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December 12, 2009

What happens to flights when the Oil runs Dry?

Filed under: Aviation Economics, Environmental Issues, Flights v. Trains — Tags: 42, Airlines, don't panic, environment, Flightmapping.com, flights, high speed trains, long haul, maglevs, map, oil, peak oil, planes, short haul, trains, travel, tube, united stations, Zug42 — ja @ 10:05 pm

Some people may want to bury their heads in the sand, and pretend that we can keep burning fossil fuels forever, but at Flightmapping.com, we’ve always taken the long term view, and wondered how medium to long haul journeys might adapt the challenges of Climate Change and oil price rises in the future. For the shortest journeys, we’ve essentially taken it as a no-brainer that most people will switch to high-speed rail, subject to a few small criteria which don’t always apply yet - especially here in the UK. And we’re not suggesting that trains will be able to walk on water just yet, although some of our youngest readers might be around to see a transatlantic tunnel appearing towards the end of this century!

So, to take aviation’s worst case scenario - that oil runs dry, and that biofuels are too costly to provide a commercially viable replacement, what do we do? Well, as a certain ultra-long haul cheapskates’ travel guide might say - Don’t Panic! Those pesky maglev trains might be able to provide the answer. Whereas flying is actually getting slower (Concorde has long gone, airlines are reducing speeds to save fuel, and let’s not get started on airport congestion), trains are progressively getting faster - with the Chinese having just launched a service from Wuhan capable of running at almost 400 kilometres per hour.

So this is what a global ‘tube’ network might start to look like from around 2050 - courtesy of our partner websites United Stations and Zug42.

htWorld Tube Map

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November 23, 2009

7 Habits of highly effective travel cheapskates

Filed under: Aviation Economics, British Airways, Budget airlines, Budget flights, Easyjet, Flybe — Tags: 7 habits, baggage, bargains, best deals, budget, budget travel, cheap flights, cheap travel, cheaper Ryanair flights, cheapskate, cheapskate flights, checked baggage, couch surfing, duty free, e-mailing lists, electron card, Facebook, first class, flight bargains, flights, guidebooks, Icahn eyes, languages, Last-minute deals, Ryanair, sightseeing, tourist rip-offs, train travel, travel, travel bargains, travel deals, travel light — ja @ 3:22 pm

7 Habits of highly effective travel cheapskates (based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey)

1. Be active – hunt out the best deals. Get on all the emailing lists, have your electron card ready – and if you see a great deal, book it before it has gone.

2. Begin with multiple destinations in mind – where do you want to go this year? How will you get there cheaply and efficiently – and can you visit several destinations in one trip?

3. Put First Class Second – cheapskates only travel luxury when someone else is paying.

4. Think gin/gin – don’t forget those duty free bargains, but make sure they will fit into your carry-on bag if you are travelling with Ryanair. And remember that most ‘duty-free’ offers aren’t really duty-free anymore - so do you want to save a couple of pounds on a bottle of plonk, just to lug it around with you for a week?

5. Seek to understand and be understood – learn at least a few basic words of the lingo in any country you are visiting. It will also help prevent you from being ripped off by popular tourist traps, and make you many more friends.

6. Economise – find more ways to creatively cut down your travel costs. Travel light, stay with those Facebook friends you haven’t seen for 20 years and eat where the locals eat. Don’t take any equipment with you that you can live without - you are travelling remember, not working - do you really need that laptop with you?

7. Be sharp about what you saw – don’t try and cram in everything, just because it is in someone else’s guidebook. Go and visit the places that will excite you most, and enjoy the journey on the way.

Happy travels

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November 5, 2009

Non-stop Australia flights to become a reality?

