OT: Flyglobespan has licence suspended
 

Bad news for FlyGlobespan. My initial thoughts were that the suspension was due to the operations mess and level of passenger complaints generated this summer, but it would seem much more serious than that.

For the customer, does this now mean a one stop flight between, for example, Scotland and Hamilton ON, will for the foreseeable future take a little longer. Never thought that could be possible, but there you go :)

To be honest I don't think this will have any impact on their operations at all.

The value of ETOPS on the kind of routes they operate is not actualy that great. Silverjet for example routinely operate with no ETOPS certification due to systemic issues with their 767s, not to mention other airlines like BA doing so every now and then too.

And even if there are a few delays because of this, it will be no different from usual. They really are one messed up airline. People think BA have problems...

S'funny but my son and daughter in law flew on Globespan from Stanstead to Hamilton via Liverpool this summer. They told me they could not say why but it did not feel right. Lots of unexplained delays, staff not entirely in charge etc. I said as a know all Dad, don't be silly the safety regime of an airline operating from the Uk is such that you can trust it. Hang my head in shame.

Didn't they have several engine fires this year?

Steady on spanishflea.

Flyglobespan's European services have been a tremendous success since they started operating and always get rave reviews for punctuality and service.
I agree their longhaul ops have been a disaster this year and some management decisions have mystified everyone like chasing big bucks when leasing out their two 767's to Air India which in turn meant they had to go and lease in clapped out aircraft from Iceland to operate their new schedules,aircraft which ended up always going tech and throwing their TATL schedules out of the window leaving a lot of unhappy PAX.

Hopefully this shall just be a blimp and as they would have cut back a lot of their longhaul ops anyway now the summer is over I don't see it having much of an effect on them. TBH they should have stuck to maintaining their high standards of European services in the first place instead of expanding too quickly on the longhaul routes.

This "airline" should not be allowed to operate this way. They are a dishonest and a disgrace.

http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/flygspan.htm

Indeed you are correct Hiddy.

It is only their long haul ops I have been really exposed to.

Hi
I also agree that GSM are doing really well in Europe. They have had issue with longhaul but in general a lot of folk I know love flying with them.

Can you clarify what you mean by that? Are you suggesting that ETOPS is granted on a per flight basis? :confused:

The website you link to is extremely unreliable and tends to attract only complaints. BA doesn't exactly get a good write-up on there either.

For the most part the BA posts on there are quite positive. A few grumbles about AVOD, but that is no different to here.;)

Just to say, that not everyone has bad experiences with GSM. I used them to Canada over the summer, and while there were some issues, they were £300 cheaper than anyone else, and all worked out ok.

My trip report is here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=728336

-- Mike

No no.

ETOPS certification is granted to the airline. This is when it has all the paperwork, training, maintenence procedures etc in place.

However the individual aircraft themselves also have to be ETOPS compliant. So each aircraft has its standard MEL (Minimum Equipment List) but it also has an ETOPS MEL. If something on that list isn't working, then that specific aircraft is not ETOPS compliant, so cannot fly an ETOPS track.

The most common example is the lack of an APU, or in the case of the most prolific Silverjet offender a broken air-con pack.

My aged mother was very impressed with them when she flew GLA-BOS in August, in their "premium" class. And this is a woman who wrote a stroppy letter to her travel agent on return from a trip to Australia to complain that CX's business seats weren't fully flat.

That said, I think she may have been putting a deliberately cheerful gloss on the Globespan experience, in the face of my frequently expressed scepticism; they did, after all, cancel her flight and reschedule it for two days later.

Ahh, I see exactly what you mean now. Thanks! :)