JuliusWong

Thanks KC Sim for the insight. I read somewhere the B787 is indeed coming but was unconfirmed at that time. Since 787 is the 'IN' aircraft now, I must grab this chance to see it! Indeed, the B747-400 plays a major role, like other aircraft, in propelling Singapore Airlines' status onto premier airline in the world today. Can't believe the end of SQ's B744 pax service is so close, may SPQ continues to fly as pax or cargo aircraft in many years to come!! KC Sim, by any chance do you know if SQ or Boeing will be selling some sort of souvenirs to commemorate the retirement of B747-400?

Yea, agree with you. Would be good if 787 does come. Am keeping my fingers crossed..... Can't wait for 9V-SPQ!! although its a sad occasion for her ......

Airbus will display ACJ318...Boeing.....er.....nothing from commercial airplane unit....

Blue Panorama and Wind Jet are merging with Alitalia, giving Alitalia Group more than 60% market share of Italy's market. Also note that Alitalia is now operating under five different AOC: Alitalia, Alitalia CityLiner, Air One Smart Carrier, Alitalia Express,and Volare Airlines. It would be a matter of days Czech Airlines announces the same thing...

Hey guys and ladies... Not sure if there is true, Can someone verify these?

30, 000 bookings are a lot to be covered....Guess some AirAsia staff is working overnight, burning mid night oil. I pity those who had arranged for holiday months if not years back, to go on holiday. Connecting flights, car rental, hotel rental, sightseeing trip etc a lot of travel itinerary must have been jumbled up.......

Agree with you soorox. Perhaps MEL Airport Authority really offer BI a good deal to park for such a long time?? On the same note, guess SQ didn't allow allow BI to return those B777s early. Currently all the six B777s are rotated throughout the network, including BKI.

Agree with Cire. Around 100 staff had taken up the VSS. RBA now has surplus of B777s. I flew back from BWN just now at 5pm. Previously, the airport would have only AirAsia A320, MAS B737 and RBA A319 berthed at terminal. All three would head to KL within an hour space between each other. Just now, four B777s with abovementioned aircraft were sitting around Brunei Airport; doing nothing. Only one flight demands B777 for the day: BWN-DXB-LHR.

err...just got back from BWN......there was no security check at all.....everyone...every single passengers went thru 'Green Lane'...Custom Officers couldn't be bothered to do checks at all...just waved their hands 'Pass'....'Pass'....Oxymoron no?

Thanks, KK Lee. It would be a possibility as well. If it does happened, KLIA is really having a lot of tag-on flight.

I think KLM will make KUL and CGK point to point service, dropped KUL-CGK vv.

Star Alliance will lose or had lost bmi (gobbled by IAG Group), TAM (merged with LAN Group to form LATAM Group) and Spanair this year. Biggest loss in a year... but Avianca-TACA Gropo, Copa Airlines and Shenzhen Airlines are hopping onboard this year. My thoughts are with the employees and immediate families. Spanish economy is really screwed, 23.8% of unemployment rate!!!

Thanks flee for the update. I look up the production line numbers at http://www.planespotters.net. Both AirAsia X A330-202 are allocated: c/n 1321 and 1339. Perhaps Airbus can do last minute swap. Marketing A330-202 maybe quite challenging as only a handful airlines (Alitalia, EVA Airways and China Airlines) use -202.While no more A320 cn is allocated for AirAsia Group as of now. Perhaps more A320s will be allocated for second till fourth quarter of this year.

You may post on their AirAsia FB's wall, they are usually quite quick in responding to enquiries there.

Publicly listed Garuda Indonesia says all international routes in Asia and Australia served by the airline will see gradual increases in flights until all destinations are served on a daily basis. Such a target should be achieved by the end of this year, the company said. To support the plan, Garuda expects to have 11 new aircraft this year, consisting of four Boeing B737-800 New Generation, two Airbus A330-200 and five 100 sub-seaters. Garuda currently flies to 19 international destinations across Asia, Australia and Europe. “We are trying to increase flights for international destinations in Asia and Europe. We even plan to have two flights a day for special routes such as for Jakarta–Hong Kong,” marketing director Arif Wibowo said on Thursday. The plan, he said, was in line with the company’s ambition to be a prominent regional player, targeting to increase the total number of international flight passengers to 22 million from 17 million last year. Arif said the company’s stronger focus on the Asian and Australian markets reflected its confidence in the resilience of economies in Asia amid the crises in the US and Europe. Earlier this week, Garuda announced cuts to its Jakarta–Amsterdam via Dubai flights from seven to four times a week as of March 1 due to sluggish demand. Arif said the flight reductions to Europe vis-à-vis Amsterdam was temporary. “We are still planning to expand our network in Europe such as Frankfurt and Rome in 2013,” provided that the economic condition in the eurozone improves, he said. In October, Garuda increased flight frequencies on a number of routes, such as Denpasar–Sydney from six to seven times a week, Denpasar–Seoul from five to seven times a week, Jakarta–Melbourne from three to four times a week, and Denpasar–Melbourne from four to five times a week. In addition, since the end of December last year, the airline increased its Jakarta–Shanghaiflights from five to seven times a week, Jakarta–Beijing flights from three to five times a week and Jakarta–Seoul flights from six to seven times a week. Besides the international routes, Garuda will add flights on several domestic routes this year: Jakarta–Batam from four to five times per day and Jakarta–Pekanbaru from five to six times per day, he said. The airline also plans to open a new route from Bandung to Surabaya and back starting Feb. 10. “The Bandung–Surabaya route will be served daily. GA 361 will leave Jakarta at 2:35 p.m. and arrive in Surabaya at 3:45 p.m. and GA 360 will depart from Surabaya at 12:35 p.m. and arrive in Bandung at 1:50 p.m.,” Arif said. Garuda Indonesia passengers from Bandung will also be able to continue their flight to Denpasar, Bali and Makassar, South Sulawesi via Surabaya. The airline and Bank Mandiri signed a memorandum of understanding for joint promotion on Wednesday at the Garuda Indonesia sales office in Senayan, Jakarta. Bank Mandiri executive vice president of consumer finance Mansyur Nasution said a Rp 1 trillion (US $112 million) target from corporate sales had been set. “Last year, our joint promotion reached Rp 600 billion [$67.20 million],” Mansyur said. Arif said that Garuda’s total corporate sales in 2011 were Rp 1.5 trillion and the airline is planning to double the figure this year. Source: The Jakarta Post. 27/11/2011 http://www.asianewsn...?id=27029&sec=2

