Last required post

I guess in this post I will talk about the blogging experience because I don't want to begin another story and have no one read it.  I can picture you saying it now Mrs. Stoklosa "but people WILL read it".  Unfortunately the Inconvenient Truth (did you see what I did there?) is that my blog will probably now fade into the deep recesses of the Web.  When I go on a trip again it will be fun to write about it here but the odds of my words ever reaching another persons retinas are very unlikely.  Heck only about six people from our class ever commented on my blog anyways.  Oh well.  This was for my own enjoyment mostly, because it is/was enjoyable, but its a little saddening to know that no one is following it.

When I go to France this summer I will write all about my American Airlines flights there and back so if any of you are so inclined feel free to check out this blog.



so long
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Wrapping it up

To wrap up this around the world adventure I will say that we did get on a flight from SFO to DEN an then from DEN to FLL.  As if the succession of flights coming back from Asia had not been bad enough yet, there was a storm in DEN that delayed the incoming flight, our plane.  When the storm cleared enough for the plane to land the pilots had timed out, pilots can only fly a certain number of hours per day and because they had been stuck in a holding pattern the pilots did not have enough hours remaining to make it to FLL, so United had to find us replacement pilots which only furthered the delay.  Suffice to say we ended up on the worst seats in the entire plane and ended the trip horribly.  When we got home I think I slept for an entire day.

Thank you guys for joining me on my recantation of my around the world trip.  I hope I managed to keep some of you interested.


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Running through airports somehow became the theme of my life.

As the TSA finished fondling my things and poking and prodding me with there wand my dad was just beginning to get his dose of extra screening and so he had me, you guessed it, run through San Francisco airport after a plane that was set to leave in about 60 seconds.  Thankfully we were as far away from the gate as one could possibly be, so, as I'm sprinting down the concourse in my wrinkled suit (when flying standby you have to be dressed up) and my disheveled hair I'm thinking to myself, wow, I have to got to look insane to all these travelers .  When I got to the counter, wiping sleep out of my eyes, I began to give my spiel about how I was a stand-by passenger and I wanted to know if I would be able to catch a seat on this flight my attention was directed towards the window where a Boeing 767-300 was just being pushed back from the gate.  I must have given the gate attendant the most mournful look because she came out from behind the counter and said  don't worry son (I was like 14 at the time) there is another flight leaving in 30 minutes.  Sure enough one of the flights to Denver from SFO was delayed and so we would still have a chance to make it to our beds that night.  I walked over to that gate agent, gave my spiel, and procured two seats just as my dad came strolling up and I guess he didn't know that this was a second flight because he asked me what was wrong.  After I explained to him that I had run to the gate just in time to watch the plane pull away we just smiled at each other knowing that it had to happen sometime and we were glad it decided to happen in the states.

Ugh. It's that kind of day.

So after getting no sleep on the flight we land in San Francisco after going back in time (due to the crossing of the International Date Line on trans pacific flights going east you end up landing about 3 hours earlier than when you left the previous day) we had to go and pass through immigration.  Due to the scheduling that airlines use most flights arrive in "banks" with all Pacific flights arriving in the same time frame and then European flights arriving in another.  For this reason there were big lines in immigration but United pulled through for us again and had a line separated for people catching connecting flights.  When we got through immigration we were at the front of the airport and had to go to the check in desks and make sure we got our new boarding passes printed and then we had to go through security again, in case we picked up a knife in the 100 yards it took to walk from immigration to the new security line.  I understand the reasoning for the double security so I digress.   Anyways, we were running late for one of our flights so we had to sprint into security again and low and behold we must have looked very, very threatening because like always we got randomly selected for extra screening by the lovely TSA agents.

The flight

I will use this post to rant about all the negative things that happened during this flight.  I love United Airlines, who is now set to merge with Continental airlines, and I do not mean to imply that they are a bad airline just that I had a bad experience on this flight.

The takeoff was fine and enjoyable but this was the last time when I was allowed by the Flight Attendant to use the window because all of the other Business class patrons had fully working seats and they were trying to sleep.  One consolation with the seat was that the leg rest did come up which allowed me to get more comfortable than I would have been able to in economy class.

