Airport

Dubai Airport…Busiest in the World…

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Dubai Airport The Emirates Terminal at Dubai International Airport.

In 2014, Dubai International took the crown of “World’s Busiest Airport” from London Heathrow International.

More than 70.4 million international passengers moved through the Dubai’s ornate concourses, terminals, and duty-free shops in 2014, up 6.1% from 2013.

Dubai’s numbers were boosted by rapid expansion and a convenient international location.

Also helping the airport’s numbers was Emirates — the world’s busiest airline by international volume — and its fleet of Airbus A380 superjumbo jets, based in Dubai.

Heathrow moved a record-setting 68.1 million international passengers for the year, but clearly couldn’t keep up with Dubai’s growth.

Officials at Heathrow blamed a stalled plan for a third runway for the title loss, according to a spokesman.

Dubai is set to open another concourse this year — and is forecasting 79 million international visitors. Dubai Airports also said it’s planning to build a $US32-billion new airport in the country within 8 years. It will have capacity for 240 million passengers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

And it will need it to match up with Emirate’s growth projections!

Check out pictures of Dubai’s beautiful airport, below.

Dubai airport Duty-free shops in Dubai International Airport.

Dubai Airport A palm-tree lined waiting room in Dubai International Airport.

Dubai Aiport A beautiful concourse at Dubai International Airport.

SOURCE::::: http://www.businessinsider.com.au

Natarajan

 

Portland Airport Carpet … Most Sought After and a Social Media Star too !!!

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Portlanders REALLY love their airport carpet.

Portlanders REALLY love their airport carpet. Source: Facebook 

 

THE carpet at the Portland Airport has a cult-like following and has become a social media superstar.

That’s right. The people of Portland love the kitsch pattern that lines the flooring of their provincial airport so much that it has its own Facebook, Instagram and Twitteraccounts.

The carpet’s celebrity has spread through the internet as a growing number of travellers partake in a ritual of photographing themselves on the famed flooring. Currently there are nearly 30,000 photos on Instagram with the hashtag #PDXcarpet.

This airport carpet has a cult following

This is what you’re supposed to do at Portland Airport. Picture: adamdachis. Source: Flickr 

 

The popularity of the carpet’s pattern has spawned an online store where one can pick up shirts, mugs, bags and even posters designed in the carpet’s likeness.

But such is the adoration and dedication to the carpet that those not content with a bag have even gone as far as getting the renowned pattern tattooed on them.

If you’re a tad perplexed, you’re not alone.

A spokesperson for PDX, Kama Simonds, seems equally baffled by the carpet’s stardom.

“Yes, other airports have carpets, but right now people seem to think we have a masterpiece of a welcome mat,” she told USA Today.

 

It seems the affection felt for the carpet lies in the nostalgic sentiment it holds for Portland residents returning to their beloved city.

When it was announced that the carpet would be getting replaced this month (albeit with a somewhat similar pattern) people’s reaction on social media was closer to disappointment than despair. But only just.

In an effort to comfort travellers and commemorate the beloved carpet, the airport has installed an artistic display which hangs on the wall over one of the gates entitled “Carpet Diem!”

The 3 metre by 5 metre collage is made of — you guessed it — pieces of that sacred carpet from throughout the terminal.

 

Public demand for the old carpet is likely to be high with an airport spokesperson telling the LA Times they are “offering a very limited number of 1,000-square-yard (304.8 metres) increments of the carpet to interested parties through a formal public advertisement.”

By all accounts, it will be a very competitive sale. !!!

SOURCE:::: http://www.news.com.au

Natarajan

Jan 23 2015

 

 

” What the Customer Wants …. Customer Gets … ” !!!

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Airbus A380 Emirates

Emirates is not only the A380′s biggest customer, it can be argued that the airline is the superjumbo’s only customer that matters.

And what the customer wants, the customer gets. At least that’s what Emirates is hoping for.

Emirates wants an A380 “neo” — a superjumbo with newer, more fuel-efficient engines.

(“Neo” is the designation that Airbus gives to aircraft models that have had their engines and aerodynamics upgraded.)

As Business Insider reported last September, Emirates’ CEO Tim Clark said the airline could order another 60-70 non-neo superjumbos, valued at a whopping $US29 billion.

This figure seems to have changed.

This week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the outspoken airline boss said that his company would up the potential order to 100 additional A380s, if a new engine option becomes available, Bloomberg reported.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Clark essentially told Airbus that “if you build it, we will buy it.”

The total value of those 100 superjumbos? $US43 billion.

Although some airlines have had a hard time filling the seats on the massive double-decker plane, Emirates doesn’t seem to be one of them.

According to Bloomberg, flights on the airline’s fleet of A380s are putting money in the bank. Routes to popular destinations, such as London, are operating at 90% capacity. Emirates is also increasing A380 flights on its US and South Asia routes.

