Tag Archives for airbus.
American’s first Airbus A321neo is about to enter commercial service on Tuesday, April 2. They have 100 of the ‘new engine option’ planes on order (22 of these deliveries have been deferred). It’s being outfitted in a new ‘dense’ configuration along the lines of the American Airlines 737 MAX, which has the airline’s new standard domestic interior.
In a communication to employees the airline is highlighting five features of the new aircraft.
As a passenger the Airbus A380 is a special experience. Takeoff rolls are incredibly smooth. While they can pack in passengers densely most operators have offered incredibly luxurious perks on the plane — in part because it can be so much more difficult to fill an aircraft with 600 or more passengers so the cost to use space ‘inefficiently’ is low. No US airline has operated one.
The Airbus board is meeting and – barring a last minute rabbit out of a hat – could announce the end of A380 production as soon as tomorrow. Airbus has been signaling the possible end of the A380 program since 2014.
United has been moving towards a premium-heavy strategy. The offer more international business class seats than peers using similar aircraft, and they’ve invested in really nice international business class lounges. Their Polaris business class seat allows them to do this because it gives them a fully flat product with direct aisle access without taking up more space in the cabin than their old six-abreast seats. It’s a “good enough” seat that isn’t quite as nice as American’s B/E Aerospace Super Diamond or Delta’s new Suites, but that doesn’t require actively avoiding flying business class on United. United has announced a doubling down on the premium heavy approach adding even more business class seats to a subfleet of 767-300s, as well as adding first class seats to Airbus A319 and A320s where they’ve had fewer seats…
Six months ago I reported that American Airlines was in the market for used Airbus A319s.
There was a rumor at the time that American would pick up these narrowbody aircraft from Frontier Airlines but then time passed and nothing happened. Now it seems that American Airlines is receiving its first ex-Frontier A319, registration N922FR.
When aircraft manufacturers like Boeing or Airbus sell planes, media report the value of the orders based on ‘list prices’ but those are made up numbers. No one pays list prices. Roughly speaking you can usually assume that airlines pay about half of list pricing.
Airbus has taken over marketing the C series and now they’re ‘Airbus A220s’. The first sale they’ve made is to JetBlue for 60 planes and to get that done they were reportedly willing to knock 72% off of list prices.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
American Airlines flight AA1897 from San Antonion to Phoenix ran into strong storms over New Mexico. It was pummeled by hail.
The Airbus A319 with 130 passengers onboard had its nose cone smashed and windshield cracked. One of the pilots couldn’t see out. But they managed to get the plane on the ground safely in El Paso last night.
Singapore Airlines used to fly the world’s longest flight, Newark – Singapore, along with what at the time was the second longest flight Los Angeles – Singapore. They held the title from June 2004 through November 2013, operating these services with flying gas cans Airbus A340-500s. It’s hard to make ultra long haul flying work. A flight scheduled at over 18 hours is going to require a dedicated aircraft in each direction, and fares are going to have to cover that plane’s full costs. With fuel prices up that’s even more difficult since they burned over 58,000 gallons of fuel in each direction. The flight used 14 cabin crew and six pilots to make the journey. Singapore initially offered 64 business class and 117 extra legroom coach seats but moved to an all business class…
French Open champ Alona Ostapenko uses an Air Baltic Bombardier C Series. For practice. Watch this.
Saudia flight SV3818 from Medina, Saudi Arabia to Dhaka, Bangladesh reached 37,000 feet when the crew diverted to Jeddah. It made a go-around on its first approach because a landing gear hadn’t gone down.
Then the aircraft circled for an hour while it worked through emergency checklists. Ultimately they decided to land without the Airbus A330-200’s nose gear deployed.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
