Flying Tigers

Woo Hoo Tiger!

80 bucks for the whole family to go to Melb and back to watch the footy next June! Excellent marketing announcing these cheap fares the same week as the 2008 AFL fixture is released.

Who cares about 45 min check-in cut off and 15kg per person? For 80 bucks you can’t go wrong.

Remember they still have to abide by all rules to fly in Aus – the frills are just extra dollars that I don’t need.

Any leakages from Zeppelin transport will contribute to GhG, rather than eradicate them.

Carbon negative if you exclude production and process as a necessary element, and work out some convenient method of carbon-friendly helium production.

Powered by greenhouses gasses.

Zeppelin transport between Sydney and Canberra is the transportation solution of the future.

[i]Anyway, that’s been my experience of the great Sydney trips of late, anyone else can’t see the value in flying such a short distance nowadays?[/i]

Murrays Coaches FTW! $37 each way to Sydney or $60 return if going up and back in a day. Add $3 (?) ACTION bus fare to Jolimont plus $? for Sydney train to where ever you are going. Seats on Murrays coaches though, have to be the most unergonomic and uncomfortable I have ever been in. Get what you pay for I guess.

Yeah exactly, that’s why I reckon a fast train could well have a place on this route – if they can do without the check-in malarky it wouldn’t take much for it to be faster and more comfortable than the aircraft option, so they could afford to charge the same.

Have you noticed flying to Sydney ain’t what it used to be? In the good old days the trip up the Hume took 5 hours, whereas you could rock up to the airport not long before your Friendship waited outside the little white fence out the front of the terminal. You wandered out to it and more often than not you could see the pilots up the front flying you to an unevetful landing in Sydney 35 minutes later.

Even with waiting time at each end the time saving was in the order of 3-4 hours CBD to CBD.

Nowadays what have we got? You have to book your taxi to the airport 30 minutes before your preferred time as there’s a fair chance the taxi will be late or not even turn up. You are brave if you arrive at check-in queue later than 45 mins before departure. The flight still takes 35 mins (or 23 mins by 737) but with ATC in Sydney always playing games it’s often a full 50 minutes of air time. At Sydney Airport, once you’ve walked the 5km between the Dash-8 gates and the taxi rank, you can sometimes wait up to 30-40 mins to get on a cab. The total time for the air trip? Usually around 2.5 hours CBD to CBD. And the all up cost with cabs at each end is likely to be around $250 each way.

Contrast that with a trip up by car. Out of absolute peak times, CBD to CBD is about 3 hours. Cost about $80 each way allowing for a bit of wear and tear, parking in Sydney, and tolls. Sure it’s not as relaxing but when you think you’re paying yourself about $70 per hour to drive yourself it’s pretty good value.

Another way to be even smarter is to drive in to a suburban rail station from Campbelltown on and catch a train in and out, thereby avoiding the worst of the Sydney traffic as well.

Anyway, that’s been my experience of the great Sydney trips of late, anyone else can’t see the value in flying such a short distance nowadays?

I recently flew both easyJet and Ryanair (who have strict check-in conditions and baggage allowances).

I can imagine a few people (who don’t read the conditions!) getting into a little trouble.

But my own experience was entirely pleasant.

My mistake,

I should have said sallyann60.

Doing a google search on Riotact, shows no previous post by sallyann60 and only one from a sallyann

Was sallyann60 created only today? If so, I would suggest that sallyann60 is a sockpuppet from one of my loyal readers.

Also interesting that this random post appeared the day I outed Vote1Reynolds.com

Nah, mere coincidence.

I used to know a sallyanne. LG would probably remember sallyanne as well.