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In a space of just two days, Mumbai airport authorities received a dual shock. Virgin Atlantic is suspending its London Mumbai service from May 3rd, while Finnair will suspend its Helsinki Mumbai service by mid May. Clearly the economic woes are playing havoc. The Mumbai London route has excess capacity with British Airways, Jet Airways, and Kingfisher Airlines operating non-stops, …

Thai Airways International has announced it will stop using the old Don Mueang airport at Bangkok from end of March. It will operate all flights from the new Suvarnabhumi Airport also at Bangkok. Thai Airways has been under tremendous financial pressure, and the state-owned carrier is expected to save about $16.5 million annually in salaries and operational costs. Thai said …

Saturday morning, still shocked by the crash of the Saras VT-XRM, got up early morning to drive to the Bengaluru International Airport for some plane spotting along with Photoyogi. Took photos both morning and evening. Even managed the Emirates A330-200 which comes to Bangalore only once a week. I hope you enjoy. Taking the images, then selecting, cropping, balancing, editing, …

The National Aeronautical Laboratories Saras, India’s first Indian multi-purpose light civilian transport aircraft crashed at Bangalore today. Photo credit : Photoyogi. Used with permission. VT-XRM departed HAL airport at 14:55 (09:25Z) for an “engine off” test with a crew of three. HAL ATC lost contact with the aircraft at 15:30 (10:00Z) and reports the plane crashing were received at 15:40 …

Air Asia has come up with a rather novel way of attracting candidates who would like to be pilot. Despite the goofiness displayed in the video, candidates are expected to be “mentally fit”. From the terms and conditions, it appears that the positions are only open to young candidates who are Malaysians or Malay in origin, since knowledge of Bahasa …

The BBC has a really neat series called Britain from above. Using GPS, data streams, and other modes of tracking, and then super-imposing some really neat visualisations on to maps of the United Kingdom, they have created these superb videos of the 4 modes of traffic. Air, sea, road, and the information superhighway. I especially enjoy the way the cross-channel …

The Dutch investigation board headed by Pieter van Vollenhoven, examining the crash of the Boeing 737-800 Turkish Airlines flight TK1951 at Amsterdam Schiphol last week, released its preliminary report. Simply put it was a combination of a faulty instrument, a breakdown in “artificial intelligence” (AI) of the plane, pilot error, and poor weather. The instruments and “artificial intelligence”The plane had …

At a time when the global airline industry is in a tailspin and the premium passengers are moving to the back of the plane in droves, Deutsche Lufthansa has opened an uber-luxurious lounge for its First Class passengers and members of the HON Circle at the new First Class Lounge in Concourse B at Frankfurt Airport. This follows their equally …

SpiceJet has announced the return of its successful promotion scheme “Book for 2 pay for 1”. This scheme is valid for bookings made from March 4 to 6, 2009 and only for bookings made through the SpiceJet website. There are conditions attached to this scheme. SpiceJet in a bid to compete in the business segment with fellow low cost carrier …

India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is carrying out a two-week second phase weapon testing trials of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas at an Air Force base in the north-western sector. As per DRDO officials “The focus of the current phase of testing is safe separation and accuracy of weapon delivery. The results from the tests would validate …

A380 MSN017The 5th A380 for Emirates Airlines, A6-EDE, is on the flight line at Hamburg and expected to be delivered in April. Thanks to the folks at the Hamburg Airport forum, enjoy the picture. Given the slowdown at Singapore Airlines, there is some debate on whether the next A380 out will be MSN026 (Qantas’ 4th A380 VH-QQD) or MSN019 (Singapore …

March 2nd, the crew of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 freighter, registration 9V-SFK performing freight flight SQ7344 from Nairobi, Kenya to Amsterdam Schiphol, Netherlands, declared an emergency reporting a fire alert and automatic activation of the cargo fire suppression system and diverted to Munich, Germany. The aircraft landed safely, and the crew remained on board while the emergency services checked …

The Indian government has approved a ten per cent increase in aeronautical charges at 84 airports across India operated by the state owned Airports Authority of India (AAI). This at a time when airports across Asia and in many parts of the world, are reducing airport and passenger charges to stimulate air travel. These charges include landing, parking and terminal …

Qantas’ bad luck with its planes continue. On March 2, Qantas was forced to declare one of its flagship Airbus A380 superjumbos “unserviceable” at London Heathrow. Despite best efforts and making hundreds of passengers wait over 12 hours, Qantas engineers could not repair a leak in the fuel system. Qantas was forced to transfer its passengers on to a Boeing …

She was always known by just her name. Never an article ahead of it. She was Concorde. Never THE Concorde or A Concorde or LE Concorde; and 40 years ago, she made her first flight from Toulouse in France, where the giant Airbus A380 is made today. F-WSST took to the skies at 15:40 on March 2, 1969, coincidentally, just …

These powerful images made on the mobile phone seconds after the Turkish Airlines flight crashed at Amsterdram Schiphol airport. Video from Heart of the Netherlands.

Been to Bengaluru International Airport over the last fortnight, and took some photos early in the morning with planes taking-off and landing in to the sun. Some of the planes I got; VT-JNV, VT-JGQ, VT-INE, VT-INS, VT-INF, VT-SGE, 9V-SFF, VT-DKA, G-OJIB (Ed Force One), VT-JNZ, Luftwaffe A310 10-27, VT-EPH, VT-JCD and a few others. Hope you enjoy the shots. You …

Virgin group Chairman Richard Branson went around the world in 8 days showcasing his airline’s world coverage with the launch of V Australia’s flights to the United States. Virgin is the only airline group that offers a traveller the ability to circumnavigate the world on one airline brand. He documented the events with a video blog and we can see …

Wired has a nice story on the constant efforts by both Airbus and Boeing to increase fuel savings by their aircraft. The latest technology which appears promising is “moving winglets” or “morphlets” whose configuration can be changed in-flight to suit flying conditions to deliver fuel savings. The two airframe makers are taking different approaches to the same goal. Read the …

At the start of this month, Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair announced it has invited proposals from both its sole vendor till date, Boeing, and competitor Airbus for 200 to 300 new single-aisle aircraft in the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 category, for delivery between 2012 and 2017. I had a chance to interact with senior Airbus executives during the recently …