As soon as the first meal finished I looked on as every single business class passenger quickly reclined their seats until I was the only one still in the upright position.  People looking on would have been perplexed due to me being the only one still in the upright position.

At some point during the flight I was able to be tired enough to close my eyes and obtain stage one of sleep.  But then I was being shaken and my dazed mind hoped that it was turbulence but it persisted where turbulence would have faded out.  I cracked open an eye and saw my new least favorite person (due to them not letting me get sleep).  I asked my Dad why in the world he was waking me up.  Writing this now, I have no clue what he said but what he said is not important.  Its that he woke me up.

Sorry if I seem scatterbrained but I just remembered something else that irked me.  I was trapped in my seat.  The person next to me was fully reclined and the two people in front of us as well.  This left no way for me to get to the isle without hopping over the sleeping man next to me.


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Business Class

After sprinting through the airport on our way to the plane and securing tickets we get on the plane only to find out that there was going to be a delay due to trouble with one of the planes four engines.  At this point I stupidly decided to walk around the airplane and talk to the flight attendants etc. and when I returned to the business class section I was informed that my seat had been moved.  I looked to where the flight attendant was pointing and I saw that it was a window seat so I was like hey, this isn't so bad.  And then I sat down.  What occurred next would plaque me for the entire 12 hours that we would be in the air.  The seat did not recline.  This was a seat that should have turned into a great bed for the night and it was now "stowed in the upright position".  

I will never know if my seat was changed because I am a stand by passenger, because of my age (then 14) or because I was up walking around the plane and they mistook that seat as an empty seat.  

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Singapore

Once we landed in Singapore it was time to burn five hours before we had to catch a six hour flight to Tokyo. Maybe it was the excitement of being in a new airport for the first time or just that I wasn't tired.  For some reason I choose not to sleep which was quite idiotic on my part seeing as we would be moving non stop from this moment forward.  The next morning the plane arrived, a boeing 777, and we went to the ticket desk to see if we would get lucky and get another business class seat but there were none to be had.  We were given a consolation though, premium economy which gives you extra legroom.  The flight took off for Japan and I spent much of it glued to the window drawing in as much of the pacific ocean as possible.

When we landed we looked at our watches and noticed that the first flight that was leaving to San Francisco was leaving very, very soon.  United was kind enough to have set up a line for customers that needed to catch a connecting flight and so we breezed through security and ran on towards the plane.  Once at the ticket desk, gasping and panting, I managed to spit out that we were on the stand by list.  Before the words had finished leaving my mouth I was handed one gold ticket and one blue.  The gold was a business class seat and the blue a economy one.  Walking back to my dad I made the argument that since this was my birthday trip I should get the business class seat.  This turned out to not be as good as I thought it would be.  More on that in the next post.


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The Return Trip Part 1

When Mrs. Stoklosa first brought up blogs and told us to write about something that interested us the first thing that popped into my mind was planes.  My second thought was the story of the hellish return trip that involved five flights, four countries and over fifty hours of consciousness.  In fact I didn't sleep until we were in the car driving back towards Weston.

In this post I will be setting up for the following threads.  It all started in Hong Kong International airport where we were trying to catch a flight back home.  The goal was to be able to catch a flight directly from Hong Kong to the mainland but due to the humid, hot weather that makes up Hong Kong, flights were being weight restricted which means that they were having to bump paying passengers off the flights and move them to other flights.  As a stand by passenger this is the worst news you could possibly hear.  We stood and waited as names for more senior stand by crews were called but alas ours was not.  My dad got on the computer and looked for a way for us to get to Tokyo where the flight loads were more manageable to get on.  The way we were going to do this was to catch an overnight flight to Singapore, sleep in the airport and then catch the first flight to Tokyo the next morning.  Due to the extremely low loads on the Hong Kong- Singapore flight we managed to snag upper deck business class seats for the three hour hop to Singapore.  This flight represented a number of firsts for me such as  first time on a 747, first time on the upper deck and first time sitting in business class.

Widespread effects

As you probably could have been imagined, the aftermath of a volcano halting flights for six days would have had a profound impact on the ability of people to return home to where they live.  It also would have messed up airliners because of the fact that they had been still for six days.

