Online business continuity ... ryanair.com deliberately shut down for three days (along with their call centre)

Business continuity in the 21st century normally means that organisations try not to disrupt customer service. Sometimes the consequences of hiding complex IT upgrades from customers means that in the background engineers are doing something not unlike changing an aircraft engine mid-flight.

Stealthy changes take time. Witness the slowly, slowly incremental approach taken with the M1/Westlink improvements in Belfast, where a chess game of lane closures is being played out over two or so years that prevent the motorway (hardly) ever being closed, but add a lot of time to the end date.

But it’ll be no surprise that Ryanair haven’t taken this approach to migrating to a new airline reservation system this weekend. They’re taking down most of the aspects of their website and call centre for the weekend.

A total outage. No new bookings. No changes to bookings. No online check-in.

As their website notice explains:

From 22:00 hrs (GMT) on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs (GMT) on the 25th February 2008, the Ryanair booking website and call centre applications will be unavailable in order to transition to a complete new reservation system ...

All flights between 22:00 hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008 will operate as normal. However flight date/name/route changes on these days cannot be made from 0100hrs (GMT) on the 22 February 2008 on Ryanair.com, at a Ryanair call centre or at the airport.

New Bookings cannot be made on Ryanair.com or via a Ryanair call centre between 22:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008

Flight Changes (date/route/name) cannot be made on Ryanair.com or via a Ryanair call centre between 22:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008 .

Review Existing Booking - passengers will not be able to review their existing booking details on Ryanair.com or via a Ryanair call centre between 22:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008.

Online Check-in - passengers will not be able to check-in online between 01:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008. Passengers traveling [sic] on the 22/23/24/25 February who are unable to check-in online can check-in at the airport and will not be charged the airport check-in fee ...

The Ryanair reservation centre will be closed from Friday 22nd Feb from 1800 GMT and will reopen on Monday 25th Feb at the normal opening hours ...

Rather than eek out the changes over a period of weeks or months, they’ve gone for the big bang approach, complete with three day outage.

Speculation - supported by the Office of Fair Trading - is that the timing of the upgrade is linked to Ryanair’s continued failure to meet a deadline to list fares inclusive of all fixed non-optional costs (including taxes) on its website.

Eleven of the thirteen airlines ordered to amend their online booking systems met the original deadline, while two (Aer Lingus and Ryanair) asked for extra time. Aer Lingus met their new deadline, but Ryanair didn’t.

The urgency to make the switch to the new reservation system - and the tolerance of substantial website and call centre downtime - seems to be a necessary evil to avoid further measures or even fines being levied by the OFT.

Surprisingly The Register hasn’t had anything to say on the matter!

Ryanair’s claim of 80% flightpaths over Belfast Lough vs Belfast City Airport’s public statistics

An anonymous commenter has made a very good point about a quote in a recent post that mentioned Belfast City Airport’s runway expansion plans.

“Ryanair's statement that 80% of their flights over Befast Lough is a laugh - only just over 50% of flights now go over the Lough (see [url]) and nearly every Ryanair take-off is over my house and I live in the city - 3 miles from the airport! Ryanair and statistics - they never seem to get them right!”

As part of various statements and articles about the soon-to-be submitted runway extension planning application from Belfast City Airport, Ryanair is quoted making claims about the direction of their takeoffs and landings. For example, from the Belfast Telegraph’s article on 3 March 2008:

David O’Brien, ground and flight operations director with Ryanair, said local residents should have no fears about the runway extension.

“The airport tells us that 80% of our flights use flightpaths over Belfast Lough, which minimises noise in residential areas,” he said.

“Far from being alarmed, residents should be delighted that the airline with the most modern and environmentally efficient fleet is coming to Belfast City.”

This begs the question, 80% of what? And when?

The airport’s own Master Plan published in 2006 refers back to the January 1997 Planning Agreement under which the airport operates. This includes the stipulation:

“A bias shall be maintained of approaches and climb outs over Belfast Lough.”

This was also reinforced by the report of the 2004/5/6 public examination of the Planning Agreement which noted that the

“bias figure achieved has reduced from over 68% in 2001 to around 57% in 2005”.

The airport themselves publish statistics on their website about the direction of takeoffs and landings. As I write, the figures cover the period Nov 2007–Jan 2008, and they’re not supportive of the 80% claim.

The trend over the published three month period has been for 53.4% of flights to arrive or depart over Belfast Lough. That’s a long way from the 80% quoted by Ryanair.

