Air Asia has announced it is set to commence flying with its new Indian low-cost airline by the fourth quarter of 2013. The airline is a joint venture between Air Asia and the Tata Group.

The Air Asia Group CEO, Tony Fernandes, said that by opening this new venture, its customers would be able to travel by the same low-cost airline brand from Japan all the way to India.

The airline will be based at Chennai, in southern India, and will use Air Asia’s Airbus A320s if permitted. Air Asia will also carry out maintenance for the airline.

India is already a booming low-cost industry, with a number of airlines already well-established and carrying a large number of passengers every year. However, Air Asia’s brand is well known and established, and it is likely to make significant inroads into the market.

Air Asia, based in Malaysia, currently has subsidiary airlines in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines.

The Boeing 727 is becoming quite a rare aircraft to see in action these days. Thankfully there are still a number stored and preserved around the world.

Most of the active examples are flown in cargo configuration, with only a few examples still flying passengers (see my Last Chance to Fly ebook for a list of airlines still flying 727s and other rare airliners).

So where can you catch Boeing 727s in action? Here’s a list of some of the airports which have a number of 727s based or visiting regularly.

USA
Memphis, TN – The main super hub for FedEx Express, which is the world’s largest operator of Boeing 727 aircraft. All of its -100 models are gone, but around 40 -200s are still flying and can be seen overnight at Memphis.

Detroit Willow Run, MI – Primarily a cargo airport, Willow Run is home to Kalitta Charters and its fleet of 727-200s.

Florida – A number of 727s operate out of Opa Locka in Florida, including a private example, and also out of Orlando International and Miami International airports.

Colombia
Bogota – One of the world’s busiest airports for Boeing 727 flights. Local cargo operators AeroSucre and Lineas Aereas Suramericanas operate a mixed fleet of -100s and -200s from the airport every day.

Malaysia Airlines yesterday rolled out its first aircraft painted in the oneworld livery.

The Airbus A330-300, seen here, was revealed at a ceremony at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, as Malaysia Airlines joined the alliance.

Other airlines in oneworld include airberlin, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Qantas, Royal Jordanian and S7 Airlines, and around 30 affiliates.  Malaysia Airlines will join on 1 February 2013 with SriLankan Airlines and Qatar Airways on track to join soon.

The aircraft will make its first commercial flight in its new look today, operating as flight MH129 from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne, departing at 10.15 am. Another two aircraft in its fleet will be decorated in this alliance livery in the coming months.

Malaysia Airlines will begin flying  their Airbus A380 aircraft to Paris from 1st March 2013.

The aircraft will operate from Kuala Lumpur to Paris Charles de Gaulle on a daily basis, replacing the current Boeing 777 equipment.

One for the spotters to watch out for!

 A good friend of mine, Andrew Solum, and British Airways‘ Head of UK & Ireland Sales, Richard Tams, are about to embark upon a fantastic journey in the hope of raising money for charity.

Their target is to raise £20,000 for the Comic Relief Flying Start charity, supported by British Airways and aimed at improving the lives of countless children every year.

Their challenge? Well, they’ve got to get around the world in seven days, starting in New York on 15th September, and using every Oneworld airline partner.

The journey will start with American Airlines from New York to Chicago then on to the Tokyo Narita international hub of Japan Airlines.

The following day they will fly with Japan Airlines from Tokyo to the Hong Kong home of Cathay Pacific and on September 17 undertake a three-flight schedule from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur with Cathay Pacific, Kuala Lumpur to Singapore with Malaysia Airlines, which is on track to join oneworld at the turn of the year. They will then travel on from Singapore to London Heathrow with Qantas arriving early on September 18.

British Airways will carry them on to Amman, base of Royal Jordanian.

On September 19 they will fly from Amman to Frankfurt with Royal Jordanian, then with airberlin to Germany’s capital city.

On September 20, they will take to the air again with airberlin to Frankfurt, then off with LAN to Madrid. From its base at the Spanish capital, Iberia will then carry them to the Moscow hub of S7, landing early on September 21, before a swift transfer to S7 for a flight to St. Petersburg.

The following day (September 22) they will begin the last leg of their journey heading with Finnair from St Petersburg to its own Helsinki home then on to Heathrow to connect on to their final flight, a British Airways jet from London to New York arriving at 8.55pm local time.

In total they will cover just over 30,000 miles, flying along the way on every oneworld member airline and via 11 of the alliance’s major hubs.

Tams said: “I’ve done a lot of flying in my time at British Airways, but never so many destinations in such a short period. We’ll be going through 16 airports, flying on ten different aircraft types and visiting 11 countries on 12 airlines. We won’t even have time to stop and enjoy the views!

Mr Solum, a management consultant and oneworld Emerald top tier frequent flyer, said “it will be tough going on standby staff tickets with no guarantee where we’ll be seated, but at the end of the day, every penny we raise will make a difference to a child – and that is really our driving force for this challenge.”

Tams added “We’re enormously grateful to our oneworld partners for supporting our challenge – it’s a great reflection of the reach the alliance has. I’d also like to thank our hotel partners in this, the Global Hotel Alliance, Starwood and Marriott.”

