World Aviation Analysis

Notícia: O Sindicato de Pessoal de Cabine finlandês (SLSY, na sigla original) está a amaeçar fazer greve na próxima terça-feira, 30 de Novembro, anunciou a companhia aérea Finnair. De acordo com a transportadora, o processo de negociações com o sindicato está ainda a decorrer, mas, caso a greve se concretize, os voos da Finnair da da Blue1 serão fortemente afectados. O aeroporto de Helsinki Vantaa passou para um segundo plano da aviação e a Finnair tem (e está) de encolher e perceber que vai ser uma airline periférica da OneWorld. Ninguém quer ir para Helsinquia se não for para negócios ou para turismo (nada do outro mundo). Não ficam ao pé de nada (aliás o Báltico Este é que fica ao pé deles) e não são centrais a nada. A meu ver, e até prova em contrário, é mais uma airline que se tem de render ao ser potencial politico internacional e geográfico da Finlândia. Estão mal posicionados, não tiveram colónias? Pois não há nada. Ainda vale terem imigrantes do Oriente senão nem valia ...

... 6 years ago that would once see T-Mac playing 10 mpg, having scoreless games, in a crap team that retains 3 starters of the 2004 championship winner? And that Gran Hill would be playing as starter in the Conference finals, still playing an athletic game, throwing down a few dunks??? I'd, personaly, would have LMAO

Some conclusions: - Cubana service sucks and no way anyone should fly longhaul for 9 hours when UX (air europa) is about the same price. - Wanna fly Russian? Cubana has no accidents since 1999, so no so unsafe as people think - Internal flights are fixed and published price, and if they rob someone it is the airline and not the passenger - Cubana people may be too laid back, but are not incompetent nor bad tempered. If you are patient and polite, things get done. I saw the Captain in several flights talking hapilly with passengers without the "I am the master" attitude - Add 1 hour extra for check in all flights - The terminals are not pretty, but are reasonably functional - The Russian planes are OK, the interior is the drawback. Again, worth the experience. Flights to Canada are operated with 2 leased TACA's A320s, these are surely OK. - Spotting at the airports is something to be very careful about, the police make you switch it off if they see you....

We decided to try an internal flight if operated by a russian airplane, options were Antonov 24, Ilyushin 62, the 96 again, and the Yakovlev 42. The Il62 flies only outisde the country, to Venezuela and the An24 we never understooed what were the destinations (Cayo Coco, maybe). The possibilities narrowed then to the Yak42 since we had manages to fly the IL96 without the 767 “danger”. Decision was taken ton Sunday 3rd of October to try Santiago de Cuba (SCU), 950km away from HAV, since the hotel asked us almost the triple of the rate of the first two days for extending our stay one night more. Booking online with Cubana is impossible, na internet only exist in some hotels, and some at 56k after passport registration. Cubana de Aviacion office does not open on Sundays so we went to the NH Hotel central Park travel agency in the morning. The lady there was surprised of someone wanting a tikcet for the same day as if such hurry was incompreensibe but was very helpful. We asked if we c...

A few hours later we got the dinner, a tray with decent typical airliner meal. Only that the crew either threw or put it on the table with some violence, with a “eat and shut up” attitude. Food was OK, and we noticed they did not fill the soft drink glasses much and those were tiny white plastic cups that you normally buy 20 a pack in supermarket for picnics. After eating the pax converted the cabin into a living room and a bar was established in the rear galley, with surely being illegal as it was not announced and all was paid cash in a discrete manner. With alcohol pumping in the noise became higher until most of the people went to sleep. The crew had to ask via the PA for the noisiest to let the others rest (as no other type of time killer was possible). A female flight attendant dropped some drink on a 3 year kid sitting in the middle row, and continued without a word. The kid’s father was nearby and went to complain. The F/A had the “Shut the f**k up” face and the man pulled...

Flights MAD-HAV - IL96 HAV-SCU - YAK42 SCU-HAV - IL96 HAV-MAD - IL96 We had decided to fly in russian airplanes, and our trip to Cubana was kind of a last chance to flyto the Western world in one of them. The best options for a portuguese to fly to Havana (HAV) are Air Europa (A330/B767) Cubana (IL96) and Iberia (A340). We decided to book with Cubanasince the price was about 580€. Cubana’s site does not allow bookings do we tried GOVOL andRUMBO. Both cancelled our reservation, GOVOL after chargin my credit card, alledegly becaiseCubana did not issue e-tickets. So we contacted Cubana’s Office in Madrid and purchased itdirecttly, without any major problems. We were afraid we’d fly a Boeing 763 from EuroatlanticAirways, whoe were doing ACMI to Cubana for that route. Nothing against them, but ourpurpose was to fly Russian, and the reservation websites stated IL96 was to be used for theroute, possibibly due to the summer being over by Octover. Just 3 days before o...