Perhaps Ryanair has access to more up-to-date information? It seems highly unlikely that Ryanair are more Lough-facing than the other airlines at the harbour airport. And unless the period covering 80% was a single afternoon when the wind changed between landings and takeoffs, I find it hard to believe the 80% figure.

Either way, I’ve emailed David O’Brien at Ryanair and the airport to ask! In the event of hearing back from the former (unlikely) or the latter (a lot more likely), I’ll keep you posted.

Update - 17 April - Still no reply from either Ryanair or Belfast City Airport, though I've resent to the airport which has been in the news again.

Ryanair’s “jocular comment” escapes ASA censure

Ryanair’s reputation precedes them. Being in somewhat of a travel lull at the moment, I’ve yet to try out their Belfast City to London flights, so I’ll reserve judgement (and comment).

Low cost pervades all aspects of Ryanair, including their marketing department. They don’t use advertising agencies. Instead, staff make up the familiar adverts that they plaster across national and local, often reacting to events in the news or other airline’s misfortunate with jokes, jibes and corny humour.

On the 13th August, Ryanair placed the advert reproduced on the right in the Irish News and Belfast Telegraph.

It attracted some controversy at the time (though not enough for me to have noticed the news stories) and the Advertising Standards Agency received four complaints.

At the time, Michael Copeland (UUP MLA) voiced his protest and insisted

“... I would recommend that Ryanair focuses on what it does best: cheap flights, rather than offending people with crass advertising like this.”

After due deliberation, the ASA published their adjudication yesterday. The Belfast Telegraph were reported to believe that

“the ad was not offensive and should be viewed as a jocular comment on the changed political environment of Northern Ireland.”

They noted that as a Northern Ireland newspaper

“... they had operated in difficult circumstances over the last 30 years and that they took great care to be sensitive to the political opinion of their readers and to avoid publishing anything which they believed could cause offence.”

(No one seemed to complain about the ad appearing in the Irish News, just the Belfast Telegraph.)

In its conclusion, the ASA

“... noted the ad was topical at the time it was published, due to the well-reported withdrawal of the army regiments back to mainland Britain.

We acknowledged that the complainants had found the approach tasteless in the context of the recent political history of Northern Ireland, which had included acts of violence.

However, we considered that, in the context of an ad for flights departing from Belfast, the use of the picture of the two well-known Sinn Fein politicians and the reference to the British Army would be understood by most readers as a light-hearted reference to the recent withdrawal of troops from Northern Ireland.

We considered that readers were unlikely to infer from the ad that British troops were not at home in Northern Ireland and concluded that it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence, or cause distress to most readers of the Belfast Telegraph.”

None of the complaints were upheld. Expect more locally-focussed ads as Ryanair steps up its routes out of Belfast.

(And thanks to Laurent over at larryni.me.uk who scanned in and blogged about the original advert and the aftermath.)

Belfast City Airport - outreach update and news of Ryanair's withdrawal

In the end, Belfast City Airport’s recent outreach event didn’t attract a lot of people over the terminal threshold to hear what the airport was up to. While 21,000 local homes may have received the regular airport newsletter, only 42 people turned up at the two half-day Community Information sessions run last week.

As I blogged over on Slugger O’Toole, a bigger blow was dealt this morning when Michael O’Leary announced at a press conference in the Europa Hotel that Ryanair would be pulling out of Belfast City on 31 October, ceasing their routes to Bristol, East Midlands, Liverpool, London Stansted and Prestwick. (They're continuing to fly out of City of Derry airport.) O’Leary has run out of patience with the continued lack of runway extension and the delayed public inquiry.

“It is very disappointing that the promised runway extension at Belfast City Airport has still not materialised more than three years after we opened the base at Belfast City.”

“It makes no sense for Ryanair to continue to invest in Belfast City, operating restricted routes with less than full payloads between Belfast and other UK airports (which suffer a double APD penalty) unless there is clear and immediate prospect of Ryanair being enabled to safely operate.”

It’s unlikely that O’Leary’s intervention will speed up the process. More likely it’ll encourage easyJet to continue their bargaining between Belfast International and Belfast City airports and perhaps shift more flights down from Aldergrove to the harbour. In July, Ryanair announced a three-month suspension of flights from Bournemouth airport between 1 November 2010 and 31 January 2011, citing the government's £11 tourist tax.

