government) and even its Loyal Opposition have both focused on the issue of the way pricing is displayed to (in the mind of Mr O'Leary) the real issue of extra taxes without extra value.
if you wish to have a quiet "Titter" then read the release on Ryanair's website. http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=07&month=jul&story=gen-en-260707
Guy Fawkes would have been proud.
Cheers
Timothy
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Airline Branding Oz Style - Its callled.........
Politely "Pissing on your neighbours".
The day after Qantas announced a subtle next generation branding for the uber brand airline - Virgin Blue announced the decision of the jury of its own naming for its Transpacific Airline.
V Australia.
Now I am sure there is much consternation in Mascott right now. V Australia for the old hands is probably a throwback to the days when Qantas 707s were called V Jets.
It is interesting to note that under the terms of the Virgin Group brand franchise, use of the Virgin name is not permitted for the operators of the Virgin brand for airlines in Australia to stray anyway outside of their own territory using the Virgin name. Hence Pacific Blue is the name for the TransTasman and South Pacific services. So lets count the operator list of the Virgin brand in Airlines:
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Express (now Brussels Airlines)
Virgin Blue
Virgin Nigeria
Virgin America
So technically only 2 should ever appear at the same location at the same time. Virgin Atlantic is allowed everywhere.
So poor old Qantas. Nice shiny new paint jobs with the new logo type and mods. Too bad they have been upstaged by V. I wonder what they will call it for short
Cheers
Timothy
The day after Qantas announced a subtle next generation branding for the uber brand airline - Virgin Blue announced the decision of the jury of its own naming for its Transpacific Airline.
V Australia.
Now I am sure there is much consternation in Mascott right now. V Australia for the old hands is probably a throwback to the days when Qantas 707s were called V Jets.
It is interesting to note that under the terms of the Virgin Group brand franchise, use of the Virgin name is not permitted for the operators of the Virgin brand for airlines in Australia to stray anyway outside of their own territory using the Virgin name. Hence Pacific Blue is the name for the TransTasman and South Pacific services. So lets count the operator list of the Virgin brand in Airlines:
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Express (now Brussels Airlines)
Virgin Blue
Virgin Nigeria
Virgin America
So technically only 2 should ever appear at the same location at the same time. Virgin Atlantic is allowed everywhere.
So poor old Qantas. Nice shiny new paint jobs with the new logo type and mods. Too bad they have been upstaged by V. I wonder what they will call it for short
Cheers
Timothy
Monday, July 23, 2007
US DoT policy on China Route Awards - puzzling to say the least
The Government always moves in mysterious ways. This time it is downright screwy.
Effectively the government has decided to consolidate the 2007 and 2009 China route awards. Thus creating a strange situation that would mean that United Airlines automatically gets the 2008 award yet the competition for 2007 and 2009 are hotly contested. For a learned discourse on this go to the Aviation Week website: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=comm&id=news/NDCH07177.xml
However logic would normally suggest that the route awards should be engaged by priority of value proposition. Not so it would appear. Only if you choose the right award date process does it work. Again go figure.
So why the DoT has decided to do this seems to be that the US Dept of Transportation is trying to outdo the European Directorates in bureaucratic nonsense.
If all else fails give it to Maxjet so I can fly from my favorite airport of Seattle on a reasonable seat.
oops that sounds like a special interest statement. Sorry........
Effectively the government has decided to consolidate the 2007 and 2009 China route awards. Thus creating a strange situation that would mean that United Airlines automatically gets the 2008 award yet the competition for 2007 and 2009 are hotly contested. For a learned discourse on this go to the Aviation Week website: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=comm&id=news/NDCH07177.xml
However logic would normally suggest that the route awards should be engaged by priority of value proposition. Not so it would appear. Only if you choose the right award date process does it work. Again go figure.
So why the DoT has decided to do this seems to be that the US Dept of Transportation is trying to outdo the European Directorates in bureaucratic nonsense.
If all else fails give it to Maxjet so I can fly from my favorite airport of Seattle on a reasonable seat.
oops that sounds like a special interest statement. Sorry........
Friday, July 20, 2007
Virgin America - Shiny New Planes - website needs some work
OK - so I couldn's resist it - I had to take the new Virgin America Website for a spin.
Very pleasing on the eye but BOY does someone from usability need to work on this thing. its terrible. Full of Flash style MS XML stuff that makes the whole experience very tedious.
It has clearly not had a lot of time to test the full capability as i found numerous bugs and lots of annoyances that really should not happen in a top class airline as VA hopes to be.
So chaps great ideas but - please make a non-MSXML 5.0 site version. Then the real people can use it. god help anyone who is still on dial up.
Cheers
Timothy
Very pleasing on the eye but BOY does someone from usability need to work on this thing. its terrible. Full of Flash style MS XML stuff that makes the whole experience very tedious.
It has clearly not had a lot of time to test the full capability as i found numerous bugs and lots of annoyances that really should not happen in a top class airline as VA hopes to be.
So chaps great ideas but - please make a non-MSXML 5.0 site version. Then the real people can use it. god help anyone who is still on dial up.
