Tag Archives: flights

Is this the beginning of the end for bmibaby?

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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.

The BNP v Eco-fundamentalists – both are equally fascist

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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.

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

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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

Berlin Central Station / HauptbahnhofThe 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.