My Dad and his girlfriend Krissie were actually scheduled to go to Europe on Wednesday April 21 and they were scared that the airspace would not be clear by then.  Thankfully British Airways jump started the reopening of airports by sending all of their planes back towards their home base at London Heathrow.  Due to the pressure from British Airways the London Airport Authority was forced to open the airport even though they had not planned  on opening it quite so soon.  This was a risky move by British Airways because their plan to get the airport back open could have failed miserably and then they would have had to put their planes somewhere else.

My Dad and Krissie managed to get on their flight but they said it was controlled chaos at the airport due to six days worth of passengers trying to get on any flight that they could get on.

Natural disasters such as this really bring out the worst in our airline and airport infrastructure and then worst part about it is that there is almost no way to create a contingency plan for something like this occurring.  

Eyjafjallajokull and it's 6 days of Chaos

By request I will sum up the past six days that have been quite detrimental to the aviation business.  On April 14 2010 the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted sending ash and smoke 30,000 feet up into the air.  On the ground in Iceland there was widespread flooding due to the volcano being underneath a glacier.  


This volcanic ash impeded flight because aircraft engines are not designed to be able to take in anything besides air.  The main problem that is faced when there is volcanic ash is the possibility that the silicates in the volcanic ash will turn to glass inside of the engines of the planes thus causing loss of power and avionic instruments that rely on bleed air from the engines.  


When this ash began moving east the first airports to close were the Nordic countries such as Finland, Denmark and Sweden.  Then as the ash moved progressively east the list of countries with closed airspaces grew to include almost all of western Europe and Great Britain.  One of the only countries not affected by this was Spain due to its more southern location.

The lack of flights was very detrimental for the bottom lines of these airlines.  It was reported that Emirates was losing $10 million dollars per day due to not being able to fly to Europe.  British Airways, an airline that has a hub in London was reportedly losing $35 million per day.  As you can see this incident has been very disastrous for the airline industry.

Our Hotel

Our Hotel in Hong Kong was nothing spectacular but this wasn't a problem because I was here to experience Asia not chill in my hotel room.

My dad and I decided to take a walk around Hong Kong and get a feel for the city.  What we saw will stick with me for the rest of my life.  It was a Sunday which meant all of the Philippine houseworkers were not allowed in the house.  As my dad explained it, the houseworkers work Monday through Saturday and they live with the families but then on Sunday they are either forced out or given a day off I can't recall.  But anyways,  there was thousands of house workers everywhere.  It was so bad that entire streets and city blocks were closed down because the workers just sat down and occupied the middle of the road.  There were police on hand, oddly enough not to attempt to remove any of the workers but to protect them from other people.

After seeing this, my dad and I decided we wanted to have high tea which is an English installed during the times that Britain ruled Hong Kong.    High tea is of course tea, but there are also little pastries and sandwiches.  It is meant as a brunch and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  After high tea my dad and I headed back to the hotel before going out for dumplings later that night.  This pretty much sums up my first night in Hong Kong.  Tomorrow I will go over Victoria's peak and I will show you pictures (not mine because my camera died) and hopefully I will be able to link something on the trolley.  

Hong Kong and Kowloon

We landed in Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok International Airport (a place I will go into great detail about during my next couple of Blog Posts).  It is a fantastic airport and what is really magnificent about it is that it is on reclaimed land.  More on that later.

When we got off the plane we immediately began making our way towards the train.  Hong Kong has a stupendous train system that would take us from the airport all the way to downtown Hong Kong and from there we would continue by train to Kowloon (where we would be staying) or we could take the ferry.  We ended up taking a ferry across Kowloon bay because this would give us an opportunity to look upon the Hong Kong skyline.  When I first saw the Hong Kong skyline I was taken aback.  Firstly because it hit me that I was clear on the other side of the world.  Hong Kong is exactly 12 hours ahead of us here so that made it very difficult contacting people.  Also something that I noticed when the Dark Knight came out is that I had seen the buildings that batman was leaping onto in person.  I don't know if anyone else thinks its cool but I did and thats all that matters.  

Flight DXB-HKG

I thought I would try something a little different for this blog posting.  I am going to do an airline review of Emirates airlines during this flight.  This would be the second time that I flew with them however the first flight was so empty that we were able  to stretch out across rows of seats and sleep and so I feel it would be incorrect to comment on that flight.