Cheers
Timothy
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Westjet nixes AiRes - Travelport and IBS get bloody nose
After leaning over backwards to accomodate Travelport - Westjet finally announced it was pulling the plug on the Aires project and staying put with its aging OpenSkies solution for PSS.
This creates a significant problem for Westjet which is expanding fast and after a few fumbles needs the capability of an advanced Internal res system to maintain its growth.
The impact of this decision is that there are some beneficiaries for WestJet's action. Air Canada and ITA must be breathing a huge sigh of relief because it buys them more time on Polaris. Air Canada must also be happy that no other Alliance is going to be present in Canada for at least the next 2 calendar years. Probably there will be rejoicing in the Unisys camp and probably at Results too. However the big winners are probably Sabre, Navitaire and Amadeus who will be celebrating the misfortune of their most noisy competitor.
Then there are those who must be pretty nervous about now. Virgin Blue is happy not to have to proceed with their implementation but Virgin America is probably having kittens and hoping against hope that the system stays up and running over the next 4 weeks. All of Aires customers must be making urgent phone calls to their lawyers.
Its always unfortunate to see an industry supplier such as IBS stumble. Lets hope they use the time wisely and take the time to fix their problems. Insiders tell us this is not a trivial matter for any player.
Cheers
Timothy
This creates a significant problem for Westjet which is expanding fast and after a few fumbles needs the capability of an advanced Internal res system to maintain its growth.
The impact of this decision is that there are some beneficiaries for WestJet's action. Air Canada and ITA must be breathing a huge sigh of relief because it buys them more time on Polaris. Air Canada must also be happy that no other Alliance is going to be present in Canada for at least the next 2 calendar years. Probably there will be rejoicing in the Unisys camp and probably at Results too. However the big winners are probably Sabre, Navitaire and Amadeus who will be celebrating the misfortune of their most noisy competitor.
Then there are those who must be pretty nervous about now. Virgin Blue is happy not to have to proceed with their implementation but Virgin America is probably having kittens and hoping against hope that the system stays up and running over the next 4 weeks. All of Aires customers must be making urgent phone calls to their lawyers.
Its always unfortunate to see an industry supplier such as IBS stumble. Lets hope they use the time wisely and take the time to fix their problems. Insiders tell us this is not a trivial matter for any player.
Cheers
Timothy
Alitalia - and then there were ... NONE???
Oh wow is me - the auction for Alitalia has now officially collapsed. AirOne and its bidding group have officially withdrawn so now there are no bidders.
There are some good lessons to be learned here.
1. The world is not Italy
2. Listen up Iberia board... dont make the same mistakes
Seriously though - this should be taken as an opportunity for the Prodi government to go back to the drawing board and re-cast the bidding in a transparent manner.
Oh yes and do remember our favorite bete noir is lurking in the wings with a suit against the EC for their previous do nothing approach to state aid to Alitalia (and others). So lets be clear. If the Prodi administration has to invest any more cash into Alitalia - then there is going to be a nasty fight. Mr O'Leary will force the EC to take a hard line on this subject or risk being taken to court in an embarassing result of having to claim the money back.
Is anyone paying attention in Athens?
Doesn't anyone in Rome remember Swissair and Sabena?
This one is going to run for a while yet
Cheers
Timothy
There are some good lessons to be learned here.
1. The world is not Italy
2. Listen up Iberia board... dont make the same mistakes
Seriously though - this should be taken as an opportunity for the Prodi government to go back to the drawing board and re-cast the bidding in a transparent manner.
Oh yes and do remember our favorite bete noir is lurking in the wings with a suit against the EC for their previous do nothing approach to state aid to Alitalia (and others). So lets be clear. If the Prodi administration has to invest any more cash into Alitalia - then there is going to be a nasty fight. Mr O'Leary will force the EC to take a hard line on this subject or risk being taken to court in an embarassing result of having to claim the money back.
Is anyone paying attention in Athens?
Doesn't anyone in Rome remember Swissair and Sabena?
This one is going to run for a while yet
Cheers
Timothy
Holy Cow - that's Billions with a B - DL Quarterly Profit
The headline numbers are staggering:
http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=9602
$1.77Billion profit before extraordinary charges. Still leaving $274 million net is not a bad number for a light quarter.
However this will come as little comfort to those of you who have experienced Delta's current "superior service" (as I did on the floor in Atlanta Airport). There was a great piece on The US pulbic radio network NPR (audio and text) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11980704.
Now is the summer of our discontent.
If you want to avoid problems check back here or our sister Blog www.t2impact.blogger.com where we will be providing some practical advice.
Cheers
Timothy
http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=9602
$1.77Billion profit before extraordinary charges. Still leaving $274 million net is not a bad number for a light quarter.
However this will come as little comfort to those of you who have experienced Delta's current "superior service" (as I did on the floor in Atlanta Airport). There was a great piece on The US pulbic radio network NPR (audio and text) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11980704.
Now is the summer of our discontent.
If you want to avoid problems check back here or our sister Blog www.t2impact.blogger.com where we will be providing some practical advice.
Cheers
Timothy
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