Qantas’s 100th anniversary 787 has been rolled out of Boeing’s paint shop in Seattle featuring logos from the airline’s founding in outback Queensland in 1920 to its latest effort celebrating its centenary.
The 787, the 929th built and Qantas’s 10th carries the registration VH-ZNJ.
The Australian airline turns 99 in November and kicks off a range of initiatives as it heads towards its 100th anniversary in November 2020.
The 787 is named Longreach in honor of the Queensland town integral to its launch and features the “Qantas 100” imprint that will run across its 100th-anniversary celebrations.
Longreach was also the name given to the Boeing 747-400s that helped open the world to Australian travelers.
The aircraft will undergo a series of delivery test flights in Seattle prior to its handover from Boeing next month.
Before entering normal service, it will operate the second of Qantas’ Project Sunrise research flights, flying non-stop from London to Sydney and replicating the journey of the first 747-400 delivery 30 years ago.
“The story of Qantas is the story of modern Australia, and the logos on this livery tell that story from the beginning,” Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said.
“Our Centenary celebrations are all about honoring our past with an eye on the future, so it’s very fitting that this special livery will be worn by our newest state-of-the-art Dreamliner.”
What started as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services has evolved from delivering the mail in the outback to serving as the national carrier – from two passengers at a time to 50 million a year.
The evolution of Qantas logos. Source: Qantas.
Joyce noted Qantas now flies non-stop from Australia to Europe, having established an unrivaled reputation for safety in the process.
“We have a lot of exciting things planned to mark the Centenary, so watch this space,” he said.
Sinagpore at night. Photo: William Cho/Wikimedia Commons.
Singapore Airlines is offering passengers sick of being stung by global roaming charges the opportunity to use free pocket Wi-Fi routers while visiting its home city over the next year.
The airline has teamed up with DataPro Technologies to allow eligible Singapore and SilkAir customers who are 16 years and older to stay connected on a secure 4G Wi-Fi while exploring Singapore.
The free three-day, two-night WiFi comes with complimentary 2GB of data and each hotspot router has 12 hours of battery life and can support up to five mobile devices.
Those on longer stays can extend up to 10 days and 50GB of data for $S12, eight euros or $US9 weekly.
Visitors can use the Datapro device as a personal hotspot and the company says the network is fast enough to make video calls, watch you-tube or stream movies.
But undoubtedly the most useful apps for visitors will be those that allow them to find their way around, check e-mails and post their adventures on social media.
Once they’ve done this they can proceed directly to the hotspot station at Crowne Plaza Changi Airport hotel with their SIA or SilkAir flight booking reference number to redeem their free 3D2N WiFi.
Customers without bookings can also do the same but this will be subject to availability on a “while stocks last “ basis.
The WiFI devices must be returned to the hotspot station at Changi upon departure and the airline notes it will disclose personal data to DataPro Technologies in accordance with its privacy policy.
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SUPER TYPHOON PROMPTS FLIGHT CANCELATIONS IN JAPAN
Travelers to, from and in Japan are again facing airline delays and cancelations as a super typhoon approaches the country with violent winds and heavy rains.
Typhoon Hagibis has prompted emergency warnings and advisories along the south coast of Japan amid fears it could be one of the most damaging storms to have hit the Asian nation.
LONDON AIRPORT PROTESTOR GLUES HIMSELF TO JET’S ROOF
A visually-impaired Paralympian climbed on to a British Airways jet and glued himself to the roof as part of an Extinction Rebellion protest at London City Airport.
The deal allows customers who sign up with LattitudePay to use the system to buy a ticket and pay for it over 10 weeks without paying interest.
It comes at an opportune time with luck-luster domestic airline leisure as consumers face weak wages growth and worries about international and domestic issues.
The buy now, pay later phenomenon has also proved popular with younger people, many of whom are eschewing credit cards.
Passengers wanting to use the system will need to undergo a credit and ID check.
They are required to pay the first installment upfront and the LattitudePay website warns there are late fees that the company’s website puts at $10 for each payment missed.
Users authorize the company to deduct the payment amounts automatically from a debit or credit card.
Virgin Australia chief executive Paul Scurrah said LattitudePay would provide more choice and flexibility for passengers planning their next trip or holiday.
LatitudePay launched just over a month ago and joins a crowded “buy now, pay later” market in Australia.
However, the company behind it, Latitude Financial, is the former GE Finance that provided retail customers with personal loans for years and has about 2.6 million customers.
“Latitude has been providing payments and installments options for more than 30 years, which means we are uniquely placed to support Virgin Australia and its customers who want easier ways to reach their chosen destinations,” Latitude chief executive Ahmer Fahour said.
