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flight

A Reason To Read Your Tray Table

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

If you hate being stuck on a plane with nothing to read, fret no more, you will soon be able to enjoy BusinessWeek content on your seat-back tray tables. Starting next month, BusinessWeek columns will be stuck on seatback tray tables on domestic air carriers. The aisle, middle and center seats will each feature different BusinessWeek content that will be updated monthly. Ads equivalent to the size of a two-page spread, will be placed next to the BusinessWeek columns on the tray table surface.I wonder if there will be some sort of special treatment to keep the columns from looking ragged after weeks of flying.

Tags: airlines, businessweek, flight, flying, tray tables

Jet Airways Offers Private Mini Cabins

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Flying from London to India just got a lot more comfortable. Jet Airways has created a service that is basically like having a small cabin to yourself for the flight The 26 square foot room has two seats that convert into an 83-inch bed, dining for two and a 23-inch flat screen TV. The cabin has a pair of sliding doors for privacy. Meals are served on porcelain dinnerware. To fly from London to Mumbai in your own cabin costs £4,421.10 and the first luxury flight on one on Jet Airways' Boeing 777-300ER aircraft takes off from Heathrow on May 5. You can see more pictures in the article on This Is London.

Tags: airplane, england, first class, flight, flying, india, jet, jet airways, JetAirways

Versace To Design Helicopters

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Versace's done a Lamborghini and they've designed jet interiors, so their next move is an easy guess. The Italian design house is taking on the whirlibird. Fashion Week Daily reports that Versace is teaming up with fellow Italian company, Agusta Westland to create a line of private helicopter interiors. Helicopter owners will be allowed to personalize the decor of the craft. Given what we've seen in the jets and cars I'm guessing Versace copters will have black and white leather and the classic Greek key design Versace is known for.

Tags: agusta westland, flight, helicopters, versace, wings

JetBird To Take Flight in 2009

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

The much-vaunted private jet revolution has been slow to launch but it does seem to be getting underway with the growth of more and more private jet companies gearing up for major business over the next few years. JetBird is a company in Europe that will launch in 2009 when the company recieves its first jet. JetBird is creating a fleet of 100 Embraer Phenom 100 jets and aspires to offer low fare private airline travel. The service will start in Zurich, Switzerland and expand throughout Europe.

[via Aero-News Network]

Tags: embraer, flight, jetbird, plane, private jet

Schultz Tops Executive Perk List

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

The Puget Sound area of Washington State is home of some of the largest publicly traded companies in the US, including Starbucks and Microsoft. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer compiled a chart to compare the salary and other benefits of executives in that part of the country and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz eclipsed the competition with $104 million in executive perks. One standout in the list of perks was the expense of his personal travel expenses in Starbucks company aircraft. Schultz racked up a bill of $475,685 last year - four to eight times what the average public company gives to their execs. As a contrast, Starbucks CEO James Donald only spent about $11,000 on personal travel perks on company aircraft. Starbucks has two jets, a 2002 Gulfstream GV and a 2004 Bombardier Challenger 604.

Tags: executive, flight, perks, price, starbucks

Build Your Own Flight Simulator

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets

There are several options available to the person interested in learning to fly. The first, and perhaps most obvious option, is to take flying lessons. A more grounded alternative is to simply use a flight simulator, which can give you the feeling of flying without actually doing so. Instead of renting time in a simulator somewhere, Australian hobbyist Matthew Sheil built his very own Boeing 747 flight simulator. It has real-time weather, air traffic control, Qantas Airways food, a complete hydraulic motion system and is controlled by 13 computers. His reason for building it is that "crashing is less fatal" with a simulator. Interested in trying to build your own? All it will take is $230,000 and about 10 years.

Tags: Flight, Flight Simulator, FlightSimulator, flying, Simulator

Silverjet Promises Carbon Neutral Flight

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Our friends over at Helium Report got me thinking about carbon neutral flight recently and so I found the news that SIlverjet promises to be the first carbon netural airline particularly interesting. What does it mean to be carbon neutral? Basically it means that all of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions used are offset. Silverjet includes within ticket prices a mandatory carbon offset contribution. I first heard of Silverjet last April and they are launching their first trans-Atlantic flight on January 25. Silverjet, which specializes in the London to New York hop, offers a private terminal experience that lets you arrive for your flight 30 minutes before departure. The flights also come with flat bed seats and there is also a women's only toilet. Prices start at $1,798.

Tags: carbon neutral, eco-friendly, environment, flight, london, new york, silverjet

Skyacht Personal Blimp

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

A friend of mine has a fear of blimps, she cowers whenever she sees one floating low through the city. She's going to be miserable if personal blimps like the one shown above ever catch on. A company called Skyacht Aircraft has come up with personal blimps which will eventually be able to be bought for under $200,000.

The Personal Blimp uses hot air rather than helium so it is basically a hot air balloon that can be more easily steered. It can also easily deflated and stored. The prototype, the Airship Alberto, made its first flight on October 27, 2006. Since that first flight in October, the Alberto has completed the FAA's required 10 hours of Phase I flight testing. It may still be another two years before these are ready for public sale and the blimps will require some sort of pilot's license in order to fly, depending on what the FAA decides.

