CheshireTom

There is no new order. The company has simply opted to take the bigger planes rather than those it originally ordered. They probably paid around 2/6d extra for each aircraft once the compensation for the delays was factored in.

From the BKK Post .... Four high-speed rail routes get green light Two to be built under venture with Chinese Published: 31/08/2010 at 12:00 AM Economic ministers have given a green light to state investment plans for four high-speed train routes - Nong Khai-Bangkok, Bangkok-Padang Besar, Bangkok-Rayong and Bangkok-Chiang Mai. The first two projects - Nong Khai-Bangkok and Bangkok-Padang Besar - will be developed under a planned joint venture between the Thai and Chinese governments, said Deputy Prime Minister Trairong Suwannakhiri. The two governments have been in talks recently aimed at setting up the joint venture. Construction of the 580-kilometre section from Nong-Khai to Bangkok is expected to kick off by the second half of next year and take four years to complete. Dr Trairong said the other two high-speed projects, from Bangkok to Rayong and Chiang Mai, would possibly be developed through public-private partnerships (PPPs). Economic ministers yesterday directed relevant panels to sound out the market to assess the private sector's capability and capacity to invest in the two high-speed routes. The Public-Private Partnership Committee is required to submit a feasibility study on PPPs for the two projects next month. Both projects are expected to start construction by 2012 or 2013.

If you are staying in Soi 2, check with the folk at Sabai Inn (K. Aan or K. Supaporn) for directions. They introduced me to the place when we used to go for staff dinners/parties.

I'm not sure that I'd do it just as a couple. It's a good place for slow-paced sanook and great food in a group, maybe 8-12 folk.

Sud Tang Rak (Na Jomtien)

Nah, I think he's a Kafflik.

Because he lifted it straight from the net.

I'm well aware that the engines are interchangeable, however the engineers needed to work on the engines are not. Of course, ANA could just have said, "No worries, just stick on a couple of those other engines." But they didn't. I wonder why. BTW, did you pick up that info (verbatim) from the net? Who would have thought!

The lead customer, ANA, may have a different opinion on the matter. Or do their engineers just change over to a different engine entirely? Even by your standards, that's a pretty silly epilogue to a rambling post that you lifted from the net.

It's obviously an issue for you. Not for me. if = conditional. e.g. You'd be dangerous, if you had brains. Quite obviously, you're not dangerous.

You haven't quite got the hang of this dictionary thing. It's the definition of 'if'. Nice to see you fuck up once again - it's becoming a bit of a tendency lately.

LOL. How reassuring. Got to give the guys credit for going that extra mile.

Probably a good move if the engines have a tendency to explode.

From Bruce Krasting at seekingalpha.com ... In my year-end forecasts for 2010 I predicted: Boeing will finish a few Dreamliners but they will face many delays and problems. Looks like I am going to be wrong again. There is a now a question if any of these troubled planes will be put into service this year. The latest problem is not with the body of the plane. It is the engine that is supposed to keep this beast in the air. Bloomberg reported today that on August 2 the Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine literally blew up while being tested. The explosion resulted in “limited debris” being released into the test facility,” Rolls-Royce spokesman Josh Rosenstock said. Uncontained failures are “extremely rare” said Paul Hayess, safety director at U.K. aviation consultants Ascend Worldwide. Think of this engine blowing up. It is the size of a cement truck. RR is attempting to make this development a ‘no big deal’. But three weeks after the explosion the testing facility has not be reopened. So how big was that explosion? From the Bloomberg article: Rolls-Royce could switch testing of the Trent 1000 to other locations around the world, according to a person familiar with the programs, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. Earlier in August Boeing (BA) said that the first delivery of the Dreamliner to All Nippon Airlines might be delayed to sometime in 2011 due to “flaws with the structure”. Now we know that the engines may explode. Boeing built a plane made of fiber that has structural flaws and an engine that took out the test sight. Do you want to fly in this plane? I don’t.

