Tag: BA

Yes, Bryan races a plane, but…

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BA are flying their new Airbus A380 aircraft on their Joburg route (but not Cape Town because the runway is too short) from February 2014 and they recruited local rugby hero Bryan Habana to let us know about that by racing the plane along the tarmac.
England Rugby captain Chris Robshaw came to watch, presumably to provide the Heathrow side of things, and Bryan also brought South Africa Rugby captain Jean de Villiers along with him.

Bryan takes Jean everywhere he goes. Except Toulon.

Here’s the video:

Wow! What a finish!!

But it’s actually not the finish that bothered me so much. It was the start.
Who was that waving the flag to get them going? Why, it was model Georgia May Jagger.
But again, it wasn’t so much the model that bothered me. It was the flag.

ba flag

It’s upside down.

We’ve been here before. And this isn’t great for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it’s just plain (no pun intended) bad form. Damn rude.

And, in addition, were BA’s creatives not aware of the specific instructions with regard to the use of the National Flag, as found in the Government Gazette 22356, Notice 510 of 8 June 2001? Obviously not, because otherwise the flag would not just have been the right way up, it wouldn’t have been there at all – check out section 15(d):resflag

Oops.

Fortunately, no-one in South Africa is very good at remembering which way up the National Flag should be flown anyway. And they were far too bothered with Bryan Habana racing a big plane to notice that the flag was being used inappropriately and waved incorrectly.

Still, once this post is published and the South African public is awakened to this heinous act of disrespect, I expect outrage, several open letters, possibly an online petition and (almost certainly) a boycott. Oh, and accusations of some sort of -ism.

And in other news, I’ve just heard that Airbus have demanded a rematch. At 35,000 feet.

Cape Town third most popular with BA customers

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After SAA withdrew their daily Cape Town – London flights last year, citing lack of demand, British Airways has announced that the route is its third most popular, behind New York and Miami, but notably ahead of the international hubs of Dubai and Hong Kong.

Out of 175 destinations worldwide, only New York and Miami attracted more bookings than Cape Town, with Dubai the fourth most popular choice and Hong Kong the fifth.

Yeah – that’s what I just said.

Anyway, the apparent upshot of this news is that Cape Town may well be among the first cities to see BA’s new Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” aircraft, which are due for delivery in May this year.

BA’s Dreamliners will be configured to carry 214 passengers, with 35 seats in business class, 25 in economy plus and 154 in economy.
Not only will they have the latest Thales in-flight entertainment system, with larger screens in all cabins, but they will also allow personal devices, including laptops, to be connected, using in-seat power.

Which is all very nice, but doesn’t really make sense to me, given that this is one of their most popular routes and that the Boeing 747-400s which BA currently uses on the CPT-LHR route can carry almost twice as many passengers as the Dreamliner.

Here’s a really popular route. Let’s immediately halve the capacity of our flights on it.

How very SAA.

And for those of you who are wondering why BA doesn’t go the other ways and use something really huge, like an A380 on the Cape Town run, it’s because BA don’t own any A380s at the moment (they’ll get their first one in August) (yes, I was shocked at this too). And even if they did, Cape Town’s runway is too short to accommodate the big Airbus.

a380787

While Air France and Lufthansa both use A380s on their Joburg routes, the only sight Cape Town gets of them is during ceremonial flyovers.

Flying news

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Another two parter – this time with airlines doing nice some altruistic (sort of) things for people.

I like KLM’s surprise for social media users (spotted via @tara_lawson). And though it was just a bit of an experiment, it worked for them, with over a million mentions on twitter alone. Someone, somewhere will be able to tell me how much that is worth to a brand.
(And someone is going to pull me up on the meaning of the word “altruistic” too, aren’t they?)

The best bits for me were that they were taking ordinary people in an ordinary situation and making their lives just a bit better and then they were not just giving gifts out, but that those gifts were considered and tailor made for each of the recipients. That shows real thoughtfulness because those are the gifts that mean the most – even to a “stranger”.

And they’re right: “Doing something that creates a real smile on somebody’s face is much cooler than attaching a smiley face”.

Nice work, Ogilvy.

Meanwhile, er… Ogilvy have created a brilliant campaign for KLM’s rivals, British Airways, on the back of the Ashes tour to Australia.
With England set to win the final match (and the series and the Ashes with it) tomorrow, BA have launched an online promotion for flights from Sydney to London, offering to discount flights by the largest amount of runs England scores in a single Ashes innings.
Apparently:

The tongue-in-cheek campaign is running on Australian sites only, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, and uses the strapline “Do something you never thought you would do. Cheer on England”.
Andrew Boggs, business director for the British Airways account at Ogilvy London, said: “The idea was to offer Australian cricket fans some consolation in defeat – without resorting to triumphalism or condescension.”

