Galley Gossip: Airline for sale!

by Heather Poole on

This is it, people, your chance to buy an airline, because Volare Airlines, an Italian low-cost carrier, is now up for sale – again!

What’s that? Not enough money you say? Why don’t we all pool our money together and buy…oh I don’t know…maybe just one of the airplanes. We can each buy a seat. And since we’d only own one airplane, we can call our small little airline MY PLANE. That means when someone asks, “what airline did you travel on,” you can then say, “My Plane,” and mean it, because it is your plane, as well as my plane.

We’ll take votes and fly the most popular route once a day. But the real beauty of owning My Plane is this…I would…I mean WE would get to design it from the bottom up. Just the way we want. And because we’d only want the best for My Plane, which is also your plane, I’d like to make a few suggestions..

After reading all 754 comments from my post Flight Attendant Pet Peeve #1, Answer Please! it’s apparent we should only hire flight attendants from one of the Asian carriers. Why? Passengers, at least the ones who commented on my post, seem to love them. Hey, what’s not to love about an airline that hires flight attendants who are all the same uniform size – small. That makes complete sense – one size uniform for the one and only airplane. Forget equal opportunity, we make the rules at this airline! And while we’re at it making those rules, how about we only allow one size of passenger onboard – small of course, which will help save fuel. As you know, saving on fuel is the name of the game these days. Which is why that small passenger can only bring onboard one small bag and place it under the small seat. The small flight attendant will then serve a small meal to the small passenger with the small bag under the small seat and…wait a minute…we’re not talking about us, are we? I think we are. We’re the ones traveling on My Plane, remember? So scratch that. But we can still steal a few of those Singapore Airline girls, but make them funny, like the good people at Southwest Airlines.

Of course we’d have to include Virgin’s beauty therapy services on My Plane. Trust me when I tell you that I’ll be the first one in line for a manicure and massage. Yes, I know, I am working the flight, but don’t forget, when the flight attendant is happy, the passenger is happy. Or is it the other way around? I can’t remember. I’m too numb from my massage to remember. But all you need to remember is that you’re getting all this for Jet Blue prices. Could it get any better?

As for the flight attendant uniforms, personally I’d like to go with the Air France uniform. Have you seen it? Hello – can you say LOVE IT! As in Love it – Love it! As in there aren’t enough “love’s” in a sentence to possibly describe how I feel. That’s how much I love it. Seriously, if the airline I currently work for now had to merge with another airline, can we please please please merge with Air France! Please. Not that I want to merge. No flight attendant wants to merge. Not when seniority is involved. Because seniority, at an airline, is everything. More than everything. But if I HAD to merge, well that uniform might be kind of nice to merge into. Since it’s My Plane, and my uniform, it’s all about me, on My Plane. Oh and you, too. I guess.

What kind of food would we serve? That’s easy. Cathay Pacific, I hear, has the best food in the industry. At least that’s what The Husband once wrote via email from a Cathay flight. Let me tell you that email was long, and dedicated strictly to food. Apparently the food on Cathay is THAT good, as in two pages of email good. And who doesn’t want good food on a flight? I know I do. Which is why I always bring my own from home. When I can remember to bring my own from home. Which isn’t often. Since I don’t cook, that much, from home. Not since the husband made me promise never to cook again. Anyway, you know it’s all about the food on a flight, right? I mean isn’t that what you look for in an airline when you’re booking a trip? Of course it is. Otherwise you wouldn’t be complaining so much about the bad food. Or lack of food.

We should really go with Virgin Atlantic’s cabin interior. Neon florescent red and blue lights glowing throughout the cabin are definitely a must. Especially on a red eye flight. They scream HAPPY! Why, because you’re happy, happy to be on My Plane! Which also includes Virgin’s in-flight seat to seat chat. I wonder if that chat extends between passengers and flight attendants? If so, that means you can leave home without your stealth secret sound amplifier, the one you bought from Skymall, the same one I mentioned in my last post, the top five skymall gifts for the frequent flier (that’s you!) and just text me your drink order. Wouldn’t that be nice? And perhaps we could chat a little. Really get to know each other. Oh wait, you see someone cute oboard? Me, too! Just send that person a little text and don’t forget to add your seat number – in case that person happens to be wearing a very sophisticated blue uniform and wants to slide you a drink on the house for umm…ya know…for being so nice and all.

