Welcome to Saturday Connections, a new feature for Aviation Buzz. Saturday Connections focuses on the latest news from this week in Aviation, and will be presented in post form. Saturday Connections is supposed to be a quick video update on the news, but I’m still working on finding a large royalty-free picture database. It’s in the works… just not on-time. I’ll keep you updated – hopefully next week everything will be here as planned. Here are the week’s top stories:
- Air New Zealand successfully tested bio fuels on Tuesday. The 747 flew two hours with one of its engines running on 50% jet fuel and the other 50% relying on Jatropha oil – an oil that comes from a poisonous shrub. The plant looks promising; in fact it produces seeds that contain inedible lipid oil that is used to produce fuel. Seeds can produce 30-40% of its mass in oil. Jatropha is very easy to grow as well; it can easily be grown in arid climates and other non-arable climates. Terasol Energy was picked to oversee that the fuel met the company’s standards.
- According to Reuters a Muslim family was ordered off an AirTran Airways flight on New Year’s Day. The family was discussing the safest place to sit in an airplane, but one family member said they were being cautious not to use the word “bomb.” An earlier AirTran statement said the airline complied with all Transportation Security Administration and Homeland Security directives and had no discretion in the case. The airline did refund and issue an apology statement to the family on-board the flight. A family member said U.S. law enforcement officials treated the group with kindness, yet the family is upset that the airline did not allow them to re-board the plane or rebook a flight after they had been cleared of any wrongdoing.
- Cape Air, a Massachusetts-based independent carrier, announced regularly scheduled flights from both Hagerstown, Maryland and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
- Southwest Airlines launched a sale on fares for domestic travel in the US. Fares start at 49 dollars one-way, for travel on Tuesday and Wednesday, and from 59 dollars, one-way for travel between Thursday and Monday. The sale fares are available to purchase until 19 January 2009 for travel between 15 January and 30 April 2009.
