airline

Concorde

Concorde’s First Commercial Flight

January 21, 2018 General

On this day in 1976, the British Airways Concorde (G-BOAA) made its inaugural commercial flight between London-Heathrow (LHR) and Bahrain (BAH), which mostly flew overland and a good part of the flight was sub-sonic. But on this day, yet another commercial Concorde flight took off at precisely the same time as the G-BOAA operating between Paris-Charles de Gaule and Rio-De-Janeiro (via Dakar). Incidentally, this aircraft (with tail number F-BVFA) was also featured in the James Bond movie Moonraker (released 1979). Without a doubt, this supersonic marvel (the Soviet Tu-144 aircraft deserving a handshake too) has proved to be a remarkable achievement in aviation engineering.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Concorde was developed from an Anglo-French government initiative which started in the 60s that combined the manufacturing ingenuity of Aérospatiale and The British Aircraft Cooperation. Its first test flight was on 2 March 1969 and it entered commercial service in 1976. It was a supersonic turbojet-powered passenger airliner that flew transatlantic flights in less than half the time of other airliners. Sadly, after its only crash of Air France Flight 4590 on 25 July 2000 and the decrease in air travel post the 9/11 attacks, coupled with rising maintenance costs, both British Airways and Air France ended their Concorde flights in 2003 after 27 years of service. [/perfectpullquote]

Airline Safety Videos – Here’s One Creative Approach!

January 20, 2018 General

Airline safety demonstration videos shouldn’t feel lifeless. With some ingenuity, they could be designed to keep the users engaged. We all agree that safety demos play a critical role from the perspective of passenger safety and I have flown quite a bit to tell that the audience generally looks the other way. However, I stumbled upon a creative approach in connecting entertainment with information, in which British Airways partnered with a UK-based charity Comic Relief to create a unique airline safety demo video featuring British celebrities.

In a nutshell, it’s a compelling shoot, with the presence of prominent celebs lending their unique acting talents in conveying the pitch. Besides, the perceived gravity of airline safety being delivered using wit and humour which also adds to its overall recall value. Not to mention that the presentation also does a fantastic job of promoting a good cause for a donation. In contrast, the prevailing airline demos continue to be monotonous either through its use of deadpan animation or short films with actors as flight attendants, with absolutely nothing that grabs our attention. Kudos to British Airways, not just for the entertainment value but in inventing a template for the airline industry to emulate.

Back in 24 Hours

February 2, 2006 General

The title seems like a sequel to the movie Gone in 60 Seconds but it’s my trip to Delhi today which I am talking about. I had gone for a meeting with one of our Technology head and I had decided to stay overnight at the capital city. I know that meetings can stretch beyond limits and there’s nothing that we can (sometimes) do. Besides this was a great opportunity for me to get an inside look into Zope which is an open source content management system. So here I was packing everything that would required for a longish stay.

Traveling to Delhi means catching an early morning flight – usually Kingfisher which is also my preferred airline for most reasons. Luckily our meeting with the practice head finished early and I was left with an entire day on my hands. I decided to come back to Mumbai and rescheduled my flight ticket for the same evening by Kingfisher, although I had to pay some charges for this I was happy that I will be back in Aamchi Mumbai (Marathi for My Mumbai). After a Mexican lunch at a restaurant called the Rodeo in a downtown Gurgaon mall and some shopping as well, I moved to our wonderful guest house at Oakwood Estate. It’s a colony of some lofty apartment blocks which overlook a tennis court and a swimming pool (which was surprisingly empty). I had to spend few hours here before my scheduled flight at 6:25 to Mumbai but I had to remember the ongoing strike by the airport authority and planned to reach early at the airport. The housekeeper was very kind in arranging transportation for me. The flight and the subsequent journey was peaceful except for a stray incident where the hostess dropped apple juice on herself while serving me :-)

BTW, Kingfisher has a Power Fly Scheme which entitles passengers like me, who travel by the airline twice the same day, for a cash prize of Rs.1K (approximately $ 23). So all’s well, that ends well :-)