Happy KLM Pilots

Happy Old Pilots

40 years ago I had just bought my first analog reflex camera, a Fuji. I had only a 50 mm lens I had to poke in the face of the guys. In addition I had time to develop and print my own black and white photographs.

Both happy guys were retired KLM pilots. They were happy because they had survived the age they were supposed not to survive because everybody believed in those days that intercontinental flight pilots would not become old as they suffered double because of working in shifts and working in time differences.

MH 17 Crash

Min Algemene Zaken I56A9636

MH17 Crash

The Netherlands was shocked when it learned Malaysian Airplane, Flight MH 17, crashed in Ukraine. Presumably the crash was caused by Russian backed rebellions who fired an anti aircraft rocket to it. Of the nearly 300 passengers and crew almost 200 fellow Dutchman died in the crash. There were 80 children amongst them.

In an earlier speech the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs thanked the UN Security Council for adopting a resolution that condemned this act.

Wednesday July 23 was a day of National Mourning in the Netherlands. The first 40 bodies came home…

Flight Attendants taking the world by Social Media

It’s really fascinating how this little footage spreads all over the world in record time….

Update

Elliott.org has the whole background story.

Last edited by GJE on October 2, 2010 at 11:42 pm

Iceland Volcanic Ash Disrupts European Air Travel on an Unprecedented Scale

Hazardous volcanic ash
I captured the above photo from a series of three documentary videos on Youtube [That since publication have disappeared]. The picture and the videos show the dangers of volcanic ash for air travel best: It abrazes not only the paint, but also the aluminum of the aircraft heavily.

The dangers are:

  1. Pilots can’t notice it, because, apart from areas near an eruption, it is very fine. Even near an eruption pilots can’t notice it on on board flight radar, because there is not enough moist in a cloud of volcanic ash
  2. Volcanic ash is very abrasive as the above photo from the tail of flight BA 009 shows: Almost all paint was stripped from it.
  3. when sucked into a jet motor, it can cause immense damage and cause the motor to stop. On 1982 flight 009 over Indonesia all four jets stopped and luckily the pilots were able to restart the engines when they had flown out of the ash cloud and prevent a crash..


The beauty of the eruption that causes all the problems:
This is a fantastic photo of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland by Örvar-Atli that causes a huge cloud of volcanic ash to spread all over Europe that is bringing almost all air trafic to a stand still as of yesterday. It will continue today and it wouldn’t surprise me if it will continue for a couple of more days.

It is a very wise decision to ground almost all air traffic in view of the above indicated hazards.

Ash influences hotel stays
Guests from Canada are stuck in London and had to cancel their stay at my hotel last minute. Do I charge them a late cancellation fee? Off course not.

Commercially viable? Maybe, maybe not.

I could claim a late cancellation fee and have them claim their loss from their travel insurance company. However I wouldn’t like to add that as an extra burden to them while they are already burdened with all the uncertainties and changes of plan due to these extra ordinary circumstances

..and you know what? I expect my guests to be and think a bit like I do myself. I hate to claim something from an insurance company, because I believe I should only claim when there is an extraordinary cost I cannot reasonably bear myself. I was once bailed out by a travel insurance company when I was stuck with a car in a foreign country that could not be repaired that country. Not only did they repatriate my car to The Netherlands and paid for the car repair, they also let me continue our travels with a rented car that I delivered here in The Netherlands. Almost no loss of holiday pleasures.

And our guest wrote me: “Thank you so much! When we rebook our trip you will be our first choice to stay with. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness.”

iFly – KLM Royal Dutch Airline’s new interactive online multimedia Inflight Magazine (Dutch Design 48)

ifly
Recently, after a testing 6 months with 3 numbers, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has launched number 4 of its interactive multimedia on-line in-flight magazine iFly. It is available in the Dutch and English language.

It is not KLM’s intention to scrap the paper magazine (yet?), but it is an interesting experiment. The topic presented to the viewer are based on the viewers behavior and interests, for instance the time a viewer spends on a certain topic.

An very interesting format for future blogs and hotel sites as well. Media gurus love the clickrate and time spent on the site….

Update.

I was a bit surprised not having found more on the subject.

Then I found this post of Junta42.com.

After each new issue they send an e-mail to their subscribers.

* After their third issue, KLM has found that iFly is their best marketing tool ever used to sell repeat tickets.
* The average reader spends 20 minutes reading the magazine.
* 20% read the entire magazine.
* Frequent flyers are heavy users of the magazine.
* The click-through rate of iFly is higher than any other online campaign from KLM.