Video: Om Shanti Om - Finnair crew dances onboard a flight to celebrate India's Republic Day

A group of Finnair cabin crew sent their greetings to India on the eve of the nation's 63rd Republic Day with a "Take OFF to Bollywood" dance aboard the carrier's flight AY021 from Helsinki to New Delhi.

Ms Helena Kaartinen a cabin crew of Finnair and a group of her colleagues came aboard the aircraft after the passengers were boarded, and performed a hip gyrating number set to Shah Rukh Khan's Om Shanti Om.

Ms. Kaartinen got the idea from a former Indian colleague based in Mumbai. She explains in depth how the idea developed.

Finnair advertises itself as having the fastest connections from India to North America. This is a great value to appeal to the airline's Indian customers. Enjoy the video and then post your thoughts via a comment.

..... and a very happy Republic Day to all of India. Don't forget to watch the "Beating of the Retreat", Sunday, 4:30pm on Doordarshan.

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Virgin America to take delivery of 6 A320s in the first half of 2012 (and other news)

Late last week, San Francisco based Virgin America announced their latest destination, Philadelphia, which will be served from Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Flights will begin in April with two daily flights from LA and one from San Francisco, and will increase to 3 and two daily flights respectively.

Schedules for the new routes are as follow: (via airlineroute)

Los Angeles – Philadelphia

VX124 LAX1055 – 1900PHL 320 Daily
VX126 LAX1540 – 2355PHL 320 Daily
VX130 LAX2135 – 0545+1PHL 320 Daily

VX121 PHL0700 – 0955LAX 320 Daily
VX125 PHL1125 – 1425LAX 320 Daily
VX127 PHL2005 – 2255LAX 320 Daily

San Francisco – Philadelphia

VX136 SFO0830 – 1655PHL 320 Daily
VX144 SFO2300 – 0725+1PHL 320 Daily

VX137 PHL0835 – 1155SFO 320 Daily
VX141 PHL1750 – 2110SFO 320 Daily

The routes will be operating from common usage gates in Philadelphia's terminal E.

We spoke with Virgin America's media team regarding the new route and some other occurrences at the airline.

Last year, Virgin America CEO David Cush told me in an interview that their A320s occasionally struggle to make East Coast- West Coast (US) flights nonstop, necessitating the A319s in their fleet. Thus I was surprised to see that Philadelphia was scheduled to be served solely with Airbus A320s. However, Virgin America spokesperson Abby Lunardini stated that there were "No restrictions for PHL, so right now [the flight is] operating on 320s." However, it remains to be seen whether or not the A320s will make this route all the time next winter, and Lunardini did mention that, " as with other East Coast routes, we [can] operate a mix of A319s and A320s on the route depending on time of year flying."

I was also interested to ask about Virgin America's growth plans. Since its inception in 2007, Virgin America has been the fastest growing US airline, with annual capacity increases hovering around 30%. A figure in the ballpark of 30% for Virgin America was quoted in 2011 by Aviation Week, however, the carrier will be taking delivery of six A320s in the first half of 2012 – which will be the total number of aircraft that they take new delivery of this year. 6 new planes would likely necessitate increased utilization of current aircraft to meet capacity targets. Virgin America neglected to provide specific capacity guidance for 2012.

Virgin America had a few teething problems problems with their reservation systems earlier this month, after switching from an upstart reservations system back to industry leader Sabre. We expect this move to improve their visibility amongst business travelers. However, the switch did result in a few customer service issues for Virgin America passengers; with reduced website functionality and unsatisfactory call center performance.

To their credit, Virgin America owned up to the issues when questioned, and they believe that the worst of the problems are now behind them.

Here is what Lunardini had to say on the issue of the reservation systems:

Yes, the overwhelming majority of web issues have been resolved – and bookings are operating normally. By way of further background,reservations systems switches of this scale are a once in a lifetime event for an airline, involving the knife-edge migration of millions of records during live operations. Prior to the switch, we additionally staffed our operation, thinned our flight schedules and communicated to guests in advance about the potential impacts. Although our airports ran on time and without related cancellations, as an airline that prides itself on its guest service –we never like to see guests inconvenienced for any reason, including the web errors a sub-set of guests were encountering (ability to change/cancel online,check-in, view Elevate points and other web services) as well as unacceptably long call hold times. We apologized to impacted guests and offered 5000 Elevate points for those guests most impacted.

We made the switch to Sabre because of our growth. We needed to move to an industry standard system that would accommodate our growth, allow us to expand our code-share/interline ability and give guests and teammates better tools.

All told, some interesting news from San Francisco. Readers, do you have a question or thought about Virgin America? Please do let us know via a comment below.