This was the interior of our A330-200 Aircraft that would be ferrying us from Dubai to Hong Kong.  Emirates's A330's are a little bit different from other operators in that Emirates likes to squeeze in one extra seat per row, but there is a consolation for this.  The seat pitch or back and forth of the seat is very generous and when I first sat down it felt a little bit cramped but as soon as I reclined I felt as if I was in a nice little cocoon.  

The T.V's on the back of each seat can be used for on demand video which I found to be very, very exciting. It also has things such as movies games and music.  In this aspect Emirates excels, as well in the seating.  

The meal that was provided was decent for airline food.  I don't expect much when I get my meal and for that reason when something half decent arrives on the plastic tray I can get a little excited.  Needless to say the food that arrived on the plastic tray satisfied me so and the crew members aboard this aircraft are very attentive.  Many times during the flight they would come by and make sure you had water or a soda and at the back of the plane there was even a little snack area set up.  

The only real detractor that I can think of for Emirates is the fact that we sat in a sweltering aircraft for about 20 minutes.  But I do understand when your Airlines hub airport is in the middle of a desert keeping a plane cool when some part goes awry can be pretty difficult.  

I would definitely fly Emirates again and if any of you plan to fly to the UAE I recommend Emirates to you.  They offer more no stop flights to Dubai then any other carrier (naturally) and many times they are quite a bit cheaper.  They fly to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, New York and a couple of other destinations but rest assured you will enjoy your flight.       

Journey to Hong Kong

After spending two days in Dubai is was time to head off to our next exotic destination, Hong Kong.  Hong Kong was not part of the original trip plans but once we decided that we were going to Dubai my dad and I decided that we would like to travel around the world and not head back the way we came.  It was funny because until last summer I had never flown west across the Atlantic and I have never flown east across the Pacific.

When we went to the Dubai airport we were again assigned a remote gate due to all of the construction that was occurring in the airport.  When it was time to board our aircraft it was probably 120 degrees Fahrenheit outside and once on the plane which for some reason was not being air conditioned we began to sweat profusely.  And above all that we were delayed because the plane had a mechanical problem so as we sat there sweltering in the Dubai heat the stewardesses kept running up and down the aisles with cups of water because thankfully they understood how hot it was and that people need water.

Finally the engines started and immediately the cabin temperature in the plane dropped about ten degrees.  We all breathed a sigh of relief as we took off in to the foggy skies that plagued our stay in this magnificent city.  People have been posting in my comments asking if they should go to Dubai and I 100% recommend it because it is such a fantastic experience and I did not feel threatened as an American once during my stay in Dubai.  

The Burj and Ski Dubai

After my dad and I awoke from our slumber it was time to eat.  We were in a strange city and didn't know where to eat so late so we opted to eat at Gordan Ramsey's restaurant which was located on the top floor of the hotel.  Although what exactly we ate escapes me, I remember it being good.  After dinner it was time to again hit the sack, the next day we had a big day which included the Burj Al Arab and Ski Dubai.

Burj Al Arab

This is the worlds only six star hotel.  My dad and I knew that if we were gonna be half way around the world we might as well try as hard as we could to get into this hotel for lunch or dinner.  Above is a picture of me frowning in front of one of the most spectacular buildings.  The cool thing about the beach behind me is that the sand is cooled by pipes running along underneath.

My dad and I decided that we would eat lunch at the top of the Burj hoping that the sky would clear up so that we would have a view of the Gulf.  Walking into the Burj was like walking into a palace, the colors were fantastic and the intricate details were astounding.  Just take a look at these pictures.

Fountains at the Entrance 

These are the balconies going up the walls and in the middle is the atrium.  The colors get warmer and warmer as they reach to the top of the building.  

This is a picture of the view from the top.  This is looking down on the beach where I have the first picture from. 

This is a picture of the restaurant.  This is also an illegal picture as photography was not allowed.  

Ski Dubai

This is one of the most marvelous creations that I have ever been inside.  This monstrosity rises from the Mall of the Emirates, glinting in the burning sun that shines down on the desert.  In the picture you can see that it is the giant silver thing. Once inside it is like a ski resort.  They have state of the art equipment and machines that make moving around on your ski's very easy.  

