Nightmare.

[MODNOD]

This is the first time i have flown, so i sort of looked forward to it, however it soon went down the pan.

Gatwick delayed from boarding for an hour, get on board further 2 hour delay, missed connecting flight in Doha. Only one flight a day to melbourne, no arrangements had been made by Qatar airways to get us to melbourne or in fact to do anything with us,( 40 passengers) that was until we started making a noise.
So in there wisdom they fly us to beijing and then transfer us to a china airways flight to melbourne, OMG don't ever fly china airways unless you really must, inflight entertainment was a camera fitted to the front of the plane for live take off and landing, not for the squeamish and a set of head phones for chinese music.

Anyway we get into melbourne 20hrs late and wait for it, yes the bags are missing and still are 3 days later.

Well at least its not snowing.

 

[Hombre]

Bamboo and Gaffa tape

Wow, what a first flying experience. At least I flew with Ascot Airlines a few times for many years.

I remember reports from the 80/90s about Khazak airliners where the pilot's son was up the front having a go at flying the plane. I bet you dreamed about China Airlines and wondered about the possible role of bamboo in the maintenance schedule.

Enjoy your holiday and I hope all is good for your return journey, or have you decided to stay.

Merry Christmas - you're not following Mike the Bee on holiday are you . . .

Hope the baggage turns up OK.

 

[Queens59]

My first ever flight was to Prague with the University for a Comparative Education lecture in 2001 - we were approaching to land when they informed us that the plane would be landed by 'an almost qualified pilot who needed Prague approach experience'...I kid you not - talk about wing waggling!!

Hope you bags turn up safely...Merry Christmas - don't get too burnt!

 

[Hombre]

I came in at Ascension, as supernumerary crew, on the air bridge Herculese tanker being landed by the co-pilot.

We bounced three times, after which the cockpit filled with light smoke and I was told that when the door opened I was to exit immediately down the ladder and avoid walking into the propellers. It was a tanker with fuel remaining in the tank in the hold/body of the aircraft. The jockeys had their heads out of the direct vision panels to see where we were going as we quickly taxied to a stop amid the fire tender/s.

All safe and I found out more about it afterwards. Something somewhere had probably become temporarily nipped with our hard landing, but passed off without further incident.

It was only dangerous, on reflection. An interesting end to an interesting day.

 

[RoofTops]

I've flown with TACA in Central America, known locally as Take A Chance Airways but I think China Airlines beats it hands down. The tables listed in the link below show it has the worst record of all the airlines listed apart from Cuban Airlines (Cross-yourself Airlines). The figures take a while to understand but it's record is about 470% worse than the average. http://www.planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm

 

[RoofTops]

I should warn nervous passengers against rummaging about on the site listed above. But the account of how a crocodile caused a crash (scared passengers run to end of aircraft and unbalance it) is grim humour at its best.

There is also a "Last Words" section which I am not going to listen to today - if at all.

PS. Wife and son both working today so Christmas has been locally postponed. Just me and the bees. I may decorate the hives with holly if I get really bored.

 

[taff..]

I've flown with TACA in Central America, known locally as Take A Chance Airways but I think China Airlines beats it hands down. The tables listed in the link below show it has the worst record of all the airlines listed apart from Cuban Airlines (Cross-yourself Airlines). The figures take a while to understand but it's record is about 470% worse than the average. http://www.planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm

here's another link that makes quite good reading

http://aviation-safety.net/index.php

the box on the right hand side shows the running total of (multi engined airliner) accidents so far this year.

it shows 30 accidents with a total number of fatalities at 927. now, when you consider that this is a statistic of worldwide flights, and then consider how many flights have taken off in the last year, then you see just how safe aviation is.

just to try and put a little bit of perspective, here is a link to the DfT's statistics for the number of motorcyclists in the UK that we Killed or seriously injured (KSI) during 2009.

the total figure is 1201. considering that there would have been far fewer motorcycle journey's during a year that passenger flights, this shows that flying is WAAAYYYYY safer than riding a bike in the UK

 

[MODNOD]

Still no bags, i wouldn't mined but know one is answering the phone numbers we have been given, will have to go and get some more gear tomorrow.

Thanks for the links but i think i will leave reading them until i get back.

Spent a fantastic day at Wilsons promontory today which is a national park at the southern most tip of oz views are fantastic and had to have a walk on squeaky beach.