I use Flight Memory to keep a record of all of my flights- every single one of them since I first flew in 1968.

For my 737th flight, I flew a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 from Portland to Spokane and had a brilliant flight.
747th was on a Qantas 747 from Melbourne to Los Angeles. The Qantas team put on a great flight- and Qantas even followed up with a souvenir 747 in the post
United Airlines turn came next with flight 757 on a B757 from DC to LAX and it was terrible.

767 is fast approaching on an Air NZ Boeing 767 Business Class from Perth to Auckland.

For my 777th flight, I have a choice between:

Air New Zealand Boeing 777 Auckland to Los Angeles

OR
V Australia Boeing 777 Sydney (or Brisbane) to Los Angeles











Who would you choose and why?

"Bondi Beach" at Sydney Airport

On May 9th, 2011 I turned up at my gate at Sydney's Kingsford Smith to find the plane that was being for the 1hr 36min DJ 818 servic to Melbourne was one of Virgin Australia's brand new 737s: VH-YFC
called: "Bondi Beach".

The plane had landed in Australia four days before, the day that Virgin Blue became Virgin Australia.

I was seated up front in Seat 1A which is  one of Virgin Australia's brand new business class seats (Virgin Blue started as a one class airline). There are eight such seats on the plane -two on each side.


A very stylish plexiglass screen separates Business class from the Main cabin. It looks similar to the Virgin America layout which I love*. In Main cabin: are 168 Virgin Australia "next generation economy seats".  These seats are made by aircraft interior company B/E Aerospace. The lighting is really well done and makes the plane feel bigger.

The flight was very comfortable - I slept for most of it (even thought it was short). Meals, drinks and water are complimentary upfront on Virgin and the new menus are good. You still pay in economy for meals (unlike Qantas which still gives free domestic and international meals. Some Velocity Gold members have reported being given "freebies" in Economy. Anyone able to confirm or deny this?

"Bondi Beach" at Melbourne Airport

It was a very fun flight with a group of very excited cabin staff flying their first flight on this new plane.  I am not a huge fan of the 737 but this one feels amazing. As two of the staff said "we feel like a proper airline now"

They are right. These new planes are a key part of a strategy to capture more business traffic. I have become a huge fan of V Australia and if Virgin Australia emulate their international offshoot, then I will become their fan too! I am looking forward to my August flight to Perth on their brand new coast to coast A330 service (although puzzled why they have begun mixing aircraft types- Ansetts' big mistake)

Ironic that Qantas continues to go down market as Virgin goes up. One wonders if they should have swapped CEOs? Thats another story.

One final question: Why did Virgin Blue/Pacific Blue choose "Virgin Australia" as their new name and not "Virgin Pacific"? Virgin Pacific would complement Virgin Atlantic and it makes more sense to have a flights operating between Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand with "Pacific" on the tail and not just "Australia". Any comments on this?


*Virgin America and JetBlue are my two favourite US airlines

A Qantas 737-800

My NZ and Pacific flights with Air NZ and Qantas

Europe with BMI Baby, Lufthansa, Malev, SAS,  SkyEurope (now gone),

USA - 23 states with a 737!

Australia -every state and territory in a 737- most with Qantas. There were 4 Ansett 737 legs.

Just travelled on my 756th plane flight and I can reveal that the 757th flight of my life will be on a United Airlines Boeing 757 from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles Thursday 16th June, 2011. United has 135 of these planes- almost a third of its main line fleet.

My friend Tony became very ill and was confined to home. Frustrated out of his mind, because he was unable to work, Tony rested and surfed the internet to satisfy his passion for all things "Boeing". In fact his slogan was "if its not Boeing I ain't going". 

	Date	Sector	Airline	Craft
100th	21/11/96	Lismore-SYD ( Sydney)	Kendall	SAAB 340
200th	15/10/04	SYD to HNL (Honolulu)	Air Canada	Boeing 767
300th	24/06/07	AYQ (Ayers Rock)-SYD	Qantas	Boeing 737
400th	05/06/08	SAN (San Diego) - LAX (Los Angeles)	American Airlines	Embraer 140
500th	18/04/09	BOI (Boise)- DEN (Denver)	United Airlines	CRJ 700
600th	20/11/09	LAX-AKL (Auckland)	Qantas Airways	Boeing 747
700th	09/12/10	SIN (Singapore)- SYD	Singapore Airlines	Boeing 747
737th	01/50/11	PDX (Portland)-GEG (Spokane)	Southwest	Boeing 737
747th	23/05/11	MEL-LAX	Qantas	Boeing 747
757th	June 11	Booked for a USA flight	US Carrier	Boeing 757
767th	?	?	?	Boeing 767
777th	?	?	?	Boeing 777

On Sunday, I will fly my 747th flight in my life. After my 737th flight on a Boeing 737, I managed to to score this flight on a Qantas Boeing 747!

Looking forward to Sunday in terms of the flight!

Woke up Saturday morning feeling some excitement.


My flight from Portland, Oregon to Spokane, Washington was essentially a fairly routine one. While I have never flown that sector before, I have been to both airports and both cities a few times now.


Yet Southwest Airlines flight 3218 was no ordinary flight for me. It was the 737th flight in my life. Yup, I have left the ground 737 times -and returned 737 times. I have fastened my seatbelt 737 times. 


Thanks to Southwest airlines being an airline who (currently) only fly Boeing 737s, my 737th flight would be on a Boeing 737. For a plane geek, thats the ultimate in geekiness!