Filed under: Routes & News, Virgin — Tags: Australia flights, Boeing 777, business class only, environment, flights, flights to Australia, flights to Perth, fuel, London, Los Angeles, New York, New York Newark, non-stop, non-stop flights to Australia, Perth flights, San Francisco, Singapore airlines, Sydney, UK to Australia flights, ultra long haul flights, V Australia, Virgin, Virgin Australia, Virgin Blue, virgin flights — ja @ 10:40 pm

According to this news winging its way over from Australia, V Australia, which is the international arm of Virgin Blue, are expected to announce new non-stop flights to Perth from London in 2011.

This route would be the second longest in the world, with flight times of just 16 hours - a saving of 5 hours compared to the current shortest times, due to the fact that current flights to Perth need a change of aircraft. Even compared to existing sameplane flights to Australia, the non-stop service still offers a huge time advantage, as the routing is direct and there is no need to re-fuel.

This move will see the Virgin group continue its advancement as a truly pan-global company - although I hesitate to use the term ‘network’, since the airlines are each operated independently. An additional non-stop route between Sydney and New York will also be offered - another interesting development, as the majority of USA-Australia flights operate to west coast hubs such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.

It will be interesting to see what sort of fares are offered on this route - the economics of operating these ultra-long flights aren’t as simple as just finding a way to avoid an un-needed set of airport charges. For this type of flight, aicraft don’t just need extra fuel - they also need extra fuel to carry the fuel that they will need later on in the journey. For this reason, Singapore Airlines, which offers the current longest flight in the world between Singapore and New York Newark, operates a business-class only service, thus cutting down on weight.

http://www.flightmapping.com/Australia/

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Is this the beginning of the end for bmibaby?

Following on from yesterday’s news that Lufthansa can’t find a suitable buyer for bmi, we’ve had confirmation today that jobs are going to be axed, and that routes will be curtailed at Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff.

So, is it wise for bmibaby to concentrate their efforts on one large base at East Midlands airports. They say that they want to concentrate on ‘growth routes’, but with growth comes competition, and Ryanair are already very well established at Castle Donnington. Right now, can bmibaby really push themselves as the ones who offer a ‘more pleasant’ experience over Ryanair’s cut-throat service, or will customers continue to vote with their wallets and choose the airline which gives them the cheapest fees? When going after business passengers, it is much easier to play on offering services which take people closer to where they want to go, but is this so important for the leisure passenger - especially when East Midlands airport itself is playing a hybrid game of serving the three cities of Nottingham, Leicester and Derby, and also trying to poach passengers from Birmingham, without being directly adjacent to any of these cities.

Easyjet might be out of the way at East Midlands, but there will have been obvious reasons why they made a commercial decision to pull out. Baby reducing their presence at Manchester leaves room for Jet 2 or Easyjet to add more services, whereas Ryanair and Flybe will swoon over any signs of weakness at Birmingham, and leave tiny with very little opportunity to come back in once the economy starts growing again. As for Cardiff? Not exactly Ryanair’s favourite airport a few years ago, but if baby reduce their presence there, Cardiff airport operators will have many more reasons to do a deal with Ryanair.

This scenario could easily see bmibaby exposed as a one-airport operator within a few months, with very few other places to go to. It would then be only a matter of time before Ryanair came in and made a pincer movement to finally kill off baby for good.

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September 9, 2009

The BNP v Eco-fundamentalists - both are equally fascist

Filed under: Aviation Economics, Environmental Issues, Flights v. Trains, The Travel Business — Tags: BNP, domestic flights, environment, environmental campaigns, flights, flying, trains, UK — ja @ 1:52 am

I have no problem with the vast-majority of environmental campaigners, but there are a dangerous few out there who seem to think it is perfectly reasonable to impose a total ban on all domestic flights within the UK. More worrying than this opinion being widespread is the way it is allowed out on news reports without any kind of counter-argument. Yet whenever there is a suggestion of the BNP getting more air time, there is uproar.

So what is so wrong with suggesting a ban on domestic flights, in the name of the environment? As the United Kingdom is made up of many islands, a sizeable portion of travel within her borders is always going to be made by air. Even over-land, there are many journeys which are totally unrealistic to make by rail, especially for business travellers wanting to head to important meetings and make it back in a day. People who think that it is an easy switch from air to rail tend not to be the ones that take the trains all that often.

