Singapore Airlines has announced it will end Airbus A340-500 operations from the end of October 2013.

These are aircraft are used on what are currently the world’s longest passenger air routes, between Singapore and Los Angeles, and Singapore and Newark. Both are operated non-stop, with the aircraft in an all business class layout.

The Newark service will end on 24 November 2013.

The airline will retire the aircraft at this time.

 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!

Thai Airways is to received its first Airbus A380 in September, with entry to service due in October.

The aircraft recently appeared in full colours at the Hamburg Finkenwerder facility in Germany, where it had recently flown to for painting.

Thai will use their Airbus A380s on routes from Bangkok to European destinations such as Frankfurt and Paris CDG. Initially they will operate to Hong Kong and Singapore from 28 October, and from Januray also to Tokyo Narita.

THAI will become the ninth operator of the A380 when it takes delivery of first the aircraft in the third quarter this year. The airline has firm orders for six A380s.

Singapore Changi Airport has recently been redeveloping the older Terminal 1 building to bring it in line with the rest of the airport.

As part of the redevelopment, Terminal 1′s Viewing Gallery has been renovated and is now open again.

Popular with spotters and locals who want to watch the action, the viewing gallery at Singapore Airport looks out over the gates and one of the airport’s runways. It now also has an extended glass facade which has created a ‘floating’ floor, allowing visitors to look down on the action below.

Terminal 1 at Singapore Changi Airport is home to most international airlines, and is a good position to watch the action and log. Photography is through glass, but acceptable.

Additionally, the outdoor Lily-Pad Outdoor Deck at Singapore Airport has also been recently revamped.

New low cost carrier FlyScoot, which is run by Singapore Airlines, has revealed its first plane in the airline’s full colour scheme. The airline will operate a fleet of Boeing 777-200s out of Singapore on high-demand intra-Asian routes, such as Gold Coast, Sydney and China. Doesn’t it look smart? Photo (c) FlyScoot from their Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/flyscoot

Tiger Airways are cropping up all over the place. The latest announcement is that they’ve helped to restart struggling Mandala Airlines, who will now be known as Tiger Airways Indonesia.

Mandala operated a range of domestic routes throughout Indonesia, with a varied fleet of aircraft, but sadly ceased flying after its Air Operators Certificate (AOC) was revoked.

But now it will return with two Tiger Airways branded Airbus A320s in April, and is set to expand, taking on national carrier Garuda Indonesia’s low-cost Citilink airline, and Lion Air.

Tiger Airways is 33% owned by Singapore Airlines, so this is a neat way into the Indonesian domestic sector for the carrier, making them more dominant in the region.

The Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) at Singapore Changi Airport is to be demolished so that a better terminal can be built in its place.

The present LCCT was opened in 2006 and can handle up to 7 million passengers per year. In the immediate future, airlines currently using it will move to Terminal 2 whilst a replacement building is constructed which can handle more passengers and provide a better experience for those passing through.

Terminal 2 is to be adapted to handle these carriers and the demands of their schedules in anticipation of the temporary move.

The Budget Terminal currently serves Berjaya Air, Firefly, SEair, Cebu Pacific and Tiger Airways. It is expected that the new terminal will be ready during 2014.

Singapore Airlines is to retired the Boeing 747 from service after operating the type for almost 40 years.

Since the Airbus A380 and other large aircraft started flying with the airline in 2007, the once numerous Boeing 747 fleet has been dwindling. Now it has been announced that the airline will operate a special ‘last service’ with the type on 6 April 2012 between Singapore and Hong Kong (and return – replacing the usual Airbus A330 that day), on which passengers can enjoy special memorabilia and the chance to say “I was there!”

Singapore Airlines received their first Boeing 747 – a -200B model – in 1973. From then on, it has operated many different examples of the type, including the -300 and -400 models. The airline operated it to over 60 destinations worldwide, and it was a familiar sight to many enthusiasts.

A special website has been set up to commemorate the last journey, which will be SQ747 and SQ748, and is bookable now. If you book first class, you’ll also get a tour of the cabin crew training facility and their simulator. The website is http://www.siajourneys.com/

Have you ever flown a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747? What was it like?

This report comes from Rob Aldridge on the Singapore Changi Village hotel, near the busy airport.

As its name suggests the hotel is in Changi which is a small town near Changi airport. This is Singapores main airport. The hotel has 7 floors with a swimming pool on the roof. Aircraft fly close to the hotel. They actually advertise the hotels swimming pool as offering great views of aircraft arriving or leaving the airport and they are right. Aircraft noise is however minimal.

Changi has two runways some distance apart from each other. 20 Right is close to the hotel and aircraft registrations can easily be read off with a basic pair of binoculars as the aircraft come into land. When they use 20 Left for landings, normally only at busy times, then a good pair of binoculars or telescope are needed. Obviously an SBS box makes life a lot easier and also allows for spotting to continue when it gets dark which is at about 7pm. As with many Asian airports it gets very busy at night. It is a similar situation when they depart off 2 Left or 2 Right i.e. aircraft using 2 Left can be easily read off. Most of the time I was there the 20 direction runways were in use for landing traffic.