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Norwegian Air Shuttle places largest ever Boeing order from European airline

Olso based, Norwegian Air Shuttle, one of the largest operators of the Boeing 737, has given the US airframer its first European order for the new 737 MAX airplane.

Norwegian and Boeing have announced a firm order for 100 fuel-efficient 737 MAX airplanes and 22 Next-Generation 737-800s. The total order is valued at $11.4 billion at list prices and represents the largest-ever Boeing order from a European airline.

At 16 million passengers, Norwegian has grown to become the third-largest low-cost airline in Europe today. The carrier currently operates a fleet of 48 737-800s and 14 737-300s. With today's announcement, the carrier's order backlog with Boeing increases to 184 airplanes, including 100 737 MAX, 78 737-800, and six 787 Dreamliners.

Norwegian Air Shuttle, has close relations with Boeing. It was one of the launch customers for the Boeing Sky Interior (pictured left) and has been receiving landmark deliveries of 737 aircraft. It received the 6000th Boeing 737 built, the 200th SkyInterior fitted 737, and more recently the first aircraft from the increased rate (35 a month) production line.

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Pictures: Qatar Airways to open new premium class lounge at London Heathrow airport

Qatar Airways is opening its new Premium Lounge at London Heathrow this week. The Premium Lounge at Terminal 4 will be the airline’s first dedicated facility outside its Doha hub, underscoring London's importance as a destination for the airline which will commence its fifth daily service from March 25.

Lounge access will be restricted to the airline's First and Business class passengers only. Members of the airline's frequent flier program Privilege Club, even those holding status levels, will not be allowed access, which demonstrates the airline's focus or rather lack thereof.



The lounge is designed to resemble a boutique hotel or private member’s club and offers a theatre-style Global Brasserie kitchen, delicatessen, and elegant Signature Martini bar. The lounge also offers private shower facilities along with the usual business facilities including computers, printers, and Wi-Fi internet connectivity.

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Turkish Airlines in discussions to acquire LOT Polish, what about India?

Over the weekend, it broke that Middle Eastern behemoth Turkish Airlines was in negotiations to acquire a controlling stake in Poland's national carrier, LOT Polish Airlines.

Hamdi Topcu, Turkish chairman, said: "We are starting negotiations to buy LOT. It should be a win-win situation for both sides."

LOT operates a fleet of 56 aircraft to 92 destinations around the globe, losing $17.2 million in 2010. They have had their recent struggles, and the Polish government is now looking to offload its 68% stake. LOT's largest hub is in Warsaw, and they have positioned themselves as a low-end transit hub with moderate success.

Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines' name has come up as a suitor for numerous troubled European carriers in the past year and a half or so, most notably Barcelona based Spanair.

Turkish has been actively seeking a reliever for their central hub in Istanbul, which is congested and rapidly approaching its max carrying capacity with no apparent expansion possible. However, Warsaw is not a great airport to relieve Istanbul with, so there's probably something else behind this deal.

According to Topucu, Turkish's continued growth and profitability [$189.3 million in 2010] had led to "13 or 14 airlines" approaching it for investment.

"We have worked on [acquisitions] for more than a year and have chosen LOT."

With India's government moving towards allowing 49% foreign direct investment in India's airlines, would Turkish Airlines be interested in purchasing a large stake in an Indian carrier?

There are certainly opportunities to be had in one of the world's fastest growing markets and the steady hand of Turkish Airlines would be beneficial to India's struggling airline management.

The question then arises, which airline would THY look to invest in and why? Share your thoughts via a comment.

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Bangalore Aviation photographer wins 3rd SpiceJet plane spotting contest

For the third year in succession low fare carrier SpiceJet has sponsored a plane spotting contest via its Facebook page. In fact SpiceJet still remains the only Indian airline promoting such a contest.

This year, Bangalore Aviation editor and photographer, Devesh Agarwal's photograph of SpiceJet Boeing 737-800 VT-SPJ taking off from Mumbai's runway 09 at sunset, was adjudged to have submitted the best photograph in the contest.

The judge was Shashank Nigam of the Simpliflying blog. To see other submissions visit this link.

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Southwest Airlines posts net profit in Q4 2011

After falling to an unprecedented pretax loss of $226 in the third quarter of 2011, Dallas based Southwest Airlines once again returned to net profitability, earning $152 million, or 20 cents per diluted share.

Revenue grew 32% to $4.1 billion, while operating expenses grew 37% (with fuel and related expenses jumping 59) (All figures vs. Q4 2011.

Southwest's performance beat analyst's estimates significantly and topped the net income of $132 million from last years fourth quarter.

Full year profit dropped from $459 million in 2010 to $178 million in 2011. However, this figure was good enough to maintain Southwest's record-setting 39 year streak of continuous profitability.

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