The ideal flight

Here's a question to those of you who are - like me - interested in civil aviation: the other day I was talking with my Jelle about airlines and planes and previous journeys we made, sharing some beautiful memories. At that point I was thinking how the ideal flight would look to me, based on my personal experience so far. I came up with the following: the flight should be with an Airbus A380, with a business class configuration like Emirates Airline has, with an inflight catering/meal service that equals at least that of Etihad and Qatar Airways, with an inflight entertainment system like Emirates uses in Business Class on its Airbus A380 and with the crew (flight attendants/pilots) from Lufthansa. To me, that would be the ideal combination.
So, how does YOUR ideal flight look like?

A look at Air New Zealand's 747!

Alright, so I'm an airline and aviation geek. But you all knew that already. I haven't talked about that too much here so far, haven't I? The other day I came across a video which I want to share with you. It's an interesting video from a CBS show ("Amazing race") where tv host Phil Keoghan will demonstrate the in's and out's of a Boeing 747-400 of Air New Zealand. It's a very interesting look especially inside the super comfortable business class where he explains how the seats work of the ingenious fishbone design business class (that also e.g. Virgin Atlantic uses). Who wouldn't want to travel like that?



A hug.

Now serving penis on Northwest...

Okay, you might know that I love airlines and aviation but I couldn't believe my ears when I heard this sensational news: I mean I was already "Nuts about Southwest" airlines' slogan... but hey, they now started serving PENIS on Northwest flights! Gonna luv' em for that, don't ya think? But here for yourself and spread the good news...



With this fun news I wish you all a very good weekend :-)

Luv and hugs.

A respected boss.

On the 29th of January, there was an interesting interview (unfortunately in german only) in the german newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) with Lufthansa's former boss Jürgen Weber. He is now the chairman of the board of the airline and as such gave an interview. The most interesting he commented on for me was his statement about salaries of top management: he thinks even top managers should not earn more than 100 times the average of the companies' employees salaries. I think that's reasonable. He says we can't take America as an example anymore and I agree on that, they simply went crazy there with the giant salaries for even failing managers. He is a simple modest man who worked his way up in the company and that's what I admire about him. He is realistic, he knows the problems of the small employee in the company as well as he sees the whole picture of the airline in the competitive business. He has a lot of respect between the employees I think. He was very popular when he was still the boss of the airline. He is the kind of boss I have respect for. Too bad today's modern, younger managers don't have his style anymore.

Lounge visit

As usual, the story I have to tell today is probably not very interesting for most of you - because it's airline related and I'm the only geek around here about that... ;-) Still, I feel like sharing it with somebody. So maybe I should start it with "Dear diary..." hahaha, just kidding.

What I want to share is about something work related (somehow) I experienced a few days ago. I had the chance to visit the VIP lounge of the airport of Amsterdam. I was lucky enough that the lounge was completely unoccupied and I got a personal tour. Unfortunately I cannot show you any own photos but I have included some photos from the promotional folder so you have a better idea of what I am talking about. 

I had to go all the way to the newest part of the terminal in Amsterdam airport, find my way through a giant crowd of Hajj passengers that were checking in and being accompanied by an even bigger group of families and friends and in the very last corner is a side entrance of which the sign says it leads to the press centre. When I am about to ring the door bell it miraculously opens and of course I'm impressed already... ;-) I entered, climbed up some stairs and entered a different world, so much quieter and calm than the hustle and bustle of the "ordinary" terminal. One floor higher, in a completely different surrounding than the "ordinary" terminal downstairs you find the lounge of the famous and important people where they rest and wait before their flight takes off. The facility is provided by the airport and is only available to the so called "very important" people from governments/embassies and such, though it's not meant for the rich and famous so you would most probably not bump into famous pop or movie stars ;-) Though from what I heard that might change in the future and become a little more commercial.

The whole occupied space seemed very large to me; though to my surprise it felt less luxurious than I had expected it. If you have ever walked into lobbies of luxury hotels then you somehow get the look and feel of the lounge.
The overall design is very modern, with dutch accents but trying to avoid typical dutch icons like tulips and cheese... ;-) Even more surprising to me was the Royal Lounge, the lounge that is used by the dutch Royal Family during their stay at the airport.