Local politicians reacted to Ryanair’s announcement. Dawn Purvis MLA colourfully suggested:

“While it is regrettable, it is not surprising, Mr O’Leary has long made his views known regarding the democratic right of the people of East Belfast to lodge their objections and lobby their elected representatives against a runway extension which would add to the already nuisance levels of noise and other forms of pollution. Mr O’Leary probably needs reminded that we live in a democratic country not a fascist state where profit is more important than the health and well being of its citizens.

My major concern in all of this is that Mr O’Leary’s ‘hissy fit’ does not cost jobs, I hope he has the decency to ensure that these employees can be redeployed elsewhere within Ryan Air operations.”

And Sinn Féin’s local East Belfast representative Niall Ó Donnghaile also highlighted the labour impact:

“While I'm sure many residents will not be mourning the apparent loss of Ryanair, I think this move by Michael O'Leary is an extremely retrograde step and will only punish Ryanair workers as well as the local economy and air travel commuters.”

Update - I've embedded below a thirty minute documentary produced by NvTv a year or so ago about Belfast City Airport and the proposed runway extension.

EasyJet feels so much safer than Ryanair

It's funny, but I've a grudging respect for easyJet. I like to think it's the good influence of Go - the British Airways lowcost operator who got swallowed up by easyJet a lot of years ago.

easyJet take safety very seriously. They must know that "low cost" would quickly be reversioned "corner cutting" if they were involved in an air accident, and their business would be doomed.

On the other hand, Ryanair have had their fair share of thrills over the years - remember the plane that didn't land at Derry airport? - and yet onboard I get no feeling of confidence about safety.

This morning's FR6122 red eye from Belfast City to Stansted started badly, with boarding sequence numbers being completely ignored, and passengers being boarded like cattle.

Then there was the "put that hot drink in the green bin before you board" instruction as I walked out towards the plane. Bad enough that they charge so much for on-board refreshment, but worse still to deprive passengers of finishing drinks (in cups with lids) bought in the terminal.

But the worst problem was during the safety announcement. There's pretty good evidence that when people listen to the announcement and are aware of the brace position and the locations of emergency exits, they are significantly more likely to get off a crashed plane alive.

So it was appalling to realise that at the point the safety announcement had started to describe the location of the exits, one of the cabin crew wasn't yet in place to wave her arms in time with the words. She got in place and caught up a few seconds later, but it seemed to underline the lack of rigour with which Ryanair view these things. And potentially deprived some passengers of a clear mental picture about the exits.

Surely the senior cabin crew shouldn't have okayed starting the tape until everyone had stopped doing their pre-takeoff duties and taken their proper positions?

Ryanair could do with instilling more confidence in their customers minds as they travel in their blue and yellow portable shopping arcades.

Update - bought a copy of Ruinair to read on the way home!

Ryanair practicing their approach into Belfast City

Tonight's tea time BE970 flight from London Gatwick to Belfast City is being operated by Ryanair on behalf of Flybe.

Are Ryanair getting in some practice for the pilots who'll be coming in and out of "the harbour" when their service starts up in a short while?

Or are Flybe still short a few planes since their Dash-8 turboprops were grounded?

No matter the reason, there was a real look of concern and some nervous giggling when the announcement was made in the lounge!

Update: Shouldn't have laughed. Should never laugh at an airport. Having herded the 102 passengers into Gatwick's gate 6, the ground staff announced that the plane had technical problems, and that we should head back to main departures area and keep our eyes on the screens for an update in an hour and a quarter's time. In the end, we boarded the "spare" easyJet plane at Gatwick and landed an hour and a bit late in Belfast International.

Turned out that the plane we were supposed to board developed problems with its brakes on the taxi into stand. The engineer was seen walking away from plane saying "no, that's not going anywhere". As the dispatcher commented: "You'd be ok to take off, but it's the landing that would be a worry!"

Ryanair to launch routes from Belfast City?

Another week, another airline threatens to start flying out of a Belfast airport! Following the recent speculation that Aer Lingus would choose to set up a new base at Belfast International. This morning, news centres on Ryanair who have announced plans to fly to six destinations from St George’s Belfast City Airport starting in October.

Likely to be a mix of UK and mainland European destinations. Chief executive at Belfast City Airport, Brian Ambrose, was keeping tight lipped when the Belfast Telegraph talked to him, describing the news about Ryanair as “speculation”. He added that “the airport is in negotiation with a number of carriers in order to realise its ambition of offering our customers an increased portfolio of European routes.”

