Picture from China Daily
1. I had no idea Chinese airlines hired laowai FAs!
2. I’m jealous!
Do they speak fluent Mandarin? Are they based in China or their home countries? If just 1% of staff are foreigners, how many is that? Hundreds?
Foreign staff at Chinese airlines – People’s Daily Online (English)
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Call to move Kingdom’s official weekend to Friday and Saturday gaining pace. – Arab News
”…currently Saudi Arabia is disconnected from the rest of the world for four days… We have Thursday and Friday as our weekend and the world has Saturday and Sunday off. This is harming our international trade. By changing the weekend, we will reduce the number of dead days to three.”
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Haven’t yet found a great news aggregate. For now Google News, iCurrent – and popurls on the odd occasion – suffice. iCurrent is my favourite, great for personalizing news stories of interest. Nothing fancy, but as you use it it and give feedback on links, it evolves more and more to taste. You can fit a lot of one-liner text-only headings on one page, which is how I prefer the news displayed. More bang for your buck.
Problem is that (especially recently) these headings are often misleading. Not sensationalized, but distracted completely from the real topic. Only realize after you’ve clicked through that you realize the article is of no interest to you whatsoever. Boo on that. This double-meaning works beautifully in print, a butter churn of wit and creativity. But online, when you want specific information, it just seems crass. Tabloid-y and cheap, and not what you want from ‘serious’ media.
I do see the other side of it too though. Having four or five measly words to capture a reader’s fleeting glance. A competition of type.
Still… annoying! 😛
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Hotel Missoni Kuwait, which opened March 1st, 2011
It’s tip-toe light on the greys, browns, and black…
I know nothing of Kuwait, but I want to stay at this hotel if I ever go there! Hotel design is so neutralized, flaccid. How stuu-nning it must be! I have this shot (above) as my desktop background and – oh – how I swoon. It captured the colours of the Gulf perfectly – turquoise, gold, beige – the brilliant colours of the sand and the sea. Very, very pretty.
Rezidor Hotel Group will open its second property under the Hotel Missoni brand on March 1, with the unveling of a hotel in the Salmiya district of Kuwait City. Hotel Missoni Kuwait is located within the Symphony Centre in the northeastern Salmiya district of Kuwait City, overlooking Kuwait Bay.
Features will include 169 rooms and 63 suites, as well as Cucina restaurant, an outdoor swimming pool tiled in the Missoni signature stripe, and a 1,500sqm spa. All rooms include Bang and Olufsen TVs, and suites feature a “magic mirror” which allow guests to switch their bathroom mirror into a TV.
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The protests in Bahrain are now entering into the 7th day.
The people have taken back the square, with flowers, balloons and national flags. There are more articles and opinion pieces mentioning Saudi Arabia.. how the country is somewhat now surrounded by unrest on all sides; what these rallies may mean for the Kingdom.
The east coast population, here in Khobar and the area surrounding Saudi Aramco, is actually predominately Shia; the rest (and vast majority) of the country Sunni. Translation: if anything was going to happen it would be right here. But it’s quite impossible to imagine a movement. Any flame of change would be ruthlessly and efficiently snuffed out, I’m sure. It’s different here.. ”..far less vulnerable to democracy movements than other countries in the region, thanks to its vast oil wealth, its powerful religious establishment and the popularity of its king.”
The physical and psychological proximity of it is really powerful. It’s much harder to follow developments the places I have no connection to (Algeria, Yemen, Libya..). I still feel so integrated into the story, I can only imagine how the people there feel, in their own countries.
I’m learning a lot as I go along, and I have a lot of questions. What does it mean of the countries who have supplied weapons that are killing and injuring people in Manama? How much responsibility lies with them (if any)? Why is the US so quiet? Do they really feel as though they have no power or leverage at all?
Saudi Arabia Feels Insecure Amid Mideast Unrest (NYT)
Saudi Arabia Risks Shiite Unrest in Wake of Bahrain (Bloomberg Businessweek)
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Speaking of skeptics and goldmines, this guy left me complete shock. All flabbergasted-y. I go through stages of incessantly trolling through newspapers and flicking through TV news channels and websites. Compulsive need-to-know, you know? Very(selectively) preoccupied with the state of the world.
Now, I know Fox News isn’t taken seriously by many people, that maybe it was a little loose, alarmist, whatever.
Then I see Glenn Beck. Last week, mind you – it took me this long to recover. You know when you’re witnessing something so terrible and yet you can’t tear your eyes away? Yeah, it was like that. I guess I caught the last half of whatever that show is meant to be. So Fox has a Republican leaning.. how about you lean a bit further.. Topple over and hit your face on the edge of my coffee table, please.
He raves on and on, crazy potato-like, stabbing at his chalkboard, talking about how ‘God had a hand in the founding of America’, how China’s one child policy is ‘kooky’, how Iran is full of ‘nutjobs’.
How is he allowed on TV?? Really.
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Caught wind of this on a PPRuNe thread!
