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By Grant (Falcon124), on June 21st, 2011% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (63.6MB) Subscribe: It’s been a while since we got down & dirty with the Australian commercial airline scene so with that in mind, we called up Ben Sandlilands from the PlaneTalking blog on Crikey.com.au for a chat. There’s some amazing developments going on in the “big iron” side of people moving here in Australia and we went through the following subjects:
- The joys of ash clouds (Thanks Chile!)
- Virgin Australia taking on Qantas & Jetstar with their new pricing structures & business class, including just what kind of passenger they were targeting at the front of the cabin
- Qantas & JetStar’s industrial issues with their unions
- Tiger regrouping & focusing on routes where it can do the most damage to the others (watch out Melbourne <-> Sydney and maybe even the Golden Triangle of Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane)
- Strategic’s foray into the Pacific
In this episode we also include an interview with Kathy Mexted, a freelance writer who we met *way* back at the Centenary of Flight airshow in 2010. Flying is in Kathy’s blood by birth & by marriage and she’s been writing articles for a variety of aviation magazines as well as working on a book about being the spouse of an airline pilot. We’re very happy to announce that Kathy’s also going to be producing some content for us in the near future mostly covering Recreational & General Aviation areas.
Finally, we’re including some new music in our show as Steve’s found out about the royalty free production music by JewelBeat. Watch out for whole new background tracks & cross-over music in this & future episodes :)
By Grant (Falcon124), on September 4th, 2010% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (82.4MB) Subscribe: This episode we’re joined by Will Horton from the Wings Down Under blog to chat about recent aviation news items. We also have Anthony Simmons returning for another View from the Lounge segment and a chat with Damien Rose about his flight training up in Toowoomba. The episode wraps up with some listener mail and a shout out so it’s a little long but that should make up for the three Election QuickCast episodes we released recently :)
The list of topics we discussed with Will Horton include:
- A review of the recent Asia/Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit in Sydney
- The Asia/Pacific outlook for airlines includes a prediction for strong growth
- “Buy local” for Russia (Sukhoi) & China (Comac) plus India building up its local aeronautics capabilities along with Mahindra & Mahindra buying into Australian aviation companies such as Gippsland Aeronautics
- Cathay Pacific’s Boeing 777-300 and Airbus A350-900 order
- V Australia’s 777 useage in Fiji & Bali plus the use of wide bodies (eg: 767/A330) on domestic routes due to slot restrictions
- Qantas wanting to fly 787s into China & on to Europe
- Jetstar being boosted over Qantas (if it’s new it’s JQ) and using Singapore as a hub into Europe
- Qantas’s new smart card system for check-in that relies on elite frequent flyers who are with Qantas, not Jetstar
- AirAsia setting up a Frequent Flyer program
- Crawford Rix @ Tiger Airways is against frequent flyer programs as they’re anticompetitive and is hinting that Tiger could go down the RyanAir path (standing seats, pay loos, etc) – at least for the publicity :)
- Customers in Australia and Asia/Pacific wanting a higher level of standards
- Tiger setting up a franchise in Thailand (51% Thai owned but still Tiger Thailand)
- China more likely to have standing seats as the Chinese can lay down the law for their own operations – no need to align with FAA/EASA standards although they’re investing in highspeed trains)
- AirAsia wants to enter the Australian domestic & trans-tasman market
- The high quality of the AirAsia experience (a discount carrier that doesn’t nickle & dime their passengers) will hit Jetstar hard
- Pacific Blue is pulling out of the New Zealand domestic market
- Repurposing of V Australia’s 777s off the Fiji route
- United is not worried about Delta-V
- Qantas’ financial results
Steve & Grant also talk afterwards about Virgin Blue’s financial results which came out after we spoke with Will, along with their news about adding A330s, dropping the E170s (while keeping the E190s) and linking up with Etihad.
By Grant (Falcon124), on November 15th, 2009% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (61.7MB) Subscribe: Steve & Grant discuss all the latest news items that were of interest over the past couple of weeks. Steve also gets to have a few “c’est la vent” moments on some topics that were annoying him.
As if all that wasn’t enough, we also have a chat with Owen Zupp and reveal the winner of our first ever give away competition. Sorry, you’ll have to listen to the episode to discover who were the close runners up and who was the winner :)
So, sit back, relax and enjoy episode 16, in which we discuss:
As usual, our sound effects come from SoundSnap.com and our theme music track is “YouNameIt5″ by Brian Simpson (aka t3cat5).
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