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Tags: AirTran / Airlines / Airline News / Livery / Airplanes / Airplane News / Sports Travel / → All Tags

AirTran Paints Its Planes To Celebrate The Birds Of The NFL

Fans of the Baltimore Ravens and Atlanta Falcons now have an easy pick when it comes to choosing their favorite airline—it has to be AirTran. The airline that loves in-flight WiFi has just released a Boeing 717 dubbed Ravens One from the hangar, and the plane is ready to shuttle fans to away games around the country.

Just a couple weeks ago, the airline pulled the masking tape off another plane dedicated to the Atlanta Falcons. It’s fitting that AirTran has a thing for football teams named after birds. However, the airline is also planning to release a plane with an Indianapolis Colts livery in just a few weeks. From what we’ve seen of Peyton Manning’s acting skills in commercials, we have little doubt that he’ll be the featured pitchman for the Colts’ new plane.

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Tags: A380 / Airplanes / Airplane News / In-Flight Showers / → All Tags

Too Many A380 Features Starting To Annoy Airbus Engineers

Smarty pants kids that dream of becoming aircraft engineers probably have blueprints for flying machines running through their imaginations. However, lacking from their vivid schematics are the plans for in-flight bathrooms, lounges, and sleeper suites. Now that the Airbus A380 is flying around the globe, the airline experience has been so much more, but that’s not something the now grown-up engineers are pleased about.

All these additional customizations that companies like Singapore Airlines and Air France just had to have cause delays, order deferrals, and budgets to go right out the window. It seems that the more airlines want out of the plane, the longer it takes for Airbus to deliver the goods. That’s bad for both the airlines with orders and the airlines without, as it’s slowing down the whole delivery and sales process. Airbus wanted to ship 13 planes by the end of the year; so far they’ve only pushed seven birds out of the nest.

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Tags: JetBlue / Airlines / Airline News / Livery / Airplanes / Airplane News / → All Tags

JetBlue Shakes Its Newest Tailfeather

You may call us whatever you want, but we really enjoy when an airline decides to change things up with their paint scheme. It’s nothing too dramatic, but JetBlue revealed some new colors, patterns, and font for their fleet last week. The most noticeable change in the livery is that they’ve really increased the size of the wording on the sides of their planes. You’ll now know that a JetBlue plane is getting ready to come into the gate from a mile away. These changes will take place over some time, so if you’re headed out to the airport this week, you’ll probably be stuck with the old livery.

Any fan of airlines knows that JetBlue loves different designs for their tails; dots, stripes, plaid...it's all theirs. Along with upgrades elsewhere, they’ve released a new tail design—blueberries. It’s pretty much just some snazzy blue circles with white at the top, but like we said—new tail designs are awesome. Despite its simplicity, we say it’s a winner, and we’ll be eager to see it from T5 at JFK. There should be five of these in the sky by the end of the year.

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Tags: Best-Factory-Tours-Map / Best Factory Tours / Boeing / Washington Travel / Airplanes / → All Tags

Tour The Boeing Factory And Enter The Largest Building In The World

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

We'll admit, today's featured factory tour may be more of our dream than yours. After all, you can ride in airplanes constantly without needing to know where they, so to speak, come from; it's that old saw about watching the sausage get made. But we've always wanted to go to the Future of Flight, and we envy the lucky travel writers who have already been to Boeing's pricey but exciting factory tour.

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Tags: Qatar Airways / Qatar / Green Travel / Airline News / Airplanes / → All Tags

Qatar Airways Flies World's First Natural Gas Commercial Jet

The culmination of a story we've been following for two years, Qatar Airways has finally launched their eco-friendly natural gas commercial jet. There will always be debates about whether it's actually better for the environment to use natural gas on such a large scale, and someday we might discover that there are costs we don't know about, but in the meantime the airline is basking in the attention that they're rightfully getting:

Qatar Airways is claiming its place in history by operating the world's first commercial flight using fuel made from natural gas, creating a potential new source of aircraft fuel for the future. The jet fuel... helped power an Airbus A340-600 from London Gatwick that landed in the Qatari capital, Doha... 'Qatar's position as the GTL capital of the world has been further enhanced with today's achievement,' Abdulla bin Hamad al-Attiyah, the country's deputy prime minister of energy and industry, said.

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Tags: Airplanes / Japan Travel / Airplane News / United / United Express / → All Tags

Japan Exports Hello Kitty, Cars, And Now Fuel-Efficient Planes

We know that Japan is great at making robots and creating Hello Kitty hype, but now this technologically-advanced, sushi-loving nation is ready to make airplanes too.

Government-backed company Mitsubishi Regional Jet (known to the cool people simply as MRJ), which also has financial support from Toyota, started off last year when Japanese carrier (and anti-pee squad) ANA ordered 25 jets for delivery from 2014. But MRJ just got a much bigger boost, with a large order being placed by US carrier Trans States (which usually flies as United Express). They want 50 jets and an option for 50 more.

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Tags: Prime-Plane-Spotting-Map / Plane Spotting / Stockholm / Stockholm Travel / Airplane News / Hostels / Airplanes / → All Tags

Nothing's Sweder Than Plane Spotting Straight From A Cockpit

We love airplanes, you love airplanes, so let's go look at airplanes! In our Prime Plane Spotting series, we'll let you in on all the best spots to whip out your cameras and binoculars for a piece of the aviation action.

