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WestJet hiking bag fees on transatlantic flights. WestJet has hiked its bag fees for travellers purchasing basic fares to and from transatlantic destinations. Basic fare customers booking travel on or after March 31 to London, Dublin, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Glasgow, or Manchester will pay $60 for a first checked bag, up from $30. A second checked bag will cost $90, up from $50. (Source: AC Daily, February 21, 2020) |
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Record flight. A massive weather system that is bringing havoc to northern Europe had a silver lining for passengers and crew aboard a British Airways 747-400 heading from JFK to Heathrow overnight Saturday February 8, 2020. The flight’s routing matched the path of a 265-MPH jet stream and the crew was able to get the old Jumbo up to 825 MPH groundspeed and make the crossing in a record time of four hours and 56 minutes. The plane got to the gate 80 minutes ahead of schedule on Sunday morning February 9, 2020. The weekend flight beat the previous airliner record of five hours and 13 minutes held by a Norwegian Air Boeing 787 in 2017. That flight had a boost from a 200-MPH jet stream. The 30-year-old B-747 is also about 10 MPH faster at cruise than the Dreamliner. While air travelers enjoy the ride, what awaits them on the ground in Europe is less pleasant. The winds on the surface are as high as 100 MPH and are causing widespread disruption and damage across Europe. (Source: avweb.com/aviation-news - February 9, 2020) |
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Dreamliner dreams dashed. Those dreaming of a Dreamliner for a $26 raffle ticket were brought back to earth on Friday February 7, 2020 when the Mexican government announced it will hang on to the presidential Boeing 787-8 for at least two more years. But it’s going ahead with the raffle to sell six million tickets at 500 pesos each and instead award 100 cash prizes of about $1 million each. The raffle will gross $159 million and after the cash prizes are awarded the remaining money will be distributed to the 5,000 ticket vendors and used to make the last payment on the $235 million airplane, and whatever is left over will buy “stuff for the poor”. Winning a Dreamliner would immediately saddle that winner with storage and maintenance costs far beyond what an average person could afford and the original rules of the raffle prevented the winner from selling it off for less than its value. (Source: avweb.com/aviation-news - February 9, 2020) |
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This year's Canadian Aviation Historical Society (CAHS) Convention will be held in beautiful Richmond (Vancouver), British Columbia for the first time.
Convention dates are Wednesday, May 27 to Saturday, May 30, 2020, with optional events before and after.
Visit www.cahs.ca for more details.
(Source: CAHS National Newsletter February 2020)
From Terry Baker:
Further to my submission in NetLetter #1430 regarding my memories of LHR staff. This, incidentally, first appeared in NetLetter #960 issued February 5, 2007 but I thought that it was worth repeating, if only to encourage readers' responses.
At that time we received this memory from Trevor Trower which appeared in NetLetter #962 and we will repeat here –
So many names you mention talking about the old days at Heathrow.
I operated into that station as a Purser flying out of YUL and YYZ, with the North Star and the Super Connie. How well I recall those wonderful people who worked for the company in those days.
Everyone pulled their weight, everyone went that extra mile to fix things that went wrong. How pleasant to have Big Jim, Kenny or Archie meet the airplane with that old Bedford crew bus, they were so pleasant it almost made us forget the vehicle had no springs and they made the ride to our Hotel very pleasant. Dickie at commissary, however busy, always was so darn cooperative and friendly. Rae George could always be counted on to provide a little something extra, like a birthday cake for one of the crew.
Does anyone remember that one of the kitchen staff would go to the market at 4 o’clock in the morning to buy special tomatoes to put on the passengers' salads? Also, those wonderful afternoon teas they would prepare for our customers, scones, clotted cream and strawberry preserves, I can almost taste them now.
Harry on the ramp with his two-way radio, and April in the traffic centre, almost all those names I'll remember most fondly.
A team of ladies would hit the airplane as soon as the passengers were off, with a smile and now and again a song as they made the airplane spic and span for the return trip.
Those days of course are long gone now, but with the ability to recall, we can bring them back once in a while and dust them off, and for a while they bring a smile to our face.
Remember the amazing first flight on the DC-8 to Shannon, I was the purser on that flight and we served thirty two bottles of champagne while airborne, I recall how impressed the employees and the press were on that 'fam flight' and the super write-up we received in the press.
Thanks for the memory,
Trev Trower, Flight Service Director Retired.
Robert Arnold has sent us this photo of the metal instructions sign that was mounted on the vestibule door that referred to the water distribution on board the Viscount.
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At one point, Nationair was Canada's third largest airline, after Air Canada and Canadian Airlines International. On the left is a timetable issued November 1988 from the collection of David Zekria. (Source: timetableimages.com) Below is a ticket issued January 31, 1990 Montreal (YMX) to Fort Lauderdale. |
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