Qatar Airways moves to London Heathrow terminal 4, to open new premium lounge

From tomorrow, December 8, 2010, Qatar Airways moves its operations at London Heathrow, its biggest European destination, to Terminal 4 which also houses most of SkyTeam alliance members.

T4 has undergone a massive multi-million pound facelift, and the airline's passengers will benefit from a dedicated spacious check-in area in the terminal’s Zone A.

Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300ER A7-BAC

Qatar Airways First and Business Class passengers and Gold and Silver Privilege Club card holders will be able to access the terminal’s Skyteam lounge.

Qatar Airways recently introduced its flagship Boeing 777 aircraft on the London Heathrow Doha route. Qatar Airways currently operates six daily flights between the UK and Qatar – four daily from London Heathrow; and one each from London Gatwick and Manchester.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said that the airline’s new services at T4 will be further enhanced as the airline plans to open a dedicated lounge for its premium passengers by the second half of 2011. However, a decision on whether Privilege Club members not flying in a premium class, will be invited to use the lounge, has not yet been finalised.

At the airline's home base at Doha, the Premium Terminal is reserved exclusively for premium class passengers while Privilege Club members have separate lounges in the regular terminal.

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Video: Repainting a United Airlines Boeing 777 to the new United-Continental livery

A neat time-lapse video of how a Boeing 777 in the old United Airlines livery being re-painted in the new United-Continental livery. While I don't particularly like the new livery, the video does show the enormous effort involved.

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After MySkyStatus, Cloudstream, Virtual Pilot, Lufthansa commences inflight broadband Internet

Lufthansa FlyNet service now available on board Introductory offer: Free surfing until the end of January 2011

German carrier Lufthansa which operated the world's first scheduled flight with broadband Internet access on January 15, 2003, and operated on board net access till the end of 2006, is re-introducing FlyNet its on-board Internet access service.

FlyNet, is currently available on the Frankfurt-New York and Frankfurt-Detroit routes, and will be rolled out on the carrier's complete intercontinental fleet by end 2011.

The system hardware is eXConnect from Panasonic in partnership with AeroMobile and Deutsche Telekom which operates in the US under the T-Mobile brand.

Flynet gives passengers with a WLAN-enabled laptop or smartphone unlimited online access at high bandwidths. In the spring of 2011, the system will support GSM and GPTS mobile phone data standards enabling use of mobile phones to send and receive SMS text messages and transfer data with smart phones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry. It is not clear whether Android will be supported, but it appears that it will.

Apple iPad on FlyNet

FlyNet will mimic a wireless hotspot for WiFi enabled devices and a mobile network connection with a GSM/GPRS-enabled device. The one hour pricing at 10.95 euros does not appear very competitive but the 24 hour flat rate of 19.95 euros does. A good feature of this service is that passengers can continue to access the internet for the duration of the 24 hour package on all connecting Lufthansa inter-continental flights equipped with Flynet or in Lufthansa lounges.

Lufthansa has been making aggressive strides in the online-onboard-digital-Web 2.0 space and offering passengers a variety of innovative services. The best part about the carrier's approach it that it is not limiting these initiatives to only its passengers but instead making it available to passengers on virtually any airline, and using the opportunity for brand building.

In addition to its very popular and award winning MySkyStatus Web 2.0 service which automatically sends altitude, location, departure and arrival updates automatically to your Facebook and Twitter pages, the carrier has another great service called Cloudstream.

CloudStream is a tool that allows you to browse through a number of content categories and creates a “digital carry-on” for passengers to pack with their chosen content. It is essentially the first digital media platform that takes advantage of travelers’ time in air. Once you’ve complied and downloaded your content, you can save it to your pen drive, and read it on-board or at your leisure and even share it with friends. You can find supporters of Bangalore Aviation Shashank Nigam and Mary Kirby (the Runway Girl) in the "Featured" section of Cloudstream.

Another great past time is the Lufthansa Virtual Pilot game which builds upon the famous Traveler IQ Challenge game on Facebook.

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It is official - Airbus confirms A320neo. IndiGo rumoured to be early or launch customer

It is official Airbus has decided to offer the neo (new engine option) for its single aisle A320 Family aircraft. Airlines have the choice between CFM International’s LEAP-X engine and Pratt & Whitney’s PurePower PW1100G geared turbo-fan engine. As indicated in our earlier report, this leaves current engine provider International Aero Engines out in the cold.

A320neo with CFMI LeapX engine

The new aircraft known as the A320neo will also also incorporate fuel-saving large blended wing tips called Sharklets. Airbus will start deliveries of the A320neo Family in spring 2016.

One of the customers rumoured as launch customers is India's low fare carrier IndiGo. The carrier has an ongoing 100 A320 aircraft order and is expected to release an order for another 150 aircraft (rumoured to be a mix of A320 and A330 aircraft) soon. Indian carriers notably the erstwhile Indian Airlines were early adopters of both the A300 and the A320.

A320neo with Pratt and Whitney PurePower PW1100G geared turbo-fan engine

The A320neo will deliver a significant fuel savings of up to 15 percent and additionally, reduced engine noise, lower operating costs and up to 500nm (950 km) more range or two tonnes more payload.

Today’s A320neo announcement follows the approval given by the Board of Directors of EADS, Airbus’ shareholder company.

The new engine option will be offered on the A321, A320 and A319 models which will require limited modifications, primarily to the wing and pylon areas. The A320neo will have over 95 percent airframe commonality with the existing standard A320 Family. Airbus sees a market potential of 4,000 A320neo Family aircraft over the next 15 years.

During his visit to India in October, Tom Enders, Airbus President and CEO, was optimistic that the board of EADS would approve the A320neo. The main concern was the allocation of engineering resources needed for the A320neo while at the same time securing the engineering skills required on other Airbus aircraft programmes, most importantly the A350XWB. The decision today only confirms what was already more or less confirmed earlier.

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