I felt it is very modest, in a very modern design in white, blue and orange tones. A little cabinet holds the toys for the children, a few "family" photos try to give it a little more "personal" touch. The couches you see on the photo are standard and can be bought in stores I have been told but have been modified for better, slightly more comfortable seating (as they are very  [too?] low). But there were no immense luxuries that you might expect in the Royal lounge. Other space of the VIP lounge is used for a bar or other lounge rooms,

all in modern designs with more or less subdued colors or here and there a colorful accent like you see here in the bar. There is even a shower room which is a pleasant walk-in shower room, yet not overly luxurious, again something you will find in First Class lounges of airlines. Finally, the lounge even offers a pleasant waiting room for the drivers of the limousines of the VIPS where they can wait in a pleasant and comfortable (yet a little hidden and windowless) space for their next duties, including free coffees and soups... ;-) Last but not least, a sober not to big room is used for press conferences at the airport. I liked its design, a light, white walled room with black chairs (only one in a special "cow" design) on a carpet that was made from a photo that shows an airview of the landscape on approach to the airport while the ceiling shows the blue sky above the airport.

All in all, I think one can compare this lounge a little bit with the First Class Terminal that my employer offers at its hub in Frankfurt. Though I have never seen it personally I think one can compare the features and design and concept of the terminal with that of the smaller VIP lounge in Amsterdam. 

The funny thing was to learn that many features designed by the architect do look great from a designer's point of view but are terrible to work with from an employee's point of view :-D 

We have the same problem at our ticket counter which looks great but has some serious design issues - but that of course is another post yet to be written. ;-) 

I am very thankful to have been able to see the lounge, as it's truly something very special only few people will ever see. Hopefully I could give you a little impression on my imaginary walk around this lounge.

A very important hug.

Training at Zurich.

I have been quiet for the last weeks. But that had a reason: I was away for two weeks. My company had sent me to Zurich in Switzerland to undergo a training. Why? Because since the 15th of November we are handling the ticketing for Swiss Air Lines and they work with a completely different computer system than the one we have at our airline. So all our ticketing staff have to be trained for that. So, together with my colleague Gaby I went to Zurich. I had a great time I must say! It was really a lot of fun with Gaby and we enjoyed the training and having the possibility to learn something new! We were really lucky with our hotel which was brand new and after a fabulous breakfast every morning (with real good fresh bread, soooo good!) we felt prepared for a long day of training ;-) Swiss had a great training facility and the course was really interesting (though I must say that we felt like going back in time, their system feels so outdated and complicated and way too lengthy). What I always like about these trainings is the international atmosphere. This time, we met colleagues from Yaoundé, London, Florence, Montreal, Copenhagen, Zurich (but native japanese), Auckland, Nairobi and New York! I really enjoy this every time I attend a training. Beginning of next year our own facility will reopen (after some years of rebuilding) in Seeheim in Germany (close to Frankfurt, our main hub) and everybody is already looking forward to the new trainings there! ;-) We ended our training with a test, luckily though we were allowed to use all our materials so it was not that difficult. But still I managed to make a slight mistake in something (that's at least one thing I know for sure already) and I am really mad at me since I had all the time in the world to check it or avoid it but unfortunately I didn't realize it... oh well, I hope I still passed... :-D

Besides the trainings 

we did not have much time to do anything in Zurich. In the first week Jelle visited us and together with him and Gaby we had a great dinner in the city center. During the weekend break (in 

which 

we could fly home) I opted for a short visit to Madrid to my lilbro Dani but I will tell you later in a dedicated post about it. At 

the end of the second week Gaby and I decided to "celebrate" the end of our training with a nice dinner in town (all other nights we ate in or close to the hotel in the airport's food court or at the staff 

cantine). It was a great evening out and a good end to our two weeks. It truly was a pleasure to have had the possibility to attend the training together with Gaby, a first for me to go on a training together with a colleague. It was so much more fun and you also had the possibility to exchange your thoughts and worries about the system and problems. I would not call it a vacation as some colleagues but still it was a great experience and I enjoyed it. ;-)

Thanks Gaby for the great time together, I enjoyed your company a lot!

Size does matter!

I came across this amazing advertisment the other day: famous Dr. Ruth Westheimer is admitting "I collect"... First of all, I do too.  ;-) Second, my collection is that of m...odels (of airplanes I flew with) and I think Ruth is right: after all, size does matter! :-P

What a funny advertisement, I just love it. LOL :-)

(seen in: Airways magazine, p.81, issue Nov.08)

A huge hug.

Vamos a la playa!

My idea of a nice day at the beach, yay! :-)

A cuddly hug.

P.S.: yes, I'm definitely an airline geek :-D

...and the honour really goes to...

