Olympic Airlines Is Gone.... Or Is It?

It seems that Greek flag-carrier Olympic Airlines will be replaced by a new airline company with a different name. Olympic Airlines was created by the Greek government back in 2003 to replace the old Olympic - Olympic Airways. The government has tried time and time again to privatize it, and with the latest attempt unsuccessful, it seems that they're going to shut it down and relaunch it.

Details are still sketchy, but the new entity will apparently have the word 'Olympic' in its new name. Some possibilities as of now are Olympic Air or Air Olympic.

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Air Canada 767s Go Silver

In an effort to save cash, Air Canada is testing out the polished à-la-American look on its Boeing 767 fleet. The whole process shaves off 360 pounds of weight on each plane, which means AC will save about $24,000 per year on fuel costs. Not all 767s will be polished, and of course, Airbus crafts can't be polished because of the material they're made out of (no idea what it is, though).

Personally, I think the new 'toothpaste tube' paint job is OK, but it just doesn't go with polished aluminum. American's scheme is a classic, and Northwest did a decent job with their new paint job too. But the fuselage looks like it's been sanded with 120 grit sandpaper by a woodworking class.

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Delta, Air France - KLM, and Northwest

In this day and age, there are a lot airlines allinces, but none stronger than one existing within SkyTeam. Delta and Air France have, for years, had very strong ties. Northwest and KLM are considered, by many, to be one airline, especially with their profit sharing. Now that Air France and KLM are one airline, the image has almost come full circle. The one missing peice is the joining of Delta and Northwest, to create the biggest airline, ever. Together, could emerge from Chapter 11, and be the face of the all new American aviation industry. One of the main barriers is that there are no aircraft that the two airlines have in common, except for the 757-200, but even those have different engines! One of the best things that the two airlines have that is different is their route structure. Northwest has a very extensive Pacific route network, and Delta has a pretty large European route structure, which has expansion in store. The presence over the Atlantic could be incresed using the Northwest 757-200's, like Continental (The Delta 757-200's have non-ETOPS engines). Sure, some aircraft would have to go, such as the DC-9, the DC-10, the 737-200, the 737-300, and the 747-200, but that is okay. The most important thing is to have most of the legacy carriers out of bankrupcy. It is possible that this new carrier may cause troubles for some of the other legacy carriers, but I do not think that we will see any of them going away any time soon.

Just my two cents...

~MD-11

Be sure to check back tomorrow for my opinions on today's aviation related stories.

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Delta: Pilots Strike Would Be 'Murder-Suicide'

Yesterday, Delta Air Lines said that if their pilots were to go on strike, it would be'murder-suicide' for the third largest airline in the U.S. That's right, folks - we're looking at a very distinct possibility that come next week, Delta may not exist anymore.

Sure, we've heard it all before - United was going to fail back in '02. It was going to be curtains for American back in '03. And just how many times has everyone - myself included - stuck a fork in US Airways, pronouncing them dead? The most recent time was during last December. But now US Airways has a relatively promising future ahead of them, with the merger with America West and all that. In short, since 9/11 and the resulting industry tailspin, we have yet to see a major US legacy carrier bite the dust. Everyone knows that it will take just one carrier to collapse for the situation to improve drastically for everyone else. So it's been a game of chicken so far - and although all those airlines have filed for Chapter 11 or warned about Chapter 7 - nobody's actually gone under yet.

So could a strike by the pilots really kill Delta? Well, first we'd have to see whether the pilots are really going to strike or not. Delta wants $325 million more out of their payroll - on top of the $1 billion they conceded last year. If the pilot's contract is rejected in bankruptcy court, the ALPA has warned, the 6000 pilots at Delta will walk off the job. And according to the company, that would be illegal, saying that the Railway Labor Act would prevent such a thing. The RLA basically makes the would-be strikers resort to bargaining, mediation, arbitration, etc. instead of actually striking.

What's the company saying about this? They're basically dismissing it as a hollow threat. I believe that the top brass at Delta think that the pilots won't really strike. After all, a pilots strike by Eastern Airlines pilots in 1989 virtually killed the company. But it's definately a news item worth watching. Delta may believe that its pilots are just blowing smoke, but if you reported a $1.13 billion quarterly loss just a few days ago, wouldn't you be worried?

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Hello! from MD-11

Hi, I am MD-11 and I will be posting my opinions on current events in the aviation world! Today I am going to start off with the newly announced Boeing 747-8, so here it goes:

Today, Boeing FINALLY announced their plan to release a new 747!

But, they had to screw it up, by calling it the 747-8 Intercontinental, what's up with that? Why the heck don't they just call it the 747-800, or, even better, the 747-5, or, my personal favorite, the 747-500!

How long did it take for Boeing to finally realize that they might actually be able to undercut Airbus on this one, for once! I mean, they already had the main design from 40 years ago, all that they had to do was to strengthen the fuselage and extend the freaking upper deck, how hard would that be to do!

At least, Boeing says that it will have less wake vortex than the WhaleJet, one good thing!

An unfortunate thing that has come up with the 747-8 is that there are no orders for the passenger version, but these orders will hopefully come, especially with JAL's recent announcement to retire its 747-200's and its 747-300's.

~MD-11

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New Member Onboard

I've decided to let my friend MD-11 join the blog. He'll post his various rants, raves, etc. - not as often as I will, but it's still nice to have an opposing viewpoint now and then.

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New Boeing 747 Model Launched

Big - literally - big news. Today Boeing launched its biggest aircraft ever, the 747-8, which will enter service sometime in late 2009. Already it (well, the cargo version, at least) has gotten 5 billion dollars in orders from Luxembourg's Carolux and Japan's Nippon Cargo Airlines. Boeing says that its new plane will bridge the gap between current aircraft on the market and the mammoth A380, produced by archrival Airbus.

According to Boeing, there's also going to be a passenger version that's capable of seating 450 - about 105 smaller than the A380. So far, however, no airline has ordered the pax version, which has been dubbed the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. Most airlines who are interested in the 747 already have various models of it, the most numerous of which is the -400. But Boeing is bragging that the Intercontinental won't need to have upgraded airport facilities to handle it like the A380 will.

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