Aer Lingus and Ryanair update on Belfast routes

BBC reports on the speculation that has been mounting over the last month or so …

Airlines to begin Belfast flights

Aer Lingus is to begin flights from Belfast international airport to London Heathrow in August, the BBC has learned. It is understood the airline will operate four flights a day in each direction.

Meanwhile, another Irish airline, Ryanair, is expected to announce new routes to the UK and mainland Europe. The budget airline plans to operate from George Best Belfast City Airport and has been in talks with the airport.

Ryanair - selfishly efficient - and a laid back Aer Lingus

Ryanair run a very distinctive airline. One that has little focus on good customer experience: instead prioritising their internal processes and profitability.

So instead of bending to the whim of customers, they simplify their internal processes, derisking them of all that can go wrong. After all, complexity introduces more potential failure points.

And it works. A very high proportion of their flights depart and land on time. And they squeeze every last pound or euro out of customer pockets.

Unfortunately their success leaves a poor taste in customers' mouths - feeling cheesed off that online check-in closes four hours before the flight departs, meaning you can't leave it until you get up for the early flight to Stansted. Oh, and web check-in no longer qualifies for priority boarding. And then there's the on-board advertising - the plane's PA sounds like Ryanair FM before take-off. And no where else could a simple breakfast of tea and a roll cost £7.20 - and be served tea first followed 15 minutes later by the roll (and finally another 20 minutes later by a scribbled receipt).

Its older Irish flying cousin, Aer Lingus, may be late departing Belfast International for Paris this morning, but their laid back attitude at check-in - "would you like to take the buggy to the gate?" - and hassle free approach has us all chilled out. Being en vacances helps too.

(Of course the 15 minute delay has just been extended to 30 minutes, so our laissez faire attitude might fade as Littl'un runs out of steam charging around Gate 27!)

Update - the delay was just over half an hour in the end. Spot the problem with the photo below, taken out the window after we took off and rose above the clouds.

Belfast City Airport – could be sold off before they get the runway lengthened

When Belfast City Airport was bought over by a Spanish firm from Bombardier for £35m a few of years ago, Ferrovial was hardly a household name. But since then, they’ve picked a couple of other well-known airports by buying over BAA (who control Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton).

And having splashed out the cash for BAA, Ferrovial are now looking to bring some cash to lessen their debts of over €30bn. BAA and Ferrovial have already disposed of some Australian, European and UK assets over the last two years. Local (and now national) papers are reporting that Ferrovial are “understood to be in discussions with London-based investment bank JP Morgan regarding a possible sale”.

“Sources have told the News Letter that up to eight interested parties have expressed interest in buying the facility and that Ferrovial was aiming to sell the airport for between £100m and £150m.

Brian Ambrose, BCA chief executive yesterday refused to confirm that negotiations were taking place but said that a sale may be possible.”

This at the same time as Belfast City Airport are expanding their departures hall, and also expected to lodge proposals for a 600m runway extension that would allow Ryanair’s modern Boeing 737-800 aircraft to take off with a full load of 189 passengers as well as a full load of fuel. Currently, due to the length of the runway, they’re restricted to 140 passengers, and cannot load enough fuel to fly direct far into Europe.

Might make the bmi landings a bit less nerve-wracking as the pilots plump the planes down at the start of the runway and throw on the handbrake!

Local residents have long been unhappy with increasing operations at the East Belfast airport, late takeoffs and landings, voicing noise and safety fears as planes pass over heavily residential areas.

Ryanair’s The airport’s Ground and Flight Operations Director, David O’Brien, countered:

“The airport tells us that 80% of our flights use flight paths over Belfast Lough, which minimises noise in residential areas,” he said.

“Far from being alarmed, residents should be delighted that the airline with the most modern and environmentally efficient fleet is coming to Belfast City.”

Though these figures - the 80% - are not reflected in the latest statistics (Nov-Jan) for takeoffs and landings on the Belfast City Airport's website. There's a follow-up post.

Having enquired after the last few foggy days when flights and particularly landings were disrupted at the City Airport, the airport confirmed that until the runway length is sorted, the airport’s plans to deploy CAT-III instrument landing equipment will also remain on hold, as there’d be no point installing it only to have to dig it all up and move it within 12 months.