Okay, now don't laugh about what I am going to tell, since it's completely insignificant but when it comes to flying and airlines in general and to my logbook in particular I can be as geek as certain people about their movies and mangas or other stuff... I have to make a little correction: in my post about my trip to Dani for his birthday I mentioned that Korean Air has had the "honour" of taking me on my 700th flight. But I made a mistake in accounting my flights and discovered I had forgotten two flights from the beginning of this year which I now added to my logbook so unfortunately Korean Air has to give up this honorable mention. I therefore announce the operator of my 700th flight as being LAN Chile on my flight from Madrid to Frankfurt, together with Jelle. So my number of flights now totals in 705. See, I told you not to laugh... but for a geek these things are important... ;-) My flight logbook is updated accordingly, you can find it here.

A hug.

Elvis lives!

If it wasn't so sad it actually would be funny: a hacker was able to fool the system that reads electronic passports at Amsterdam airport. He was able to let the system read a manipulated passport and the system did accept the false ID without any problem. So all the security hype (especially of the americans) about stricter controls with electronic passports is basically for nothing... it does not even seem too complicated to do that as the hacker even demonstrates on his website in a video:

When I see this it really makes me angry as the authorities always make you believe it's for my own best and protection and blablabla... but it's not safe and it's only costing a lot of money for nothing - it's all about pure cosmetics to simply fool the general (especially american travelling) public to make them think all became much safer and the government has everything under control - not...

A hug.

Those were the days...

It's been a while (how many days exactly...?) since I last posted something about aviation. Then again, it's one of my passions and I don't carry that a i r in my nickname for nothing... so here we go, another round of videos to share some airline nostalgia with you:

The first video is from an airline that most of you probably don't know if you are not interested in airlines and stuff: Wien Air Alaska. As a kid, the name always fascinated me and I always wondered where it came from. Because you must know that "Wien" in German is the name of the capital of Austria, Vienna. So you can imagine that I was pretty confused as a child what Vienna had to do with an airline in Alaska... ;-) After all, at that time there was no internet to look up all the facts...

The next commercial is of one of the former major airlines I unfortunately never managed to fly (yeah, us airline geeks "collect" flights and airlines and routes and types... no, don't bother to comment, I know I'm nuts...): Eastern Airlines

Neither have I flown on this one: Republic Airlines. They have been absorbed by Northwest Orient Airlines back then and I have flown them... but that doesn't really count, does it?

I just mentioned them before and yay, I managed to fly them! Even better, I love this commercial as they obviously have been a trendsetter: to ban smoking on planes - hooray for that!

...and OH MY GOD is this terrible, a commercial that looks as if a school class has thought of the plot and made the film...

Esthetically one of the beautiful commercials and I will 'love' United Airlines forever for their wonderful slogan "Come fly the friendly skies" and the use of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in blue" since ages in their commercials and on the telephone... ahhh... airline advertising the way I love it:

From the same airline here is a more vintage commercial, promoting the then brand new DC1o aircraft - look at the lounge in Economy class!!! Unthinkable of in today's hard economic times...

In an effort to differentiate themselves from their competition, Braniff Airlines declared the end of the plain plane. In the end, it did not help and today, the airline has long disappeared from the skies, no more BIG ORANGE (their bright orange coloured 747 jumbo jets) coming in to land at an airport near you...

Maybe the next airline has indeed been doing best what they did - they are still around and are comparatively healthy for an american airline. I always liked their color scheme, the classic ultra clean typeface, the silver bare metal colored fleet of aircraft and the use of the american colors white, blue and red:

And look at this marvel: TWA! Yes, I've flown them but not on the aircraft they advertise as brand new in this commercial, the L1011. Look at the spacious economy class cabin, again something that you will not find on any of today's airlines. Or look at the meal service: a full (giant) tray with a steak on it! Unbelievable! Nowadays, on some airlines like United you now even have to pay for a meal in Business class (on some flights)! Awww.... those were the times...

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little walk through airline commercials archives. If not, may I suggest to read any of my other non-aviation posts instead? Or maybe have a look at my blogger friends' recent posts? Check out their sites and click on the links provided to the right.

Thanks for your interest anyway and come back soon.

A bear hug.

This post was inspired by an article I read here.

A tragedy.

Spanair Business class
Originally uploaded by CruisAir

Yesterday, unfortunately a flight of Spanair crashed during take off from Madrid's Barajas airport killing more than 150 people on board.
I would like to extend my deep felt condolences to the families of the victims.

