A visual summary of the Farnborough air show

An air show like Farnborough is always a gold mine for planespotters, up to the point that I thought it was worth doing a visual post only, in addition to the one where I explained my experience at this year's air show. So here there are, enjoy!

Airbus demo'ed the capabilities of its A380: really quiet and agile for a plane of its size!

The military jets were too fast and small for me to capture well in camera, but here is one of the figther jets that participated in the flying display: the polyvalent and agile Saab Gripen

And what avgeek is not stunned by the sheer beauty of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner?

Qatar Airways brought its first Dreamliner to the Farnborough air show

Is it just me finding the Dreamliner's nose really cute?

Here is another airliner I also find really cool: the Sukhoi Superjet, seen here in Aeroflot livery

Highlights of the Farnborough Air Show

Like every other year, the small Farnborough airfield has become the meeting point for aviation professionals and enthusiasts for around the World. This was not my first visit to the Farnborough Air Show, been here in 2006, when I could first admire the majestic (and quiet!) Airbus A380, and the 2008 edition, when the smaller size of the flying and static displays was an unmistakable sign that the economy was already in trouble.

This time, however, I was able to see Farnborough from an entirely new angle, a professional angle, since I had the chance to experience the air show working together with the  colleagues of the Flightglobal team.

Flightglobal’s chalet at the show was in a privileged position, overlooking the runway, and it had a perfect view of the flight display.  As you might imagine, I did not pass the opportunity to do some planespotting. I must say this year, besides the always spectacular to watch, military jets, the highlight for me was the Boeing 787, an aircraft that I “met” for the first time. Qatar Airways brought its newly delivered Dreamliner and  it did not disappoint. It is a beautiful plane, elegant and very quiet...I can’t wait to fly on it!

But the Boeing 787 was not the only “first” at the show, the Superjet was also there, looking good in Aeroflot livery.

And not exactly a new plane, but I also found quite interesting this Embraer 190 in the bright colours of the Ukrainian carrier Aerosvit.

On the business side of the show, most of the attention was focused on the 737 Max vs. Airbus A320 Neo, with Boeing having the upper hand this time, as it secured 225 firm orders, including those for the 737 Max from United Airlines and leasing companies ALC and ALAFCO, whereas arch-rival Airbus managed to secure only 54 firm orders.

But how long is this dupolistic dominance of the narrow-body market going to last? 

One of the things I personally found more interesting of this show is the performance of the "alternative" manufacturers (by alternative I mean those that are neither of the big two).

It is particularly noticeable the apparent consolidation of Bombardier's CSeries programme, that managed to secure several new orders for its CS300 and has attracted the interest also of AirAsia.  Other up-start narrow-body programmes have also generated some interesting news during the show, like Misubishi Aircraft securing 100 additional orders for its MRJ from SkyWest and Comac reaching an agreeement with IAG for the further development of the C-919.

A different story is Irkut's MC-21 programme, that is still generating considerable doubts, not least of them its final branding (for a start, there is not even a consensus among industry observers: should it be pronnounced as “C” or as “S” as it would be if respecting the Russian pronunciation of the cyrillic "C"?). 

These alternative narrow-body programmes face an uphill battle but if they manage to hold their ground we are almost guaranteed to have very interesting air shows in years to come! 

Oh! and almost forgot!...in future air shows I would expect to see more of these too!

First impressions about the Georgian airline industry

Where to start? The first impression upon landing in Tbilisi was really positive, Tbilisi airport is brand new. I liked it. It is spacious, yet,  it has about the right size for the traffic it handles (you won't get lost here!). There are also lots of natural light, all is very clean. Customs and immigration are swift and efficient.

It looks like Georgia has been making a big effort in marketing itself as a tourist-friendly country (for example no visas are required, most signs and indications are in English in addition to being in Georgian, there is free public wi-fi in the most central areas of the capital...) and the efforts are starting to pay-off. Foreign tourist arrivals are increasing in Georgia and so is the number of airlines that have started flying to the Caucasian country or are planning to do so, such as Aegean Airlines, Qatar Airways (via Baku), FlyDubai or Alitalia. In the meantime, Turkish Airlines seem to have the upper hand when it comes to connecting the country with the rest of the world (Tbilisi airport is also run by a Turkish company, TAV, that manages also Istanbul's impressive Ataturk airport).

One curious fact is that, contrarily to what happens at most European airports, it seems that most activity happens during the early hours of the morning, between midnight and 4am. This is the time when several scheduled flights arrive: Turkish Airlines from Istanbul, BMI (soon to be replaced by BA) from London (via Baku), Aerosvit from Kiev, Lufthansa, from Munich...