Right, Andrew. I’m sure the Aussies don’t see it as triumphalism or condescension. *cough*

Because they have been so very dominant in the series, England haven’t actually had to have too many innings’. However, I think I’m right in saying that their knock in the current match in Sydney was their best at 644 (A$644 = £415) – knocking about a third off the cheapest flights to London.

Throw in some cricket lessons for them as well and I think that’s a pretty good deal.

Should I pay or should I go?

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File under: titles which sounded good at the time, Blog post

BA have asked me very nicely if I’d like to pay R225 (their version of £20, with the Rand’s current stupidly high levels) for the privilege of choosing my seat for my flight to London next month. And they also offered me the chance to pay the same amount again to choose my seat on the flight back.
Having long legs and being sat on a plane for 12 hours is no fun (although it’s really cool the rest of the time). If you have young kids, you get one of those bulkhead seats, which is better; but what the journey giveth, the journey taketh away, because then you’re travelling with young kids. I covered the trials and tribulations of that about a year ago. Good post, that.

I was almost tempted with BA’s generous offer until I found out that my R225 wouldn’t actually allow me to choose a decent – and by “decent”, I mean “exit row” – seat.
No – I have to cough up £50 each way for that. And that’s a lot of money. Especially when you convert it into a universal currency that everyone can understand: dollars beer. I can’t actually book those seats until 14 days before I fly, but working on BA’s current exchange rate, £50 = R562.50. And at bottle store prices, that’s more than 102 bottles of Carling Black Label.

Each. Way.

So, no. I’ll take my chances with the normal 24 hour online check in and I’ll settle for an aisle seat. Virtually any aisle seat. And if I don’t get an aisle seat and I have a dreadful flight, then I’ll reconsider booking an aisle seat for the return journey for £20.

And I have a good day to look forward to when I arrive. Tickets are in the process of being acquired for the undisputed Match of that Day, Bristol City versus Sheffield United, which I am very excited about and which means my journey from Cape Town to Sheffield will take about 26 hours. Plus check-in time. Plus getting to the airport early so the kids can come along and see me through the departure gate.
Bring forth those 102 bottles of Carling Black Label. And a couple of Red Bulls as well.

In other news (and somewhat off-topic), please take the time to look at this:
5 Things That Have Been Found In Fat People’s Skin Folds

Constant whining sound from crashed plane

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Some people just shouldn’t open their mouths. One doesn’t have to look any further than the excellent (and blogrolled) spEak You’re bRanes to learn that. That site alone shows the dangers inherent in allowing people a soapbox and an audience.

And now there’s example number two: Mark Tamburro.

Mark is from Oxford.
Immediately, that puts him into one of three categories: 

  1. Stuck-up, pompous arse.
  2. Ill-educated druggie.
  3. Cool, good-looking bloke who just works there and will be moving to South Africa soon.

Mark was on the BA038 flight whose engines apparently failed on final approach to Heathrow last week. 
Immediately, that puts him in one further category:

  1. Bloody lucky to be alive.


Great bit of parking

But now Mark is on the BBC website (and many others) moaning about how crap the staff at the airport were, landing himself (if not his plane) quite neatly into the pompous arse group and  reminding us of his disappointing inclusion in the bloody lucky to be alive category.

Mr Tamburro said he and his two travelling companions had to leave their hand luggage in their overhead lockers on the aeroplane and so had no money or personal belongings on them

He said the BA staff who were looking after the passengers rationed water, the only drink which was initially offered to them in the departure area, and did not offer any food.

His story doesn’t quite tally with this post from one of BA’s ground staff at Heathrow though, which makes very interesting reading. And it’s also interesting to note that he seems to be the only one of the 136 passengers that’s whining about their treatment.

A quick google of Mark shows us that he is a little overweight, owns a bit of a racehorse called Cossack Dancer and has a beard. It also tells us that he writes letters to the council  moaning about them setting taxi fares so high in South Oxfordshire. Except that, as any fule kno, the council doesn’t actually set the taxi fares in South Oxfordshire. Oops.

Is this painting a picture for you, too?
People like Mark annoy me. He’s just been fortunate enough to survive a plane crash in which even the pilot thought “everyone on board was going to die” and all he can do is whinge.
I think that Mark might just be setting himself up for a little bit of extra cash from his compensation claim.

Incidentally, since Mark works for Nokia, he may be the perfect person to explain to investigators, BA and Boeing as to why the plane’s computer system didn’t respond, as he’s obviously an expert on crap, bug-ridden software. 

Update: Tues 22nd Jan.

Just read a ~2000 word piece on the BA038 incident in today’s Cape Times, which they shamelessly stole borrowed from The Independent in the UK. 16 passengers interviewed (not including dear Mark) and not one complaint. And that despite being thrust with a microphone. The evidence just keeps adding up…  

Update: Thurs 24th Jan.

Ooh look! It’s back (by popular demand).
Please THINK before you comment. I’m in a particularly “deletey” mood today.