Unfortunately, the last time the folk from Hong Kong decided to give the folk in BKK a lesson or two in building airport rail links it was a bit of a disaster.

Sizzler's 179 Baht Wednesday night promo is great value. Apart from the pork or fish, you get unlimited soup, their great salad bar and dessert.

I would be inclined to agree. The killer (for mongers) appears to be the need to change at Sukhumvit/Asoke and Makkasan/Petchaburi when you could otherwise be sat in the back of a cab.

I'll give it a shot in a couple of weeks. There are a couple of good deals on the Millenium and Jasmine to be had and I'm happy enough to take the "slow train"at 35 Baht to Makkasan before jumping on the back of a moto-sai for the trip down Asoke. At 6 pm on a Friday afternoon, I'm inclined to think that the train could be a decent option.

No arguments from me that the Yankees were possibly the most profitable in years gone by but the globalisation of sport has put an end to that. They have since been overtaken (according to Forbes), not only on a global but also on a national level. That contradicts your original claim that they were the most profitable by any measure. Obviously that's not the case. I'm quite sure that there were several baseball/American football teams which were bigger than any football team until fairly recently and I'm inclined to think that trend will continue. FWIW, most football folk say much the same about Real Madrid as apparently folk in the US do about the Yankees. As for the Yankee's recent record ... as an outsider, so to speak, that seems to be a bit tarnished by the Clemens and Rodriguez issues.

So we've settled on the fact that they're probably the most profitable and successful sport's team in New York.

I thought that if you're American you don't have to furnish anything. Just pop up to your friendly US Embassy in BKK and tell them you want a certificate of income. As an aside, AirAsia (re)start the HadYai - KL route tomorrow so the AirAsiaX premium seating article is worth noting for me. If I can save 30k on a biz class flight back to UK and still get a good kip then I can do without champagne et al.

Read the first line of the post. Anyway, you should know that I'd never waste an apostrophe on Americans. As it is, I was brought up on Pet Clark. Are you back for good?