Where is better for plane spotting than actually being on the airport's tarmac...or better yet, in a honeymoon suite on the tarmac? This actually became possible less than a year ago, when the Jumbo Hostel opened at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport.

This decommissioned 747 has had its seats ripped out in favor of installing 25 bedroom suites, complete with free wireless internet access and flatscreen TVs, and, for most rooms, full en-suite bathrooms. Even Singapore Airlines' A380 first class suites can't compare with these, but then the Jumbo Hostel no longer flies, so there's that.

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Tags: Bad Ideas / Seatmates / Seats / Seating / In-Flight Comfort / Airline News / Airplanes / → All Tags

New Airplane Design Proposes Seating Passengers Face-To-Face

If British design company Design Q gets its way, airplanes of the future will seat passengers in an innovative—dare we say interactive—high-density configuration. More specifically, they intend to essentially seat passengers face to face for the entire trip:

A British design company says it is working on plans for new sideways, staggered seating on airplanes as a cost-cutting option for airlines to maximize the number of passengers on board. Design Q released images of the concept, which has a row of seats facing inward on each side of the plane and two rows running back-to-back down the middle of the aircraft.

Listen. We know that sometimes we can be a little harsh about the so-called "innovations" that so-called "experts" bring to the table. We've even been known to inappropriately dismiss a good idea or two, an overreaction we put down to years of travel having made us jaded. So we want to be very clear about this:

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Tags: American Airlines / Airline News / Airplanes / Airline Safety / → All Tags

Skin Scratches Ground Some American Airlines Jets

American Airlines is in a little bit of trouble with the FAA. Last week the airline starting checking out the aluminum skin on some of their Boeing 737 planes for scratches, dents, and other damage. Apparently the gate agents responsible for the jetways aren’t always the best drivers and these bridges sometimes rub the planes the wrong way. The FAA is concerned because American didn’t notify them of these issues in a timely manner.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the carrier waited a few months before spilling the beans to the FAA, and only started to review all planes with this potential issue after the FAA told them to do so. American Airlines claims that issues with one plane donn’t make a trend; however, they are cooperating with the inspectors.

There’s about 80 planes that need to be checked out, and all of the inspections should have been wrapped up over the weekend. Three planes have been taken out of service for further service so far, so double check your flights before heading to the airport today—just in case there are a few cancellations sprinkled throughout their schedule.

Related Stories:
· FAA Probes American Air Over Boeing 737 Maintenance [WSJ]
· American Airlines Needs More Cash So We'll Pay More To Check Our Bags [Jaunted]
· Airline News coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: wbaiv]

Tags: Lavatories / Airplanes / Airlines / TSA / Delta / → All Tags

Business Class Lavatory Interloper Reaches Deal; Mile-High Toilet Rights In Question

Back in March there was a guy flying in coach class on a Delta Air Lines flight from Honduras to Atlanta who desperately needed to use the lavatory. Unfortunately, a beverage cart blocked his way to the loo, and the flight attendant wouldn't let him use the business class lavatory, because it's forbidden by some TSA policy on international airplane toilet class divisions or something. Still blocked after several minutes, the guy decided he could wait no longer, and made a break for one of the business class bogs. The flight attendant blocked him with her arm and he grabbed it to keep his balance. The captain came out, allowed him to use the lavatory, and then had him arrested in Atlanta for interfering with the flight crew. He was held in jail for two days before appearing before a federal magistrate.

Naturally, this raises some issues.

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Tags: Airplanes / A320 / Airbus / China Travel / → All Tags

Airbus A320s Get The Gold 'Made in China' Sticker

Can a country which uses people to push planes around be relied upon to manufacture an airplane from scratch? We're not too comfortable with the concept, but China has just sent its first homemade A320 on a test flight, and all went well.

It comes from the new Airbus assembly line in Tianjin, north of Beijing, which opened last year. We presume assembly line workers in Tianjin are a whole lot cheaper than in Toulouse, France; we just hope they know just as much about sticking airplane bits together as do the French who've been at it since Airbus began in the 1970s.

This first A320 is destined to fly the local skies for Sichuan Airlines, and Airbus' China branch is due to pump out another ten planes by the end of the year; by 2011, the factory's due to be producing four planes per month. Now, in addition to our toothpastes and "Italian leather" shoes, we've got to start checking our airplanes for that ubiquitous "Made in China" sticker.

Related Stories:
· China's First Airbus A320 Completes Maiden Flight [The Age]
· Chinese Airport Travel: New Solutions for Hydraulic Problems [Jaunted]
· The Modern Birds' Nest: Take the Airbus Tour [Jaunted]

[Photo: Vidiot]

Tags: Airplanes / Green Travel / Electricity / Tesla / Technology / → All Tags

All Tesla Wants for Christmas is an Electric Supersonic Airplane

Picture this: you're flying along at 35,000 feet, somewhere above Greenland on a direct to Europe, when your airplane short circuits and everything goes dark. What happens then? We have no idea, since an electric commercial airplane has not yet been invented, but electric car company Tesla is thinking about changing that.

Elon Musk, the founder of both SpaceX and of the revolutionary Tesla company, which made owning a sports car you plug into your wall acceptable if not stylish, sat down with TechCrunch to muse on the future of sustainable travel options, which for him includes the extremely awesome idea of an "electric super sonic airplane." He even states that if someone could get around to whittling out the details, since he's already got too much on his mind, this electrojet could be charging up soon:

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