“The travel trade have also already been really supportive and we’ve already hit £8,000+ of our target but we really want to reach at least £20,000 so we’re asking everyone to dig deep and help us out. Anyone can pledge money at:

http://donate.ba-flyingstart.com/funraiser/roundtheoneworld.”

The money raised will all go directly to Flying Start, the global charity partnership between British Airways and Comic Relief UK. It will help to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of children living in the UK and in some of the poorest countries across the world. The aim of the charity is to help create lasting change by giving children and their families the chance to start supporting themselves.

The intrepid travellers will be blogging their adventures and experiences, so stay tuned for further details!

For many in the UK, this week’s Farnborough Air Show was a thrilling chance to see and step aboard the new Airbus A380 in Malaysia Airlines colours.

Their second example, 9M-MNB, was flown to the event for demonstration whilst their first example -MNA has recently entered service on the carrier’s Kuala Lumpur – London Heathrow service.

So where can you see these shiny new behemoth’s? Initially, the Malaysia A380s will be flown on the following routes (all from Kuala Lumpur):

• London Heathrow (3x weekly, until it goes 1x daily on 25 August 2012)
• Sydney (1x daily from 25 November 2012)
• Tokyo Narita (1x daily from 25 November 2012)
• Beijing (1x daily from 1 March 2013)

If you get to fly on the aircraft please leave a comment and let us know what it was like!

Ian Weepers recently wrote this interesting report from his visit to Kota Kinabalu Airport serving Borneo and eastern Malaysia.
Kota Kinabalu is the main airport serving the Sabah province of Borneo. The airport has two terminals, Terminal One is used predominately by Malaysian Airlines, there is no viewing area landside, but once you are airside, you get good views of all parked aircraft. I positioned myself in the area between Gates B4 and B5; from here you can read off any landing traffic on Runway 20. MAS have a maintenance hangar here, and you can get a good view into the hangar from Gate B3. Terminal Two is used solely by AirAsia, once again there are no views landside. On the left hand side of the terminal is the Cargo area, during the day Transmile have their B727 and B737 parked here, also parked in this area during my visit, were helicopters involved in transporting personal to the nearby oil rigs.
On the right hand side of the terminal, is an area where you can get reasonable photographs of aircraft parked in front of the terminal and also aircraft taxiing to the holding point of runway 02. From this point you can walk past the Sabah Flying club, the only aircraft noted here during my visit was 9M-LLI GAF Nomad, walking through the car park and bearing right you will find a track that takes you past the Sabah Air Aviation hangar, about 100 metres along from here on the left is the Malaysian Police hanger, 9M-PSQ C208 was noted on most of my visits.

After passing the police hanger you can follow the road down to the local viewing area, from here you get views of aircraft parked at Terminal One and have good views of the runway and aircraft taxiing to the holding point of runway 02, but unless you have an air conditioned car I don`t think you could last long here as the heat and humidity are oppressive.
We stayed at The Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa during our visit and it took about 40 minutes to walk along the adjacent beach to the viewing area
mentioned above.

A selection of aircraft noted during 13/03-25/03.

A319…9V-SBH, RP-C3193, RP-C3196, V8-RBR.
A320… 9M-AFO,AFR,AHC,AHD,AH I,AH J,AHO,AHQ,AHS,AHV,AHZ,AQA,B, V8-RBS,RBT.
AS350/5…9M-LLV, 9M-PHK.
ATR 72…9M-MWA,MWB,MWC,MWD,MWE,MWF,MWG,MWH,MWI,MWJ.
B350…9M-PTB.
B727F…9M-TGB,TGG, TGH.
B737F..9M-PMW.
B737NG…9M-FFA, FFB, 9M-MXA, MXB, HL8204.
B777…V8-BLB.BLC.BLD,BLF.
DHC6…9M-MDK, MDL,
EC225…9M-AIT.
LJ45…VH-PFS.
S76…9M-AIK.
S92…9M-AIH.

With thanks to Ian Weepers.

Have you been to any unusual airports? Can you write a report for us to post? Get in touch if so!

Kuala Lumpur International Airport is to open a new Low Cost Carrier (LCC) terminal in October 2012, which will see a capacity of up to 15 million passengers per year.

The airport only opened its existing LCC terminal in 2006, mainly to cater for the growing number of low cost airline flights by carriers such as Air Asia, who are very big in the country.

Now, to cope with demand, the new terminal – dubbed KLIA2 – will be built to offer more room for expansion and greater comfort for passengers. It will be situated opposite the main terminal.

Once open, the existing LCC terminal will be given over to use as a cargo terminal.

Kuala Lumpur’s modern new airport (KLIA) luckily provides very acceptable facilities for spotting aircraft.

In the International Terminal, follow signs for the viewing area, which is upstairs past the food court.

The large room overlooks most of the parking areas, and has views extending to both runways. It is surrounded by glass, but is usually acceptable for photography. There are seats and departures/arrivals boards provided.

You can see across to the pier, but not beyond it, which makes it difficult to see anything parked on the maintenance or cargo ramps. These can, however, be seen if you are in the remote pier departure areas.