Here is a sneak peek at Qantas’s 100th year 787 colour scheme that will be unveiled on Tuesday, October 15, Australian time.
The livery will commemorate the airline’s 100th year which is celebrated next year.
Our 10th #QantasDreamliner is about to roll out of the paint shop. Have you guessed what its special livery is in celebration of? (Hint: the aircraft will enter service in mid-November). All will be revealed tomorrow… pic.twitter.com/Taywsd1u53
Norwegian Air plans to boost frequencies on flights between the United States and its most popular European destinations in the 2020 summer season.
Among the beneficiaries is Los Angeles-Paris, which moves to double daily flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and 10 frequencies per week, and New York-Paris, which will now run double daily services on Mondays and Saturdays and nine flights per week.
San Francisco-London will also move from five flights per week to a daily service.
Routes to gain an additional weekly service include Austin-London, Boston-Paris, Denver-London, Los Angeles-Rome, Tampa-London and Fort Lauderdale-Oslo.
The airline, which now lays claim to being the biggest foreign carrier serving New York City by passenger numbers, will consolidate its New York services at John F. Kennedy International Airport for its winter program starting October 27.
This will see services to Rome and Barcelona currently operating from Newark move to JFK.
“The United States is Norwegian’s key market for long-haul routes and is now the largest market by revenue within our entire network,’’ Norwegian senior vice president Matthew Wood.
“Our nonstop routes to Paris, London and Barcelona have been in very high demand by American and European travelers alike, and we continue to bolster capacity to meet the demand.
“Paris, in particular, has seen rapid growth in recent years, now served by seven U.S. gateways and we see potential for more. With this expansion, we anticipate a very successful summer 2020.”
Norwegian is the world’s fifth-largest low-cost airline and carried over 37 million passengers in 2018.
The airline operates more than 500 routes to more than 150 destinations in Europe, North Africa, Middle East, Thailand, North and South America. Norwegian has a fleet of more than 162 aircraft, with an average of 3.8 years.
It moved firmly into the spotlight in 2014 with a decision to launch low-cost flights across the Atlantic
The airline has struggled financially and was a big operator of the grounded Boeing 737 MAX, with 18 aircraft affected by the grounding.
It reported a net profit of 82.8 million Norwegian kroner ($U9.7 million) in its second quarter, down 72 percent from the same period a year ago.
However, it noted its underlying operating result before ownership costs was more than 2.3 billion kroner, the highest ever in the second quarter and 1.2 billion kroner higher than last year.
Also in July, co-founder Bjorn Kjos stepped down as chief executive 17 years at the carrier’s helm.
ANA HD is also looking at avatars that are more rugged and could be used outside. Photo: ANA
All Nippon Airways parent ANA Holdings is imagining a future where passengers can travel around the world without ever boarding an airliner.
The Japanese carrier is investigating technology that will allow a robot controlled by a human to set up a link that will allow its operator to see, hear, feel and interact with a remote environment in real-time.
Travelers would use technology such as haptic suits, virtual reality goggles and artificial reality to allow them, as ANA HD puts it, “to teleport their consciousness to remote locations”.
The ultimate goal of ANA is to expand its mission of connecting people through the group’s air network to new levels that create opportunities for the public, professionals and groups such as the elderly and those with disabilities.
It sees the general public shopping, enjoying sports matches and even fishing from remote locations while allowing professionals such as doctors, engineers and teachers to more widely share their expertise.
ANA’s robot hands have the motor skills to create meals. Photo: ANA
The company is this week demonstrating its vision at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATAC) this month using robots in different scenarios such as a kitchen, a school and a fish market.
The kitchen scenario demonstrates how a pair of robot hands have mastered the fine motions necessary to prepare meals while the fish market scenario will allow people in Tokyo to fish remotely in the Southern Japanese island of Kyushu.
The company took it plans a step further Monday by announcing a new platform called “avatar-in” was scheduled for release in April 2020 and would be tested with a small avatar robot called “newme”.
Each newme has the ability to transmit high definition 2K video that will allow users to see and interact with the robot’s surroundings.
The robots also have customizable body accessories for a variety of uses and ANA HD aims to deploy 1000 of them by summer 2020.
ANA hopes to deploy 1000 “newme”robots by summer 2020. Photo: ANA.
“ANA HD is built on connecting people and Avatars have the potential to connect people across the world in a way that traditional travel cannot and is a continuation of our core beliefs,” said ANA HD chief executive Shinya Katanozaka.
“Our vision of a better-connected planet will rely on the latest innovations in haptic robotics, VR/AR and AI to transform the way that humans interact.
