The Antonov An225 roars to life during a takeoff from Schipol
The biggest plane your average Joe off the street knows about is likely the Airbus A380 or some flavor of the Boeing 747. Relatively few people have every heard of or seen the Antonov An225 but what a sight it is. Mriya (Мрія in Ukranian) is perhaps the most impressive relic of the Soviet space program. Originally designed to give piggyback lifts to Soviet space shuttles, in its post-perestroika life it has provided great utility as a freight hauler popping up in airports the world over and swallowing up gargantuan loads of cargo. Once loaded up its Ivchenko Progress D-18T turbofans do the rest. Just how big is big you ask?
Antonov An225 size comparison chart
There is only one An225 in operation (UR-82060) – compared to almost 60 An124s – ensuring that it is always in demand. Hardly surprising considering it hold the world record for the heaviest ever air lift. So the next time you’re seated with your seatbelt securely fastened taxiing to the runway, keep your eyes open as you pass the cargo facilities, it may be the only chance you ever get to see this marvel of Soviet engineering.
Where in the world is this? With these four pictures and some problem solving skills you can figure this out! Connect with me on twitter for clues! Challenge your friends or enlist their help by sharing this!
The Luggage Lunatic
In an age where seat pitch and width are shrinking, carry-on rules are getting stricter and free check-ins are quickly disappearing you still see the luggage lunatics the second you roll up to the curb. Unless you’re moving to Ouagadougou for good there is no reason to pack like this. Ever. You’re not Imelda Marcos, let’s tone down the luggage.
The Octopus Parent
You know who I’m talking about poor man/woman carrying two kids in the dual Koala-al-Qaeda configuration holding hands with yet more kids of walking age – multiple wheelie suitcases and back-packs in tow; at least one kid crying at all times almost acting as I siren warning you to get out of the way. I have nothing against this group of people and the only reason they make this list is that I want them get some relief.
The Muse
Lack of experience? Lack of knowledge? Lack of a clue. This species of traveler is fascinated and confused by everything. They usually stand around gawking at things – one hand scratching their head, while their heads bob up and down between airports signs and their travel documents. Hint: there are no directions to your gate on you boarding pass. Do not EVER line up behind one of these people and follow at a distance as they are known to perform Crazy Ivans at random.
The Voyageur Idiot Savant
I don’t know what it is about these people but they are everywhere. Usually they are men trying to impress their kids or the significant other with their wealth of aviation and travel knowledge. I recently overheard a guy telling his girlfriend/wife how revolutionary the 747 was “blah, blah, economies of scale, blah, blah hub to hub” and so on. When she asked which plane he was talking about he pointed and said that Air Canada one over there! Air Canada has not operated the 747 for AGES but the real kicker was that he was pointing at an A320 which wasn’t even the biggest plane in sight.
The Turnstiles
I’m not sure who created these jobs or why they are still around but you see them at every airport; people whose entire role it is to direct travelers to various line ups – be it customs, security or check-in. I’m baffled. Where does one even go to apply for such a job? Surely a well placed sign would do the trick… then again the patent lack of logic and flailing hand gestures some of these folks exhibit is worth the price of admission. On second thought let’s keep these people.
The Blackberry Ninjas
These lovely individuals spend every free second they have looking down at their mobile devices furiously thumbing away. Luckily half of this genus consists of business travelers so they at least know where they’re going and how to get there without obstructing other travelers. These folks look up occasionally and grunt when asked questions but beyond that are a waste of space. If you happen to be seated next to one on the plane there is a more than 50% chance that (s)he will still be hammering away during takeoff.
I was in Atlanta for work a couple of weeks ago – a quick 4 day in-and-out trip. Whenever I travel I bring my trusty D90 and a couple of lenses with me. This trip was no exception. However, due to severe thunderstorms and very scratched up windows on my CRJ on the way down there was very little to photograph. Even a weather diversion to Augusta yielded nothing. Luckily on the day of my return I managed to get some pretty good snaps.
