Showing posts with label Sir Richard Branson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sir Richard Branson. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

My How Time Flies: Ah 1 and Ah 2

It was mid May of 2013 when I first meet Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg in a very big white tent on the tarmac of the executive aviation area at DFW International Airport. The name of Bertrand Piccard was more familiar to me having followed his efforts to fly around the world or across the Atlantic in  balloons. Another, who I had known, had tried the balloon thing and splashed down in the North Atlantic bobbing around for three days until a Russian Trawler had picked him up and saved him from hypothermia. Karl was every bit excentric in that way but had made a few million along the way but was more excited about the adventure than money and the journey was just as excited. Racing in the latest of designs in sailing boats from New Zeland to New York was just as much fun to Karl and his sailing experience may have kept him afloat until his rescue. I'm just saying, it might have.

Still, meeting Andre and Bertrand was an honor for me and their own excentric personalities had propelled them across the United States in Solar Impulse 1 after lift off at Moffett Field in the Bay Area. They were very much aviators and had crossed paths with excentric aviators like Karl and Sir Richard Branson in more recent years beyond Lindberg and the Spirit of St. Louis. Albeit Lindberg's son today is a friend of both Andre and Bertrand and support their efforts.It's like Jack Lemmon once said:" If you are a success at what you do, you send the elevator back down as many times as you can."

Now, Solar Impulse 2 has begun its trip RTW (round the world), departing from Abu Dhabi to Oman on the first leg piloted by Andre. The second leg was Bertrand from Oman to Ahmedabad, India. SI2 is scheduled to land again in Phoenix as it makes it way around the earth. I am hoping that the trip will bring them to DFW again, although I cannot be sure at this point if that will be the case. Frankly, I really don't want to know at this early stage of their trip.

My best wishes to the two co-founders of this project, Bertrand and Andre, their wives and families, their chase teams, support teams in Morocco where their mission control functions. They proved that they can fly from the west coast of the US to the east coast and not use a drop of fuel. The bigger proof is the future of solar energy which I  support for the current generation and the generations to follow. Aviation has led the way for so long, it isn't surprising to see aviation leading again with bringing solar energy into the forefront once again. Congratulations on your RTW endeavor Bertrand and Andre. My prayers are with you all.
Co-Founder and Pilot Andre Borschberg at DFW International 24 May 2013 during Solar Impulse 1 "Flight Across America"
Co-Founder and Pilot Bertrand Piccard at DFW International 24 May 2013 during Solar Impulse 1 "Flight Across America"

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Airline Battles in Dallas

Besides American's latest worry at DFW and their loss of gates at Love,  there is a new battle taking place at Love Field and DFW. At Love Field, there are twenty gates. Southwest has control over 16 of them. Virgin American won the 2 gates up for grab as a result of the American Airline merger. Virgin, after its official win will give up its gates at DFW. American had been leasing those gates to Delta. United had the remaining 2 gates.

The City of Dallas just informed Delta that they had two weeks to vacate their gates. As everyone knows here in Dallas, the Wright Amendment that previously had held Southwest captive to where it could fly will expires on October 13. Virgin needs their gates. In fact, they have made full use of those gates with expanded service out of  Love Field and they haven't even begun to fly from Love until October 13. Delta just announced that they will sue the City of Dallas over those gates. Southwest is throwing a party to say good-bye to the Wright Amendment.

Meanwhile, over at the big airport. Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines is fearful of the Emirates Airbus 380 service. In fact, the Businessweek article head line read," Emirates Flies into America and U.S. Airlines Grow Anxious. While Tim Clark, Emirates Airline President is grabbing up all the available gates he can get at airports were American airports can already handle or are planning to expand to be able to handle the super-giant, A-380. Emirates sees a market in the States. They only have less than 10 percent of it currently.

Last Monday, September 29th, Qantas beat even Emirates with the arrival of yet another daily A-380 to DFW. So while Doug Parker was talking about his fear of Emirates, Qantas arrived with their A-380 daily service to Sydney. At any rate, there are now two A-380s arriving at DFW daily. It does appear that Parker is concerned about Emirates more, however, because they fly more A-380s than anyone and are buying more. Funny, Parker should be worried.  His airline doesn't even own  one A-380 and does not seem to have any plans to get one. American, with one of the oldest fleets  of all the airlines started to upgrade. There was also a rebranding of American with a new livery that still leaves customers unhappy with the new look. While still in bankruptcy, American began to replace their MD-80s with 737s, 777, and other like craft.Now that they are out of the courts, Doug seems to be worried about Emirates.

So while Gary Kelly is happy as the number one airline at Love and everyone loves the new paint on Southwest, it's his counter part, Doug Parker who controls more gates at DFW that seems to be unhappy. So unhappy, it seems, that one of his planes at DFW was recently see going head to head with the Emirates A-380 on the taxiway at DFW. Appearance IS everything, Doug.

Even Sir Richard Branson is happy. He is about ready to take off into space. Virgin American and Southwest  can fly your passengers to New Mexico to the Virgin Galactic space port.  Hang in there Doug, somehow you will figure out how to get your own A-380. Perhaps you can spearhead a renaming of your partner airline, One World, to something that's not so limited.
Qantas' A-380. Check out the kangaroo with the cowboy hat on!




American Airlines 777 and the new Emirates double deck A-380 on the taxiways at DFW

It All Started in the wee hours of May 28th when 80 MPH winds was tossing everything against the side of my house.

 Those winds were substained for well over 40 minutes. The results were trees everywhere down or large branches broken off. One of my bus ro...