Ryanair will be putting their money where their mouth was ... and giving away 1 million flights (excluding taxes and charges) on Monday

Earlier this week, Ryanair issued a press release:

1,000,000 FREE FLIGHTS WHEN ENGLAND CHOKE AT CROKE - FREE IRISH VICTORY FLIGHTS & ENGLISH ESCAPE ROUTES

Ryanair ... will give away 1,000,000 free* flights when Ireland beat England in the 6 Nations rugby clash in Croke Park this Saturday ...

“This is the first time that the English have been invited to Croke Park and we’ve no doubt that it will be an occasion to savour. To help the Irish team on to their 4th consecutive victory against England, we will give away 1,000,000 free* flights when they win. That way, the Irish fans can fly to England to boast about the win, while the English fans can avoid the television replays with free* escape flights!”

“The 1,000,000 victory seats will be made available from Monday morning, when we hope the whole of Ireland will have something to gloat about”.

*One way, excludes taxes and charges

So, the result ...

Ireland 43–15 England

No doubt it replaces an existing 1 million flights giveaway that was already planned into their promotional plan, but it’ll be good publicity. Oops. I’ve added to it!

Runway extension campaigning

Belfast City Airport have enlisted some the airlines operating from their base to gather support for the runway extension they've recently submitted to the Planning Service.

Ryanair cabin crew passed out postcards on tonight's flight back from Stansted to gather signatures in support of the extension that would allow Ryanair to take off and land with fully loaded Boeing 737-800 aircraft, and stop the current restrictions that stop people sitting in some of the front rows and limit the amount of fuel they can fill up with.

The postcards were airport-branded - not Ryanair - but curiously featuring a picture of a Flybe aircraft on the back ... an airline which has been particularly vocal in their lack of support for what they see as a needless extension.

(Updated with scan of postcard.)

Update - Thu 26 Feb - The airport explain that the postcards were printed quite a while ago, reusing images that had been taken for other airport publications, and about two months before Flybe came out against the runway extension.

Where was I?

Update - The answer was ... unfortunately aboard one of the Ryanair planes that is trialling in-flight mobile phone usage. Incoming texts are free, but everything else bears a surcharge.

Forget the self-service check-in printouts, just flash your mobile at security for bmi flights out of Belfast City Airport

The Belfast Telegraph ran a story today about a bmi check-in experiment about to descend on Belfast City Airport.

It’s an extension to the online check-in and seat reservation service on flybmi.com. Passengers on Belfast City – Heathrow flights will also be given the option of getting a barcode sent to their mobiles, which will allow them to pass through security and the boarding gate by showing the barcode on their phone.

The pilot begins in mid-May, and will initially only work for flights out of Belfast City to Heathrow. Once the kinks are ironed out, bmi say that they“are confident it will roll out to the rest of our flights.”

Details are scarce, but the service is likely to rely on mobiles being able to receive and display incoming MMS messages, and may not be available to passengers checking in hold baggage.

But soon it might be time to ditch the hassle of wandering around hotels and offices trying to find a PC hooked up to a printer that you can borrow for a few minutes to print off your electronic boarding card. Instead, it'll be a few clicks, and your mobile will go beep.

PS: still no reply from either Ryanair or Belfast City Airport about Ryanair's hard-to-believe claims that 80% of their flights use flightpaths over Belfast Lough.

Update - Sunday 13 April - Someone who left East Belfast forty years ago for the shores of Canada emailed this afternoon to point to a recent article in the NY Times highlighting Continental Airline's similar trial.

Win some, lose some

While Ryanair will be shortly squeezing its planes onto the apron at St George’s Belfast City Airport, Air Berlin have announced that they’ll be making space for them by terminating their Belfast City–Stansted route from 29 October 2007.

So no more civilised flight across to Stansted, complete with free snack, cup of tea, and copy of the rarely sighted International Herald Tribune.

Air Berlin - you’ll be missed. Ryanair - I’m not sure I’m that excited by your arrival.

Oops ... I didn't mean to come this way

We've all done it. Even with a map, we all get lost, take a wrong turning, find ourselves driving up an English motorwayin the wrong direction. Even bus drivers make wrong turns.

A couple of years ago, the official follow-me car in the Belfast Marathon led the runner in front up the wrong street.

By now you've guessed that I'm leading up to some comment on the Ryanair flight FR9884 (operated by Eirjet) which landed at Ballykelly Army Base's airstrip instead of City of Derry airport. The two runways are only five miles apart, face the same way.

