This week, to celebrate Denmark’s win the in the Eurovision Song Contest, it’s a Scandinavian Airlines System Airbus A330 parked at Newark International Airport

More airplane art (with no Eurovision link) next week!

This week – its Monarch Airlins… with what can only be described as “dry”, if prescriptive safety video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another safety video next week!

Between May and July 2014, one of the runways at Dubai International Airport is being resurfaced, with major engineering work taking place

During this period it means that flights may be cancelled, delayed, rescheduled and in some cases – diverted to the new Dubai World Central airport at Jebel Ali. Diverted traffic will include

• Air freighter traffic
• Airline Charters
• General Aviation flights

The impact of delays at Dubai cannot be underestimated as Emirates have helped turn the airport into a major hub and nexus point. Delays will impact both Origin and Destination traffic as well as connecting passenger traffic from most points of the world.

Negotiations are under way over flight reductions during the engineering period – whilst optimising capacity.  Already, the consultation period for Dubai airports of schedule coordination has begun to allow an easier transition to the restricted access..

Dubai World Central Airport will be also be open at this point  – which will allow it to be an overflow airport during the works if needed.

Airlines as yet haven’t posted their schedules on how these works will be affecting them – but make no mistake… it will cause some serious issues. A quick glance of this article by ACL indicates a 22% service cut for “Home Airlines” (Emirates and FlyDubai)  and up to 50% cuts for airlines who operate more than once daily out of Dubai.

And that’s one hell of a cut in capacity.

First up is New York to Stockholm which will get a 757-200 for the summer, with 6 services a week in June, reducing to 5 services a week in July and finally 4 services a week in August:

DL 202 DEPART JFK 21:45 ARRIVE ARN 12:20+1
DL 203 DEPART ARN 14.20 ARRIVE JFK 16:50
Booked Equipment: Boeing 757-200
See operational notes below for schedule. 
From 01 June 2013 to 29th June 2013:
DL 202 operates All days except Thursday
DL 203 operates All days except Friday
From 01 July 2013 to 31 July 2013
DL 202 operates Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday
DL 203 operates Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday 
From  02 August 2013 to 31 August 2013
DL 202 operates Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday
DL 203 operates Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday

Meanwhile, New York to Copenhagen will be getting a significant boost over the summer with a 767-300. Services start off with a 4 times a week service in June, ramping up to a full daily service for July and August:

DL118 DEPART JFK 19:30  ARRIVE CPH 08:15+1
DL119 DEPART CPH 11:30  ARRIVE JFK 13:50 
Booked Equipment: Boeing 767-300
See operational notes below. 
From 01 June 2013 to 15th June 2013:
- DL118 operates Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,Saturday
- DL119 operates Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday
From 15 June 2013
- DL118 operates Daily to 01 September 2013
- DL119 operates Daily to 02 September 2013

Both services will be operated in conjunction with Air France-KLM under the Transatlantic Joint Venture agreement – and available through all the usual ticketing agents

The summer is a critical travel season as people jet off to other climbs for a break. Seeing these services is a good sign that Delta can look at these markets and move appropriately to them.

That and more direct routes are never a bad thing.

Image – Asiana Airlines

From this, PSY will be doing publicity for Asiana via Facebook and Twitter, working with the airline to promote it at events and attend in-house events. In return, PSY will get First class/Business Class travel free for a year from Asiana.

Both seem happy with the arrangement. Asiana Airlines President and CEO Young-Doo Yoon says:

“We hope that this honorary ambassador appointment of Psy can help Asiana contribute to K-POP’s growth and development, and further promote both Psy and Asiana’s brand”

PSY states:

“I appreciate Asiana offering me top class seats on all the routes it operates, to support me to do the best I can whenever and wherever. I will actively make a career all over the world this year.”

Of course, there’s a video to go with it. Here’s the version with the English subtitles…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Well it’s good publicity for Asiana, and it won’t hurt PSY as he jets off around the world with whatever catchy song he comes up with….

