Departure
Gate
Information
for the
traveller.86 AIRLINER WORLD APRIL 2018
Dear Editor,
Having read the excellent article by Lee
Cross on easyJet’s Liverpool services
(Airliner World, February 2018) I am
reminded of another organisation that
was based at Duke Street, Liverpool
back in the 1960s. It was the Overseas
Families and Friends Association (OFFA),
which was set up and operated by a lady
called Amy Swatton.
It was a social organisation with branches
up and down the UK, offering people on
low incomes, or very few savings, the
ability to [become members and] book a
charter flight at greatly reduced prices to
visit their relations overseas.
I was the registrar for the Portsmouth
branch, providing evidence of members’
attendances at the monthly meetings.
The main destinations for these charters
were Canada, the USA and Australia,
with Cape Town being added later. I was
able to fly with Air Canada on a Douglas
DC-8 to Vancouver in 1969 for an incred-
ible £99 return! All flights departed from
Manchester.
Times, of course, have changed; since
then we have had the late great Sir
Freddie Laker and now we have easyJet,
so air travel is a common part of everyday
life for everyone. Peter CareySpecial
Centenary Flight
Lithuanian leisure carrier Small Planet
Airlines marked the nation’s 100th birth-
day with a unique journey on the night
of February 15. On board the special
centennial flight, S5100, were employees,
their partners and friends for the servicefrom Palanga to the capital Vilnius, during
which a huge symbolic ‘100’ was flown
by the pilots of Airbus A320-232, LY-SPD
(c/n 990) over the skies of Lithuania.
Simona Bartkus, Head of Marketing for
Small Planet, quipped: “This flight signi-
fies freedom, an opportunity to travel the
world and to cross borders. That is why
we decided to mark the nation’s
centenary with an historic flight. It took
one hour 55 mins to draw the 100 with the
aircraft flying 702 miles (1,130km), a
journey that is normally 186 miles
(300km). Our company motto is ‘Why
Not?’ so to celebrate Lithuania’s 100th
birthday we undertook the biggest ‘Why
Not?’ we have ever done!”
(Photo Small Planet Airlines)United Departs From
Knuffingen Airport
US carrier United Airlines has stationed
a model Boeing 757-200 at Knuffingen
Airport at the Miniatur Wunderland tour-
ist attraction in Hamburg, Germany. The
mainline carrier has had a close relation-
ship with the city since 2005, when it
launched a non-stop link to Newark/
Liberty International Airport. The seasonal
daily service is set to resume on April 26.
Gerrit Braun, founder of Miniatur
Wunderland, remarked: “We are delight-ed to welcome United Airlines to our
miniature airport, and we can now also
offer transatlantic flights to our small
Wunderlandians!”
Miniatur Wunderland attracts more than
1.4m visitors every year and has been
expanding every year since it opened in
May 2011. A video of the 757’s maiden
flight from Knuffingen Airport is avail-
able at: https://youtube/qF2clbmzSsg
(Photo Miniatur Wunderland)Air Accident
Investigation
Do you have what it takes to be an air
accident investigator? Well, Cranfield
University has developed the first
competency framework for aircraft
accident investigators, which it says,
aims to distinguish the great from the
good in this highly specialised and
demanding field.
Researchers working on the project
have analysed typical tasks carried out,
and interviewed current post holders to
identify the qualities of the most effec-
tive investigators. They discovered that,
alongside advanced aviation knowledge
and technical skill that is common to all,
those working at a high level shared cer-
tain other behaviours and abilities that
elevated their work above the rest.
Dr Jim Nixon summed up the research
saying: Accidents in themselves are
complex, they happen without warn-
ing and often come with sensitivi-
ties – especially when there is loss of
life. Investigations frequently involve
multi-national, multi-disciplinary teams
and are convened at short notice and
they are often under pressure to report
quickly on their findings, though an
investigation may take many years. In
the UK, we already have an excellent
safety record, but to strengthen that
further we need to know what superior
performance looks like in this field and
invest in training all our accident investi-
gators to that level.”