Aviation News

British airline Virgin Atlantic said yesterday it is putting warnings on weepy films shown during flights because of concerns that emotional passengers might burst into tears.

The “weepy warnings” will initially appear on the Hollywood romantic dramas Water for Elephants and Just Go With It, flashing up at the start to advise passengers that the movie has the potential to prompt tears.

The airline said it took the decision after conducting a passenger survey which found that 55 per cent agreed their emotions became heightened during a flight.

Forty-one per cent of men surveyed admitted they crept under blankets to hide their tears, said Virgin. It did not say how many passengers were surveyed.

QANTAS has been forced to take another A380 superjumbo out of service after an oil problem was discovered in one of its Rolls-Royce engines.

The temporary grounding came as the stoush between Qantas’s chief executive, Alan Joyce, and union leaders intensified over the decision to axe about 1000 jobs as part of plans to expand into Asia.

Several Labor MPs joined Greens and Independent politicians lending their support to the union fight against the job cuts affecting mostly pilots, engineers and cabin crew.

Yesterday, the airline confirmed it would have to change an engine on an A380, which is stuck at Los Angeles International Airport while it awaits a replacement to be flown in from Australia.

The ”oil consumption problem” was discovered in QF12′s No.2 engine, forcing cancellation of a service between Los Angeles and Sydney on Monday night. The passengers booked on the A380 have since arrived in Australia on alternative flights.

Qantas expects to have the engine change completed by Saturday, allowing the A380 to return to service.

Qantas grounded its entire A380 fleet for weeks last November, after one aircraft suffered extensive damage when an engine exploded soon after take-off from Singapore. The airline later changed 17 Rolls-Royce engines on its A380 fleet.

A Qantas spokesman said the latest problem was not related to the cause of the engine explosion on the Nancy Bird-Walton, which was still being repaired at Singapore’s Changi Airport. That related to an oil-feed pipe in the engine’s turbine.

Fending off union claims that Qantas’s restructuring would indirectly lead to the loss of as many as 6500 jobs, Mr Joyce met the federal Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, and the Nationals leader, Warren Truss, yesterday in an effort to allay fears about the impact of plans to set up two new airlines in Asia. Last Thursday, it is understood he briefed the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, about the restructure.

Lending his support to the unions, a Labor senator, Glenn Sterle, said the ALP was ”not the party that throws out Australian jobs”. The Transport Workers Union had claimed as many as 6500 jobs would indirectly be lost as a result of Qantas’s cost-cutting measures.

But Mr Joyce accused unions of trashing the Qantas brand and making ”misleading claims” about offshoring jobs and airline safety. Qantas would end up ”going the way of Ansett, TWA and Pan Am” if it did not push ahead with substantive changes to its international operations, he said.

Qantas has been reluctant to spell out the cost savings from its rapid expansion into Asia but stock analysts yesterday put it at almost $120 million a year.

Qantas has confirmed its plans upgrade the older lie-flat-but-at-an-angle seat version of the Qantas Skybed (which is on 747s and smaller Airbus A330 planes) to the newer, fully flat bed that you’ll find on the Airbus A380.

For long-haul business travellers heading to Africa, Asia, or North and South America, Qantas’ confirmation that cabin upgrades are definitely coming for its Boeing 747-400 planes will be welcome.

You might have missed the announcement during the rest of Qantas’ “A New Spirit” announcements yesterday in the unprecedented flow of changes for the airline.

Why are business travellers looking forward to fully flat beds rather than lie-flat seats? Check out our exposé of the lie-flat lie for all the insider details.

Since fully flat second generation Skybeds are a good bit longer than the first generation Skybed lie-flat seats, we suspect that the new cabins might contain fewer people as well. And we certainly hope that the middle seat from row 23 backwards in the rear cabin of business class disappears.

Qantas flies Boeing 747s on many of its long-haul routes, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Tokyo and Johannesburg, plus connections to London and Frankfurt via Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore. Buenos Aires — which will be replaced by Santiago as Qantas’ South American destination — is also a 747 destination.

As we noted yesterday, Qantas will be dropping flights from Hong Kong and Bangkok to London, handing those slots over to partner British Airways instead, with the plan of consolidating its A380s on to the Sydney-Singapore-London route.

Four of the airline’s 26-strong Boeing 747 fleet will be retired this financial year. It would make sense if these were the oldest in the fleet, which arrived in 1989 and have been in service for 22 years now.

There’s been no news about how Sydney-Perth Boeing 747 flights will be affected by the retirement of these planes.

By 2014, all but the nine newest 747s — which arrived between 1999 and 2003 — will be retired. Six of the ones Qantas will be keeping are the extended-range 747-400ER variety, which come with an extra fuel tank that’s particularly useful for trans-Pacific routes. (Of course, even this model isn’t ideal, as diversions for refuelling on the Sydney-Dallas-Brisbane-Sydney route have shown.)

The airline has 50 long-range Boeing 787s on order, and we’d expect these to replace the remaining 747 fleet between 2014 and the end of the decade.

Source: http://www.ausbt.com.au

A New Jersey man who groped and sexually attacked a sleeping woman on an international flight was sentenced to a year in federal prison on Monday.

Ramesh Advani, 65, pleaded guilty to abusive sexual contact after he was arrested back in May.

Advani was on a Continental flight from Hong Kong to Newark, N.J., when he tried to take advantage of the woman sleeping next to him, prosecutors said.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said Advani reached under the woman’s blanket and began to touch her.

When the woman woke up, she realized what was happening and alerted the flight crew.

Advani was charged federally because the flight took place over international waters. In addition to one year in jail, Advani will also have to pay a $10,000 fine.

Source: http://www.nbcnewyork.com