Clark believes upgraded engines could save his airline 10-13% in costs.

This latest development should comes as welcome news to the Airbus superjumbo program.

In short, the A380 is struggling.

Airbus didn’t sell a single superjumbo to an airline in 2014. And Amedeo, the leasing company that did buy 20 A380s in 2014, can’t seem to find anybody to rent them to.

Emirates Airline's Airbus A380

Fortunately, Airbus has Emirates. Of the 317 A380s ever ordered, 140 of them have been by the official airline of Dubai.

And of the 152 aircraft that have actually been delivered, 57 have gone to Emirates. The airline has even agreed to take delivery of its A380s early, in order to give Amedeo more time to find customers willing to lease the superjumbo.

Which makes Emirates a critical partner in the future of the A380. If Airbus wants to keep its superjumbo program going, it’s going to need Emirates.

And what about that $US43 billion price tag?

That’s just the sticker price. With Emirates quite literally flying the plane on the deal, don’t expect Tim Clark’s airline to pay anything more than $US30 billion.

Under the circumstances, that would be a great outcome for both parties.

SOURCE:::: BENJAMIN ZHANG   in  www.businessinsider.com

Natarajan

Jan 23 2015

World”s Most Spectacular New Airports …

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Changi airport, Singapore (opening 2018)

Architect Moshe Safdie – who designed the iconic Habitat 67 housing complex in Montreal – began construction on a new development at Singapore’s Changi airport in December 2014. Featuring a ‘Forest Valley’, ‘Jewel Gardens’ and a 130ft-high (40m) waterfall called a ‘Rain Vortex’, it looks more like the Land of Oz than an air hub; trees, palms and ferns are enclosed within a 134,000sq m glass dome. Scheduled for completion in 2018, the Jewel complex will be linked by pedestrian bridges to existing terminals, offering space for shops and restaurants alongside the foliage. Safdie has said that the project is “the prototype of a new kind of urban place”. (Safdie Architects)

 

Mexico City international airport, Mexico (opening 2018)

In September 2014, British architecture firm Foster and Partners won a competition to design what will be one of the world’s largest airports when it is completed in 2018. Working with Mexican firm Fernando Romero Enterprise, Foster and Partners unveiled plans for a 555,000 sq m terminal enclosed within a lightweight shell. The new international airport for Mexico City has been designed to accommodate increasing passenger numbers and has echoes of Foster’s plans for the world’s first private spaceport in New Mexico. The structure is pre-fabricated, allowing for rapid construction without scaffolding. The new building will harness the sun’s energy as well as collecting rainwater and maintaining interior temperatures using natural ventilation. (Foster and Partners/Fernando Romero Enterprise)

 

Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji international airport, India (opened 2014)

Designed to reference the feathers in a peacock’s tail – and mirror traditional Indian open-air pavilions – the concrete canopy on this new terminal is part of a wider trend to reflect local architecture within airports. This addition to Mumbai airport was opened in February 2014 and is the vision of US firm SOM, whose website says that “just as the terminal celebrates a new global, high-tech identity for Mumbai, the structure is imbued with responses to the local setting, history, and culture”. (Robert Polidori/SOM)

 

Shenzhen Bao’an international airport, China (opened end of 2013)

Covered with a honeycomb pattern and a whopping 1.5km (0.9 miles) long, the new terminal at Shenzhen Bao’an was designed to evoke the shape of a manta ray, according to its architects Studio Fuksas. The architects rather poetically describe it as “a fish that breathes and changes its own shape, undergoes variations, turns into a bird to celebrate the emotion and fantasy of a flight”. The design continues into the interiors, its hexagonal skylights allowing natural light in with a dappled effect. (Archivio Fuksas)

 

Chongqing Jiangbei international airport, China (opening 2015)

Architects ADPI continue the trend towards green space in airports in their plans for a new terminal at Chongqing Jiangbei. With two wings referencing Chongqing’s two rivers, the structure is set within a park: once completed, the terminal will be able to handle 55m passengers a year, ranking the airport among the world’s 15 largest. (ADPI)

 

Pulkovo International Airport, Russia (opened 2014)

Designed by Grimshaw architects to work with the extremes of climate in St Petersburg, the new terminal at Pulkovo airport features monumental folded ceilings clad in metal panels that recall the gilded spires of churches in the city. A series of linked zones is intended to reflect St Petersburg’s landscape of islands and bridges. Opening in February 2014, the building has a large flat roof with folded structures beneath that distribute weight away from the middle to offer support during heavy snowfall. Once construction on a second and final phase of the project is completed in 2015, the airport will cater for 17m passengers a year. (Grimshaw)

 

Istanbul New Airport, Turkey (opening 2019)