Many of us in Northern Ireland still smirk at the memory of the DanAir flight which landed at Nutt's Corner airstrip instead of Aldgergrove (Belfast International Airport). Nutt's Corner hadn't been used as a runway, never mind an airport, for years - the tarmac was overgrown with weeds. At least Ballykelly was in use - though not normally for medium-sized Dash 200 passenger jets.

I find myself sitting on a domestic flight at least twice a week. So what are my priorities for the pilot and first officer?

• Number 1 - Keep me safe as they take off from the ground, fly through the air, and land again at the far end.
• Number infinity+1 - Land at the right airfield. Basically, as long as we get down in one piece that counts as success. A bit like taking a wrong turn on the motorway - as long as you don't find yourself upside down in the central reservation, you're still ok.

So I do hope the pilot keeps his job. He'll never make that particular mistake again.

A bus to take you to the plane ... at Belfast City Airport?

Planes at Belfast City Airport are normally just a hop, skip and a jump from the terminal. This morning, imagine my surprise at being shepherded onto a bus with the other nine passengers!

Maybe they're practicing for later in the year when Ryanair parks its big planes on the runway and they run out of gates next to the terminal?

The Cityjet turboprop (Air France) was parked down outside the old terminal.

Maybe the City Airport should now reopen it as Terminal 2?

(By the way, the Cityjet/Air France flight from Belfast City to London City is surprisingly good. Took off early, flight time of 70 minutes. And not too bumpy. At the London end, Air France had me checked onto the flight somewhere between leaving the train platform and before entering the terminal building! And the driverless Docklands Light Railway trains in and out of the London City Airport are fun. Note that ticket prices seem cheaper the further apart the outbound and return dates.)

2007 travel round up

So the end of the year, and time for the AiB annual travel round up.

Work-wise, there were a lot of trips to London (resulting from working on a number of project teams that were at least partially collocated in the big smoke), and a lot fewer visits to Ipswich. Not to forget one to Brussels - via Eurostar!

And then there was a sudden cessation in mid October, when I was no longer part of the day-to-day London-based team, with only two days away since!

• In total, I sped down a runway and took off 83 times in 2007.
  (2006 = 82; 2005 = 100)
  
• I’ve spent 65 nights in 10 different hotels.
  (2006 = 51 nights in 18 hotels; 2005 = 64 nights)
  
• I’ve spent 101 days working outside Northern Ireland.
  (2006 = 85; 2005 = 114)

The worst month was August, with 17 days away - out of 22 working days.

Belfast waved goodbye to Air Berlin and FlyWhoosh. I haven’t yet enjoyed the delights of new-to-Belfast operators Aer Lingus or RyanAir. There were a few delays, but no need to spend the night at the airport. London City Airport turned out to be a joy. Flapjacks were an issue with bmi!

Getting the train up from London to Newcastle during the June English floods was quite straightforward, but getting a refund out of GNER (replaced by National Express from tomorrow) for the cancelled train home proved more difficult - three months in the end.

(The 2007 film review will appear in early January.)

(not so quick) Review of 2008

The most common question in our house on 31 December was

“What were your highlights of the year?”

Cue lots of head scratching, memories of holidays, trips away, and minor reminisces. But the question stuck with me today and I remembered more and more. So, quickly trawling back through a year of blog posts – which tend to cover major thoughts or events – here’s my less-than-compact review of 2008. (I'll add in some photos to break up the link-fest tomorrow.)

January started as snow fell fast on the first Thursday night, delaying return to work by a day and instead we spent Friday building snowmen with Littl’un. After posting an unfavourable review, we were invited back for a second meal in two rooms on University Road and enjoyed it a lot. Toby Hadoke provided lunchtime titters as he explained how Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf at the Out for Lunch festival, followed by a slightly bizarre “conversation” between local authors Glenn Patterson and Malachi O’Doherty. There was a rather full weekend that started with a conference in Windsor (including Evensong in Windsor Chapel followed by nibbles in the cloister) and finished with the building of seven of Ikea’s finest BILLY bookcases. Oh, and the yellow Mini went back and was replaced for six months with a second hand Smart Roadster and the first of many attempts to get a second key cut!

February saw in the Chinese New Year (year of the rat), voting for the next Presbyterian Moderator Donald Patton (and my rational desire of a Panini sticker book of PCI ministers), a Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (“brokenness ... offset with determination”), the launch of David Park’s superb book The Truth Commissioner, the relocation of the Jaffe Fountain, and a look at CCTV cameras around the Waterfront.

