I’m Flying Off To Shanghai Today!

Yes! I’m flying off to Shanghai an hour later for my 8D7N vacation travel! I’m so excited now. Though the itinerary of the package is very tight in schedule with 6 cities and towns to cover withing 8 days, it still like a dream comes true to me since I’m going to be able to actually see and feel the beautiful scenery of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi and Wuzhen, LIFE! I have been admiring all these places for so long and all these while only images and videos from TV documentary are stored in my memory.

I have made sure my camera have enough battery power (I brought 2 lithium ion battery pack and a charger with socket adapter with me) and have sufficient storage space (I brought 2 SDHC memory cards with 4GB each) in order to capture the whole but the whole footage of this trip. (”Is this trip a vacation or a photography expedition?“)

My biggest concern is the weather in Shanghai during these 8 days. Hopefully there would be no rain or little rain on these days as what forecast suggests. Bright sun and clear sky are also preferred. Other than that I would also hope for some nice local foods that come with the vacation package.

So, wish me good luck and I shall be back in a week time. By then, I will start off an all new series of posts on my travel experiences in…. Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi, and Wuzhen, China. Cheers! - Travel Feeder.

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Wow, this is the exciting moment for our budget travelers! Budget airlines have been striving hard for better market share by lowering down air fares all this while but passenger service quality are always criticised by their customers. However, low-cost does not need to, nor should it be equal to low-quality service. There are low cost airlines that provide reasonably good standard of customer care and passenger service quality.

Thanks to Skytrax, a specialist Research Advisors to the air transport industry based in London, as part of the World Airline Awards™ organised by them based on their annual survey, announced the Top 5 Low-cost Airlines of the year 2008 recently. The Awards are recognised around the world, and renowned for being the only truly global, Independent passenger survey of airline standards. Winners in the award are considered as the most budget-travelers preferred airlines in the world where low-cost and good quality are proved to be able to exist concurrently.

Here are the top 5: 

1. EasyJet - An Uk based budget airline with a mission to provide customers with safe, good value, point-to-point air services, and to effect and to offer a consistent and reliable product and fares appealing to leisure and business markets on a range of European routes;
2. Virgin Blue - An Australian based member of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin group of UK, Virgin Blue and its international carriers Pacific Blue and Polynesian Blue currently operate a fleet of 60 modern Boeing 737 and Embraer E170 and E190 E-Jet aircraft. It has also launched Australia’s newest international airline, V Australia, set to commence flights between Australia and the USA from late 2008. Its on-time performance has scored highly in the award;
3. Jetstar Airways - An Australia’s and Singapore’s new low fare airline for Australia and the Asia-Pacific with the aim to provide consistent low fares to Australian, New Zealand and Asian leisure travellers. Started flying within Australia in 2004, Jetstar’s Australian operation is wholly owned by Qantas but is managed separately and operates independently, while the Jetstar’s intra Asian operation is a Singapore-based partnership between Qantas (49%), local businessmen Tony Chew (22%) and FF Wong (10%) and Temasek Holdings (19%) with the hub based in Singapore;
4. Air Berlin -Being the second largest airline in Germany, Air Berlin offers its customers the best value for money in terms of its service, onboard catering, 20 kg free baggage allowance per passenger, generous child discounts and favourable conditions for the carriage of pets and special or bulky items of baggage, and
5. Southwest Airlines - Southwest Airlines Co is an American low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas. It is the largest airline in the United States by number of passengers carried domestically per year and also the largest airline in the world by number of passengers carried.

However, my personal favourite Airlines is always ‘LynxJet’. Do you know why? Sure you will agree with me after watching their T.V. promo…

Oops! My wife is coming! Gonna shut this down! Ciao! - Travel Feeder.

P/s: ‘LynxJet’ is actually virtual airlines appeared only in Lynx deodorant T.V. promo… :) 

I was shocked when listening to radio this morning that an air plane in Madrid crashed and broke up in flames after failing to take off from Madrid airport which killed 153 people and 19 injured. It was Spanair jet plane MD-82 which is the second largest airline and the largest budget airline in Spain.

According to the Spanish Transport Minister Magdalena Alvarez, the flight JK 5022 was to take 162 passengers including two babies and 20 other children from Madrid to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. It was Spain’s worst plane disaster since a Boeing 747 belonging to Colombian airline crashed in Madrid in 1983 killing 180 and the worst in Europe since a Russian Tupolev crashed in Ukraine in 2006 killing 170.

The tragedy has enlightened me on the safety of air travel which was once considered as the safest public transport in this world. Unfortunately, with the ever rising petrol prices and tougher and tougher competitions among airline, budget airline companies have been striving to survive nowadays. Because of that, I’m just wondering whether they have also compromised the safety standard of their aircrafts and if that is the case, they are jeopardising our lives!

Is it still wise to fly with those budget airlines just for meeting our travel  budget? Or should we re-proportionate our travel budget to accomodate those reputable airlines? Should AirAsia’s slogan “Everyone can fly” be changed to “Anyone wants to fly?” Well, let’s give our silent condolences to all the victims while thinking of the answer…. - Travel Feeder