Trivial Nothings December

Finally, the December edition:

• A lot of interesting news from the aviation industry recently. Amongest them, the most crucial to our wau is the possibility that they merge with British Airways (BA) and Qantas (QF) in the very near future. This would be the 'divine intervention' CEO Idris Jala has been talking about since the very beginning.
• First of all, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) would benefit from both airlines flying into Kuala Lumpur. As BA and QF seriously lacks connections to China and India, MAS would see tremendous growth based on its strategic location and frequent flights to the two rising nations.
• On a passenger point of view, this merger foresees better schedule flexibility and competitiveness on kangaroo routes (Australia - Europe flights), as well as Australiasia / Europe - Asia / Middle East travelors.
• Last but not least, the merger will definitely strike aviation giants like Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Thai Airways (who all have been bullying [controversial] MAS). With a lower cost base (via sharing of costs) and a larger market prescence (home airlines to 3 countries combined), all of them will emerge more competitive compared to all the aforementioned.
• However, whether the merger gets its green light depends on the intelligence of politicians from all these countries. Malaysian politicians, who can be overly patriotic at times, will be the stumbling block in the process.
• If you think aviation is just all about passengers, aircrafts and stewardesses, here's for the layman:
  
Photo taken during along with CEO Tony Fernendez when presented the Brand Icon award by Najib Razak.

• If I were to nominate one 'best joke of 2008' - it would be the above picture (rolling on floor laughing). First of all, the uniform is just...hilarious. And to have the blond goose on a baby aeroplane (the A320s flown by AirAsia), is just like having Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing a skirt (or worse, a kebaya).
  

• Jumping off aviation for the moment: sent 3 Christmas cards to France and Italy (2 and 1 respectively) for my laboratory friends, the Nocart family and the Gallo family. I think the sincerity embedded in a greeting card counts so much more compared with an e-mail.
• My bank thinks I'm saving too little. So they sent me a card requesting me to redeem a gift from them. And in it the gift package they attach a note "save more with us!"
• If you're still wondering what the fat blond goose wrote back in reply:

• Mr. Sim, SQ greatly values your patronage as our loyal customer, and we would certainly appreciate your kind understanding. Please do let us know should you have any further queries and we look forward to seeing you onboard our flights soon.

• And I think this month's edition is already too much.