In March, AiB was two years old. Victoria Square opened to much fanfare, reasonable crowds, the sound of a hundred shutters taking photographs of the elaborate structure, and the (tedious) game of where and when will the Apple Store open started in earnest. There was mention of looming Muppetry in the Sesame Tree, a blogger meet-up in church followed by a great evening of Ladino music at the Los Desterrados concert in Belfast’s Synagogue and one of my photos from the night ended up in the national Jewish Chronicle – whose website is strangely theJC.com! The BBC’s Passion provided food for thought over Easter and there was a superb concert of Big Tunes & Anthems by Shaun Davey in the Waterfront on St Patrick’s’ Day. I also announced that single parents should be issued with medals ... at least annually and reviewed a purloined copy of the redesigned Third Way magazine (the one with that Ben Elton interview in it).

April was the month that Northern Ireland Post Offices came under threat. Philip Johnston returned to estate agency in East Belfast and rescued MCW Residential. Ryanair made dubious and unsubstantiated claims about their flightpaths out of Belfast City Airport over Belfast Lough and I favoured Ikon (later Mystery Worshipped) over the Celebration of Hope. Belfast Courts erected a squiggle. The bookworms - Samson and Goliath - finally appeared on-screen alongside Potto and Hilda in Sesame Tree. Belfast had a miniture flash mob. And car problems meant I caught the bus to work.

May saw little fanfare until the last minute when the display MOT certificates became mandatory. AiB started to scrutinise supermarkets’ pricing policies of different sizes of boxes of tea bags. We went to Streamvale Open Farm on a blistering hot May Day (summer came really early). Freesat launched, though it was hard to find any set top boxes in Belfast. And after April’s car problems, the Polo turned into a C-Max (with the inevitable second key fiasco). At the Eurovision Song Contest, Dustin turned out to be a turkey. AiB took illicit photos at the Barry and Basil Show up at Stormont and returned to the grounds for some Red Bull Soapbox racing. Cheryl threw herself off the top of the Europa Hotel. I mused on what makes a good or bad church website, and then reflected on Ofcom’s latest nations and regions market communications report.

In June, the Post Office consultation results were published and Belmont Post Office was confirmed for closure. More on tea bags. The NI peace process was compared to a game of chess and there was a visit to Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich over on the Falls for a spot of Irish chorale music. We went to France, didn’t book seats in advance for the TGV, didn’t climb the Eiffel Tower, and I didn’t enjoy the experience of ordering (and eating) profiteroles that arrived filled with cottage cheese and served with lettuce. Meanwhile a Lexus SUV tried to drive over a Porsche Boxster and a Toyota Celica in the Lisburn Road Co-Op car park. And a Sunday morning visit to Summer Madness with Littl’un was good despite the atrocious weather.

At the beginning of July I ordering a new car for delivery in August and I noticed that my cars have been shrinking over time. Belfast rolled out it’s new branding. I met someone I’d previously blogged about and he unexpectedly remembered what I’d written. Always write to be read! I discovered just how deafening Lambeg Drums could be in a small community hall at the beginning of a cultural exploration of all things orange while a Swiss journalist and his family stayed with us over the Twelfth. So we took in the Belfast launch of Orangefest (and an interview with First Minister Peter Robinson) before things hotted up with a tour of East Belfast bonfires. The next morning witnessed the main Belfast Twelfth parade (all two hours of it) before discovering what happened afterwards at the field. The Belfast County Grand Lodge never did come back with any comment about the "Peace Keepers" toy guns on sale at the Belfast field. Being part of a photographic exhibition – Add to Set – as part of the Trans Festival in the Waterfront Hall was an unexpected (and undeserved) opportunity and a great end to a busy month.

In August I handed back the Smart Roadster and picked up the Toyota Aygo after a short delay. (Though I never bored you with the tale of the subsequent key cutting!) Tech Camp dominated the start of the month with a superb scavenger hunt and visits galore, more stop-go animations than I could fathom, and including an interesting one to SARC and a brilliant (and unexpected) one to the production company behind Sesame Tree. Other excitement included attending a wedding that was being filmed (for an as-yet unbroadcast late-night TV series), the new Broadway underpass on the Westlink turning into a gigantic swimming pool and Dalek cookies. Meanwhile, the Apple Store was furtively built and photographed while a Sheffield car park turned into another photo opportunity.