Just noticed this: According to skyliner-aviation.de, RP-C8191 flew to London initially for paperwork. http://skyliner-aviation.de/showphotos.main?LC=nav2 Airbus A320 -216 4989 RP-C8191 Air Asia Philippines delivery 26-27jan12 TLS-LGW-SHJ-BKK-CRK ex F-WWDU

Seems like delivery for Air Asia Group of companies for 2012 is almost complete, pending the two A330-202. With 100 A320 delivered thus far, AirAsia has lots of toys to play around with now. Pending will the final 75 A320. A short recap: AirAsia started receiving their A320 on 5th December 2005. Next up will be 200 A320neo!

Tamizi, its 9M-MQC, not MQE. MQE is still in MH's fleet.

Jet Airways said on Monday that it will phase out its low-cost brand Jet Lite, replacing it entirely with a more popular, low-cost service brand Jet Konnect by May. “We are contemplating brand merger of Jet Lite and Jet Konnect. Jet Lite will cease to exist by April-May. We expect capacity addition in low-cost models as well,” a Jet Airways executive said in a conference call with financial experts. The airline operates two low-cost models — Jet Lite, which it bought from Sahara group and Jet Konnect, which was launched in May 2009. The move was in the works for at least two years, said another top executive. Jet Konnect, with almost 290 flights daily, links seven major metros, with fare priced between Jet Airways and Jet Lite. “Out of our 100 aircraft fleet, 40 is owned and 60 is on lease. Financial year 2013 will see revenues remaining flat and may see 5 per cent capacity addition,” the executive said, adding that further capacity addition would not be a concern for next 12-15 months. The company said it expects to sell and lease off 77 aircraft in Q4. “This will help pay off working capital loans and debt pay off. We have not taken any extension of lease expiry”. Jet Airways, which posted a loss of Rs 101 crore in the December quarter, said that higher fuel prices and depreciating rupee would continue to be a cause of concern. “Higher fuel prices and depreciation of rupee have impacted company’s operations. ATF prices and rupee depreciation continue to be a cause of concern. These are some uncontrollable event in the short run,” it said. Jet Airways on Friday posted a net loss of Rs 101.22 crore in the December quarter of 2011-12, against a net profit of Rs 118.23 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal. Source:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jet-airways-set-to-phase-out-jet-lite/903237/0

For India-based airlines, the situation is more chronic as there is obviously an oversupply of seats. Every airlines was/is overly ambitious about the so-called huge potential growth of Indian economy thus its aviation industry as well. What they failed to notice it the lack of modern infrastructures and human resources to support this kind of humongous growth of theirs. Indigo purchased 150 A320s, Paramount Airways with their new Embraers, Kingfisher five each of every Airbus products etc with tens of A320s, Spicejet another 100+ B737s, Jet Airways 50-80+ of new Airbus and Boeing jet, Air India and Indian Airlines more than 200 new jets.....all these orders were done in anticipation to expand their own market share thus kill off some of the current players. But only mergers and acquisition had happened. Numbers of planes kept increasing as older types retired.

9M-MQC is now with Air Shaheen of Pakistan. Picture: http://planepictures....php?id=1110036 Airframe status: http://www.planespot...Corporation.php No update for 9M-MME.

The demand for pilot outstrips supply. Therefore some resort to sub-standard qualification. During boom period, Go Air, Indigo, Kingfisher, Air India ordered thousands of new aircraft, now its biting them back.....

Now, Singapore Airlines is grounding their A380s phase by phase to check their A380s. First flight to be affected is SIN-ZRH: From their FB status: In accordance with a directive issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency requiring precautionary checks on brackets within the wings of certain Airbus A380 aircraft, Singapore Airlines will be carrying out checks on our aircraft. As such, some flights normally operated by A380s will be temporarily operated by other aircraft. Affected flights at this stage will include SQ346 from Singapore to Zurich and SQ345 from Zurich to Singapore, on 24, 25 and 26 January 2012. Flights over these three days will be operated with Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. There is no change to scheduled departure and arrival times. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers. Pity those who have saved up for long time for this once in a lifetime chance....

A storm is brewing at RBA....same goes for MH....unfortunately, VSS for staff is the only option left now for BI to reduce headcount cost.

We do all understand since Day 1 AirAsia X launched service into Australia, they are bound to get into trouble with local competition regulators with so many charges. Europe and Australia have strong law to protect consumers against 'misleading' advertisement. D7/AK's case is even more complicated since the Fly-Thru service has started, ,meaning from Australia to multiple domestic destinations: tax, option surcharges etc. Anyways, we are off topic. Lets get back on track....