Aerofreaks

By the end of year 2007, you will get only electronic airline tickets. The International Air Transport Association(IATA), a global trade group supplying paper tickets to most airlines outside the United States plans to discontinue the service of paper airline tickets by the end of 2007.The migration of electronic ticketing has been underway for more than 10 years.

After 2007, the paper ticket supplies will be costly. Travelers who insist on paper tickets may be adding to the cost of their tickets.

Electronic ticketing encourages self-check-in saving airlines money. IATA estimates that with electronic ticketing $ 3 billion will be potentially saved.

While U.S. and Chinese countries have nearly done away with paper tickets carriers in some countries in Africa and the Middle East are still using paper tickets.

The transition to electronic airline tickets is expected to benefit both travelers and the airline industries.

Source: MSNBC

Last couple of weeks have spelled a really taxing time for airplane passengers. While a lot of you might have been left stranded at airports others were almost prisoners on planes.

These recent winter storms that forced passengers to spend hours in grounded planes, some with overflowing toilets and little food and water, prompted calls in Congress to enact a passengers’ “bill of rights.”

What is the bill of rights?

• It hopes to protect airline travelers against lengthy delays
• Different proposals would allow passengers to de-plane after three hours’ delay
• It requires airlines to provide food, water, and clean bathrooms for delayed passengers.
What will it do?

At present, the airlines have no consequence when they do something wrong. They have no incentive to lift their act. The passenger bill of rights would require them to do better. Currently an airline can cancel a flight for whatever reason it chooses.

What do Skeptics say?

They feel that the proposals could result in even longer waits and more canceled flights. Lengthy ground delays typically occur during severe weather, which can ground dozens of airplanes at a single airport. Planes have to wait in line for takeoff once the weather clears, and any plane that returns to the terminal loses its place and must, in effect, start over at the back of the queue.

The hours that commercial pilots can spend in the cockpit are strictly regulated. If time spent taxiing back to the gate or idling at the end of the takeoff line pushes a crew past its allotted duty hours, a new flight crew has to be brought in or the flight will be canceled.

Airlines suggest that competitive pressures will force them to be better however that has not happened till now.

More people are traveling by plane than ever before and the airline staff is not there to cope with the situation. The priority should be passenger comfort and that at present is definitely missing.

Source: News Hour

You had best get ready for a digital strip-search every time you want to fly anywhere! While some of you might not mind being seen nude in the pursuit of greater safety, others think it’s an infringement on the last shreds of their personal dignity.

Either way the backscatter X-ray is here to stay. It has been put in place at the Phoenix airport to screen air passengers for weapons.Though at phoenix passengers can choose an X-ray scan or a pat-down search. It is strictly voluntary.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will test the machine in Phoenix for 60-90 days before deploying machines in Los Angeles and New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport for additional testing by the end of the year.

That’s a long time to screen a whole lot of naked bodies. Though TSA officials claim that they had worked with industry specialists to blur any images of body parts generated by the scan, and likened the resulting picture to a “chalk outline” of a person.

Airline passengers who choose to use the new machines stand in front of it with their arms in the air. A tiny laser beam scans the passenger from head to toe. X-rays penetrate clothing, but bounce off the traveler’s body. This generates a silhouette-like image.

However, backscatter X-rays have been highly controversial. Earlier versions were explicitly revealing, capturing pictures in which people appeared nearly naked.

Source: Reuters

Likely to be out tomorrow, this bill will detail what the low-cost airline will do to help out passengers in the event of another storm that has crippled service since last Wednesday. Most unfortunate were the flights of yesterday that crippled holiday plans for those who had leave for President’s Day.

Alison Eshelman, a JetBlue spokeswoman said:

It’s going to detail what customers can expect of JetBlue, We’re going to include what penalties we will assume as well as what passengers can expect from us.

They are hoping that this bill will be Industry leading. Especially in times when bad weather impales services. Earlier Neeleman said in the Times interview that in the future, JetBlue will pay penalties to customers if they are stranded on a plane for too long.

Source: Topix

Valentine’s Day snowstorm had created a meltdown for the airline and it is still reeling under the same. It cancelled more flights on Monday and hopes to start well by tuesday The ice storm had left many of the airline’s 11,000 pilots and flight attendants a great distance from where they could operate the planes.

The airline canceled 139 flights nationwide for Monday, on a day when it was scheduled to fly 600 flights, slightly more than usual because of the President’s Day holiday. Leaving a whole lot of disgruntled passengers already frustrated with previous cancellations.

Last week’s snow and bitter cold froze equipment and grounded the company’s planes at Kennedy, stranding passengers inside for up to 101/2 hours.

Baggage handlers also struggled with the mountain of luggage returned to the terminals because of the cancellations.

Low cost fares and idiosyncratic blue potato chips may just not be enough to lure passenger numbers back to this low cost airline.