As bad as this may sound, one of the funniest things that I remember from this trip to Ski Dubai is how bad the native people are at skiing.  I would assume it comes from the fact that the nearest place with weather below 100 is a plane ride away.  As I was going up the ski lift it was quite amusing to watch the Arabs fall down the ski slope often loosing ski's in the process. 

These are pictures from the midpoint looking up and down the ski slope.  

And now its off to bed.  

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Dubai

My first views of Dubai were at 4,000 ft when the A340-300 we were in broke the clouds.  I did not see a glittering city but instead I saw fog.  Little did I but this fog was to persist the entire two days that we were in Dubai.  This fog did nothing to affect my opinion of this magnificent city.

Getting off the plane was quite an adventure.  Due to the Dubai Airport being renovated there was not enough gates for all the planes and we were one of the unfortunate ones that had to deplane into buses.  As I begrudgingly left my comfy seat and started towards the front of the aircraft I became aware that it was getting hotter and hotter.  Once I stepped out of the aircraft the full force of 115 degree Fahrenheit, 0% humidity hit me.  Dubai literally feels like the air that blows towards you when you open an oven.  Luckily it was only about 30 feet to the bus which was very well air conditioned.  Going through Dubai customs was very easy and in no time we were at the cab.  The cab was to take us to our Hotel, the Hilton Dubai Creek.  (Shown to the right).

Due to the time our plane got in and the check in/out time at the hotel we ended up waiting over an hour for our room.  This wouldn't have been so bad had I managed to get any sleep during the flight over.  Too bad I was playing with the IFE (in flight entertainment system).

When we finally got into the room my dad and I laid down to rest our eyes promising that we would get up in a couple of hours to check out the silk market.  Unfortunately that didn't happen.  This just gives me a reason to go back to this fantastic place.

In my next post I will talk about the Burj Al Arab and the indoor skiing at the mall of the Emirates.


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Downtown Zurich and the Airport

Today Domingo, my dad, and I went into Zurich to experience the city.  Our friend Domingo lives in Zurich and he works for a bank (what else do you do in Switzerland).  His job requires that he travels a lot which is what has allowed him to reach the Executive Platinum on American Airlines.  He has almost flown three million miles which is a goal of mine, whether in the cockpit or as a passenger.

Here is a picture of me and Domingo standing with Lake Zurich in the background.  (Yes I realize my eyes are closed.)

After we spent time walking around Zurich and seeing all of the things one would not normally see in a city stateside, we went to the Zurich Airport.  I find this airport to be fantastic for watching planes.  You are allowed to go on top of the terminal buildings and watch planes take off and land.  While this may not appeal to some, I could spend hours watching planes.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Singapore Airlines 777-300ER

Thai Airways A340-600 (Longest plane in the world)

Singapore Airlines plane taking off for a long flight to Singapore. 

Thai Airways beginning to rotate. 

Thai Airways fighting for altitude on its way to Bangkok.  

As you could see it was a very rainy in Zurich, but it did not put me off to the city whatsoever.  I loved the countryside where Domingo lives and being able to look around and see the Swiss Alps is just amazing.  

The next evening we were to get on our plane to Dubai. So here is a picture of our plane that would take us to Dubai and then I will pick up with that tomorrow.  

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Zurich

When our easyJet flight landed at Basel-Mulhouse airport we quickly deplaned and went into the terminal.  The cool thing about this airport is it serves two countries as it lies inside of France but is joint operated by France and Switzerland.  The German town of Freiburg is also close by.  When exiting this airport one must be very careful that you are exiting through customs for the right country.  There is a separate line for those going to Germany, France, and Switzerland.  We managed to follow signs and directions and we got through to the Swiss side without a hitch.  There our friend Domingo was waiting for us, we would be staying with him and his wife and their kids for the next two days before continuing on to Dubai.  The rest of today consisted of driving from the town of Basel to Zurich.  The next day we went and explored the Zurich airport and things that would be taboo in the United States.  

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Wrapping up Paris...

The second day at the air show was to be comprised of flying displays.  This is the manufacturers opportunity to showcase the flying characteristics of their aircraft.  After all an air show is really about airplane manufacturers trying to sell aircraft to airlines and to the militias of the world.