These schedules make sense when you take into account Tbilisi's geographical position, most of these airlines can extract an extra rotation from the aircraft by flying it to Tbilisi at night, gathering feeding passengers throughout the afternoon at their more westerly hubs and then feeding their westward-routes early in the morning with the return flight.

 One of Airzena's Boeing 737s

When it comes to local airlines, Airzena is Georgia's national airline and, although its network and schedules are currently somewhat limited, the flag carrier currently has several Boeing 737-NGs and 787s on order. It looks like Airzena is betting on the steady growth of the Georgian tourism industry, the Dreamliners order might be an indication that it is also looking to start flying long-haul (possibly to the US?)

Another Georgia-based airline is Sky Georgia, although currently focused on cargo only and with no scheduled passenger flights, according to Wikipedia, you can still this dilapidated DC-9 next to Tbilisi airport's runway...

Two new airlines are starting soon FlyGeorgia and Air Caucasus, and low cost airline Wizz Air is also starting flights to second-largest city Kutaisi. In short, a market that is really taking-off!

And, once you are in Georgia, if you wish to visit the country from a privileged angle and have some spare cash, you can buy this Mil Mi-8 VIP helicopter, apparently on sale on Alibaba.com!

More on Vueling...and a couple of cool aircraft paint-shop videos

And yet another Vueling-related story...placing this blog at risk of becoming too Vueling-centric, but, shortly after publishing the latest story about the in-flight concert that took place on one of their aircraft,  I got a note from Vueling letting me know about the following video. It shows the aftermath of one of their other recent marketing campaigns, the Vueling Air Gallery, celebrating Vueling's 50 millionth passenger.

In the video you will see how an airbus A320 is painted with the Instagram photos submitted by people that participated in this contest.



For those of you with an interest in the topic, there are quite a few good time-lapse videos of aircraft paint-jobs on youtube, for example this one of a Northwest Boeing 747 becoming a Delta aircraft. Enjoy!

In-flight live music concert

A lot of Vueling news lately, and this actually happened a few weeks ago, but I thought it was interesting enough to devote it a few lines...

Passengers on this Vueling flight from Barcelona to Madrid, were surprised by a live performance of Catalan pop group Els Amics de les Arts. I first learned about it shortly about the plane landed, from some comments I concidentally read on Twitter. Finally, I have also managed to find a picture, also on twitter (thanks to @lauragp72 for posting it online!)

A nice surprise, that I am sure most of the passengers appreciated, even those that might have been trying to have a little nap!

New entrant in the wide-body aircraft market?

Interesting news: it looks like China and Russia are set to cooperate in the development of a new wide-body long-range airliner.

 Picture: Wikipedia

The closest thing to such a projected aircraft is possibly the Ilyushin Il-96, that has not enjoyed much commercial success (still operated by Aeroflot though!) and suffered also from reliability problems.

It won't be easy to challenge Airbus and Boeing on this market, but, given enough political and financial support, I guess they will eventually get there...

Spain increases airport charges...killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?

 It is going to cost a lot more to dock your aircraft here...!

I guess there is no need to highlight once more how distressed is Spain's current economic situation, however, everything can get worse...as the government finds itself in the position where it has to balance the need to obtain more tax revenue with the preservation of one of the few industries that are in good shape and generating employment in Spain.

Spain's airports are government-owned and, after postponing an already planned IPO of airport operator AENA, the govenment is now increasing airport charges...quite dramatically. At Barcelona and Madrid airports are set to increase charges by 50% and top go up by 30% in smaller airports

Ryanair has already announced that its going to pass this cost on to passengers. Easyjet goes a bit further and is closing down its Madrid base. To be fair, cut-throat competition in this market might have had a bigger role in this decision, but sure high charges did not help...

This charges increase is surely going to have an impact on the number of arrivals, at the very least arrivals might be lower than previously expected, although figures might still be strong in absolute terms, as the effect of increased airport taxes must not be taken in isolation, though, since other factors might be at play that might come to the rescue of the Spanish tourism industry, like more Europeans vacationing in the relative proximity of Spain due to the economic crisis.

Some studies estimate that Dutch airports lost nearly 2 million passengers to their rivals across the Netherlands borders (Dusseldorf, Brussels) after an air passenger duty was introduced (and scrapped shortly after) a few years ago. But, of course, users of Spanish airports do not enjoy the same number of choices when it comes to airport gateways than do the inhabitants of the more densely populated Benelux.

In any case, although some airport charges were maybe a bit too low (proof of that might be that Spain is one of the few countries where Ryanair uses main airports) the Spanish authorities need to be careful not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, since tourism is one of the few industries still generating so-badly needed jobs.