Tag Archives: airline

Plane Crash TV and the Goldfish Effect

Entertainment, , , , , , , , ,

I just watched a TV programme on C4 called Plane Crash. I’d seen the trailers and it looked fascinating. They were going to crash a real Boeing 727and watch the effects on the dummies inside.

Plane Crash TV and the Goldfish Effect
 
But the show ended up driving me mad. It was on for two hours with an ad break every 10 minutes. Before every break they summarised where we had got to. After the ad break they summarised where we had got to again.

Do the producers of shows like this think that we all have the memory spans of goldfish?

Actually that is unfair on goldfish. People believe that goldfish can only remember things for three seconds. so don’t worry about putting them in small bowls because by the time they’ve swum round they have forgotten where they started from. Of course scientists have proven that goldfish do in fact have quite good memories and tests show that they can learn what time of day they .

Plane Crash TV and the Goldfish Effect
photo credit: chefranden via photopin cc

Hence why my mother’s goldfish congregate at 4pm every day in the left corner of the tank – wide eyes and gaping mouths silently saying, “Come on then”.

But there seems to be a goldfish trend emerging in documentary TV shows. The next time you watch one just look at the narrative flow.

Take a clothes make over show. The intro will go something along these lines. “This week we meet Jane. She has no self-confidence. Over the next hour we are going to completely change her life. First thing we are going to do is give her a make over.

Then 10 minutes later as we approach the first ad break they’ll say, “So now Jane has had a full make over and although she started out the programme with no self-confidence she is well on her way to completely changing her life. Join us after the break when we move into stage two and revamp her wardrobe.

After nipping off to make a cup of tea during the adverts you return to the sofa to the reminder, “Before the break we met Jane who has no self-confidence but we have made a great start in completely changing her life by giving her a complete make over. Now it is time to have a look at her wardrobe.

Plane Crash TV and the Goldfish Effect
photo credit: Stephan Geyer via photopin cc

And so it goes on. Even the BBC with no ad breaks to fit this structure round are increasingly guilty of such recaps and “coming up” spots every ten minutes or so.

I have always been an advocate of the “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you have told them” approach. But do the TV programmes take it too far? They tell you what they are going to tell you then tell you a bit of it. Next they remind you of what they are going to tell you and the bit they’ve already told you, and so on.

Cut out all this summarising and recapping and the show would be half as long.

So rather than thrilling me, Plane Crash just made me want to go and do something relaxing like swimming round and round in a pool.

Over to you: Do you agree with me about plane crash TV and the goldfish effect? If so do me a favour and tweet this article.

Rolls Royce Trent Engines fitted to first British Airways Airbus A380

Travel, , , , , ,

Continuing my occasional look at building a BA super jumbo, here is a shot of the Rolls Royce Trent engines fitted to first British Airways Airbus A380.

Rolls Royce Trent Engines fitted to first British Airways Airbus A380
First BA A380: Click to tweet this photo:

Each Trent 700 delivers 70,000lbs of thrust.

Rolls Royce usually name their engines after UK rivers. The Avon engines powered the Comet in the 1960s. Spey engines kept the BAC 1-11 in the air. The Tay was build for the Fokker 100 aircraft. And most recently the Trent jets appeared on Boeing 777s and Airbus A330/340s. I’ve always thought it odd that perhaps the most famous of all Rolls Royce’s jets, the one that powered the original Boeing 747 Jumbo was known only as the RB211. Why not the Tyne or the Mersey?

Rolls Royce Trent Engines fitted to first British Airways Airbus A380
First BA A380

Over to you: If you liked this post click here to see the first British Airways Airbus A380 coming out of the construction hangar. Or for a taste of BA’s premium cabins please click here to watch my video review of flying BA FIRST Class on a Boeing 747.

Should we get free food on a short flight or is buy on board food best?

Travel, , , , , , , ,

When I started flying regularly from London to Edinburgh there was lots of free food on board. Massive breakfasts, three course hot evening meals, and lovely afternoon teas with warm scones and sandwiches.

