"up,up and away?": January 2016

Sunday 31 January 2016

Travelling in Jan or Feb? Save when you book domestic Mango flights with Travelstart

click on the travelstart link on this blog

for this amazing fare!

Saturday 30 January 2016

Gulf Air

Man went from Sheffield to Essex via BERLIN because it was cheaper

Jordon Cox, 18, travelled an extra 1,017miles to save money on a journey. He flew from East Midlands Airport to Berlin, back to Stansted and then took a bus to his home in Shenfield Essex.

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How would you react to such a situation?!

Tourist has entire plane to himself after no one else showed up

Alex Simon, from Ischgl, Austria, was stunned when no one else arrived for a Philippine Airlines flight from Manila to Boracay. Flight attendants shot video…

DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

Friday 29 January 2016

Thursday 28 January 2016

Wednesday 27 January 2016

SAA FQTV (Frequent traveller) cards. The airline I have flown on the most is KLM - go figure? I belong to their flying blue FQTV scheme but it sucks I have never had any rewards but I have flown with them about 8 times from CPT-AMS and AMS-CPT and internally in Europe, Leeds, Majorca, Madrid and?

Tuesday 26 January 2016

FlySafair’s flight FA103 experienced a gradual cabin pressure drop about 32,000 feet in the air.

PASSENGERS DESCRIBE 'FEAR' & 'PANIC' AS FLYSAFAIR FLIGHT RAPIDLY DESCENDED

FlySafair’s flight FA103 experienced a gradual cabin pressure drop about 32,000 feet in the air.

JOHANNESBURG - One of the passengers on board FlySafair’s flight to Cape Town last night has described fearing for her life and that of her eight-month-old baby as the aircraft rapidly descended and turned back to Johannesburg.

FlySafair’s flight FA103 was en route to Cape Town when it experienced a gradual cabin pressure drop about 32,000 feet in the air.

Passengers have described a state of panic in the cabin as the seat belt sign flashed and oxygen masks dropped, without any explanation.

SAFAIR CABIN CREW NO GOOD

I had the most terrifying experience last night while flying to capetown from Jhb with SAFAIR .(was my first experience with this airline , didn't know they even existed as I didn't book this flight myself ) The lack of communication and unprofessional manner of which they handled the situation made everyone speechless and horrified . The pilot just announced (rapid decent ) (rapid decent ) lights... See More

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feeling emotional with Jana van Zyl at O.R. Tambo International Airport.

Sunday 24 January 2016

Flight Safety: Why do airlines require all window shades to be open for takeoff and/or landing?

The window shade opening is a part of a long process to prepare the cabin for sudden (unexpected) emergencies. Why is that? Well, cabin crew have only 90 seconds to evacuate all passengers in case of emergencies. The process of evacuation itself should not take more than 90 seconds regardless of the size of the aircraft or the number of passengers. So to make the evacuation possible in 90 seconds cabin crew and other airlines staff will prepare every flight in advance to make this possible. One example is the emergency exits, only healthy adults are allowed to occupy these seats, they are also required to read the safety card for emergency exits to make them prepared in case of emergencies to help the cabin crew. They are called ABPs (Able-Bodied-Persons). This is just one example.

Anyway window shades opening is a small part of a long preparation process. Passengers are asked to open window shades before take offs and landings because these are considered to be critical times in aviation. Many things can go wrong during these times (most accidents do happen during take offs or landings), so people are asked to open window shades along with other things (seats in upright position, people seated and buckled etc.) to make everything prepared as if the plane were in emergency. In case something goes wrong (God forbid) things will be ready in advance so cabin crew can easily evacuate people in the short period of 90 seconds.

Specific reasons behind the window shade opening include:

Passengers are curious, hence they are perfect extra eyes to see if something goes wrong out there. Usually passengers report stuff right away.

In case of sudden emergencies, every second counts. Therefore if shades are open crew can easily see outside conditions to help them in planning the evacuation (which doors to use for evacuation etc.).

In case of emergency (which is more likely during take offs and landings) people should be prepared just in case. So during daytime, opening window shades and putting cabin lights to full makes the eyes used to sunlight so if something goes wrong and passengers need to be evacuated there will not be sudden change in light contrast which might lead to temporary blurred vision. Same thing at night flights, window shades are open and cabin lights are dimmed.

It helps ground emergency personnel outside to see the inside of the cabin.

These rules might be different from one airline to another, but in general almost all airlines require their crews to make sure of the window shades during take offs and landings. They also add it in the preparation announcements prior to take offs and landings.