September's Creative Camp Belfast was excellent. The big red switch was thrown on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (which spun off a rap and a hymn). I bought some monster ginger, the Proms came to Belfast City Hall ... oh, and AiB blog visit stats went through the roof as the Apple Store finally opened in Victoria Square (and I snuck in for a tour before the queue). The Independent newspaper went full colour (but had teething problems in Northern Ireland).

In October, AiB went along with The Slugger Awards in the echoey atrium of W5. There was an architectural focus on Micro Compact Homes and a walking house. Sir Jeremy Isaacs had interesting things to say about diversity and Public Service Broadcasting at the Belfast Festival, while “Oxymoron” was defined as “a DUP minister for culture” at a conversation hosted by William Crawley between authors David Park and Glenn Patterson. The Festival forgot to say that the John Cage concert at SARC had been postponed … but the when it did go ahead it “asked more questions than it gave answers” (but was never blogged about).

November again witnessed one of the side effects of blogging - the random invitations that occasionally arrive. So I donned my tux and bow tie to attend a free local showing of the new Bond film Quantum of Solace and met more Aston Martin owners that I realised existed in Northern Ireland. Obama won the US Presidential election, CNN experimented with holograms, and McCain gave a concession speech that will surely not easily be bettered. Vodafone’s Liveguy was nearly persuaded to come to Northern Ireland to hand out free 3G-enabled netbooks - but in the end didn't. There was a great Thanksgiving dinner. The Presbyterian Mutual Society came into the news when a minority of its members stopped acting in the mutual interest of all its members. And I went to see Hunger.

December was the month in which David Cameron came to town and answered questions about The-Thing-With-No-Name set by local punters. The doors closed on Woolworths for the last time. Bells were rung for climate change outside St Anne’s Cathedral. A carol service was enjoyed, a cake was superbly decorated and an old Mac turned up in a stocking.

A busy and varied year ...

Belfast City Airport = Flybe iced up + emergency exercises + flightpaths over Belfast + and later opening

Belfast City Airport is struggling to keep out of the news at the moment!

The Air Accident Investigation Branch have reported on the Flybe Dash-8 that was on its way across from Edinburgh to Belfast City on the evening of 10 December 2006 carrying 71 passengers and four crew. The flight had to make an emergency descent from 16,000 feet down to 8,000 feet when cockpit instruments failed. Rather than turn back, the crew continued towards Belfast at low altitude and landed safely.

The report determined that at least one of the heaters that keep external sensors from icing up had not been switched on in time.

“The report said that one of the heaters was definitely not turned on and, ‘in all probability’ the crew had failed to turn on two others ...

The report said the crew’s pre-flight checks may not have been done properly and that they may have become distracted before take off.” BBC News report

Despite having solid state back boxes, only the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) which records details about instruments and measurements was of any use to the investigators:

“by the time the order was made for the preservation of the CVR [Cockpit Voice Recorder - which held just over 26 hours], data for the incident flight had been over‑written.”

Belfast City Airport will soon be conducting one of their regular emergency simulation exercises to practice coordination of police, fire, ambulance and airport teams.

As I’ve driven into work down the Holywood Road the last few mornings, planes have been consistently coming in to land over South Belfast. I kept thinking that it would make a terrific photograph as they disappear in behind Holywood Arches Health Centre, or appear out of nowhere above Wyse Buys.

And it also reminded me that the airport had never got back to me about up-to-date (and historic) flight-path direction information. The statistics on their webpages are still two and a half months out of date. (I’ve a feeling they only update them quarterly.) And they still don’t support Ryanair’s public claim:

“The airport tells us that 80% of our flights use flightpaths over Belfast Lough, which minimises noise in residential areas”.

Nor did bmi come back with more details about their barcode check-on trial that’s starting in Belfast City Airport in May.

Combining aspects of those last two threads was today’s report on Good Morning Ulster about bmi’s call for an extension to the airport’s opening hours to allow their final flight to land later and better serve the business community who would appreciate 30–60 extra minutes in London and better connections with evening flights coming in from Europe.

Local residents were interviewed on the Ormeau Road in a lull between early morning takeoffs and the next rush of aerial activity around 9am. There was a notable absence of participation from bmi and Belfast City Airport (who had been invited).

A desire for later flights was something that the airlines were asked about in the 2004–6 public examination of the Planning Agreement. Back in January 2005, bmi outlined their position, consistent with this morning’s report about a desire to see an extension to opening hours.