Air Asia

[asiaworld]

After reading all the excited post abt. budget carriers, i just found one news, it's on

http://www.cambothai.com/cambonews.html also an interesting startup website, so here it was ;

Landing gear scare for Air Asia flight

July 16, 2007

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia --An Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur landed safely in the Cambodian capital Monday after being forced to circle around the airport for about 10 minutes when its landing gear initially failed to deploy, an aviation official said.

There were 130 passengers on board the Airbus A320 which landed at about 4:30 p.m., said Keo Sivorn, head of Flight Safety Operations at Cambodia's Secretariat of Civil Aviation.

"The plane had to circle, flying for about 10 minutes around the airport before its landing gear worked properly," he said. "Now it has landed safety and all the passengers are fine."

The plane was operated by Malaysia-based Air Asia.

Four fire trucks were standing by in case the plane had trouble on landing, Keo Sivorn added.

He said technicians were inspecting the plane to find out why the landing gear failed and see if it had any other problems.

On June 25, a Russian-made An-24 plane crashed during a storm while flying to the southern coastal town of Sihanoukville, killing all 22 people on board. It had taken off from Siem Reap, the country's main tourist hub and site of the famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

The plane was operated by PMT Air, a small Cambodia airline that began flights in January from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville, a new route launched to spur the country's burgeoning tourism industry.

The last major air accident in Cambodia was in 1997, when a Vietnam Airlines TU-134B crashed while trying to land during a rainstorm at Phnom Penh International Airport, killing more than 60 people.

[britmaveric]

Happens on most airlines I'm sorry to say.

[B-BOY]

I'm glad Vietnam Airlines has outphased all their TUPOLEV's after last fatal incident in 1997. They have kept solid record since then...knock wood...

except a small incident last year:

17. April 2006: Pilots flying a Boeing 777 from Hanoi to Frankfurt lost communication with ground control for more than an hour as the aircraft flew over Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic. After Czech air traffic controllers tried unsuccessfully to contact the plane for 25 minutes, the Czech Air Force sent two jet fighters to flank the airliner. The pilots then realized their mistake and turned the communications system on. The pilots were suspended by the airline and made to undergo more training before they could fly again. It's also been said but denied that the pilots had fallen asleep and the crew are supposed to check on them every fifteen minutes, but they did not.

Edited September 19, 2007 by B-BOY

[chavy]

Nice to know our lives are in safe hands

[cdnvic]

The Air Asia incident is not a big deal really. The Vietnam Airlines one is a bit more serious, considering the crowded skies over Europe.

[peter991]

What is the difference between a budget airline and a national airline? These days most countries have both - usually an offshoot of their national carrier - think QANTAS and Jetstar, Singaore Airlines and Tiger Airways etc.

Just as a large supermarket chain has greater efficiencies than a mom-and-pop corner store, budget carriers can have lower overheads by turning their planes around faster at airports - for example, AirAsia has an aircraft turn around time of 22 minutes at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and keeps planes in the air 10 hours a day. Pilots are also taught to burn 770 US gallons of fuel per hour, compared with the 1,100 gallons burnt per hour by Malaysia Airlines. As a result, AirAsia has the lowest costs per average seat per kilometre in the world.

Peter

[wileycoyote]

I think I will give Air Asia the benefit of the doubt

Wiley Coyote

[Heng]

Hopefully Tony Fernandes doesn't want to have the "biggest" airline in the world at the expense of safety.

[torrenova]

What is the difference between a budget airline and a national airline? These days most countries have both - usually an offshoot of their national carrier - think QANTAS and Jetstar, Singaore Airlines and Tiger Airways etc.

Just as a large supermarket chain has greater efficiencies than a mom-and-pop corner store, budget carriers can have lower overheads by turning their planes around faster at airports - for example, AirAsia has an aircraft turn around time of 22 minutes at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and keeps planes in the air 10 hours a day. Pilots are also taught to burn 770 US gallons of fuel per hour, compared with the 1,100 gallons burnt per hour by Malaysia Airlines. As a result, AirAsia has the lowest costs per average seat per kilometre in the world.

Peter

Just why would Malaysia deliberately burn more fuel ? Or why would every airline not try to burn the least amount of fuel ? Doesn't make sense for Malaysia to burn an extra 330 gallons or 43% more. Any source for this confidential information ?

[cdnvic]

Hopefully Tony Fernandes doesn't want to have the "biggest" airline in the world at the expense of safety.

There's no evidence that he would.