I checked in online and was assigned position B5. Southwest do not assign seats. Instead you get allocated a position in the boarding line based on essentially the time you check in. You then  board in 3 groups of 60: Group A, Group B and Group C. My position meant I would board as the fifth person in the second group. Once on board, you are then free to choose your own seat. The earlier you board, the better your chances of bagging a good seat. In my case, there would be at least 65 people ahead of me.

N744 SW at Spokane airport

Our plane was N744SW. This 737-700 first flew for Southwest on 26th March, 1999 and has  137 economy seats. I was surprised to easily get 11D, an aisle seat in the emergency exit row. While it does not have much more leg room, the seats in row 10 do not recline and there are only 2 people in the row.


Friendly welcome from the on board Southwest team (as always). Contrast that to the usual grumpiness at United, the surliness of American and the cool aloofness at Virgin America). 


While it was a full flight, the luggage compartments did not end up being full. Southwest do not charge for checked in luggage which makes boarding  less stressful compared to United, for example where people try to carry on board small mountains of luggage and fight over every inch of luggage space.


We took off right on time and landed right on time. It was  a very smooth flight with some light turbulence as we descended into Spokane airport. 

Thanks crew

I shared with the crew 3/4 through the flight about how my "hobby" of recording my flights started. Just before his death,  my friend Tony Chapman set up a Flight memory account into which he painstakingly entered 100s of my flights from my junior jet club book and frequent flyer statements).


As soon as I told the crew that it was my 737th flight, they understood the significance and connection with this aircraft. 


On the ground, I was invited into the cockpit, met the captain and recorded these happy snaps.

Captain= good sport

Co Pilot

Thanks Southwest for a memorable 737th flight - six stars today! Below is a table summarising of all of my flights- 3.2 months inside planes with 76 airlines to five continents- one million miles of flying (and because I offset my carbon emissions many, many trees). More at my Flightmemory. Of all my flights, 193 (just over a quarter)have been in 737s.



 

A recent flight  tipped me over into 2300 hours of flying since I was born. This is equivalent to over 95 days inside a metal tube.  Over 3 months of my life!


More Trivia (some of which can be found at my flightmemory page)

• 75 airlines (my favourites of course Emirates, Air New Zealand and Qantas)
• 48 types of plane (the 3 most common being B737, B747 and B767 and the most exotic a Zepplin airship)
• 180 airports (the 3 most common Melbourne, Sydney and Los Angeles)
• 36 countries on 5 continents flown to (out of the 47 countries I have visited to- 2 countries I went to by ship, 2 by bus and 7 by train)
• 43% of my flights have involved an Australian destination,  31% a US destination and 8% a New Zealand stop and 4% a UK stop.
• I have sat by the window 281 times, on the  Aisle   151 times and in the  Middle  21 times..I cant recall the rest...guessing same proportions. 

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Yesterday, I flew my 717th plane flight from Houston, Texas to Columbus, Ohio. I had hoped for a 717 but I got a beautiful 737. I am such a geek!

Continental upgraded me to First Class which included amazing service and a very edible meal.

I flew this week into Wellington, (North Island) New Zealand with Qantas on a Boeing 737 called Bellbird. (plane's rego is ZK-JTQ).

Wellington airport is built on a stretch of low-lying land. It has only one runway which starts at Wellington Harbour  to the north and and finishes at Cook Strait to the south. (Cook Strait separates the two islands of New Zealand). This means your landing has to avoid water on both ends of the runway- after dodging some hills to get down. Worse, the airport is universally known for its rough weather (Check out this video of a Wellington attempted landing) because of the massive crosswinds that come up from Cook Strait. Virgin awards it one of the ten most scarey landings in the world! In fact many commentators believe it to be the 3rd scariest in the world!!!

I have used Wellington airport 25 times and have mostly enjoyed the experience. This week was no exception. We descended over the south island of New Zealand and crossed Cook Strait toward Wellington. The cabin crew were ordered to their seats early because of turbulence-always a bad sign! It was a clear night and the beautiful moon was almost full. Below us, we could see the rough seas of Cook Strait reflecting in the moonlight and ahead we could see the lights of Wellington. As we descended, the 737 began roller coasting and bouncing. The cabin became very quiet as passengers listened or watched (and I imagine some were praying as the plane bounced through the wind).

Soon the runway was in sight. We did a huge rollercoaster lurch as we approached the airport perimeter. Wheels down, lights on, flaps adjusted...Runway metres away. Suddenly the engines roared into life and we were climbing rapidly. My ears popped as we accelerated up still bouncing in the wind. I turned to the guy next to me: "missed approach". He stared at me wide eyed terrified, like a kangaroo caught in headlights! The woman behind me loudly said "S**t, S**t, S**t". We continued north and then moved West. At this point the First officer spoke on the PA: " We re just making a go around. We decided that it was too windy for a landing so we will go and try again. The wind looks like it will be better the next time". We flew back south and then aimed back toward the runway.

A go-around/ missed approach/ aborted landing/ rejected landing are all variations on the same theme. The Pilots judge it to be too dangerous to land the plane in the conditions. I think a missed approach is a good thing. I would rather a pilot didnt try if they are not sure it going to work! But its interesting at these times, you reflect how the lives of 200 people are in the hands of two people. You hope they are well trained, well paid and well rested!

Needless to say on our second approach, the silence inside the plane was very intense. We rollercoasted in again but this time, wheels hit the tarmac for what was actually a very smooth landing.  Now everyone on board had an interesting landing story to tell their friends, family and blog network!

I fly out of Wellington two times this week! To Nelson (coming back by ferry) and Auckland.