A380 program

This Singapore Airlines A380 was photographed at its home base in Singapore's Changi airport




The A380 program captured the world's imagination when the first plane entered into test flights.

But problems in the program surfaced as far back as 2004 when EADS realised that the facilities in Spain and Germany were using different versions of the software that was used to build the aircraft. In June 2005 Airbus announced that the delivery date would fall back by six months. On 13 June 2006 another delay was announced. On 3 october 2006 a third delay was announced pushing delivery to Oct 2007.
The first plane was finally handed to Singapore airlines on 15 October 2007 and entered into service on the Singapore-Sydney route on 25 October 2007.

Concorde crash

CERGY, France (AFP) - - US airline Continental and two of its employees are to stand trial for manslaughter over the crash of an Air France Concorde airliner in 2000 that killed 113 people, officials said Thursday.

A former French civil aviation official and two senior members of the Concorde programme will be tried on the same charge, with proceedings expected to start early next year and last two to three months, judicial officials said.

The New York-bound Concorde crashed in a ball of fire shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on July 25, 2000, killing all 109 people on board and four workers on the ground.

A French accident inquiry concluded in December 2004 that the disaster was partly caused by a strip of metal that fell on the runway from a Continental Airlines plane that took off just before the supersonic airliner.

The Concorde ran over the super-hard titanium strip, which shredded one of its tyres, causing a blow-out and sending debris flying into an engine and a fuel tank.

Continental Airlines is charged over a failure to properly maintain the aircraft along with two US employees: John Taylor, a mechanic who allegedly fitted the non-standard strip, and airline chief of maintenance Stanley Ford.

But the former Concorde officials and French civil aviation boss are also accused of failing to detect and set right faults on the supersonic aircraft, brought to light during the investigation and thought to have contributed to the crash.

Henri Perrier, 79, was director of the first Concorde programme at Aerospatiale, now part of the EADS group, from 1978 to 1994, while Jacques Herubel, 73, was Concorde's chief engineer from 1993 to 1995.

Both men are accused of having underestimated the importance of a string of prior incidents involving burst tyres on Concorde aircraft.

Finally Claude Frantzen, 71, director of technical services at the civil aviation authority DGAC from 1970 to 1994, is accused of overlooking a fault on Concorde's distinctive delta-shaped wings, which held its fuel tanks.

The trial will aim to pin down the share of responsibility of the US airline, the Concorde and French aviation officials.

There will be few civil plaintiffs in the case, since most of the victims' families agreed not to take legal action in exchange for compensation from Air France.

Throughout the eight-year investigation, Continental pledged to fight any charges in the case. A successful prosecution is expected to result in millions of euros (dollars) in damages against the airline.

For Olivier Metzner, lawyer for Continental Airlines, "any plane in good condition would have resisted that metal strip, but the Concorde was a wreck. But of course you can't say that because it is a national treasure."

But the lawyer for the DGAC, Daniel Soulez Lariviere, dismissed as a "fantasy" suggestions that faults on the Concorde were overlooked because of national pride.

"The tearing-off of the reservoir panel is something that had never happened before, and that we did not not know was possible."

The Concorde crash began the process which led to all Concordes, both French and British, being taken out of service in 2003.

The plane, born of British and French collaboration, embarked on its maiden commercial flight in 1976. Only 20 were manufactured: six were used for development and the remaining 14 entered service, flying mainly trans-Atlantic routes at speeds of up to 1,350 miles (2,170 kilometres) per hour.

How to read registration numbers on civil aircraft

A Singapore Airlines plane


A Silkair plane


Civilian airplanes registered in Singapore have the pre-fix 9V in front of the aircraft registration.

Qantas cutback

SYDNEY, Australia - Australia's Qantas Airways said Thursday it would discontinue or reduce a number of international services, mainly to Japan and Southeast Asian destinations, to cut costs in the face of high oil prices.

The announcement comes a week after Qantas unveiled changes to its domestic network in order to cut capacity by around 5 percent.

Chief Executive Geoff Dixon said in a statement that the cost of fuel had changed the way the Qantas Group had to do business over the next two years.

The airline will cancel its thrice-weekly service between Melbourne and Tokyo starting in September; reduce the number of weekly return flights between Sydney and Tokyo to seven from nine; and end the Jetstar service from Cairns to Osaka and Nagoya starting in December.

It will also replace 14 weekly Cairns to Tokyo flights with daily flights on Jetstar, its discount carrier.

"At current fuel prices, the Group would lose more than A$100 million (US$95 million) operating to Japan under our existing schedule," Dixon said.

He said the new schedules still offer significant capacity of more than 11,500 seats a week between Japan and Queensland.

Jetstar will withdraw its Sydney to Kuala Lumpur service and replace Qantas on Perth to Denpasar and Jakarta flights starting in December.

Dixon said there would be a small number of jobs lost in Australia and Japan as a result of the changes, in addition to job losses from last week's domestic changes that are "expected to be in the low hundreds."

Last week the airline unveiled changes to its domestic network after announcing a 2 billion Australian dollar (US$1.9 billion) increase in its fuel bill in the 2008-2009 financial year. The airline will retire aircraft, close some routes and shed jobs in an effort to control costs.

"We will continue to work with individual markets and look for opportunities as conditions improve to address capacity issues and reinstate services where and when we can," Dixon said.

Airlines around the region, including such leaders as Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific, have been trying to cut costs as rising fuel prices over the past year have eaten into profits.

Jet fuel prices have risen to record levels this year as the price of crude oil doubled on the New York Mercantile Exchange to a record of US$135.09 a barrel in May.

Continental and United airlines cut jobs and planes

Continental airlines was reported on Thursday that it will cut up to 3000 jobs and retire 67 less fuel efficient planes due to the soaring fuel cost.

Continental said it would remove the least-efficient aircraft from its network by accelerating the retirement of its Boeing 737-300 and 737-500 fleets. By the end of 2009, all 737-300 aircraft will be retired from Continental's fleet.

Continental said it would continue to take delivery of new, fuel-efficient Boeing 737-800s and 737-900ERs.

By the end of the second quarter of 2008, Continental said it would operate 375 mainline aircraft. Taking into account both the accelerated retirements and scheduled deliveries, Continental's fleet count will shrink to 356 aircraft in September 2008 and 344 aircraft at the end of 2009.

This announcement came a day after rival United Airlines said it was removing 100 aircraft, or about 20 percent of its fleet, from operations and cutting up to 1,100 additional jobs by the end of the year in a bid to compete in the crisis.

Sendai airport Japan

An ANA plane getting ready for takeoff at Sendai airport


Aerial view of Japan as we approach Narita airport


Some footages from the Land of the Rising Sun

Planes at Don Muong airport Bangkok

Air Asia plane on its way to the runway


Another air Asia plane in different colours on its way to the gate


Nok Air is another Thai budget carrier. This one painted like a bird


A Thai airways plane on its way to the gate

These footages were taken at the old Bangkok airport which is called Don Muong. The new airport is called Suvarbhimi.Hope to post something on the new airport soon.