I picked up a couple of snippets from a travel website that may be of interest .... Firstly, Thai AirAsia has binned the last of its old Boeing aircraft. So, gone are the days of having to choose carefully which flight number you were opting for when traveling to KL or Penang. As from today, AirAsia flies entirely Airbus aircraft. The airline says that using single make - with as few models as possible - increases efficiency in a number of ways: - crew do not need to be trained on multiple aircraft types - a substantial cost for carriers with a mix of e.g. Boeing and Airbus and a range of different models and configurations - the stock of spares required is much reduced, thereby cutting overhead and the risk that stock will become redundant and therefore significantly reduce in value - servicing is cheaper: maintenance crews do not have to be trained on multiple aircraft and work more quickly because they work exclusively on one kind of plane. AirAsia group inherited a mix of aircraft when it took over the airlines that became AirAsia Indonesia and AirAsia Thailand. The second article refers to AirAsiaX and the changes to their product over the last 6 months or so. AirAsia X, born as the long-haul child of AirAsia, is growing up fast. Already marked out from its regional carrier parent by its different internal colour scheme (the company felt that the AirAsia black leather was a bit too claustrophobic for larger aircraft and elected to adopt a light-grey and red interior) and reclining seats (a stiff upper back is fine for a couple of hours but a bit more space and a tilting seat are essential for long haul) were introduced. But the "Premium" seats were, by AirAsia X's own admission, a failure. The airline says they were stuck in the ridiculous position that when they specified their interiors, only one seat manufacturer would offer a seat at a price that matched their budget. But the seats were uncomfortable and when installed did not offer the space that was expected. In the past six months, AirAsia X has dumped the old interiors in what is - almost - their new business class. The number of seats has been reduced and full lie-flat seats have been installed. Even so, prices are a fraction of those on offer from other long-haul carriers. Arch rival Malaysia Airlines charges GBP1500 (approx) for its one-way LHR-KUL ticket in its "Economy +" fare - which is in fact a discounted full Business Class ticket with a slightly reduced weight allowance and slightly less air miles credit; AirAsia X charges a GBP776 including the UK's penal business class tax for departures before the tax goes up yet again. For sure, the AirAsia X service is not full business class: no free fizz on board (what?), no pre-flight lounge, meals in a box and mineral water to drink meaning that other food and drinks must be purchased on board (no "own food and drink" is allowed) and there is no seat-back entertainment (this is said to be a positive, see below). But the "premium" price includes 20kg of luggage, seat selection, a blanket (to be handed back) and eyeshades (not handed back) and the option to purchase additional weight - a further 30KG bought in advance is approx GBP30 and an additional 15Kg at the airport (the max that can be purchased except at excess rates) is about the same. There's some confusion as to the policy for carrying wheelchairs: one part of the AirAsia website (which handles AirAsia X Bookings) says that wheelchairs are free while another says they count as weight. As AirAsia X prepares for its separation from its parent, it has just moved into new offices with a separate staff and it is offering heavy-discount flights on all its long-haul routes for travel in the middle of next year. Critics who don't know London will argue that AirAsia X's flights landing at Stansted (STN) are not "real" London flights. That's nonsense: the Stansted Express takes travellers into London's Liverpool Street Station, right in the heart of the City: what American's bizarrely call "downtown." The M11 motorway takes cars directly into London's Docklands: the "new City" where many major financial corporations and others moved out of the "old City." And bus links go to Victoria and other parts of the West End. In fact, for business travellers, Stansted - where immigration, baggage retrieval and customs take a fraction of the mad times at LHR is an ideal choice. And for those heading north, it's already out of the London traffic, saving perhaps an hour's drive. STN has excellent links to the Continent and Ireland and even direct flights to New York. It's not a hub in the sense that LHR is, but it's an airport of manageable size, all on one level (so ideal for the aged and infirm) that has its own measurable benefits. For sure, the hoo-ha that the airline makes about having a power-socket on its premium seats is a bit sad: but one thing is important to note - unlike the otherwise amazing premium economy seats on a Qantas A380, passengers don't have to grovel on the floor (or more likely get crew to grovel on the floor) to plug things in. And what about the lack of seat-back entertainment. AirAsia X says bluntly that the kit is too expensive and too heavy. And that Hollywood demands too high fees for their output. So the airline has decided not to offer it (it's easy to forget that the service didn't exist until Virgin introduced it and everyone else decided it was a must-have). AirAsia X says it will offer travellers a personal entertainment device. That's what Kuwait Airlines does and it's infuriating. But if it means that travellers can carry their own DVDs, and play them, then fine: extra weight means more fuel and that means more cost so there is a trade-off. But in any case, business travellers have space to play things on their own laptops and many other devices now download and store films (albeit not new releases) or programmes (e.g. BBC iPlayer allows the last seven days' programmes to be downloaded to a PC and played back as many times as the viewer wants for 30 days). That AirAsia X is now running a viable and relatively inexpensive service in comfortable seats, via what is, in effect, its own hub in Kuala Lumpur means that the airline has become an EU>Asia Pacific>Australasia carrier in a way that no other discount carrier has ever come close to achieving.

When the sections for the test aircraft were built Boeing did have QA teams in the plant. Maybe the specs were wrong.

Bangkok airport express train to open next week Wed, Aug 18, 2010 AFP BANGKOK, THAILAND (AFP) - An elevated train line linking Bangkok's city centre and its main airport will be fully open for service next week after months of delays, the Thai state railway said Wednesday. The non-stop "airport link", which covers 28 kilometres and cost 25.9 billion baht ($1.1 billion), will officially open on Monday. Trains are due to run daily every 40 minutes, between 6am and midnight. After months of test runs, the express service will offer passengers a 15-minute journey to Suvarnabhumi airport from Bangkok's centre for 100 baht, a spokeswoman for the State Railway of Thailand said. Passengers returning the same day will not need to purchase another ticket. A second city line will offer a 30-minute journey at a cheaper rate, stopping at eight stations along the way.