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Excerpt from the Economist’s ‘Aviation in the Gulf: Ruler of the new silk road’
The new kid is Abu Dhabi’s carrier, Etihad. Set up in 2003 by royal decree, it claims to be the fastest-growing airline in the history of commercial aviation. An $8 billion order for new aircraft in 2004 was followed by the biggest ever at the Farnborough show in 2008. Worth about $43 billion at list prices, it included 100 firm orders, 55 options and 50 “purchase rights”. James Hogan, a bullish Australian who used to be chief operating officer at BMI (a British airline now owned by Lufthansa), ran Gulf Air for four years before being plucked by Abu Dhabi’s government in 2006 to oversee the expansion of Etihad.
Although in many ways Mr Hogan is following the model established by Emirates, there are differences. Abu Dhabi sees the airline as just one part of what it calls its “Plan 2030”, an ambitious attempt to use its huge oil wealth to turn the capital city of the United Arab Emirates into a global hub for transport, financial services and tourism that will be home to 3m people—more than three times its present population. This approach contrasts with the more laissez-faire style that fuelled Dubai’s astonishing boom and subsequent dramatic (if seemingly fairly brief) bust.
Etihad wants to be known for its quality as much as its size. Mr Hogan says: “Although no airline has ever ramped at the same speed as us, my mandate is not to build the largest airline, but the best in class.” He has made impressive strides in a short time. Etihad has won several international awards for the experience it offers its “guests”, as it likes to call its passengers, and it gives every impression of being a well-run airline that understands what it takes to become a leading brand. What Mr Hogan will not say, however, is whether he is meeting the financial targets set for him by his government shareholder. “I have to make money,” he says, “but the financial crisis and the H1N1 pandemic pushed our break-even out beyond this year.”
According to the always active Gulf rumour mill, Etihad lost $1.2 billion last year and Mr Hogan, under pressure to cut costs, may be looking for a dignified exit, perhaps to become the next director-general of IATA, the airline industry’s trade body. He insists that his deep-pocketed owners are in it for the long haul, but the biggest obstacles in the way of Etihad’s ultimate success are sitting on its own doorstep in the shape of mighty Emirates and the new mega-airport at Jebel Ali.
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As of May 3, 2010, Air France will operate a new route between Abu Dhabi and Paris, connecting the capital of the United Arab Emirates to the rest of the world via its Paris -Charles de Gaulle hub.
The flights will be operated by an Airbus A330, seating a total of 219 passengers, 40 in the Business cabin and 179 in the Voyageur (economy) cabin.
* Flight AF 3849:
Departure Abu Dhabi at 00:30
Arrival Paris-Charles de Gaulle, terminal 2E, at 05:45 local time.
Five days a week
* Flight AF 3848:
Departure Paris-Charles de Gaulle, terminal 2E, at 13:45
Arrival Abu Dhabi at 22:25 local time.
Five days a week
I’ve only flown with Air France from Paris – Barcelona. But the FAs were cute, and honestly – I really like the idea of any major airline flying direct to Abu Dhabi. The more the merrier! Other airlines are such a curiosity for me. So now I have the option to take a ZED ticket with them and it’s not far home if I don’t make the standby. 🙂 I wonder where the French crew will layover here? Maybe the same place at Lufthansa (wherever that is..)
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The push for a single currency for the Gulf states is back in the headlines. I say ‘again’ after this BBC article circa 2002, which caps off with the “..aim to achieve monetary union by 2005 and launch a single currency by 2010”.
It’s so interesting to read about!
The UAE is miffed the monetary headquarters is set to be be in Riyadh (rather than Abu Dhabi), and subsequently dropped out, leaving four Arab states – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar (Oman has also dropped out). In spite of this, the Emirates are expected to rejoin at a later stage by some way of a compromise – maybe by keeping a senior position at the central bank reserved for an Emirati, or by dividing responsibilities between the UAE and KSA.
It’s strange to remember Australia is a monarchy when compared to other constitutional federal monarchies: Canada, Malaysia.. and the UAE. Oh. The absolute monarchies still in place in the world today: Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Swaziland, Vatican City.. and Saudi Arabia. I’m on auto-pilot, rallying for Abu Dhabi any day, but from a government standpoint Riyadh would still be an adequate representative of the states involved. Monarchies seem so quaint and historical, and yet they are completely relevant to me, today. In theory, at least. I wonder when we will drop the Queen and what the circumstances will be? I say ‘when’ and not ‘if’ under the notion that nothing lasts forever. Maybe she will drop us (but I doubt it) 🙂
The planned unified currency is supposed to be modeled on the success of the Euro. The difference though, is that the countries of the EU are relative equals with balanced representation. Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab state and a monetary union for the aforementioned nations would be dominated by it, like a grizzly bear and some deer, with that caught-in-the-headlights look.
The risk is that other countries will feel like satellites. Monetary policy will inevitably be set for Riyadh’s needs.
The Telegraph also says the Euro was created for political rather than economic reasons – to chain Germany to Europe. Say whaaat!
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