Last month on 9th October returning from a business trip, I boarded Thai Airways flight TG236 a nice Boeing 777-200ER registration HS-TJS from Hat Yai bound for Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Normally this one and a half hour flight is a rather uneventful, even boring experience, but this flight turned out to be anything but that, and with some valuable …

A Kingfisher Airlines Aerospatiale ATR-72-500, registration VT-KAC performing flight IT-4124 from Bhavnagar skidded off the runway and crashed at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) at 16:40 local (11:10Z). 42 passengers and 4 crew were evacuated safely, no injuries occurred to the passengers and crew. It appears the plane overran the runway, skidded and came to rest on soft ground …

I am frequently asked “what is the joying of spotting?” to which I reply “each aircraft has a history and a story to tell. At first glance there is nothing out of the ordinary about this photo of Srilankan Airlines Airbus A320-232 registration 4R-ABH arriving at Bangalore. This is the ONLY -232 in the UL fleet. So what? one might …

Dubai based Emirates airlines is undertaking a major expansion of it’s capacity adding 17 flights per week to Bangkok, Sydney, Manila and Jakarta. This represents a massive 13% increase in seat capacity and takes the airline’s operations up to 187 flight per week. Starting December 2009, Emirates will introduce a fourth daily service to Bangkok, a third daily service to …

The new dedicated Freighter variant of the Airbus A330 Family, the A330-200F took to the skies today for a four hour maiden flight over Toulouse, France, marking the start of a 180 hour flight-test and certification campaign, prior to delivery to launch operator, Etihad Crystal Cargo, in the summer of 2010. The new A330-200F is designed as a medium sized …

On October 29th I was very surprised to see this Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737-800 departing for Kuala Lumpur in the evening, since the flight is scheduled around 01:00 at night. Click on the image for a larger view. We were informed that the Captain suffered a severe case of diarrhoea while operating the incoming flight. Since the flight between Kuala …

On October 29th Bangalore hosted a tri-lateral summit on terrorism between the foreign ministers of Russia, China, and India. Russian foreign minister then departed for Moscow on Rossiya Airlines presidential fleet Ilyushin Il-96-300PU. Click on the images for a larger view. See more photos on JetPhotos and on Flickr

UPS has released an iPhone based application for tracking and managing shipments on the road. The UPS Mobile App for iPhone offers the following features. Track – See recent tracks and assign shipment nicknames, when you log-in with your My UPS ID. Or track by number with no log-in required. Ship – Log-in with your My UPS ID to access …

We were leaving for the day and something made me look up. Along came this Indigo Airlines plane and I scrambled to get my camera and take this picture. This is IndiGo’s newest aircraft VT-IGH, having joined the fleet just last month. The IGx series of registrations from A-G have been taken up by the Indira Gandhi flight academy. Click …

The last month of airplane has been eventful to say the least. This week we feature unusual or rare aircraft and events from Bangalore. Memories of Air India always invoke visions of The Maharajah, and no aircraft in the Air India fleet symbolises it better than the Boeing 747. Air India was one of the earliest adopters of the Jumbo …

In what is sure to be a lavish ceremony Toulouse, France head-quartered Airbus S.A.S. will deliver to French national airline Air France the carrier’s first A380 superjumbo registration F-HPJA MSN033 at Hamburg, Germany. The A380 features the new livery of Air France which was unveiled earlier this year, but F-HPJA will not be the first aircraft to wear the new …

A fellow co-founder of the Bangalore Spotters Group is ace photographer Praveen Sundaram better known as Photoyogi. Being a seasoned photographer, well trained by his famous photographer father, he is able to keep his cool and shoot with a steady hand even in the most strenuous conditions. This cool however, does not extend to us lesser mortals, and the jovial …

Boeing and Bangalore based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) signed an agreement recently for the production of flaperons for use on Boeing’s 777 series commercial jetliner. The work will be performed in HAL’s Bangalore complex. The 777 flaperons, a highly complex composite assembly is instrumental in controlling the airplane’s maneuverability in flight. Referred to as a “control surface” flaperons work both …

While India’s three legacy carriers Air India, Jet Airways, and Kingfisher Airlines struggle with mounting losses, the low fare carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet are making steady progress and have declared profits. (Read related SpiceJet story). Over the year the two airlines have followed similar yet distinctly different business models from each other on their path to profitability and increased market …

Continental Airlines (NYSE: CAL) is poised to join Star Alliance today following months of preparations for the first-ever transition of a major airline from one global alliance to another. A live video webcast of the joining ceremony where Continental will become a member of Star Alliance is available via a link at continental.com or via this link Within the last …

In 2003 Virgin Atlantic introduced the “Herringbone design” seat layout in it’s “Upper Class” on which it had spent £50 million designing. Contour, the Welsh seat manufacturer that built these seats for Virgin, sold the unusual design to other airlines. Virgin claiming that it owned the patent on the seat design took Contour to court to stop it making any …

Gulf television has broadcast surveillance video footage of the Azza Transport Boeing 707-300 freighter, registration ST-AKW which crashed at Sharjah while performing freight flight SD-2241 from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Khartoum in Sudan on Wednesday October 21. The video shows the 707 climb out normally though the actual lift-off is out of view 23 seconds in video). …

European majors Air France, British Airways, and Lufthansa are reducing their flights to the silicon city of India and the home of Bangalore Aviation — Bangalore. Air France and Lufthansa cut frequency From the soon to start Winter schedule, Air France and Lufthansa will reduce their current daily operations to six flights a week. Air France flies an Airbus A330-200 …

News reports are indicating that a Sudanese Boeing 707 cargo plane with six persons on board crashed and burned on take-off from Sharjah International Airport (IATA:SHJ, ICAO:OMSJ) in the United Arab Emirates around 15:50 local. The Boeing 707 crashed about two kilometres from the airport soon after taking off from Sharjah to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Eye witnesses say the …

Jet Airways has moved from from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 at London’s Heathrow Airport. The departures concourse has been newly refurbished and now offers a larger check-in area, with high ceilings and brighter lighting, making it easier and quicker for passengers to check in. Jet Airways’ check-in counters are now located in Zone C, with desks 1-6 in operation …