This is an Airbus A380 which is the double decker plane that I showed in a previous post.  Airbus had it doing some spectacular acrobatics (mind you this was spectacular in and of itself because this is a double decker plane with a seating capacity for 800 people, although there were no passengers at this time). 

These are two pictures of the only supersonic commercial plane to ever exist.  The one with the blue letters that say France is the production version while the one with the red line across the fuselage was the preproduction version.   Sadly the Concorde was retired from service due to a severe crash and rising fuel costs.  With its retire the 3 hour transatlantic flight from JFK to LHR went with it.  

After the air show we went back into the city to kill some time before our easyJet flight to Zurich.  

Here are some pictures of the Arc D' Triomphe and the Louvre that were taken by me.  Also I am including an Eiffel Tower picture that I forgot to put with the last post.  

There you have it.  I hope you enjoyed my account of the City of Lights.  Next up is Switzerland land of chocolate and blondes. 

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The City of Lights

After the first day of the air show my dad and I got our first chance to explore what is considered one of the most romantic cities in the world.  Thank god I got to do this with my dad.  At first we just walked around the city with no apparent goal.  Here are some pictures that we took of Paris.

This picture above shows some of the architecture of Paris.  It also shows how prominent the Eiffel Tower is. Also something that I didn't know before my dad brought it up is that buildings around the Eiffel Tower cannot be above a certain height so that this view is not restricted.  Personally I think this is a great idea as it allows France to display one of its most prominent icons to tourists no matter where they are looking from.  

This was looking up into the middle of the tower.  I was really excited when I took this picture because it is when you are standing in the middle of this magnificent structure that the full scope and awe comes in to play.
 

This is a picture of the elevators that take you up the legs of the tower.  The tract goes up and then tilts an even steeper angle.  It was a little discomforting going up the elevator because without warning the floor tilts and you accidentally bump into people which poses a problem in itself.  I didn't know whether to apologize in English or what the proper thing to say was so I just kind of murmured an apology.

Thats all for today.  In the next post I will continue with day two of the air show and maybe some more pictures of Paris.

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Paris Air show Day 1

Today I will be covering the first day of the Air Show mostly with pictures with explanations to go along with them.

To get from our hotel to the Air Show my dad and I chose to take the subway.  I know that the joke and stereotype of French people is that they don't shower but after being in their subway system I can wholeheartedly understand why.  The first steps that you take walking down into the subway is like falling face first into a sweaty towel that has been left on the floor for a couple of days.  (Ok maybe its not THAT bad, but it does smell).  Once the subway went above ground the smell gradually went away.  On the subway there were a lot of people like my dad and I headed to Paris Orly airport to see the Air Show.

 To the right is an Airbus A380  which is the only double decker airliner in the world.  There is more than one and they are currently flying with, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Emirates, Airfrance and Lufthansa is set to get their first during the first half of 2010.

This is me standing next to a Rolls Royce Trent 800 engine which powers some of the 777 fleet of the world.  Don't let the picture fool you.  This thing is massive.  For a sizing reference, this engines diameter is the same diameter as the 737 series of aircrafts fuselage (where the people sit) which is largely flown by Southwest, American Airlines and DAL.

To round out this post I will show a picture of a plane.  I know you are probably thinking well cool?  Well this is John Travolta's private aircraft that wears a traditional Qantas Paint scheme.  I have also included a picture of his house in Florida where he lives next to a private runway.  At the top of the bottom photo is a Gulfstream G-5 and at the bottom is is 707.  I think he has a gorgeous house with gorgeous planes.  Do you think any of you could get used to this?

Paris and the Hotel Dilemma.

Three hours later when we arrived in Paris my dad mentioned that we did not yet have a hotel for tonight because he didn't want to have booked a room and then have us not make it to Paris that night.  We ended up finding a hotel close to the Arc De Triomphe on one of the streets that spiderwebs out from the center.  This was a little hole in the wall hotel with two tiny beds in a very tiny room.  My dad said that this would have to do for tonight as the next day we planned on moving to a larger more americanized institution.   

The next day as promised we moved to the larger hotel, and it was also the beginning of the air show.  The air show is one of the major parts of this trip (in fact it was the reason behind the trip) and so I will talk about it over the next couple of posts.  Also it will be a lot of pictures and descriptions.  