My dearest Dani tried to call me to inform me about it but I was asleep after an early shift at work and did not hear him. But when I heard about the tragic news when Jelle called me from work to inform me it made me very sad. As some of you might know I work for a partner airline of Spanair and I must honestly say that it feels weird, so close suddenly. The older I get the more such tragic events touch me. Aviation is one of my hobbies and I am always interested in airlines and aircraft but this is sadly one of the very dark sides of this hobby, to deal with death and destruction, loss and grief. Even though for me it's only distant as an interested observer. But in this case it comes a little closer, for several reasons: I have flown a Spanair MD aircraft recently (it was a different version of the crashed aircraft) and the airline and the aircraft took me safely to my destiny: Madrid Barajas. I go to Madrid quite often lately to see my very dearest of all friends and naturally I am more alert in any sense of the word of all things that happen in Madrid. It interests me more, it touches me deeper, it affects me more. I am sometimes even frightened something terrible might happen to the ones I love there and I might not know about it, might not be able to do something about it. I pray it never will.
I did feel comfortable and safe though on the Spanair flight and I would fly them again, any time soon. Though I understand that some media are now speculating about possible maintenance issues due to job cuts to reduce costs at Spanair. That's purely speculating at this point and we will have to wait for the final report to see what crashed the plane.

I will think of the victims' souls this night, passengers' as well as those of my colleagues (even though not colleagues directly but like me they were airliners) who lost their lives and the souls of those who are left behind without their loved ones. It is impossible to understand the pain they must feel now but I will think of all of them tonight - I cannot change a bit but I want to express my sorrow. That's why I felt I had to write a few words about this tragedy.

So gay...

This is really a funny commercial - I love it, it has all in it I like: airlines, men, bears, it's gay and funny... enjoy!

Silverjet Airlines commercial

I'm in an airline mood this evening obviously and felt I need to share this with you ;-) - CruisAir
Verzonden door CruisAir met de knop Delen van Google

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New Silverjet airlines ad silverjet airlines commercial advertising new services....LOL!

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U kunt het volgende doen:

Alles weergeven wat CruisAir met iedereen heeft gedeeld

Alles weergeven wat gedeeld wordt door mensen die u kent

Meer informatie over de knop Delen van Google

Virgin Airlines Commercial

It's a classic, I know but still I like it and for those of you who do not know it so far: enjoy ;-) - CruisAir
Verzonden door CruisAir met de knop Delen van Google

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Best Airline Commercial Virgin Airlines Commercial

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U kunt het volgende doen:

Alles weergeven wat CruisAir met iedereen heeft gedeeld

Alles weergeven wat gedeeld wordt door mensen die u kent

Meer informatie over de knop Delen van Google

The premiere flight of the new Russian jet - SSJ100

One of my passions as you know is aviation. And therefore I have to show you this nice video of the first flight of Russia's new regional jet, the Sukhoi SSJ100. I think it's a beautiful aircraft. I wonder if it will be a success also in the western world. After all, the russians are competing with Canada and Brazil for this market segment.

"ALOHA, A Hui Hou, Until we meet again, Mahalo for flying, ALOHA AIRLINES"

Aloha 737
Originally uploaded by CruisAir

If you are interested in aviation, you undoubtedly will have noticed the "death" of several airlines in America just recently. Normally nothing worth mentioning here you would think. This time, it's a little different though. One of those airlines that shut down was Aloha Airlines, an airline that has it's homebase in the wonderful islands of Hawaii in the Pacific and used to offer inter-island flights as well as flights to the US mainland. Aloha was also the airline that became famous for its "cabrio" flight, the accident that happened above Hawaii on an inter-island where a complete section of the cabin was suddenly torn off but the pilots still managed to land the aircraft safely and of the 95 passengers and crew all but one flight crew survived the accident. The reason why I tell you all about this airline is that I read a trip report by an airline enthousiast who was on board Aloha's last commercial passenger flight. My beloved boyfriend Jelle had sent me the link to it. Believe or not, the report touched me. Aloha's shut down for an airline fan like me (who especially loves Aloha, Hawaiian and PSA - don't ask, I don't know why myself...) is comparable to a music fan who must accept the break up of his favorite group, the career stop of his favorite singer or something like this. I shed a little tear, because it simply made me sad to think about all the lovely people that had worked for this airline for sometimes many years with a lot of passion and devotion and who now lost their jobs. I highly recommend to read the article, it's a wonderful story about the kindness of this young man, his love of the airline, the wonderful spirit that brings total strangers together and unites them for a single beautiful moment.
Sure, it's only an airline. Another business down the drain. Bad management. Could all be, but still, in these stories you see the face behind such sad news, you feel the emotions, you get beyond the dry business news. That's what touched me. And it reminded me of my own personal "last flight", actually two. In 1987 the US carrier Western Airlines was taken over by Delta Air Lines. I was on the (one of the) last Western flight, from Salt Lake City to Boston. We left as Western and arrived as Delta, a very rare idea (at least if you are into aviation...). After landing in Boston it became equally emotional as in the Aloha case, I still remember that after all these years.
The second "last flight" I remember was in 2001 when I dispatched the last Eurowings BAe 146 flight, a flight from Amsterdam to Stuttgart, under the EW/KL codeshare agreement and handled by own Eurowings personnel at Amsterdam. After that, many more EW Bae's have seen Amsterdam again, but never again as a EW flight and never again handled by EW personnel, sadly. That last flight was something special, to me as well as to the crew. Back then Amsterdam was EW's biggest hub and with so many daily flights after a while you would get to know your colleagues on board as you would see them quite regularly. So after the last flight, we all knew we would not see each other again. It was strange to kind of loose your colleagues.
Having told all these personal stories it might be more understandable why the Aloha story touched me.
Finally, I am glad I took the chance in October 2007 and together with Jelle flew all three true Hawaiian carriers one more time, Hawaiian Airlines, Island Air and Aloha Airlines.

