Wooo Wooo AirAsia Launches Bangkok-Buriram Daily Flights

[Nobby]

Welcome news, but it seems poorly thought out IMHO.

Buriram Airport has minimal facilities for handling passengers, a single check in desk, a one person four table snack bar, no secure car parking, no taxis or buses and a ratty old pick up shifting baggage to and from the aircraft.

It's busy enough dealing with the 36(?) seater aircraft Nok Air uses.

When Air Asia start with their 180 seater carrying 5 times the passengers it'll be nothing short of chaotic.

DJ, you will probably remember when Gatwick was little more than a potato field  -  Rome wasn't built in a day.

Think you'd be better asking Birthday Boy (TMWG) about that one, CoCo.

[Nobby]

Welcome news, but it seems poorly thought out IMHO.

Buriram Airport has minimal facilities for handling passengers, a single check in desk, a one person four table snack bar, no secure car parking, no taxis or buses and a ratty old pick up shifting baggage to and from the aircraft.

It's busy enough dealing with the 36(?) seater aircraft Nok Air uses.

When Air Asia start with their 180 seater carrying 5 times the passengers it'll be nothing short of chaotic. 

As I said earlier, business opportunties, the TW and I are looking into ours. 

For Example, why not an airport hotel?

 
12 rooms 3 meter square. Each room bright multi exterior color and an adjacent car port with a curtain. Might be OK.

That sounds more like a short time knocking shop (so somebody told me)
 

[TBWG]

Welcome news, but it seems poorly thought out IMHO.

Buriram Airport has minimal facilities for handling passengers, a single check in desk, a one person four table snack bar, no secure car parking, no taxis or buses and a ratty old pick up shifting baggage to and from the aircraft.

It's busy enough dealing with the 36(?) seater aircraft Nok Air uses.

When Air Asia start with their 180 seater carrying 5 times the passengers it'll be nothing short of chaotic.

DJ, you will probably remember when Gatwick was little more than a potato field  -  Rome wasn't built in a day.

Think you'd be better asking Birthday Boy (TMWG) about that one, CoCo.

I may be getting on a bit ~~~ but I am not that old!!!  pre WW2 Gatwick was a horse racing track. Converted to airfield for the war.  Not sure about the spuds pre racetrack!

  TBWG

[urleft]

While not part of the Buriram route, it makes you wonder about AA: 



AirAsia pilot ends up in Melbourne instead of Malaysia after navigation error

Crew of Airbus A330 entered wrong coordinates for flight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur and had to divert after error was noticed


An AirAsia flight from Sydney to Malaysia ended up in Melbourne instead when the pilot entered the wrong coordinates into the internal navigation system, an air safety investigation has found.

The Airbus A330 was scheduled to leave Sydney international airport at 11.55am on 10 March 2015, and arrive in Kuala Lumpur just under nine hours later.

Instead, through a combination of data entry errors, crew ignoring unexplained chimes from the computer system, and bad weather in Sydney, it landed in Melbourne just after 2pm.

Melbourne airport is 722km southwest of Sydney. Kuala Lumpur is 6,611km northwest.

According to a report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) published on Wednesday, the problem occurred when faulty earmuffs prompted the captain and first officer to swap their usual pre-flight checks.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/07/airasia-pilot-flies-melbourne-malaysia-navigation-error

[smoooth2]

While not part of the Buriram route, it makes you wonder about AA: 



AirAsia pilot ends up in Melbourne instead of Malaysia after navigation error

Crew of Airbus A330 entered wrong coordinates for flight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur and had to divert after error was noticed


An AirAsia flight from Sydney to Malaysia ended up in Melbourne instead when the pilot entered the wrong coordinates into the internal navigation system, an air safety investigation has found.

The Airbus A330 was scheduled to leave Sydney international airport at 11.55am on 10 March 2015, and arrive in Kuala Lumpur just under nine hours later.

Instead, through a combination of data entry errors, crew ignoring unexplained chimes from the computer system, and bad weather in Sydney, it landed in Melbourne just after 2pm.

Melbourne airport is 722km southwest of Sydney. Kuala Lumpur is 6,611km northwest.

According to a report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) published on Wednesday, the problem occurred when faulty earmuffs prompted the captain and first officer to swap their usual pre-flight checks.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/07/airasia-pilot-flies-melbourne-malaysia-navigation-error

I had a bit of a chuckle reading this. ATSB took a full 18 months to release their report on this incident ?  HUH ?

Sure, it was serious, but apparently the cause was immediately identified as "pilot error" on the day it occurred in March 2015.

No crash, nobody died, plane didn't disappear etc etc.

18 months for a report ? 









 

[dimple joe]

I had a bit of a chuckle reading this. ATSB took a full 18 months to release their report on this incident ?  HUH ?

Sure, it was serious, but apparently the cause was immediately identified as "pilot error" on the day it occurred in March 2015.

18 months for a report ? 

Strewth mate what's the bloody rush?

The fair dinkum blokes down at the ATSB were probably busy throwing another Wallaby on the Barbie, tying a Kangaroo down or maybe drinking some Tinnies under a Koolibar tree.

Much more worrying is this:-

According to a report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) published on Wednesday, the problem occurred when faulty earmuffs prompted the captain and first officer to swap their usual pre-flight checks.

Earmuffs ? ? ?

Was it an airplane or an Alaskan Dogsled ?

[urleft]

You would think a trained pilot and co-pilot would notice they were traveling north rather than west.  Also, wouldn't the plane have a GPS display like passengers was view on flights? 

[davureborn]

You would think a trained pilot and co-pilot would notice they were traveling north rather than west.  Also, wouldn't the plane have a GPS display like passengers was view on flights?

Apparently there were whoops going off all over the place.

[pablo]

You would think a trained pilot and co-pilot would notice they were traveling north rather than west.  Also, wouldn't the plane have a GPS display like passengers was view on flights? 

"Trained pilots?"  I guess it depends on what they're trained to do?

Much of the modern day "training" of pilots centers around pushing buttons and loading the so called "computer".  (Especially in developing countries, who have no surplus of qualified pilots...Air Force or robust general aviation.)

It goes to show that the airplanes actually ARE reliant upon pilots, and not just automatically flown.

What blows my mind, other than the pilots not recognizing a course of almost 90 degrees deviation from the flight plan...is the fact that the ATC controllers didn't observe the same, and make some noise about it.  I mean, Sydney to Melbourne is not even close to the intended routing.

[urleft]

Hard for me to pan the ATC personnel.  I was involved in crowded airspace operations in Washington DC, they would just care that outbound are safely and non threatening out of the way, they don't care/monitor where they are going. 

Having worked air infringement operations I would put this totally on the aircraft flight crew (OK, maybe the airline should have personnel monitoring), the ATC focus would have been to keep the Sydney ingress and egress routes open.