Ben Sandilands
Editor of Plane Talking @PlaneTalking
Ben Sandilands has reported and analysed the mechanical mobility of humanity since late 1960 - the end of the age of great scheduled ocean liners and coastal steamers and the start of the jet age. He’s worked in newspapers, radio and TV in a wide range of roles as a journalist at home and abroad for 56 years, the last 18 freelance.
It looks like game, set and match for Melbourne when it comes to taking the title of the growth centre for Australia, as Tiger announce that Avalon will become its second Melbourne airport.
The pyro-electrical storm that is raging over the Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland is getting upstaged by an outbreak of greed versus caution, airlines versus authorities, pilots versus pilots and passengers versus travel insurance companies.
Emirates has put a cost of $10 million a day on the volcanic ash crisis, Singapore Airlines says it is too busy looking after passengers to start counting, and Qantas agrees, reports Ben Sandilands.
While air traffic disruptions reached post-9/11 levels across the UK and most of Europe and the North Atlantic overnight, Qantas took a full 16 hours to get its head around the enormity of the volcanic ash situation.
Photos of the damage done to a Qantas A380 at Sydney Airport on March 31 have fallen into Crikey's hands. They show what happens to the world’s largest passenger jet when the anti-skid braking system fails.
Ben Sandilands offers his expert eye on Tuesday's very hard landing of a Cathay Pacific A330-300 at Hong Kong's airport and its similarities to a British Airways incident in 2008.
The crash of a Polish government jet, which killed the country’s president, has brought out the usual cliches about dodgy Russian airliners. But the real problem is much more about how badly they are flown than design limitations, explains Ben Sandilands.
There is very little the Federal Government can do to change the essentially lawless and dangerous state of maritime safety in foreign vessels using our seas.
Irish budget airline Ryanair has announced it will start charging customers for using toilets on its planes. But are the piddling profits and PR really worth pissing off its customers? asks Ben Sandilands.
Well sourced rumours that the Tiger-Avalon Airport deal is close claim that Tiger will split its Melbourne operations and leave the ones that most trouble Qantas and Jetstar at Tullamarine, writes Ben Sandilands.