Grimshaw is also in charge of a team designing a new six-runway airport in Istanbul which aims to accommodate 90m passengers a year once it opens in 2019, before increasing its capacity to 150m after completion. Featuring a vaulted canopy, the airport’s Terminal One will cover a site of nearly 100 hectares (0.4 sq miles) – the architects say it will become the “world’s largest airport terminal under one roof” once finished. “We were inspired by the local use of colours and patterns, the quality of light and how it penetrates buildings, as well as by traditional architecture such as the Süleymaniye Mosque,” claims Tomas Stokke, the director of Haptic, which is collaborating with Grimshaw and Nordic Office of Architecture on the project. (Grimshaw/Nordic Office of Architecture/Haptic) 

 

Mount Fuji Shizuoka airport, Japan

Pritzker Prize-winner Shigeru Ban is designing a terminal for the airport at the base of Mount Fuji. Inspired by the tea plantations surrounding the mountain, his plans include green barrel vaults. Inside, natural light is diffused by a roof canopy made out of twisted laminated wood – latticing being a signature style of the Japanese architect. (Shigeru Ban)

SOURCE::::

Fiona Macdonald  in www. bbc.com
Natarajan
Jan 21 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Planes Go ” Hybrid ” Electric…. !!!

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An aircraft with a parallel hybrid engine – the first ever to be able to recharge its batteries in flight – has been successfully tested in the UK, an important early step towards cleaner, low-carbon air travel.

The world’s first hybrid-electric aircraft that can recharge while flying. 
Electric aircraft

A new hybrid-electric aircraft, the first ever to be able to recharge its batteries in flight, has just been tested in the UK, the University of Cambridge announced in a statement today.

The plane uses a “parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system,” where an electric motor works with a regular petrol motor to drive a propeller. It’s just been trialled at a test site in Northamptonshire.

According to Cambridge engineers, the plane uses 30% less fuel than a similar model that only uses a petrol engine. More importantly, the new design can also recharge its batteries during flight — something that’s never been achieved before.

“Although hybrid cars have been available for more than a decade, what’s been holding back the development of hybrid or fully-electric aircraft until now is battery technology,” project leader and Cambridge professor Paul Robertson said in a statement. “Until recently, they have been too heavy and didn’t have enough energy capacity. But with the advent of improved lithium-polymer batteries, similar to what you’d find in a laptop computer, hybrid aircraft — albeit at a small scale — are now starting to become viable.”

The plane uses its 4-stroke piston engine and electric motor during take off and climbing. But once in cruising mode, the electric motor switches to an electric generator in a similar way to a hybrid car. Once full height is reached, the generator mode can then recharge the batteries or be used in motor assist mode to minimise fuel consumption, the university said.

Here it is climbing after take off:

Flight



And here it is soaring over England’s patchwork fields:

Flight2



The project is vital to combating the impact air travel has on the environment. The team notes that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates “aviation is responsible for around 2% of global man-made carbon dioxide emissions.”

The plane is a step “towards cleaner, low-carbon air travel,” but it’s not there yet. More research is still needed to prolong the flying time. “If all the engines and all the fuel in a modern jetliner were to be replaced by batteries, it would have a total flying time of roughly ten minutes,” the researchers point out.

Still, the Cambridge demonstrator model is a move toward creating the first fully-electric plane, which could one day be used commercially.

SOURCE:::: http://www.business insider .com.au and You Tube

Natarajan

Jan 15 2015

Automatic Aircraft Tracking System of Qatar Airways ….

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Qatar Airways is the first airline in the world to test automatic aircraft tracking.

Qatar Airways is the first airline in the world to test automatic aircraft tracking. Source: News Limited

QATAR airways is carrying out tests to become the first airline in the world to install an automatic tracking system that would replace the current radar system.

Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker told a press conference in Doha that the technology was being tested ahead of a fleet wide roll out.

“Once this has been proven and all the bugs have been cleared then Qatar Airways will, I hope, be the first airliner to introduce this in all our planes,” he told reporters.

Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways, hopes the new system will be rolled out fleet wide. Source: AFP

In response to worldwide pressure for tighter airline monitoring after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the new system will stream flight data from a planes black box directly to an airline’s operation centre on the ground in real time.

Reported in Bloomberg, it is part of an aviation safety overhaul as the industry comes under scruity for being unable to explain the mysterious fate of MH370.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) set up an expert task force in June 2014 to review current tracking methods and highlighted three areas of concern. These were installing tamper proofing airline tracking, tracking to one nautical mile or better and giving airlines one year to implement the recommended new system.

Qatar Airways has always stayed ahead of the game and was recently delivered the new Airb

Qatar Airways has always stayed ahead of the game and was recently delivered the new Airbus A350 at an inaugural ceremony in Doha. Source: AFP

The IATA however has come under fire from some airlines who say adopting these new criteria within a year is unreasonable. The International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations aviation regulator, has instead proposed that commercial planes be required to report their position every 15 minutes.