The website also features a strangely hypnotic video of the blimp in flight.

[via Gizmag]

Tags: aircraft, flight, hot air balloon, personal blimp, PersonalBlimp, skyacht

The QSST, A Concorde For The Next Generation

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

The Concorde may be gone but supersonic flight is far from forgotten. Lockheed's Skunk Works is hard at work on the QSST (Quiet Supersonic Travel). The jet is designed to travel from New York to Los Angeles in two hours. The jet travels at speeds up to Mach 1.8. The unique design curbs the sonic boom making it friendly for U.S. skies. The QSST will sell for an astounding $80 million and could be ready as soon as 2013.

[via Aero-News Network]

Tags: concorde, flight, planes, sonic, super sonic

Susannah Hunter Daisy Garden Travel Bag, Handbag of the Day

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Handbags

If you're traveling long distance, you might prefer to check your luggage than to use a carry-on bag, but the Susannah Hunter Daisy Garden Travel Bag is still a lovely piece to have for short trips. The vintage-looking leather bag has double top handles as well as a detachable shoulder strap, making it versatile when on the go, and a suede lining. At 15"x 22.5"x 9.5", the bag should fit into an overhead bin or underneath the seat in front of you on a flight - provided you leave your liquids at home, of course. The best part is that the floral design carries onto both the front and the back of the bag - a nice touch that so many designers seem to forget about. Price: $2,275.

Tags: bag, daisy garden, DaisyGarden, flight, flying, handbag of the day, leather, overnight, susannah hunter, travel, travel bag, TravelBag

Please Store All Gucci Bags Under the Seat In Front Of You

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Handbags, Wings

A passenger on a Cathay Pacific plane in Hong Kong, bound for Tokyo, delayed the flight for more than an hour because she refused to stow her Gucci handbag under her seat for takeoff. The flight attendants tried to convince the woman, who refused even after airport security guards were called in and threatened to arrest her for disrupting the flight. After a long argument, the woman finally agreed to disembark from the plane, Gucci bag in hand, to the applause of the other passengers, who were eager to get the plane off the ground. "'It's not my fault, it was them who were too stubborn,' she shouted as she was leaving."

Tags: airplane, airplanes, cathay pacific, flight, flying, gucci, gucci handbag, handbad

Should the U.S. Foot the Bill for the A380 Airport Expansions?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

A little over 18 months ago the Airbus 380 first popped up on our radar. We were giddy with the possibilities, imagining these massive planes full of luxury and more space than we had ever dreamed possible. However more and more, the double-decker A380 is looking to be nothing but trouble. The concerns have ranged from environmental factors such as the plane's huge wake to delays in production which could make the plane harder to get. The latest wrinkle comes from a Republican lawmaker who is seeking to get Congress to ban U.S. airports from spending federal money on the upgrades necessary in order to make room for the jumbo jet. Rep. John Mica says that until a U.S. airline buys and uses an A380, foreign airlines should pick up the tab. The U.S. government is currently expected to pay for half of the changes in airports in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and San Francisco but Mica feels this is unfair to U.S. taxpayers since Europe gives governmental loans to Airbus.

Tags: a380, airbus, flight, planes, wings

More Delays For the A380 Jet

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

For those patiently waiting for a ride aboard the massive double-decker Airbus 380, it seems like you are going to have to keep waiting. Airbus has said they are expecting new delays of at least six months. They still plan to deliver the first plane to Singapore Airlines but wiring problems with the A380 will mean that they will produce only nine planes next year instead of 27. The delays may force some companies to cancel their orders or lease other planes.

Tags: airbus a380, AirbusA380, flight, planes, travel

Fighter Jet Sold on eBay

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Decor, Wings, Auctions

A Chinese businessman, Zhang Cheng, bought a Soviet-made MiG-21f fighter jet fighter jet on eBay. He paid $25,000 to the seller, located in the US, though it is not yet clear if he will even be able to import the plane into Beijing, let alone what it will cost. The plane is in excellent condition and, according to the seller, was last flown in 1995. Cheng plans to use it to decorate his office, stating that "I have the buying power and my company has an empty space where I can display the plane."

Clearly, Cheng has a very large office, but I still want to know how he intends to get it inside.

[Image Cavanaugh Flight Museum]

Tags: airplane, auction, businessman, china, decoration, ebay, fighter jet, flight, jet, plane, soviet, war

Eos Airlines Offers Curb-To-Plane Service

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Eos Airlines has a new plan to make their customers feel a little more like they are on a private jet rather than a business jet. The airline will greet each guest curbside at both JFK and Stansted Airport in London and stay with them through check-in and a fast-track security. Eos already offers a similar service for travelers who are running late and this is just an expanded version of that. The service means that you can arrive 45 minutes before your flight. Eos uses Boeing 757 airlines configured for only 48 passengers so that each person has their own pod space which can extend to a full six and a half feet for napping your way overseas. Their larger overhead compartments also mean that most luggage can be carried on. Eos also offers concierge service from Quintessentially. With many other New York-to-London airline options now crowding the field, Eos is working to make their service more appealing. Managing to shave off how much time you need to wait at the airport is a pretty good place to start.

Tags: airlines, business class, eos airlines, EosAirlines, flight, jfk airport, new york airport, wings

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