Due to Delta’s crushing dominance of ATL I was not expecting to get much variety in my photographs – a widget here, a widget there, maybe an AirTran. However, once I got to Concourse A and snooped around I was pleasantly surprised. The vast majority of metal was Delta, but for the aviation nerd there is a lot of little detail to see, appreciate and photograph. For instance the backbone of the Delta fleet, the 757. The size of this fleet is impressive; about 180 planes strong. However, characterizing that fleet with a single number doesn’t really paint a complete picture. Due to acquisitions and mergers and Delta’s ongoing transition there is so much diversity within the fleet: ETOPS vs. non-ETOPS, winglets vs. non-wingleted, livery differences and of course the issue of lineage. As you might expect there’s ex-Northwest 757s but did you know they have some former Singapore Airlines 757s? For my part I had forgotten SQ ever had 757s. There’s even some ex Shanghai Airlines birds in there.
I was lucky enough to see Delta’s 757 breast cancer awareness jet in special livery. Since then Delta have announced that it will be painted into normal colors and that a 767-400 will instead wear those colors. Speaking of the -400 I was disappointed that I did not spot a single one.
For shutter happy folks like myself ATL is a great spot to photograph just because it’s so busy. The frequency of takeoffs and landings means you can take some shots, review them and look back up only to see another aircraft rolling.
Incidentally I was questioned by two gentlemen from Homeland Security. Apparently the gate agent thought it was suspicious that I showed up so early for my flight and whipped out my DSLR and so he “reported” me. I, of course, cooperated when confornted and showed them my photos and explained why I was taking snaps. I even showed them this site while a remote agent did a background check on me.
In recent years Air Canada’s Project XM drove the adoption of seat-back in-flight entertainment consoles across the fleet. They even aired this advertisement (relentlessly I might add) last year to publicize the project.
This AC commercial was in high rotation in 2009.
The content Air Canada makes available is great but the IFE interface itself needs work. Having wrestled with it countless times I thought reviewing it might be beneficial to anyone involved with it and potentially even therapeutic to me. As a software engineer I can confidently say that all of the suggestions and fixes I propose below can definitely be made.
Needed Fixes
The latency needs to be addressed. The current response time is just not good enough. My heart really goes out to Air Canada flight attendants that have to sheepishly ask passengers to be patient as “the system takes several moments to respond” before every single flight. Do what it takes.
The user interface is not user friendly. At all. If a screen becomes slightly mis-calibrated some of the buttons (and the content behind them) become inaccessible. This has happened to me on more than one occasion – usually with the buttons on the bottom left. When this happens to me I find the stir stick from my last Cuba Libre to be a great stylus replacement.
The very first decision the viewer must make is a choice between languages: English or French. Those that select French can still navigate to content that is only available in English. For example the currently showing and hilarious Modern Family. Was this based on the assumption that there are bilingual people out there that would prefer the UI in one language and the content in another? Or was this just an oversight?
Shouldn’t that button say Anglais? ;)
Non-functioning features should not feature on the UI I can’t count how many times I’ve wrestled with the sluggish UI only to be met with this screen:
Feature not available.
I understand that it’s common practice to increase the volume during commercials but for the love of god please take it down a notch. I almost burst my eardrums last time.
Nice to haves
Selective interruptions. As you know when crew make announcements IFE content is paused. Ordinarily that’s not a big deal but it can be. On my way down to Buenos Aires last year everything was announced in English, French and Spanish which made watching anything positively infuriating.
User interfaces in languages other than English and French would be nice. It would involve a bit of effort and cost but would really make a world of difference to those that don’t speak either.
It’s important to note that despite the shortcomings I have mentioned the IFE is still pretty good and certainly leaps and bounds ahead of most other North American carriers.
What has your experience with Air Canada’s IFE been?
An infographic summary of the three global alliances
While staff turnover, fleet size, and destinations are constantly in flux at all major airlines (and the alliances they belong to) I think the infographic above paints an interesting portrait of the three global alliances. This picture is set to look quite different by this time next year as no less than 10 carriers are in the final stages of negotiation or joining one of these three.
While these carriers play an important role in global aviation one can not discount the titans of the middle east (EK, EY, QR) or the many LCCs around the world. These additional carriers merit an infographic of their own. Coming soon…
Where in the world is this? With these five pictures and some problem solving skills you can figure this out! Connect with me on twitter for clues! Challenge your friends or enlist their help by sharing this!
Today is International Women’s Day so I felt it to be an appropriate time to talk about the ladies of KLM. If you came by this post expecting to find a gallery of Dutch flight attendants strutting their stuff in KLM blue you are going to be at least partially disappointed. Disappointed because this post is in fact about KLM’s fleet of ten MD11s – each of which carries the name of a famous woman. The (clickable) ladies are: View Full Article »
A tad heavy, no?