Also interspersed in the next couple posts will be pictures of the city that I took and I will talk about the culture so that readers have a better understanding of this magnificent city.  

Landing in London..

Upon landing in London Heathrow our aircraft taxied to a remote gate (one without a jetway).  Because we would be deplaning onto the taxiway my dad was able to take the picture to the right.  In the background of this photo is a PW4090 engine rated at 90,000 lbs of thrust.  After this photo was taken we proceeded to get on a bus to take us to the main terminal.

Due to all of the US bound arrivals into LHR we faced quite a substantial line once we reached immigration.  After looking around we found the shortest line and we were quickly through despite us thinking it would be a while.

Once on the other side of security we faced a dilemma.  We needed to be in Paris and not in London, so my dad and I pulled out our computers and began searching for ways to get to Paris.  After looking at flights, we determined that it would be too expensive so we went looking for EuroTrain tickets which would take us through the Chunnel.

Once we were on the train I blacked out due to the exhaustion of crossing time zones.  I'll pick back up this weekend when we arrive in Paris.

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My Trip Around the World

For the next couple of blog postings I will be retelling the story behind my travels around the world.  It started off here in Ft. Lauderdale at FLL.  It was the beginning of my around the world trip which was my 15th birthday present from my Dad.  The main goal of the trip was to go see the Paris Air-show, but in addition to this we also decided to see friends in Zurich, the magnificent buildings in Dubai and the culture in Hong Kong.  I will be splitting the blog postings by city but I will concentrate on the airports and the stresses of flying stand-by.  My Dad and I were going to be flying NRSA, this stands for Non Revenue Space Available, but this was only going to be across the Atlantic and the Pacific.  The reason is that United Airlines does not fly from CDG (Paris Charles De Gaulle) to ZRH (Zurich Kloten International Airport).

Back to FLL,
My Dad and I got to the airport early and we were hoping to either get on a flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Chicago or Ft. Lauderdale to Washington Dulles.  On this day United had a systemwide computer crash which was causing delays across the board.  The day was not off to a great start.  Eventually a plane arrived and it was headed to Washington Dulles (IAD).  The plane was late, but it wasn't extremely full so we were able to grab two seats.  Once on the plane my dad began looking at the list of flights we might take out of IAD.  Due to our delay most of our possible flights were crossed off the list.  We were hoping to fly into London Heathrow (LHR), Frankfurt (FRA), or Paris (CDG).

When we landed my dad told me to hurry off the plane because a flight to LHR was leaving in 10 minutes.  So as we rushed off the plane we hurried down to the gate for the LHR flight and managed to get there just before they were going to retract the gate.  The gate agent printed off two Economy Plus tickets for us and I was on my first flight across the Atlantic aboard a United Airlines 777-200ER painted in the Star Alliance color scheme.

I have included a map of all our flights so you can see where the next blog postings will be headed.

A new way to travel?

Due to no comments on my first post I am going to try and go in a different direction with this one.  In this post I will be talking about Air New Zealand and their new economy class seats.  Air New Zealand is calling it the sky couch.  It will be on the companies new 777-300ER's and what it will be is three seats that fold out into a five foot long bed for either one or two.  This product is revolutionary in that it is the first to offer a "bed" in economy class.  I have included a picture for you guys to look at.  Air New Zealand says that customers will have to buy two seats at full price and the third half off.  Does anybody see this working out for Air New Zealand?  Would you pay for it?  Keep in mind that the aircrafts that are being configured with this will most likely be flying between Auckland and the west coast of the United States.  That is about a 16 hour flight.  Is it looking more appealing to you know?  Let me know.


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First post

Hello blog world,
this is my first post in my blog, Commercial Aviation.  As much as I would prefer for my first post not to be negative there was an incident involving an Ethiopian Airlines 737-800 this morning.  A Boeing 737-800 took of from Beirut this morning at about 2:30 A.M headed to Addis Ababa the capitol.  Ethiopian Airlines is considered a safe and reliable airline by world standards and even more so by standards set in Africa.  This is only the second fatal crash the airline has had since 1980.  The first being a hijacking of a Boeing 767-200ER that ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean.  You can read more about it here.  Thats all for this first post but as I know more about the crash that occurred today I will update my blog.  


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