Another plane takes a hit, but thankfully it was American made and can take on a few birds! This is the story coming out of the Daily Mail:

Dwarfed by the jetliner, they look little more than a smattering of black dots.

But this flock of birds could have brought the plane crashing down in seconds.

They flew straight into the path of the Germania airlines flight to Kosovo as it took off from Dusseldorf airport with 80 on board.

‘It was like a scene from the Hitchcock movie The Birds. One second all was clear, and the next thing you saw were these birds swarming over the plane,’ said an onlooker.

It is thought more than 200 starlings were sucked into the right engine as the Boeing jet approached 200mph.

Others dented the fuselage but thankfully did not pierce it. Their splattered remains could be seen on the plane later.

‘The pitch of the engine said it all,’ said plane-spotter Juergen Kienast, who took these dramatic pictures.

‘It was like sticking a bit of metal pipe into a blender.’

Once airborne, the pilot reported engine damage and circled for almost 45 minutes before landing safely.

No-one was hurt and the plane had only minor damage.

A similar bird strike brought down an Airbus in the Hudson in New York in January this year.

The pilot managed a heroic emergency landing and all 155 on board survived.

(Via Daily Mail)

There has been a lot of talk over the week about WiFi on commercial aircraft. I have posted some comments places in hopes of helping people understand the hurdles of making it all happen, and why the price point is as high as it is. I will just kind of wrap it all up here since it seems to be a hot topic.

Internet on aircraft has actually been around a lot longer than people think. It was mostly cost prohibitive because of the extreme data charges that used to be assessed for using satellites to transfer data, and the slow speed and latency of the transfer. Internet then started to become available using land based transfers on the CDMA network that we use now.

The problem then moved to cost of the unit (sometimes well over a million a piece), and weight of the unit. I am not sure what on earth they had in the old systems, but it would weigh several hundred pounds. That not only decreases amount of product (be it people, bags, cargo), but also increases the fuel burn. From my understanding the new devices by Gogo now are under 100lbs. Even with device and bandwidth costs decreasing, the accrued cost is still very high.

It is not as simple as buying a unit and plugging it in. It has to be certified for the airplane, have to have maintenance personal install it. Probably has a power button that all your aircraft, and pilot training books have to have an update to know about. FAA has to sign off on every single step. It is a process that can take a simple $100k device, and make it suddenly cost $500k or more.

So now you have some marketing group trying to figure out what to charge, based on costs, and how many people are actually going to use it? Would you? and at what cost? I have to admit, the first plane I get on that has it available I am going to use it. It could cost $30, and be an hour long flight, but I am going to pay it just to try it out. But what about after the newness wears off? Then it really becomes about the price point to the customer.

Many people have suggested in-boarding your costs into the general ticket prices. Here is a harsh reality about our society, we are cheap. REAL cheap. The airlines have all the rates figured out and in tune with each other. So when the consumer goes to Orbitz and search for a rate, then they will be the cheapest. Would you pay $5 to ride on an airline with wifi if it was included? Well sure, but you have found this article, your not the majority of the travelers. Sadly that $5 difference to the bargain shopper looking for tickets just cost a sale.

Like all new technologies, the cost will decrease rapidly over the years. I remember paying $400 for a 120meg hard drive, and $15 for a single blank CD. The only thing working against us right now is patience, and that two hour flight that makes us feel isolated. One interesting fact to point out about the Aircell service (people behind Gogo), it supports GSM enabled devices. So if they decide to let people use their cell phones in flight for voice calls, it looks like the device is already there to handle it

(Via Gizmodo, FlightGlobal, Gogo, Aircell, and HotHardware.)

Sure it could in theory be a hazard, granted your plane is on fire with a few thousand pounds of kerosine in the tanks, but when you do live, you want your papers. This is really funny and sad, can you imagine being the person behind this guy, waiting for his briefcase and picking up the papers? Watch at the end of the video, you will see what I mean

(Via CNN)

When airlines started charging for the first bag it drove me crazy. They just nickel and dime you to death. Some are even charging for drinks and water! So how much money could you even make charging for bags? Well I guess the jokes on me, cause it turns out to be over a billion dollars.

When airlines said that baggage fees were successful, they weren’t kidding. Collectively, they pocketed an extra $1.1 billion in luggage fees in 2008. American and US Airways led the pack — collecting $278 million and $187.1 million in bag fees respectively.

United Airlines kicked off the fun back in February of 2008 when it announced a $25 fee for the second checked bag. In May, while fuel prices soared and airlines started to hurt, American announced that it would add a $15 fee for the first bag, and the flood gates opened.

Now that consumers are used to the fees, there’s really no getting rid of them, though Southwest recently claimed that its lack of fees was helping it gain market share.

Of course all this was started back when the fuel prices were incredibly high, and they were looking at a way to counteract it. But you have noticed they are still charging . . . and prices are no where near what they were.

(Via Consumerist)