So whadaya say…should we go for it?

As the A380 creeps closer to the USA, Brits wonder “why are there ash trays”?

by Grant Martin on

I’m sure that you’ve heard of the A380 by now, Airbus‘s super mega jumbo modern noah’s-ark behemoth of an aircraft, capable of carrying ten thousand passengers, flying around the world twelve times and curing myopia. It’s pretty sweet. And I mean that, it’s a magnificent creature.

I’ll bet you that many of you haven’t seen it in real life though, save for a few insiders in the industry and travelers in the South East Asian sector. Fact of the matter is, Singapore Airlines is the only customer with the aircraft right now and they aren’t flying the bird anywhere near our shores.

But they’re edging their way around the world. With delightful fanfare and general British hobknobbery the A380 made it’s first appearance in London last week and the redcoats are tickled pink. Swooning reviews are popping up left and right serenading the aircraft and telling us wild stories of how in business class they have two hooks for your coat on the seat in front of you. Two hooks! I could do anything with two hooks! They do go on to raise and answer an interesting question about ash trays though and why the heck modern airlines are still required to have them.

And honestly, I am looking forward to my first A380 flight, although unlike most reviewers I’ll probably be rolling like everyone else in cattle class. If you’d like to check out a review without the pleasure of the writer drooling all over himself though, check out The Cranky Flier’s experience.

Singapore Airlines to start business class only service between US and SE Asia

by Grant Martin on

As market trends have been predicting left and right, business-class-only flights are the new big thing. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are scrambling to lock in routes between the East Coast and London, while Eos and Silverjet fight them off from Luton and Stansted.
But nobody has dared enter the transpacific market. Until now. Early Tuesday morning, Singapore Airlines announced the coronation of a new business-class-only service from New York and Los Angeles to Singapore. When they reconfigure their A340 aircraft, they will be the first of their kind, with 1-2-1 business-class seating throughout the entire cabin.

These are the same business class seats that they put on the A380, the ones that convert into a horizontal bed if you so desire. Coupled with the superior transpacific service that Singapore Airlines offers, this will definitely be a sought after flight.

Service is scheduled to start in May from New York direct to Singapore, while the Los Angeles flight will convert later in the summer. If you already had a flight during that time period, make sure you double check your schedule to make sure it hasn’t been tweaked.

All in all, it seems like a great product to me, although to be honest with you I’m a little scared to look at the price of seats. Once service gets rolling this summer I’ll try to get some good pictures and a real review for you guys.

Bad fuel pumps ground Singapore Air’s A380s

by Grant Martin on

It looks like the commercial Airbus A380s have hit their first snag. Singapore Airlines (SQ) announced today that it had to ground it’s only operational super jumbo because of an issue with the fuel pumps. Luckily the problem was detected while the aircraft was on the ground prior to departure and not sometime during transit.

SQ’s other A380 wasn’t rotated into the schedule because it was “undergoing maintenance.” No mention on this CNN article as to what that maintenance was, or whether or not it was related to the fuel pump.

As those in the know point out, however, what do you expect? With a new aircraft, new pilots and limited flight hours things are going to go wrong. It’s a good thing that enough checks are in place to rout out problems on the ground before they manifest in the skies.

First A380 flight in Europe: March 18

by Iva Skoch on

Singapore Airlines currently flies both of the only two operating Airbus A380 airplanes in the world on the Sydney-Singapore route. The third plane, also purchased by Singapore Airlines, will operate on the London – Singapore route, starting March 18. This will be the first commercial flight with the world’s biggest plane in Europe.

Tickets for this flight are already on sale, starting at 550GBP (approx. $1100). First class tickets have not been priced yet. The Singapore Airlines A380 has 471 seats available in three classes: 12 seats in their ultra-luxury suites (see picture), 60 seats in business class and 399 in economy.

Those luxury suites don’t look too bad. I don’t think I want to know how much they go for.

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