In fact BA and BMI’s caterers were falling over each other trying to out do the other with the amount of their grub.

And this was in economy not business or first class.

On an hour-long flight you would get a drink before dinner, a hot meal with dessert, wine, and coffee or tea afterwards. Breakfast would include cereal, full English, warms rolls and big glass pots of marmalade or jam.

The downside? Fares were high.

Then Easy Jet, Ryan Air and Go came along. They were no frills airlines and they were about cheap fares. They gave no free food away.

If you wanted a coffee you had to buy one – you still do. If you were hungry you could buy a sandwich. You still can.

From then on BA and BMI’s started to cut the free stuff. Hot evening meals became smaller cold salads. Huge breakfast trays became smaller ones with tiny sausages, a couple of mushrooms, and a wafer thin slice of bacon.

buy on board food

At all other times the service is simply a free drink and a packet of nibbles (or birdseed as it is affectionately known by travellers on domestic routes), a tiny drink from the bar or a thimble full of coffee.

By continuing to offer a token free drink BA claims it’s a “full service” airline. But this is stretching it a bit isn’t it?

If I can’t eat before an evening flight home I go hungry on BA but I could buy a meal on Easy Jet.

So is it better to have a buy on board service or pretend to offer a full service which challenges the word “full”?

I think I am now in the place where I think BA should stop pretending with their economy product and consider a move to buy on board food.

Over to you: Do you prefer to buy on board food? Or perhaps you take a picnic? Do you need serving anything at all? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

A guaranteed way of avoiding airport baggage check-in queues

Travel, , , , , , ,

What’s the most tedious thing about travelling by plane?

Is it the security search? There are some mornings when I think I might as well go to the airport in my PJs and get dressed after the search. They seem to make me take everything off before letting me through anyway. But most airports are quite efficient at security and barring the odd power hungry individual barking orders it is usually tolerable.

No for me it is the baggage check-in queues. Doesn’t your heart just sink when you see those endless zig-zagging lines of miserable people pushing cases big enough to fit a kitchen sink inside?

avoiding airport baggage check-in queues

When I travel British Airways my Silver card means I get to use the Business Class desk which can be quicker than being stuck with the masses in the Economy line. But when flying Jet2 or whichever low cost airline there are no such perks.

For years we’ve put up with it. A hour to check-in a case (for which I had to pay an extra check-in fee of course) from Edinburgh to Palma. 70 minutes wait on the return flight in Palma’s chaotic sauna of a terminal. Even the “Bag Drop” lines (when you have already checked-in on-line) don’t seem to move any faster.

So this year required innovative thinking for our week in the sun. How could we avoid starting a relaxing week’s holiday with a stressful stew in the check-in sin bin?

The answer was obvious of course. There is one guaranteed, foolproof method of avoiding airport baggage check-in queues. It came to me when I was about to click the box on Jet2’s website asking how many items I wanted to bung in the hold. I stopped myself before parting with another forty quid for two of them.

My guaranteed method of avoiding airport baggage check I queues is……. not to check-in any bags. Go hand baggage only.

I know what you are thinking. It can’t be done. Where will I put my 20 pairs of shoes? There won’t be enough room for all my outfits.

avoiding airport baggage check-in queues

It is possible though. Yes you can get three day outfits and three evening outfits into a cabin bag and still have room for a couple of pairs of shoes. And most hotels and villas have laundry services don’t they?

What was the result of this approach?

  • Got to the airport only one hour, not three hours, before each flight
  • Walked straight past the thronging thousands in the endless zig-zag mazes in both directions
  • Didn’t have to wait an hour at baggage reclaim at the other end so we beat everyone to the car hire company. Similarly on the way back we were first out through customs (and quite telling that we were obviously the only 3 people from a plane load of 150 that hadn’t got bags to wait for)
  • Saved £40 on hold baggage fees

For a week in Europe this is the surely the modern way to travel.

Over to you: For many I guess the thought of going away without the comfort of several heavily laden bags is unthinkable. What do you think?