Qatar’s decision to install this new type of tracking means that its planes will be automatically tracked from takeoff to landing without control from pilots, removing any issues of tampering and providing real-time aircraft monitoring.

SOURCE::: http://www.news.com.au

Natarajan

Jan 14 2015

Only One Passenger On a Flight !!!… Strange But True !!!

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You won't have to worry about getting a drink on this flight.

You won’t have to worry about getting a drink on this flight. Source: Getty Images

A US man from Brooklyn flew home in style on Monday, as practically the only passenger on-board a Cleveland-to-New York flight.

Chris O’Leary tweeted in disbelief after taking his seat as the solo flyer aboard a Delta regional plane and got incredibly personalised safety instructions from flight attendants.

O’Leary’s 9:39am flight home was delayed for hours, so he stayed in his hotel until the afternoon when it was finally going to depart, according to ABC News.

By the time O’Leary reached the airport, he learned that virtually all his fellow passengers had been rebooked on other flights and he somehow missed messages offering the earlier departures.

View image on Twitter

 

“They rebooked everyone but me on another flight to LGA,” he tweeted, “so I am literally the only person on this plane.”

He added: “Just got a personal safety briefing from my two flight attendants.”

 

A flight attendant snapped a picture of O’Leary alone in passenger seats.

He tweeted out the image with: “No, I’m not joking. I’m the only one on this plane.”

 

O’Leary was all set to get his personalised ride home, before the Delta plane rolled back to the gate and picked up one more passenger.

O’Leary didn’t mind sharing his flight.

“Part of this is my own stupidity but it ended up working out in my favor,” O’Leary told ABC, grateful that he missed all of the airline’s messages.

 

It’ll be a Cleveland-to-New York flight O’Leary will never forget.

“Well, this has been a interesting day,” he tweeted. “Who knew the simple act of getting on the plane you’re supposed to could amuse so many people?”

Even O’Leary’s mum saw his picture on Twitter.

“Reaction to this story from my mum: `I’m glad you got a haircut,’ “ O’Leary tweeted.

SOURCE:::: http://www.news.com.au

Natarajan

10 Minutes Flight Time …World”s Shortest Flight !!!

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FlyNiki claims to have plans for the world’s shortest flight. Picture: somkuti.

FlyNiki claims to have plans for the world’s shortest flight. Picture: somkuti. Source: Flickr

LOW-cost Austrian airline, FlyNiki, is launching a 10 minute flight between the capitals of Austria and Slovakia that is claiming to be the world’s shortest.

The distance between the two cities is only 48 kilometres, just under an hour by car and even less by train, leaving many questioning if the trip is worth it once you account for airport queues and check-ins.

No it’s not an April fools joke but it may be quicker to drive. Picture: GerardvdSchaaf.

No it’s not an April fools joke but it may be quicker to drive. Picture: GerardvdSchaaf. Source: Flickr

But it’s a 15 minute drive to the airport from downtown Bratislava, and 20 minutes from Vienna. Combine that with early arrival for check-in and it seems it may be quicker to take the intercity bus trip of about an hour — and definitely a lot cheaper.

Set to launch on April 1, the airline says the Vienna-Bratislava flight will make sense for those taking connecting flights from Vienna.

SOURCE::::: http://www.news.com.au

Natarajan

Jan 12 2015

World’s Biggest Plane – Russian Antonov 225 with 32 Wheels….!!!

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Take off of the Biggest Airplane in the World …

The World’s Largest Plane at Niagara Falls

THIS AIRPLANE WAS AT THE NIAGARA FALLS AIRPORT RECENTLY (TWICE) TO LOAD LARGE TRANSFORMERS TO FLY DIRECTLY TO SAUDI ARABIA …
32 wheels! — Costs more than my house to rotate the tires!
The World’s Biggest Airplane, the Russian Antonov 225.
Attached pics are of the Russian behemoth when it landed.

While they were loading the compressors, the Russian pilots (two crews),went into town to buy cigarettes by the case and Levis jeans.
It is amazing something this huge can stay in the air.

The Wright brothers would never have dreamed it.
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Image of the day… Awesome Video of A Plane Crossing SUN …!!!

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Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Noel Keating tried all last year to capture video of a plane crossing the sun. On January 3, 2015, he did it!

EarthSky Facebook friend Noel Keating captured this cool video of a plane crossing the face of the sun on January 3, 2015. He wrote:

I saw the plane way off in the distance, and I did what I normally do. I used the vapor trail of the plane to guide a line across the sky towards the sun to see it if would line up. This one did :)! As the plane got closer to the sun, I couldn’t see it any more so I just viewed it through the Camera LCD display … boy, was I happy when it passed by the solar disc with all the sunspots in clear view.

SOURCE::::: http://www.earthsky.org and You Tube

Natarajan

Jan 12 2015