by Lufthansa Flyer | Aug 11, 2015 | 747-8i, Featured, Lufthansa |
In case you missed it, last week was a week to forget for Lufthansa’s D-ABYA, their first 747-8i that entered service back on June 1, 2012.
On 2 separate occasions, ‘Brandi’ had to make unscheduled landings due to smoke/fire alarms in the nose gear bay being triggered. When fire alarms go off, the plane has to land ASAP. No questions, no debate and if not possible, no fuel dump.
The first incident took place only a few minutes into her flight on Tuesday August 4 from Frankfurt to Rio de Janeiro. She returned safely shortly after take off and passengers were booked on later flights to Rio.
Then on August 7, while enroute from Frankfurt to New York (JFK), she was forced to land in Manchester, England for the same reason. ‘YA’ spent the night in MAN and flew back with her passengers to FRA the next day. Passengers were accommodated at local hotels in MAN and then rebooked on flights to get them to NYC after returning to FRA.
Thanks to a few well placed sources (FlyerTalk’s Oliver2002 for example), the reason behind these false alarms has been discovered. Apparently Frankfurt’s ground crews had jammed a tow bar in the nose gear of D-ABYA and in the process of freeing it damaged the smoke and fire sensors.
The problem has been identified and resolved. Fortunately it had nothing to do with the aircraft itself or its reliability but rather with a ground handler that should have paid better attention to what they were doing around a 350 million dollar aircraft!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Aug 9, 2015 | Featured, Lufthansa, Strike |
LUFTHANSA and the union that represents the majority of their cabin crews, ‘UFO’, have both expressed optimism after recent negotiations.
Initially the union had given Lufthansa until September 1 to propose acceptable solutions to the dispute, but thanks to the success of the negotiations the deadline has been moved back to November 1. According to comments from LH and the union, it appears that they have found common ground on several issues, yet have a few more to resolve.
With this recent development and the fact that the Pilot’s union is also satisfied with the current pace of negotiations, it appears that strike threats have been eliminated for the coming months.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Aug 8, 2015 | Featured, Route Announcements, Star Alliance |
AIR CANADA (Rouge):
Vancouver – Honolulu effective between February 19 and April 22 will increase from 7x/week to 9x/week.
Vancouver – Kahului effective between February 21 and April 21 will increase from 7x/week to 10x/week.
Vancouver – Kona effective between February 20 and April 23 will increase from 1x/week to 2x/week.
AIR CHINA:
Beijing – Addis Ababa effective November 2 will BEGIN 3x/week service (Delayed from October 26)
Beijing – Minsk – Budapest effective October 25 will be reduced from 4x/week to 3x/week.
AIR NEW ZEALAND:
Auckland – Brisbane effective December 11 will increase from 14x/week to 16x/week.
ANA:
Tokyo (HND) – Beijing effective October 25 will increase from 1x/day to 2x/day.
Tokyo (HND) – Guangzhou effective October 25 will BEGIN 1x/day service.
Tokyo (HND) – Shanghai effective October 25 will BEGIN 1x/day service.
COPA:
Panama City – Belize City effective December 8 will BEGIN 2x/week service.
ETHIOPIAN:
Addis Ababa – Seychelles effective September 16 will increase from 3x/week to 4x/week.
EVA:
Tapei – Houston effective February 4 will increase from 4x/week to 6x/week.
LUFTHANSA:
Frankfurt – Luxembourg effective October 25 will BEGIN 4x/day service.
SINGAPORE:
Singapore – Brisbane effective between December 1 and February 10 will increase from 21x/week to 24x/week.
UNITED:
San Francisco – Shanghai launch of 2nd daily service has been CANCELLED.