To get an even better view there is a beach area close to the hotel and from the beach great photographs can be taken.

The hotel has rooms that overlook the sea which if you tell them you want to watch the aircraft is what you will get given. However when we arrived at the hotel at 9am in the morning they said that none of these rooms were available and gave us room 751. Which was good of them since check in is supposed to be at 2pm. This is where I struck very lucky because this room not only offers views of the landing aircraft (When they are using 20s) but aircraft departing can also be seen at about 800 feet as they clime out. An SBS box or similar is needed to obtain the registrations as these aircraft are about two miles away and you see a tail on view of the aircraft. Aircraft cannot be seen landing on 02 runways from the hotel. They cannot easily be seen departing on 20 runways from the rooftop pool however most of the aircraft execute a loop and head back over the hotel. Those that don’t are normally those heading south e.g. to Indonesia and Australasia.

From memory other rooms that would give a similar view to 751 are 749 and 750. The higher the floor the better as there are trees that can limit the view. The rooms on the 7th floor are described as Quality rooms and I paid about 80 pounds a night.

A slight drawback to what is a nice hotel is that the fans on the roof do create quite allot of noise. During the day you don’t notice them but at night they can seem quite loud. It is not dissimilar to the noise you get on an aircraft. Nevertheless it didn’t distract from what was a great holiday. My wife and my son didn’t notice the noise and just assumed when I mentioned it that it was the rooms air conditioning which it isn’t.

The hotel has an hourly shuttle to and from the airport. It leaves the hotel on the hour and the airport at twenty to the hour. The alternative is to get a taxi from the airport, which for four of us cost $15. Another alternative if travelling from the city centre is to get the MRT to Tampines and then catch the 29 bus. The bus stops outside the hotel and costs about 75p. The bus station is next to the MRT and buses are frequent.

Outside of the hotel are a number of food outlets. There are also a number of mini markets similar to a local corner shop (alcohol is expensive in Singapore).

Singapore is also a busy Cargo airport and a typical day would see:
Nippon Cargo 747 (It departs at about 6am)
Fed Ex 777, MD11 (Or Dc10)
UPS 757 plus an occasional 767 or MD11
Asiana 747
Cathay 747
Korean 747
China Airlines 747
Transmile 727.
Cargolux 747
Aerologic 777
EVA 747
China Eastern and Shanghai MD11

Sinagpore Changi Village Hotel’s official website is http://www.stayvillage.com/Changi/index.aspx?page=home

Andy Bowden of Plane Spotting Hotels website reports on what is regarded one of the best hotels for aircraft spotting at Singapore’s Changi Airport. He writes…

I would rate this hotel as probably one of the best all round hotels in the world for aircraft viewing and photography. As an added bonus, from the rooms mentioned below the occasional movement from Seleter Airport can seen in the distance. The hotel is situated in an excellent location, connected to terminal 3 at Singapore airport. The hotel is a short walk from the terminal 3 viewing area. The viewing areas on terminal 1 and 2 are a short 5 minute ride on the airport monorail, the station of which is a 2 minute walk from the hotel. The airport restaurants are expensive, however a wide range of food courts, as well as a supermarket can be found in the terminals. If you decide to order room service to allow you to eat and spot a typical American Style breakfast of ham, eggs and hash browns is around £8, a pizza for dinner is around £11.

For the ideal views you require a room on the 7th, 8th or 9th floorending in *02, *04, *06, *08, *09, *10, *11, *12. These rooms give a fantastic view over the right hand runway in front of terminal 3. The hotel corridor is open plan allowing you to walk out of the room into the corridor to see movements on the busy central runway (SBS and a scanner is helpful for you to monitor movements on the central runway as you do need to leave your room to see this runway). At busy times the right hand runway is used for arrivals only, however in moderate to quiet times a mixed mode operation is in force therefore you do require a means of monitoring the central runway to ensure that you do not miss the movements. Be warned, the above rooms all are reported to have the one large queen size bed, therefore if there are 2 of you be prepared to get cosy (or a roll away bed is available for a costly £30 a night). Photos can be taken from the room although the windows are tinted. A 10 second walk from the room will take you to an opening on the outside corridor where superb outdoor shots can be taken (80-200mm for aircraft on the taxiway, 200-400mm for runway shots). Morning to early afternoons are best with the sun behind you. Examples of the view from the rooms can be seen at http://www.plane-spotting-hotels.com/plane_spotting_singapore_airport.htm.

The aim of the rip was to see as many Singapore 777 as possible prior to them withdrawing the older ones. After two and a half days we came away with all but 8. All of the A380′s were seen within the first day and a half. The new A330′s were harder with the final 1 of the 5 seen at lunchtime of the finalday. All A340′s were also seen, these creep in early (0500ish) and depart mid morning, and are away from base for a couple of days due to the length of the flights to New York and LAX.

Things get a little quiet between 1100-1400 giving you the opportunityto wizz into Singapore on the local train (about £2 each way) and see the sights.