What do I think of Asiana Airlines? A damn good airline that has a lovely warmth to it. I’ve flow it in First and Business Class and you can see the trip reports here for my views on their service!

It seems there is minor fiddling with the boarding process where those with not much baggage can skip ahead

The table on the AA site has been updated too:

Source : http://www.aa.com/i18n/urls/boarding.jsp?anchorLocation=DirectURL&title=boarding

As airlines seem to decrease load times and convice use to carry less, this is another tactic it seems to get those with no lover head luggage on first.

Hopefully this will not a prelude to AA charging for overhead bin luggage…

Their next stop seems to be at Brisbane as part of a stopover onto Auckland. The timetable looks like this:

EK434 DEPART DXB 10:25 ARRIVE BNE 06:05+1 DEPART 07:50+1  ARRIVE AKL 14:15+1
EK435 DEPART AKL 18:30 ARRIVE BNE 19:15   DEPART 21:00    ARRIVE DXB 05:20+1
Effective from 1st October 2013
Booked equipment: Airbus A380
Equipment until 30th September: Boeing 777-300ER
Changes from Aukland start 1 day later.

There is also another result with this change – and that’s Aukland will have a 3x daily service to Dubai with Airbus A380 equipment.

The Dubai – Brisbane – Auckland service will be operated with a 489 seater A380 on this route.

For Brisbane and Aukland, it’s more capacity that Emirates will be happy to sell.

Southwest Airlines 737 MAX 7 – Rendering: The Boeing Company

The airline will take 30 of the class, converting orders of 30 Boeing 737 NG’s to the new aircraft, along with 5 737-800NG aircraft. Southwest were also the launch customer of the 737 MAX-8 series – with orders of 150 aircraft.

The 737 MAX-7 is the smallest member of the 737-MAX family, which will measure 110ft long – and will be be powered by CFM International LEAP-1B engines. The new plane is meant to have a longer range of 400nm longer than the existing 737-700.

Southwest operate a total of 574 Boeing 737′s four different subclasses (-300, -500, -700, -800) and were also the launch customer for those classes – making Southwest the largest operate of the Boeing 737 in the world.

For the airline, there is a major fleet renewal in progress with older 737-300 and -500′s being replaced with 737-770′s, -800′s – and now MAX-7/MAX-8′s. They have 137 Boeing 737NG aircraft in a backlog and now 180 Boeing 737MAX’s.

Southwest Airlines is expected to take its first 737 MAX 7 delivery in 2019.

The 737MAX is going to be an interesting development in the battle of the next generation single isle aircraft – with promises of longer ranges and lower costs.

The big question is – can it’s competitors keep up? Airbus have already showing off their next generation single isle aircraft (the Airbus A320 NEO Family), with competition slowly growing in China from the Comac C919 and Russian Irkut MS-21.

For Southwest – it’s a step to the future.

Easyjet is trying to attempt to change this, by changing the size of the cabin bags allowed. The new size that will be guarenteed overhead bin space is 50cm x 40cm x 20cm.

Bags up to 56cm x 45cm x 25cm will still be allowed onboard still – however, these are subject to be gate-checked in the hold if the flight is busy.

Cabin bags remain uncharaged (unlike Wizz Air), and remain at 23kg maximum weight (which is a lot more than some of EasyJets rivals – Aer Lingus allows 10kg, Ryanair 10kg with BA only allowing 23kg as cabin luggage).

To avoid this, buying Speedy Boarding or trying to get on as fast as you can after Speedy Boarding could help to secure your overhead bin space (as well as having the right sized luggage).

It’s a way of controlling overhead bin usage – and whilst some people will still have to gate check their items if they’re outside the first set of limits – it’ll mean at least there are less delays during loading.

However, for those boarding near the end of the process, be prepared to gate-check your precious things…

Sunset over the Rocky Mountains – taken from the Crowne Plaza Denver.