3 Links I Love: Hard to Start Up Cuba, Chinese and Virgin Australia, That Weird Airbus Noise

A320, Air New Zealand, Airbus, American, Links I Love, Virgin Australia

This week’s featured link:
Airlines Race to Cuba, Overcoming Major HurdlesAssociated Press
Scott Mayerowitz headed down to Cuba with American Airlines to explore the problems of trying to start doing business in a country that might as well be from another planet. Considering the recent award of service to secondary cities requires starting up within 90 days, this is a herculean task. This article just gives a small taste of what’s involved.

Links I Love

Two for the road:
How a Chinese billionaire grabbed a $260m stake in VirginAustralian Financial Review
Air New Zealand has been looking to sell most of its stake in Virgin Australia, and now the deal is done. Here’s a good look at the Chinese company that bought into the airline. Virgin Australia is a mess with this owner now joining HNA Group, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, and Virgin Group. Talk about a crowded house.

Airbus silences the A320’s ‘barking dog’Flightglobal
They may call it the barking dog, but I’ve always likened it to the sound a baby seal makes after getting kicked. Whatever you call it, it’s not going to survive on the A320neo. Airbus has finally figured out how to get rid of that annoying noise you hear on the ground when you’re on one of its narrowbodies.

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10 comments on “3 Links I Love: Hard to Start Up Cuba, Chinese and Virgin Australia, That Weird Airbus Noise

  1. The A320 noise link sends me to an article not found page. It looks like the site took down the article.

  2. For the story #2 just Google the text ” How a Chinese billionaire grabbed a $260m stake in Virgin ” and follow the link from there.

  3. Serves me right trying to link to Flightglobal. Never again. The article didn’t say much. Basically it said they found a way to dampen the vibrations to eliminate the noise. Sorry about that.

    As for the AFR article, I checked and it didn’t have a paywall at the time. Either that came in later or I had some cookie that allowed me access. Sorry about that one too.

  4. That whole Cuba thing is overblown. everyone else flies down there already. So dont compain about the slow internet, govt employees, or crappy terminal (other international airlines use the same terminal US bound flights use). Yea, its happening fast, but they all knew it was coming. Bunch of complainers.

    1. I think the airlines are concerned about pax experience and expectations flying into and out of Cuba. Pax need to know that the airport and check-in experience probably won’t be as good as it is in the States or even in places like Cancun, as the infrastructure (at least for US airlines) isn’t yet well developed.

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