Friday Flyer – July 14, 2023

Let’s get straight to the stories from the aviation industry this week:

  • We always talk about the impact of special events on the airline business.  These days, no event is as big as Taylor Swift, and it seems that Air New Zealand and Qantas are making schedule adjustments to accommodate the Taylor Swift concert in the region.  
  • On July 6, FlightRadar24 tracked the most flights ever in a given day.  It’s a big milestone, especially post-COVID.  Here you can see the map of those flights.  This record was broken just yesterday!  This article explains those gaps you see in a few places on the map too. 
  • Emirates had a few jets that they previously used for flight training sitting around.  They made the decision to repurpose those for a private jet service.  It will be interesting to see how this works.
  • I shared an article several months ago about American Airlines using bus services to cities close to Philadelphia because they didn’t have the aircraft to service the markets.  An improvement was made to that service where the passengers getting on the buses in select cities go through TSA security, which allows them to exit the bus “inside” security.  This is a huge improvement and time saver as the passengers don’t need to pass through TSA checkpoints at the airport.
  • Most people prefer not to have layovers at all if it can be avoided.  However, having a list of the best airports for layovers can be helpful if you have options available when booking your next itinerary.  Here’s one such list. 
  • During the recent eruption of the Fagradalsfjall (bonus points to those who can pronounce that) volcano, an Icelandair flight made a detour to give passengers a few of the eruption.  The videos are really impressive. 
  • Aircraft capacity remains at a premium for the airlines, so Etihad restarting service with their A380 isn’t surprising.  The planes have nearly 500 seats, so the main question is if the demand profiles exist for the routes they’ll fly.

Interesting Aviation Photo

This particular photo is of a Lufthansa Airbus A340-600 in Hong Kong (HKG).  This one stood out to me because of the cool reflection of the plane in the wet taxiway.