“By placing the world at your fingertips, Avatars will open up new possibilities and help reshape everything from business and education to healthcare and entertainment.”
ANA said it would collaborate with partner companies to create an avatar social infrastructure worldwide.
It has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Agility Robotics, an Oregan State University spinoff, to investigate the feasibility of a new line of avatars that is more rugged, resilient and suitable for outdoor use.
Air Tahiti Nui is a small airline literally at the far end of the world. The nearest big city from here is Auckland, five flying hours away.
When the question of fleet renewal came up in 2015 it was clear the five aging Airbus A340-300s operated by Air Tahiti Nui since its inception in 1998 were to be replaced by just four Boeing 787-9s.
That’s what the national airline of French Polynesia found to be the most suitable option for its extremely long, thin routes.
After all, the airline serves just three places non-stop from Tahiti – Auckland, Tokyo and Los Angeles. From there it connects to Paris — that’s the whole route network.
But somehow the intended order of just four aircraft ended up causing huge headaches at Airbus, Boeing and in the French overseas territory’s capital Papeete.
It’s fascinating to see how the clash of the titans in airframe manufacturing reached boiling point for this tiny order.
There was meddling of politics up to the Elysée Palace, the French presidency in Paris.
Two separate bidding rounds with both suppliers and two board decisions had to be taken till the airline was granted what it always wanted – four Dreamliners.
The background was that Boeing had lost a huge order by Delta Air Lines, which defected to Airbus.
Reacting to this, former Boeing Commercial CEO Ray Connor wanted to capture the next order of a French airline, at almost any cost.
“This is a volume small enough to do crazy things,” insiders who were present recall him saying.
In the end, Air Tahiti Nui apparently got the best deal ever made by Boeing for any 787 customers – just on the grounds of revenge.
Air Tahiti Nui now operates four 787-9s, two purchased from Boeing and the remainder leased from ALC. ALC’s boss, leasing guru and multi-billionaire Steven Udvar-Hazy, happens to be a great fan of both Tahiti and its airline. He made sure they also got a decent leasing deal.
The airline went to work with Australian branding agency Future Brand to create not only an enhanced livery with the local tiare blossom as the main logo on aircraft tails but a stunning new brand identity that turns heads on every airport and has rightly received several awards.
Just the deep blue of the fuselage, now adorned with patterns and symbols taken from traditional Polynesian tattoos, conveys instantly, even on a big airport like Los Angeles, where this aircraft hails from.
Photo: Andreas Spaeth
On board, the 787-9s offer 30 full-flat bed seats in 2-2-2 configuration in business class with a pitch of 60 inches, 32 seats in a very comfortable premium economy cabin in 2-3-2 layout with 38-inch pitch plus 232 seats in economy class, configured 3-3-3 with a 31-inch pitch.
Even the aircraft registrations tell a story, that’s how far branding goes at Air Tahiti Nui.
The last three letters of each 787’s registration have been chosen on purpose: MUA means forward, NUI big, VAA canoe and TOA warrior. So the hidden story goes: “The warrior going forward in the great canoe”. Quite sophisticated.
French Polynesia is home to 283,000 inhabitants spread over 118 islands and atolls, distributed over a very large area of endless Pacific equalling Western Europe in size.
Tahiti is almost fully dependent on tourism while positioning itself as a high cost, luxury destination.
Due to its far-away location, it receives as many visitors in a whole year -216,000 came in 2018- as Hawaii does in one week.
Its airline is fully dependent on hotel capacity on the islands, which is notoriously scarce and has even significantly shrunk in recent years with hotel closures.
“It’s our main goal to serve the tourism industry, that’s part of our DNA,” CEO Michel Monvoisin tells AirlineRatings in Papeete.
In 2018, Air Tahiti Nui carried 471,000 passengers, a slight decline due to unexpected heavy new competition, a glut of extra seats and falling yields.
Air Tahiti Nui used to enjoy a quiet duopoly with Air France on the route via Los Angeles to Paris, but then United began operating from San Francisco low-cost carrier French Bee appeared in Tahiti on a new route from Paris via San Francisco.
It is operating its brand new Airbus A350-900 packing in up to 411 passengers, seated ten-abreast in economy class and its fares are considerably lower.
The return trip from Paris to Papeete and takes a hefty 21 hours each way. Ticket prices start at about $US1150 ($A1,700), while Air Tahiti Nui’s offers start with a premium of at least $US220.
Photo: Air Tahiti Nui.
These lower entry-level fares have created a totally new market for Tahiti’s tourism with more modestly priced private accommodation of the Airbnb type being in demand instead of just ultra-expensive resorts with coveted overwater villas.
