Letting Your Partner Down

I'm a fan of Canadian airlines. AC has a great new Embraer service to Dallas and other than the risk of a little domestic spying, any flight on Westjet is fun.

That's not what this post is about. This is about flying out of Minneapolis on AC. Some advice: DON'T DO IT. You see, Minneapolis is Northwest's home. And apparently even if you work for United, Canada's code share partner and the people manning the check-in - your goal is to keep people flying Northwest.

Doing that is simple: 1) no automated check-in 2) separate line for AC passengers 3) process 2 or 3 passengers in half an hour 4) after half and hour and once line is well into hallway - leave - as in...leave... don't have anybody manning the AC check-in 5) 20 minutes later, show up looking stunned and say something dumb like "is anybody in this line on the 6:00pm flight to Toronto?" 6) look even more stunned when the line erupts in anger and abuse 7) stick really angry passengers in final row by the washroom. True story.

The moral here is clear: fly Northwest out of Minneapolis.

However, I don't believe the problem is Air Canada's. It's United's. Watching their staff, one thing was clear - they DID NOT CARE. Truly DID NOT CARE. I guess that whole Chapter 11 thing has been a little rough!

TAGS: United Airlines, customer service, disgruntled employees

Getting Down at Sunset

Air Canada 767 on long final to runway 23. Evening. Weather filling in from the west.

TAGS: Air Canada, clouds, sunset

Government of Oman Boeing 747

All the cool camera kids who've been stalking YYZ for years seemed surprised when the Government of Oman 747 got parked, fully exposed beside Derry Road. Don't know whether that's a surprise or not but it did mean some good pics.

TAGS: Oman, Boeing 747, oil riches

Oh man, it's Oman

Got lucky getting this shot of government of Oman Boeing 747-400. Not a regular visitor to YYZ.

TAGS: Oman, Boeing 747, wealthy

Bling

Does this?


Plus this????

Equal this????

TAGS: bling, teeth, grills

The Thomas Cook Book

Strange but true - from the Europe Travel News:

‘Can You Cook It?’ is the product of Thomas Cook’s overseas staff, who provided their local knowledge and favourite recipes. The book includes recipes for starters, main courses and puddings for each of Thomas Cook’s top holiday hotspots. Destinations featured are: Bulgaria, Egypt, Florida, Greece, Italy, Malta, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.

Bullseye

Air Canada A320 with the pointy end fully embedded in the cargo west facility at Pearson. Well, not really.

Looking at this pic vs. the previous one, also an AC, you can see that like a lot of airlines, AC remains logo-ly challenged. Their fleet colours are everything from the old white, green and red through the new public washroom blue and all combinations in-between including white and public washroom blue and even silver and public washroom blue. Then there's Jazz fleet of white and red, white and yellow, and white and green. Know nothing about aircraft painting but assume 1) it's expensive 2) aircraft that aren't repainted in AC's new colors are on their way out?

TAGS: Air Canada, Pearson Airport, branding

Air Canada A319-100

Nice touchdown on 33L in gusty conditions.

TAGS: Air Canada, A319, aircraft pictures

Long and Wide

LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 767-300. Growing up, blondes and Pols took the brunt of a a lot of jokes. Not so much anymore it seems - well, at least not for Pols...blondes will never change. So here are a couple of air-related blonde jokes:
Q. what do you call 10 blondes standing ear to ear? A. a wind tunnel. Q. what is a blondes favourite drink? A. Perri-Air. Q. what do yo call 10 blondes at the bottom of a pool? A. air pockets.

Then of course, there is the most famous of Polish flying jokes:

Polish Air Lines flight 113 was descending for a landing at an
airport they had never been to before. The pilot looked out the
windshield and suddenly exclaimed to the copilot, "Holy cow! Look how
short the runway is! I`ve never seen one that short!"
The copilot looked out the windshield. "Wow! you`re right!
That`s incredible! Are you sure we can make it?"
"Well we better, were almost out of fuel."
So the captain got on the intercom and notified the passengers
to put their heads between their knees and prepare for an emergency
landing. Then he set the flaps to full down and slowed the plane to
just over stall speed. The big jumbo jet came screaming in, on the
ragged edge of control. The pilot`s hands were sweating, the copilot
was praying. They touched down and came screeching to a halt JUST
before the edge of the runway, the tires smoking. "WHEW! That was
CLOSE!" yelled the captain."That runway was SHORT!"
"Yeah!" said the copilot,"and WIDE too!"

Sun Wing

Just a gorgeous day for gettin some pictures. Sunwing Vacations Boeing 737-8Q8 on approach to runway 33L. Sunwing is a sub of Sunwing vacations. Flies a couple of 737's and one 757 south and across the country. Believe this aircraft started flying for Sunwing last month.

TAGS: Toronto Pearson, Sunwing Airlines, Boeing 737

McDonnell-Douglas MD-80

A derivative of the DC-9, the MD-80 series entered service in the mid 1980's. McDonnell Douglas was purchased by Boeing in 1997. Production of the The Boeing 717, the last derivative of the DC-9, ended last month.

World Cup Soccer

FIFA World Cup soccer starts this Friday in Germany. Here are some stats on the world's favourite football - known as 'the beautiful game': FIFA counts 204 member countries; soccer is bigger than baseball, basketball and NA football combined; the first pro players were from England - in 1879; first World Cup was in Uruguay in 1930; the last World Cup was in Japan and South Korea in 2002; Frenchman Just Fontaine scored 13 goals in the 1958 World Cup; Brazil are the reigning world champions. If you want to know what game's on TV keep this site - tvsoccerschedule.com - bookmarked.
Go out and have a ball!

TAGS: soccer nose, World Cup Soccer, Lufthansa

Alitalia Go-Around

Alitalia Boeing 767-300 breaking back through low overcast after aborted landing to runway 05. Awkward, slow abort and obvious from photo that flaps, etc are still deployed. Aircraft returned 5 minutes later for normal landing.

TAGS: Alitalia, Boeing 767, aircraft pictures

Greek Goddess

Icarus would be proud. Olympic Airlines A340-313x close to touchdown en route from Athens. Olympic has 4 of these majestic aircraft.

TAGS: Toronto Pearson, Olympic Airlines, A340

Reflective Approach

Right wing, landing gear and Dixon Road reflect in the smooth underside of this A-330.

TAGS: Pearson Airport, reflection, airplane

Toronto Pearson LINK Shuttle

Creatively named and driverless 'LINK' train out for a practice spin. LINK links new central parking and all terminals. Scheduled to start regular service in July. Cost is $56 million according to various docs. Name was free.

TAGS: Toronto, Pearson Airport

Airplane-Blog Gives Green a Shot

Spotted the ad below on DeepMarket.com, a blog that researches new techniques for stock market analysis. Obvious irony in linking a blog about planes to a blog about climate change, but hey, I care too! The funky clouds in the pic above are after a hot, sweaty, smog-alert day in Toronto, ie, they're not photo-editing but they're not natural either.

Thanks a Ton for a Link!
Concerned about climate change? Want to help reduce dependence on foriegn oil? Just want to make the world a little bit better? Link back to DeepMarket from your blog and we will offset one ton of carbon through our partnership with Carbonfund.org.

Here's my link back to DeepMarket.com.

Have a green day!

TAGS: climate change, clouds

Air Show

KLM 777-206/ER approaching 33L. Real photographers must hate this, but the lighting effect is pure photo-editing which is turning out to be almost as much fun as taking the pics themselves. This is simple application of Paint Shop Pro's illumination capabilities.

TAGS: Toronto, Boeing 777, KLM, Paint Shop Pro