Where rail services have improved, such as between London and Manchester, the proportion of people travelling by train has increased, but there will always be some people who will want to choose to fly, or who want to take a plane because the next step of their journey is an onward flight to another destination. As the network currently stands, travelling by train from Manchester to Heathrow is a great deal less convenient than flying.

Of course, some communication can be done by electronic means, but if travel broadens the mind, then those people who seek to prevent people from travelling must have very narrow minds. Except that they masquerade as intelligent, educated people acting in our best interests. At least we know what we are getting with the BNP - mindless thugs who want to see certain sectors of the population sent away. But we should never forget that freedom to move within our borders is just as important as the freedom to cross borders. I have spent time in Saudi Arabia, where we had to get a ‘50k pass’ to travel internally, and it was a bureaucratic nightmare.

The environmental damage caused by flying is already healthily compensated for by existing APD (Air Passenger Duty), which is levied twice on internal flights - both on the outbound, and on the inbound journey. Even moderate increases in APD, when not counter-balanced by our European neighbours, result in a huge discouragement to travel within the UK, as flights abroad are proportionally taxed at a lower rate.

So by all means, let’s have a reasoned debate about choices in travel mode, and about their environmental impacts. But let’s not be fooled by people who think an outright ban on domestic flights, or even steep increases in their taxes, is remotely in the UK’s best interest.

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March 2, 2009

The International (film / locations) - A concert of Architectural Anthems

Filed under: General Travel (non-flights) — Tags: architectural anthems, Berlin, blue mosque, Bosporus, flights, flights to Berlin, Istanbul, Milan, New York, Phaeno science centre, The International, travel, Wolfsburg — ja @ 12:01 pm

I know that Flightmapping.com’s prime purpose is dealing with flights, but we’ve always had a strong interest in visiting movie locations, especially on films when a lot of travelling is involved. When it comes to showcasing impressive architecture, the Bond franchise is often top draw, but I’ve never seen a film quite like The Internation, currently in cinemas across the UK. Much as I enjoyed the plot (I’m really not getting into that here, that’s well out of our territory), I couldn’t help but sit in awe at the architectural concert that served as both the backdrop and a major star of this film from start to finish.

Berlin

The opening anthem was the scene outside Berlin’s shiny new Hauptbanhof (central station) — perhaps my only complaint here was that they did not go inside — with two decks of track crossing each other, glass lifts and escalators-a-plenty, this would have been an ideal chase location.

We were then served up offices of ‘The International’ (Bank of Business and Credit), which was supposed to be in Luxembourg, but I would suspect was somewhere around Treptower in Berlin. Other Berlin locations used in the film included Daniel Liebskind’s Jewish Museum, whereas additional scenes are filmed in the VW Autocity (Autostadt) in Wolfsburg [how to get there].

Milan

Action then moves on to Milan, featuring a predictable choice of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and a much more interesting assassination scene (won’t say who) in the square outside Milan Centrale station, which is also flanked by the Pirelli Tower.

New York

The chase for intelligence then moves to New York, leading up to a grand finale shootout inside a replica of Frank Lloyd Wright’s original Guggenheim Museum. This made use of interactive (and translucent) exhibits on display at the museum, together with embedding bullets all over the spiral stair case and full-scale destruction of the internal roof.

Istanbul

For the encore, were taken first to the shores of Lake Garda, where digital effects superimpose Zaha Hadid’s Phaeno Science Centre (also in Wolfsburg) onto the stunning backdrop of a lakeside setting. The second encore takes us through the streets and bazaar of Istanbul, through the courtyard of the Sultan Ahmed (Blue) Mosque, and onto rooftops overlooking the Bosphorus, where the film ends.

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I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible with these, but if you have any corrections, please let me know below.

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