Still, Air Tahiti Nui is by far the market leader to Tahiti, flying 61 percent of all tourists to the islands. It’s followed by Air France (11 percent) and Air New Zealand (8 percent).
About a decade ago, Air Tahiti Nui had expanded its network to both Sydney and New York – just before the financial crisis hit. These two routes never reached breakeven under the circumstances and brought the airline close to bankruptcy.
With a subsequent focus on fewer and more lucrative routes, the carrier has been solidly profitable for years.
Recent news reports suggested the South Pacific carrier was mulling non-stop flights to Europe. In fact, the option has been evaluated, but won’t be pursued.
“With just 150 passengers on board, while having 294 seats, we could offer that on the 787-9 as the world’s longest flight in 18 to 19 hours non-stop,” says Monvoisin. “But that would be only viable if we had the time-sensitive business clientele ready to pay for the hours saved, but it is unthinkable on our touristic markets.”
Still, picking the 787-9s for the fleet’s renewal has proven a clever move operationally.
Compared to the A340-300s, the Dreamliners fly much faster, saving a whopping 90 minutes between Papeete and Paris.
The 787s also burn 23 percent less fuel, more than the 20 percent savings guaranteed by Boeing.
“And maintenance costs are even 35 percent lower than on the A340s,” enthuses EVP Operation Raymond Topin.
“The most difficult task of the transition was the ETOPS certification, only since October 2019 (do) we have the necessary permit to operate under ETOPS 225 standards which finally enables us to take the shortest route from Los Angeles, with Hawaii being the alternate airport.”
This means an additional ten to 15 minutes in flight time savings and while the path to paradise remains long, it is surely worth the effort.
California is the subject of United Airlines’ second jet designed to promote women artists and give them the sweeping canvass of an aircraft livery.
The Boeing 757 was created by San Francisco resident Tsungwei Moo and features California imagery such as sunglasses, palm trees and the Golden Gate bridge.
The livery was shaped by the artist’s personal journey: she grew up in Tapei Taiwan before emigrating to San Francisco 14 years ago on a United flight.
It also recognizes United’s Californian hubs of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Photo: United
“It’s truly a dream come true,” Moo said.
“The vibrant colors, sunshine and subject matter make it California.
“I could never imagine one day my art will be displayed on a United Airlines plane which brought me to the United States.
“There are no culture borders in art and it doesn’t matter my status is an emigrant female artist.
“This plane has its mission now, to bring more joy into people’s life, connecting people and uniting the world through experience art.”
This is the second plane in the series, with a B757 paying tribute to New York/New jersey unveiled last month.
Designed by artist Corinne Antonelli, that plane featured iconic imagery from the two states including the historic Red Mill in New Jersey, the New York City skyline and the Statue of Liberty.
Photo: United
The Her Art Here contest asked artists who identified as women to visually represent either New York/New Jersey or California, two key markets for the airline.
They needed to combine the company’s mission with how they saw their communities.
Entries were scored by a panel of judges based on contest criteria and winners were determined based on a combination of judges’ scores and public voting.
The airline says that having their designs on an aircraft provides artists with a traveling canvas that flies on average 1.6 million miles and 476 cross-country trips.
Qantas boss Alan Joyce says Boeing is a fantastic engineering company and will fix the 737 MAX that has been grounded for months after two fatal crashes that killed 346 passengers and crew.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Joyce said: “I think Boeing is a fantastic engineering company, they will fix this issue.”
Next year Qantas will have a competition between Boeing and Airbus to replace the airline’s 75 737NGs.
Qantas is also currently evaluating the Boeing 777X and A350-1000 for its Project Sunrise for an aircraft to carry 300 passengers from New York to Sydney non-stop. A decision is expected by Christmas with Airbus considered the front runner.
“We’re working on the price of the aircraft and the performance of the aircraft and we’re nearly there,” he told the Irish Times.
According to insiders Airbus can deliver earlier and its A350-1000 is lighter than the Boeing offering.
However, Boeing has made Qantas an offer “it can’t refuse” according to Joyce. However, details are scant.
Boeing is offering its 777-8X which will seat 350 passengers and fly 17,220km but the program is delayed pushing delivery of the -8 out to 2023 at best.
It is suggested from sources in the US that Boeing is to offer Qantas its larger 777X-9 for delivery in 2021 to launch its Project Sunrise non-stop flights from New York and London to Sydney as an interim solution.
The US manufacturer will compensate Qantas for operating the larger 777X-9 with reduced payload to meet the range mission with just below 300 passengers.
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