Source: Msnbc

FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) plans to impose new safety measures for air-tour companies that offer their services in most celebrated destinations. A thorough study of 107 accidents that occurred between 1988 and 1995, leaving 98 people dead, has pushed FAA and government to make some amendments in the current rule.

Official sources said the new safety rules, coming into effect in July, will increase overall air tour safety by improving the FAA’s ability to track, and monitoring commercial air tour flights and will also help us identifying and addressing operational trends that could lead to accidents.

According to the new rules, the air tour companies will have to take permissions from FAA to operate their flights and have deposit details pertaining to aircrafts maintenance, type of aircrafts. Moreover, they would be required better passenger briefings and life preservers for passengers on planes that fly over water.

Apart form this, the pilots would be required with at least 500 hours experience of flight or a commercial pilots’ license as previously it was only 200 hours. New proposed rules are really commendable initiative taken by FAA, as the new players are planning to enter in this rapidly booming sector.

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We know of the Airbus A380 as the most ambitious civil aircraft program yet. The A380-800, the passenger model, is to be the largest passenger airliner in the world, superseding the Boeing 747, its production has been delayed by 2 years. Nevertheless since its here it sure is a marvel.

What does the Airbus A380 offer?
• A huge interior: Economy seats leave ample elbow room in the 540-seat demonstration cabin fitted by Airbus, airlines are planning to leave even more roomy by fitting in just 500 seats.
• It will have space enough to be fitted with lounges, duty free shops.
• It will help to ease an increasingly congested environment by carrying more passengers.
• It does not have a noisy takeoff. The engine roar outside could have passed for a neighbor mowing the grass half a block away. As a result of advances in soundproofing and air conditioning technologies.

Fernando Alonso, vice president of the Airbus flight test division is quoted to have said:

Where on a smaller airplane you would be shaken, in this airplane everything is really quite smooth,

FedEx canceled its 10 orders for the superjumbo freighter and ordered Boeings instead, but Singapore Airlines ordered more A380s - and Airbus.

Since a lot of the orders for the plane have been effected by delay in production, time will tell whether the company can make profits from a project that has cost it over 15 billion euros that is $19.5 billion

Via: Red orbit

The tickets for one way fare are at just Sin$1.99. These tickets have been made available under the Early Bird Savers fares scheme.

Tiger Airways Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, Rosalynn Tay is quoted to have said:

Tiger Airways reaffirms itself as a true low fare airline with the launch of the Early Bird Savers fares. Great savings is to be enjoyed by passengers who book as early as three months in advance of their flight departure dates. Now passengers can travel to all 17 destinations on really low fares, simply by booking early for their travel

Earlier the airways had had tied up with proprietary web-based credit card specialist Global Currency Exchange (GCX) so prospective customers can now book flights through Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC)

Tiger Airways is Singapore’s only low fare airline it has been awarded by the Centre of Asia-Pacific Aviation (CAPA) the top Low Cost Airline of the Year (2006).

Via: Asia Travel Tips

That is because the rich are willing to pay any price rather than alter their travel habits. This is what the data of Researchers from Oxford University is indicating. Instead targeted measures, such as awareness campaigns or Personal carbon credits are more likely to influence the high spenders.

Professor John Preston is quoted to have said:

The transport sector contributes 26% of UK carbon emissions and is the only major sector in which emissions are predicted to rise until 2020

How do Aircraft Emissions Effect the Environment?

• They have the “positive radiative forcing”, which refers to evidence that CO2 emissions from aircraft at high altitudes are more potent that CO2 released at ground level.
• Directly these emissions add carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2), water vapour, unburnt hydrocarbons, soot, and sulfate particles into the atmosphere. Ozone, CO2, and water vapour are greenhouse gases and their increase has a warming effect.

Those with economic interests in the aviation industry often fail to realize the larger price the environment is forced to pay because of air pollution by emissions.

Via: BBC

International aviation industry is expected to rise with an unprecedented speed that would unable around nine billion people to travel through air globally by 2025, a body representing the world’s airports said on Tuesday.

Asian continent, which has been anticipated as century’s economic hub, is likely to lead the trend with the spiral increase of nine per cent until 2009.

In order to meet the growing expansions of aviation sector the world needs to expand the 1,659 airports around the globe, says Robert J. Aaronson, director general of the Airports Council International, an association of airport operators.

Aaronson said:

Given the current pace of construction and constraints on airport expansion, many airports may be facing a serious capacity shortfall if unable to urgently address infrastructure needs.

Industry watchdogs also fear if airports do not expand their basic infrastructures than it will suffer customer comforts. It’s need of the hour that industry partners, regulators, and governments should acknowledge this before time.

Study concluded on the current trends of industry shows that passengers’ influx will increase by an annual average of four per cent over a 20-year span. It is anticipated that industry will be inclined towards larger airplanes. Amid this growth, the sector needs to evolve more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly airliners, which will produce less GHG gases.

Via: SMH