Aloha and Mahalo to the good people at AQ.

Foster's airport architecture

IMG_3966
Originally uploaded by stjohn88

On Friday, the new and third terminal of Beijing's capital airport will be opened. It's a fascinating architecture, designed by acclaimed architect Norman Foster. If you can read dutch, there's an interesting article about the opening and the terminal here.
Also check the flickr photos of St.John with fantastic photos of the new terminal, sure worth a look!

Introduction to my blog.

I started my blog with some sad thoughts. But I wanted to tell them as I really felt sad yesterday. But of course I should write some introducing words about the purpose of this blog. Well, it purely serves one simple purpose: to tell someone about my feelings, my
thoughts and my desires.

Wait a minute, I hear you saying, aren't you in a relationship? Well, yeah, sort of. Jelle and I live together since about ten years now. But we are in a crisis at the moment. Of course we need to talk about us, but I also feel I have to out my feelings to someone "neutral",
someone outside of our relationship. That's you, exactly. Oh well, and my hair dresser of course (to use a bad old german joke)...

So if you are interested in what I have to say about me or the things that bother me, read on. If you are more of a visual type, why not try and have a look at my flickr photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/? If that doesn't help, in some time I hope to have built up some movie suggestions and maybe you can find some distraction there. Of course there's also the music I listen too that you might be interested. Still not satisfied? Now it's getting difficult... well, have a look around yourself to find something of interest and else, check out my blog mates ;-)

That said, I feel i also need to mention that I won't be able to post something every day. I could try but I know in advance I won't manage to do that. I am working irregular shifts and it's impossible for me to have a decent regular private schedule. So I do thing more spontaneously, less planning unfortunately. So I suggest to add this blog to your feed reader so in case of any updates you will be noticed immediately. Very handy, I daily use google reader for the pages I am most interested in. I can only highly recommend to use it, too.

Oh, you wonder, what will I talk about here? Different things. As you can read above, my interests are diverse. I love bear men so I might bother you with some comments on recent sightings of a beautiful bear man or events or whatever has to do with the bear men's world. ;-) I also like going to the cinema. I haven't done that too much in recent years but hope to resume it more often and hopefully I can tell about the movie I've seen. I work in the airline industry and I am also interested in civil aviation. And I love to travel, with planes or cruise ships for example. So you might find posts here about my travels or airline or cruise related items. For some reason I have a general interest in public transport, so I also like trains, trams and
metros and to a lesser extent also buses. Technical gadgets, Apple computers, internet and stuff do get my attention too. Finally, I love design and architecture. So you might see posts about this topic as well.

Reading about my interests you might have realized that there is a lot of dead, technical stuff surrounding me. I realize that. I am in a process of trying to change it. I need to. As I do not feel happy about it. I miss something, I miss live, I miss love. You receive love by people, by friends, not by trains, planes or ipods... So this blog is most probably not only about trivia but things that really move me.

Please do leave a comment. I am most happy to get in contact with people. I want to meet new people, make friends. I know it's possible, even on internet. Friendships grow when you get to know someone, meet someone in person. Let's start out here. I look forward to meet you.

For now, I thank you for your interest. Please come back soon or even better add me to your feed reader like google reader.

Take care and let me give you a hug.

P.S.: Please bear with me while this blog develops. In the beginning you might see some changes, some things not working or not looking good. I am sure I will develop my own style, in the beginning I might look at other blogs to get some inspirations. But I am new to this stuff and have to figure things out. With the time comes experience on what and how I want to publish here and how I deal with comments and other for me yet unknown things. Thank you.