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And what has this to do with either Boris or TfL?

Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Spotted this at my local tube station yesterday:

Perhaps we can look forward to posters in supermarkets urging us to travel outside of peak times or somesuch.

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day. Maybe even o' the week

Tuesday, February 09, 2010
 From Turkish daily Hurriyet:



Ataturk's been dead since 1938, and Gandhi since 1948, and I believe there was rather less airborne activity 62 years ago, let alone 72 years ago, than today  

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posted by Croydonian

Where the human touch makes a difference.

Friday, September 11, 2009
A corking tale from the other side of the Irish Sea involving an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Paris:


"Around 20 minutes after taking off from Dublin, an announcement in English said passengers should return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts because it was about to get bumpy. It was soon followed by another announcement, this time in French.

Irish passengers presumed it was also about turbulence. Except somebody pressed the wrong pre-recorded message – warning the plane was about to make an emergency landing.

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posted by Croydonian

Now let's hear Hoon say /that/ here

Monday, March 23, 2009
From El Pais:

"London would be “completely at ease” if Madrid’s Barajas airport were to be selected ahead of Heathrow as the hub of a possible new alliance between Iberia and British Airways, the UK transport minister has told EL PAÍS. Geoff Hoon, who was in Madrid to discuss the upcoming G20 London Summit with Spanish officials, said it was better for the two airlines, and not the governments, to decide the location of any future hub".

He's right, but I want him to give the same quote to the British press.

Elsewhere he appears to accuse the Turks & Caicos Islands of being soft on criminals (in the context of tax).

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posted by Croydonian

Govt to nation - your time is worth less than minimum wage

Wednesday, January 28, 2009
You, me, the bod in the next cubicle / corner office, all of us, our time is worth the princely sum of five pounds and an all important four pence per hour. And how do we know this, because the government, in the person of Paul Clark, says so:

Jo Swinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he has commissioned or evaluated research on the effect of commuting times on levels of well-being. [251002]

Paul Clark: Yes. Research into people’s willingness-to-pay for travel time savings suggests that, on average, commuters value travel time at a rate of £5.04 per hour. This value is ordinarily used to aid decision making on infrastructure investments because many of the benefits reflect reduced delays for commuters. However it also provides an indication of the importance that people place on the time taken to commute to work.

OK, so I have overegged the pudding just a touch, but this does strike me as pretty worthless research in that there are an awful lot of factors at work in a cost benefit analysis of any given journey.

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posted by Croydonian

Daily air traffic worldwide, rendered graphically

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
This is really rather good:


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posted by Croydonian

The future has arrived

Friday, August 01, 2008
At last, a practical (apparently) personal jet pack:



Flying cars next, please.

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posted by Croydonian

A useful site for nervous travellers...

Saturday, July 26, 2008
Or at least for jittery air travellers departing from Gay Paree.

Securvol.fr has grouped airlines into five categories - good, OK, with reservations, avoid and banned in the EU - as blogged about last year. It is updated every time there is 'an incident', apparently.

In Group 1 from these shore are BA, easyjet and Monarch. None of our other carriers are listed. Air France is in group 2....

The avoid list is full of gems:

Aerobrazil - charter airline with one plane, a 38 year old Boeing 707.

Aerojecutivos (sic) - One plane, a 56 year old convair which should be in a museum.

And here it is:

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posted by Croydonian

Give a dog a bad name

Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Or perhaps an unsuitable one. The EU has released the eagerly awaited updated list of air carriers banned from Fortress Europa, and in short form, do not hope to fly to "Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland or the Democratic Republic of Congo [the bigger of the two Congos. C] (with the exception of one)" with a carrier under the regulatory jurisdiction of those countries.

Anyway, the names of some of the miscreants. (Usual caveat - I am NOT making these up):

Congo

Bravo Air Congo - Or then again, maybe not?

Cargo Bull Aviation - Do they have cattle class?

Free Airlines - Even if it is, I'm not flying.

Mango Airlines - (Haven't come up with anything for this yet...)

Safe Air Company - Yeah. Right.

Thom's Airways - Sounds like a powerhouse in aviation....

Equatorial Guinea

Cronos Airlines - I wonder if they have designs on Neptune....

Indonesia

Mandala Airlines - Will take you round and round in circles?

Kyrgyz Republic

Dames - Nothing like one, apparently. So as for the plural....

Golden Rule Airlines - Fly as you would be flown by?

Sierra Leone

Air Rum, Ltd - I expect the booze cart is a bit lacking in variety.

Destiny Air Services, Ltd - For that all important rendezvous....

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posted by Croydonian

The British abroad....

Thursday, August 02, 2007
The F&CO has an illuminating press release on the trouble and worse that British holidaymakers, ex pats and the like get themselves into while abroad, from which I have discovered the following:

Britons in Spain are 11 times more likely to get arrested in Spain than France. Does that say more about trigger happy members of the Guardia Civil, or about behaviour rather more loutish in Magaluf than the Dordogne? Mind you, the risk of getting one's collar felt is at its greatest in the USA, at some 35 times greater than that in Italy.

The rather more alarming issue of rape sees Turkey, Greece and Spain as the most relatively dangerous, with Turkey by far the worst.

In terms of useful phrases to learn before getting on the plane, the Greek for 'It hurts here' would appear to be one to commit to memory, as Greece sees by far the highest level of hospitalisations per visits. And how can it be that losing one's passport is 286 times more likely in Oz than the Irish Republic? OK, it is a big country, but....

And finally, it is not see Naples and die, it is see Bangkok and die - Thailand is 20 times deadlier than Italy, and 80 times more than the Netherlands.

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posted by Croydonian

Frequently Asked Questions Watch

Friday, July 13, 2007
A new regular spot, perhaps.

With many, many EU press releases there is an attached list of FAQs, and call me a raddled old cynic if you like, but I refuse to believe that the e-mail servers, mail rooms, phone lines, fax machines etc in Brussels have been overwhelmed by concerned Euro citizens craving an answer to this question:

"Does the USA require access to [passenger name record] data on the types of meal that passengers request or on their medical condition?".

I'll spare said e-mail servers by furnishing the response here:

"This information is collected by airlines in order to provide special services to certain passengers and may therefore be contained in some PNR. However, this is sensitive information (see previous question) and the information is not used to identify potential subjects for border examination."

Glad they cleared up that one....


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posted by Croydonian

Flying in the face of common sense

Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Those no doubt wonderful people at Trip Advisor have unveiled a survey on airline passengers' likes and dislikes. Source (requires registration)

First the sensible bit: A comfortable seat is the number one priority.

What else might one be concerned about? Well, if a Trip Advisor 'community' member, it is to have a clean (reasonable enough) lavatory, but also a roomy one. I would have thought that claustrophobics fought shy of clambering into junk metal in the air anyway. Then a clean pillow / blanket. Given that airline pillows are about the size of pin cushions and the blankets would leave the average midget shivering, I would have thought the average Trip Communard would be better off packing his or her own, erm, seat linen.

Thence to in flight snacks. I think that the 36% who claim fresh fruit / veg as their preferred snack are lying. Celeriac slices all round, maybe? Flipping TA's figures around, some 64% think that 'free' snacks are worth paying extra for.

Continuing with the epic levels of dishonesty, the communards rate mineral water as the top liquid freebie. Yeah, right. Men are marginally more honest than the ladies, with 36% vs 25% opting for booze of some description. Mine's a Bloody Mary.

Elsewhere, 56% of my compatriots claim to buy from in-flight catalogues. Do airlines pump mind-altering substances through the air con, perhaps?

Southwest rates as the worst airline for amenities, followed by Ryanair. I can only assume that a lot of travellers have yet to experience a Ryanair 'makes a veal crate seen like Elysium' flight.

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posted by Croydonian

Germans told to stay at home

Monday, March 05, 2007
A Green politician in Berlin has called on her compatriots to holiday in Germany rather than flying off to the sun, and has been echoed by mainstream politicians from the SPD and the CSU. Going just that little bit further, someone from Greenpeace has made this remarkably dramatic statement: "Cheap flights should be banned". I wonder what counts as cheap.... Doubtless our home grown equivalents will be urging us to do the same, but if by shunning Blackpool and Skegness I can also avoid sand castle building Porrits and Monbiots, all the better

Meanwhile, feel free to mentally insert jokes about towels on pool loungers.

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posted by Croydonian

Ever flown with easyjet? Ming thinks you are stinking rich

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Or my old 'friends' R***air, come to that.


Anyway, the increasingly ridiculous Ming Campbell has attempted to defend his proposed levels of asphyxiating 'green' taxes on flights thus: "The vast majority of people who use so-called cheap flights are people earning quite substantial sums of money - or people with quite substantial pensions". So, all those folk flying abroad for their summer holidays each year earn 'quite substantial sums of money', do they? Whenever I am on a R***Air or easyjet flight, I'm forever bumping into scions of the families Getty, Gates and Rothschild, and the sound of bottles of vintage Krug being cracked open can get wearing, and as for the caviar food fights, don't get me started. I'm sure it is the same story for my UK readers.

And it gets sillier: "The threat of global warming should be included in the national curriculum for every schoolchild, to ensure the issue is better understood". Far more important than the Three Rs, eh?


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posted by Croydonian

Yet another reason to shun Ryanair

Wednesday, August 30, 2006
My least favourite airline (see passim), is intent on making sub-cattle class aviation even more unpleasant - allowing in-flight mobile phone use. Dear god, no. I can just about understand that some business travellers really do need to make phone calls in flight, but the prospect of endless pings from folk sending text messages to and fro and declaring loudly 'I'm on a plane' fills me with absolute dread. Right now one of the few things to be said for the Underground is that mobiles do not work below ground, and I regard planes as also offering a haven of sorts. Just shoot me now (form an orderly queue please).

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posted by Croydonian

Friday, August 18, 2006
When 'events' get in the way of a business model.

Ryanair's shy and retiring chief Michael O'Leary is faced with part of his business model - phasing out hold luggage - being scuppered by the reduction in the permitted volume of cabin luggage, and true to his usual form is flailing around trying to mau-mau the government into relaxing the restrictions.

I think it ill-behoves an Irish company to lecture our government on the national interest and how to defeat terrorism, frankly. Having suffered ordeal by Ryanair and their non-existent levels of customer service on numerous occasions, I'm always willing to pay a premium to avoid using their 'services' and wish their competitors every success.

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posted by Croydonian